Also Mr. Clark’s wife told me some of her adventures. She is Frieda Kirchwey, daughter of a former dean of the Columbia University Law School; she is one of the editors of the “Nation,” and as lovely a person as you will find. But you know how it is with these proper society people, their imaginations always run to foulness concerning people who differ with them; they cannot see how anybody who refuses to believe in class privilege and wage slavery can lead a decent life. Before the Clarks had been at Princeton a few months, a head of one of the departments asked if it was true, as reported, that their marriage was a trial one! Then, in a railroad train, sitting behind two socially exclusive professors’ wives, Frieda Kirchwey became acquainted with Princeton ideas about herself. At this time she had a job in New York and commuted every day; the trip takes an hour and a half each way, and you must admit that a woman who stands that all the year round must love her husband a good deal. But here sat the two ladies, gossiping about pacifism, and the moral obloquy attendant thereon. “My dear,” said one, “they say he’s married, but nobody ever sees her; she doesn’t live with him—except maybe on vacations, of course. Nobody knows where he picked her up.”
To balance this, you should have a glimpse of the morals of Princeton’s chosen ones. Let me remind you that President Hibben is a clergyman, and that Dean West of the Graduate School, who makes the students wear academic gowns at dinner, is a clergyman’s son. Now read the following paragraph from a letter of Miss Vincent:
You of course are familiar with the time-honored custom of college commencements, class tents in and around which old grads let loose and get messed up generally, with booze and women. Well, in Princeton these tents are set up on vacant lots around in the town, and the townspeople feel that it is a most degrading influence upon their children, who hear the ribald songs and see sights that even grown people stay within doors to avoid if possible, during this grand and glorious reunion of the sons of Princeton. A protest as to this condition came up at a civic meeting. A committee of which I was chairman was appointed to meet Dean McClenahan of Princeton and the dean of the Graduate School. We met. The genial dean of the Graduate School after a few innocent questions said, “Why yes, Miss Vincent, you see we can’t very well have the reunion tents on the campus, because it would reflect upon the university’s good name, and would influence parents against it. But we do need to foster the reunions, because we need the support of the old graduates to keep up the college spirit.”