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Principal H. H. Cully of Glenville High School, Cleveland, arose to address his graduating class and their parents. Great was the latters' dismay when, as they awaited breathless to hear their children lauded as Splendid Examples of Young American Womanhood & Manhood, Principal Cully harshly, sarcastically denounced the entire class as a "scholastic failure," more than hinting that none deserved diplomas. Irate, one C. L. Simpson, citizen, wrote to a local newspaper that for at least twelve years Principal Cully (21% years at his post) had "handed" each Glenville graduating class, instead of a bouquet a "generous dose of satirical scoring." Citizen Simpson suggested a new type of speech for Mr. Cully: "People, I am incompetent."
Coincidence
Jumpers-at-conclusions said excitedly: "That's what comes of reading pessimistic philosophers. Education is being overdone."
Scaremongers whispered: "It's a wave, sweeping the colleges. . . . A club . . . the members make solemn compact."
Perhaps there was more in it than met the eye, but most people set the grim facts down to coincidence. "Explanations" by learned psychologists held little water beyond the obvious likelihood that one man's suicide might arrest the attention of another man who had contemplated suicide for himself.
The facts which seemed to some people a significant sequence were these:
1) In Aurora, Ill., on Jan. 2, Joseph N. Moore, 21, sophomore at the University of Illinois, wrote on a piece of paper, "I have experienced everything life has to offer, so I will try death," and killed himself with a revolver.
2) In Manhattan, also on Jan. 2, Rigby Wile, 16, sophomore at the University of Rochester, wrote on a piece of paper that life was "meaningless . . . futile," and killed himself with a rifle.
3) In Chicago, on Jan. 18, Garvey Jones, 26, medical student, wrote a letter to the girl who had refused to marry him, killed himself with a revolver.
4) In Madison, Wis., on Jan. 24, Walter Cassels Noe, premedical student at the University of Wisconsin, with whom Sophomore Moore (No. 1 above) had dined on New Year's Day, wrote on a piece of paper that he wanted to "find out how things are over there," and killed himself with a revolver. Members of his fraternity (Delta Kappa Epsilon) sat up two nights waiting in vain for a spirit message. Student Noe had promised: "I'll be back at midnight."
5) In New Haven, Conn., on Jan. 26, Richard Starr Untermeyer, 20, Yale sophomore, son of Poet-Critic Louis Untermeyer, read a letter from his mother (Poetess Jean Starr Untermeyer) deploring the repeated overdraft of his bank balance and teling him he must improve or leave college—and hanged himself.
6) In Ann Arbor, Mich., on Jan. 27, Henry R. Kasson, 22, junior in the University of Michigan, who had lately suffered concussion of the brain in a motor smash, wrote out a check and a letter (explaining nothing) for his roommate, opened his copy of Dante's Inferno, drank acid and died.
"Inadvisable"