Friday, July 26, 1974
The Tar Heel
1795 tradition blended with 1974
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by Ben Steelman
and Roger Kirkman
Once, men like Thomas Wolfe,
Sam Ervin, and Frank Porter
Graham debated, politicked, and
composed speeches in these rooms.
Until the Societies threw them out
(they tore up too much of the
furniture) the old Student
Legislature used to hold its sessions
here. Even now, the debating and
politicking go on, on a smaller scale,
and occasional chamber ensembles
come up to practice or hold recitals.
Except for that, few student's ever
see the Dialectic and Philanthropic
Society chambers any more. A pity,
since the halls, homes of UNC's two
traditional literary and debating
societies since World War I, are
among the last vestiges of the
University's nineteenth-century
heritage.
The "Di" and the "Phi" were
formed in 1795, just months after the
University opened, by students who
wanted to polish their speaking
abilities. Gradually, the Societies
expanded their scope to include
public readings in contemporary
literature (since no English
curriculum existed at that time), and
socials like the Commencement
Ball.
Professors soon found it easier to
entrust student discipline to the
Societies than to try to enforce it
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themselves. Thus, by the 1820's, the
Di and the Phi were, in effect, UNC's
student government, and every new
student was obliged to join one or
the other.
UNC alumni continued to
identify themselves as Di's or Phi's
for the rest of their lives. Until the
founding of the Alumni
"The two plush halls were more
elegant than anything else in the
entire state, even the State
Capitol itself.
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Association, the Societies were the
main link between the University
and its former students. It was
natural that portraits of
distinguished former members were
donated to the Societies or bought
by the students themselves. By the
time of the Civil War, the Di and
Phi, their paintings, and their
individual private libraries (each of
which was larger than the entire
University collection) occupied
almost all of New West and New
East respectively.
In fact, the two buildings had been
erected in 1859 for the expressed
purpose of housing the Societies'
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activities. For a short time, they
were actually named "Di Hall" and
"Phi Hall," but the unofficial names
stuck and prevailed.
Almost everyone who writes
, about their student days at the
University, from Kemp P. Battle to
Robert B. House and Albert Coates,
recalls their awe, as freshmen, on
entering the Di or the Phi chambers.
The two plush halls were more
elegant than anything else in the
entire state, even the State Capitol
itself. Around the heavy mahogany
desks of the rostrum arched row
after row of chairs made of red
velvet and scrollwork iron. Green
damask curtains hung from the
windows, around the doors, and
over the rostrum's proscenium arch.
And on the walls, sometimes three
deep, hung the paintings themselves.
Time and the twentieth century,
however, soon caught up with the Di
and Phi. Interest in college debating
declined in favor of football and
other team sports. Modern
academic departments in English,
speech, and political science
assumed much of the Societies'
teaching function, while fraternities
(which were officially banned at
UNC until 1885) usurped much of
their social role.
The Yackety- Yack, the University
Magazine (ancestor of the Carolina
Quarterly), and the intercollegiate
debate team, all former Di-Phi joint
projects, became independent
organizations. An independent
student government, founded in
1911, assumed the enforcement of
the Honor Code.
In 1886, the Di and Phi merged
their collections with the University
to form the modern UNC Library.
Hence, almost every book in the
library bears the stamp:
ENDOWED BY THE
DIALECTIC AND PHILAN
THROPIC SOCIETIES.
By 1924, then, both Societies had
shrunk to such an extent, that their
meeting halls were transferred to less
spacious quarters on the top floors
of New West and New East. In the
new rooms, neither the Di nor the
Phi had adequate space to display its
paintings. Consequently, many were
loaned to various University
locations.
Among these are the portraits of
Justice Thomas Ruffin in the Law
School Library, Prof. Elisha
Mitchell in the Geology Library,
and Charles D. Mclver in the lounge
of Mclver dormitory. Several others
hang in the offices of South
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Building.
Perhaps as many as nineteen have
disappeared entirely, due to
disruptions like the First World War
or simply to past neglect. Several of
those loaned to other offices have
turned up years later, apparently
forgotten in attics and closets.
Others have been slashed or
punctured by carelessness or
vandalism. The portrait of
Congressman David Outlaw, for
example, had its eyes punched out
with a ball point pen. Until recently,
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each Halloween, the Mclver portrait
used to be decorated with a plastic
mask. ..attached to the canvas with
plasti-tak. Mclver residents
voluntarily ceased the custom before
serious damage resulted.
For the most part, however, those
portraits actually hanging in the
Society chambers are in fairly good
condition. These tend to be the best
of the collection and constitute a
major academic resource of the
University community.
Not only are the paintings the sole
collection of significance owned and
controlled entirely by students in the
United States; they also serve as an
important source of historical
information concerning North
Carolina and the South.
The portrait of Charles Manly,
badly scarred and mildewed after
years in the attic of Manning Hall,
is, for instnce, apparently the only
known likeness of the N.C.
governor. In a corner of the portrait
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of N.C. Governor William Miller is
one of only two known representa
tions of the original state capitol.
The Societies' portrait of James
K. Polk is one of the only likenesses
of the President painted from life. It
was executed by Thomas Sulley in
the White House in 1 847. Also in the
Di chamber, over the President's
dais, is Charles Wilson Peak's
portrait of William R. Davie, N.C.
governor, Revolutionary War hero,
and "father of the University."
On the rear wall hangs the portrait
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The Di-Phi Chambers in the 1880's
of Thomas L. Clingman, U.S.
Senator, Confederate general, and
one of the most eminent naturalists
of his time. The painting, among the
most notable in the collection, is
unique in the foreshortening of
Clingman's upraised right arm. a
difficult artistic technique seldom
seen in portraiture.
Perhaps the most outstanding
work in either chamber is the Phi's
portrait of James Cochran Dobbin.
Dobbin, while a State
Representative, made an eloquent
speech credited with winning the
entire Assembly over to the funding
of a State Home for the Insane,
advocated by Dorthea Dix. Later, as
Secretary of the Navy under Pierce,
Dobbin built the U.S. Navy into the
best in the world, ironically a major
factor in hastening the end of the
Civil War.
The two Societies, among the last
organizations of their kind in the
United States, merged in 1 959 into a
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Joint Senate and continue to meet
weekly in the Dialectic chambers.
The new body still debates, still
conducts public readings, and, in
addition, occasionally passes
resolutions on the state of the
campus and the world in general. In
1963, for example, the Di-Phi
officially abolished Student
Government as a waste of time, and
have not yet seen fit to re-establish it.
Less frivolously, the Societies
attempt to act as a forum for ideas
concerning the improvement of
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University life. In 1963 and 1 964. an
ad hoc committee of Di-Phi
members exposed and attacked
racial-discrimination clauses in the
charters of several campus
fraternities. In the spring of 1974.
the Societies opened a continuing
series of seminars on the role and
functions of UNC Student
Government, with the object of
suggesting possible reforms.
Each semester, the Di-Phi stages
public debates between UNC faculty
members on significant issues, and
each year, awards the Willie P.
Mangum medal to the graduating
senior delivering the best original
speech in a public competition.
Currently they are attempting tc
raise money to pay for the
restoration and preservation of
damaged paintings in their
possessions.
The halls may not echo as loudly
as they used to, but at least they still
echo.