-Caveat Lector-
an excerpt from:
The Right People - A Portrait of the American Social Establishment
Stephen Birmingham©1958, 1959, 1960, 1961, 1962, 1964, 1965, 1968
Little, Brown and Company
BostonoToronto
LCCN 68-11525
360pps. out-of-print
--[6]--
6.
Playing the Game
ACCORDING to the best possible source the Social Establishment itself the
most important college, socially, is unquestion-ably Yale, Princeton has a
lot of glamour, but Yale is solider. Boston, naturally, has always favored
Harvard, but it is only a particular part of Harvard a Harvard centered
around such clubs as Porcellian, Fly, and Spec that is favored. (There are,
in a very real sense, two
Harvards. In the Porcellian Club, a one-way mirror on the dining room wall
symbolizes the division; members, dining, can look out on the rest of the
university as it passes by; non-members see only a re-flection of themselves.
The two Harvards, therefore, neither speak to,nor recognize, each other.)
Though Philadelphia prefers the St. Paul's-to-Yale route, it still sends a
number of its upper-class sons to its own
University of Pennsylvania, an institution which Philadelphians blandly admit
is "second-rate Ivy League," and which other cities place far down on their
lists. For company and solace at the University, the well-born young of
Philadelphia huddle together in three select frater-nities Delta Psi (St.
Anthony's), Delta Phi (St. Elmo's), and Zeta Psi and quite literally never
meet anyone else. These three clubs are so selective and conservative that
they have occasionally had years when they took in no new pledges at all;
there was simply no one suitable to take in. New England's "little three,"
Williams, Amherst, and Wesleyan, are favorites of individual families, with
the first two considered "better," from a social standpoint. Dartmouth has a
rather raffish reputation, associated with hard drinking and long winter
weekends. "A lot of Dartmouth men go into advertising,'; says one
non-Dartmouth man. Also, a lot of them are Irish." (Nelson Rockefeller,
Dartmouth '30, however, is neither Irish nor in advertising.) Notre Dame is
not considered in the social running at all. Yale men are supposed to go into
banking. (David Rockefeller, however, who is a banker, went to Harvard.)
A rough indication and very rough of the social standing of American
colleges is the Social Register, which lists college and classes of the
socially registered. The Register has standard abbreviations for all the
colleges of the Ivy League Yale, Harvard, Princeton, Brown, Dartmouth,
Columbia, the University of Pennsylvania, and "perhaps Cornell." For years,
however, it listed only two of the "little three" omitting Wesleyan, though
it long included the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, Trinity, and,
somewhat mysteriously, Union College, Rutgers, Rensselaer Polytechnic
Institute, Johns Hopkins, C.C.N.Y., and N.Y.U. For reasons equally
mysterious, the only women's college honored with its own Social Register
symbol is Barnard, although Smith, Vassar, and Bryn Mawr, of the "seven
sister" women's colleges, are all a good deal more fashionable. And none of
these may be as prestigious as certain of the women's junior colleges
Bennett, Briarcliff, and Colby. Recently, Wesleyan was recognized and given
its own Social Register symbol, "Wes," indicating a possible improvement of
its status. At the same time it has seemed to a few sensitive observers that
Wesleyan is only partway into the Social Register. Though other collegiate
symbols are translated in full in a key at the front of the book "J Hop,"
for instance, is said to stand for "Johns Hopkins Graduate" "Wes" is
somewhat sneeringly dismissed as "Wesleyan Univ. Grad."
The Social Register makes allowances for graduates of both Annapolis and West
Point, but has never recognized the United States Air Force Academy, and, of
course, regional editions reflect local preferences. The San Francisco
Register has symbols for Stanford and the University of California and, of
the Eastern colleges, for only Yale, Harvard, and Princeton. The Washington
book adds Georgetown and George Washington University, lists all the Ivy
League except Cornell, and in another hard-to-fathom move, adds Hobart, which
is in upstate New York.
