Students Routed Mounted Police in Big Political Riot 20 Years Ago by Holding Flaming Torches Under Horses

"Bunk". Thus Captain Brennan of the Harvard Square Police Station termed the declarations of a Boston paper that the torchlight procession of University students next Thursday night would be accompanied by any form of rioting. The paper in question had vividly described the police as polishing up rusty riot guns, releading and cleaning their night sticks and greasing the "Black Maria" in anticipation of a rushing business on Thursday night.

"In the first place", said the captain, "the police force is always ready to cope with any situation. We have no need for polishing our riot guns, as they are not rusty; and the patrol wagon has always been and still is in good running order. While we are always ready, we seldom have to act, because the rank and file of Harvard students are quiet and law abiding.

Students Break Strangely Few Laws

"We seldom make arrests among the students. They break the laws very infrequently. The strange thing is that there is so little trouble with the student body of five thousand active young men, away from home and surrounded by the influences of life in a large city.

"The only thing that has ever caused any large amount of trouble has been the parking of cars. Drunkenness among the students is negligible; we have made only a very few arrests on that charge. As to the rioting which is expected to result when the students parade the streets--it's all bunk. There never has been any serious trouble, and I don't think there ever will be. I have been on the force for over 30 years and during that time we have had no trouble in Cambridge with the students on election night yet. So long as they have a permit to parade, we do not care how much they enjoy themselves, provided they keep within the bounds of reason. In dealing with students the police have always been inclined to be lenient rather than severe, but if it should be necessary for us to act, we will act promptly and forcefully."

Evidently the Boston police have not found students so quiet and peaceful, judging from the description of a riot occurring there some twenty years ago and mentioned by Captain Brennan.

M. I. T. Battles With Harvard

It seems that about a thousand students from M. I. T. and the University were having torchlight parades in Boston, and for some unaccountable reason met and began to fight. While the students were lustily battering each other with their torches and whatever weapons were at hand, the police arrived.

At that time the officers were mounted, and from their positions above the crowd, they were working havoc among the student combatants. The students were quite dismayed at this unexpected attack, but only for a moment until one of the men was inspired with a brilliant idea and held the torch which he was carrying underneath a horse. The animal reared and threw its rider to the ground.

Retire Over Bridge to Safely

The rest of the students quickly followed suit, and the police retired in temporary disorder. In a moment they returned on foot and shortly succeeded in clubbing the men into submission. Most of the University students escaped by crossing the bridge into Cambridge, out of the jurisdiction of the Boston policemen. The others, Tech students, whose school was at that time in Boston, were not so fortunate and were captured in large numbers.

The affair raised quite a scandal at the time, and many of the officers were demoted for allowing it to develop so far without interference.

"But", the Captain remarked in closing, "those were the days before prohibition."