The history of Colby College, Part 39

Author: Colby College
Publication date: 1963
Publisher: Waterville, Colby College Press
Number of Pages: 716

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In the same issue the Echo published an editorial, strongly supporting the action of the sophomores and expressing the hope that Colby had seen the last of the objectionable custom.

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Practically everyone will admit that hazing is obsolete, a relic of those good times which our grandfathers talk about, but many think it should be continued simply to carry out old customs that have been handed down from year to year. That the present sophomores have taken the lead and have voted to abolish hazing is highly commendable. The men of 1913 must play as important a part as have their friends of 1912. They must and probably will follow the sophomore lead. They should vote not to provoke hazing this year, nor indulge in it next year.

When College opened in the following autumn the Echo was able to report:

As hazing has been abolished at Colby, the usual Bloody Monday Night ceremonies were much modified. The sophomores went around, stuck up posters, and did their best to scare the freshmen, but nothing more.

That was a good start, but too good to last. The sophomores-it was this historian's own class-could not let the Freshmen Reception in 1910 be held without trying to break it up. As the students were returning from the various boarding houses after supper, word rapidly spread that the whole freshman class had boarded a special train at Fairfield, whence they had been taken to Clinton for their reception. Two sophomores had already hired a buggy and had dashed off to Clinton to scout the situation. When the regular 8:15 train pulled out of the Waterville station for Bangor, nearly every sophomore man was aboard. Arriving at Clinton, the invaders were directed by the two advance scouts to the hall where the reception was being held. During the interval, the Clinton firemen thought here was a good chance to try out their new hose and at the some time disperse "them college bums." Resenting their place as targets for the Clinton water supply, the sophomores rushed the firemen, captured the hose, turned it on the local men, and seizing the firemen's axes, proceeded to chop up several lengths of hose. If there had been State Police in those days, they would have been summoned and the destructive students dealt with summarily. But no sufficient constabulary was available. The sophomores were admitted, without resistance, to the hall and were allowed to participate freely in the freshman party. In peace and harmony the two classes returned to Waterville on the freshmen's special train.

What would Roberts do? It was only seven years since the whole sopho- more class had been suspended, just for breaking up the Freshman Reading. Would "Rob" send the whole class home for a more serious offense in a neighbor- ing community? The President summoned the officers of the sophomore class, made known his disapproval in no uncertain terms, heard their story patiently, and then said: "The Clinton selectmen tell me the damage is $150. I am satisfied that is a fair estimate. Now you fellows get busy and collect $150 from among your class. Then you officers go to Clinton and see Mr. - ". He is chairman of the selectmen. Apologize to him for the actions of your class, pay the money, and get back to your classes. Are you going to do that, or are you going to let the college down?"

Those boys knew that Roberts was too wise to say "let me down," but that is just what they would not do. They collected the money, went to Clinton, paid the bill, apologized, and came back to the campus. That was the end of the matter.

Part of the President's popularity with students came from his love of base- ball. He approved of all sports, attended every home football game, and often

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officiated at the state track meet. But baseball was his first love. Even 'Judy' Taylor, whom no one ever accused of partiality toward sports, remembered Rob- erts' home run, with three men on the bases, in a game against Bowdoin. Judge Cornish remembered Roberts on the baseball field, crouching with hands on bended knees, and keeping up a steady chatter to affect the morale of the oppos- ing team. "The grandstand," said Cornish, "was as much entertained by him as by the progress of the game." In 1889 Roberts, captain of the Colby team, had the highest batting average of any player in the four Maine colleges.

Interested as he was in sports, he knew how to keep them in their place. They never upset his sense of values. After a defeat on diamond or gridiron, he would say to the students: "We haven't lost the College; we haven't lost our honor; we've only lost a game." It came as no surprise to Colby students when their President took the lead in a movement for common eligibility rules in the New England colleges.

