xt7sxk84nj8k_163 https://exploreuk.uky.edu/dips/xt7sxk84nj8k/data/mets.xml https://exploreuk.uky.edu/dips/xt7sxk84nj8k/data/L2021ua019.dao.xml Kentucky University 18.26 Cubic Feet 32 document boxes, 5 flat boxes, 21 bound volumes archival material L2021ua019 English University of Kentucky Property rights reside with Transylvania University.  The University of Kentucky holds the copyright for materials created in the course of business by University of Kentucky employees. Copyright for all other materials has not been assigned to the University of Kentucky.  For information about permission to reproduce or publish, please contact the Special Collections Research Center.  Contact the Special Collections Research Center for information regarding rights and use of this collection. Transylvania University Library. Record Group 5:  Collection on Kentucky University Proceedings of board of Curators of Kentucky University text Proceedings of board of Curators of Kentucky University 2024 https://exploreuk.uky.edu/dips/xt7sxk84nj8k/data/L2021ua019/Box_5_36/Folder_10/Multipage6292.pdf undated section false xt7sxk84nj8k_163 xt7sxk84nj8k To the Honorable the Board of Curators of Ken-
tucky University: ,
GENTLEMEN—The Executive Committee

to whom is delegated the authority to do,

ad interim, any and everything which the

Board itself might rightfully do, when in ses—

sion, provided their proceedings so far as may

relate to the legitimate business of the whole

Board, shall not be considered final unless

they be ratified at the next meeting of the

Board—ask leave to submit the following as

the ground, in part, of their recent action in

reference to the suspension or removal of

Prof. J. W. McGarvey:

The Committee felt that, after the adjourn-
ment of the Board in June last, the work of
restoring peace and official harmony in the

University as far as this was practicable, was,
by force of circumstances, by the very nature
of their office, and by the action of the Board,
thrown on their hands. They felt, moreover,
in view of,all the facts in the case, and the

‘ complications of a strife of several years’
duration, and especially in'fiview of the utter
failure of every effort on the part of various
committees to establish peace, that the work
of properly preparing for the opening of an-
other session was unusually delicate and dif-
ficult. Nevertheless, they resolved, with a
fall purpose to do their whole duty to the in-
stitution, to be guided by the clearly indicated
}).)lle of the Board, and by their own dispas-
sionate judgment as to what was necessary
and proper to be done.

After due deliberation they were forced to
the conclusion that the resignation of Prof.
J. W. McGarvey would greatly promote the.
desired harmony, and they accordingly re-
solved to request him, in kind and respectful
terms, voluntarily to tender his resignation.

They were influenced in this decision by
the following considerations: ‘

1. His well known want of sympathy with
the Regent, the chief officer of the Univer-
sity, in his educational work, and in his ad-
ministrative policy, which work and policy
the Board have always approved.

2. His strong opposition to that officer, re—
ported by the Committee on Grievances long
known to the Executive Committee, and since
fully avowed by himself.

3. The want of proper co-operative har-
mony between himself and other instructors
in the University, produced, we have reason
to believe, by the course of Mr. McGarvey
himself.

4 His conduct as editor of the Times, im-
mediately after the adjournment of the Board
in June last, in publishing articles concerning
the report of the Committee on Grievances, be—
fore that report appeared; in which articles
he does Mr. Bowman great injustice, by pre-
senting him to the public as a false accuser of
his brethren, when Mr. McGarvey himself
had been Mr. Bowman’s accuser before the
Board. ‘

The imperative necessity that one or the
other party to an irreconcilable difliculty in
any institution of learning should withdraw
from the samb,and the fact that the Board had
refused to allow the Regent to resign, when
he proffered to do so, left the Executive
Committee no alternative, save to invite the
resignation of Professor McGarvey.

