Repository: UIHistories Project: Board of Trustees Minutes - 1944 [PAGE 1032]

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UNIVERSITY OF ILLINOIS

I029

lastic standing of the University above reproach. They cannot, however, continue to keep the educational features of the University intact if they are forced to carry on their shoulders the load of a boss controlled and mismanaged business administration. The Kelly-Nash Democratic Trustees of the University of Illinois and their puppet President, Arthur Cutts Willard, have at all times attempted, by misleading statements, to give the false impression that my charges were directed against the educational features of the University of Illinois. They know that this is untrue as will be shown by the following excerpts from the minutes of a meeting of the Board of Trustees of the University of Illinois, on June 20, 1942, in which Arthur Cutts Willard stated to the Board of Trustees in part as follows: I recommend that the Board of Trustees authorize: 1. A survey of the University of Illinois by the American Council on Education. The general scope of this survey shall be to investigate the charges made against the Board of Trustees and the administration of the University of Illinois by the Attorney General of Illinois in the following press statements issued by him, and any other charges he may make, to determine their truth or falsity: "I intend to prove that since 1934, a group of hand-picked political puppets have virtually built a political empire in Champaign and Urbana and have cloaked their operations and defended their illegal activities behind the shield of education. "The University has been on the downgrade since 1934 when control was taken over by a board of trustees who were not the choice of the people but were hand-picked by the downstate democratic machine and the Kelly-Nash machine in Cook County. "Myself and other alumni of the University have watched our school's decline since the political termites crept into the administration. "The Johnson exposure in itself is enough to warrant an investigation of the entire administrative branch of the University, if such irregularities have been committed in one department, they may have been committed in others." I am compelled to direct your attention to the fact that on December 16, 1941, which was prior to the time I made my charges against the Kelly-Nash Democratic Trustees and their tool, Arthur Cutts Willard, the Board of Trustees of the University authorized a survey of the University by the firm of Booz, Fry, Allen, and Hamilton, Business Analysts, located at 135 S. LaSalle Street, Chicago, Illinois. On December 24, 1941, Arthur Cutts Willard directed a letter to that firm employing it to make a survey. On January 29, 1942, Booz, Fry, Allen, and Hamilton commenced work on that survey. The survey was completed and copies of the written report were delivered to Arthur Cutts Willard at the University Club in Chicago over a month ago. At the meeting of the Board of Trustees on August 25, 1942, the Trustees authorized payment to Booz, Fry, Allen, and Hamilton of a sum of approximately $20,000 for services rendered in conducting their survey and making their report.

[A.C.E. Report —11]