M - _liiiiiV
COLLEGIAN 100 YEARS
AprillBB7•April 1987
'Elite' gather behind closed doors
Editor's Note: This is the second in a three
part series on secret societies at the Universi
ty. ,
By DAMON CHAPPIE
Collegian Staff Writer
May the Lion's Paw ever rest as the guardi
an
at the gates of old Penn State,
that its stroke may be the despair of her
enemies
and its strength the pride of her friends.
Lion's Paw creed
Behind a locked door on the fourth floor of
Old Main lies the Lair.
For more than 55 years, the dozen or so
members of an elite student society called
Lion's Paw have held weekly meetings in the
Lair, discussing campus problems and ways
to solve them.
Membership in Lion's Paw is considered
the highest honor senior student leaders can
achieve, but they aren't supposed to discuss
their involvement in the group. In the past,
the group usually included the top executives
of the Undergraduate Student Government
and the Interfraternity Council, and the edi
tor of The Daily Collegian.
Lion's Paw members must also belong to
one of the other secret societies, Skull and
Bones and Parmi Nous. The officers of those
societies are usually in Lion's Paw.
"The group is really a way for certain
student leaders to get together and try and
have a more informed approach to better
Senate
to probe
crash
By GEORGE GEDDA
Associated Press Writer
WASHINGTON The Senate For
eign Relations Committee staff will
conduct an inquiry into whether an
airplane resupplying NicargUan re
bels was working in cooperation with
the Reagan administration, the pan
el's chairman said yesterday.
Sen. Richard Lugar, R-Ind., di
vulged the plan for the inquiry by his
committee's staff in response to an
accusation by Sen. John Kerry, D-
Mass., that "individuals are running
around . . . conducting their own for
eign policy in violation of the law."
In related news, the Nicaraguan
Foreign Ministry announced late yes
terday that it would allow U.S. Em
bassy officials to question American
Eugene Hasenfus, the lone survivor
of the crash Sunday of the cargo
plane in southern Nicaragua. The
ministry also said it would return the
bodies of Americans who were killed.
The announcement came a day
after the State Department threat
ened to shut down the U.S. Embassy
in Nicaragua unless U.S. officials got
consular access to Hasenfus.
Acting State Department spokes
man Charles Redman had said ear
lier in the day that the embassy
delivered a diplomatic note Tuesday
to Nicaraguan officials requesting
consular access to Hasenfus and
asking for the remains and personal
effects of the two Americans who died
in the crash.
Asked late yesterday about the
Nicaraguan announcement, Nancy
Beck, a State Department spokeswo
man, said the United States "has yet
to receive consular access. Nor," she
said, "have the remains of the men,
who are reported to be Americans,
been turned over to us."
Lugar said Reagan administration
policy toward Nicaragua is effective
ly in a sort of "limbo" because Con
gress has not given final approval to
$lOO million in U.S. aid to the Contras.
That money for that aid program is
contained in a pending catchall mon
ey bill.
The plane was on a mission to
resupply Nicaraguan rebels but the
Reagan administration has said it
had no connection with the U.S. gov
ernment. Nicaragua has said the
plane was on a CIA-sponsored mis
sion.
weather
This afternoon, cloudy and a
cool, brisk wind. High 58. To
night, a partly cloudy start, with
clear skies by morning. Low 37.
Heidi Sonen
the
daily
serve the students," said a recent USG exec
utive who belonged to Lion's Paw.
"We would argue, sometimes violently,
over certain student issues and try to come to
an agreement on what to do about them,"
said the former executive, who asked not to
be identified by name
The,source said Lion's Paw allows leaders
to discuss campus issues away from public
scrutiny, som6thing other forums such as the
University Student Executive Council don't
allow.
"In Lion's Paw, you can discuss any issue
Marchers enthusiastic for peace trek
By JANE KOPACKI
Collegian Staff Writer
Last March, 1,500 people started
on a 3,500-mile trek across the
United States in support of global
disarmament. In the past six
months, the group of marchers,
ranging in age from 6 months to 79
years, have faced apathy, bank
ruptcy and harsh weather.
But now, members of the Great
Peace March for Global Nuclear
Disarmament walk across Penn
sylvania, speak enthusiastically
about the future of the peace
movement, and look ahead to the
peak of the movement on Nov. 15
-in Washington, D.C., when the city
will be barraged with letters and
phone calls supporting global nu
clear disarmament.
The march began on the west
coast March 1, only to be halted by
bankruptcy four days later in Bar
stow, Calif. The People Reaching
Out for Peace, the funding organi
zation of the march, was bankrupt
and the 1,500 marchers knew they
all could not continue.
"There was never a doubt that
the march would go on," said Ka
ren Lauer, 24, a social worker from
Portland, Ore.
