On the Shoulder

Members of Yale's ivied senior societies are required to stare stonily ahead whenever nonmembers ask them what their societies do. If the questioner persists,* members of such societies as Skull & Bones, Scroll & Key and Berzelius are expected to leave the room. Such behavior has sometimes led irreverent outsiders to suspect that the societies do nothing at all, except make mysteries of themselves, behind the bronze doors and windowless walls of their New Haven "tombs." But it has never prevented Yale juniors from hoping that they too will feel a hand fall on their shoulders at the traditional tap day each spring. To be one of the 15 men elected each year to each of Yale's six societies is still the ultimate in campus recognition.

On the afternoon of tap day last week, there was a stir of special excitement at Yale. Would Halfback Levi Jackson, the first Negro ever to be elected captain of a Yale football team (TIME, Dec. 6), also be the first of his race to be tapped for a senior society?

As the Battell Chapel bell struck 5, a Skull & Bones man, a Scroll & Key man and a Berzelius man whacked Jackson on the shoulder in rapid succession. Following the established decorum for a junior with other ideas, Jackson shook his head to the first two. But to the Berzelius man he nodded, then walked to his room.

To well-informed upperclassmen, Jackson's choice was no surprise. It had been rumored for several days that he would "go" Berzelius,* along with his teammates Fullback Ford Nadherny and Ends Lawrence McQuade and John Setear. Levi himself said only, "I had to make one choice; I just chose Berzelius."

*Something regarded as unthinkable to any person of decorum. Wrote one turn-of-the-century authority with stiff finality: "No person familiar with Yale customs ever thinks of speaking to an undergraduate member even in the most indirect manner about his society or either of the others. To do so intentionally would be a serious affront . . ."

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