10
//The Daily Tar Heel/Tuesday, February 23, 1993
Tar Heel Celebrates
100th Anniversary
(Continued from page 1)
1893-1918
The Tar Heel celebrated its 25th an
niversary in modest wartime fashion,
yet the editors hardly were modest about
the paper’s achievements of its first 2 1/
2 decades. In the three front-page sto
ries that constituted their silver anniver
sary commemoration, editors traced the
newspaper’s short history, largely fo
cusing on what seemed to them as the
odd, antiquated techniques of The Tar
Heel’s earliest editors.
Indeed, the style of the first Tar Heels
seem even odder to contemporary read
ers. But it is important to remember that
those old Tar Heels reflected trends in
writing and design in American news
papers of that time period, just as The
Tar Heels of the present era reflect
trends in newspapers today.
The Tar Heel made its first appear
ance in 1893 as a “dingy little four-page
sheet,” and had grown into “an ample
six-page paper” by 1918. Its dimen
sions had also increased the first
issue was 10" x 14 1/4" with four 2 1/4"
columns; by 1918 it was 12 1/2" x 19 1/
2" with five 2 1/4” columns.
Financially, the paper was hardly
lucrative. Students paid $1.50 for a
yearly subscription or 5 cents for a
single issue. Editors received no com
pensation, and the Athletic Association
assumed any debt the paper incurred. In
1893 more than 60 percent of the stu
dents were subscribers. By 1918 sub
scriptions had fallen to less than 50
percent of the student body.
The Tar Heel’s advertising and edi
torials of the period reflect their per
petual quest for increased readership.
Business managers appealed to students’
sense of school loyalty to encourage
them to subscribe and, once they had
subscribed, to pay their bills. The May
3,1898, issue never appeared because
so many subscribers had failed to pay.
An early editorial titled “Shall The Tar
Heel prosper of shall it be discontin
ued?” warned students that if subscrip
tions did not increase, the paper would
be forced to fold.
The Tar Heel competed for subscrip
tions for a short time with the White and
Blue, which was founded in 1894. The
rival weekly newspaper declared itself
the “anti-ffatemity” newspaper and bit
terly denounced The Tar Heel as noth
ing more than mouthpiece for Greek
interests on campus. After 1 1/2 years,
however, the paper was forced to fold
for financial reasons. Though the two
newspapers did not merge officially,
many of the White and Blue editors
agreed to help improve The Tar Heel if
the Athletic Association would take over
the White andßlue’s debts. The folding
of the White and B lue marked the end of
The Tar Heel’s first and last formidable
competition on campus.
The Tar Heel’s first home reflected
its humble financial situation. In 1893
the seven founding editors used the
upper floor of a store room in a house
next to the Old Methodist Church at 201
East Rosemary St. In 1906, they moved
to new offices in the northeast comer of
the newly-constructed Y.M.C. A. build
ing, now known as the Campus Y.
Editorializing in news articles was
common. For example, in an 1896 front
page article on the Commons, anew
cafeteria service, the writer declared
that the institution was of great value to
the University, and promised that The
Tar Heel would “do all it could to pro
mote its success.”
Editors in 1918 seemed to consider
changes in headline writing as the great
est achievement of the first 25 years.
lOOTH ANNIVERSARY
COMMEMORATIVE EDITION
of student jpuraa&m. In the two-section edition, •
events that have shaped The Tar Heel and take a look at history as'
repoital by Ibis nnrpaper.
.msmOßßm \ \ ■■
j * SHf,
Pick one up at Ifio Intimate Bookshop, Bull's
Hoad Bookshop or fho PTH office for $3.
The first headlines, they said, were “gen
eral and indefinite rather than specific
and concrete; they hardly ever con
tained a verb.” The headlines by 1918,
however, contained all the “latest styles
and wiggles.”
But the editors of 1918 realized that
there was much room for improvement.
Their hope was that “in the years to
come” The Tar Heel would “continue to
develop and carry out its mission with
increased zeal.”
1918-1943.
The Tar Heel’s second 25 years was
a period of rapid and profound change
and, for the most part, growth. Shortly
after the editors of 1918 boasted of the
paper’s “ample” six-page size, they were
forced to scale back to four pages as the
campus mobilized for World War I.