There are other social "list" books besides the Social Registerthough none
considered as "reliable" and a glance at their stand on colleges reveals
that there may be a connection between the colleges and universities
recognized and the alma maters of the lists' publishers. The National Social
Directory, for instance, in its "The List of Society," gives the nod to all
the colleges of the Ivy League and the "little three," plus in an attempt,
perhaps, to give the publication the appearance of national scope four
others: Northwestern University in Evanston, Illinois; Northeastern
University, in Boston; Southwestern University (whether of Los Angeles or of
Georgetown, Texas, the "List" does not specify); and Southeastern University
in Washington, D.C. Still another list includes the customary Ivy League and
"little three" and adds a few surprises of its own South Dakota School of
Mines and McNeese State College, which is in Lake Charles, Louisiana. Book
editors are apt to be a class-conscious lot. A Harvard-graduated Boston
editor, going over proof of a novel, objected to a line of dialogue that
identified one of the characters as belonging to the Porcellian Club. "A
fellow like that would never have been taken into the Porc," be announced.
The author, suspicious, checked the editor's credentials and found him not to
have been a member of Porcellian either, but of the Spee Club. He then
changed the line to read, "Only a member of the Spec Club. Too bad it
couldn't have been Porcellian."
Just as there are certain proper schools and colleges, so are there certain
proper college sports. Being able to play the right game is as important a
part of being a gentleman or lady in Society as using the right fork and the
right accent. American Society, like English Society, has always been
strongly oriented toward the out-of-doors, the saddle, the firearm, the
wicket and the bat, but just as certain colleges such as Wesleyan have a
way of going in and out of fashion, so do sports. In the early part of the
century, for instance, no gentleman in Society could decently admit that he
was unable to play golf, or "the golf," as it was somewhat flossily called.
Golf brought with it the great era of the American country club, each
surrounded by verdant acres of greens and fairways. Now, however, golf has
become commonplace and is regarded as a middle-class sport. Few country clubs
today could support themselves if they offered nothing but golf. Though there
is admittedly a certain difference in cost, it is probably also significant
of Society's changing athletic attitudes that a New York contractor, who used
to be kept busy building such things, has not installed a private golf course
-full-size or miniature-since 1926. He has no end of orders, however, for
private tennis courts. And, on the campuses of the better Eastern colleges,
the golfer finds himself toward the bottom of the social ladder, along with
the long-distance runner, the swimmer, the wrestler, the basketball and
baseball player and, the most declasse figure on the college athletic scene,
the cheerleader.
The "racquet" sports tennis, squash, and court tennis have long been
mandatory upper-class pastimes, with the latter so "inside" that it has
become almost obscure (requiring, as it does, medieval-style courtyards so
elaborate that only a handful exist in the United States for the handful of
aristocratic court-tennis players, all of whom know each other). Squash and
tennis, suffused with an aura of easygoing good-fellowship, have a breezy,
casual air about them that blends so perfectly with the Society manner. As a
North Shore Long Island lady has said, "I'm always delighted to throw the
house open to young men who come up to the Club for our Tennis Week even if
I don't know them. Of course I'd hardly want to throw the house open to a
group of golfers. That would be quite different, somehow I don't know why,
but it would." And a member of Amherst's tennis squad says, "The nice thing
about the racquet sports is that they look easy to play, but aren't, and that
keeps the duffers out of the game." On Eastern college campuses, an argument
can always be started over which is the most prestigious sport, tennis or
squash. Squash, which is played indoors, is of necessity the sweatier sport,
yet squash courts are among the most popular features of the best men's clubs
and this of course, is the essential difference. Squash is a one-sex sport,
but tennis is a sport for both sexes and is associated with summer, youth,
and love. As a Yale man says, "It's more important to know how to play tennis
than squash because well, you play tennis in the spring, which is the most
important time of year to make a good impression if you're looking for
invitations to June coming-out parties." In spanking clean tennis whites, a
young man can make an excellent impression even before swooping down on his
opening serve.
