USA > Connecticut > New Haven County > New Haven > A modern history of New Haven and eastern New Haven County, Vol. I > Part 5
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On March 17, 1854, occurred a battle, fully as serious in its way, in which the firemen were not, as organization, coneerned. That began, as many lesser troubles did in later years. with a row at a theater. After "breaking up the show," a crowd of townies followed the students up the street to the eampus. The latter barricaded themselves in South College, where they were besieged all night by an angry and increasing mob. Two cannon were brought from somewhere, and those operating them were earnestly besought to "blow up the college." But for the interference of the police, who must by this time have begun to feel that the matter was going too far, there might have been some explosion of gunpowder, and doubtless somebody would have been injured thereby. As it was, there were heads and bones injured by stones and briek- bats, and the leader of the town mob, one Patrick O'Neil, barkeeper and general trouble maker, was stabbed through the heart by one of the students, said to have been a senior from Mississippi.
These are illustrations of the more serious of the encounters, mostly in the first half of the last century. The intensity of the rivalry waned somewhat as the century drew near its close, though the feeling was always there. The townsmen seem to have lost interest, somewhat, in keeping it up. They began to sense the fact that there were students and students. Some of them even realized that the part of the college which went abroad from the campus making trouble and giving Yale a bad name was only a small minority of the whole. This minority kept busy, however, and passed on its traditions. It frequented the town dance resorts-New Haven had some choice ones in those days-and was usually able to find something there with which to lubricate trouble. It tried, on occasion, usually after an athletic victory, to run the theaters. This does not refer to the "Football Nights" at the Hyperion, which were peculiar institutions, thoroughly enjoyed by those who took them in the proper spirit.
It was long the enstom, when Yale beat Harvard or Prineeton in the annual football game, to celebrate the event by special services not down on the program of the Hyperion performance of that particular Saturday night. After a few experiences, the managers learned that it was desirable to book for that night some light and gladsome show, such as a musical comedy. What it laeked in entertainment the joyous students would supply. They usually bought the
TEA FEE FEE
HENDRIE HALL, YALE UNIVERSITY, NEW HAVEN
YALE UNIVERSITY LIBRARY, NEW HAVEN
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encouragement to the educational institution as it was to the church. It was taken for granted, then, that there must be no taxation of college property. In the beginning there was no college property to tax, and it did not occur to the colonists that there ever would be. Little did they dream of the time when Yale University would own property approximating $15,000,000 in value, or have real estate holdings in area nearly equal to half of the original nine city squares.
It was in the late eighties that Yale began to foresee the need of expansion. Her fiscal direetors, knowing well the expense of buying property in haste and when the need for it was obvious, inaugurated the policy of quietly and unobservedly getting bits of real estate as favorable opportunity offered. This went gradually on for a number of years, until all at onee the tax levying authorities of the city, in the midst of their struggle to meet increasing munici- pal expenses without raising the tax rate, awoke to the fact that Yale was a large holder of real estate on which it paid no taxes. The ancient antagonism easily magnified this, and soon there began to be talk that Yale had been long enough immune from taxes. Times had changed, they argued. The struggling little college had grown to a wealthy, money-making corporation. It had erected great and costly buildings. Its number of students had grown to over 2,500, most of them paying high tuition. It was buying property for speeula- tion, they contended, and receiving large rentals for it. It was constantly in receipt of enormous gifts, and all the while seeking more.
These were the arguments, mostly of the undiscerning, who knew little of the history of the past or of the real faets of the present. They could be answered, but they would not listen to the answer. The faction grew of New Haven taxpayers who insisted that Yale ought to be taxed, and more than onee the matter was taken to the Legislature. That body was always governed, how- ever, by those who saw the case in its proper perspective, and there never was any particular danger of a measure to tax Yale going through. But there re- mained a party of New Haveners who insisted that the thing ought to be done, and there was a steady frietion that had a tendency to grow.
