Fraternity "Hazing"—New Style

In the not-too-distant past, the sight of Dartmouth fraternity pledges armed with paint and brushes, advancing on a small house on the river's edge in Lewiston, would have sent neighbors to the telephone to put in a hurry call for the police. Last fall a new advance in campus civilization was reached when pledges from Gamma Delta Chi and Delta Upsilon peaceably crossed the river to paint, inside and out, the 25-year-old house of Cummings Murdock, aged 79. Partially crippled, he has been unable to work at a job or fix his house up for some time.

Mrs. Evelyn Reside, housemother for Gamma Delta Chi, had heard about Murdock's plight from neighbors. She inquired at the fraternity about the feasibility of asking members of the Dartmouth Christian Union to help put Murdock's home into better shape. Someone suggested that the project would be a good one for pledges. The DU's heard of the scheme and asked to be in on it.

"Those boys were wonderful," Cummings Murdock said in an interview with a Valley News reporter, after seeing his small house change almost beyond recognition before his eyes. "My house had never been painted. They came in here and scrubbed the ceilings and floors and set to work painting the three rooms. Then another bunch showed up and began painting the outside. It was almost too much to believe."

After the job was well under way, the pledge painters were having such a good time that more and more men from the fraternities came to "supervise" and wound up by taking the paint brushes away from the pledges. One of the latter said, "It's a wonderful feeling to take part in a thing like that. You have to do it yourself to experience it."

A neighbor who had also come to supervise said approvingly, "It's a lot more sensible than having a boy go chasing off to Boston to steal somebody's garter!"

Pointing with his pipe, Cummings Murdock, 79-year-old Lewiston resident, shows a neighbor his "new" house, painted by pledges of Gamma Delta Chi and Delta Upsilon. With him are some of the student workers and Mrs. Evelyn Reside (second from left), Gamma Delt house mother.