STUDENTS JOURNAL.
15
Locals.
University Review Complications
A meeting of University Review shareholders was called Friday at one o'clock, ostensibly for the purpose of selecting directors but in reality for rushing through a scheme, whereby the Review was to be consolidated with the Courier.
Three fraternities, the Phi Psi. Beta and Phi Gam, own considerable stock in the Review, and these same fraternities own a controlling interest in the Courier. The Courier is generally believed to be in a bad condition, financially, and these three fraternities have been taxed pretty heavily to sustain it. So it was thought a combination might be effected to discontinue the Review in the interest of the Courier.
This might have been done very well had these fraternities been the only ones affected by the deal. But unfortunately for the success of the project, there are others holding shares in the Review to whom it is immaterial whether or not the Courier succumbs, other shareholders, in fact, who are very much interested in the maintenance of the Review. These shareholders had not been informed of the philanthropic motives which had prompted the editor-in-chief of the Review to call a meeting of the stockholders and consequently were quite taken by surprise when Mr. Owen offered a motion to suspend publication for two years and combine with the Courier. There was one solitary ray of humor to brighten the slated proceedings The Courier staff had not been informed of the proposed munificence, and the spectacle was presented of the Review thrusting itself, unsought, upon the Courier—a free gift with no takers.
But, in vain, Mr Troxel, business manager of the Courier, protested that the latter publication had not been consulted in the proposed transaction. In vain, other shareholders complained that they had received no notice of the radical change about to be made. In vain, it was clearly shown that as the Review publishing company is a corporation whose sole object is to publish the Review, any proposition to suspend publication and combine with another company is in effect an amendment to the constitution, requires due notice, and must have a two-thirds vote of the stockholders for adoption. Protestations and petitions for fair dealing were alike disregarded by the chairman, Mr. Patten. Remarks were not allowed, motions to adjourn were disregarded, appeals from the decisions of the chair were not entertained, the previous question was ordered, although at the very time the call was made there were shareholders on the floor clamoring for recognition. It was by such high-handed, arbitrary proceedings that the self-interested Courier shareholders, under the leadership of that self-constituted champion of "political purity" in college affairs, Mr. Owen, hoped to consummate the deal by which the Review company was to furnish the financial backing for the Courier.
But the end was not yet. Just before the main question was put enough shareholders withdrew to leave the remainder without a quorum. This little matter of a quorum, however, was not allowed to interrupt the felicitous proceedings. The rump company adopted the resolution of suspension and combination and the editor-in-chief of the Review ratified the