College crew, until a generation ago, was in roughly the same position of
importance that tennis is in today, and it used to be taken as an article of
faith that anyone rowing on the crew of a decent college bore credentials
that were socially impeccable. Those were the days when so much snobbery
surrounded crew that the father of Princess Grace, John Brendan Kelly, was
told he could not compete in England's Diamond Sculls because "A man who has
worked with his hands should not compete against gentlemen." Kelly, as the
world surely knows by now, was a contractor's son and, in the most noble
purlieus. of' Philadelphia Society today, it is still said that Kelly "tried
to use crew as a means to climb into Society." Of the same era was the
Porcellian stroke of the Harvard crew of whom it was said according to a
persistent legend "He's quite a democratic chap. He knows every man in the
boat but the three up front."
At such schools as St. Paul's and Kent, crew continues to lure the sons of
noted families but, at college, when athletic habits congeal, crew has had a
considerable falling off. No one is quite sure why. The disintegration of the
Yale-Harvard Regatta as a social event may he one reason. What was a chic
affair in the twenties involving private railway cars and all the largest
steam yachts in the East has turned into a general traffic jam that ties up
all roadways, railways, and riverways around New London, Connecticut, and
litters them all with empty beer cans. "Too many alumni got into the act,"
explains a Yale senior.
Another social sport that, like crew, has suffered recently from overcrowding
is Rugby. For a number of years, Rugby failed to get an official athletic
department recognition at major colleges, which gave its partisans like the
select few who make up college polo teams the pleasant feeling of being
insiders by virtue of being outsiders. Also, on most campuses, Rugby players
were not really required to know how to play Rugby; the major talent for
Rugby was the ability to muster round-trip plane fare to Bermuda for Rugby
Week, the sport's annual rite of spring. Rugby Week or College Week was once
cozy and gay and giggly and distinctly upper class, and mothers had no qualms
about allowing their daughters to go, in groups, to attend the event. But
slowly, the tiny Atlantic archipelago began noticing annual increases in the
numbers of Rugby and non-Rugby playing guests at Easter time. Soon College
Week was more crowded than the YaleHarvard Regatta, more wild-eyed than Derby
Day, Yale's famous (and now defunct) romp. College Week sat in the middle of
Bermuda's sunny season like a drunk at a tea party. "I've gone to my last
College Week," said a Princeton sophomore a few years ago. "You can't believe
what it's like. The hotels are all filled, so guys sleep under rocks on the
beach. If you're lucky enough to have a room, you're expected to share it
with twenty other guys. The bar at the Elbow-Beach Club is packed three
people deep and filled with armed Security Guards trying to keep order. And
the girls! My blind date one night was a CPA from Chicago. For my money, the
whole Rugby thing has gone way, way down." It was to go even further.
Bermuda, displeased with the behavior of its visitors, made them increasingly
unwelcome, and soon the young, and the ensuing disturbances, turned to the
beaches of Florida, to Fort Lauderdale and then, a ' few years later, to
Daytona Beach. All pretense at any connection with the sport of Rugby was
abandoned, and College Week no longer has any Society overtones at all.
Today, the holidaying college crowd tends to favor Puerto Rico and upperclass
mothers keep their daughters home remembering, though, when it was all
sweet innocence in Bermuda, with all those nice young Rugby players from the
Ivy League. And where are the nice young men today if they are not playing
Rugby? On the nearest ski slopes they can find.
Society fathers expect their sons to have learned, by the time of their
maturity, to ride and respect horseflesh, to handle a firearm or a trout rod,
to sail a boat, and to be kind to pedigreed dogs. Girls are expected only to
be able to ride. From these areas of interest stem any number of specialist
and rarified sports which are determinedly, perennially, and almost
exclusively aristocratic; such as yacht-racing, fox hunting, polo, and
beagling. These sports seem incapable of losing their upper-class gloss. But
other sports, like Rugby, have suffered social reverses, and the most notable
of these is Eastern college football which, for several decades, has
undergone a long decline. Often called "King Football," the sport certainly
is among the more enduring symbols of college life. For years, football games
were the centers of huge, happy, sentimental, and generally well-bred
gatherings. Saturday after Saturday, autumn after autumn, the packed station
wagons threaded their way across the New England landscape toward the famous
stadiums and bowls. And yet, though to an outsider all might have seemed well
with college football, there were signs that it was sickening at its heart.