Encouraged by their own view of what was
right in the premises, and by the'very earnest
and unanimous exhortation of the Board at
its last meeting, addressed to all the parties
in this controversy, and to all others as well,
the Executive Committee resolved to ad-
dress Professor McGarvey a respectful note,
asking him, for the sake of peace and harmo-
ny in the institution, to tender his resigna-
tion. ,

But after the committee had thus resolved,
they concluded to delay the sending of their
communication, in the hope that when the
reportof the “Committee on Grievances” had
been given to the press, Professor McGarvey’s
course would render the request unnecessary.
They hoped that his editorial procedure at
least Would be so fair and generous and
pacific, especially toward his colleagues, that
all disturbances might be at last composed;
or, if he chose to proceed otherwise, that he
would feel it to be his duty to resign with-
out a suggestion from them, as we
hoped he would do after the action of the
Board.

In all these expectations we were dis-
appointed. The article in the Times of July
the 3d, of which he is the acknowledged
author, destroyed all hope that we may have
had, that harmony could be restored, and the
interests of the University promoted, without
some action on the part of the Executive
Committee. We accordingly sent him aletter
urging him to resign, and this we begged him
to do voluntarily, for peace sake, and without
prejudice to himself or censure from us. Mr.
McGarvey declined, in terms not the most
respectful, to comply with the request of the
Committee and to conform his action to the
line of peaceful policy so heartily recom-
mended by the Board. .

His course under the circumstances, so un-
expected to the committee, left them no al-
ternative save either to arrest the exercise of
the functions of his office as Professor, or to
permit him to remain the occasion or cause
of renewed strife and alienations in the Insti-
tution.

They invite the close and unbiased atten-
tion of the Curators to the following consider-
ations especially, as furnishing ample grounds
for their final proceeding:

1. It is a fact well known to the Board that
slanderous reports had gone out to the public
to the effect that the Treasurer ‘had fraudu-

lently appropriated or misused the funds of
this Institution. A publication of the fact
that Mr. Bowman had been unanimously re-
elected Treasurer at our last meeting, and
that his financial dealings had been, time
and again, inquired into by the Board and
uniformly declared to be correct and faithful
in every particular, was necessary to his vin-
dication, as well as that of the Board who
continued him in office.

The Executive Committee accordingly pre-
pared a very brief statement of these matters
of record, and did, as soon as possible after
the adjournment of the Board in June last,
give them to the press, in connection with the.
report of the “Committee on Grievances.”

Prof. McGarvey, knowing that the Regent
of the institution had been injuriously mis-
represented among the readers of his own
paper, nevertheless deliberately refused or
neglected to publish these facts as thus offi-
cially set forth.

2. The law of the University, p. 18, directs
that the Executive Committee sha‘l cause to
he published such documents as will make a
fill‘ exhibit of the general condition of the
University.

In the discharge of this duty the Commit-
tee prepared a paper for early publication,
embracing the report of “Committee on Griev-
ances,” and such a statement of facts from
the records of the Board as, in their judg-
ment, was necessary.

Mr. McGarvey, although a Professor in the
University, suppresses the publication of
these statements in his paper, and thus re-
fuses to give to the public such facts as the
Executive Committee ueemed necessary to
the interests of the institution.

The judgment of the committee as to what
ought to be published should, on every prin-
ciple of official honor, have prevailed over
his prejudices and personal feelings against
the Regent, so far as to have caused him to
give to the public the entire paper of the
committee. We can construe such ac ion in
no other way than as Wholly incompatible
with his subordinate position as professor, dis-
courteous to the authorities of the Institu-
tion. and as evidence of an unwillingness on
his part to give a misrepresented colleague the
benefit of the truth. During the summer and
fall of ’71 or ’72. when certain parties thought
proper to dlscuss the exciting questions of
the hour in the newspapers, Dr. Peter judged
it expedient to address certain communica-
tions to the press in reply to attacks on Mr.
Bowman, and. as he believed, on the vital in-
terests of the University. We‘would not here
discuss the propriety of any of these publi-
cations. But the Board of Curators, after
mature reflection, decided.

“The articles written by Dr. Peter, in com-
mon with other publications of the time. were,
under the cir'cu/znstrnces. ill-timed, injudicious,
and, in their effects, detrimental to the-inter
ests of the institution.”