For at least fifteen years before Roberts became president the state of the college treasury had steadily worsened. In 1904, when it became necessary to write off certain investment funds as permanent losses, the deficit had been more than $50,000. Though both 1907 and 1908 had shown small gains, it was not until the end of Roberts' first year in 1909 that the books went significantly into the black. In that year the surplus was over $10,000; in 1910 it was nearly $12,000; and each subsequent year until the nation went to war in 1917, saw income exceed expenses. This was accomplished partly by a rigid economy in maintenance; yet the years saw gradual increase in faculty, two new buildings, and steady additions to the endowment. Though he got the reputation of being a miserly spender of college funds, Roberts did spend them with careful deter- mination that the College should get its money's worth.

The President's vigorous recruiting of men students filled the single dor- mitory and the fraternity houses to overflowing. At the December meeting of the Trustees in 1910, Roberts stated the living accommodations for the men had become woefully inadequate. There must be a new dormitory, he said, and work ought to start on it before the next meeting of the Board in June. Otherwise a new building could not be ready for the influx in September. He did not recommend an expensive building, but one to accommodate forty men at a cost not exceeding $20,000.

As a result of this plea a dormitory was started between North College and the gymnasium in the spring of 1911, and was ready for occupancy when the big freshman class of 1915 arrived on the campus. The building cost $21,363, only $4,000 of which came in gifts for the purpose. More than $17,000 came from current funds, without depleting the permanent funds of the College by a single penny.

When the new dormitory proved within three years to be inadequate to house the ever mounting number of men students, the Trustees voted, in January, 1915, to empower their Finance Committee to erect a second building, in size and design similar to the first. In June the Board voted to borrow $20,000 to put up the dormitory, to be named in memory of Professor John Hedman, the brilliant teacher of Romance languages, who had died only a few months earlier. To pay the cost of $21,300 the Board set up a campus building account, which in a few years was balanced by annual amounts set aside from room rentals.

At the same meeting in 1915 the Trustees belatedly took official action to approve what student opinion had done long ago. They named the first dormi- tory Roberts Hall.

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New buildings provided only part of the demand for expenditures on the plant. Fire also played a part. On the evening of March 10, 1911, while all the members were attending their annual banquet in Augusta, the living quar- ters of the Delta Upsilon fraternity in the south end of North College were so badly burned that only the brick shell and a part of the first floor remained. Only the thick fire wall, that had been built between the north and south halves of the building when the fraternity housing system had been established in 1907, saved the north end from destruction. In addition to the loss by the College, loss of personal property by the inhabitants amounted to $3500. Only a few items on the first floor were saved. Lawrence Bowler of the Class of 1913, a member of Zeta Psi, took the framed D U charter from the living room wall and handed it out a window to this historian, who took it to another fraternity house for safe-keeping. Some other first floor items were rescued, but everything in the student rooms above the first floor was lost. The carefully collected records assembled by Ray Carter, who was preparing a history of the Colby chap- ter of Delta Upsilon, went up in flames.

While the fire was raging, sneak thieves were busy in the north end of the building, where both money and clothing were taken from several rooms. If the miscreants lived in Waterville, they did not by any means represent the local citizenry. As they have always done in moments of college disaster, the townspeople immediately contributed to the students' relief. More than a thou- sand dollars was raised in less than a week, and many families opened their homes to house the D U boys.

In a few months the building had been restored, better than it had ever been before. Although the restoration cost $6,000 more than the insurance pro- vided, even the strictly economical Arthur Roberts declared the expense fully justified.

President Roberts was determined to produce additional permanent funds, not merely add to current funds by having more students. In 1910 he had told the Trustees, "We need increased endowment to increase salaries. It would be better if we were on the Carnegie Foundation. We must get on it, or get the money elsewhere." In spite of only a very small amount coming in as gifts, Roberts' first two years had netted such profits that the Trustees declared a salary bonus of one hundred dollars to each of six full professors-the men who had borne the brunt of that first difficult year, when there had been a big jump in enrollment without any additions to the faculty.

