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P: Adeliade.
L: Adelaide said that when they found out and finished out,
Dr. Murphree says, "How could I have been blind for so
long?"
P: So the student protest, then, was legitimate and justified.
L: Yes, and justified. But now I,. personally, had no
relationship with the sports program. They merely pushed
me into the job of presenting the petition.
P: You were talking about'the Alligator, and E'd like to know
something about that. Where were the Alligator offices, for
instance?
L: In the basement of the old Language Hall, now Anderson Hall.
Down at the east end, right at the end. There, and
downtown in the offices of the Pepper Printing Company. We
had a little room about half the size of this room with some
typewriters. I got involved in the Alligator the first year
and Ispent a lot of my time in the Alligator office instead of
the library. The second year, my sophomore year, I spend a great
deal of time putting the paper together, proofreading, taking
the stories to be typed up by the linotypers, and rewriting
stories that were turned in. The experience was very valuable
to me, but Ithink I could have used the time much better in
the library, but I didn't know it at that time.
P: What positions did you hold on the Alligator?
L: In 1923 I was merely a reporter. I'm not sure that they gave
me any staff position in 1924-25, but I was rather busy with
the Alligator and I remember taking all the stories down
to the Gainesville Sun office and waiting until the paper
was run off. Reading proof down there in the office, in 1924.
The officers of the Alligator were elected at that time. The
editor-in-chief was elected, and then he appointed a managing
editor, and the managing editor would appoint the other people.
The editor-in-chief was Gerald Bea, who's in the law school, and
I don't ever remember seeing him in the Alligator office.
Then therewas a fraternity brother of Gerald who was the
managing editor. He just let me run the paper, which was
perhaps his mistake, because I was on the Alligator staff