From the Editor

Class Notes in this issue includes the last column from the Class of 1930. The final surviving member of the class, Jacob Christian Myers Jr., died Dec. 11, at 103. Before the class leaves our pages, we recall the mark it made. 

The men of 1930 arrived at Princeton at the height of the Jazz Age, graduated months after the stock market crashed (though early reunion books make no mention of that), and lost nine members to World War II. 

As freshmen, classmates spent evenings at meetings of the evangelical Philadelphian Society, where they “debated on the degree of necking which constitutes sin, and were instructed in the technique of clapper-stealing,” the Nassau Herald reports. Prohibition did not seem to dampen the mood: The class congratulated itself on establishing “a noble record in the campaign against the 18th Amendment.” Nonetheless, Dean Christian Gauss chided the students for being overly solemn.

Ben Hedges ’30, chosen “most respected” by his classmates, won a silver medal in the high jump in the 1928 Olympics. That year, students of voting age attempted to cast presidential ballots but were turned away, leading to tension between town and gown and a student disturbance on Nassau Street. Princeton’s new chapel opened at the end of sophomore year, though classmates surveyed called for the end of compulsory chapel and chafed against restrictions on women and cars. “We have disregarded a few traditions, but they were ones that only served to make life needlessly hard for the freshmen,” the class history recalls. 

“Time brings changes to all things,” the class concluded, “and many critics of American universities say that our attitude is all for the best.”