Like K.O.A, A.U.V. had an elaborate initiation ceremony. Once the Faculty had
approved a pledge, he was given a letter with a list of rules he was to follow. He was to
be in the cemetery every night from 12:30 to 5:00, deliver a morning paper to each
member of the Society each morning, must not comb or brush his hair nor wash his face
or hands, smoke nothing but a clay pipe with Lucky Strike tobacco, and not speak to any
student except members of A.U.V.
After the pledge had memorized these rules, his letter of instruction was burned. The
pledge had now become a scut '' and was compelled to learn many mottoes and incantations. On Friday night of initiation week the scut was taken to Hartigan's drugstore downtown and given a scut sundae, '' which consisted of pepper, ice cream, oysters,
and raw liver. Later that night he reported to the South Church cemetery, where he had to
wait for two hours for the members to arrive. There followed the usual horseplay--the
scut was used as a tackling dummy, threats were made to lock him in a tomb, and various
other ceremonies observed. On Saturday afternoon the scut was taken on a long walk
around town, being forced to stop at some houses and ask for food, to urinate on a few
porches, and generally to make a fool of him. On Saturday night came the initiation
proper. The scut was prepared by reporting to the cellar in his underwear and having dirt
and flour smeared all over his body. He was finally cleaned up and brought to the
initiation room, where a solemn ceremony followed, ending with the longed-for words ``
Let him have light, '' at which point his blindfold was removed, some oaths were
administered, and the boy was finally a member....
Shortly after 1915 the present [A.U.V.] house was constructed. From then until the
Society crisis of the 1940s, A.U.V. continued strong and successful. There were, to be
sure, some problems. In the mid-1920s, the scholarship average of the Society dropped
abysmally. The members had also been pledging students illegally--without the approval
of the Faculty guardian. In one initiation a boy had been so battered that he was unable to
run in the Andover-Exeter track meet.... Yet the Society managed to overcome these
problems and well deserved its position as one of the big three among the school's
Societies...
From all available evidence, at Andover prep George Bush was completely obsessed with
status, with seeming to be important. His 1980 campaign biography boasts that he
achieved this goal:
`` There was, as there always is at any institution, an elitism in terms of the group that ran
things, the power group among the boys who recognized each other as peers. George was
among this group, but for him it was natural.... ''
The A.U.V. roster, 32 members including George Bush, is given in the Andover Class of
1942 yearbook. Why was it natural '' for George to be among this group ''?
The hierarchical top banana of the A.U.V. in George's class was Godfrey Anderson ( Rocky '') Rockefeller. In the yearbook just above the A.U.V. roster is a photograph of
Rocky Rockefeller '' and `` Lem [Lehman F.] Beardsley ''; Rockefeller stands imperiously