With the logistics of the continua
tion of the march in question, one
of the options the marchers dis
cussed was splitting the group and
spreading across the country to
cover the most ground. Without
waiting for a decision to be made,
the Peace Wave, a group of 13,
rippled out of Barstow.
"We didn't know if the big march
would get off its feet," said Kathy
Potter, a preschool teacher from
Boulder, Colo.
She said the Peace Wave was
effective because of the size of the
group, even with the small num
bers who joined them for parts of
the walk, were able to make more
one-to-one contact in spreading
their message of peace to the na
tion.
The Peace Wave is self-sufficient
and consists of 12 women and one
man ranging in ages from 24 to 52.
Lauer said the numbers have fluc
tuated as others joined their
movement but they never lost the
13 original members.
Susanne Mendelson, 76, and the
oldest woman in the Great March,
said, "It just goes to show you, old
people don't have to just sit around
and watch TV all day."
"I decided to become completely
involved," Lauer said. "We're liv
ing out something we believe in
and want to work for."
Charles Davidson, a marcher
and Great Peace March educatio
nal outreach coordinator, said he
was concerned with the apathy of
university students in this country.
"I've met fifth and sixth graders
who are more interested in what
they could do to attain peace than
university students," Davidson, 25,
from California, said. He said that
sometimes when conducting pro
grams on college campuses he felt
like he was talking to ice.
Collegian
with a lot more informality outside of USEC.
Everyone knows that in USEC the press is
going to be there and that they can't be as
open as they might want to be," the source
said.
Last year's Black Caucus president, Larry
Patrick, who was also a member of Lion's
Paw, said "there's a very big need for this
type of group."
He said some of the same topics discussed
in USEC were discussed in Lion's Paw.
"There, are positions that you won't feel
comfortable with talking about in the pub
lic."
The student 'elite'
Each April, the Lion's Paw class is chosen
by the preceding year's class. Patrick re
fused to identify this year's members. USG
President Matt Baker and USG Vice Presi
dent Sue Sturgis said they didn't belong to the
group, as did Panhellenic Council President
Mary Pickens, IFC President Pat Conway,
Association of Residence Hall Students Presi
dent Kent Jute and Collegian Editor Anita
Huslin.
Collegian Business Manager William G.
Landis Jr., also the president of Skull and
Bones, replied "No comment" when asked if
he belongs to Lion's Paw. Marjorie Utt,
president of the Organization for Town Inde
pendent Students, also said, "I have no com
ment on that."
A current Lion's Paw member, who asked
not to be identified by name and refused to
University student Christopher Bell, inset, is participating in the Great Peace March for Global Nuclear Disarma
ment. After leaving California in March, hundreds of antinuclear activists arrived in Pennsylvania on Monday.
"Getting involved to stand up for
a comprehensive test ban treaty
takes just as much commitment as
going to the pubs to drink beer," he
said. '
The large numbers and diversity
has attracted overwhelming inter
national support for the Great
Peace March, Lauer said. She said
some members of the march have
done mini-marches in Japan, Ger
many and Holland. She said the
Soviet Union even publishes up
dates about the group twice a
week.
"I'm learning more about my
self and how to deal with the many
different aspects of human be
ings," he said.
The march has attracted people
from all walks of life, Davidson
said, adding, "We are a micro
- cosm of society."
The Great Peace March has
tried to motivate support for global
nuclear disarmament.
~/ L -:
"We've been through everything
heat in the desert, snow in the
Rockies, and rain in the east,"
Potter said. The walkers' travel
between 15 and 20 miles a• day, he
said, and rest one day. a week.
Great Peace March walker and
University student Christopher
Bell said people did special things
for the walkers all across the coun
try. When the walkers did not have
a camp site on the third day, for
example, the people of Clairmont,
Calif., took them into their homes.
Lauer said the response along
the way was always fresh and
positive, "whether it was knocking
on a door to use the shower or
phone or to ask permission to camp
in their yard." She added, "It was
kind of neat."
"We've been taken care of the
whole way. We run on faith," Pot
ter said. "We trust in that the
universe will provide."
identify other members, would only say that
the group is "apolitical."
But the known history of Lion's Paw, from
records in the Penn State Room, shows a
group very interested in University politics.
The group was formed in 1908 by 10 senior
men upon appeal from Penn State President
Edward Sparks, who asked for student help
in curbing "hoodlum elements" on campus.
In those days, students roamed around the
town during "hell week," shouting, tearing
up sidewalks and shooting guns into the air.
The society remained exclusively male
until 1972.
In the late 19205, when Old Main was being
rebuilt, the alumni of Lion's Paw donated $l,-
000 with the understanding that a room would
be set aside in perpetuity in the refurbished
Old Main for Lion's Paw exclusive use.
