Andrew Novak
Research Editor

Courtesy University Archives Members of the 1940 Hatchet staff gather around the newspaperıs city desk. The Hatchet celebrated its 50th anniversary in 1954.

Through the beginning of the 1930s, little changed in the pages of The Hatchet. Stories about Greek-letter life, sports and student groups still dominated the news. By the time the paper celebrated its 50th anniversary, however, it had become a powerful medium of debate and investigation, as well as the primary advocate of the GW student body.

The Early Marvin Years

Dr. Cloyd Heck Marvin came to GW in 1927, welcomed by the student body and faculty. Not long after his term began, however, relations began to sour as Marvin consolidated firm control over the tenure of faculty members, the reorganization of departments and the activities of the student body.

Setting the tone for the rest of his 32-year term, Marvin halted publication of The Hatchet Literary Supplement in 1933 after finding an article "immoral." The Supplement first appeared in 1930 when The Hatchet merged with the Colonial Wig, a literary publication, and The Ghost, a humor magazine.

The Hatchet itself slowly began to change as pictures, graphics and cartoons began accompanying stories. The first sports section appeared in 1933, related stories began to be grouped together in sections, the number of columns grew to seven and the number of pages increased, even during the Great Depression.

The first battles with the Student Council, setting a trend that would continue for decades, came in 1933, when the Council attempted to bar reporters from meetings. A sharply worded editorial saying, "the Student Council has apparently acted without counting to 10" sparked immediate action; by the next issue, the Council had overturned its "Censor Clause."

Later in the decade, The Hatchet began to breathe new life into an old cause ­ the founding of a journalism school. After periodic editorials, its wish came true when the journalism department opened in 1938. Students could take three classes: Journalism Survey, Advanced Reporting and News Values, taught by Edward Duffey and Nathan Robertson.

As the decade progressed, the student body began to chafe under Marvinıs control. In 1937, he cancelled the second annual "Strike Against War and Fascism," believing it to be unpatriotic. A battle raged on the editorial pages, with The Hatchet remaining skeptical of Marvinıs actions. About 300 students defied orders and participated in the strike.

The following year, Marvin dismissed the newly elected editor in chief of The Hatchet, Frank Ford Burnett, along with the entire board of editors, because he thought they were too critical of the administration. After a closed hearing, six members of the senior staff were appointed as replacements.

Murray Berdick, one of the replacements, later recalled that the paper was forbidden to comment on the incident.

"No more than a handful of people ever heard about the whole thing," he said in an interview.

Despite the addition of new departments, raises in teachersı pay and pensions and the hiring of renowned professors, faculty opposition to Marvin administration actions grew. The Hatchet and the student body rallied for Dr. Marvin T. Herrick, a popular professor of English, after Marvin refused to renew his contract in 1935.

"It is the student who is the loser in this case," agitated students wrote in The Hatchet, "and therefore, we as students feel justified in doing all that we may properly do to bring about the retention of Dr. Herrick."

But an even larger battle was to come. In early 1940, student resentment erupted against Marvin in a scandal that soon spiraled out of control. Had World War II not occurred, student and faculty outrage over the incident might have derailed the Marvin administration.

The Martha Gibbon Affair

On March 6, 1940, Martha Gibbon, an assistant professor of English, suddenly resigned in protest over Marvinıs refusal to promote her because she did not have a Ph.D. Recommended by four department heads for a promotion, and popular among the students, faculty and alumni, Gibbonıs cause became a battle cry for a broadside attack on the administration.

"If my case proves anything at all," she wrote in a letter to The Hatchet, "it proves that all the deans and department heads are mere rooks like the rest of us. Democratic procedure at our University is a pantomime and a farce; this is a one-man institution, and that one man is a ruthless tyrant."

The Washington Daily News detailed how the Board of Trustees promptly accepted her resignation and considered the matter closed, denying her the right to an appeal. "Your refusal of a hearing denies me even the most rudimentary right of defense; yet the matter involved is the destruction of my whole academic career," Gibbon pleaded to the Board.

The Hatchet joined the chorus of opposition, launching perhaps the first editorial campaign openly critical of the administration.

"The University is losing one of the most inspiring professors on this campus," the editors wrote. "And that loss is being sustained through an unfortunate situation which should never have arisen to disturb the peace of the Universityıs academic life."

Dissent poured out through every channel as a student committee and an alumni committee, along with the American Association of University Professors, launched investigations.

With the Board of Trustees firmly behind him, Marvin was able to ignore the protests of the GW community. Campus life moved on, and the "Martha Gibbon Affair" was forgotten. But during the commotion, a small, quiet campus newspaper found its voice and began holding administrators accountable for the first time.

The Post-War Era and Desegregation

The late 1940s were quiet for GW, said Marie Walter, a Hatchet reporter and member of the Cherry Tree staff from 1948 to 1952. She confessed that Hatchet reporters were "always looking for a story." In an old office on G Street, where the psychology building is today, Walter remembers a social center where she could go to make friends and eat lunch. In the background were reporters on "old typewriters, pecking away," she recalled.

The Hatchet found a rallying cause to mobilize the student body. With the support of the large veteran community on campus, The Hatchet began championing the cause of desegregation.

"There will be many who, at first thought, will cry, ŒLet us wait a while.ı To them, we say, the time is now," declared a staff editorial on November 15, 1949. "We believe we should begin Œmoving forwardı now. We feel that the time for action has arrived."

According to an article in the Washington Evening Star, Marvin responded simply: "The Hatchet, as the student newspaper of the University, is free to reflect without interference the opinion of its editors."

Marvinıs support of segregation was well known, especially because several major benefactors had given large donations to GW with the stipulation that the facilities remain segregated, according to a 1996 essay about the history of The Hatchet.

The debate raged in editorials in the following weeks. Hatchet editors defended themselves against protesting students and reluctant faculty. "Regardless of what the Board of Trustees decides," the staff wrote, "we have no doubt that what we urge is right and just. We are convinced that the University would gain much in the eyes of clear-thinking Americans by recognizing the injustice of its present policy."

On the eve of The Hatchetıs 50th birthday, an editorial proudly announced that at the beginning of the 1954 school year the Board of Trustees abolished segregation.

"The Hatchet, as an organ of student opinion, has been a strong advocate of racial integration, and it is with gratification that we welcome this long-awaited advance," the editors wrote.

By mid-century, the paper looked very different than it had before the Marvin era, with photographs and cartoons and graphics. The paper had gradually become an active participant in campus life, not the quiet, passive paper it once was. The Marvin era was slowly coming to an end, paving the way for another more enlightened, more active era under Lloyd Elliott. The glory days of The Hatchet still lay in its future.