There is something to be said about that matter, too, which is not wholly in condemnation of the faction bound to tax the college, superficial as its view- point was. The old dividing line between the college and the town was gradu- ally being erased by the progress of events and the change in the customs and eharaeter of the student body, but the college authorities themselves were, to put it mildly, missing glorious opportunities to help on the good work. There was a certain aloofness, if not an assumption of superiority, on the part of the conservative college circle, which did not help matters. It was beneath their dignity to reason out this matter of taxation with the people. If they thought there was danger of trouble, they were willing to argue before the proper hody, but that was all.
These modern mentors of the community through the college had some- what materially departed from the conception of John Davenport, stern old autocrat though he was, of a college in whose benefits every member of the
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community should share. So we find, in the closing years of the Nineteenthi century, the university with a great equipment of instructors and buildings and historical, scientific and art collections, whose tremendous potentiality for benefit to others beyond the student body was little shared by the publie. There was a door of opportunity for those disposed to push, but it did not exactly stand open.
There never was any justification for the argument that such an institution as Yale ought to pay a tax on its non-productive property (it always has paid taxes 'on its income-paying property). But it was eminently desirable that those responsible for Yale appreciate the fact that in holding some five million dollars' worth of property, as they did by the end of the century, free of taxa- tion, they incurred a large responsibility, and that the least they could do was to show some evidence of appreciation. Fortunately, there eame a change early in Yale's third century of existence, as we shall see in the next chapter.
CHAPTER V
THE BEGINNING OF HARMONY
THE NEW ERA IN THE NEW CENTURY AND THE EMERGENCE OF YALE FROM ITS CLOISTER
The first year of the new century saw the beginning of a new era for Yale, and as well-though this was not recognized in the distinguished celebration-a new era in the consciousness of relation between Yale and New IJaven. A notable feature of the Bicentennial exercises which marked October 20 to 23 of 1901 at New Haven was the dedication of the group of Bicentennial buildings, and of these the most conspicuous was Yale's great music auditorium, Woolsey Hall.
This new auditorium, seating near to 3,000 people, was to be for many years the largest assembly hall in New Haven. In connection with it, let it be re- membered, is Yale's great dining hall, also the largest building of its sort in the city, and destined to play an important part in the change. Naturally, the possibilities of these buildings were little realized at the first. It was expected that they would largely be used by the student body, and for great university and graduate gatherings. But there had been in existence for a number of years previous to this time an excellent organization known as the New Haven Symphony Orchestra. It has labored assiduously for the perfection of itself in the production of good music, but it had received little encourage- ment in its labors. That is, there was no opportunity for the adequate produe- tion of its musie before an audience of suitable size.
Soon after the completion of Woolsey Hall began the annual series of eon- eerts by this orchestra, and to this anmal offering of the world's best musie, competently presented, to some thousands of the people of New Haven and vicinity may be given the eredit for first breaking the iee between the university and the community. It was the beginning. moreover, of New Haven's awaken- ing to the fact that it had, through Yale, that wherewith to make it a national musie center.
There was also to be installed in Woolsey Hall the great Newberry organ, when it was ereeted, one of the largest instruments of its sort in the country, and in 1916 and 1917 to be enlarged to international magnitude. This also was a great attraction to the people, and they made the most of it. Later, as we may see, they had increasing opportunity.
With this impetus, the change was bound to come. The inherited animosities
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WOOLSEY HALL, YALE UNIVERSITY, NEW HAVEN
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OSBORN HALL, YALE UNIVERSITY, NEW HAVEN
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of a century were not overcome in a minute, to be sure. But the expansion of the university would have had its inevitable result, perhaps, without the opening of Woolsey Hall. This is mentioned here chiefly as the milestone of the progress. The college that in the first two-thirds of the Nineteenth century found the "Briek Row" sufficient unto its needs had been as well sufficient unto itself. Living its own cloistered life, it acquired a feeling of superiority, and that bred a reciprocal feeling of hate, which worked out as we have seen. Now the college suddenly realized that it was a university. At the same time it dis- eovered that it had long since burst its shell. It was overflowing into New Haven, in spite of itself.