In his recent article in the Times, Mr. Mc-
Garvey states simply that Dr. Peter had been
censured by this Board for articles which he had
written for the newspapers, “which articles” he
adds, "were in the interests of Mr. Bowman,
and antagonistic to the editors of the Times,
and to the action of the Main Street Church.”

The conclusions which his readers were
thus forced to draw was that Dr. Peter alone
was censured by the Board,and that, too, for
writing articles that were favorable to Mr.
Bowman and unfavorable to Mr. McGarvey.

Now, the strife-producmg character of Mr.
McGarvey’s article appears in this: That he
suppresses the fact that others also were
equally censured by the Board. He seems to
labor to create the impression that Dr. Pe-
ter’s articles alone, because unfavorable to him
and to certain elders of the Main Street
Church, and favorable to the Regent, were
condemned by the Curators.

In this proceedure he did all that an editor
could have done, tofix in the mind of the
public all the censure of the Board in this
regard on his colleague, Dr. Peter, and that,
too. on false grounds, knowing at .the time
that the condemnation was meant to be dis-
tributed among all the newspaper writers of
the time, himself included.

4. An article written by Tutor Smith, on
University Troubles, for the Cincinnati Gazette,
Mr. M cGarvey, after the adjournment of the
Board, denounces in the Times as containing
falsehood and base slander. Mr. Smith there-
upon addressed him a note, asking space to
reply to this grave charge, asserting his abil-
ity to prove that he wrote truth. Mr. Mc-
Garvey refused to give him the Opportunity
to reply to so serious an accusation. We do
not, in any wise, indorse the propriety of Mr.
Smith’s writing any article on the University
difficulty, being himself a teacher in the in-
stitution, but we submit whether Prof Mc-
Garvey wrote in the interests of peace and
harmi ny, when he thus denounces the state-
ments of his colleague as false and busely slan—
derous, and then refuses the opportunity to
reply.

Tutor Smith, finding all harmony between
himself and Prof. McGarvey thus permanent-
ly disturbed, and learning that his article to
the Gazette was, in the judgment of members
of the Executive Committee, and other Cura-
tors, calculated to increase rather than to
allay strife, had the proper self-respect and
regard for the opinion of Curators to tender
his resignation, which the Executive Com-
mittee promptly accepted.

We think that the course of Mr. McGarvey
in his controversy with his colleague, was ob—
jectionable, and as he was the senior of the
latter, who is a young man, and as he is an
editor of a religious newspaper, his severe de-
nunciations of Mr. Smith were, under the
circumstances, the more inexcusable.

Moreover, we would impress it upon the
minds of the Curators that it was under the
professed apology of a reply to Tutor Smith
that Mr. McGarvey finds the opportunity to
injure the reputation and usefulness of the
Regent.

5. Mr. McGarvey, in the article which we
are reviewing, complains that the report of
the Committee on Grievances had been an-
ticipated by certain writers, and the nature
of the case misrep‘esented in the papers be-
fore the report was prepared.

It is evident that he here seeks to make
the impression that only the friends of Regent
Bowman sought, by premature publications,
to forestall opinion in regard to the report.

But the facts in the case furnish positive
proof of Mr. McGarvey’s determination to al-
low no peace in the University save on his
own terms; for he, himself, while thus pub-
licly criminating a colleague, was guilty of
the same offence.

In an article of June 26th, written before
that report was given to the public, he states
that the editors of the Times, Mr. Wilkes
among the number, had been vindicated and
were anxious for their uindication to appear.
\Vhatever impropriety there was, therefore,
in any attempt to forestall public opinion, Mr.
McGarvey was equally guilty of it.

Moreover, in order to keep alive an unjust
prejudice against Mr. Bowman, he claimed
for his co—editor, Wilkes, that he had been
vindicated by the yet unpublished report.
Now, was this statement even true?

The Board decided that the charge which
Mr. Bowman had once brought against Mr.
Wilkes was sustained by the testimony; and
that so far as his statements had made im-
pressions injurious to the Regent, when op-
portunity to know better was in his reach, he
was at fault.

