Boys WIll Be Boys

Like the 23 candidates for initiation who had preceded him, 20-year-old Robert Perry of Harrisburg, Ill. was blindfolded and stripped. His chin, belly, groin and legs were daubed with a coating of lampblack and collodion. Then he was made to lie down on a table and, while voices taunted him with horrible threats, one of the brothers stood ready to give him a mild shock in the crotch with an induction coil charged by two dry-cell batteries.

For years Jesuit St. Louis University's chapter of Phi Beta Pi, a medical fraternity, had put new pledges through this initiation ritual. Robert Perry, a Navy V12 trainee, was no different from the others. But when his turn came last week, a spark caused by a short circuit in the coil ignited ether fumes from the bottle of collodion, set off a flash of blue flame that enveloped him. Perry leaped up wildly, ran smack into a wall. Several of the brothers grabbed him, rubbed out the flames with their hands, then rushed him to the University's hospital. Next day Robert Perry died of shock from burns that had scorched more than 75% of his skin.

The only moral, according to the dean of the University's medical school, was that fraternity brothers will be boys. Exonerating Perry's contrite hazers, the Rev. Alphonse M. Schwitalla declared: "There was no . . . hidden motive in the act. . . . I don't think we'll complicate the situation by handing down any restrictions."

This file is automatically generated by a robot program, so reader's discretion is required.