In 1913 the College received $75,000 under the will of Levi M. Stewart of the Class of 1853, who had become a wealthy corporation attorney in Min- neapolis. Although he had attended Colby only one year and had later earned his bachelor's degree at another college, Stewart had come from Corinna, Maine, and he never forgot the little college at Waterville, because it was there that the man who then taught Greek and Latin had inspired the Corinna boy to seek a professional education. Long after James T. Champlin was dead his kindness to a lad from a Maine farm brought $75,000 to the College.

In 1914 came the first of Colby's loan funds for needy students. Significantly . it was for the women. Under the bequest of Miss Jeanette Benjamin of Oak- land, it provided income to make small loans to help deserving girls meet emer- gency expenses.

It was the annual Christmas Fund, however, which, previous to the war, was President Roberts' unique contribution to the college finances. It began in November, 1912, when Roberts sent out what he called a news letter to the

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alumni. At the end of that letter he wrote the first of a long series of Christmas appeals.

The College needs money for current expenses and for betterments; so all graduates and former students, and all friends of the College, are asked to make a Christmas gift to the College this year. Although Christmas is a time of financial stringency, it is after all the season of giving, and at no other time of the year would the friends of Colby be so likely to join in their gifts to the College. Every thousand dollars thus contributed is the interest on twenty-five thousand. Many who could not give largely toward increasing the endowment will be glad to give what they can to help increase the income.

Roberts wasn't starting any elaborate campaign, nor did he set up an office to handle the returns. He wrote, "Gifts will be sent directly to me, and receipts will be returned by the College Treasurer." Then he characteristically added, "All who receive this letter will also receive, about the middle of De- cember, a brief note of reminder."

Sure enough, on December 12, Roberts sent out the promised reminder. He wrote: "This effort depends upon everybody's giving something. A few large gifts and many of substantial size are hoped for, but interest and enthusiasm are not measured by money. A dollar bill may for one person be as expressive of love and loyalty as is a thousand dollars from another."

To a later generation the result seems modest and even disappointing. Two hundred and thirty-eight persons responded with a total of $3,908. But Roberts was far from discouraged. Year after year, as long as he continued to live, he sent out his annual Christmas letter, and what had begun as a small response became a significant contribution to each year's operating funds. Roberts' suc- cessor carried on the practice for several years until the College turned the Christ- mas appeal into a regular alumni fund, which brought in large returns. When a young and energetic alumni secretary started that alumni fund, his task was made much easier because President Roberts alone, and without any help from the formal alumni organization, had schooled the graduates to annual giving in response to his Christmas appeals.

President Roberts, in those early years, had no secretary, and as late as 1913 there was no full time secretarial worker or clerk anywhere in the College. Jason Hagan, a member of the Class of 1913, doubled in brass as part-time stenographer and part-time household servant for the President. Roberts was a man who believed in doing everything for himself. A real secretary, taking office responsibility, would just be a nuisance. Roberts wouldn't have a telephone in his office, and none was installed until the administration of Franklin Johnson. When he wanted to contact someone, Roberts would either go directly to that individual, or go to the front of Chemical Hall and shout the name. The latter method was his usual way of calling the janitor, Fred Short. His booming voice would sound out, "Short! Short! Come here!"

As the College grew steadily larger and the administrative duties became more complicated, the Trustees showed increasing concern lest their President be using too much of his valuable time in clerical details that a lesser paid person could competently perform. On the insistence of Emery Gibbs, the Trustees, in 1914, had appointed a committee to investigate and make recommendations. At the annual meeting in 1915 the committee reported that the President's sec- retary, Mr. Hagan, did keep carbon copies of official correspondence, except for

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the many letters which the President still dashed off in longhand. They felt, however, that Hagan would profit by even a short course somewhere in office practice.

