Wilmington journal. [volume] (Wilmington, N.C.) 1844-1895, 1869-06-11
The LInfyernttY.

Upon our duty as an alumanS to our
Alma Mater and upon our duty as a citizen
of the State to the cherished University OF
the State, we have pondered long and
seriously. The Importance and the duty
lof affording every facility for education to
Jour people are too palpable to allow us to
be influenced, consciously. by any feelings
or any reasons save those alone which
ought to operate upon an upright citizen
and true patriot. We have been all the
while willing and are willing now, indeed
anxious, to meet the party in power upon
some common neutral ground, where, free
from political interference, we might re,
build the University. We are still ready
to yield to that Institution an earnest,
honest, hearty and Jealous support at the
first moment in which we can send our
sons there without degradation and insult.
This time will not arrive, however, until
such pismires as now infest the place shall
have been swept away and men put In their
places-men of brains and attachments,
men of high regulations and honorable
records, whose nobleness of purpose and
integrity of character will insure us fair
play and afford us substantial guarantee
that the place shall be a Seminary of learn
ing and not partisan nursery. Let us
consider for a moment who the present
Faculty are, and whether their characters
and regulations are such as to give us this
guarantee.
| President Solomon Pool graduated i'll
1868, with fair stand in his class as a
| plodding. laborious man, without any par
ticular brightness or originality of mind
whatever. He remained at the University
either as Tutor or Adjunct Professor for
the greater part, if not during the whole,
time from his graduation until his appoint
ment as Tax Assessor for the Raleigh Dis
trict in 1866. He then took the test oath
and entered upon the discharge of the
duties of his new Office. AS a teacher, we
learn he displayed no special aptitude for
anything.
We scarcely believe it possible that any
man of this calibre and this character
could, in the space of fifteen years from his
graduation, have qualified himself for the
Presidency under any circumstances We
feel sure he could not. when we remember
that four of those years were years of war,
and four others were years of reconstruct
! ton, during the greater part of which lat
ter period he was engrossed in the duties
of the Office of Tax Assessor. He has also,
from time to time, been engaged in the
performance of duties as Minister of the
Gospel, and thus also to that extent has
been prevented from devoting his time to
those studies specially fitted to qualify q
young man for the Presidency of the Uni
versity. These are reasons enough for
Directing to his appointment. We have
others, however. His views upon the
questions involved in the late war are
! radically wrong, and his character, as
man, is not such as to assure US
he will not use his Office to instil
into the minds of the children put
under his charge the belief that their
fathers were traitors and murderers. AL
most his first act as President affords
ground for this opinion. So far as we can
learn he published in one paper only, the
Raleigh Standard. the announcement of
the reopening of the exercises of the Uni
versity. This was done in the face of the
fact that the circulation of that paper was
confined almost entirely to the members of
the Radical party, party composed of a
small number of whites and large num-
Der of blacks, and notwithstanding the fact
that the blacks were excluded from the
Institution. Common justice, common
decencY, common sense would have suggest
ed that the announcement should be made
to all parties entitled to take advantage
thereof by the law OF the land. The fact
that young Mr.. Wilder, son of one of the
most respectable gentlemen in the State,
who went to Chapel Hill because his father
desired, if possible, to educate bis son at
the University of his own State, was COM
PEELED to leave there because of unkind and
unfriendly treatment, speaks very unfavor-
ably fox MIR. POOLS capacity to manage the
affairs of the Institution under his charge
We further object to Mr.. Pool because
he and his family and family connections
have already absorbed their full share Of
public plumber and public Offices. His
brother JOIN. Pool, who took Office and
oath under the Confederate Gov
eminent, as he now says to embarass
it, is now .. S. Senator. His kinsman
G. G. Pool, who was said to be concerned
with Gen. Butler in running the blockade,
is now Judge of the Superior Court
Solomon Pool was, at the time of his ap-
pointment as President, and is now, U. S.
Tax Assessor. His mother in-law holds an
Office in the Revenue Department.. One
brother-in-law is a Deputy Assessor or Col
lector. Another brother-in-law holds
another lucrative Office in the Revenue De-
partment. The President of the Univer-
sity Railroad, of which Mr.. Pool is Di-
rector, is a deputy or clerk under Mr.
Pool, thus putting that corporation also in