Repository: UIHistories Project: Board of Trustees Minutes - 1942 [PAGE 915]

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912

BOARD OF TRUSTEES

[June 20

from the State treasury." This statement is not only misleading, it is false. The $3,800 referred to is obviously the total of the following four items set up in the budget of the University for the year 1941-1942 (see Minutes of August 5, 1941, page 456): Annual salary of N. D. Hodges, as Assistant University Counsel J 900 (This is the same salary which the State Auditor of Illinois has withheld from Mr. Hodges on orders from the Attorney General.) Annual salary of civil service secretary for the department 2 000 Appropriation for office expense of the department 400 Appropriation for travel expense of the department 500 $3 800 This does not represent in any way income to Judge Johnson. Yet the Attorney General not only publicized it as such but multiplied it by seven in calculating Judge Johnson's income since 1935. 5. T h e Attorney General charges Judge Johnson, in his capacity as Federal employee, with violation of the Hatch Act. This is obviously a matter over which the Federal Department of Justice has jurisdiction, not this Board. It calls for no discussion here. 6. T h e Attorney General charges that during the past eight years the Board of Trustees, the staff, and faculty have injured the University of Illinois by injecting politics and political propaganda into administration and teaching. These charges have been given wide publicity in practically every newspaper in the State. Typical quotations follow: "The administrative branch of the University is shot through with politics." (Chicago Times, June 15, 1042) "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 many other alumni of the university have watched our school's decline since the political termites crept into the administration." (Chicago Daily News, June 15, 1042) "The thing I object to and which every alumnus objects to is injecting politics into the classrooms. Dr. Arthur Cutts Willard, president of the University, Dr. Meyer and members of the board for seven years have condoned sending Johnson, a political propagandist, into the classrooms. They called him a professor of law." (Chicago Sun, June 15, 1942) These are the most serious charges made against the University of Illinois by any responsible source within my recollection. Coming from the Attorney General of Illinois they are undoubtedly given great weight by many people. We who are accused cannot dispose of the matter by denials, no matter how false or foolish the charges may seem to us. Nor can these charges be disposed of by court action. If the Legislature were in session, I woidd be glad to have the matter referred to a committee composed exclusively of Republican legislators. Since the Legislature is not in session, I suggest that we ask the University of Illinois Advisory Committee to investigate all charges made by the Attorney General of Illinois, and issue a report to the public. T h e University of Illinois Advisory Committee is an exceptionally representative cross section of the finest Illinois citizenship. It will be remembered that only one of its invited members is an alumnus. T o these invited members were added as ex-officio members, the officers of the Dads' Association, and the officers of the Alumni Association. I can imagine no more constructive service this group could render to the University at the present time than to give full, fair, impartial study to the serious charges which the Attorney General of Illinois has made against the Board of Trustees and the administration of the University.

MOTION

I, therefore, move that the Advisory Committee of the University of Illinois be asked to investigate the foregoing charges of the Attorney General of Illinois