VALPARAISO U. DENIES BOLSHEVISM CHARGES

The charge made in his letter of resignation on April 25 by President Hodgdon of Valparaiso University that that institution was a "hotbed of Bolshevism, Communism and other cults" has been denied by the trustees of Valparaiso University in a letter sent out on May 10. According to the trustees, the truth is that Dr. Hodgdon had always proved himself completely out of sympathy with the traditions and principles of Valparaiso University; and by April 1 conditions had grown so involved that students refused to accept diplomas signed by Dr. Hodgdon as president, and the faculty threatened to resign in a body unless he was removed. The result was that on April 23 the Board of Trustees demanded his resignation. A few days later they received from Dr. Hodgdon a letter of resignation, to which the trustees sent no acceptance, as it was in response to a demand,--and simultaneously appeared in the Chicago papers an article by Dr. Hodgdon claiming that because he was a loyal American he had been forced from his position at Valparaiso University by the pressure of Bolshevist and Communist organizations in that institution.

This accusation, according to the Board of Trustees and the newspapers of the towns neighboring on Valparaiso, is absolutely false, and was made by Dr. Hodgdon merely in an attempt to make his departure from office seem as dignified as possible. The falsity of the claims has been shown by the former president's inability to give any proofs and by the failure of the Federal investigators to find any substantial evidence.

Hodgdon's Extra-Curriculum Policy

The original cause of the breach between the institution and the former president was his attempt to introduce as primary interests athletics and other extra-curriculum activities into a university where students made obtaining an education their chief business.

Speaking of this, the Gary "Post" said: "Naturally Dr. Hodgdon did not fit into the Valparaiso atmosphere. He was not a part of it and the teachers and students recognized that fact from the beginning. Most of them went there for just one purpose--to get an education. The idea of wasting their time did not enter their heads. They wanted athletics if they had time for that sort of thing, but most of them needed the time for study. Fraternities were all right if they could be squeezed in between the big things they were after.

"Dr. Hodgdon does not appear to have understood that Valparaiso is unique among educational institutions. In almost all other schools and colleges, athletics, fraternities, social activities, things outside of studies, have come to occupy the chief attention of many students, simply because the students are more interested in them than in their studies. But in Valparaiso the students have always been more interested in their studies than in these other activities. This is a remarkable situation and it marks Valparaiso as an institution apart from others. Such a mark of distinction ought by all means to be retained."