H I r rn r CO UNIVERSITY ARCHIVES University of California Berkeley 1869-1917 The Center of University Life for Fifty Years. North Hall Farewell ALUMNI, FACULTY, MEMBERS^ GRADUATING CLASS, AND FRIENDS OF THE UNIVERSITY OF CALIFORNIA WILL PARTICIPATE IN A CEREMONIAL FAREWELL TO THE HISTORIC BUILDING FOLLOWING THE Commencement Luncheon THE LUNCHEON WILL BE HELD IN THE FACULTY GLADE IN STRAWBERRY CANYON AT 12:30 P.M., ON COMMENCEMENT DAY Wednesday, May 16, 1917 The usual speakers' programme will be omitted. After the annual business meeting of the California Alumni Association the assemblage will form in procession, and led by the band, will march through the Campus to North Hall Steps, where the farewell ceremonies will be conducted. The wreckers will begin the destruction and the pilgrimage will proceed to Wheeler Hall where a reception and reunion will take place. Annual Meeting of Alumni Association which will take place at the luncheon will consist of the election of officers and a review of the annual reports. The enclosed luncheon ticket should be returned at once, accompanied by check covering same, at price of 75 cents a plate. Special reunions will ~be held by the Classes of 1877, 1879, 1892, 1897, 1901, 1907, 1912, MAY 14, 1931 1UA I 1*, ItftiJ. SLY PR( V. C. North Hall Corner Stone Rites Recall Past 'Old Grads' Present Relics of 1873 Are Brought to Life as BERKELEY, May 14. The past has come to lire at the University of California. Events of the Eastbay of 58 years ago were revealed with examination of time-dimmed news- papers and records unearthed yes- terday in the cornerstone of old North hall, campus building re- cently wrecked. Opening of the cornerstone was an informal, merry affeir attend- ed -by many oi tne oldest "grads" of the university, some of the youngest alumni, and President Robert Gordon Sproul and other university officials. It was a feat- ure of the program of the sixty- eight commencement day of the state institution. Several hundred "old grads" and other guests held their breath in anticipation while President Sproul, dropping all official dignity and becoming just "Bob" Sproul of the class of 1913, heaved on a chain hoist and lifted the granite block above the cornerstone. COPPER BOX REVEALED His efforts revealed the copper box which was placed In the build- ing on May 3, 1873, when its con- struction was begun. And the ef- forts of Professor Emeritus Ed- mund O'Neill, graduate of the class of 1879 and veteran educator of the university, revealed the con- tents of the box. His chisfel and hammer opened the corner stone, and there were yellowed newspapers, pictures, and university registers which had been put there when Professor O'Neill was "Eddie," just one of 150 un- dergraduates on the then isolated campus. In the box were more than a dozen newspapers of May 3, 1873, a "half dime" dated 1869, a medal- lion bearing the names of the 12 members of the class of 1873, uni- versity registers of 1869, '71 and '73, and several undergraduate publications of that day. The biggest laugh the watching crowd had was when Judge Everett J. Brown of Oakland, graduate in 4897, held aloft a small booklet taken from the cornerstone and announced its title, "Rights and | Conditions of Women, a woman's suffrage tract containing the ser- mon of the Rev. Samuel J. May." Indian battles in Modoc county, the death of Congressman Brooks, a Mississippi tornado, and police court and Alameda grand jury re- ports were the leading stories in the newspapers. INDIAN WAR NEWS. Under the heading, "This Morn- ing's Dispatches," 0:1^ n^v^paper told "the latest from Modoc coun- ty," and of the expected arrival of Gen. Jeff C. Davis, who would lead the fight against the Indians. Clas- sified advertisements on page one of the paper included those of wine and liquor stores, portable gas machines for sale, and one that announced that the advertiser would "whiten buildings." Another story told of the trou- bles of Constable Enright of Liver- more, who walked about town all night "to satisfy the whim" of his prisoner, an "inoffensive man who was unfortunately under the influ- ence of liquor at the time:" Liver- more had no "lock up" at the time, and the constable's walk was to keep the prisoner happy while he awaited a hearing before Justice Freeman, the story said. Papers in the corner stone In- cluded the Daily Alta Californian, the Oakland Daily Transcript, The San Francisco Chronicle, the Daily Morning Call, the Overland Monthlv. which "dealt with the prnent of the country," the is; Bulletin, the Oakland Home Journal and Alameda Coun- ty Advertiser, the Oakland Daily News and the Evening Torch Sale, for $25,000, of a parcel of land to George O'Nara Taaffee, Danish consul, was announced by Captain J. D. Farwell in one of the papers. The land, in Alameda near Park street, sold at $2400 an acre, the story said. A note left In the copper box said that George Miller and his family had a "M. E. Sunday school picnic" on the site of North hall the day the corner stone "to stand for many hundreds of years" was laid. Professor O'Neill. In an address at the ceremony, told how he stood "in trepidation on this spr years ago, when he took his uni- versity entrance examinations in North hall, then one of the two buildings on the campus. FEW FARMS, FACTORY. "Toward Oakland then," h^ "there were only a few farms. To- ward the bay there was one fac- tory, which served its pu when we sent freshmen there to seek the recorder. And around here there were only the brown hills." The age of North hall and the vouth of President Sproul, n-- mphasized by Judge Brown, ho introduced the president for his address at the exercises. "When North hall was sagging as much as it e\ - I, and when its walls and bannisters bore as many carved initials as they could hold, there was born li Francisco the man who is now president of the University of Cali- "ornia," he declared. Dr. /Sproul, in his address, urged he alumni to unite in support of their alma mater. Their organized efforts, he said, would aid in the university in times of stress such as that which recently occurred in the state legislature. Other leaders at the exercises were Sumner Mering, councilor of the Alumni association; Robert Sibley, executive manager of the association; J. C. Rowell, graduate 4 and librarian emeritus of the university; Theodore Morgan, senior class president; Stern Alt- shuler and Ruth Waldo, retiring president and vice president, res- pectively, of the student body. NORTH HAL M P O A IN L O L R B A R vg R Commencement 1931