No documentation can be found of that
agreement, according to University admins
trators, except a 1954 letter from the presi
dent of the Lion's Paw Alumni Association,
B.M. Hermann. .
Since 1931, Room 419 in Old Main has been
the exclusive haven for Lion's Paw. Labeled
"the Lair" by Lion's Paw members in 1931,
the room is reportedly furnished with a large
round oak table, chairs; bookcases, a chess
table and dark drapes for the window.
Few people working in Old Main have seen
it. A maintenance man working on the fourth
floor where offices are being renovated said
he had the key to every room in the building
except Room 419. The man, who asked not to
be identified, said he has worked there seven
years and has never seen inside the room.
Davidson said the Great Peace
March will be a historic event. He
said the event will not be truly
understood until after they arrive
in Washington, D.C.
Although she has no plans for
herself after reaching Washington,
D.C., Nov. 15, Lauer said her tran
sition back to living indoors will be
difficult after 10 months of weath
ering the elements.
Carson, former manager of a
day care center in Tahoe City,
Calif., said she was planning to join
a 200-mile march from the tip of
Florida to Cape Canaveral after
the Great March in December.
Davidson said he will return to
California and may continue the
movement if it is still attractive to
him and serves his interest. If
nothing else, he said, he would
work himself out of debt and begin
collecting data and writing societal
and historical accounts of the
Great Peace March.
Thursday, Oct. 9, 1986
Vol. 87, No. 62 18 pages University Park, Pa. 16802
Published by students of The Pennsylvania State University
©1986 Collegian Inc.
Although administrative office space is so
tight the University is buying office space
downtown, James Dungan, director of office
facilities information and management,
said: "That room is considered off limits to
the University. I know nothing about that
room except that it is used by Lion's Paw."
He added that all other rooms in Old Main
are used for official University business.
Dungan said he doesn't know how members
get keys to Room 919 or to Old Main.
According to the Hermann letter, Lion's
Paw had an "intimate" relationship with the
college adminstration in its early years.
"Lion's Paw came into being as the result
of an inspired wish of a group of student
leaders to be of loyal service to the College in
democratically moulding the student opinion
of their day into constructive channels," the
letter said.
"I am reminded of President Hetzel's tak
ing pleasure in saying that when he looked
from his home he could see the light burning
in the fourth floor room of Old Main and he
knew, perhaps chuckling about youthful inex
perience, that the actives were discussing
away in the small hours of the morning, and
that the discussion would flow down to the
student body and at least there would be
some form introduced democratically into
what . . . would . . . otherwise be chaos.
"He said on many occasions that he could
sleep soundly knowing that things would go
well with Penn State and its students as long
as that light burned in sincerity and hones
ty," Hermann wrote.
AP Laserphoto
Please see ROOM, Page 6
Student
marches
for peace
By JANE KOPACKI
Collegian Staff Writer
Last spring, while most stu
dents were lying in the sun or
planning their spring break, an
other University student was
traveling across the country for a
cause.
Christopher Bell began a 3,500-
mile trek to Washington, D.C., to
spread the word of peace and
global nuclear disarmament.
Bell (junior-agricultural sci
ence) said he is not politically
active at the University but that
he is concerned about nuclear
weapons. Furthermore, he said
he admires the two-thirds of the
University's physics department
that agreed to refrain from con
ducting research for the "Star
Wars" program.
"I was always upset about the
apathy at Penn State," Bell said.
"Most students are here just to
get jobs in big corporations like
IBM and Gulf. But if we don't
disarm our nuclear weapons
soon, there will be no chance for
those jobs anyway."
When he read an advertise
ment about doing something for
the future and being a part of
history, Bell said, he decided to
become a recruit for the Great
Peace March for Global Nuclear
Disarmament.
Through benefits by local
bands such as the Earthtones and
the Screaming Ducks and finan
cial help from his friends, Bell
raised the money he needed for a
plane ticket, a tent, and rain gear
for the nine-month trek starting
in Los Angeles.
"It takes energy to make a
change for the future," he said.
He added that students possess
that kind of energy but need to
concentrate it.
All students do not have to walk
3,000 miles to work for the cause,
he said. "Have a keg party for
peace.
"The march is a baby, with
nine months of incubation from
beginning to end," Bell said.
"When we get to Washington
Nov. 15, the peace movement will
be reborn."
Bell said march organizer Da
vid Mixner's dream of 5,000 peo
ple walking across the continent
for peace, with an entourage of
trucks carrying all the comforts
of home, was not as feasible as
Mixner believed.
Marchers are doctors, lawyers,
physicists and families, he said.
The group is not just "beatniks,
hippies and Deadheads," but is a
diverse microcosm of society_
Please see PEACE, Page 18.