An Interesting Incident

The Ufe of Hou. Andrew J. Poppleton, that passed away on the 24th of September, last, at his home in Omaha, had in it at least one incideni in which our readers wlll be Intérested. Mr. Poppleton was bom in 1830, at Birmingham, Oakland county, iu thls state. At the age of 18 years, or in 1847, he entered the University of Michigan at Ann Arbor, and remained three years, until 1850. At that time a great war was inaugura ted upon secret soeieties, and especially by college faculties upon the Greek letter fraternitles. The faculty here at the U. of M., passed a rule that all these societies should be abolished, that no student should be allowerl to remain in the University unless he would renounce his membership in any fraternity he belonged to, and uo Freshman was allowed to cross the entrance threshhold of the University unless he took an oath not to unite witli any college secret 80 ciety. This rule cauglit Mr. Poppleton in hls senior year. He was then a member oí the Beta Theta Pi fraternity, and had been for some time. He consldereel the rule not only tyrannical but exceediugly unjust, and when he was called before the faculty he firmly refused to dissolve hls relations with his fraternity. The iaculty would not reeede Irom their stand and neither would he, and so with bitter feélings in bis heart, he went away, and graduated at Union college in 1851. Time passed on. Mr. Poppleton went to Omaha and began to rise. He btcarue a member of the J ture, a lawyer of much prominence and power. He did much to shape the legislation and formúlate the laws wheu Nebraska entered the sisterhood of states. Later on he was sought after as an attorney, and was retained in nearly all the great cases that came to trial in the west. He was attorney for the Union Pacific R. R., and attained national prominence through liis abl delense of Oakes Ames in the famous "Credit Mobilier cases." He was the first president of the Omaha Board of Trade, of the Omaha Bar Association and the organizer and for many years the director of the Omaha public library. In 1892 disease took hold of him and he lost his sight. It was about this time that knowledge oí his treatment by the faculty came to the ears of the regents, and they voted unanimously to confer upon him the degree that he would have taken liad h been allowed to complete his i-.ourse here. It was all the restitution they could make, and they did it so feelingly, that Mr. Poppleton accepted the deed in the spirit it was tendered. It was. a great comfort to him in his declining years, we have been told, that Michigan University had at last rectified the wrong done him. The reaso.1 why he feit so intensely upon the subject, was the fact that the faculty had later on practically acknowledged themselves in the wrong by resclnding the rule and permitting the fraternities to rema in unmolested. Mr. Poppleton remained a íirm friend to his society up to the day of his death, and when the Beta Theta's bought their chapter house here, he sent them a handsome check to help the cause.