Editor Forrest Miles, who only served
for one month before being drafted in
fall 1918, was able to cram six pages of
material into four pages by using smaller
type. The paper, during the next 25
years, would only expand beyond four
pages for special editions.
Though the newspaper’s size and
type were smaller, it increased in fre
quency. In a June 5, 1920, farewell
editorial, editor Thomas Wolfe proposed
a semi-weekly Tar Heel. The following
September The Tar Heel did indeed
begin publishing twice a week first
on Wednesday and Saturday, and later
on Tuesday and Friday. In an editorial
published at the end of the 1920-21
school year, editors declared that the
“Tar Heel had in a great degree in
creased its usefulness to the whole Uni
versity by advancing from a weekly of
questionable value to a live and influen
tial semi-weekly.”
In Jan. 1921 The Tar Heel stopped
printing the slogan “The Official Organ
of the Athletic Association of the Uni
versity of North Carolina” below the
masthead—the beginning of the end of
The Tar Heel’s connection organiza
tion.
It was not until May 4,1923, that The
Tar Heel officially changed from the
hands of the Athletic Association to the
charge of the Student Publications Union
Board, which would be elected by the
student body to oversee the financial
affairs of The Tar Heel as well as of the
Carolina Magazine (formerly the Uni
versity Magazine), the Carolina Bucca
neer and the Yackety Yack. The idea for
the board was first proposed by former
editor Daniel Grant in 1922, and stu
dents in 1923 voted overwhelmingly
for its formation 876 to 141.
Tar Heel business managers would
no longer have to beg for subscribers, as
all students automatically would be
charged an annual $5.50 publications
fee. Overnight, the plan quadrupled The
Tar Heel’s circulation, which had fallen
to an all-time low of 25 percent of the
student body by 1922. Business manag
ers were able, however, to put greater
emphasis on advertising.
In 1927 The Tar Heel published a
weekly summer edition for the first
time, responding to the “need for a
campus newspaper during the summer
school just as there [was] during the
regular scholastic year of the Univer
sity.” After the summer of 1927, how
ever, The Tar Heel wouldn’t publish a
summer edition again until the 19405.
The movement for a daily Tar Heel
did not seriously begin until Jan. 1929,
when the UNC Activities Committee
began to discuss the need for a daily
news source like the ones enjoyed by
schools such as Harvard University,
Columbia University and University of
Wisconsin.
The decision process was highly
publicized, and the entire student body
eventually voted on whether they wanted
to support a daily and on the method of
finance. The activities board agreed with
A CENTURY OF NEWS
Tar Heel Editor Walter Spearman that it
was The Tar Heel, and not some other
campus publication, that should become
the daily.
Organizers offered four finance plans
which would make an increase in stu
dent fees unnecessary:
1. merge The Tar Heel with Carolina
Magazine, making it a bimonthly liter
ary supplement.
2. abolish the Carolina Buccaneer, a
campus comic magazine.
3. scale back the Yackety Yack.
4. cut from the budgets of all three of
the publications and reallocate them for
The Daily Tar Heel.
On Feb. 7, students voted 666 to f l4B
“a surprisingly large majority” to
approve The Daily Tar Heel. The first
finance plan received the most votes,
despite protests from the Carolina Maga
zine editor. Editors deemed the move
“the most notable achievement of the *
present student generation.” The paper
could begin publishing six times a week
every day except Monday.
Gleeful editors ran this witty edito
rial on Feb. 9,1929:
"Despite rumors to the contrary, The
Tar Heel next year will not be a 'sextu
plet. ’ The editors will keep the paper
clean at all cost. ”
But before Tar Heel editors could
begin printing the slogan “Only Col
lege Daily in the South” below the mast
head, controversy struck. On May 18,
1929, DTH Editor Glenn Holder, Caro
lina Magazine Editor John Mebane and
several othTr members of the Sigma
Upsilon literary fraternity were tempo
rarily suspendedfor publishing the “Yel
low Journal” and selling it at the UVa.-
UNC baseball game.
The publication was described as “a
coarse, indecent and libellous influence
to young girls, all of whom are locally
known.” Ironically, Spearman had cam
paigned against the Yellow Journal in
editorials written while he was editor.
