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Robert Parker of Tallahassee nominated him. A boy named
Jimmy French, whom my wife knew from Tampa, was nominated
and the big fraternities got behind Jimmy French. I
think he was a Sigma Nu and Sigma Nu, which had been a local
and became national about that;:time, aligned themselves with
the more respectable fraternities like ATO and KA. But at
that time they put up Jimmy French and the Beefsteak fraternities
were supporting him. Theta Chi belonged to the old established
fraternities; ATO, SAE was about like Sigma Nu, and KA. We
had quite a battle. We actually pulled our shirts to pieces
and finally decided that the thing to do was to have the
Fuller Warren advocates on one side and Jimmy French--no, I'm
sorry,I gave you the wrong information. Fuller Warren nominated
Robert Parker of Tallahassee and he enlivened the meeting, because
I can remember that he would reach out with one hand as far
as he could with one statement and pull it back, and with
the other hand he'd reach far out. He'd use big words that
none of us understood and we had a great time. Milton Yates,
as I recall, was president of the student body and he finally
decreed that a count could not be made by voice or by raising
hands and they were not prepared to have paper ballots--no paper
around. So they divided us up on each side of the aisle. A
lot of freshmen didn't know what they were doing there, so they
were pulled and their shirts were torn off of them on each side
between the aisles. Fuller's were on one side and Jimmy French
was on the other side, and the verdict was finally in favor
of Jimmy French. And he stayed one year on the campus. That
was Fuller Warren's introduction to the campus.
P: How long did Fuller stay onthe campus?
L: About three years.
P: He did not graduate from the university?
L: No.
P: But he was a big man on the campus?
L: Not necessarily. We elected him as president of the sophomore
class, but the following year--he was a laughable kind of a
person and he couldn' t have been elected anything. He lost
his prestige as sophomore president. I liked Fuller very much
and we were close friends, not intimate, but we were close friends.