The people's voice. [volume] (Helena, Mont.) 1939-1969, 1963-09-20
By EDMUND FREEMAN, Missoula


One of the experiences of retirement
is the sharp realization of missed OPP
portunities, times remembered when
more insight and courage might have
made a great difference There weighs
on me now a sense of a great talent
and desire in our University students
for more significant freedom and a
more responsible role in university
government - a talent and desire
which we have not brought to any
good fruition in all the years. I sense
it as great loss, not SO much to the
individual students whose efforts were
unfulfilled but to the intellectual and
political life of our State. must try
my point in terms of particulars.
In 1928 a number of the ablest students on
campus published a little magazine called
The Wrangler, which was critical of univer-
sity ways and values. 1t well into the
second year under the editorship of Paul
Treichler, who for 80 years has been the
Director of Dramatics at Antioch College.
What proved to be but was not intended to
be the last issue was announced to deal with
religion. a good subject for students to think
about But the more religious-minded students
offered only one piece for printing, and for
fear this imbalance would give an unfavorable
impression of the campus mind, President
Clapp reluctantly decided he could not permit
the issue to be circulated.
The Wrangler dead, not because any
thoughtful person had passed adverse
judgment on its contents but in order to
sustain a favorable public image of the
University.
Near the end of President Clapp's long and
valuable administration, when he himself was
seriously ill. there was considerable discomfort
among students over the omnibus courses,
which had been established partly for the
sake of economy and partly an experiment
after the pattern of the University of Chicago.
There were other student problems, too, which
the faculty felt concerned about
The result of this discomfort was the estab-
lishment under faculty initiative, of the
Student-Faculty Council, composed of some
eight or ten faculty members elected by the
faculty and some thirty-odd student members
elected by fraternites, sororities, dormitories
and other groups The Council very ably
led through its first difficult year-difficult
because the fraternities suspected the Council
was meant to reduce their influence on cam
pus-by William Shallenberger, himself a
fraternity man. But the new president, DR..
Simmons, did not regard the Council with
favor and presently it casualty of the
larger trouble that conferred around the Presi-
dent himself
The student body was decimated during
the war years when Dr. Melby was president.
When the veterans returned, during the time
of President Mccain, they took very vigor-
Gus part in student organizations and in criti-
cal discussions all over the campus One of
these talented veterans was Bill Smurr, edi-
tor of the student newspaper, THE KAIMIN,
which has long prided itself on the freedom
of its press Smurr resigned his editorship
when President Mccain, supported, believe,
by some of the student officers, refused to
permit the KAIMIN to print highly satiric
cartoon at the expense of the State Board of
Examiners, who had reduced the Universitys