With this verdict of guilt well known to
him, Editor h’lcfiarvey,aweek or more be-
fore the “report” was published, announces
the vindication of the whole editorial corps!

In this connection the committee would
call special attention to the fact that Curator
Wilkes had repeatedly made the most serious
charges against Regent Bowman, which
charges had been before the committee for in-
vestigation. In view of these facts, the dec-
laration of Prof. McGarvey to the effect that
Mr. Wilkes had been vindicated by the
Board. could have had but one meaning, viz.:
That the Regent had been found guilty of the
unfaithfulness with which Mr.
charged him! We submit then that Prof.
McGarvey was not only guilty of making the
erroneous statement that the report of the
committee contained the vindication of the
honor of all the original editors of the Times,
but that he thereby implies the very dishon-
esty and criminality that had been charged
against the Regent.

‘ ' hisdeliber'ate perversion ofthechara-Eter

of the report, of itself is, in our opinion, suffi-
cient ground to demand his removal from the
institution.

6. Mr. McGarvey has inexcusably done
Mr. Bowman still further injury' and injus-
tice by his suppression of a few very import-
ant Words of the report, when endeavoring to
persuade his readers of his own complete ex-
oneration from what he calls the charges of
the Regent. It will be remembered that in
his memorial of January 11th, 1872, he calls
on the Board to vindicate him from the
charge of being a liar, which charge, he al-
leges, had been brought against him by Mr.
Bowman.

In commenting on the decision of the com-
mittee in the premises, Mr. McGarvey says
that he had been completely exonerated from
the charge preferred against him. He thus
leads his readers to suppose that he had been
tried and fully acquitted on some charge of
lying that Mr. Bowman had publicly and
falsely brought against him, when be him-
self had been Mr. Bowman’s accuser. and had
preferred charges against him. Now, the
suppression of any essential part of the solemn
decision of a tribunal like that, is morally
improper. But, when such suppression does
injury and injustice to an opponent, it is un-
pardonable. In the case of Prof. McGarvey,
his mutilation and misrepresentation of the
report, to the injury of Mr. Bowman, is, under
the circumstances, deserving of extreme cen-
sure.

The decision of the committee on the point
alluded to, is that, while they exonerate Mr.
McGarvey under an alleged charge of false-
hood, they declare that no such charge had
been made by the Regent at all, directly nor by
implication, unless from inference, which
even, if logically drawn, should be accepted
by the Regent as his own, before they are
made a subject of criminal charge against
him, the Regent. Thus it appears that while
the Board were willing to exonerate Mr. Mc-
Garvey under a charge of falsehood, which he
alleges had been made by the Regent; they
were also emphatic in denying in the same
sentence that the Regent had brought any
such charge, and yet Mr. McGarvey deliber-
ately suppresses this fact. He thus leaves
Mr. Bowman before the public in the attitude
of a false accuser, convicted and exposed as
such by the Board. This piece of injustice
to a. superior officer furnishes additional suffi-
cient grounds for the action of the Executive
Committee.

8. Another apparent effort on the part of
Mr. McGarvey to do Mr. Bowman all the in-
jury he could, and which served to render
the breach between him and the Regent irre-
parable, is in Mr. McGarvey’s editorial notice
of the slanders of Mr. lowman’s private
character.

Mr. McGarvey sees fit to refer to these re-
futed slanders again, and gives his readers the

Wilkes had '

full benefit of the scandal by saying merely
that the committee say of certain testimony
touching the private character of the Regent:
“That it should not home been introducec.” Now,
the report of the committee emphatically (le-
clares not merely that that testimony should
not have been introduced,as Mr. McGarvey
has stated the matter, but that it should not
have been introduced for the reason, that it
wasconfessedly based on rumor alone, utterly un-
substantiated by any evidence u'haterer, and irrele—
rant, thus giving the amplest vindication of
Mr. Bowman, and leaving the censure for its
introduction to fall on whomsoever deServed
1t.

But, worse than all this, Mr. McGarvey,
,after endeavoring to exonerate himself from
all blame for the introduction of this scandal,
pens this unfortunate sentence: “More on
this matter” (the scandal) “we do not choose
to write unless future developments shall
compel us to do so.”