Holder and Mebane published front
page formal apologies and withdrew
from the staff until the fall. Spearman
returned to the helm long enough to
publish the first Daily Tar Heel—which
made its debut on June 7, 1929 in the
form of a special commencement edi
tion. Spearman would later be called
the “most innovative and daring editor
ever” for shepherding the change.
Holder returned as editor in the fall of
1929 with lofty goals for The Tar Heel ’ s
first year as a daily:
“If The Daily Tar Heel succeeds in
welding the various subdivisions of the
University together to some extent by
providing a medium for such an inter
change of ideas and for the dissemina
tion of accurate information about cam
pus events, it will have fulfilled the
purposes for which it was established.”
The Publications Union board prom
ised that if the daily showed a great
financial loss after the first year, it would
immediately revert back to a tri-weekly.
The paper did show a loss, and the fate
of the DTH was put to a campus vote
once again. Editors worried that, in the
midst of the Great Depression, students
would want to scale back to three times
a week. But the student body voted - by
a margin of 33 to 1 to keep the daily
and raise fees by 33 1/3 cents to support
it.
As The Tar Heel’s circulation, size
and frequency of publication grew, so
did its dwellings. In November 1921,
when The Tar Heel moved from the
Campus Y building to larger offices in
New West, the former home of the
ROTC, editors boasted that the “click
of the automatic rifle would give way to
the more monotonous, swifter click of
the typewriter.”
The Tar Heel moved to the southeast
comer of the basement of Alumni Build
ing in August 1926. Editors remarked
that the quarters were “by far the most
spacious and convenient offices that its
had ever had in its many years of exist
ence.”
On Sept. 20, 1931, the DTH moved
to Graham Memorial, which had just
been completed for use as the Student
Union. The staff had two rooms on the
second floor —one small room for the
business staff and a larger one for the
editorial side. For their new suite, they
said they hoped to procure a “complete
supply of equipment, including one or
two more tables, a bulletin board, tele
phone, typewriters and a few other nec
essary furnishings.”
When The Tar Heel reached its 50th
anniversary in 1943, it had become “a
small replica of a metropolitan newspa
per.” The evolution took place, not by
accident, but through a conscious, pro
gressive effort by each editor. In 1923,
the editor announced a major reorgani
zation of the staff, and promised to
“give the campus something closer to a
real newspaper.”
In a farewell edit, the staff of 1931-
32 proclaimed that The Tar Heel had
“progressed from an unknown college
sheet to be one of the ranking dailies in
America, enjoying at present among
! many e'ditors the reputation of being the
most liberal collegiate journal in this
country.”
The paper was one of only 38 college
dailies in the country at the time the
only in the South until 1941, when the
Daily Texan was founded. Under editor
Jack Dungan (1931-32) the newspaper
received national attention as he con
ducted symposiums on disarmament,
prohibition, presidential campaigns and
University issues. In 1933 editorial en
titled “Fat, Forty and ah Fair,” edi
tors bragged that the DTH was the “best
college daily between Pennsylvania and
Texas.”
By 1934, editors proclaimed that the
paper was “progressing out of its youth
ful stages to a higher plane of college
journalism.” In 1938 the paper adopted
many of the latest characteristics of
newspapers of the day: smaller 8-point
type, simplified headlines, a front page
designed around more and bigger pic
tures, and a daily crossword puzzle.
They referred to the “ultra modem”
changes as “streamlining.”
Tar Heel writers also seemed to be
aware of their increasing role in the
growing University community. In
1920, the staffsof 1919-20 and 1920-21
jointly published a special pictorial edi
tion which included pictures of every
University president, the sports teams,
and campus leaders. In it, they referred
to The Tar Heel as a “memory book”:
“a complete, unbiased record of col
lege life. It records the ebb and flow of
student sentiment success and fail
ure; it shows who played die greatest
role in the different phases of college
life during your own college develop
ment it’s The Tar Heel.”
Editor J.T. “Bumps” Madry (1926-
27) had a different view of the role of
the paper. In 1928 he remarked to staff
members that there were six kinds of
college newspapers “the College
Billboard, the University Mouthpiece,
the Village Gossip, the Journal of Edu
cation, the Local Gadfly, and the Zeal
ous Crusader.” Editor Judson Ashby
claimed The Tar Heel in 1928 was a
“happy blending of all six.”
