Salt Lake Tribune | 1917-03-24 | Page 20 | Classmen Clash in Barbering Melees

CM CLASH II BIER! MELEES Bald Heads Plentiful as Students of U. of U. Meet Rival Camps. CUTTING TO CONTINUE Ban on Head Shaving Disregarded Dis-regarded When Classmen Come Together. i Underclassmen's dny at the University Univer-sity of Utah turned out to bo an occasion oc-casion of havoc and warfare aud in several ways set new precedent. Class fights and. hair cutting were only a part of the day's events, but they were prominent features in the events. " Trouble was sensed several day9 ago by everybody at the institution, with the exception of tho student body officers, of-ficers, so it seemed, when the latter set aside a day as "underclassmen's day." Tho officers let it be known that the two lower classes could dq any amount of fighting tliey wished, so long as nu property was destroyed. This was accepted as an invitation to the first-year men. since thoy outnumber the sophomores three to one. The sophef-mores, sophef-mores, on tho other hand, have ne er relished open fights, aud did not do so on this occasion. Thoy have always relied re-lied on sudden, unexpected blows to win for them. In this case, however, an open battle was before them, with li.t-tle li.t-tle chance for strategy, and the whole school looked on with interest to see what they would do. Begin Hair-clipping. On Thursday the freshmen boldly warned all sophomores to keep off the campus on the following afternoon. Their superiority in numbers gave weight to their words, and the sophomores sopho-mores were impressed, though they refused re-fused to show their concern. Finding themselves facing disaster however events turned, they determined to take the bull by the horns. Accordingly Accord-ingly they began hostilities first. Thursday Thurs-day night they rounded up the leaders of the treshman class and cut their hair convict style. Then early Friday morning morn-ing they hurried up to the campus before be-fore the arrival of the first-year men, pulled down the freshman flag and burned the wood which had been collected collect-ed for a bonfire about which the freshmen fresh-men intended to celebrate. . That was as far as they did go, however, how-ever, for the first year students began to collect in hundreds, and in the tie which followed they scattered theSk sophomores and cut the hair of many. v. All day long the hair cutting continued, . " and before the day wasover more than . half the total male membership of eaffl class was bald. The freshmeD hady' plenty of men to fight, but it prov that there was also more of them Wno could be caught and shorn. Raids Will Continue. Fraternity houses, dormitories, school buildiug6 and street cars were raided by the contending Btudents. In some cases slight property damage was done. The leaders on both sides announce that now that the hair cutting campaign has begun it -will continue until every man on the other side is bald. Several years ago the ban was placed on hair cutting at the institution, and for at least two years the regulation carried out faithfully. In the present pres-ent strife the sophomores, who began the clipping, assert that the action of the student body officers left them no alternative. From now until the close of school in early June the people of Salt Lake, when they see a bald-headed youth, may safely set him down as a freshman or sophomore of the University of Utah.