Our Great University

An Attempt to Make it a Pingree Machine.

All good citizens, regardless of party, approve the course of the democratic state committee is refusing to nominate regents.

Leading Republican papers of the State have commended the action of the Democratic State committee in refusing to nominate regents of the university, and all friends of the great institution of which our State is so justly proud deplore the attempt of the Pingree gang to turn out men who are qualified, competent and experienced, and fill their places with Pingree henchmen. In this connection the following interview with Chairman D. J. Campau will be read with interest and approved by all citizens interested in the good name of our State and its great educational institution:

"The committee was not disposed to give even a tacit approval of Gov. Pingree's attempt to make the University of Michigan a part of nis political machine and to punish the faculty for their refusal to prostitute their positions by furnishing an official opinion for the purpose of assisting the governor in one of his numerous controversies. It would be a public misfortune if an educational institution which is the pride of our state should be dragged into politics. It was to avoid this that the framers of our constitution wisely provided that the election of regents should be held in the spring when political issues are so largely subordinated to the question of personal fitness. For half a century the power of the governor to appoint regents for the whole of the unexpired term stood unquestioned. Gov. Pingree is trying to oust two of the board of regents, who are honored members of his own political party, and to put one of his clerks into the place which the ablest citizens of Michigan have been proud to occupy. I was solicited by Gov. Pingree's friends to use my Influence with our committee in favor of following their example. I emphatically refused and both the executive and the campaign committees unanimously decided not to countenance the governor's attempt to make our great university a mere political machine."