The committee would relieve the President of duties rightfully belonging to the Treasurer, or at least to an officer on the campus who could serve as Assistant Treasurer or Bursar. It was absurd, the committee insisted, for the President of the College personally to make out the individual term bills.

The committee recommended that actually, instead of employing an addi- tional person as Bursar, the offices of Treasurer and Bursar be combined, and that the new officer maintain an office on the campus. In addition to keeping the Treasurer's books, receiving money and dispersing it on proper vouchers, he would be the purchasing agent, would make out and submit the term bills, and would superintend repairs and maintenance, including supervision of the numerous student janitors. The committee generously suggested that such a resident treas- urer could share a secretary with the President.

The committee concluded its report with these words: "We believe the Col- lege has the best man possible as its President, but we shudder at the prospect of the calamity that would befall the institution if it should be deprived of his leadership without a sustaining organization and staff which makes for efficient division of labor. As matters now stand, a crisis could bring disaster."

The committee had called in the services of a professional firm in Boston, whose representatives spent three days at the college "to investigate the business methods and recommend improvements." They found the practice of keeping carbons of only the more important outgoing letters to be unsatisfactory. "Since it is impossible to predict at the time when letters are written what correspondence may need to be referred to in the future, we strongly urge that carbon copies of all outgoing letters be retained and filed in systematic order."

Concerning the suggestion that Hagan get some training in a business office, the investigators said: "Believing that Mr. Hagan, the secretary, might profit by a visit, even if only for a day, to some well-managed business office, we expressed to the President our willingness to meet Mr. Hagan in Boston by appointment, and to give him opportunity to observe how certain details of filing and recording are carried on. The President said he doubted whether such a visit would be helpful."

The investigators strongly urged that the President be relieved of the task of making out the semester bills. Roberts was equally insistent that only he knew the facts in each case, and he was unwilling to entrust to anyone else the responsibility for so large a part of the College income. The investigators said they knew of no other college of Colby's size and standing that did not have either a full-time treasurer or a campus bursar who acted as assistant to a non-resident treasurer. They criticized severely the "outdated method" of issuing semester bills. "At the present time three copies of the semester bills are written out by hand in three separate operations by the President and student assistants, but it would be a simple matter for a properly equipped office to typewrite three copies simultaneously by the use of carbon paper."

The investigation showed that President Roberts was trying to do more than any one man could do. Hence some things were noted which demanded closer supervision. Concerning maintenance of the physical plant, the report said: "The President explained that the unsightly appearance of grounds and buildings resulted from the policy to make use of student service. He defended

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that policy stoutly, saying that many students could not attend the college unless the college itself provided work for them. We have no objection to that policy. Student service can be made efficient if supervision is not relaxed in keeping those students at their tasks. At Colby the student workers are insufficiently supervised."

The investigators even went into the matter of the academic records. They said that colleges had almost universally abandoned the nineteenth century method of entering student records in bound books, and that a card system should be started at once. "Furthermore," they said, "the present form of record does not provide adequately for certain conditions peculiar to Colby and therefore badly needs revision."

So highly did the Trustees value the achievements of President Roberts that they were determined to have no quarrel with him over the issue of busi- ness management. They looked at the problem as one of bringing the President gradually, by persuasion and experience, to a readiness to delegate authority that no one man could permanently retain. The Board therefore refused, in 1915, to adopt the recommendations of their committee, supported as those recommenda- tions were by professional investigators. Instead, the Board accepted the com- mittee's report only as a report of progress, ordered that it be printed and sub- mitted again to the Trustees at their mid-winter meeting, with such supplementary report as the committee should then care to make.

Apparently the committee was trying to come to an agreement with Roberts, for at the mid-winter meeting they said no action had yet been taken and they had no further recommendation to make, but asked for more time.

