One Friday afternoon in the summer of 1897, Horse Edwards arrived in Princeton from Colorado. He was very weak from his illness. He could barely raise his hand to wave to the host of old friends who greeted him as he drove from the station to East College, where his old room had been arranged as in his college days for his return.
There he was visited by many friends of the old days, who had come back for Commencement. Old memories were revived. That night he attended his club dinner, and the following day was wheeled out to the field to see the baseball game, Princeton beat Yale 16 to 8, and his cup of happiness was overflowing. On the following Monday Horse Edwards died. He told his close friends that as long as he had to go, he was happy that he had been granted his last wish—to die there at Princeton. And his memory is a treasured college tradition.
Job E. Hedges
Among the men who are always welcome at Princeton mass meetings and dinners, is Job E. Hedges. I remember what he said at a mass meeting at Princeton in 1896. He was then secretary to Mayor Strong, in New York, in which city the game with Yale took place that year.
The scene was in the old gymnasium. Every inch of space was occupied. On the front seats sat the team and substitutes. Around them and in the small gallery were the students in mass. Before the team were prominent alumni, trustees and some members of the faculty. Earnest appeal had been made by the various speakers tending to arouse the team to a high point of enthusiasm and courage, and the interest of their alma mater and of the alumni had been earnestly pictured. Mr. Hedges was called on as he frequently is at Princeton gatherings and as the usual field had been fairly covered, his opportunities were limited, without repetition of what had been said. He addressed the team and substitutes in typical Princeton fashion and concluded, so far as a record is made of it, somewhat as follows:
"There is a feeling in the public mind that football games breed dissipation and are naturally followed by unseemly conduct. We all know that much of the excitement following football games in New York is due largely not to college men but others, who take the game as an excuse and the time as an opportunity to indulge in more or less boisterous conduct, with freedom from interference usually accorded at that time. I wish it thoroughly understood that in no way as a Princeton man do I countenance dissipation, intemperance, boisterous or unseemly conduct. It may be a comfort for you men to know, however, that I am personally acquainted with every police magistrate in the City of New York. While I do not claim to have any influence with them, nor would I try to exercise it improperly, nevertheless if the team wins and any man should unintentionally and weakly yield to the strain consequent upon such a victory, I can be found that night at my residence. Any delinquent will have my sympathetic and best efforts in his behalf. If, however, the team loses, and any one goes over the line of propriety, he will have from me neither sympathy nor assistance and I shall be absent from the city."
It is related that on the night following the victory, several daring spirits decorated themselves with cards hung from their necks bearing this legend, "Don't arrest me, I am a friend of Job Hedges." With these they marched up and down Broadway and, though laboring under somewhat strange conditions, were not molested. A full account of this expeditionary force appeared in the daily papers the next morning and it is related that there was a brisk conversation between Mr. Hedges and the mayor, when the former arrived at the City Hall, which took on, not an orange and black hue, but rather a lurid flame, of which Mayor Strong was supposed to be but was not the victim.
The net result of the scene, however, was that the team won, there was a moderate celebration and no Princeton man was arrested.
