THE OKLAHOMA EPISODE

The spirit of the Ku Klux Klan is still rife in the West. Some few weeks ago, fourteen students of the University of Oklahoma administered a flogging in a student editor for having written an article "reflecting upon the traditions of the school which they were sworn to uphold." Accoutered in black hoods, they entered the editor's room at midnight, carried him off three miles into the country in his pajamas, with the thermometer standing at seventeen below, gave him ten lashes with a three quarters inch rope, and let him walk home. For ten days, the University officials investigated the case, and then expelled the fourteen from college. Yesterday, Governor Murray chose to reinstate them.

The episode is a decisive reply to people who think that the demands of college editors for freedom of the press is a trivial matter. In the East it is almost inconceivable that there should be a resort to the crude mob methods of American obscurantism. Yet in this case they are revived, and in a university environment, by a commonplace exercise of freedom of speech. It is obvious that if all such brutalities escape drastic punishment, then criticism of any sort must come to an end where they are condoned or extenuated. The man who would reinstate such transgressors certainly has no true view of the principles involved.

In the case of Governor Murray, it may be said that the incident is another proof that he is miserably unfit for the position he holds. Governor Murray is a distinguished specimen of an all too frequent type of politician. Neither stupid nor unenlightened himself, he has not hesitated to pander on several pander on several occasions to the trivial and the vicious aspects of his electorate. This is not the first example of his interference in the affairs of the University of Oklahoma beyond the proper limits. His conduct while a possible nominee of the Democratic party was that of a mountebank seeking popular applause at any price. Certainly the action of the University authorities in the flogging case should have ended the affair. The Governor's interference was directly contrary to the principle that educators should be left free to carry out their educational policies as they see fit. It ought to receive the attention of college newspapers generally.