Education: Floggers

Into a University of Oklahoma fraternity house, one midnight three weeks ago, strode six burly students in black robes with black hoods bearing the letters D.D.M.C. They aroused an 18-year-old sophomore. “Come with us, Bill Stephens,” intoned a leader darkly. Student Stephens stumbled from his bed. Outside it was 19° Fahrenheit. In his pajamas he was escorted to a field three miles from the University town of Norman. There the black-robes lashed Student Stephens ten times across the back with a three-quarter-inch rope. Then they gave him an overcoat, a pair of boots, told him to walk home and “take time to think before writing any more such stories.”

William Stephens is campus correspondent for the Oklahoma City Times and Daily Oklahoman. He had written that University fraternity “pledges” were in rebellion against the “mop-handle bondage” of menial tasks put upon them during initiation. The floggers who punished him for his criticism had assumed the garb of a secret,banned society Rover-boyishly entitled the “Deep Dark Mystery Club.”

Student Stephens demanded that his floggers be punished. The University’s President William Bennett Bizzell ordered an investigation. The Oklahoma City newspaper urged criminal prosecution under the State “antimask” law. Governor William Henry (“Alfalfa Bill”) Murray, who has often called athletics and fraternities “tomfoolery and idleness,” exclaimed that “the modern system of universities begets lawlessness.” He. too, demanded that the floggers be exposed and punished.

Fortnight ago President Bizzell obtained confessions from 14 members of the Deep Dark Mystery Club. The Board of Regents ordered them expelled. The group included four footballers, the basketball captain, last year’s swimming captain, the top-ranking tennis player, a poloist, a boxer and a track man. Last week they all went back to classes on the campus.

The Oklahoma City Times and Daily Oklahoman have criticized and ridiculed Governor Murray during his campaigns and during his present administration. When the floggers of Correspondent William Stephens learned of their expulsion they went to Governor Murray for a late night conference. They agreed to disband the Deep Dark Mystery Club. Next day Governor Murray reinstated them, praised their “nobleness of spirit and good citizenship,” added that he would pardon them even if they were criminally prosecuted.

In Montclair, N. J. last week Guy B. Rose, principal of Glenfield Elementary & Junior High School, was charged with beating 11-year-old Delardo Leva about the head and back with a rubber hose (“gold-fish”). Sabatto Leva, father, declared that as a result his son had contracted rheumatic fever aggravated by a weakened heart. Principal Rose was paroled pending grand jury action.