Sunday, Dec. 7, 1941, was a clear, sunny day in Los Angeles — the kind of weather that makes Easterners envious. It was a lazy, pre-holiday weekend. Most of the Daily Bruin staff was sleeping late; parties had been many the night before to celebrate underdog UCLA's 7-7 football tie with the favored USC Trojans.

But that evening the Bruin staff was on the job -- the first night of the war -- and Editor Malcolm Steinlauf had torn out the early layout for Page One and replaced it with a solid page of wire copy and photographs. The headline: "JAPAN DECLARES WAR!"

Steinlauf put aside the anti-draft, isolationist tenor of the prewar Bruin in an editorial entitled "The Time Has Come."

That Bruin appeared on a campus where normal classroom activities had almost stopped.

During the rest of the fall semester, war news blanketed the Bruin's front page. Editors held the pages open until 3 a.m. to provide late-breaking news for their readers; their deadlines were on a par with the morning Times and Examiner, with which the Bruin felt itself in competition. "If it was in our area we wanted to get it first," recalled Managing Editor Bob Barsky. (Interview, 1970.) And the war was definitely in the area of active student concern.

On the evening of Dec. 10, the Student Council gathered at the home of Dean of Men Earl J. Miller for a combined Christmas party and Council meeting. They were treated to the first blackout of the war. But they had time before the lights went out to ask Editor Steinlauf "to see that the Bruin was not devoted to world news coverage inasmuch as this information could be obtained in other papers, but that campus news could not." (SEC, 12/10/41.)

At the same time the Bruin staff was making up its first, last and only three-page newspaper (a full-size Page One and two tabloid-size pages on the reverse).


The war brought changes to the Bruin. As men were drafted or enlisted, women filled their places, and all-women Editorial Boards (except for the sports editor) became common. On Jan. 4, 1943, the Bruin went to a tabloid size, which it maintained from then on, except for a few broadsheet special issues, the last one printed on Jan. 17, 1947.

The Navy came to the campus with a V-12 cadet program, and a speeded-up three-semester-a-year plan was begun. The ASUCLA purchased its first station wagon to haul women staff members to and from the Bruin shop in Hollywood. A column called "Bruin Batallion" [sic] was begun, featuring news of servicemen. As early as March 1941, the Bruin was being sent in batches to Fort Ord and Fort Arthur for UCLA students on active duty. (SEC, 3/5/41.) The paper changed its frequency to three times a week and its name to "California Bruin" (July 1943).

It continued in its liberal tradition. It was a consistent defender of the rights of Nisei students (including Hitoshi Yonemura, who was the head yell leader and a Student Council member), suddenly restricted to their homes and then, just as suddenly, hustled off to "relocation" camps. [Yonemura, later 2nd Lt Hitoshi Yonemura, SS olc, PH olc, DUB, CIB) joined the Army and was killed in Italy.] "We were the only newspaper in town to take that editorial stand," recalled Bob Barsky with a touch of pride. (Interview, 1970.)



Editor Gloria Farquar's editorial of March 21, 1944, was singled out by a judge of the Associated Collegiate Press for special mention when the Bruin won an all-American rating that semester:


Patriotism was back in fashion.

The war brought something else to the UCLA campus, too -- a resurgent interest in social events, in downright lighthearted frivolity that could wash away the thoughts and fears of ever-present war. "I think people needed a lot of entertainment at this time," wrote William C. Ackerman (1969, p. 62). The Bruin's air of "professionalism" began to wane. Smaller staffs and smaller papers may have been the cause. Coverage of campus activities lessened. But humor seemed to be in as much demand as ever, and the "Men's Pages" (pale reflections of long-ago Hell's Bells editions) appeared regularly.

One of the Men's Pages raised a ruckus that reverberated across the nation. It was headed "Liberals vs. Conservatives." Half of it was printed upside down. Liberals were panned as unmercifully as conservatives. But when State Sen. Jack B. Tenney got hold of a copy, he seized upon a headline that proclaimed "Sex Like Drink of Water, Says Pundit." "Conservatives are sexually frustrated," the article went on. "If they would recognize the importance of sex they would become kind and decent." Tenney was investigating a Writers' Congress being planned for UCLA, and he had Dr. Gordon S. Watkins of the UCLA administrative committee on the stand. Tenney referred to the article as an "editorial" and asked Dr. Watkins if that was what was meant by "academic freedom" at UCLA. (CDB, 2/23/48.)

That wasn't the end of it. Another Men's Page article included this paragraph:

This brought a telegram to Dr. Robert Gordon Sproul from the unamused Los Angeles correspondent of the Chicago Tribune who demanded to know "the name of the person who signed [the] . . . assertion that Tribune printed 'C' gasoline coupons . . . Tribune wishes background of these writers, including their age, family, records, if any, and also where the Bruin got any such information that it had printed 'C' coupons in its advertising columns." (Arch, Box 282, Folder 40.)

