The evening times. [volume] (Grand Forks, N.D.) 1906-1914, 1911-09-11
MILLIONAIRE
ARRA|GNS THE
UNIVERSITIES
Charges Alarming Prevalence
of Drinking and Gaming
Among Students
SAYS COLLEGES Do MORE
HARM THAN They Do GOOD
Big Eastern Institutions Named IN the
Castigation Which R. T. CraneI
Hands Out After Having Made an
investigation, He Says.

Chicago, Sept. 11.-R. T. Crane, mill
ifonaire iron manufacturer, made pub
Tic today an arraignment of the big
universities of the country. He
charges alarming prevalence of drink
ing and gaming among the students.
Columbia he ranks the worst, but con-
ditions at Harvard, Princeton and Cor
nell he declares are almost as bad.
OF the students at Harvard. ninety
per cent drink In their freshman year,
nlnety-llve per cent in their senior
year, and fifteen per cent of them go
lrretrievably to the bad, according to
tne report of an investigation which
Mr. Crane had made. Mr.. Crane has
spent much time and money putting
under scrutiny the results OF higher
or college education. So bitter is he
IN consequence, that he declares COL
leges do more harm than good. Mr..
Crane says in his report:
An outsider can scarcely realize
the amount of drinking that goes on
in the club rooms of the colleges. Re-
ferring particularly to Harvard, he
estimates the number of students who
combine in mild degree wine and
bad women as sixty-five per cent; who
drink heavily, thirty-five per cent, and
who also have two or three bats a
year, forty-five per cent.
II do not doubt that even worse
states of affairs exist at other col
leges. At Princeton it is beer. beer,
beer. The town is license, and the
body Of students, in my mind, drink
even more than Harvard men. On one
occasion l believe there must have
been more than 300 students dead
drunk. .,,..s. -
"At Yale drinking ia recognized in
so great degree that clubs have
their tables at the bar rooms. / was
never SO struck in my life as when
found New Haven the dissolute, de-
bauched and whiskey town that it is.
Some time ago the statement appeared
in O New Haven paper that there
were 1000 fallen women in that city.
"At Cornell the conditions are some
what the same, although believe Cor
nell students do not carry their ex-
cesses SO far as do boys at Princeton,
Yale and Cambridge. The. Cornell
boys are great on beer, as are also the
men at Princeton.
"At Columbia l believe there exists
more debauchery than at any other
college, on account Of its proximity
to the famous resorts Of the city, If
further proof be necessary, let ME
quote from a letter received from E.
c. Mercer, who is special secretary of
the association Of colleges of North
America. He is following this matter
up for the association, which shows
that 1t has taken upon itself the work
OF reforming college men. He is its
special agent and is visiting the col
leges and delivering lecture entitled
College Men / Have Met in the Slums
and Prisons of New York.
"He says: 4 did say and have writ
ten proof to back me up that I have
met personally and have heard from
the most reliable authorities of some
1000 college bred men in the slums
prison."
The rest of Mr.. Cranes report is a
story of drinking, immortality. brawl-
ing and reckless money spending. He
gives large number of examples and
says the proof is irrefutable.
The report, which is printed in the
current numbers of the Valve World,
owned by Mr.. Crane, describes un-
sparingly student dissipation, and is
q remorseless indictment of not only
the universities, but of the municipal
governments that permit such condi-
ItiOnS.