Repository: UIHistories Project: Book - History of the University (Powell) [PAGE 620]

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580

History University of Illinois

well satisfied that the attendance is now less, and the university is in some respects still suffering injury from the active hostility and evident misrepresentations referred to. Tour committee are of opinion that M. L. Dunlap, Esq., a member of this Board is mainly responsible for the evil complained of. For reasons which the committee does not deem necessary matter of enquiry, he appears to have become at an early day, hostile to the Regent, to the action of this Board and its committees, apparently because the Board with a unanimity comprising nearly all its members adopted measures and courses of study, and modes of doing busines not in accordance with his individual wishes. The committee deem it unfortunate that Mr. Dunlap, while sitting as a member of this Board and sharing its deliberations, should have felt at liberty, not only to act as a newspaper correspondent, but should, in violation of propriety and fairness, indulge in palpable misrepresentations, too often accompanied by ungenerous imputations and abusive epithets, when, speaking of the Regent, the Board, its committees, and of measures adopted for the management of our affairs. The committee do not propose to question the free expression of individual opinions, nor* the rights of the Press. This is emphatically an institution of the people, and the committee would encourage the widest range of criterion; and if misunderstood or unjustly assailed, we are content to let the history of the institution furnish our answer. If we are right, the right will finally appear: if wrong, no defense will avail. But the committee declare that in a Board composed of honorable gentlemen, in the performance of a high duty, it is discourteous, ungenerous and a breach of propriety which cannot be defended, for one of the members, when almost alone in his vote , when his measures are emphatically repudiated, to go outside, fight the battle over again in the newspapers, and by intemperance of speech and violence of reproach, endeavor to disgrace his fellow members, and bring the Institution itself under the ban of an undesired public prejudice. The published articles written by Mr, Dunlap, now before the committee justify the foregoing remarks.