The Southwestern Historical Quarterly, Volume 60, July 1956 - April, 1957 Page: 212
616 p. : ill. (some col.), maps, ports. ; 23 cm.View a full description of this periodical.
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Southwestern Historical Quarterly
Football was the most powerful integrating factor in student
life and served also as a bond between the somewhat indifferent
taxpayers and their institution. But facilities for it, particularly
a gymnasium with lockers for the players, were a long time com-
ing. The main reason was the shortage of money, but also influen-
tial was the argument that football was too dangerous. Opponents
of the game called forth statistics to show the number killed and
injured in it, and made dire predictions as to the expected fatal-
ities if the University fostered the sport. But the faculty in this,
as in other matters, was tolerant. If the students could get the
money for sports, that was fine. By November of 1895 the team
had a manager and, for a good start, soundly beat both Dallas
and Tulane. When the season ended in February, the future of
football was secure. Bob Harrison's Barber Palace advertised.
"Foot Ball. If you want to get your Hair Cut in the 'Varsity or
Foot Ball Style, go to Bob Harrison's ...."21
John was not enthusiastic about football, nor about the social
activities of the fraternity he joined shortly after enrolling. But
Phi Delta Theta gave this ambitious newcomer a group of sympa-
thetic companions, and he was to make some of his best friends
there: Rhodes Baker, Eugene C. Barker, Roy Bedichek, Tom
Connally, and Ed Miller. John generally chose to devote his spare
moments to organizations with a serious purpose: the West Texas
Club; the Y.M.C.A., where he shortly obtained the offices of cor-
responding secretary and chairman of the Educational Commit-
tee; the Rusk Literary Society, which met Saturday nights on the
third floor of the Main Building to hear papers and debates.
Thanks to the attraction of football and the dullness of the gen-
eral run of papers, all three of the literary societies were rapidly
declining in importance when John entered the University, but
they still had a nominal prestige and joined in publishing a
monthly magazine, the Texas University. The Alcalde, the student
weekly, was independently sponsored, while the school annual,
the Cactus, was produced by the University as a whole. In the
second term of his first year, John had his first article published
in the Texas University, a four-page essay entitled "William Law-
2Alcalde, March 28, 1896, p. 2.212
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Texas State Historical Association. The Southwestern Historical Quarterly, Volume 60, July 1956 - April, 1957, periodical, 1957; Austin, Texas. (https://texashistory.unt.edu/ark:/67531/metapth101163/m1/233/: accessed April 24, 2024), University of North Texas Libraries, The Portal to Texas History, https://texashistory.unt.edu; crediting Texas State Historical Association.