By Wozzenheim
(AKA Hyam Plutzik)
In 1931, Hyam Plutzik wrote the below article for The Trinity Tripod, under the pseudonym Wozzenheim.
AGONY COLUMN
Trinity is a wonderful college, the best small college in the East. The students are
all he-men. The professors are all regular fellows and smoke pipes. The President
smokes a pipe. The Dean smokes a pipe with a bowl as big as Og, King of Bashan…
--by Wozzenheim, The Trinity Tripod, 20 November 1931
The thing that has been wrong with all the Tripod columnists in the past is the fact that they have been too radical. They have continually made slighting remarks about dear old alma mater, and have given vent to ideas that threaten the home, Church, and state. Why, the author of Quid Nunc is probably a lean, dark man who spends all his time in Jarvis Lab concocting bombs. ·As for the Bolshevist who writes those vicious things in Obire Oculis, he ought to drown himself in the sink in the Tripod room, or go right back to Russia. With these facts in mind we approached the Editor and said, "The duration of your editorship, Sir, has ·been marked by a series of vicious attacks, both on th·e part of yourself and your colleagues, against some of those very institutions which constitute one of the finest elements of life at Trinity. . . . " "Why do the h~athen so furiously rage together?" he answered brokenly, creasing his brow. "Yes," I continued, "for the amusement of the college as a whole, let the Editor be delivered of his radica1 invectives, and let the heresies of Quid Nunc succeed the impious utterances of Obire Oculis-and therefore, Sir, I have decided to edit a column to boost Trinity . , . . . " "Go ahead," he answered with a sabotagic leer, "and may you smother in the process." So now we begin our column. We shall tell only nice things about Trinity. We shall leave destructive criticism to the scofflaw who WJ'ites Quid Nunc. Now for the column: Trinity is a wonderful college, the bE:st small college in the East. The students are all he-men. The professors are all regular fellows and smoke pipes. The President smokes a pipe. The Dean smokes a pipe with a bowl as big as Og, King of Bashan. The janitors also smoke pipes, but they are beside the point. Trinity men have always be·en noted for prowess on the athletic field. In 1869 a Trinity baseball team made thirty runs against Yale (P. S. Yale made fcrty). In 1900 a Trinity football team beat C. C. N. Y. 99-0. Trinity is building the most beautiful ch~pel in the country. It will make Y::le and Princeton green with envy. In it the seats will face the center, after an old English custom, thus forcing the students to exercise their necks if they want to see the speakers. In this way spiritual and physical exercise will be combined, and it won't be necessary to build a new gym. All the students go to chapel with great avidity. The upper-classmen come in throngs to the freshman services, in spite of the fact that they get no credit for attending them. No one ever reads newspapers in chapel, as they do in other colleges. No one ever studies text-books in chapel. The fac:ulty members never come to chapel, because there is no room. They want to give the students a chance to get religion. Bolshevists are not condoned at Trinity, they are kicked. Trinity has a chem. lab. as sweetsmelling as the new-mown hay. It is called Jarvis Lab., and malicious persons have been making remarks about it. It is untrue that acids drip through the floor of the chem. lab. o11to the heads of the physics students bPlow. It is untrue that baldness has increased in the physics classes. The Trinity Library is well ventilated and has ~oft-volu ptuo s seats. Radios are squelch·ed. Musical instruments are prohibited after 8 p. m. Rudy Vallee comes on at 8 p.m. Few other colleges can boast of such a defense against crooners. A smart Trinity man once conceived a mighty plan-however, that's another story. In our next issue we will discuss the great Pshaw Affair, in which the honor of our football team is at stake.