HOYA History:
The Founding Of The HOYA

The definitive history of the founding of The HOYA was written in 1970 by Donald Casper (C'70, L'77), the author of the HOYA's 50th anniversary issue. Here is the text of that article.

The HOYA's beginnings were humble enough. Its first office comprised the bathroom belonging to Joe Mickler on the second floor of Ryan Hall in the Quadrangle. But Mickler himself more than compensated for the lowly situation from which the paper's affairs were conducted. The first editor-in-chief, he undoubtedly ranks with the very best of his 64 successors.

Of course, Mickler had some help from his staff, which, Incidentally, was probably the most venturesome ever assembled. After all it is one thing to receive The HOYA ready-made from the obliging hands of weary predecessors. It is quite another to start from scratch. And so, as Mickler wrote in his first editorial, "Vos Plaudite-and with both hands."

That the editor would be so brash as to command his readers to applaud the new publication, instead of flinging himself at their mercy with many and contrite promises to do better the next time-was only typical of the young man. He might very well have provided the model from which folklore has fashioned its image of the typical city editor. In fact, that is just what he did become for a short time.

Joseph Ramon Mickler, Jr., of the College Class of '20, had come up from Tampa not out of any pre-ordained love for Georgetown but because his mother thought that the Hilltop might do him good. Outwardly cynical and biting (just what one would expect of an editor) he never made any secret of the reason why he found himself here. Non-Catholic, he didn't quite fall all over the good Jesuits, either.

Nevertheless, one is struck with the definite Impression that, deep down, Mickler wasn't always what he appeared to be. For one thing, he certainly immersed himself in George town's life. He was also president of the Philodemic Society, vice president of his senior class, and editor-in-chief of the venerable Georgetown College Journal. For another, he used to tell his wife, a Catholic, "1 know more about I the Church than you do. After all, I was educated by the Jesuits."

Mickler's colleagues in the founding of The HOYA were a resourceful lot. And If anything, their fledgling needed I resources, both human and pecuniary. Leo J. Casey, of the Class of '21, the first managing editor, came from a newspaper family and was already versed in the trade. Joseph J. Greenlaw, a senior, also residing on Second Ryan, produced the advertising without which the paper could not have been published in the first place. Edgar J. Mongan, Mickler's roommate and an associate editor, was well-read and a master of expression. His pleasant ways provided, as Greenlaw would later put it, "the perfect foil for Mickler's unpredictability."

As for Mickler himself, he proved that, when the situation was inescapable, he would be prepared to literally shed blood for the HOYA.

Like everything respectable, the paper had an ancestor, It was The Hilltopper, begun as a mimeographed sheet in a journalism class taught by Mr. Joseph C. Glose, S,J, First distributed in the spring of 1919, it included College-oriented news together with notes on life In the Quadrangle, SmaIl enough to be folded and slipped into an ordinary envelope for mailing, The Hilltopper boasted that it was "the smallest newspaper in the world."

Before the school year came to a close, five printed editions of five or six pages apiece were distributed. None seem to have survived.

Joe Mickler and Leo Casey revived The Hilltopper In the fall. Come early December, Casey was planning the next week's edition with Mickler and Mongan on Second Ryan. After his usual fashion, Mickler launched into a critique of the publication. He was of the opinion that, being nothing more than a tiny gossip sheet, The Hilltopper ought to suspend publication. Baring that, Mickler said, it ought to become a real newspaper, expanding its size and coverage and incorporating an ample staff. Casey and Mongan agreed. At this point, Greenlaw was invited across the hall to join the discussion. He had once told Mongan of his Interest in school newspapers, an interest dating from high school days in Titusville, Pa.

The group adjourned to mull the idea over for a week or so. Soon enough, however, Mickler made his opinion known to the others. Needless to say, they agreed. Mickler, Casey, and Mongan would assume editorial responsibilities, Greenlaw would become business manager.

The newspaper would not dwell exclusively on College affairs. On the contrary, it was to be a University-wide publication. The need for such coverage was all too apparent, what with students in the College, Law School, Foreign Service School, and Medical and Dental Schools going their separate ways at facilities scattered over Washington. It was not all that extraordinary for a student in a professional branch of the University never to have visited the Hilltop until he was awarded his diploma under the gaze of Healy Tower's clock. The new publication, then, would attempt to carve out some unity in this miniature diaspora. Also, in an era when education consisted largely of memorization, recitation, and examination, the newspaper would make for greater freedom of expression.

Mickler, Casey, Mongan, and Greenlaw then talked about the undertaking with the Rev. W. Coleman Nevils, S.J., then dean of the College. Fr. Nevils agreed that there was definite need for a University-wide newspaper. Furthermore, he would allow the four seniors to use the College as their publication base.

Yet, when it comes to publishing a newspaper, things are seldom all that easy. Fr. Nevils informed the editors that the paper would have to be completely self-supporting and would have, to submit to a certain amount of faculty censorship. Mr. Glose, who was appointed moderator, was given the duties of censor. (It must be noted, however, that no real censorship was ever exercised by either Mr. Glose or Fr. Nevils.)

At an organizational meeting shortly thereafter, Mickler announced that a new name must be found for the paper. He observed that, according to his lights, about eighty percent of the world's universities were built on hilltops, In addition to being none too, distinctive, the name "Hilltopper" might also subvert the new publication's purpose, since students In the professional schools equated the Hilltop with the College of Arts and Sciences.

Several proposals were kicked about, most or them either unimaginative or, for lack of a better term. rather sappy. One was The Beacon, Another, which definitely would not have survived our own day's beliefs about the university's open mind and open doors, was Potomac Palisade. Still another, eminently suitable for those who delight in the mawkish, was The Voice of John Carroll.

Finally, a looker-on said, half jokingly, "How about Hoya?" The name immediately stuck. It was entirely Georgetown without being at all sappy. It was also a name with which all segments of the University could identify, no matter where located.

Armed with administration approval, a new name, and a staff. the editors needed just one other thing-advertising. Since The HOYA was to begin publication in January, it could not obtain contracts; with national advertisers these were distributed to student publications only in September. And so, Business Manager Greenlaw took to the sidewalks.

First of all, he procured advertising from firms which supplied the University with its various needs. Greenlaw then worked out agreements with various New York clothiers, whereby they would advertise in the paper and, in addition, exhibit samples and take orders in The HOYA's offices upon payment of another $50, Greenlaw obtained an unused room in Healy basement for the exhibitions because The H0YA hadn't any offices. The paper was published from Mickler's inner sanctum on Second Ryan-the bathroom separating his and Mongan's rooms and in which he had set up a desk. He probably couldn't have operated with much order in his rather jumbled half of the suite.

At any rate, The HOYA first appeared on Jan. 14, 1920. It measured 13" by 10" and consisted of eight pages. Its front page sported a distinctive logo designed by AI Reid, of the Class of '21. On the inside, there were typical Mickler editorials, sports articles, a feature on the Shimmy, a Junior Prom announcement, and Law and Foreign Service news items, The lead story on page one concerned the death and funeral of the Rev. James R. Becker, S,J., University treasurer. The entire package was delivered to the subscribers by Circulation Manager Albert D. Leary, College Class of '22, and his assistant Eugene P. McCahill, Law '22.

Mickler, who later was city editor at the Tampa Times and then a feature writer for New York papers, became a battle-scarred veteran of the Fourth Estate only a month or so later, He had satirized a fellow senior; and, when the piece appeared, his subject thoroughly pummeled him. He considered the blood he lost well-shed for The HOYA.

"Vos plaudite-and with both hands."