The Nash-Kelvinator Co. was also parodied, but no one seemed to take offense at this take-off of the "institutional" magazine advertising many of the large firms were running during the war for lack of any production goods to sell:

Editor Adele Truitt threw up her figurative hands in despair and tried to explain.

From then on, relations between the Bruin and various legislative committees investigating Communism at UCLA were not friendly.

That particular issue of Sept. 20, 1943, also compounded suspicion of the Bruin through an advertisement for a lecture in Los Angeles by Celeste Strack, the same Communist Party member who had been suspended by Dr. Ernest Carroll Moore ten years earlier. Dean Miller wrote Dr. Sproul that he had discussed both the Men's Page and the advertisement "the following day with the Daily Bruin staff."

Despite lectures and educational activities by the Communist Party among UCLA students, there was a decided lessening of radical activities during the war on the Westwood campus. In fact, File Folder 105 of the Administrative records (known usually as the "Red File" or the "Subversive Activities File"), ordinarily stuffed with a ragbag of mimeographed strike calls, radical newspapers and letters about suspected Communists, was completely empty for the years 1942 and 1943. (Arch, Boxes 266 and 289.)

Still, the University YMCA, just across the street from the UCLA campus, was a problem. For a long time it had allowed controversial groups to use its facilities. In that era, Regulation 17 -- which barred use of University facilities by religious or political groups -- was in effect. The Student Council ordered the Bruin not to give news or advertising space to these groups, but they were allowed to "receive publicity at the discretion of the editorial board." (SEC, 3/24/43 and 10/2/43.) Later, at the request of the YMCA, protecting its image against any charge of subversion, the Bruin agreed to use only the Y's address, 574 Hilgard Ave.

The war and its resulting upheaval failed to put an end to the bickering between the Student Council and the Bruin. The newspaper's editorial nominees were generally approved by the Council, but only after time-consuming debate and controversy. In early 1945, however, just about the time the Marines were gathering for their assault on Iwo Jima and the Big Three were preparing for the Yalta Conference, student leaders -- with at least the moral backing of the University Administration -- were laying plans to unseat the Bruin's editorial staff and replace it with an entire new slate. They almost succeeded.

A word, first, about the famous Bruin "slate": In the early days, an outgoing editor would nominate a successor -- usually the managing editor with whom he had worked. Seemingly, it was an autocratic method of succession, modified only by the fact that the nominee had to go through Publications Board and Student Council scrutiny before being confirmed. As the years passed, Editorial Boards, instead of the editor alone, began to make the nomination of their successors, and by the 1940s the entire Bruin upper staff -- those with experience on the paper -- were gathered together to choose a slate that the Bruin would present to Publications Board for eventual approval by the Council. Editor Josephine Rosenfield described a highly idealized version of the "slate" in 1943.

The assertion that the Council was a "high court of review" was an unrealistic assessment of the situation. The Council always felt it retained the appointing power.

Editor Charlotte Klein set down the next year the most thorough rationale for the Bruin "slate" system ever written. The meeting she describes was a quiet one; perhaps it, too, was idealized; but it summed up the way Bruin staffers felt for a long time about the democracy they had fashioned on "their" newspaper.

Given the sympathetic support of an understanding University Administration, such a moderate, responsible philosophy might have worked better than it did. As it was, the "slate" system struggled along for at least 15 years, misunderstood by the Administration and mistrusted by student government, but capable of producing outstanding student editors and leaders.

The liberalism of the Bruin continued to be met with opposition from conservative University administrators. Dean Earl J. Miller, commenting on an error in the Bruin, memo'd President Sproul plaintively: "I sometimes think we would be better off without a college newspaper." (Arch, Box 282, Folder 40, 2/15/43.) President Sproul had made up his mind as to his attitude toward the college press (see Page 64), and he reiterated that he believed in "laissez-faire . . . under which I have given the students freedom but have held them to strict accountability." (Arch, Box 303, Folder 40, 4/8/44.)

He was opposed in this by some of the deans, including Dr. Gordon S. Watkins, head of the administrative committee that governed UCLA from 1942 to 1945 after the retirement of Provost Earle R. Hedrick. (Arch, Box 282, Folder 40, 10/25/43.) For the first time, it was suggested on an official level that a Department of Journalism be set up to act as a guide for the Daily Bruin. Sproul replied:

The largest town-gown controversy during the wartime years, one whose echoes lasted far into the postwar period, took place when the Bruin began covering news and writing editorials about racial discrimination in Westwood Village.

"The articles in the Bruin contain misstatements," wrote Dr. Charles H. Titus of the Political Science Department in a confidential memo to Dr. Sproul. He added that

Attesting to his serious view of the situation, Dr. Titus proposed raiding his own budget to pay for a journalism professor's salary (Arch, Box 105, Folder 40, 9/19/44), surely the first time that one University professor had proposed nicking his own department on behalf of another!

Dean Miller was also incensed about the Bruin's editorial stand and the resulting furor. "Our Communist students who are members of the American Youth for Democracy have been working hard recently to find an issue on which to agitate and recruit members," he said in a memo to President Sproul shortly after students began passing petitions asking the Student Council to express its opposition to the alleged discrimination in the Village. Miller told Sproul he would put a notice in the Bruin reiterating the University's regulation against circulating any "poster, handbill, newspaper, magazine or pamphlet" on the campus. He asked permission to include the word "petition," because "the circulation of a so-called petition can provide the radicals with a very innocent and effective means of procedure." (Arch, Box 105, Folder 40, 9/23/44.) After consulting with University attorneys, Dr. Sproul denied the request, and Dean Miller's statement appeared in the Bruin of Sept. 27, 1944, without the ban on petitions.

Dissatisfaction with the Bruin over these incidents boiled to a peak when sports editor Bill Stout, who later became a widely known television newsman, dared to discuss the resignation of the UCLA football coach, Babe Horrell, in less than flattering terms.

It was time for a change, Student Body President Robert Jaffie decided. Working cautiously and thoroughly, he began gathering evidence for an action he felt would rid the campus of the radical tenor of the Daily Bruin.

First, he made a survey of the cub reporters who had signed up at the beginning of the term to write for the Bruin. He compiled an impressive set of documents that seemed to indicate that only six of 123 persons who "started work" on the Bruin in the fall were still with the paper.

His figures showed that 37 had quit because "they didn't feel they had the time," nine because of a "bad, unfriendly, rude attitude," thirteen because of "noise" and "hectic, disorganized" conditions, thirteen because they "didn't like the people," ten because of "no work, no chance to write, felt like 'excess baggage,'" ten because of the "bad language used, general disagreeable atmosphere," fourteen because of "too much pull needed, hard to break into clique running things," and eleven because they had to use a "forced Bruin style which they felt was inferior, or wasn't sure exactly what it was." Some of the comments he gained from these dropout reporters were: "The cub editor was about the only one who spoke to me." "Talked dirty." "Bad atmosphere." "Radical group." "Learn the Bruin style, forget any other." "I had to take off my sorority pin when I went into the office." "They push you into a corner and forget about you. "

Next, Jaffie wrote letters to selected officials asking their opinion of the Bruin. Librarian Lawrence Clark Powell replied that "In the seven years I have been here we have never had any adequate news coverage of library activities." Assistant Dean of Students Byron H. (Barney) Atkinson suggested that

Third, the student body president presented a slate of four candidates for key editorial positions, all of whom had had journalistic experience in a junior college or high school. After lengthy debate, the Jaffie slate was rejected by the Student Council on an 8-7 vote. It was a close call for the Daily Bruin. But only a few years later, another Council would succeed in an oft-expressed goal of pitching out the "radicals" from the Bruin staff (Chapter 14). The University Administration had supported the Jaffie slate, counting on its ultimate victory. Dean of Undergraduates Miller wrote President Sproul that

There was one beneficial result. the Bruin and Publications Board began keeping track of the cubs who signed up for training, the better to refute such charges as Jaffie had leveled. Regarding the semester for which Jaffie had gathered his figures, Publications Board reported that 120 cubs had signed up for the three weeks of classes, and 35 (not six) were promoted to apprentice reporter. "For the most part, reporters who failed to be promoted after completion of cub classes quit the Bruin." (SEC, 2/16/45.) Still, the charges of clannishness, unfriendly attitude and office confusion continued to haunt the Bruin for a decade. There was undoubtedly some generalized truth in them.

With the Bruin slate approved, Editor Helene Licht took the opportunity to write a series of controversial editorials attacking the theretofore sacrosanct University Religious Conference, which she charged had "flaunted religion in the face of the students, making them spout the ideals of religious tolerance, and then turned around and practiced just the opposite." (CB, 2/6/45.)

Again, President Sproul received the inevitable kickback -- a protest letter from the Conference board chairman. Sproul replied, with considerable understatement, ". . . it is taking longer to correct this evil than I had anticipated." (Arch, Box 327, Folder 40, 2/9/45.)

Meanwhile, the Bruin continued to publish. On April 13, 1945, its banner headline read "NATION MOURNS ROOSEVELT." And on May 9, 1945, "Nazis Sign Peace Terms." Finally, on Aug. 17, 1945, it published a full-size, eight-column "V-J Day Commemoration Edition'' including two picture pages of the history of the war. The lead story: "Emperor Issues Cease Firing Order; Pleads Surrender Time Extension." On the inside, the campus reaction:

Editor Hannah Bloom proclaimed in her editorial: