'Harmless' idea of 1908
Student editors rock Lawrence
It seemed like a harmless enough idea at first.
J. L. Brady, editor of the Lawrence Journal at the turn of the century, offered to turn his paper over to KU's journalism class and the "Scoop" club (composed of students who had worked on newspapers) for one day's issue.
The idea was that the students would learn something about what newspaper work in the grown-up world was really like.
THE STUDENTS accepted the offer, but the end product was something quite different from what Brady first had in mind.
April 25, 1908, was selected as the day for the students to take over the Journal. Jerome Beatty, who later gained fame as an author, was chosen managing editor of the day's paper. Roy A. Roberts, who became known as the editor of The Kansas City Star, was city editor.
The paper hit the streets about 4 p.m. It rocked the city.
AT THE TOP of the first column of page one was a large headline proclaiming "Beer Sold Here." The following story charged that "at more than a dozen places in the east part of the city, liquors of various kinds are sold."
The allegations were shocking because at that time Kansas was still a dry state.
The article contained a list of "joints" in Lawrence where beer and liquor were sold and a report of the March sales of whisky and wine in local drugstores. One drugstore, it said, had sold 110 gallons of wine to "sufferers from colds and stomach complaints" in March.
THE STUDENT staffers had even gone to the trouble to find out who owned all the buildings that housed "joints." One of their discoveries was that the police judge L. H. Menger, owned at least one of the places.
On the editorial page, the student editors demanded that prohibition be enforced in Lawrence. A 1,000-word poem by Harry Kemp, a student poet, told in rhyme of a visit to the "joints."
THE STUDENT expose met with immediate reaction in Law- rence.
According to The Kansas City Star of the following day, "Very little beer was available in the bottoms' the night the paper hit the streets. The 'joint' in the house owned by the police judge was not in operation."
The Star also reported that Judge Menger, who had been named in the student story, had "announced that any student brought before him now for being disorderly will be sent to the rock pile for 10 days."
AROUT TWO WEEKS later, the "jointists" were brought to trial in U.S. District Court. Nearly 100 students were subpoenaed as witnesses.
About 25 of the students subpoenaed were journalism students; the rest were students who authorities suspected of having some knowledge about the "joints."
Daily Kansan Monday, December 5, 1966
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THE TRIAL began May 13. The Lawrence Journal of that day described the scene in the courtroom:
"The courtroom crowded with students, most of whom were witnesses against the jointists on
trial, the rest of whom were students 'cutting' classes, and all of the witnesses visibly nervous as to the outcome, the trial began in district court."
The trial did not last long. After two witnesses had testified, the jointists began pleading guilty on one count. Most of them had three counts charged against them, and the county attorney dismissed the other two in all such cases.
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