This Week in Colorado History January 31- February 6: Mines news

The Colorado Transcript proves that Mines students have always been involved in world affairs. On February 3, 1921, it reported the efforts of Chinese Mines students attempting to offer relief to famine-afflicted areas of China. Students “formed a committee to act with the relief committee, organized by students all over the United States in securing funds to send to famine sufferers.” The students also ran a piece in the Transcript written by T.H. Huang explaining the situation in China “with the hope that further aid will be forthcoming from members of the local community.” The piece explained that a severe famine was taking place in northern China, owing to severe flooding. According to Huang, as many as 20,000,000 people were seriously affected by the famine. This, though possibly an excessive estimate, was more than double the number of deaths in then-recent World War I.

The city of Golden experienced a great deal of sports success at the end of January in 1921. Mines played its first conference basketball game January 28 and beat Denver University 46 to 23. The Transcript described the game thus, “The D.U. boys hadn’t a look-in from the start, and the Miners, starting off in whirlwind style, piled up twelve points before the visiting team knew the contest was underway.” On the same night, the Golden High School boys’ basketball team defeated Englewood 47 to 12. The Transcript described this contest as “a walkaway for the local boys from the first whistle,” but predicted an upcoming home game with Wheat Ridge would be more difficult.

However, not all was good on campus. Due to reports from the School of Mines Magazine and the Denver Post that Mines had declined, the Colorado legislature requested an investigation of conditions at the school. School authorities stated they would welcome the investigation and believed that “a fair and impartial probe will show that the recent charges made are entirely unfounded.” The Transcript argued that it could “be shown to the committee that the local institution is now the greatest mining school in the world.”