When students voted on whether to
keep the paper a daily in 1930, one
supportive professor declared that the
Tar Heel had become, “like breakfast,
classes, study, the Carolina theatre and
many other habits we are more accus
tomed to have.” The Tar Heel, he said,
was a “daily necessity.”
But perhaps the most important role
the DTH played on campus was alluded
to in a April 1938 editorial entitled “The
Place of The Tar Heel,” in which writ
ers remarked that “the presence of a
daily newspaper [was] probably the
chief unifying force” of the rapidly ex
panding student body.
THE WAR
The growth of The Tar Heel was
stunted slightly by the advent of WWII.
Advertising revenues and student fees
plummeted 25 percent due to the war,
and on Nov. 27, 1942, The Tar Heel
experienced its first wartime revision
when they switched from “modem” 8-
point to “gangly” 10-point type. Editors
seemed to consider the cost-cutting ac
tion a major setback, as it reduced the
amount of news they could fit in the
paper by one-fifth, or three full col
umns. “Lavish plans” for a golden anni
versary celebration in 1943 had to be set
aside.
The staff was entering their second
50 years under the restrictions of war.
But they promised that they would
“cover their typewriters” only “if and
when wartime circumstances dictated
narrowed freedom of the student press.”
1943-1968
Shortly after finishing his term as
editor in March 1943, former editor
V.J. “Bucky” Harward proposed that
the DTH suspend publication for the
duration of the war. Harward and others
believed that when the campus was
converted into a training ground for
military officers—a “V-12 institution”
in July, the paper’s cherished edito
rial freedom would be threatened. Rather
than endure such censorship, Harward
said, the paper should be replaced by
another publication.
The staff had hoped to continue pub
lishing, but on May 20, 1943, citing
lack of staff and funding and printing
difficulties, the Publications Union an
nounced that the DTH would cease pub
lication the next day and be replaced by
a weekly Tar Heel in July.
They were despondent:
“The dreams were beautiful, and the
hopes for the survival of near normal
campus activities were high. But the
anesthesia is beginning to wear off, and
a few are beginning to realize that a
wartime campus is going to have prac
tically no time for peacetime ’luxu
ries.”’
And with those words The Tar Heel
ended 15 years as a daily, and became,
at least temporarily, a casualty of war.
As predicted, the wartime Tar Heel
was nowhere near normal. On July 21,
1943 The Tar Heel was published with
the slogan “Serving Civilian and Mili
tary Students At UNC” below the mast
head.
During the war the editorship changed
hands six times. Editor Walter Damtoft
left for battle a few months into his
term, and Katherine Hill, like so many
other American women during WWII,
was asked to fill a position normally
reserved for males. She became the first
female ever to be elected editor in Octo
ber 1943.
Horace Carter was elected editor in
Spring 1944, but, like Damtoft, was
forced to leave because of military duty
in June. He was replaced by another
women, Muriel Richter, who was later
forced to resign in October 1944 be
cause of alleged incompetence. Fred
Flagler served as acting editor until
Charles Wickenberg was elected in
November.
Uncle Sam called Wickenberg away
from his post as editor in January 1945,
and Robert Morrison was elected to
replace him.
When peace was declared in Aug.
1945, the staff set Jan. 1, 1946 as the
tentative date for the return to daily
publication. They were optimistic about
the future, but aware of the profound
setback The Tar Heel had suffered dur
ing the war:
“Not since the War Between the
States had a student publication suf
fered such a decrease in size, quality
and rate of publication.... During the
years of the war, the continuity of The
Tar Heel was shattered; the organiza
tion built up over many years was dis
banded; techniques passed down for
many student generations were lost.”
The staff resumed daily publication
on Feb. 5,1946. Their goal: to become
“the greatest college newspaper in the
world.” Even then, they believed that it
was within their capability to “forge
ahead to become the foremost college
daily.” Ebullient about the switch to six
days a week, editors declared that the
DTH would “spread words over the
campus at the rate of over 50 million a
day” enough words to reach from
“Virginia to South Carolina, or from
Chapel Hill to the ocean.” The Daily
Tar Heel returned with anew United
Press teletype machine and expanded
quarters in Graham Memorial comprised
of five large rooms.
By September 1947, editors pro
claimed that the DTH had “thrown off
the mantle of [their] stunted growth.”
They aimed to publish a six or eight
page paper at least once a week after the
stringent rationing of newsprint caused
by the war eased.
