Matters reached a breaking point in 1773, and President Samuel Locke announced what he called "a heap of new laws such as to prevent any publick entertainment."

The regulations, however, failed to prevent a student committee in 1780 from sending President Samuel Langdon the following letter: "As a man of genius and knowledge we respect you; as a man of piety and virtue we venerate you; as a President we despise you." Grasping the subtlety, Langdon promptly resigned.

Other rioters in other days delighted in getting the President out of bed to quell their disturbances. Outbreaks usually began with the cry of "Heads Out"; when and why the original rallying call was replaced by "Rinehart", nobody seems to know.

The fracas followers usually gathered at the famous Rebellion Tree, an elm east of Hollis Hall. It was there that John Quincy Adams' son George heroically told the mobs, "Gentlemen, we have been commanded, at our peril, not to return to the Rebellion Tree: at our peril we do return."

Another son of the President, John, was one of the 43 (out of a class of 70) expelled just before Commencement for participation in the "Great Rebellion of 1823." Some 50 years later and 39 after John's death, the faculty backed down and granted the group their diplomas "in absentia." Primary prank of the notorious Class of 1823 was rolling cannon balls down the stairs of the tottering Yard dormitories.

Once again in 1825 the College saw fit to renovate its by-laws, this time coming up with 153 regulations. Among other things, vacations were re-scheduled, because it was felt that warm weather served to incite riotous students.

Nine years later, undergraduates broke $300 worth of windows, and President Josiah Quincy called in the Grand Jury of Middlesex County to nab the offenders. The students were outraged and followed by smashing furniture, setting off explosions, wearing crepe on their arms, hanging their President in effigy from the Rebellion Tree, and breaking more windows.

The Class Struggle

President Quincy then announced, "Numbers in a literary institution are by no means an unqualified blessing," and proceeded to suspend the entire sophomore class for a year.

Perhaps the next important development of the 19th century was the founding of Radcliffe in 1879. The Annex became an immediate favorite as a disturbance destination; from the ancient bustle to the modern strapless, female trappings have always been prized plunder, with the riotous robber getting as much uplift from the booty as the original owner.

And while the embryo women's college was coming to its own, foreign inventors were busily at work on the first automobiles. The step from Honry Ford's car to the paddy wagon was a short one, and riot-quellers were soon provided with a new weapon. The Black Maria, in turn, hastened the discovery of the Eezy Meeny Miny Moe Ringleader Detection Technique.

In April of 1907, students threw missiles and broke up a Majestic Theater performance of "Brown of Harvard." A newspaper of the day, yellow with age but not journalistic practice, described the play as "a composite picture of many of the worst features of American colleges under the name of Harvard." A revival of the drama during the thirties met with equally disastrous results.

After the first World War came the Boston Police Strike of 1919. At the suggestion of President A. Lawrence Lowell, John Harvard became John Law for a brief, traitorous period. Over 200 quasi-quislings from the College stepped into the breach.

Three of the student policemen handedly broke up a disturbance of 4000 townspeople in Central Square ingenious trio requisitioned a troll at Harvard Square, stretched them out along the floor, and sped down sachusetts Avenue, with bell furiously.

The first trip of the "phantom" car scared the mob, and the second scatered them, making a third dash unnecessary, much to the chagrin of the of law and order. Soon the strike and the students returned to their proper side of the fence. If the situation brought any change, it was the emergence into the limelight of formerly known state Governor Calvin Coolidge.