According to the Oxford English Dictionary, Hazing is “a species of brutal horseplay practiced on freshmen at some American Colleges.” For nearly thirty years from the Pre-WWII era until the 1960’s, Wheaton College was no exception to this tradition. The rivalry between the incoming freshman and sophomore classes arose from parties thrown in the 1920’s to actually honor the freshman by the sophomores. In 1933 the Student Council approved “organized torture for the incoming classes.” The sophomore class would elect people to the “sophomore courts” which had the authority to summon freshman who were not following the rules. Punishment for failing to obey the regulations was originally twenty swats with a bare hand. However, as time went on, these punishments became less severe. Any freshman who did not participate in the system lost their privilege to be involved with class activities.

According to Freshman Hazing Rules listed in the Fall 1941 Record:

1. Dinks must be worn at all times except on Sunday and Friday evenings after 6:30 p.m.
2. Badges sold by the sophomore class must be worn at all times except Sunday and Friday evenings.
3. The following walks must not be used by freshman: between Williston and the Gym; between Williston and Blanchard; between Blanchard and the Gym; and the back entrance to the Stupe.
4. Keep off all grass on the entire campus.
5. At command “ATTENTION” given by a sophomore, the response is to simultaneously button with one hand and salute with the other and click the heels.
6. At command “BLITZKRIEG,” a white handkerchief knotted at each end, must be thrown in the air and caught on the head.
7. On Wednesdays, carry books in wastepaper basket. Boys will also carry whisk brooms and cloths to perform valet services for any upper classmen.
8. On Thursdays, both boys and girls must wear all clothes backwards, including dress shirts worn by boys. Walk backwards on campus. Girls’ hair must be in pigtails.
9. On Fridays, girls must wear one dress shoe with sock and one saddle shoe with stocking. Boys must wear clothes inside out, with one pant leg rolled to the knee.
10. On Saturdays, girls wear hair in curlers and war dresses and boys wear bow ties with crew neck shirts.

Carl Sandburg (1878-1967), Illinois poet laureate, collector of songs and Pulitzer Prize-winning Lincoln biographer, resided in Elmhurst, Illinois, from 1919-30, writing for several Windy City newspapers, notably the legendary Chicago Daily News. After three productive, happy decades living in Illinois and Michigan, he moved in 1945 with his family to North Carolina where his wife, Paula, raised award-winning goats on their farm, “Connemara.” There he continued writing poetry and his one novel, Remembrance Rock, in addition to traveling the country, playing his guitar and singing American ballads. Renowned as both felicitious wordsmith and exhaustive researcher, he was hired by 20th Century Fox in 1961 to work on the script for director George Stevens’s biblical epic, The Greatest Story Ever Told. (Stevens also directed The Diary of Ann Frank.) The film, released in 1965, features Max von Sydow, Angela Lansbury, Shelly Winters, John Wayne, Roddy McDowell, Charlton Heston, Donald Pleasence, Sidney Poitier and Telly Savalas – truly an “all star cast.”

While in Hollywood, Sandburg received an inquiry from a Mr. Wood, who evidently asked about the author’s relationship to Wheaton College. Typing on a sheet of “George Stevens Productions” letterhead, Sandburg responds on May 10, 1962: “Dear Mr. Wood: Along late in the coming autumn my schedule for 1962 will be in the making. When residing in Elmhurst I rode all around Wheaton on a bicycle and have an old neighborly feeling about Wheaton College. Sincerely, Carl Sandburg.”

Though Sandburg receives screen credit for “creative association,” his exact contribution to the project is not fully known. He received the job on the recommendation of Ray Bradbury, who declined the studio’s request that he write the script. Sandburg, born in Galesburg, Illinois, where Wheaton’s first president, Jonathan Blanchard, also served as president of Knox College, wrote in his autobiography, Always the Young Stranger, a rather unflattering portrait of the ever-crusading Blanchard, describing him as “…not one bigot but several.” He felt that Blanchard’s influence, which wasn’t cast in any positive sense, was present for decades after his departure, so much so that one could almost “catch the ghost of him.” To Sandburg Blanchard was the amalgam of a lion, bear and buffalo, and possibly half horse and half alligator!

Sandburg died in 1967. His ashes are interred beneath a boulder called “Remembrance Rock” in the backyard of his childhood home in Galesburg.