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the University. Not only that, but as I remember, she had received the highest
percentage raise and the fifth or sixth highest in total amount, of any University
employee, including faculty members, during the period of her employment. No
teaching member in the College of Agriculture received such consideration. In 1941,
her father, as chairman of the board, had held up general salary raises, already
authorized by the legislature, on the ground that they were not based on merit.
The final objection to nepotism in the institution was that the appointment of
a close relative of a board member is very likely to blind that member to any
deficiencies that may exist in the administration of the institution, and tends
to warp his judgement in the determination of important matters of policy.
However, nepotism was only a minor thing for which I criticized the administration
in my conferences with the dean who appeared before you. The conference came shortly
after the legislative investigation of the University. I had no part in the
investigation, or in the events leading up to it, but when I saw how certain persons
had perjured themselves and intimidated students in order to cover up inexcusable and
indefensible conditions, I could no longer restrain myself and decided that it was
time that some effort be made to reform the University from within.
The University infirmary, now greatly improved in operation, was unspeakably bad
for years. In 1928, as a student,I investigated some cases of maltreatment and
reported them to the President. I know that the infirmary was operated as a private
monopoly, that dishonest charges--I use the term advisedly--were made of students for
medical treatment, and that several students died of criminal negligence. The ones
I have in mind died of exposure diseases--influenza and pneumonia--within a week or
ten days after being put out of the infirmary, without proper holidays. One boy
was the son of the British Consul in Miami; another death occurred in 1940 when a boy
died of flu within 24 hours of being put out of the infirmary. This boy was from
Tampa, but I do not recall his name. A Carlisle boy from Jacksonville was a questionable
case. I personally know of as many deaths in the infirmary as reported for the entire
period of the administration of the former head physician. I was on the campus not
more than half of this period, and even then did not have any close connection with
the infirmary. There appears to have been no hesitation in misrepresenting the
infirmary records for the College of Surgeons, so there should have been none in
covering up the number of student deaths. At the time of my conferences on the
matter of the infirmary, I did not know there were other matters freely discussed
and believed to be true by informed students, faculty members, and university officials
concerning the administration and activities of the head physician of the infirmary.
The administration of the General Extension Division was another part of the University
which was crticized. I first learned of the nature of some of the questionable
activities of the present head while I was a teacher at the University of Denver. As
a college student on the Florida campus, I helped to organize the Blue Key fraternity,
and at one time was given some credit for starting chapters at Auburn, Alabama, and
Suwannee. At the University of Denver, I interested a group of leading students,
including the president of the Student Body, the president of the Senior Class, and
one or two young professors, in the organization of a Blue Key chapter. I wrote to
the "Founder" of Blue Key, and he agreed to grant a chapter. When the group appeared
before the Faculty Committee on Fraternities, an outspoken member, Dean John Lawson