Underground drinking at cornell during prohibition and today
By Becky OchsThe drinking culture at Cornell has recently come under great scrutiny by the administration; however, student drinking—whether legal or illegal—has a long history at this university, as do attempts by trustees and the administration to stop it and attempts by students to rebel. There have been many unfavorable reactions to changes in university policies regarding underage students and alcohol, along with creative measures taken to flout those new regulations. This unfavorable reaction to crackdowns on alcohol use is nothing new to Ithaca, and particularly nothing new to Cornell.
Drinking was not common at Cornell until around 1900, and even then it was fairly moderate. According to Morris Bishop’s “A History of Cornell,” beer taps in the early 1900s “flowed only downtown, and mostly on Saturday nights, as a ceremonial observance of athletic victory.” Although it may seem as if we have departed from this custom, if “morning” is substituted for “night” and “loss” for “victory,” then Bishop’s description of drinking at Cornell in the 1900s is not unlike our Homecoming traditions today. This spirited atmosphere prevailed at Cornell for over a decade, but student life changed drastically and arguably for the worse after WWI.
A somber mood took over campus after the war, and Romeyn Berry criticized the new seriousness in the Alumni News for February 4, 1926: “Nothing makes them mad except their inability to find a desired book in the Library. They… take life too seriously. They are good because it is too much trouble to be bad.” Others lamented the pre-war spirit, particularly the imbibing of spirits. In the Alumni News for April 23, 1931, an alumnus wrote, “No more do the better students chant their Alma Mater in a happy trance; they sing from the side of the mouth, with the air of cynical priests of old Egypt… No more do torch bearers by the thousand escort departing teams with pomp; no more do inebriates walk to streets.” Notice that this alumnus highlights the “happy trance” (read: buzzed/tipsy/downright drunk enthusiasm) of those singing the Alma Mater, and even describes them as the “better students.” Additionally, the lack of inebriates in the streets is conveyed as a negative, rather than positive, change. In a similar vein, imagine Lynah Rink without the exuberance of the animated—and, yes, often inebriated—faithful singing in that “happy trance.” The austerity hanging over the hill was not only characterized by a focus on erudition, but also by the resulting lack of liveliness and enthusiasm inspired by athletics and the “ceremonious” drinking that followed (or preceded). Therefore, Prohibition, which came to Ithaca slightly earlier that it did to the nation as a whole, only exacerbated this crabby campus mood.
(art by Laura Van Winkle)
According to an article by Paula Fuchsberg and Linda Roubik in an issue of The Cornell Daily Sun from November 10, 1978, the city of Ithaca—once conservative, believe it or not—voted to go dry in 1918, two years before the 18th Amendment prohibited alcohol nationwide, and for a brief period of time, this practice was faithfully observed. Some embraced these changes and lauded the improved atmosphere that the decline in liquor consumption facilitated. In “1920’s: Prohibition Forces Cornell Drinking Underground,” Fuchsberg and Roubik quote O.D. Von Engein, noting that in 1924 times had “happily changed” since pre-Prohibition and that a wild night of self-indulgence now consisted of an evening at the movies. Others gladly altered lyrics to “Give My Regards to Davy,” Cornell’s main fight song, in order to promote Prohibition-friendly, non-alcoholic thoughts. Written by three brothers of Beta Theta Pi Fraternity in 1905, the song celebrates the gusto of a fictional student who was expelled for overindulging in drinking. So as not to applaud an individual for boozing to the point of expulsion (a feat which, as anyone who has ever experienced a Group Therapy hangover can attest, requires impressive stamina), lines such as “We’ll all have drinks at Theodore Zincks” and “lapping up a high highball” were changed to “Oh! we’ll all write a berry in the old Wisterie” and “Listening to the jazz band’s call”.
While I personally have no idea what “writing a berry in the old Wisterie” refers to, it sounds significantly less appealing—and certainly less exciting—than having drinks at Theodore Zincks’, a pub owned by Ithaca’s most famous and most popular tavern owner. In today’s terms, post-Friday night hockey game victory socializing at Level B would be replaced with something akin to playing Monopoly with Denice Cassaro (or whatever the modern equivalent of that line would be). Additionally, advertisements for local saloons that previously littered the pages of The Sun disappeared and were replaced by those for local theatres in an attempt to promote those livin’-on-the-edge nights at the movies Von Engein was so fond of.
