Bangor High School’s ‘frats’ generated a stir a century ago

To the uninitiated, they were strange stories: Members of “fraternities” organized by Bangor High School boys were committing acts of violence and mayhem. “Members of a fraternity made up of Bangor High School students get initiates drunk and then give them severe beatings according to police reports,” the Bangor Daily News reported in one such story on Sept. 18, 1991.

Similar stories had been appearing since 1988. During this period, school officials passed policies that banned hazing and the wearing of fraternity jackets or the banding together of members at the high school, but they pointed out there was little they could do about banning the organizations off-campus and after-school hours.

Today the fraternities have disappeared. “They don’t exist at this point that I know of,” said a hopeful Principal Norris Nickerson. But history has a way of repeating itself. High school fraternities are embedded in the genetic makeup of Bangor if some century-old newspaper stories I came across recently are an indication.

“SCHOOL BOARD DECLARES AGAINST FRATERNITIES,” announced a headline in the Bangor Daily Commercial on Nov. 17, 1906. The Bangor School Board had sent letters to the parents of the 250 boys attending the high school, warning them the fraternities were “not conducive to good behavior or good scholarship.” The board suggested that parents either not allow their sons to belong to these societies or else the meetings should be conducted in the homes of members “where they can be under the supervision of the parents.” The board noted that if this didn’t work, more drastic measures such as banning students from participating in school activities or even withholding diplomas as had been done in some other states could be taken.

The objection to the fraternities back then seemed to be as much mixed up with notions of democratic idealism as with high Victorian principles having to do with honor and character. Violent hazing, rowdiness and drinking went unmentioned. Secret societies of all kinds and at all levels of society were much in vogue then, and college fraternities were far more popular than they are today.

Principal Henry K. White summed up his objections this way: “The great evil of the fraternity in the high school is that the boys are bound to stand by each other and I do not think that an honorable boy ought to bind himself to stand by a dishonorable boy. I am sure that the effect of the society on athletes in the high school has been bad as it creates a society feeling rather than a school feeling.”

Two days later, the Bangor Daily News added some new details to the story. There were two fraternities, the Yaker Club, founded five years before, and a newer organization, Alpha Phi. The Yaker Club initially had never interfered with school discipline or work, the paper reported, but both organizations had grown in size and importance recently.

In the next few days both Bangor newspapers published columns for and against the fraternities. “I am a member of one of these fraternities, the club room of which faces on one of the principal squares of the city and I have never known a time when I would not have welcomed the most rigid inspection. … There are cards on the table but there is the strictest of rules which forbids drinking or gambling for money in any form whatsoever,” said one anonymous letter writer in the Commercial on Nov. 19, 1906.

In response to the charge that “the worst evil” of fraternities was the responsibility of boys to be loyal to one another, the writer had this to say: “Now who dares to say that it is not one’s duty to stand by a friend especially when he is down. Perhaps here is a good place to say that when a member of a fraternity does something not quite right the influence of the rest of the members is not to drag him lower. They try to set him on his feet and at the next meeting he receives a severe reprimand.”

The next day an anonymous opponent of the fraternities, identified as a star athlete and recent graduate of Bangor High, stated his opposition. He said there were no more than 50 boys who were members of the two organizations. “It has always been my belief that a public school should above all other things be democratic. … And yet these fraternities, in their small way, pretend to ‘exclusiveness.’ Candidates must be passed upon before admission, and may be blackballed, not through any lack of qualification, but simply because they have incurred the … dislike of some member. … Hence, to my mind, these societies stand for class distinctions, petty jealousy and kiddish snobbishness.”

He continued, “I don’t know whether the doings in the secret society club rooms are vicious or merely silly. I do know that the fraternities have a bad influence on athletes, because they insist in uniting in support of various candidates for athletic honors regardless of their efficiency. Yes, it is reasonably obvious to all right-thinking students and alumni that the fraternities will have to go.”

The fraternities were still around for the holidays. The Yaker Club was planning a private dance on New Year’s Eve at Memorial Parlors. Members included boys back in town from private schools and colleges. “This affair probably will be attended by a large number of the younger society folks of the city,” said the Commercial in its New Year’s Eve edition.

Wayne E. Reilly can be reached at wreilly@bangordailynews.net.