The Plank at Pitt (Cont'd)

For 1933-35 huge University of Pittsburgh received from the State of Pennsylvania a much-needed subsidy of $1,188,000. Last fortnight Pitt's Chancellor John Gabbert Bowman touched off a battery of liberal protests by dismissing History Professor Ralph E. Turner, longtime loud and active liberal (TIME, July 16). By last week the smoke of battle had drifted East to Harrisburg and up the nostrils of that old liberal warhorse, Governor Gifford Pinchot. Cried he: "If the Mellons want a school to teach their ideas, then let them support it. The Commonwealth cannot."

In a letter to Chancellor Bowman. Governor Pinchot threatened a legislative investigation "to determine whether the University should continue to receive public funds." Also last week American Association of University Professors promised a new investigation of academic freedom at Pitt, to follow up the one it made in 1928.

Last fortnight Chancellor Bowman explained that he had dismissed Professor Turner because "I thought his position could be better filled by another man." Last week Pitt's Chancellor had changed his tune to: "Professor Turner was dismissed because of his sneering, sarcastic, flippant attitude toward religion."

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