The Maggot
“Live Matter in a Dead Body”
Issue No. 3 November 17, 1941 Published by “The Maggots”
I can see Dan now; a 190 pound, six foot, likeable boy who loved Huron college and football with an ambitious fervor. He won his letter quite easily in his first and only year at Huron, and he graciously admitted that he learned more football in his one season at Huron than he had in four full years of championship high school competition.
Why did Dan drop out? The answer is too simple. Because he was compelled, by the powers that be, to fight against unsurmountable odds. He fought a valiant fight with his chin up and he always had a ready smile, but the inevitable finish was written when his mid-term grades appeared at the halfway mark in the second semester. He had flunked beyond the point of recovery.
After twenty-seven solid weeks of rising at five o'clock every morning to tend a furnace and do odd jobs for a basement room, attending a solid schedule of morning classes, working entire afternoons on the campus, working nights in a downtown cafe for his bread and butter, then finishing the day with an eleven o'clock date in a furnace room, and yet attempt to eke out a scholastic existence was more than even “Big Boone” could survive. If he had been relieved of just one of these binding responsibilities, he could have stayed in school and would have returned this year. Unfortunately the opposite was the case; over all his unending tasks, he was constantly hounded for a small debt which he believed, in good faith, he had worked out early in the year.
We walked to school that sharp winter morning, Dan and I; he had his suitcase, and both of us dreaded the moment when we should reach the college, he to go on by and I to stay. When we reached the north steps he took a deep breath, I blinked my eyes and he offered his huge right hand, which I grasped and said, “Well Kid... I … guess this is it.”
“Yeah, and luck to ya”, he floundered.
There were tears in his eyes as he turned his back on the school he loved, and reluctantly strode toward the highway to hitch-hike home, never to return.
Who is Holding Huron Back?
One man has set himself up as the supreme deity of Huron college. Students and faculty alike fear his power. By denying financial support to any plan he disapproves is his very effective way of committing murder. The murder of an institution that could very well be one of the finest in the country.
With sensible use of available resources Huron college could make itself more than attractive to the thousands of South Dakota young people who are seeking an education. President George F. McDougall knows how to put us back on the map but the Board of Trustees and the student body must give their full support. We know that 95 per cent of the students are ready to give that support.
“The Maggot” will continue indefinitely as the uncensored voice of the student body. We need money badly, but if we can't get it from those who read the paper we will sell ads. We don't want the townsmen to know of our dissension, but necessity is the only word we can recognize.
BOOST FOR THE MAGGOTS
To Whom It May Concern –
The above case is an unsolicited contribution to this periodical, made by one who thought it worthy of telling. It is the plain and unadulterated truth. “The Maggot” welcome any further such articles that may happen to fall into the right hands. It will be our policy to print the rights and wrongs of this institution in their entirety. And when our story is completed we'll reveal our identity and be ready to stand back of anything we have said. Any efforts to destroy these worthy missiles, by self-appointed policemen AND WOMEN will only further bring the contempt and amusement of the student body upon their heads. We realize that in every movement to change the status quo, there are certain skeptics and busy-bodies who will do their best to make it a failure.
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