Centennial Edition: 1930s

When Morton Weissman thinks of his time working for The Pitt News, he does not think first of… When Morton Weissman thinks of his time working for The Pitt News, he does not think first of the stories that recounted how students called for peace leading up to World War II, of how his peers attempted to oust fraternity brothers from student government or of how the University was accused of censoring the paper.

Weissman, the business manager in 1939, thinks first of coedsand bar fights.

One of Weissman’s predecessors in the ’30s convinced a local department store to help the paper run a style show, the term of the times for a fashion show.

“As business manager of The Pitt News, we had our pick of models,” said Weissman, who at 92 is one of the oldest living Pitt News alumni.

Men were reluctant to participate — though the paper did recruit at least one football player. But in the days leading up to the big event, women on campus would come to Weissman’s office and offer to help him with work in exchange for a chance to be in the show.

One day, a student told Weissman he was going to get in trouble. He was picking too many models from the same sorority.

“I said, ‘I don’t ask them the sorority. I just look at them,’” Weissman said.

Those more personal memories — the ones that don’t directly connect to an ad sale or to a story in the paper — are the ones that Weissman remembers most vividly. He recounted how he and and his fellows Pitt Newsers would grab some beer, hop in a car and drive to North Park or South Park and “have a great time.”

Once, on the way to a journalism convention in Lincoln, Neb., one of Weissman’s friends organized a party in the last car of the train. “The conductor went wild” and tried to bar people from joining in, Weissman said.

He recalled how the staff of between 30 and 40 would have snowball fights or go sledding together during the winter.

“We had a great group, very friendly,” he said.

But that didn’t keep him from occasionally duping the reporting staff. Sometimes, instead of asking for money in exchange for ads, Weissman would accept a due bill. A theater, for example, might give him $100 worth of play tickets instead of $100 in cash.

After one due bill, the faculty supervisor told Weissman he had to “be fair and give some [tickets] to the editorial staff.” Weissman agreed to split everything 50-50, meaning that all five of the business staff members could attend the play, while only five out of 28 reporters could go.

The paper came out about three times a week then. Weissman spent his time courting advertisers — many were cigarette companies — while trying to “keep the paper in the black” financially, something that was very hard during that era.

The editorial staff focused largely on covering on-campus events and sometimes connected them to national and international events. In 1934, it ran an article about a lecture in which Dr. J. F. L. Raschen discussed the rise of dictator Adolf Hitler in Germany and predicted that war would break out in Europe.

Two years later, the University curtailed classes and joined in a national peace day assembly.

The same year, The Pitt News ran an article about the annual Coed Prom, a tradition in which freshmen women attended a dance with senior women. “Dates Scarce Tonight as Coeds Date Coeds,” the headline read. The story described characters like “Miss Freshman in her purty blue and gold garden hat, made with her own hands, and dressed in her summer formal.”

Women’s rights were an area of focus throughout the decade. Women earned their first seat on the Student Council in 1933, with the passage of “The Goldberg Amendment” to the group’s constitution.

At the end of the decade, women continually made headlines as the members of sororities debated whether to abandon campus politics.

Some articles angered the Pitt administration, and in 1937 an independent organization said the University’s method for choosing the paper’s editor in chief was “dictatorial.”

The Intercollegiate Newspaper Association came to this conclusion after sending questionnaires to editors and assistants at 37 collegiate newspapers. The group concluded that “actual or virtual censorship” occurred at three collegiate papers — The Pitt News, The Temple University News and the Susquehanna College Susquehanna.

As the campus speculated whether 15-year football coach Jock Sutherland would remain at Pitt amid lengthy conversations with administrators, Weissman said Chancellor John Bowman called him into his office. Weissman said Bowman asked him how often the paper came out and then said, “Wouldn’t you like to have it once a month?”

Weissman said no, and Bowman asked him to stop running controversial articles. Because Weissman was on the business staff and not the reporting staff, he had no control over content.

Yet despite the occasional high-profile story and high-pressure meetings with Pitt officials, the staff still found time to have fun.

On Jan. 23, 1931, the paper ran an article called “Three Journalists Engaged.” The story began, “Journalists may, or may not make money, but one thing is certain, they must know how to make love.”

Ten years later, a Pitt football player showed a little love for The Pitt News and bailed Weissman out of a quagmire.

Weissman, who graduated in 1940, was a private in the Army in 1941 when he and some of his friends went to a bar almost like the ones in Western movies, where the doors swing back and forth.

Weissman went to the bathroom, and when he came out, the Army men were fighting the Marines. Bottles flew through the air, and men were ducking.

“I ducked back into the men’s room, and all of a sudden I got grabbed from behind,” he said.

The man who grabbed Weissman’s shoulder said, “I remember youse. Youse used to write good things about me in The Pitt News.” The man turned out to be a lineman from the Pitt football team. He told Weissman to follow him out of the bar, and no one would lay a hand on him — which turned out to be true.

Weissman didn’t have the heart to the tell the football player he worked on the business side and didn’t write the stories.

Additional headlines include:

March 6, 1931 — “The Truth Will Out!” (Pitt students choose their first Homecoming King and Queen.)

April 29, 1932 — University To charge flat tuition rate next fall: Students pay $10 a credit

Oct. 7, 1932 — The Pitt Weekly becomes The Pitt News after a student wins a contest to name the paper

March 7, 1933 — University summer session sponsors first summer study tour to Europe; group to visit

Nov. 8, 1935 — Panthers, Pittsburgh await Army cadets’ invasion tomorrow (football game)

Nov. 1, 1937 — 567 students take Wassermann Tests (for syphilis) during first week

Nov. 18, 1938 — Howard Heinz will present chapel to University at Sunday services

May 13, 1940 — Hospitalization offered to students; Pitt News, Health Service bring group insurance plan to campus