"For Outstanding Services"

Of all U.S. college presidents, James E. Walter of Congregational Piedmont College in Demorest, Ga. is probably the most tenacious. Since he first accepted a $500-a-month gift from an educational foundation started by antiSemitic, anti-Negro onetime Judge George Armstrong of Fort Worth, Texas (TIME, March 12, 1951, et seq.), students and facultymen have demanded again & again that he resign. Last week, as the academic year closed, President Walter was in the same old cauldron again.

The anti-Walter factions feel they have good reason for their stand. Not only has the president taken "tainted" money, he has also all but destroyed the college. Of Piedmont's 30-man faculty, 28 teachers have either resigned or been fired; so have eleven trustees. Meanwhile, enrollments have dropped from 290 to 109, and last fall only about 30 new students showed up as freshmen. Even the town of Demorest (pop. 1,166) has joined in the protest. Last May the town council unanimously passed a resolution demanding "the removal of James E. Walter from our midst."

In the past two years, however, Walter has had one staunch ally: his shaken-down board of trustees. Cracked one trustee of the Armstrong money: "The only thing I have to say about the money being tainted is--'tain't enough." Last week Walter could boast of having the board's backing again: at its year-end meeting, it gave him a vote of "appreciation for outstanding services." But Walter's latest outstanding service was going to be a bitter pill for Piedmont. Last week, as parents and alumni gathered for the commencement exercises, they faced the bleak news that the Congregational Board of Home Missions had disowned the college, sent letters to its churches freeing them from any obligation to contribute to Piedmont. From now on, without the churches' steady support, President Walter may have little to keep running on--only his dwindling tuitions, the Armstrong money and the resentment of many of his students, who recently planted a Ku-Klux-type cross on his lawn and set it aflame.

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