In such a connection these words can have
no other significance than to insinuate vice
and to threaten its exposure—words that were
sufficient of themselves to prevent all future
co-operation with him on the part of the
Regent, though nothing else had ever been
written.

9. In explaining to his readers the very
plain verdict of the Board in the case of Mr.
Wilkes, Mr. McGarvey endeavors to pursuade
them that the Board did not find any fault
with Mr. Wilkes for any statement which he
may have made concerning the title to Ash-
land or Woodland, but only for the impression
which his statements may have produced on
the minds of some persons. Now, the ver-
dict of the committee is in these words:

“That Curator Wilkes, much to the injury
of Mr. Bowman, did repeatedly and to dif—
ferent persons, give erroneous impressions in
reference to the title to the Realty as being
held in his own name instead of the Univer-
slty—thut too subsequent to the time said title had
been recorded—is sustained by the testimony;
and, in so far as statements creating said im-
pressions were made by him, when opportunity
to know better was within his reach, he is at
fault.”

The charge of Mr. Bowman against Curator
\Vilkes is thus emphatically declared to be
sustained. But, desiring that full justice
should be done to all parties, the Committee
proceed to censure Curator Wilkes for his
statements, on the ground, 1st, that those
statements gave erroneous and injurious im-
pressions; and, 2d, that Mr. Wilkes had the
opportunity to know better.

And yet, after Mr. McGarvey had heard
the report of the committee read, he does not
hesitate, as we have seen, to publish it as a
fact that llIr Wilkes had been vindicated! And
more than this, he even spread the injurious
statement again before the public that Mr.
‘ihiwniaw'had heldthe titieto‘ Woodland in'
his own name for nearly 'a year after it had
been paid for by the money of the University
——a statement which is not true, and the facts
connected with which Mr. McGarvey could
easily have known had he desired—is vir-
tually but a repetition of the story which the
Board unanimously condemned as truthless
and injurious.

In conclusion, we beg leave to say, that no
documents touching the unfortunate difficul-
ties in the University, for the removal of
which the Board had wisely prepared the way,
in the whole scope, tedor and spirit, could
have been more injurious to others, and more
fatal to the peace and harmony of the insti-
tution than those published by Prof. McGar-
vey in the Times, so’ soon after the adjourn-
ment of the Board, so palpably misrepresent-
ing its action, and so manifestly calculated to
open up afresh the wounds which they had
endeavored to heal.

These articles are herewith appended, and
we leave it to the judgment of the Board, af-
ter carefully reading them, and weighing all
we have said, to determine whether they do
not furnish ample evidence of a persistent
disposition on the part of Mr. McGarvey to
use his office as Professor, and his position as
editor of a. religious neWspaper, to do some of
his colleagues all the injury he can, and to
defeat any effort for peace unless it be accom-
plished by the disgrace of the founder and the
faithful, self-sacrificing Chief Executive offi-
cer of the University.

With the exception of Mr. McGarvey, there
has been, and is, entire harmony and co-
operation among all the ofiicials of Kentucky
University, as far as known to us. ‘

From the foregoing statements, and from
the fact that Mr. McGarvey is, and has been
for years, more or less, not on terms of cor-
dial relationship with a number of his col—
leagues of the Faculty and the officials of the
Institution, nor in proper sympathy to co-
operate with its management, we are com-
pelled to regard him as an irreconcilable
element of discord in the government of
Kentucky University, and his removal as
necessary to the peace and prosperity of the
same.

As the authority of the Executive Com—
mittee to suspend or remove Mr. McGarvey
has been questioned, we beg leave to say that
the power of appointment and the creating of
vacancies in the Faculties has been repeatedly
exercised by the Committee for fifteen years,
without a previous voice of dissent or doubt
as to the legality of these precedents, Mr.
McGarvey himself holding his professorship
under the exercise of this authority.

BENJ. GrRAT Z, Oh’m pro tem.
JOSEPH SMITH, } EX.
JOS. VVASSON,
JOS. VVOOLFOLK,

} COM.