“So’s Illinois,” said some one.
“Cornell’s talking of letting full professors vote for a third of its board of trustees,” said a professor of engineering.
“Wouldn’t it be better,” said Vida, “if you put yourselves in a position to compel such an elementary right as self-government, instead of waiting to have a third of it bestowed—perhaps?”
“Certainly,” said the engineer. “The right is only secure if based on our own power to get and hold it.”
“We ought to have got together last year when Brooks and Gleason were fired,” said Hastings.
“Better late than never,” muttered Sanders. “We might save the next man.”
“Yes,” said Searles of the French section, “but what some of us want to know is why we have not heard of this militant union. It’s all right in the right hands. But who’s responsible for the idea? When and where did it start? Whom can one write to about it? Why isn’t it represented in our own faculty?”
Vida set her lips and looked at Clark and Guthrie. The iron was hot.
Clark struck. “It started in this faculty last night,” he said.
The attention of the group, which included two newspaper men, centred upon him. “I was one of those present.”