The Axe is back! Or, at least, it was Monday and yesterday. The famed trophy of Cal-Stanford rivalry spent a few hours on the campus after circumstances which were described as "mysterious&qout; by both UC and Stanford officials and student body leaders.
THE HEAVY, BRIGHTLY PAINTED Axe was discovered late Monday afternoon near the Stanford golf course by Leonard A. Sagan, who was registered here spring quarter. Sagan was riding a horse down Searsville Road with his sister, Terrye, and nine-year-old Larry Bacon when the trio spotted the Axe, still mounted on its large backboard, propped up against a tree.
The Axe was in plain sight about 15 feet off the road, according to Sagan. It was still bright and shiny and apparently had been placed there only a short time before.
SAGAN HAILED A PASSING MOTORIST who took the Axe to the Old Red Barn and from there Sagan delivered the trophy to Chief of Police Gordon Davis.
No one, either at UC or here, seemed to know how the Axe got from its case in the Men's Club room of the ASUC Union to the isolated section of the Stanford campus. According to the Daily Californian, the Axe was reported missing Monday afternoon by Richard J. Ditwells, a UC student. Monday, Ditwells reported to University officials that the Axe was gone. The top section of its glass case had been broken and the trophy removed, "apparently by someone who had a passkey to the Clubroom" according to the Californian. A UC Janitor declared he found the broken glass Saturday, but no report of the theft is was made by him.
ASSU SUMMER PRESIDENT DON DAVIES and Chief Davis returned the Axe to Cal yesterday after negotiations for a peaceful exchange were made by Dean of Students Lawrence A. Kimpton. Director of Activities Ed Welch, former ASUC student body president, received the trophy for the Eastbay peasants.
The Stanford Axe has had a long and colorful history which has included riots, raids, smugglings, and numerous thefts. According to tradition, the Axe was first brought down from the Hills in 1896 to add visual emphasis to Stanford's famous Axe Yell. During the 1899 Big Game in San Francisco, it was stolen by Cal rooters and smuggled onto the trans-bay ferry under a student's overcoat.
FROM THEN UNTIL 1930 the Axe was kept in safe deposit vaults in a Berkeley bank. That year, the famous "Immortal 21," posing as newspaper reporters and photographers, recovered the Axe in a surprise raid.
In 1933 the two schools decided to make the Stanford Axe a permanent trophy of the Big Game. Winners of the Game are inscribed on the Axe plaque and the winning school keeps the trophy until it loses a Big Game.
The Axe was last stolen in April, 1946, whet a squad of Alleged Cal students walked into the Union one night, picked up the Axe, case and all, and took off in a truck. It was not until October of that year that the Axe was found on a Palo Alto street.
