University of Virginia Library

LII. The Alumni—Reunions

A circular letter of the secretary of the association in
1906,—which was addressed to the surviving alumni
of the years 1886, 1891, 1896 and 1901,—deplored
the small attendance that had, by this time, become habitual
at the annual commencement. What was his explanation?
The lack of a systematic class organization.

The alumnus who now visited the University at
the finals had no reason to anticipate the sight there of
any of his old college comrades. The familiar scenes,
he knew, would be found unaltered, but the loneliness
would destroy the pleasure of seeing them again. How
was this condition to be changed? By inviting the
alumni to come back in cycles. In this way, each would
have an opportunity, once every five years, to meet at
the University the friends of his own class year. First,
an invitation should be dispatched to the alumni of the
sessions ending in one or six. These should be asked to
return in June, 1906. The alumni of the sessions ending
in two or seven should be asked to return in June, 1907;
and of the sessions ending in three or eight, in 1908;
and so on for an indefinite series of years.

The reasons in explanation of the absence of class
organization at the University were still as vigorous in
their influence as ever. In the first place, there was an
extraordinary number of fraternites and other societies
which tended to concentrate the students' interest upon
separate organizations, and not upon a central one
common to all; and in the second place, there being no
class system, as in curriculum colleges, the young men did
not enter and leave the precincts as members of a distinct
class which had hung together during four years.

The first indication of class consciousness occurred
in 1892, when each department, acting separately,
elected a president; but his term of office did not last
beyond a single session, and his only important function
was to serve as a judge in trials under the Honor System.
The next indication of class consciousness was the permanent
organization of the medical class in 1899, and
of the law class in 1902. But a more meaning step

graduates of all the departments united themselves in
one permanent body, and elected officers to represent it.
This body was known as the class of 1907; and in imitation
of its example, the graduates of each succeeding
year established a class for their own session.

Previous to the reunion of the general class of 1908 in
1913, there had been a reunion in 1910 of the medical
classes of 1899 and 1905; but the attendance was small;
and the attendance of the general class of 1907, at their
first reunion, was still more insignificant. It was said
that less than ten of its members were present. The
emotion which this fact excited was one of discouragement.
"In the place of the advantages of an organized
class system, like that of Princeton," it was asserted
afterwards, "with its fine loyalty and spirit of camaraderie,
we have had to substitute our cumbrous device of
confusing in one grand class all the graduates of all the
departments of a given year, as well as those men who
are leaving college although not graduating." Nevertheless,
even before the class of 1908 had made their
splendid demonstration in 1913, the possibilities of
loyalty to friendship and alma mater which lurked in
this so called "cumbrous device" had begun to reveal
themselves in beautiful ways. Thus the class of 1907
presented the University with a bronze bust of Washington:
the class of 1910 gave a sundial and two Pompeian
benches; the class of 1911, a bust of Sidney Lanier;
the class of 1912, a sum of money to found a loan
fund; the class of 1913, a class book; and the class of
1916, a marble bench. In 1910, class exercises took
place. The honor men, clothed in cap and gown,
marched, in double file, to the north front of the Rotunda,
and there an original poem was read, and gifts to
the University delivered, a class song sung, and the class

toast offered and responded to. After passing the loving
cup and trolling the Good Old Song, the graduates
dispersed.

Before describing the manner in which the reunion of
the class of 1908 was celebrated, let us dwell for a moment
upon the initial steps which were taken to ensure
that unprecedented success. During the commencement
week of 1908, a constitution was drafted by the
class of that year and officers elected. The President
of the class was Thomas V. Williamson and the Vice-president,
Lewis D. Crenshaw. Each member pledged
himself to be present during the finals of 1913, and
agreed to pay an annual fee of one dollar and twenty-five
cents in the interval, chiefly for the purpose of
providing board and lodging at the University on the
expected occasion. The plan of issuing a bulletin for
each year in this interval was also adopted, and by 1911,
two issues had been printed. The old cry of the class
was again practiced with all the wild ardor of the impulsive
years passed under the arcades:

Mr. Crenshaw was appointed the publicity manager
of the reunion campaign, a position for which his energetic
and sanguine temper and previous study of class
organization excellently fitted him. As a loyal graduate
of the University, he was also anxious to demonstrate
the possibilities of the reunion as a means of quickening
the devotion of the alumni as a body. So soon as
he accepted the new post, he opened an office at the University.
His first practical step was to communicate
with the one hundred and eighty members of the class,
whose names had not as yet been registered,—indeed,

at this time, there were only one hundred and forty-six enrolled.
In the end, nearly every member attended the
reunion, so persuasive were his tireless exhortations, and
so powerful were his more substantial inducements.
Some came from communities as far away as Texas,
Arkansas, California, and Panama. The shrewd
principle which animated his appeals was, as he himself
said, "that weary business and professional men do
not come back to hear speeches; that they want to laugh
over old times and meet on the old camping ground the
friends of earlier days; that they want music and the
joy of their young days; that they want to be young
again and drop their cares for a brief period."