This was true of the undergraduates of the college; it was still more true of those in the other departments of the university. The seientifie school had not then commenced to ereate a campus, and the members of the law, the medieal and the art departments were compelled to live among the people of the town. About this time the members of the teaching force, who formerly had lived in a restricted area inhabited mostly by Yale faculty members, found that there were other parts of the spreading eity possessing greater attractions. So they began to live "among people," as it were, and to take an interest in the things of real life.
The city itself was becoming larger, better balanced, less provincial. It was beginning to realize that it had something besides Yale to boast as its possession, but at the same time to truly realize the value of Yale. There was a better understanding on both sides. Unconsciously, perhaps, but surely, the people of twentieth century New Haven were beginning to know that they were destined to be one with Yale, and that Yale was destined, and had been for considerably more than two centuries, to be one with them. The ways in which this harmony has grown toward completeness, in the first two decades of this eentury, are now to be told somewhat more in detail.
CHAPTER VI
THIE GOWN LAID ASIDE
THE YALE BICENTENNIAL CELEBRATION OF 1901-TIIE PARTICIPATION OF YALE OFFICERS AND TEACHERS, GRADUATES AND UNDERGRADUATES IN THE RELIGIOUS, SOCIAL AND CIVIC LIFE OF NEW HAVEN.
I
It has been said that the Bicentennial of the founding of Yale marked sub- stantially the beginning of the breaking down of the walls between Gown and Town. It seems as well to have brought to the leaders of Yale, because of its emphasis of the fact that New llaven and the college were destined for each other from the first. because of its new revelation of the unity involved in John Davenport's plan for a church-state-college, a consciousness of their one- ness with the community. For that reason the Bicentennial itself, as a part of the modern history of New Haven, has a place here.
Whether we regard Yale as having been founded at Branford or Killing- worth or Saybrook, there is no getting away from the fact that the date ix 1701. For October of 1901. then. Yale prepared an impressive celebration. It was to be the great feast of Yale history, and to it many were bidden. They came in thousands. Considering how much smaller was the number of Yale graduates even as recently as that-the number increases now at the rate of almost a thousand a year. taking no account of deaths-it meant much that nine thousand came from near and far to attend the exercises of some part of the four days, October 20 to 23, inclusive. Over nine thousand, graduates and undergraduates, took some part in those exercises. From other collegiate in- stitutions and learned societies, from America, Europe and Asia, came three hundred and thirty-one representatives. Yale granted, to members of this group and others, more than sixty honorary degrees. It was by far the most distinguished group ever to receive Yale degrees, including John Hay, Horaee lloward Furness. John La Farge, Archbishop Ireland, Charles Eliot Norton, Thomas Bailey Aldrich, Samuel L. Clemens. William Dean Howells, Marquis Ito. Theodore Roosevelt and Woodrow Wilson.
Sunday, October 20, saw a notable group of church reeognitions of the occasion. In Battell Chapel the Rev. Joseph H. Twichell of Hartford, dis- tinguished, loyal and favorite son of Yale, and a member of the corporation.
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preached a historical sermon, and there were special services in Center, Trinity and United churches in honor of the anniversary. At 3 in the afternoon there were services, and later an organ recital, in Battell Chapel.
There were many special services at various points on Monday the 21st, but the central event of that day to most Yale visitors was the torchlight procession, in which five thousand Yale men participated, from the campus through the streets of New Haven. All were in costumes representing the historie ages of the university, and carried torches and eolored fire. The classes participating ranged all the way from 1905, then freshmen, back to the veterans of 1844. The campus itself was alight with orange lanterns, and all about it great bowls filled with burning rosin lighted up the night.
Tuesday night the undergraduates assumed command, and presented for the delectation of the graduates, on a stage in a specially built amphitheater, scenes from the history of Yale. Open air performances of this sort were much less common than they have been since; in fact, the distinction of having been the first to so present historical scenes is elaimed for Yale on this occasion. " 'Neath the Elms" in very truth they gathered in the bright October night, and sang the good old songs of their times the while they waited for the preparations between the seenes. The finale of the occasion, when the 9,000 stood and sang the Doxology while the rockets and bombs burst overhead, caused one witty ob- server to remark that it was a typical Yale combination of "praising God and raising hell."