War once again crushed plans for
expanded publication in 1951. The sharp
drop in enrollment due to the Korean
War caused revenue from both student
fees and advertising to drop. In Febru
ary 1951, the paper scaled back to four
days a week, publishing Tuesday
through Friday.
In order to resume publication six
days a week, Editor Glenn Harden opted
to move to tabloid size, which was less
expensive than regular, broad sheet size.
Harden’s “Operation Tabby” began in
May 1951, and lasted 1 1/2 years, de
spite some student protest. After the
newspaper moved back to broad sheet
size in September 1952, it fluctuated
between publishing five or six days a
week for several years.
Despite the inconveniences of war
and problems of understaffing, the news
paper still managed to make swift
progress during its third 25 years. In
1959, Editor Curtis Gans announced
three fundamental goals of the DTH:
“1. To disseminate news of interest
to students and other members of the
community.
2. To keep a beady, skeptical eye on
the workings of the student bureau
cracy at Graham Memorial and the big
ger bureaucracy at South Building.
3. To be the individual student’s pub
lic friend and counsel when he collides
with either of the bureaucracies men
tioned above.”
The newspaper was keenly aware of
its responsibility to narrow the growing
gap between the individual student and
the University’s burgeoning bureau
cracy. And an increasingly defiant spirit,
usually found in only the feistiest of
septuagenarians, was becoming obvi
ous.
“College newspapers are the last com
ponents of student life that should suc
cumb to this false ideal of nice-guyism
and mealy-mouthed super-maturity,”
said one 1962 edit. “If the editor of this,
or any other college newspaper feels
that the mayor, the governor, the chan
cellor, a professor or anyone else is a
bumbling idiot, he should be able to say
so.”
Editors would need this new sense of
purpose to face the challenge of report
ing the news during the 1960 s— argu
ably the most turbulent period in the
University ’ s history. Desegregation, the
speaker ban law and U.S. involvement
in the Vietnam War forced editors and
reporters to deal intelligently with pro
foundly divisive issues, a task they ea
gerly accepted.
The pride the editors’ took in The Tar
Heel’s progress bordered at times on
arrogance. But they were also humble
and realistic about The Tar Heel’s short
comings.
“By the standards which makes news
papers great,” wrote former editor Hugh
Stevens in the 75th anniversary edition,
“she fails miserably...young reporters
misspell words, omit commas, employ
hackneyed phrases and in general make
mistakes which no self-respecting com
mercial paper can afford.”
As the Tar Heel neared its 75th birth
day, editors obviously had great hope
for the paper’s future. And with this
expanded vision came a perceived need
for an increase in editorial space. In Jan.
1966 editors increased the number of
pages from four to six. But to do so, they
had to ask the student legislature to
allocate SIO,OOO in extra funds. Previ
ously, the paper was more than four
pages only on days when advertising
revenue allowed.
Along with the increase in size came
minor changes in style, typeface and
type size which were ushered in with
each editor inauguration. But by the
newspaper’s 75th anniversary, a DTH
tradition of “printing the news and rais
ing hell” was firmly entrenched.
1968-1993
The last 2 1/2 decades of DTH his
tory were marred by a series of threats
to the newspaper’s funding. Editor re
calls had been tried before by disgruntled
readers, but in the late 1960s campus
politicians seemed to be just discover
ing that they might be able to wreak
havoc on the newspaper editorially by
threatening its financial stability. The
conflict drew the newspaper into a
lengthy court battle in one case, even
after the student body voted overwhelm
ingly to guarantee the paper 16 percent
of student fees in 1977.
That same referendum also estab
lished a separate board of directors for
The Tar Heel, to consist of four stu
dents, two faculty members and one
individual from the community. Sup
porters of the change believed that the
financial matters of the newspaper had
become complex enough to warrant a
separate board. The Media Board (which
had been called the Publications Union
until the mid-19705) continued to gov
ern other campus publications. Today,
The Tar Heel’s board of directors has
nine voting members, including seven
students and two faculty members.
As the newspaper became more fi
nancially stable, DTH business manag
ers came to believe that the newspaper
could operate using essentially only rev
enue from advertising. And editors be
came increasingly aware that the paper’s
editorial freedom could be threatened
as long as it was receiving any portion
of student fees. In 1990, students agreed,
and they voted to allow the DTH to give
back student fees over a three year pe
riod. The change should ensure the ces
sation of funding threats. In that sense,
it could be said the 1993 will be the first
year of true editorial freedom for the
DTH.
