Untitled Page 6

6

any time when the interest of the University should seem to demand such action. His reappointment from year to year and the granting of the leave of absence were in furtherance of this plan to enable him to withdraw quietly and without reference to the original offense as was his expressed wish.

c. The probationary arrangement was, in accordance with its conditions, terminated in 1900, because circumstances had arisen which seemed to indicate that by no possibility could Dr. Ross be considered as a permanent member of the University faculty. The immediate occasion of this decision was the appearance of Dr. Ross before a political mass meeting in San Francisco, on May 7th, held in the interests of the exclusion of oriental immigration. Dr. Ross has assigned as a cause of his dismissal his views as publicly expressed on this occasion. This address he has summarized at some length in his public statement (Exhibit "H"). The closing words of the address, as reported in the San Francisco Call (Exhibit "M") are not given in this summary. They were as follows: "And should the worst come to the worst it would be better for us if we were to turn our guns upon every vessel bringing Japanese to our shores rather than to permit them to land." It was to the tone of these words in connection with the spirit of the meeting, as shown by the headlines of the paper in describing it (Exhibit "M"), that objection was made by Mrs. Stanford and other interested friends of the University. This was justly characterized as incendiary and dangerous, as not befitting the dignity of a University professor, and in short, as constituting a repetition of the offense of 1896.