TMIIUTES OF Gil BOARD OF TRUST1iS1ES



Secretary Mr. Hall has been most energetic and dil-ligent in his duties and it was

largely through his efforts plus the earnest co-operation of the faculty that so large

a number of students devoted themselves to building up upon the campus that high

moral tone which now exists there; and from the growth of which we have so much to hope

for in the future; so far as I am advised ours is the only institution of learning in

the State which has a resident Y.M.C.A. Secretary upon its grounds, and I am informed

and believe that no State University in the United States has relatively so large a

number of its students in this organization as has State University; here we seem to

be in a class by ourselves.

     Since the December Meeting the case of the Commonwealth vs/ R. C. Webb9 Jr.,

charged with arson has been tried in the Fayette Circuit Court and the defendant ac-

quitted. Upon the merits of this acquittal I will have nothing to say here9 deeming

it sufficient that in this trial it was demonstrated that the student body had nothing

whatever to do with the crime of burning Professor Anderson's office, or with any

other outrage or disorder connected therewith, On the contrary, the evidence showed

that althouth (although) there was a deliberate attempt to draw the students into this

affair their moral fiber and loyalty to the institution was such that the attempt was

wholly futile; Thomas Butler who pleaded guilty to being a party to the crime and who

is now serving a term in the Penitentiary for it, confessed that he and R. C. Webb, Jr.,

committed the crime and that they only were responsible for it.  Whether Mr. Webb was

or was not builty (guilty) is inmaterial to me for the purpose of this report. All

that I desire to say is that the student body in spite of the efforts of some of the

enemies of the University to show that they were mixed up in the affair were wholly

innocent and the whole matter may be summed up with the statement that the University

was the victim of a criminal act by a ruffian or ruffians but the loss of the property

was wholly covered by insurance and has been replaced entirely with no monetary loss to

the University whatever. It is the belief of some of the instructors, and in this I am

inclined to concur, that the students have really been benefited by the occurance (oc-

currence). They have been sobered by the unjust suspicion that they were participants



Yune 4, 1913