As Other Papers Look At It

AS OTHER PAPERS LOOK AT IT

JUDSON'S PERSONAL ORGAN STIRS THEM UP

Says the Threat is Infamous and Denounce a Paper's Upholding It

It is sometimes well to know how an outsider looks at things. Under the heading "An Infamous Threat," the Traverse City Eagle of Nov. 7 says:

" 'Bill' Judson seems to be preparing to carry out his pre-election threat that if Ann Arbor did not make a good showing for Bliss he would get even with the University. His personal organ, the Washtenaw Times, in an editorial intimates that the university may expect a reduction of its quarter mill to a sixth mill tax at the next session of the legislature as a punishment to the university contingent for refusing to vote for Bliss.

"The threat which Judson makes is of interest to every part of the State. He threatens to impair the usefulness of a state institution to punish a few men for refusing to cringe before a political party that favors may therefore be bestowed on them. It scarcely seems possible that a man should so far forget himself as to make such a statement much less attempt to put it into execution. A newspaper which will uphold such an infamous course is deserving of the strongest condemnation. It is hardly likely that tbe republican party will countenance Bill Judsun and the sheet that supports him."

The Grand Rapids Press of the same date says;

"Though Oil Inspector Judson, before the election denied having threatened the state university with a loss of revenues if the faculty and others did not turn in and give Governor Bliss a hearty support and a big vote at the polls, his newspaper organ now intimates that the faculty having failed to support Mr. Bliss as strenuously as was desired the threatened punishment is to be inflicted.

"The utter futility of this sort of politics as a measure of personal revenge no less than the contemptible meanness, will be apparent upon very slight consideration. The members of the the faculty, it is alleged, failed to support Mr. Bliss, but it is the university that is to suffer. The legislature does not fix the salaries of the professors, and if the revenues of the university are cut down in the manner threatened it is not likely that their pay, which, compared with that of men of no greater ability or reputation, is already far less than it ought to be, will be lowered. The petty spite which dictates the threat, and will be responsible if the threatened cut is made, will fail utterly to act personally the men at whom it is directed. It is the University of Michigan and the state itself that will suffer.

"The Press is loth to believe that the republican organization of Michigan will disgrace itself by lending its aid to peanut politics in connection with an institution like the university. It does not believe that Governor Bliss, who in private life is liberal-minded and public-spirited, sanctions the course of his lieutenant or that he will consent to a movement in his name against the university.

"But the friends of the university and of political decency should run no chances in this matter, but should keep their eyes on the legislature, and if Inspector Judson or his allies attempts to put his threat into execution should take vigorous steps to defeat it."