The news & observer. [volume] (Raleigh, N.C.) 1894-current, 1905-09-17
College Story as Foil to
M'Cown Case.
WAS A MIGHTY FIGHT
How Future Judge Whipped Whole
Sophomore Class for Seeking to
Hang Him in EffigY and Forgot
Life lime Habit to ''Cuss
Them Blue

mem Blue.
| The friends of Judge George w.
Ward are recalling these days with
| mingled admiration and amusement an
incident of his college career at Wake
Forest in which, under proVocation,
he exhibited a rage which tore him
like whirlwind splits a cloud, and
| likewise carried before it with the
| same ease and intensity all the human
timber that was unfortunate enough
to get in it's path.
TO this day that unWritten hisory OF
] big events which is the scroll which
student must learn before he becomes
a sophomore, contains at Wake Forest
no more dramatic a tale than the
anger of George w. Ward and the
record that he made as a man full Of
big fight The story of the day of
his Indignation and the record of his
achievements is to the college tradi-
tons like the dOings of an Ajax or the
mighty cuttings of Hector and Achilles
when they came together on the Tro
jan plains. Indeed, there is something
epic about the fight of Senior Ward
with the sophomore class and the
truth is very much in sober earnest
of a sort similar to those tabled en-
Oh TIE dHClCul heroes WIFI
serried ranks of enemies, or the
valiant Cyrano master of a hundred
fOotpads,
Reading of the assault upon the
Judge by Nose McCoWn, of Durham,
all those who knew him In his student
days reflected on his quiet demeanor
with amazement. Had the report
been that McCoWn had struck the
Judge and that George w. Ward had
turned and demolished his assailant
these old friends would have smiled
reminiscenty and said they could
have told you So" AS it was, they
tell the story to the increase of their
wonder; and in the telling two things
come to the surface Of thought con-
vincngly:
That Judge Ward is very much a
man as is reckoned of one who is not |
afraid to strike and able to play havoc |
when he turns loose; that, too, he |
knows that he is a judge to a degree |
which enables him to fall upon a re- |
straint which, considering his nature, |
is almost uncanny in its conscientious |
ness.
When, with the blow of McCown |
singing his ear, the Judge turned |
quietly without a word and walked !
away. did a vision come before his !
eyes of his student days when, a figure |
blazing with life and his temples |
throbbing with enort, he fought his |
way into college history against odds |
of fifty to one? How the nails must !
have dug into the palms of the hand
remembering that he was no longer |
George w. Ward, but the Court! No |
wonder his friends gasped when they |
read the issue of the assault!
But to get to the college story.
The Hero of the College.
George w. Ward came to college late
in life. He had been out in the world |
at work. He had performed humble |
tasks, had labored with his hands that
he might win the money for his ambi-
ton. He came to college poorly pre-
pared, unframed to study, leaning |
only on a logged will. Poor and ILL
equipped work that others did easily |
he at first accomplished with an agony
that he himself has now perhaps for
gotten. Slowly, yet with thorough
ness that other students did not know,
he sucked the college dry. what 1T had
to teach, the ideals it espoused, the |
dignity that hung about it as an in
stitution. All these things the future
Judge absorbed till they were a part
of himself. When his senior year ar
rived his greater age, his studious
habits, the gentle gravity of his voice,
combined with his immense physique
to set him in a class apart from the
body of the students They admired
and loved him. He was the high pat
tern of the college. Testing, the stu
dents followed him, listened to his
words.
Father Anchises" they called him
for the virtue of his walk and the
finality of his opinions.
George Washington" they dubbed
him for the quality of his patriotism
and the value of his word.
Respected and beloved, Senior
Ward moved about the small circle
of the college world having things
much his own way and confident that
his way was right. No man was purer
slower to anger. a psychologist might
have detected the volcano under The
quiet of his breast; to the college. the
revelation was staggering.
One Spring there was an election in
the literary society and, controlling
politics as it suited him to do for the
good of the college as he saw it. Senior
Ward was instrumental in securing the
election to a college honor of a student
who to certain faction, seemed un-
fitted to the post. To this cause the
sophomore class attributed their rest
lessness which was squirming for re-
volt. They commenced to abuse the
Senior Ward, they called him names
that went from one end of the campus
to another, they adopted resolutions.
nagged in the hope of getting a rise
from the calm and studious man.
Through all this Judge Ward went an
unruff1ed way, showing no sign.
Finally, the sophomores determined to
hang him in effigy. So simple was
the plan that they announced it pre-
viously, even selecting the tree. And
then they got the rise they had tried
for Perhaps it was the final straw to
restraint perhaps there was some pc
culiar thing about an effigy which
stung the Judge in unknown ways.
At any rate he made announcements:
that was an outrage which he would
not permit. The sOphomores, in high
glee went on merrily with their prep
arations. Outside the building. await
ing them, stood Senior Ward The
sophomores marked him as he stood
and laughed. Presently they came
down, fifty of them.
"A Fight That Will Live.