Not long after the Toilers Club prevented the election of any social club member to student body office in the spring of 1922, they met and, after some vivid rhetoric from President Dudley South, unanimously voted to disband:
Whatever your opinion of social clubs this was a remarkable and beautifully designed piece of political theater.
I can’t help but smile thinking about what the days after this meeting must have been like. Even now when there’s conflict on campus the place just buzzes. It must surely have been the same, maybe even more intense at a much smaller institution where everyone knew everyone else. I bet the students hanging around the Sallyport talked of nothing but the Club Problem.
Several of the social clubs balked at disbanding, of course, but the decision to ban them seems to have been completely without controversy among the faculty, administration, and board. The best piece of evidence in the archives about their view of the matter is this letter from Dean of Students Robert Caldwell:
The hazing problem, unfortunately, would prove to be intractable.
Bonus:
