ABSTRACT
By the 1920s, the upper-class eating clubs completely dominated undergraduate life at Princeton. Under the existing club system, Jewish students and any others not offered membership were effectively denied equal access to that community life which was part of a Princeton education. Louis I. Reichner, a Presbyterian and a Republican, proposed, first, that Princeton buy all the club houses at cost and then rent certain ones, in rotation, to the upper-class clubs. Second, the university should prohibit the wearing of distinctive hatbands, neckties, and other insignia by both undergraduates and graduates. One of the special committees on which he served during his years as executive secretary was asked to report on the desirability of limiting Princeton's undergraduate enrollment and to propose a new admission procedure. Although Princeton was influenced by steps taken elsewhere-notably, at Columbia, Dartmouth, Harvard, Stanford, and Yale-as early as 1904, Woodrow Wilson had privately anticipated that Princeton might have to limit its enrollment someday to undergraduates.
