Strike Won

The students of Washington & Jefferson College at Washington, Pa. went on strike last March. Their complaint: that their president, Dr. Simon Strousse Baker, was "autocratic" (TIME, March 30). A committee of trustees investigated the charges, was ready to report last week. But the report was not read. Dr. Baker resigned.

Rare indeed is the student strike which accomplishes thus easily its aim. The W. & J. students had protested against Dr. Baker's domineering methods, his "dress rules," his lack of sympathy with their athletic program. His capitulation last week was complete. Though ill health influenced his decision to resign, he said: "So far as the student body is concerned, I have tried to win their friendship but have been unsuccessful. Sometimes I think the fault is mine. . . . As a whole they are serious and well-behaved. . . . The faculty is an able group of men."

Graduate of W. & J. (1892), a football player in his time, 64-year-old Dr. Baker is a great-great-grandson of Dr. Thaddeus Dod, first principal of Washington Academy which became Washington & Jefferson College in 1865. In his ten-year regime he was liked by most of his trustees and by many a townsman. But his students found his temper uneven, his educational and religious principles too conservative. And though sympathetic, he was known to be pliable, easily imposed upon.

A good conversationalist, Dr. Baker likes to read Greek, Roman and Early American history, to play golf and take long walks. For some 25 years associate superintendent of Pittsburgh's schools, he still belongs to many a smart Pittsburgh club, still takes his wife to opera or theatre there. But he has been ill ever since he underwent a serious operation last year, and his health and temperament were affected long ago by the death of his only son, Lieut. Edward David Baker, an aviator who was shot down in France in 1918.

Quietly Dr. Baker said last week: "I hope my resignation will benefit the college." Acting president will be the College's Dean Edward Moffat Weyer.

P:In Valladolid, Spain, 50 medical students demanded to be passed in their courses without examinations because so much time out had been taken by this spring's Revolution. The faculty refused. The students last week locked their professors in a classroom, would not let them out until they waived the examinations.

P:Dr. Robert Judson Aley, 68, president since 1921 of thriving little Butler University at Indianapolis, Ind., resigned last week voluntarily to "write, travel, and play."

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