Wednesday was the last, the great day of the feast, when such as were elected, either by being first at the doors or by some other means, attended the formal commemoration exercises. Woolsey Hall was not completed, and had it been, it could not have accommodated more than a third of those who participated in the other exereises. It was necessary to fall back on the Hyperion Theater, dear to many Yale men, whose capacity was much smaller. Thither at 10 o'clock went from the campus a distinguished academie proces- sion. In it were a President of the United States and a President to be, a secretary of state. a justice of the Supreme Court, a premier of Japan, the presidents of nearly all the important American colleges, and eminent scholars, seientists, preachers, writers and legislators from all parts of the world. These were on the stage when the others reached the theater. Such of the gathering as could entered at the doors and found seats. Others, a fortunate few who knew the stage door, witnessed the sight and heard the exereises from the wings. It was on that occasion that Theodore Roosevelt said he had never yet worked at a great task in which he did not find himself "shoulder to shoulder with some son of Yale." This was in response to President Hadley's happy charae- terization of him as "a Harvard man by nature, but in his democratie spirit, his breadth of national feeling, and his earnest pursuit of what is true and right, he possesses those qualities which represent the distinctive ideal of Yale, and make us more than ever proud to enroll him among our alumni."
In the light of events sinee, President Hadley's utterance to Professor Woodrow Wilson, as he was about to make him Doetor of Laws, has a lively
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interest. "On you," he said, "who like Blackstone have made the studies of the jurist the pleasures of the gentleman, and have clothed political investiga- tions in the form of true literature, we confer the degree of Doctor of Laws."
It was in the course of these Bicentennial exercises that many of Yale's dis- tinguished graduates presented addresses and literary and musical contribu- tions to make the occasion one memorable in literature and art as well as in history. Donald G. Mitchell's classic dedication of Woodbridge Hall, to be the university's executive building among the Bicentennial group, was one of them. This veteran graduate of Yale (1841), "Ik Marvel" to two generations of the lovers of letters and nature, to be beloved of other generations to come, was near the close of his earthly career, but his contribution lacked neither force nor merit. Then there were Edmund Clarence Stedman's poem, "Mater Corona," read by himself, Professor Goodell's Greek ode, the singing of Professor Parker's "Ilora Novissima," and a concert by the Boston Symphony Orchestra.
Professor Canby, in his excellent article in the Book of the Pageant, sees the moral effect of all this as a great service to Yale, and he is right. But as he puts it, the manner of that great service proved the awakening of the men of Yale to a sense of their actual relation to New Haven. The form of it, in his words, has a definite bearing on the entrance of these men of Yale, in the period immediately following the Bicentennial observance, into the life of the commu- nity. "The great service," as he puts it, "was not the mere assemblage of national leaders in New Haven, nor a reunion of college classes on an unpre- cedented seale, nor the dignified Bicentennial group of buildings then dedicated as a lasting monument, nor even the splendid impulse toward development along true university lines thus given to Yale and renewed continuously since. It was rather the realization of the historic past of Yale and her associated dignities, the opportunities and the responsibilities thereof, which then eame first with emphasis to the college generations in whose hands the future of the Uni- versity was to rest. Beneath the excitement of the Bicentennial week, and beyond its pomp and ceremony, was the consciousness of an institution that was more than stone and mortar, more than endowment, more even than men; a trust of inestimable dignity, a heritage of ideals, and a name commanding veneration as well as love. Much of what Yale seemed to demand of that generation has been realized; much more remains to be achieved. But the sense of historic continuity once aroused is powerful upon the future. It tempers pride by responsibility ; it makes loyalty self-confident, yet modest because aware of the high examples of the past. Yale has been less provincial, less tamely conserva- tive, more earnest and more mindful that lasting tenure comes from enduring service to the state, since the awakening of the Bicentennial."
The fact that these thoughtful words were written fifteen years after that event, and by a man who has evidenced a true consciousness of his place in the greater community, makes them the more signifieant.