His second step was to organize the class of 1913
with a view to the assistance which it could furnish in
entertaining the class of 1908; and his third, to form
the Class Officers' Association, composed of the officers
of the classes of 1908, 1909, 1910, 1911, 1912 and 1913.
This body too was to be turned to full account in promoting
the success of the reunion. In recognition of
all these tireless activities, the Colonnade Club donated
a trophy cup, to be awarded annually to that class which,
in its own membership, should show the largest percentage
of alumni present at the finals. A special edition
of College Topics, descriptive of the approaching
reunion, was published, and seductive literature, in all
forms, crying up the occasion, was dumped by the wheelbarrow
into the post-office and weighed down the current
mails.

The largest section of the returning alumni agreed
to rendezvous in Richmond, and there they were made
receptive for the expected festivities at the University
by a brilliant banquet at the Commonwealth Club. With
a special car to themselves next day, the men, without

any shock to their modesty, were able to don on the
train the sailor suits of the class. At the station in
Charlottesville, the chairman of the class and a town
committee received them with imposing formalities. A
procession was quickly formed, and with the class banner
waving gallantly in the van, and a brass band playing
lively airs in the rear, the nautical visitors took up the
march towards the University. As they tramped along,
they broke into the old familiar songs and repeated the
ear-splitting college yell, while the excited and gaping
crowds on the sidewalks greeted them with shouts of
admiration and approval. Arriving at the north front
of the Rotunda, they mounted the steps, rank after
rank, and deploying by way of the colonnade terrace,
halted on the south front of the building. Rallying
around their banner and uncovering their heads, they
sang the Good Old Song, to the tune of Auld Lang Syne,
and the grand notes rolled through the arcades and
echoed from pavilion to pavilion, and dormitory to dormitory:

Closing the song with a mighty shout for the class of
1908, the procession again fell in, like seasoned soldiers,
and took up the line of march down the Lawn, and
thence straight to the right to the foot of Monroe Hill.
Between Minor Hall and the middle house of Dawson's
Row, a big tent had been pitched, with its hospitable flaps
thrown wide apart; and under its protecting white folds,
the men broke ranks, having, as they entered, blown a
final blast of trumpets. Addresses by representatives
of various classes followed. Next morning (June 16),
the Lawn and Ranges were swarming with a very motley
host of invaders,—there were swarthy buccaneers, in
the garb of the cut-throats who used to plunder the
Spanish Main, and jolly tars, in white jackets and
trousers, who could not be distinguished from the sailors
who manned the American battleships; here and there a
picturesque matador or picador would be elbowed by
what seemed to be a group of curious bumpkins, fresh
from the hay-fields, while many militant suffragettes
were to be seen flaunting red printed sheets inscribed
with the legend: "Votes for Vimmen, A-men."

At three o'clock in the afternoon, a great procession,
with outriders on cavorting horses, was formed to attend
the game between the "frenzied farmers" of 1913, and
the "sacrilegious seamen" of 1908, which was to be
played on Lambeth Field. This event had already been
widely announced in a flamboyant poster. The route

taken by the marching men started from the Big Tent
and zigzaged through the grounds. First came the band
playing the liveliest ragtime airs, and behind them
walked the members of the several classes in separate
bodies,—the class of 1913, dressed as Mexicans; the
class of 1907, as Zouaves; the class of 1909, as Alpine
climbers; and the class of 1913, as farmers. The
sailor class of 1908 laboriously pulled along a battleship
float bristling with dummy guns. After deploying
around the field, the several detachments halted in its
centre, and then the mock ceremony of presenting works
of art to the University began. The first delivered
was fashioned in the most fantastic cubist style, and
according to the grave announcement, had been executed
by the great Sir Ezekiel Moses himself; and the same
paternity was attributed to the heroic statue of Jefferson,
which was next delivered, with equal formality. This
was made up of boxes, crates, and kegs, and held a
horn in one hand and a wooden sword in the other.

At the second stoppage of the procession, a bull fight
was found to be going on. The furious animal at first
successfully resisted a host of matadors and picadors, but
was finally struck down; and on that instant, there
emerged from its hide, a distinguished physician of Norfolk,
who had belonged to the class of 1903. Next
ensued an engagement between the dreadnought, manned
by the crew of 1908, and the pirate ship Blow and Fire,
manned by the crew of 1912. While this determined
battle was being fought out, the farmers of 1913 were
grouping their squealing pigs and cackling poultry, and
building their hayricks, along the front line of the
stadium. A mule, with a bunch of lighted firecrackers
tied to his tail, and bestridden by two clowns who belonged
to the class of 1900, suddenly burst into the

field, amid a storm of hilarious shouts from the spectators.
The occasion, so full of loud noise, gay color,
and rough merriment, closed with a game of baseball,
in which the antagonists were the classmen of 1908 and
1913.