No mention was made of the matter at the annual meeting in June, 1916, but the situation came to a head when George K. Boutelle resigned as Treasurer in November. The grandson of Colby's first Treasurer, Timothy Boutelle, the local attorney and banker whom everyone called 'George K' had served faith- fully as custodian of the college finances for fifteen years. His pressing duties at the bank and in connection with the new Kennebec Water District were enough to cause his resignation, but the clinching factor was his sincere belief that the committee's 1915 report, calling for a full-time treasurer, ought to be adopted.

At their annual meeting in June, 1917, the Trustees elected Frank B. Hub- bard as Acting Treasurer, and a year later made him officially the Treasurer of Colby College. Thus began an association of ten years between two men of strong convictions, both devoted to the College, who worked together in the greatest harmony, with such improvement in management and in business pro- cedures, that other suggestions in the 1915 report were either forgotten or re- ceived unobserved implementation.

Even if no action on office arrangements or business practices had been effected by the appointment of a full-time, resident treasurer, something happened which so upset the orderly routine of academic life that no one could be greatly concerned about treasurers and bursars, about book records versus card records, about purchasing agents and supervisors of student labor. A cataclysmic occur- rence came on April 2, 1917, when the President of the United States, insisting that the world must be "made safe for democracy," asked the Congress to declare war against Germany. Colby College would be quite a different place until the war was over.

CHAPTER XXIX

War Comes To The Campus

J UST as had happened during the Civil War more than half a century earlier, Colby College was severely affected by World War I. A later chapter will be concerned with Colby's contribution to three wars; the province of the present chapter is the effect upon the College of the First World War.

To no one in the country, and especially not to informed college officials, did American entrance into the war come as a surprise. Ever since the sinking of the Lusitania in 1915, our involvement had become increasingly certain. When the blow fell, in April, 1917, President Roberts was determined that the first duty of trustees, faculty, and students must be readiness for any sacrifice in the nation's behalf. Roberts therefore took no action to deter immediate, even hectic, enlistment of college students into the armed services.

When the Trustees held their spring meeting on April 28, Roberts reported that forty students had already left college for the armed ranks, and that a drill company of ninety men had been formed on the campus, under command of a National Guard officer, A. Raymond Rogers, a Colby senior who would receive his diploma in June. On May 16, the Echo stated that the number of student enlistments had risen to fifty-two. By that time Lieutenant Rogers had himself been called to active duty with Company H of the National Guard, and his place had been taken by a Waterville citizen, Lieutenant Fred McAlary. Student leaders of the Colby Military Company were three boys who had prepared for college at private military academies: Captain A. J. Miranda from New York Military Academy, First Lieutenant Hugh Pratt from Peekskill, and Second Lieutenant Eliot Buse from Tennessee.

Should academic recognition be given to the men, especially the seniors, who enlisted between April and the normal ending of the college year in June? On May 21 the faculty voted to grant degrees to nine seniors who had entered the armed services. Because of pressure from Washington to make an all-out, na- tional effort to increase agricultural production, the faculty not only permitted John K. Pottle, 1918, to go home in early May to plant his farm, but granted his later request that he be allowed to remain on the farm without further attendance at classes during that college year.

When, in the fall of 1917, the three classes from 1918 to 1920 returned to college, their ranks had been heavily depleted by enlistment. The seniors had lost 24, the juniors 24, and the sophomores 16. Yet, because of a large fresh- man enrollment, there were still more men than women in college. The enroll- ment picture in October, 1917, six months after the country entered the war, was as follows:

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Men

Women

Total

Seniors

Juniors

Sophomores

Freshmen

140

Special

188

165

353

As the first rush to enlistment subsided, cooler heads all over the nation saw that many a young man might render the best patriotic service by remaining in college. Newton Baker, Secretary of War, issued the following statement.

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The history of Colby College, Part 39

Author: Colby College Publication date: 1963 Publisher: Waterville, Colby College Press Number of Pages: 716

Author: Colby College
Publication date: 1963
Publisher: Waterville, Colby College Press
Number of Pages: 716