Evening Republican, Volume 59, Number 96, Rensselaer, Jasper County, 14 May 1917 — Equal to the Occasion. [ARTICLE]

Equal to the Occasion.

Rev. Dr. Nehemiah Boynton* Amherst, ’79, and a Brooklyn clergyman, at the New York alumni of Amherst college dinner recently was telling about some of the student pranks played in college while he was there. “General ‘Ben’ Butler, of Civil war fame, was there making a speech ohe time,” he said, “and the sophomores,

for some reason, arranged to march out during his talk at a prearranged signal in an effort to disconcert him. Accordingly, when the call came the whole class arose and began to march out, keeping time in noisy tramping. The faculty was aghast. Butler was equal to the occasion, hdwever. He stopped talking, watched them and then remarked calmly to the audience: “ ‘Well, I notice those boys know which end of them is the most useful.’ ”