The increased funding stability did
not ensure, however that editors would
be able to publish papers as often or as
large as they might have liked. In De
cember 1970, Editor Tom Gooding an
nounced that the paper would stop pub
lishing on Sunday but would begin
Monday publication. The newspaper,
he said, was taking a “significant finan
cial beating” by publishing on Sunday.
And in September 1972, the DTH
was forced to stop publishing on Satur
days. Editors, however, looked on the
bright side.
“A rested staff will put out a better
paper,” wrote Editor Evans Witt, prom
ising to publish Saturday editions on
home football weekends and a weekly
feature magazine.
The paper continued to publish on
home football Saturdays throughout the
1970 sand early 1980s, depending on
the financial state of the paper and the
preference of the editor. In 1992, editor
Peter Wallsten revived the tradition by
bringing readers “Sport Saturday” a free
tabloid circulated at home football
games by DTH sports staffers.
During the last 25 years, the number
of pages in each issue has fluctuated
greatly, but essentially it has grown
since 1966, when the paper moved to
six pages. Today, the size of an average
DTH is eight pages, with editors “bump
ing up” to 10 or 12 pages when advertis
ing revenue allows, and falling back to
six pages when necessary.
The office space used to house the
newspaper has grown. In 1969, the DTH
moved to the north gallery of the newly
constructed Frank Porter Graham Stu
dent Union. And in 1981, the paper was
the first student group to move into the
Union’s annex, which is today a bastion
of student journalism.
Despite the fact that the newspaper
had stopped delivering door to door in
the late 19605, The Tar Heel continued
to have circulation problems through
out the 19705. The problem, editors
said, was the number of newspapers
being printed and the location of drop
boxes. In 1975, the paper printed 17,500
copies, despite the fact that there were
well over 18,000 students. Editors esti
mated that they would need to print
25,000 to satisfy everyone who wanted
a copy. And, they said, some drop boxes
located on the outskirts of campus often
had several extra copies remaining in
them at the end of the day, while those
in more populous locations emptied out
early in the day.
In 1976, the situation became so des
perate that editors asked faculty and
staff members not to take copies of the
paper unless they paid a subscription
fee. The plea did little to alleviate the
problem, but adjustments in the number
and location of drop boxes did.
The magnitude of complaints that
editors of the 1970s received from read
ers who couldn’t find a copy of that
day’s newspaper is evidence of the grow
ing role that the DTH played in the daily
lives of individual students. A1977 poll
showed that 82.1 percent of students
considered the DTH their primary source
of campus and local news. And 68 per
cent considered the DTH their most
frequently read newspaper.
The DTH is still the most widely read
newspaper on campus, but it competes
for stories and for advertising with pro
fessional newspapers such as The (Ra
leigh) News and Observer and the
Chapel Hill Herald.
Of course, the extent of the changes
has varied with each editor, a condition
which is considered by some to be a
disadvantage for the newspaper. In an
April 1970 lecture on campus, Wall
Street Journal editor Vermont Royster,
who in the early 1930s was a DTH
editorialist, commented that the quality
of the newspaper seemed to run in cycles.
He said the drastic changes implemented
by new editors each year only served to
stunt the growth of rite newspaper.
But he also said that The Tar Heel,
like other newspapers, had improved in
that it had moved away from “event
oriented” coverage and had begun writ
ing more “news analysis.” The trend
toward more analysis continues today,
as the issues and events covered by The
Tar Heel become more complex. The
Tar Heel’s deep sense of tradition does
not preclude editors from making nec
essary changes.
After weathering a century of change,
the DTH is not the graying, battered
lady one might expect. For she is reborn
each year, with the coming of a fresh
crop of new writers and editors. With
them comes a renewed sense of enthu
siasm, a fresh set of ideas, and a vibrant
hope for the future.
Writers still “misspell words, omit
commas, and employ hackneyed
phrases” that reveal them as inexperi
enced journalists.
But the eternal youth of The Tar Heel
nevertheless is considered a blessing,
because it is youth that keeps it, like a
typical adolescent, defiant in the face of
authority, eager for growth, and protec
tive of its freedom.