Berkeley Gun Club
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The Berkeley Gun Club is a secret society formed by students at the University of California, Berkeley School of Law.
[edit] History
It is unknown how the Gun Club began. The first documentary evidence of the Club is a book of poetry dedicated "To Pop, Our Genial Host." It contains a poem, dated September 4, 1917, entitled "To Pop Kessler." Written by Charles R. Knox while stationed at Fort MacArthur, it reads, in part:
When lying at night in the barracks,
We'll think of that luffed feder bed
And the Clink of the ice in the pitcher,
For the gloss of your wonderful head.
And we know you'll be waiting to greet us
With a welcome both loyal and true,
When the gray clouds of war have blown over
And the sunshine of peace has shown through.
So Pop--keep good watch o'er our table,
Guard well all the steins on the shelf,
We'll come back, just as sure as we're living.
Goodbye Pop--take keer o' yourself.
In his Biography of Chief Justice Earl Warren, Ed Cray describes how Warren
was invited to become a member of the secretive Gun Club that gathered on Thursday nights at Pop Kessler's Rathskeller in Oakland to drink beer and read the poetry of Robert Service, Rudyard Kipling, Gelett Burgess, and Bret Harte. . . . Membership in the society, based on compainionship rather than social standing, nurtured Warren's idealism. As a member, he strove to earn "a love between men who would put virture and honor and loyalty above all else," as a later member put it.
Ed Cray, Chief Justice: A Biography of Earl Warren 27 (1997).[1]
[edit] Recent Developments
In an article in the Fall 2005 issue of the "Boalt Hall Transcript," a university publication primarily targeted at Boalt Hall alumni, it was reported that the Gun Club continued to meet and was composed of "[m]en" who "lived for the drink who died by the gun." (This article's reference to "[m]en" was controversial, as more than more than 50% of recent Boalt Hall classes have been composed of women.) The article went on to note that a book -- in Gun Club parlance, a "tome" -- had its pages mutilated, its contents replaced with a flask presumably containing liquor, and was "well hid" by the Members.
[edit] Common law
It is thought that the Gun Club has no codified body of rules, but rather only a common law derived from individual cases.