It was not so much that Society boys no longer played football there never
have, really, been many Society football players it was that the youngsters
of Society were not attending football games with their old enthusiasm. The
oldsters continued to flock to the games and to open the backs of their
station wagons and spread out picnics with cocktails, chafing dishes, wines,
and, in any number of cases, a white-coated houseboy in attendance to help
serve. But they had not come to watch football being played as much as to
pass around the thermos of iced Martinis, and to meet old friends at Portal
Nine. After the game or, more likely, before it was over, in order to beat
the crowds the oldsters left the stadium to wander over to Zeta Psi where a
goodly number of football enthusiasts had already gathered for a drink and to
inquire, in a bored and genial sort of way, about the victor and the final
score.
During the games, cheering sections failed to materialize or, if they did,
failed to cheer loudly enough to be heard across the field. Cheerleaders
flopped about, calling for shreds of enthusiasm. Brilliant plays went
unnoticed by larger and larger sections of the stands, and college newspaper
editors editorialized halfheartedly about "lack of spirit" and " apathy."
Friday nights were given over to listless pep rallies, and the social
standing of football on the Ivy League campus slid lower and lower.
After World War II, when returning veterans most of whom considered
football kid stuff flooded the campuses, football sank to its knees.
Football players were openly and loudly kidded and lampooned. They became the
butt of every joke. College humor magazines depicted them as bulky dimwits
who were able to stay in college only if they took the simplest "gut" courses
and received elaborate scholastic coaching from their friends. If a
particular fraternity happened to attract mostly football players to its
membership, it became known as "The Ape House," or "The Gorilla Cage," or
"The Jungle Club," and Zeta Psi which, on practically every campus it
exists, is among the most exclusive seriously discussed excluding football
players from its Williams chapter. "They can give the house a bad name," it
was said at the time.[*] College professors, rather than seem to be giving
football players a break, often seemed to be giving them a harder time than
other students, calling on them to recite excessively, ridiculing them if
they made mistakes. "Musclehead" and "meathead" became popular expressions of
derogation.[ * Several years later, fraternities themselves were banned at
Williams.]
In the twenties and thirties, days when the image of Princeton's great Hobey
Baker hung in the sky, girls from Smith, Vassar, and Wellesley were the
football hero's for the asking. In the late forties and fifties, the football
player a hero no longer had trouble finding himself a date. "Quite
frankly, they don't make good weekend dates," said a Wellesley girl. "At
least not during the season. If they're playing, you have to go with one of
their friends. After the game, if they're not banged up somehow, they're
tired. Their training rules mean they don't have much fun at parties. They go
to sleep, and there you are." During the week, too, life at the training
table had the effect of isolating the football player from his fellow
students. Lonely and neglected, he sought out the only company that was
available to him the company of other football players. Coincidentally, as
the sixth decade of the century progressed, professional football increased
enormously in popularity. Society turned on its television set or headed for
the big pro games and, of all things, professional football became an
upper-class spectator sport. At Yale today, the men who consider themselves
the college's social leaders have never met members of the Yale football
team. They indulge, instead, in a sport that would horrify their grandfathers
touch football.
Does this mean that Eastern college sports have gone all effete and
namby-pamby that future sporting events will be limited entirely to those
which can be held under green-and-white striped awnings, where spectators,
seated in rows of folding chairs, will show their ap-preciation of
exceptional plays not with stomping or cheering, but with polite applause?
Not exactly. Two fairly rough and tumble sports, hockey and lacrosse, have
been rapidly moving up the social ladder to fill the gap left by college
football. Field hockey, too, is becoming pop-ular at men's colleges, as it
long was at women's. "Do you know what I think the chic-est college sporting
event in the entire East is at the moment, bar none?" asks a Bennington girl.
"It's the annual WilliamsBennington field hockey game. You should see us out
there in our little knickers!"
pps. 99-112
--[cont]--
Aloha, He'Ping,
Om, Shalom, Salaam.
Em Hotep, Peace Be,
Omnia Bona Bonis,
All My Relations.
Adieu, Adios, Aloha.
Amen.
Roads End
Kris
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