February 26 1917

That so inoffensive a body as the Senate of the University of Nebraska should be the object of legislative wrath is interesting to persons familiar with the conduct of University affairs. For the benefit of the uninformed it may be stated that all universities have such a body usually called the general faculty. The name senate was selected by Dr. Andrews a master of diction who regarded this as a proper term for a calm deliberative academic assembly. The pernicuous activity complained of is not borne out by a study of the proceedings of this group of professors. Certainly the members of the upper house of the State Legislature are not jealous of deliberations as to whether charter day should be a legal holiday or whether registration should be by the semester or by the year. Neither has any fine frenzy been called forth by the action of this body in recommending to the Regents distinguished gentleman like the President Pearson and Roscoe Pound for honorary degrees. The only specific activity of this "Senate" complained of consisted in advising the Regents in regard to the desirability of establishing two new colleges namely,Commerce and Journalism. A representative committee of the Senate reported that the work desired could be cared for without increasing the machinery of the institution or laoding greater expense on the taxpayers of the Senate. The report of the committee was unanimously approved by the senate the Regents accepted it with like unanimity and mentioned it in their biennial report. This constitutes the Senate's only crime. The Senate did not consider the question of the Department of Journalism now advocated by an active group of propagandists but merely at the request of the Regents considered the question of the establishing of more colleges and reported to the Regents the results of their deliberations.

If the alleged offended member of the Legislature wishes to abolish the University Senate no one in the University will care. Under the present organization its power is not great as every act may be amended or nullified by the Regents who however have never found any cause of complaint on account of the Senate's activity. The matter would then seem to be merely the question of the name. It may be of course rather shocking to some persons that in the State of Nebraska there should be two senates just as it must be distressing for the real senators at Washington to have a senate in every state. But this is slight in comparison with the way the president's feelings must be lacerated. Even the federal senate has a president in the same town while nearly all of the thousand colleges in the country have presidents not to mention the presiding officer of every dinky club. Why does not Woodrow protest?