Although these changes attempted to replace all tastes for debauchery among the Cornell community with more wholesome inclinations, nostalgia for the drunken cheer before Prohibition proved more powerful. In “A History of Cornell,” Morris Bishop describes the actions of the first dissenters: “The elders set the example, infringing the law to satisfy old cravings or out of mere bravado. Noisome brews bubbled in many a professorial cellar. Jolly journeys were made to the wine country westward, where gallon jugs were passed out of vineyardists’ back doors.” Following the example of these adventuresome professors, many Cornell students began to rebel against the amendment, blatantly expressing their objections. For example, The Widow, a humor magazine at the time, featured a “statistical table” in its April 1921 issue, mocking the effect Prohibition realistically had on the conduct of Cornell students. The table read:
Total registration of men in the University – 3,462
Number who would take a drink – 3,450
Number studying for the ministry – 12
Others expressed their disregard for the law through their actions; while fraternities had hitherto respected the no-liquor rule, they soon abandoned it for more lively parties. Bishop writes, “Previously drinking and dancing had been rigorously separated; now they were blent, and even the girls had their nips from the boys’ hip flasks,” highlighting the changing culture at fraternity dances. Some students took advantage of the financial opportunity outlawing booze provided and made a go of it as bootleggers. The profits from the alcohol, which bootlegger students purchased in downtown Ithaca and then resold to fraternities, were substantial enough to fund their entire Cornell tuition, suggesting a blatant and widespread disregard for Prohibition.
In typical Cornell fashion, other students turned to their respective disciplines for inspiration on how to circumvent the law. According to Fuchsberg and Roubik, chemistry majors made beer using lab equipment, strategically brewing their own concoctions with vaporizers over school breaks when they knew faculty would not check the equipment. These brews were made with malt and yeast, but no hops; according to a home-brewer Bishop knew, the hops is superfluous because it does nothing to the alcohol content of the beer and “just makes it taste good.” The Chemies also partook in illegally concocting hard liquor. Most commonly, they relabeled clear bottles of ethyl alcohol as “cleaning fluid,” after mixing the contents with juniper juice and glycerin, thereby creating a type of gin. Although these handmade concoctions were often repulsive, they did the trick.
(art by Laura Van Winkle)
Given their willingness to imbibe awful tasting beverages, Cornellians during Prohibition prove not unlike students today. I’m sure there are numerous individuals on campus (myself included) who have had a shot of Barton’s vodka or a can of Keystone Light, all the while wishing they had no taste buds, then continued to indulge in several more despite the admittedly horrible taste. Just like the homemade gin and home-brewed beer in the 1920s, these drinks are terrible, yet we still drink them because they are cheap, available, and most importantly, intoxicating. And hey—at least Keystone has hops.
In response to these rebellious attitudes and behaviors, the Alumni News in 1921 commented, “This community has awakened to the realization that the young person of the present day no longer follows mid-Victorian standards of deportment. It has become aware that the combined elements of totally undisciplined stags, jazz music, synthetic spirits, and powerless chaperones form an unstable compound. It has discovered that the gin man is almost as regular and faithful as the milkman.” By interpreting the thoughts of this writer for the Alumni News as a comment on young Cornellians of our present day, it seems as though the “powerless chaperones” from the 20s could have learned a thing or two from today’s Sober Monitors.
In an attempt to deal with the disobedient youth, discipline those unruly stags, and weaken the gin man’s spirits, the student council, along with trustees, “demanded enforcement of antiliquor rules in fraternities, the abolition of uncontrolled fraternity dances, and the persuasion of visiting alumni to keep sober,” according to Bishop. However, despite ending fraternity dances and holding the Greek system to standards that aligned with state laws, University policies ultimately had little effect on the overall drinking culture among students. In fact, Bishop tells us that matters got steadily worse, “in Cornell as in the great world without.” Whether “comic or tragic,” there were numerous instances of “drunken brawls and misbehavior [and] of alcohol begotten accidents,” a scene that is not unique to the 20s. On a given Friday or Saturday night in Collegetown, there are still “drunken brawls” and “alcohol begotten accidents,” the most comic (and my personal favorite) of which occur on Halloween or during Ithaca’s winter months. To cite two memorable examples, there was once a fight between a guy in a cow costume and another dressed as a butcher on Halloween, and there was my own tumble down some icy stairs on College Avenue that resulted in the ejection of a stolen—er, borrowed—handle of Admiral Nelson’s from the safety of my jacket and disapproving looks from the individuals it belonged to. Based on the trends in the 20s, as fraternities become more limited in hosting parties, I only see the prevalence of these brawls and accidents in Collegetown increasing.
