Thirty-Five Years of Managers, Banquets, Summers and 'Society': Part 2

The position of publications manager was established by the Associated Students in 1930 to be a "clearing house for all miscellaneous subjects pertaining to campus publications, managing a morgue for pictures and cuts, collection of outstanding accounts, estimates on printing, engraving, and the adjustment of unsatisfactory details relative to advertising in any of the student publications." (SoCam, 1931.) The first year was an "experiment" that worked out so well it was maintained for decades. Joseph R. Osherenko, who had been business manager of the Bruin for three semesters while an undergraduate, was the "logical . . . dynamic" choice for the job. (SoCam, 1931.)

Osherenko resigned in 1940 because of the growth of his own advertising agency and publications business (CDB, 11/8/40), and a student committee was appointed to find a new manager. This proved to be a difficult task, since favored candidates were also favored by the new Selective Service System that had just begun. Finally, Robert Reeder, a former managing editor of the Bruin "whose most important qualifications for the job seemed to be a 3-A classification in the draft" (SoCam, 1941), was named to the post. Reeder joined the Navy early in 1943, and William C. Ackerman was named Director of Publications until Harry A. Morris took over in 1944.
 

Summer Bruin

Except for the war years, when UCLA adopted a "trimester" system, Summer Session Bruins generally played a different role and had a different "feel" from the newspapers issued during the fall and spring semesters. In the Twenties and Thirties the Summer Session newspapers were used as laboratory papers for journalism classes, with financial support coming directly from the University, not the Associated Students. The bucolic atmosphere of summer in the 1920s is reflected in this editorial:
 

 The time has come to say good-bye, and the Grizzly for one hates to say it . . . It's fun to be a newspaper at any time, but especially interesting to be a newspaper on a University campus where the character of the news is assured.

 There one feels no responsibility for the sordid, the unwholesome, and the sensational in the happenings of the day.

 The paper that is fortunate enough to deal with the doings of college people at a Summer Session can count upon an academic atmosphere flavored with enough gayness and humor to make it quite ideal. (CG, 8/4/25.)

By 1937, the Associated Students had taken over publishing the paper and naming the editor, who was usually the incoming fall semester head. The administration paid a flat sum from the summer fee to make up some of the difference between advertising revenues and cost. This subsidy allowed the Administration to require the Bruin to "maintain a publishing policy which is satisfactory to the Summer Session Office." (Arch, Box 168, 1/19/39.)

The Administration policy was re-established in 1950 after the wartime trimester schedule had led to re-politicizing the Summer Bruins. Editor Ann Kligman was reminded in a letter from the Administrative Committee that "Affairs of student government, controversial social issues, etc., are not germane to the summer editions." (Chanc, 1950, Folder 246, 6/16/50.) Kligman promptly designed a new flag for the paper, presumably by way of protest, reading "Summer Bulletin Bruin." (SB, 7/5/50.) What the Administrative Committee did not point out was that the Administration's contribution that summer was only $700 of a total cost of $1,968. (Chanc, 1951, Folder 246-DB.)

In 1955, a two-paragraph announcement was printed in the paper distributed on the opening day of the Summer Session:
 

 This is the first, last, and only issue of the Summer Bruin for 1955.

 The Summer Bruin, which has been published weekly during the summer months of past years, has been cancelled by the University Administration. (SB, summer 1955.)

No reason was given for the cancellation.
 

'30' Banquet

The first official end-of-the year banquet appears to have been held as early as May 1925 (CG, 5/26/25). It soon became a semiannual affair (CDB, 1/5/27 and 5/25/27), where the editor announced his staff appointments for the next semester. The banquet was financed by the Associated Students as a way of thanking the Bruin staff for its hard work; in 1928 the entire staff was hosted at a cost of $50 (SEC, 5/23/28).

Locations of the banquet varied. The May 1927 dinner was held in Newman Hall on the Vermont campus; the first banquet to be held in Kerckhoff Hall was in May 1931. Other spots were the Castellamare Inn, May 1930, and the Hollywood Knickerbocker Hotel, January 1936.

