1924

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1924 in Clemson History

Events that occurred in 1924:

• Memorial Chapel on the Main Building is enlarged, raising seating capacity to 1,850.
• January 22: The campus is stunned to learn that popular President Walter Merritt Riggs has died in Washington, D.C. while on a trip to attend a meeting of land-grant college officials. He had not complained that he had severe chest pain for several weeks and he suffers a coughing and choking fit which he does not survive.
• January 24: President Riggs funeral services held at Clemson. After services in Memorial Chapel, the entire cadet corps marches in a procession to the grave site on Cemetery Hill.
• March 21: Annual dance given by the School Improvement Association in the College Gym (ground floor of the present Sikes Hall). Document from the event is preserved in the scrapbook of Cadet John Murphy Cook of Fort Mill, South Carolina, class of 1924, in the Special Collections at the Strom Thurmond Institute.
• April 30: The worst tornado to ever hit Anderson leaves eight dead, hundreds homeless, and an untold number of injured.
• May 16: Junior-Senior Ball 1924 is held in the College Gym (ground floor of the present Sikes Hall), from 10 p.m. to 3 a.m. An invitation to the event is preserved in the scrapbook of Cadet John Murphy Cook of Fort Mill, South Carolina, class of 1924, in the Special Collections at the Strom Thurmond Institute.
• September 27: Clemson opens football season with 60-0 shut-out of Elon on Riggs Field.
• October 4: Clemson travels to Alabama where Auburn defeats them, 0-13.
• October 11: Presbyterian is defeated by the Tigers on Riggs Field, 14-0.
• October 11-October 14: The last and largest student walk-out in Clemson history, and the greatest challenge of acting President Samuel Broadus Earle's tenure. Student gripes about the quality of food in the mess spiral out of control when the cadet emissary sent to the commandant, Colonel Otis R. Cole, to ask permission for a student meeting is accused of having "liquor on his breath". He is hauled immediately before the discipline committee and suspended for a year. Outraged cadets are refused permission to meet regarding the expelled, a popular student who is senior class president and captain of the football team, but they meet on Riggs Field anyway and draft a petition demanding better food, the dismissal of mess officer J.D. Harcombe, and reinstatement of their dismissed classmate. When Earle refuses their demands, promising only to continue investigating the mess allegations, 500 cadets leave campus on the evening of October 14 in protest. The walk-out results in twenty-three dismissals and 112 suspensions, as well as sixty-five honorable discharges from various classes, and the withdrawal from school of thirty-six students who are unwilling to face the punishments awaiting them when they return to campus. Although the board of trustees commends Earle for not relinquishing his authority to student demands, the toll on the school is a lingering discontent and unwanted bad publicity.
• October 23: Clemson is defeated by South Carolina, 0-3, in Columbia.
• November 1: In home game on Riggs Field, VPI embarrasses the Tigers, 6-50.
• November 8: Clemson loses to Davidson, 0-7, in a match played in Charlotte, North Carolina.
• November 15: In a game played in Anderson, South Carolina, Clemson loses to the Citadel, 0-20.
• November 27: Clemson concludes 2-6 season by losing to Furman, 0-3, on Riggs Field.

1923

The 1920's

1925