UNIVERSITY RIOT

Hokitika Guardian, 5 July 1929, Page 8

UNIVERSITY RIOT

AGED PRESIDENT AND WOMAN

SECRETARY

NEW YORK, May lb

Des .Moines University, that ventim in faith by the “ Fundamentalists” ol tne Baptists’ Bible Union in lowa, i: to-day without president or faculty. Its rooms are strewn with the wreck age of broken furniture, torn-up records, and smashed windows after a riot among the students, who lor two vears I (live been trained in the undiluted theology of the Book of Genesis. The board of trustees dismissed the faculty on official charges that they were dabbling in Modernism, but tin stuclents and the public at large arc perhaps more .interested in the allega tious of moral turpitude brought against Dr Thomas Shields, the president of'the board of trustees. The board has declared that these charges are misguided and unsustained, but it is openly acknowledged that they caused rioting among the students. Dr Shields, whose family live in Toronto, is 00 years of age, and tho allegations introduced the name of Miss Edith Rebrnan, his secretary, aged 40.

UNDER POLICE GUARD. The Rev. Isaac Page, a member of the board, said: “ Three students volunteered to testify. They produced the register of an hotel in Waterloo, lowa, showing that Dr Shields and Miss Rebrnan had registered there and had been assigned a suite. They produced a photograph, but, bear in mind, the rooms were unoccupied when it was taken. The students’ testimony (failed lamentably under cross-ovaminati<in. ’’ Dr Shields left for Buffalo late on Saturday night under strong police protection and was followed to the station bv threatening students.

Miss Rebrnan, who remained at Des Moines, said:

“They would have torn him limb from limb if they had found him last night. We wore saved by a miracle. We were hiding under the stairs and tiiey did not see us. They threw rocks and shouted like madmen: “Get Shields! Get Rebrnan!” The Baptist Bible Union, now assembling at Buffalo, is eagerly discussing the fate of its university.

The university reopened to-day on a court injunction restraining the hoard of trustees from closing it, and tho students were summoned to return to their classes.