Eggs, Billies, Bullets

At Brown University last week the annual necktie parade of freshmen ended with eight men in jail, 21 injured, two shot. Yale freshmen set fire to the august Yale fence, broke campus lights, tore down a locked gate which barred exit to the street, yanked trolleys from poles, heckled policemen. Iowa University students shied eggs at the home of Paul E. Belting, director of athletics, whom they held responsible for their removal from the Big Ten.

Brown's riot, the worst of the three, came the evening of a day on which venerable Dr. William Herbert Perry Faunce had made a last appearance in chapel to announce his retirement after 30 years as Brown President.* Clad in pajamas, the freshmen assembled to burn their class neckties and march down College Hill through the trolley tunnel to the centre of Providence. Contrary to tradition, the tunnel was guarded by police, entrance therein refused. Came the first fight.

The sidewalk crowds seethed with upperclassmen and "townies" looking for a fight. Scuffles broke out, fists swung, policemen's billies began to descend.

At last the law prevailed. Superintendent of Police William O'Neil called it "the worst riot in my 40 years' experience. . . . Not the students' fault . . . the rabble around them."

Aged President Faunce said: "We will try to fix responsibility."

*Succeeding him is Dr. Clarence Augustus Harbour, president of Rochester Theological Seminary (Rochester, N. Y.).