During the entire interval of the reunion, the Big
Tent was a scene of almost continuous fun and uproar,
and if there was ever a pause, it was filled up with the
music of the band or the piano. A tribunal was set up and
an alumnus tried for undertaking, without license or
patent, to manufacture hair-brushes from the "threadlike
bristles" of his moustache. There was also a club
organized for the purpose of seeing the sun rise above
the Southwest Mountains; but eighteen of the members
were soon dropped because they had gone to bed by four
o'clock in the morning. The principal rule of this club
called for a dervish dance as the dawn began to break.
Among the cups presented in the course of the
exercises which were held on the Rotunda steps
was one given to the alumnus who had travelled the
longest distance to be present at the reunion. He had
traversed the length of 3,898 miles. Another had journeyed
3,640, and a third, 3,600. A fourth received
a bonus because his jaunt had extended through eight
dry States. The trophy cup which was given by the
Colonnade Club was awarded to the class of 1908.

The reunion ended with a mighty barbecue in the grove
of Sunnyside,—the home of William R. Duke.
"Can you forget," said Dr. William Dold, in describing
the scene, "the red-hot Brunswick stew, followed by
the early draughts of nut-brown ale? Do you recall
with what interest we stood by the pots and watched
the roasting of the lambs and shoats, smelling the savory
odors that filled the woods? Above all, do you

remember how each and all of us enjoyed that feast?
Riding home with an Oxford man, he made the remark
that it was one of the most unique and interesting affairs
that he had ever attended." Mr. Duke, the genial and
hospitable host of the hour, received a loving cup from
the class of 1908 as a souvenir of their gratitude for
his kindness.

An event of a romantic and pathetic character took
place during the exercises of the commencement of
1912,—at the suggestion of President Alderman, an
invitation to attend a reunion at the University at that
time was sent to every alumnus still surviving, who had
entered the service of the Confederacy. One committee
was appointed to look up their several addresses and their
military records; another, to despatch the invitations to
them and to provide for their entertainment. One
hundred and seventeen were discovered; and it was
found that, among them, were one brigadier-general, one
colonel, two lieutenant-colonels, three majors, twenty-five
captains, and eighteen lieutenants, six adjutants,
fourteen sergeants, two surgeons, seven assistant
surgeons, three corporals, and thirty-five privates. Only
about eighty were able to attend the formal exercises,
which had been set for the tenth, eleventh, and twelfth
of June.

On the first day so appointed, these veterans assembled,
and organized themselves into an association; and
this was followed by a dinner, which the University gave
in their honor. Judge George L. Christian responded
in their name on that occasion. "Ever since this little
band of Confederates," he said, "landed at the institution,
they have met with unstinted attention. Nothing
could have been more marked than the evidence of veneration,
respect, kindness, and courtesy, of the students

and the young alumni towards us." "Never," said
another old soldier, who was also present, "have I seen
such fervor and enthusiasm since the historic days when
the student company left the University for Harper's
Ferry in April of 1861." Among those to whom medals
were awarded was a veteran of eighty years who had
lost his sight. As he was led to the rostrum by his
grandson, a child, in order to receive his medal, the
sympathy of the great audience expressed itself in prolonged
applause. "Never have I looked upon a more
appealing and dramatic scene," comments the old soldier
already quoted. And the same electric emotion
was aroused by the toastmaster at the final banquet,
Armistead C. Gordon, when he read to the same appreciative
audience the stirring lines of his battle-poem, The
Garden of Death.

The success of the reunion in 1913 led to increased
energy in organizing the classes which had not yet been
enrolled. By 1914, the Secretary was able to report
that, in the number brought together, were the classes of
1864, 1874, 1879, 1884, 1889, 1894, 1903, and 1904, and
the classes of 1906 to 1914 inclusive. The classes of 1915
and 1916 were afterwards organized in turn. Accurate
rosters of all the other classes ending in six or one had
been compiled by him with the view to their reunion at
the finals of 1916. The permanent formation of each
one of these classes was accomplished during this reunion,
and plans were drawn up for the next like event in the
future. To promote a desire to return to the reunion of
1914, Crenshaw began, on March 12, the printing of the
Big Tent, in which he pressed upon the members of the
classes expected, with all the persuasive resources at his
command, a campaign of Back to Virginia. This periodical
appeared up to the finals of that year once every

ten days. It was sponsored by the Class Officers' Association.
In 1915, the Orange and Blue Paper was issued
as a substitute for the Big Tent. This too was discontinued
in 1916. The class of 1917 was fully organized
by December, 1916; but its elaborate programme
was completely upset by the entrance of the United
States into the World War, in the course of the following
April.