Publication: A Princeton Companion
Proctor, The Office of, was instituted in 1870 by President McCosh to help him discharge the heavy disciplinary burden that his predecessor, John Maclean, had carried almost single-handed. The first incumbent, Matthew Goldie (brother of George Goldie, director of the gymnasium), had good rapport with the undergraduates. ``He was square and honest'' one of them said, ``and played no favorites. He hated cant and hypocrisy, and was a watchdog without being a spy. Matt's assistant, known to the students only as ``Dennis,'' was less popular. As McCosh's messenger to undergraduates suspected of wrong-doing, his stock phrase was: ``You are to see the Doctor in his study tonight''; he was regarded as ``a bird of ill omen whose very presence contaminated the atmosphere.''
When Goldie retired in 1892 his place was taken by Johnny Topley. Apparently Topley had to discharge the baleful mission once performed by Dennis, for the seniors had this song about him:
``Johnny, Johnny Topley,
Johnny, Johnny Topley,
Do you want me?
No-O, Sir-ee.
Not this afternoon-ter-noon-ter-noon-ter-noon.''
In 1907 Topley resigned his proctorship and, to the delight of the students and the discomfort of the Dean, opened a saloon across the street from FitzRandolph Gateway. The seniors continued to sing about him; but now they gave the question ``Do you want me?'' an enthusiastically affirmative answer:
``Yes, Sir-ee,
Every afternoon-ter-noon-ter-noon-ter-noon.''
After Topley sold his saloon in 1913, he was soon lost sight of, but seniors continued to sing about his legendary services on into the twenties.
Bill Coan, who followed Topley, was born and reared in Princeton, and it was said that his expertise about student escapades had been acquired through his own participation in similar happenings in earlier days. A chastened sophomore, on leaving a meeting of the Discipline Committee, was once heard to complain, ``Bill knew what I did before I did it.'' A faculty member of the committee, learned in Greek mythology, likened Coan to Argus of the hundred eyes.
Hank Bovie, who took over from Coan in 1919, was tall and handsome and cut a magisterial figure, but the seniors thought him slow in crime detection. One year they sang:
``Although it seems beyond belief,
They say that once he caught a thief.''
Another year:
``We lose fur coats in winter's chills,
And get them back with the daffodils.''
Thus recommended, Hank became chief of detectives of the Borough in 1926.
Francis X. Hogarty, who assumed Bovie's mantle, was an earnest somewhat stolid guardian of campus morals. Once, when the Discipline Committee was examining a charge of intoxication, Dean Gauss, leaning over backward to be fair, said, ``Frank, how can you be sure this student was intoxicated?'' ``Well, Dean,'' the ever solemn Frank replied, ``I saw him fall flat on his face. I think he was drunk.''
Frank was ably assisted by Michael Kopliner and by Harry Cawley. Frank, Mike, and Harry inspired the Proctor's Song of the thirties and forties:
``There are three men in Princeton town,
They look us up, they look us down;
Like the plague, they're all around,
Heigh-ho, the proctors!
Heigh-ho, the proctors, the proctors, the proctors!
Heigh-ho, the proctors, the Pinkertons of Princeton.~''
There were other verses with other intimations: ``They try on us to place the blame,'' . . . ``Under our beds they look for drinks,'' . . . ``Who the Hell will furnish bail?'' . . . ``Hist the sound of stealthy feet!'' . . . all concluding: ``. . . the Pinkertons of Princeton.''
Mike Kopliner, who joined the staff in 1924, had one of the longest tours of duty on record -- 36 years -- and became one of the best remembered proctors. Once, in 1931, toward the end of the Prohibition Era, he was grilling a visiting bootlegger in his room at the Princeton Inn when a sophomore telephoned to place an order and gave his name and address before he realized it was Kopliner he was talking to:
``So just take care in buying wine
To see that Mike's not on the line.''
Mike became head proctor in 1945. One May in the 1950s he got word that some undergraduates were planning to disrupt the customary R.O.T.C. review near Palmer Stadium. He took a strategic position on the lower Campus, and, a few minutes before the review was to start, heard an approaching cadence: ``Hip-two-three-four . . .'' Presently, around 1915 Hall came five undergraduates in Confederate uniforms, with a Confederate flag, a snare drum, a sword, and two rifles. Mike hurried ahead on the road to the Stadium and at the Vivarium below Guyot drew a chalk line. When the invading Confederates arrived, he said, ``Look, boys. Up to this point you've had a lot of fun. You go beyond this line and you're in trouble. What do you intend to do?'' Then, according to Mike's tape-recorded memoirs, the student with the sword turned to the others and said, ``Well, boys, we have met the enemy and we are theirs.''
Mike died of cancer, at age 63, in the summer of 1960. The previous fall, between the halves of a football game, the band had demonstrated the respect and affection in which he was held by forming a giant K as they played the Proctor's Song.
In 1960 the proctors and the campus police were placed under the supervision of a new officer, the director of security. Incumbents of this post have been Walter Dodwell, former member of the New Jersey State Police, 1960-1969; Allan N. Kornblum, former special agent of the Federal Bureau of Investigation, 1969-1975; Jerrold L. Witsil, former director of public safety at the University of Maryland, 1975-. Mike Kopliner's son, James M. Kopliner '51, a former borough policeman, has been Assistant Director of Security since 1965.
By 1977 the University security department numbered ninety-nine persons, including the director, two assistant directors, the chief of the uniformed division, the captain of Forrestal security, eight security sergeants, sixty security officers, four proctor supervisors, eighteen proctors, and four secretaries.
From Alexander Leitch, A Princeton Companion, copyright Princeton University Press (1978).