Gwynn Wilson, USC: a 60-year love affair
University of Southern California
Volume LXVII, No. 92	Los Angeles, California	Friday, March 14, 1975
21 arrested in midnight melee on Row
BY \ARI GRANVILLE
Editor
When Gwynn Wilson first came to USC, tuition was only $90 a semester and all students were required to attend chapel.
Academic life centered around a four-story building in the center of what was then a five-acre campus. Many of the university’s 2,000 students lived in rooms rented in nearby homes.
Wilson recalls coming to campus by streetcar on registration day and being, in his own words, 'just a farm kid in store clothes."
That was in 1916 Today Gwynn Wilson will celebrate his 78th birthday.
“I stood across the street and looked at the college. By today's standards it was not very much, but to me it was a tremendous thing." he recalled.
“This was my university. I walked across the street and registered. I had that feeling then, and I've got it now "
And Wilson has been associated with the university in some capacity ever since.
As a student he was captain of the track team and student-body president.
Since his graduation in 1921 he has been graduate man agerforthe university. General Alumni Association president. a trustee, and finally, what he is today, a life member of the Board of Trustees.
Looking down on Tommy Trojan from the Student Union, which bears his name. Wilson recently discussed his 59-year-old relationship with the university that
began with that streetcar ride when he was 19 years old
His memory took him back to the time his fellow students celebrated Fred Teske's good fortune—he was the first student to own a car.
Wilson remembered a saloon where a free lunch was served with each purchase of a jug of beer. The price then? Only a nickel.
Jobs could be found easily then although the pay was not much compared to today's standards.
Wilson earned a dollar an afternoon waiting on tables and mixing sundae toppings at a combination eating place and ice-cream parlor across the street from campus.
Wilson chose to enroll at USC because he wanted to go to a "bigger, more metropolitan institution.” He had also spent some time on campus while he was a student at Manual Arts High School.
The only building that still exists from Wilson’s student days is the old Annex, which is now Widney Hall on Chi Ids Way.
The rest of the university consisted ofthe main building. a one-story wooden chemistry shack and a wooden gym.
The university was then surrounded by what Wilson said would be called today “a medium-residential class of people."
"Watts was just another wide place in the road and Gardena was the center of an agricultural community," he said.
(continued on page 9J
Daily
Trojan
BY MICHAEL RUNZLER
Managing Editor Los Angeles Police Department officers arrested 21 students, one of them a woman, on the Row late Thursday night after a brief scuffle that touched off what some called near-riot conditions.
Observers estimated 80 police officers in at least 24 patrol cars responded to the call that an officer was in need of assistance. LAPD statements placed the number of officers at 50. An LAPD helicopter circled the scene throughout the disturbance.
Most of the students who were arrested were placed under mass arrest after failing to obey an order from the police to clear the area.
The specific charges varied, but included battery on an officer, drinking in public, and failure to disperse. All those arrested had their hands bound together with plastic
ties and were taken to the LAPD Southwest Division for booking.
Accounts of the original disturbance varied. Some said it began when two Sigma Chi fraternity members failed to obey an officer's order to leave the scene as he wrote a parking ticket on the corner of 28th and Severance Streets.
An eyewitness said a police officer told the two to leave as other Sigma Chis taunted the police from the windows of the fraternity house.
The witness said the two were also told to stop drinking in public, and when the two were asked to leave, they refused.
One ran and was tackled in the parking lot behind the fraternity house by police officers. The witness said two fraternity brothers then attempted to rescue their friend and jumped on the officer’s back.
The LAPD version was somewhat similar.
THE LINEUP—Police lined up these men near Division police station. A total of 21 persons Hoover and 28th Streets before separating them were arrested on a variety of charges, and taking them in patrol cars to the Southwest DT photo bn Ed Moy.
GWYNN M. WILSON
HUMAN BARRICADE—Police officers moved down 28th Sr. Thursday night after clearing spectators from the street. Later a group of three dozen officers formed a barricade near L niversity Avenue and were met by a crowd of angry students.
DT photo by Steve Hess.
Sgt. Robert Martin, watch commander, said a loud and boisterous crowd gathered at the corner of 28th and Severance Streets.
Cars parked in the streets were impeding the traffic flow, he said.
The crowd grew antagonistic toward the police, threw beer at them and one officer was struck on the shoulder, he said.
The call that an officer was in need of assistance went out over police radios at about 10:45 p.m. Numerous units responded.
Police cars then converged on 28th Street. A night attendant at the university’s entrance at Jefferson Boulevard and McCIintock Avenue said he saw officers loading their rifles as they sped down Jefferson Boulevard.
“When a call for assistance goes down, we come armed to the teeth,” said one officer, when asked if the report of the loaded rifles was true.
As the police arrived, the crowd on the Row grew. Many .baited the
officers with obscenities and shouts of “Pig.”
As the crowd grew larger, the police declared 28th Street from Hoover Boulevard to University Avenue an unlawful assembly area and the crowd was ordered to leave.
About 11:45 p.m. the police announced over a public address system that anyone not clearing the street in five minutes would be subject to arrest.
This stnry na.t <twritten from in-f nr/nation compiled by Kari Granville, .11 Freisleben, Kevin \h Ken-na, Naniy Sltinabargar, I.arry Turk, Sieve Hess, and- llix Riley, Daily Trojan staff members.
A line of about 35 officers standing shoulder-to-shoulder spanned 28th Street at Hoover Boulevard.
Most of the onlookers stood on the porches and front lawns of fraternity and sorority houses.
Shortly before midnight, the police line began to move down the street. Those standing in the street took cover behind pillars or ran into houses.
Those whom police 'aid were not moving quickly enough were arrested for failing to disperse.
Those arrested for failure to disperse appeared to be taking the whole situation lightly. They stood around a patrol car, >ti 11 bound together and joked with each other and the police.
Many complained of not being formally charged with a crime and of not being informed of their rights.
At 12:45 a.m., with the crowd still standing in doorways and the police marching through the street making arrests, a group of students gathered in the street and began shouting.
Many students claimed this was an attempt to lure the police officers (continued on page 2)