The Topeka state journal. [volume] (Topeka, Kansas) 1892-1980, 1910-01-06
IT'S TOO SEVERE.
Lawyers Talk About Expulsion
of High School Boys.
Practically All Agree Action
Was Unnecessarily Harsh.
MAY NOT BE LEGAL.
Question Whether Action Would
Stand in Law.
Supt. WhittemOre Advises Frat
Members to Withdraw.

Topeka attorneys are practically
unanimous in their opinion that the
action of the board of education in
expelling from school four boys be-
longing to fraternities was unneces-
sarily harsh and severe. Some of them
assert that the action is clearly il
legal.
The feeling seems to be that the
boys in violating the ruling of the
board acted through carelessn ess or
thoughtlessness rather than from a
malicious desire to violate the rules
of the board or determination to
ing against it. And the feeling seems
to be that they should be dealt with
as boys rather than as men who had
violated statute.
Maj. A. NJ. Harvey said he thought
the action of the board would not
stand in the courts and that if the
matter was taken up in the courts the
boys could be reinstated in school. He
also expressed doubt that the anti
fraternity law was valid.
This is a curbstone opinion" he
said, but 1 think the courts would
decide against the board of education
if it was checked up to them. The
action of the board keeps the boys out
of school for year; I don't think
such ruling would stand in this case.
Besides, l doubt the validity of the
law under which this ruling is made" F"
Captain Waters View.
Captain J. G. Waters, while deplor-
ing the fact that the boys had vio-
lated the law. declared the punish
ment was too severe, and that the
years schooling because of the wrong
they had done.
1.-The boys who belonged to a fra
ternity order were violating the law
and no boy should commence life by
violating the law said Captain Wa
ter. ''They should let that job out to
j. Pierpont Morgan and the Mis-
sourian who occasionally comes here
to infract our prohibitory law. The
last thing a boy should do is to bring
some of these boys told falsehoods
and denied belonging to fraternities
when they did belong, and that they
afterward confessed and apo1egized. If
they stood up straight and made such
a confession they should be praised
for their manhood and then punished,
not like the hero on the Claymore was
punished, but such a punishment as
would not humiliate or debase them
not destroy their manhood, but just
enough to smart their flesh. And then
they should be allowed to return to
school, graduate at the head of their
class and then stand for the first office
that is within their right and reach
John Switzer was of the opinion
that the action of. the board was all
right, but said that the same punish
ment should be meted out to every
boy who belonged to fraternity It
was not. right to punish one and not
punish another; but the fraternity, he
believed, was an evil institution in the
high school and boys who belonged to
it in violation of the law should be
punished. But there should be no
discrimination in the administering of
the punishment.
Quinton Has No Children.
Eugene Quinton was of the opinion
that the board had not exceeded its
authority. Neither did he think the
punishment was too severe. But he
believed the same punishment should
be visited upon other students who
belonged to fraternities. There should
be. he said. no discrimination in the
enforcing of the law. He expressed
little sympathy for the boys under
suspension, but said that the work
should be kept up if the "frats'' were
to be stamped out, and he was in
favor of stamping them out But then
Quinton has no children of his own.
]. e. Larimer. who by the way is a