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chairman of the Beefsteak Club at the beginning of the
year. Nobody nominated me, said anything about it.
They elected somebody else and it was over with. I was
out. Then I found out that my fraternity had sent
somebody else in my place to represent the fraternity. I
was just completely out.
P: You had turned everybody off as a result of what you had
done.
L: I turned everybody off. During the year, I remember a meeting
Preston Bishop of Pike fraternity, two years ahead of me,
told me that when he was a freshman, he marked the student
ballots all night. Theinext day, election day, it was
arranged for the ballots that were cast by the student body
to be taken out, and the ones that he helped to mark that night
be put in the box in the place of it. So he said we knew the
exact number of votes each candidate would get. And set it up
like that. By that time I was about ready to revolt, as you
could see, and especially when they voted me out of the
Beefsteak Club like that. That's how I got involved with
the other group. They invited me to join them, and invited
me to be chairman, and I refused that job and took the
vice-chairmanship and Bob Parker, here in Tallahassee, and
lawyer, was the chairman. So we put together. a ticket and
we voted them out of office. Every man we had, except one or
two in minor jobs, except one or two officers, were filled
by our candidates. It was a great victory in my senior
year. But prior to this time, when the question came out
about what the fraternity was supposed to do, and I had
come outagainst block voting. Back in those days on both sides,
and I::think in all the fraternities, the freshmen were
required to vote the ticket, and were told just to vote the
ticket.
P: I suspect:that's still true.
L: I wouldn't be surprised. I know that year later, a boy I
admired very much, Sam Gibbon's brother, an attorney in
Tampa, had the same problem with the ATO's. He rebelled
because they told him he had to vote a straight:ticket.
This was years later. I was teaching down there, he was a student.