Arizona republican., 1903-11-05
President Wheeler at Tucson.

President Wheeler at Tucson.
 min Ide Wheeler. president of the Uni versity of California. at Tucson last night and printed in this issue of The Republican. should be read carefully and taken to heart by every citizen of Arizona. President Wheeler spoke as a friend. Himself one of the world s most successful G-i eminent educators he came 10 Arizona to participate in the formal inauguration of his friend. the president of the territorial uni- versfty-and to deliver the address to which we refer. In view of his earnest solicitude for the welfare cf the coun- try's educational interests. 1t may we'll be believed that in coming to Arizona it was. quite as much as for anything else. 10 point out the dangers which beset a university when its affairs are In the hands of politicians. His own term descriptive Of his speech was "a warning" and as a warning it is full of value. Some of his remarks are worth the prominence of a reproduc- ton here:
 Too often the position has been made the football Of shifting popular moods or CT party politics. or worse. of fac tiOnal strife. Unless the university in all its workings and being can rise like lighthouse. nigh and clean above the su"ging and dashing of the transient and sordid: unless it can lay hold with Its foundations upon something more solid than the shifting sands of opin- ion and prejudice. unless 1t can look down calm and undismayed in its an- chOrage Of truth upon the battling waves around it. conscious that their fur! cannot reach it. there might as well be no university.
 'I am warning here not alone about the common brew of party politics but abOs the meaner brew that is stirred in the name of private pull ;-the in Hue 1tial citizen who wants his wffe's cousin appointed to an instructorship: the editor who wages a grudge because a friend who was an incompetent in structor lost his place.-the assembly man whose brothers boy must not be exp-iled. lest appropriations in the next legislature suffer- the pro- lessor whose salary had better be raised because 1t will be acceptable to certain railroad interests with whom he goes camping in the summer, etc.
 All this business Is full of back handed blackmaii and backhanded stet ling. but Is tolerated and often promo ted by otherwise well-intention- ed citizens of sluggish public con- science. who dazedly conform to the vulEate notion that some way or oth- CT public money cannot be expected to have as much value as other money. public official who uses his position 10 secure public office and pay for man inferior to the availab ble best, be- cause Of personal or private relations or obligations to that man. has used public money wherewith to settle his private accounts; he has treated the public trust as a private possession: he has stolen public money: he is a thief The man who urges an official 10 to such a thing as melted theft and Is a partaker in the crime"
 IL should be remembered. of course. that much of the address here quoted was not intended to describe condi- tions as they have existed at Tucson. but simply as a warning On the oth- CT hand. had President Wheeler taken the trouble to make himself minutely familiar with the history Of the in stitltion he could not have spoken more 10 the point than in the utter ance of scme Of his pointed phrases. Especially do We have in mind the past interferences and meddlings of regents and their apparent willingness to make the university the football of shifting popular moods or of party politics, CT worse. of factional strife" And there must have been a burning of journaIis- tic ears when he spoke of the editor who wages a grudge because a friend who was an incompetent instructor lost his place"
 But upon the whole. President Wh=eler's address should be consider ed highly encouraging. Had he not believed that there was a bright future for the university under the direction of his friend. President Babcock. he would not have come all she way from Berkeley to show the people of Ari- soma how they may have a university that Will be the pride of the entire territory.
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