The daily Cairo bulletin. (Cairo, Ill.) 1878-1???, 1879-07-02
A TREMENDOUS ONSLAUGHT.

The array Of damaging facts that have
been brought to bear against the man
agement Of the Southern Illinois Normal
school, will bring about a reconstruction
| and reorganization of the school, or result
in its complete overthrow and ruin.
Although living within two hours ride
OF that institution, we onfess that we have
been blind to its faults, except in the par
ticulars that we believed the management
to be sectarian, and knew it to be intoler-
antly partisan. But these great faults form
but two counts in an indictment that fairly
appalls the reader by the number and char
acter Of its most damaging allegations.
The people of Carbondale and Jackson
county could not have been driven into
their present attitude of hostility to the
institution, had it not wholly failed to meet
| public expectation, and given out proofs
of witul and ignorant mismanagement too
glazing and monstrous to be overlooked
or longer tolerated. Jackson county felt a
| pride in the school, and reasonably antici-
| pated that its influence would serve as a
powerful aid in the work bodybuilding the
material as well as the educational, moral
and social interests of Jackson county
After the lapse of five years the people
find that instead of serving as such pro.
moter Of the public veal, the institution
has operated as serious and unbearable
drawback. And now, though reluctantly
proclaiming the failure Of the school and
the consequence general disappointment,
the people of Carbondale, of Jackson coun-
ty-indeed of Southern Illinois, demand,
with extraordinary unanimity, that the man
agement of the institution be put in other
and entirely different hands.
A most damning charge against the
management is that it has organized itself
into ring that has prescribed religious
social, business and political limits, bey-
ond which are the enemies, and within
which are the friends. What we desire
to say, in this behalf, is given below in the
language Of a pronunciamento put forth by
the committee that has in charge the work
of reform that is regarded essential to the
schools continued existence.
"As soon as the ring could learn the
names OF the men engaged in the effort to
reconstruct the Normal, its leaders began
course of browbeating and intimidation
that can be best described by calling it
"bulldozng," They went to some of these
persons and told them that they would be
| injured in their business and in their pros
poets If they persisted in what they regard
ed as rght-as duty they owe to the pub
lie good and their own personal
interests. They were told that "a
blow at the Normal was a blow at the Meth
odst Church, and blow at the Methodist
Church was n blow at the Republican party;
that the Methodist Church controls the Re-
publican party in Illinois--or at least in
Southern Illinois; that the influence of the
Methodist Church would be exertcd to the
utmost against every man who supported
the movement to reconstruct the Normal"
Here we have another evidence of the in.
sincerity Of the statement of Mr..
Robarts in his circular that the or
gani2ation OF the Normal is unsectarian
A blow at the present management of the
Normal would not be regarded as blow
at the Methodist Church unless that church
was the management. The influence of
the Methodist Church would not be threat
oned by men trying to change the present
management of the Normal unless the
Methodist Church were the present man
agement of the Normal
Members Of the ring began to work
against the business and prospects Of men
who had signed the circular. In other
cases, they tried to caiole men by trading
with them and by offers Of business and
positions. For years this course has been
pursued, and men who would not bow the
knee to the ring, have been ostracized, po-
litically, socially, and in business. So far
has this gone that men have attached them.
selves to this ring, hoping, by being part Of
II, to secure part Of wha. It thus insolcntly
mcnopclizcd, whom they were utterly op-a