Ye ignorant, crummy, egotistical, good-for-nothing, lop-eared, chicken-heartened nurslings, lay aside your milk bottle to Read! Learn! Obey! The Delta Alpha Rules for 1916."
Class of 2012, that would have been aimed at you.
Listen, freshmen, I know it might be embarrassing when someone randomly yells at you, or when some asshole gives you the wrong directions on purpose, or your "insightful" comment to your roommate is in Overheards this week, but all of this pales in comparison to the actual first-year hazing that was an integral part of the dear old Dartmouth experience.
Now you can rest easy knowing that unlike freshmen of the past, there's no need to worry about being beaten for wearing the freshmen beanie you were forced to buy, placed in a water trough, mauled during football field rushing or belted (literally, hit with belts) while running through the gauntlet.
Unfortunately, that also means you actually chose to pay for that Class of 2012 T-shirt during Orientation Week.
During his freshmen orientation, Clifford Orr, Class of 1922, wrote to his parents that, "This is the third time I have gone to call on Harold and have been detailed to work for lazy sophomores." Clifford soon learned to only visit friends who live in majority-freshmen housing.
(As a lazy sophomore myself, I would love to detail some freshmen into working for me. I have to say that a surprising amount volunteered themselves when I was helping a friend move stored boxes out of the Choates. This is just a mid-article shout-out to say thanks for helping me carry that refrigerator.)
For Dartmouth upperclassmen too lazy to organize even a mild hazing, Delta Alpha was a society that structured freshmen hazing. The society was started in the 1890s, but was most active during the 1910s and 1920s. There was a chapter in every dorm, and each chapter would write up an annual set of rules to control freshmen behavior.
The 1912 Wheeler Hall rules, like most, started off telling freshmen to "assemble every morning at 7:00 and every evening at 9:00 (except Sunday) in front of the dormitory and give three lusty 'Wah-hoo-wahs' for Wheeler Hall, ending with a Rootie-ta-toot for Richardson." Personally, this rule seems a little odd, because it would be more annoying for upperclassmen to have to hear the "Wah-hoo-wahs" every morning than it would be for the freshmen to have to wake up early and say them.
Besides morning exercises, freshmen were also told not to speak to upperclassmen unless spoken to and generally to shut up as much as possible. They were also forbidden to smoke in public, swear in public and, as the 1915 Reed Hall chapter said, "all yelling, hooting, shouting, attempts at singing, whistling, smoking, and in fact, all symptoms of hilarity will not be tolerated in the corridors."
And although sophomores, who ran Delta Alpha, openly abused the freshmen, they forced the froshies to respect the janitor (who still deserves our respect, by the way). As written in a 1915 North Mass rule book, "On meeting the most high and mighty janitor, Casey, remove hat and recite the following: 'Honorable lord of the chamber, thy humble servant do bend to show my loyalty and hasten to do thy bidding.'"
Today's freshmen could still learn from some of the other rules as well. A 1924 poster dictates, "Never shroud thy frailness [while outdoors] with any covering except a cute little jacket" -- excellent advice for any party outfit.
Violations of the rules were punishable by black marks, each of which equaled an extra five minutes in the "chamber of horrors," which in most cases meant that you would be dunked in the water trough on the Green.
At the end of the year, all of the black marks were added up and punishment was doled out, as an unidentified newspaper article from May 1916 states, "The annual troughing season is on again at Hanover, and students and townspeople are kept awake with signals fired by revolvers and blown on whistles which inform the sophomores of the whereabouts of the freshmen. It is the custom for the sophomore 'vigilance committee' to put in the trough various members of the freshmen class who have shown signs of extreme freshness during the year. This year there has proved to be more spirit than usual among the men of the freshmen class, and as a result the sophomores are afraid of being put in the trough themselves."
The Delta Alpha hazing culminated in a "Freshmen Day," usually in October, where pea green froshies were made to wear things like shoe-string ties or many kinds of elaborate costumes, oftentimes drag, and to do things like climb up the stairs on their hands and knees. Their reward was a bountiful banquet at the end of the day, typically at the Hanover Inn. The Dartmouth tradition of giving the freshmen free meals, seems at least to have continued. I know I missed going to the lobster dinner this year.
Unfortunately for the freshmen, hazing did not end after the banquet. They still had to wear their beanies until they beat the upperclassmen in a game of tug-of-war. The tug-of-war game first began in 1949 when, "Dartmouth College authorities have decided that the traditional freshmen-sophomore football rush has become 'too rough' for the students and have substituted tug-of-war." Tug-of-war, however, was not a particularly peaceful substitute and after the freshmen were declared losers in 1963, they rioted in Thayer Hall, breaking windows and plates.
Victory for the freshmen often took a long time because not only was the freshmen class matched against all of the upperclassmen, but also because they were hosed down while they were competing. But the persistence of the freshmen eventually led to victory and, as The Boston Herald put it in an October 1953 article, "by winning, the frosh gain the right to toss away their green beanie caps -- a touchy subject with the freshmen because girl friends laugh at them on weekend dates."
Yet even the tug-of-war game was tame in comparison to the gauntlet, where the seniors lined up by the senior fence and whipped the freshmen with belts as they ran by. Freshmen also experienced paddling and other such violence. Most hazing, however, centered on humiliation. Any masochistic freshman looking to recreate that experience should just follow this 1917 rule from Hitchcock Hall:
"On entering the dormitory, with head uncovered repeat fervently:
Here I stand, a lonely freshman,
I am green and fresh as hell;
Trembling, cowering, shivering,
Before these gates I love so well.
Now before I make my entrance,
Through this august, sacred door;
I salute with low obeisance,
The thrice-mighty sophomore.
(Kneel and bow head three times.)"
Eve is a staff writer for The Mirror. We made her wear a beanie last year.