While many administrators during Prohibition did attempt to end the consumption of alcohol entirely, some trustees saw the benefits of the presence of illicit brews. “Strength and decision of character are tested only by temptation,” said Cuthbert W. Pound, Class of 1887 and John L. Senior, Class of 1901, in their alumni trustee report for 1928, claiming “until the temptations of college life have been met, one may not easily decide who will stand and who will fall.” Bishop had an interesting response to this claim, arguing, “One might conclude that if no temptation was available, it would be the University’s duty to provide it.”
Based on these documents, along with recent debates on campus regarding drinking and Greek life, there are clear parallels between actions and statements of University officials, as well as responses and behaviors of students, from the 20s and today. Currently, the administration continues to constrain fraternities’ abilities to have open parties and to prohibit freshman from going to them at all. Given these restrictions, where are the alternatives that allow students to learn and build character by making good choices? Additionally, if abolishing fraternity dances in the 20s failed to ameliorate the situation, despite the fact that alcohol was outlawed entirely in the United States, how do these decisions hope to prevent “drunken brawls” and “alcohol begotten accidents” when alcohol is easily accessible? According to Susan Murphy, vice president for student and academic services, even the proposed alternative of a campus pub sparks concerns. Remembering her time at Cornell during the early 70s in a November 18, 2010 issue of The Sun, she said, “Back when the drinking age was 18 we had behavior problems,” continuing to explain her hesitance, having been on campus when there were pubs.
Based on the previous statements from the 1921 Alumni News, however, “behavior problems” exist regardless of the drinking age and the presence of pubs on campus. Moreover, these “problems” are entirely subjective. While I can say with near certainty that “undisciplined stags” and “jazz music” were not what Susan Murphy was referring to when she made this statement, those exact things were considered quite threatening problems 90 years ago. Considering that in the 1920s, 70s, and the present day the administration has seen “behavior problems” among students regardless of whether alcohol was illegal for those under 18, under 21, or outlawed entirely, it seems that the problem is not alcohol, but rather the fact that Cornell’s campus has consistently been inhabited by thousands of 18-22 year olds, newly free from parental supervision and only beginning to learn how to make their own decisions. The student body consists of an age group which is learning to embrace adulthood while still fully enjoying the perks of having minimal responsibility in life. Furthermore, according to Bishop, “Drinking has always been a problem among students, free for the first time to experiment with delights hitherto forbidden.” Based on this statement, it appears that student drinking will continue to be an issue as long as alcohol continues to exist.
While I am not advocating that the administration accept a campus full of binge drinkers, I do hope to bring attention to the fact that by nature of the American college experience, college students are going to drink whether it is legal or not. University attempts to minimize drinking, particularly through strict regulations of the Greek system, have historically and consistently failed to change this phenomenon. In that sense, perhaps it would be better to accept that the University is powerless to rework the existing drinking culture by repressing it, and it should focus instead on facilitating safe and educated drinking practices.
Although there have always been Cornellians who take life way too seriously (that kid who only gets upset about his “inability to find a desired book in the library” in 1926 can still be seen from time to time on the verge of hyperventilating in the Olin stacks), there have also always been Cornellians simply looking to enjoy the finer (or cheaper) spirits in life. Whether brewing beer in chemistry, vaporizing equipment, smuggling vodka into a Cornell Concert Commission show in Barton Hall, or drinking while underage on University property, it seems as though students at Cornell will always find a way to disobey the laws, rules, or regulations imposed on us. In the wise words of a 1921 editor of The Sun, “There never was a time in the history of Cornell or any other university when students did not drink—and it is pretty safe to say there never will be.” In the 90 years that have passed since then, Ithaca has seen Prohibition enacted and repealed and the drinking age changed from 18 to 21, but that statement still holds true. Sorry, Susan Murphy, but I think he got it right.
(art by Laura Van Winkle)