ST. ANTHONY HALL, YALE UNIVERSITY. NEW HAVEN
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The participation of Yale leaders in New Haven life took a more practical turn, as men reckon practicality. We find Yale professors serving as citizens of New llaven on the municipal boards, with every willingness to aid in the direction of efficient and elean government. Such cases as that of Prof. Edward B. Reed on the Civil Service Board and of Prof. Herbert E. Gregory on the Board of Education are instances of the readiness of Yale to serve in this field; instances, as well, of the wisdom in selection of some of the mayors. The experi- ments, if such they might be called, did not always result in the highest suc- cess. In every case of failure. it may be said with confidence, this was due to the unwillingness of the town members of the boards to meet the ideals of the Yale men. There was something more in the way than the remnants of the antagonism. Generally this was "practical politics," a game the Yale men were slow in learning to play.
Mention of Yale leaders in New Haven life would be injustice if it failed to include the service of Prof. William B. Bailey in social work through the Organ- ized Charities. Coming into that work to fill a temporary vacancy, late in the first decade of 1900. he applied to this force for the betterment of New Haven the mind of a trained social scientist, the genius of an unusually able organizer. He brought it up to its name. He co-ordinated, standardized, made systematic and effective, the whole work of relief in New Haven. He was never lacking in human sympathy, but he eliminated maudlin sentiment. Most of all, he made need and merit the basis of mercy, and sternly discouraged fraud. Through him those with hearts of sympathy and either the means to give or the will to work, were assured that their gifts and their labors were effectively applied when really they were needed. It is an achievement well worthy to stand among the important events in New Haven's progress.
The renaissance of the Chamber of Commerce, soon after the beginning of this Bicentennial period, included many Yale leaders in a most definite way. As citizens of New Haven, professors and instructors and officers were reached by the active membership campaign. They found themselves working at a common task with citizens of New Haven whose acquaintance they had not pre- viously made. They discovered the community in a sense they had not under- stood before. They found problems to solve which appealed to their best ability and knowledge-not infrequently their special knowledge. There were great modern tasks to be done in New Haven, and here was a wonderfully equipped and modern university to do them. They had the consciousness of unity of interest between the community and the college; they were about to apply it. So we have such undertakings as the scientifie suppression of the smoke nuisance : the attacking of New Haven's peculiar sewage disposal problem : the elimination of the mosquito pest. There was created a system of co-operation, through the Chamber of Commerce, between the university and some of the factories of the eity, for the application of efficiency methods, for the improve- ment in various ways of the conditions of employes.
These are glimpses of what was happening. The progress was slow. the benefit sometimes nebulous. But the idea was forming. The leaders of Yale
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were living the life of the city. They were making its problems their own. They were, in many ways besides their participation in the social service of Lowell House social settlement-an institution, by the way, in whose progress Yale idealists had from the first a definite part-earrying into practical appli- cation its motto and inspiration,
"Not what we give but what we share,
For the gift without the giver is bare."
CHAPTER VII
THE DOORS THROWN OPEN
THE SUNDAY OPENING OF THE YALE SCIENTIFIC AND ART COLLECTIONS AND THE WELCOME TO WOOLSEY HALL-YALE'S INVITATION OF THE PEOPLE TO HER ATHLETIC FEASTS
I
But something still was laeking to bring consciousness, both to Yale and to the people of the New Haven family with which it dwells, of their reciprocal relation. To the many Yale was still a thing apart. The advantages of Yale, as they saw them, were only for the favored few who entered the gates on payment of an admission fee, as it were. There was the great university plant, with its multiplying buildings, seen only by some who entered through the invitation of Yale friends. There was Peabody Museum, with its wonderful and growing natural history and scientific collections, open to the publie on week days, but at hours when only the few could avail themselves of the opportunity. There was the Art School collection, containing some of the rarest and most instructive art of the nation, having especial value for the people of New Haven and Connecticut, restricted in the same way. There was Woolsey Hall and its musical offerings, to be sure, but aside from the Symphony Orchestra concerts, providing little of a popular nature, and always with a substantial admission fee attached. There were Yale's athletic games, but there were restrictions, too. Their managers did not for a long time awaken to the need and advantage for them of catering, so to speak, to the New Haven public. In a word, something needed to be done to popularize Yale.
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