Often there were outside speakers. In 1931, professors were scheduled "from the English Department and Political Science Department [and] Mrs. Helen Laughlin, dean of women, will act in the official capacity of chaperone." (CDB, 5/20/31.) Harold Noon, "former city editor of the San Francisco Examiner " spoke in 1932, at the same banquet in which Dr. Alfred Longuiel, "familiar figure at all Bruin banquets," expressed his "perennial sentiments." Howard Estabrook, "motion picture scenario writer, "spoke in 1936 (CDB, 1/17/36) and Dr. Franklin Rolfe, associate professor of English, spoke in 1948 on the possible establishment of a journalism school. (CDB, 1/16/48.)

An early tradition was the distribution of a "special program in the form of a Miniature Daily Bruin" in which "Idiosyncrasies of the present staff members, typographical errors of the past editions will be emphasized and brought to the burlesque attention of the victims." (CDB, 5/20/31.) This paper was later called a "baby edition . . . in truth nothing more than a refined scandal sheet . . . hitting at this and that and at times citing grim truths. The little Bruin acts, moreover, as the conveyor of the announcements of promotion." (CDB, 1/19/32.) In the early Fifties, the mimeographed sheets were known as "Razz Editions." They bore such names as UCLA Daily Rah Rah, (5/27/50), UCLA Weakly Ruin (1/51), The Daily Shaft (5/26/51) and The Abnormal Outlook (undated, 1/52).

During the late Thirties, the format included skits that Dean of Students Hurford E. Stone called "shady." (Arch, Box 183, Folder 40, 6/5/40.) That year the banquet featured a skit that Stone complained in a memo to President Sproul was "not only suggestive but positively lewd." Not willing to dictate the offensive parts to his secretary, Dean Stone wrote them out in longhand and sent them on to Dr. Sproul.
 

 Scene: A Broadcasting Studio.

 Man, coming into the kitchen for breakfast: "I just shaved and feel twenty years younger."

 Wife (boy imitating woman's voice): "I wish you had shaved last night."

 * * * * *

 Woman's voice: "Honey, I dreamed about you all night."

 Man: "That explains then why I feel all tired out this morning.["]

 (Arch, Box 183, Folder 40, 5/3/40.)

Given such easily embarrassed administrators, it is no wonder that the "shady" skits disappeared from the banquet format by the end of the decade. Instead, the cubs -- beginning reporters -- began to stage a show at the post-banquet party "burlesquing the upper staff members." (CDB, 1/16/48.) No holds were barred in the Cub Show, and by the mid-Fifties the show was bluer than the Blue and Gold of UCLA's victory flag, and the faces of the roasted upper staffers rosier than the Daily Bruin's rapidly reddening reputation.
 

Women and Society News

By 1970, women's pages had disappeared from the Daily Bruin. Perhaps the decision to end the separation of men's from women's news was helped along by a survey in 1967 that found the women's page to be the least-read part of the Bruin. (McCombs, 1967.) In earlier times, however, society news and women's activities were as much an integral part of the paper as sports and the feature page. During the Twenties and early Thirties, indeed, separate "Men's Editions" and "Women's Editions" were published.

 A new departure this semester was the establishment of separate staffs for men and women. Inasmuch as there is a natural division of the class of news handled by the two sexes, Editor Fred M. Jordan decided that a separation of the staffs would make for better administration. Consequently the men's staff was placed under the jurisdiction of the news editor, and the women were made responsible to the women's editor, a newly created position. (SoCam, 1924.)

"Society" news began in spring 1925, with a single column featuring weddings, engagements, pinnings and club news. Later, it was expanded to a full page or more. In 1929, the Bruin's women's editor asked for gossip items to be placed in a "varnished wooden box . . . in the corner of the office" for a column to be called "The Chatter Box."
 

 Dealing entirely with the social life of the campus is a large order, especially when not only social sororities and fraternities, but honorary and professional organizations must be considered as well.

 From such ardent reading of the social page, it is evident that Joe College and his colleagues in front of the Library still believe that "A man is known by the company he keeps." (CDB, 10/28/29.)

A similar attitude was expressed in 1947 by Kay Petley, Joan Boggs and Polly Comstock, who wrote such columns as "Socially Speaking" (social activities), "It's a Date" (organizational parties) and "Ball 'n' Chain (engagements and pinnings): "Well, we do the society news because it's fun to know what's happening." (CDB, 1/27/47.)

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