By April C. Armstrong *14
In this week’s installment of our recurring series, a senator advocates discrimination, an alum predicts his own surprise birthday party, and more.
April 20, 1879—Following the annual banquet for local Princeton alumni, the St. Louis Globe-Democrat observes, “This alone of all the great Eastern colleges represented in this city seems to have such hold on the affections of its alumni as to insure the regular observance of the annual reunion.”
April 21, 1976—New Jersey senator Clifford Case tells a student from the Gay Alliance of Princeton, “It’s not irrational for a society to abhor, abjure, and put down gay, or whatever the word is. It is society’s duty to put it down. … It’s distasteful as hell to me. We shouldn’t give it encouragement.”
April 23, 1992—Princeton Borough police charge 31 sophomores with lewdness and disorderly conduct during the recent Nude Olympics. One student responds, “I shouldn’t be arrested for running around nude. They should be paying me.”
April 26, 1957—As secretary of his class, Walter Lowrie, Class of 1890, “scoops” his own 89th birthday surprise in the Princeton Alumni Weekly’s class notes. “At our age we are most profitably employed in doing nothing. Hence I seldom have anything to report,” Lowrie writes. “I cannot tell you how much I enjoyed this occasion…which has not yet occurred.” What Lowrie anticipated was being presented with a copy of Dr. Lowrie of Princeton and Rome (a new book in honor of his birthday) and being toasted with champagne while everyone says “all manner of flattering things I did not in the least deserve.”
Did you read the previous installment in this series?
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