University of Virginia Library

A STATEMENT MADE BY PRESIDENT MORGAN L. COMBS TO THE MARY
WASHINGTON COLLEGE COMMITTEE OF THE BOARD OF VISITORS OF
THE UNIVERSITY OF VIRGINIA AT ITS MEETING IN FREDERICKSBURG,
December 9, 1954.

Since this is the first time that I have had an opportunity to appear before the Mary
Washington Committee in over a year, and I feel that the present members of this Committee are
unbiased and would not under any circumstances knowingly and willingly condone an injustice or
aid or abet any attempt to discredit anyone, I feel compelled, with your indulgence, to make
the following statement

Twenty-six years ago, on December 8, 1928, I was elected President of this institution
I believe that most of you are familiar in general with the status of the institution at that
time, the changes which have come about since that date, and the prestige of the College today
as compared with the small, poverty-stricken teachers college of twenty-six years ago

Until a year ago, the College was noted not only for its wonderful and efficient plant
and equipment and its high scholastic standards, but for the splendid spirit which prevailed on
the campus and the high morale among students, faculty and staff. As far as I know, there had
never been the slightest intimation that the administration did not have the full approval and
confidence of the Board or had failed in any way to carry out the policies of the Board, or that
the College was not being administered in accordance with the provisions of the Act of the
Legislature in 1944 making this institution a liberal arts college.

During the latter part of 1953, I became the victim of what appeared to be a "conspiracy"
resulting in a tragic miscarriage of justice. We now know that this "conspiracy" was
participated in by five members of the Mary Washington College staff and faculty—Edward Alvey,
Jr., Dean of the College, Edgar E. Woodward, Bursar, Mary Ellen Stephenson, Associate Professor
of Spanish and former Acting Dean of Women, Margaret S. Russell, Assistant Professor of Home
Economics, and Mrs. Zella Jacobus, a housemother who had been questioned in regard to her
alleged attempt to foment a riot among student waitresses in the dining halls. Evidence shows
that this group was given encouragement and sympathetic support by Mrs. Bertha P. Wailes, chairman
of the Mary Washington Committee for approximately ten years, and who on many occasions appeared
antagonistic toward the President of Mary Washington.

As a result of the efforts of this group, and Mrs. Wailes' activities in her effort to condemn
me, a series of secret meetings were held and also at least one meeting of the full Board to
consider these charges while I was going about my duties as usual absolutely unaware that anything
of this kind was going on. It seems strange that, during this time, she did not contact the
President of the college, and I was completely taken by surprise when a newspaper reporter called
me from Richmond about four o'clock on Friday afternoon, December 11, 1953, and asked me if the
Board had been in communication with me and whether or not I was aware that at the meeting of the
Board in Charlottesville that day charges were being made against me.

The transcripts of the testimony at these meetings show that no witnesses were sworn, and
the charges constitute an amazing distortion of facts, including personal opinions, contradictions,
innuendoes, half-truths, and outright falsehoods, and I have in my possession ample material to
substantiate my statement. It was absolutely impossible for me to refute these charges at the
time they were made since I had heard none of the evidence, and Rector Black failed to give me
copies of any of the testimony except garbled statements made by the housemother, Mrs. Jacobus,
false and contradictory statements made by the four waitresses; and some remarks made by Ann
Lewis Payne, President of Student Government, consisting of rumors, personal opinion, and
brazen falsehoods.

At the meeting of the Board on December 22, 1953, at Fredericksburg, the one and only time I was
ever permitted to meet with the Board after these charges were made, in my written statement
addressed to the members of the Board I said that I was greatly embarrassed and handicapped
because I did not have all of the complaints or full information in regard to the specific charges
or what members of the faculty and staff had made them. On January 15, 1954, I wrote the Rector
as follows

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As you no doubt know, neither the full Board nor myself was ever given the promised
opportunity of listening to these witnesses, nor was I ever given an opportunity of telling my
side of each incident. Instead, when the Board adjourned its meeting here on February 12, 1954,
after handing down its devastating decision, I still did not know the full charges and the
motives and implications involved.

I had also expected the Board to take ample time to hear numerous witnesses who were ready
and anxious to testify in my behalf. Instead of that, they either proposed to my attorney or
he proposed to them, without my permission, a humiliating compromise which I accepted under
duress because of my ignorance in regard to the charges or the factors involved and my desire
to avoid undesirable publicity and hurt the College.

In spite of my efforts to avoid publicity by submitting to an unprecedented decision by the
Board, immediately I was subjected to the most horrible public humiliation through the newspapers
covering a period of several weeks as a result of information given out by the Board consisting
of innuendoes, insinuations, baseless rumors and implications, which indicate that they had been
misled by false rumors and statements in regard to my physical and mental health.

Not only, as stated before, was information withheld from me, but it was not until three
weeks ago that we were able to secure the minutes of the Board meetings of December 11, 1953,
January 8, 1954, and February 12, 1954. My wife and I were shocked to see that at the meeting
of the Board on December 11, before I even knew that any charges had been made against me,
Thomas B. Gay, a member of the Board at that time, stated that I should be suspended immediately
and implied that it was dangerous for me to remain here. The implications were that I was a
monster and a threat to the peace and safety of the people at Mary Washington College

The records show and the witnesses who appeared before the Board on December 22, 1953, have
stated that some of the members of the Board were hostile and apparently were interested only in
information that would convict me, and yet the Rector refers to this procedure as a "careful
investigation". It would appear from all of the information and records that it was more like
an inquisition. It is evident now that even before I appeared before the Board for the first and
only time on December 22, 1953, some, if not all of the members of the Board had been informed of
my alleged "mental condition" and that my fate was already sealed. It was not until six days
after the Board met at Mary Washington the last time on February 12, 1954, that we accidentally
were given access to full information in regard to the charges, transcripts of statements made by
the staff and faculty members of Mary Washington referred to before, the astounding and false
statements in connection with my health and mental condition, and the real reasons back of the
whole thing, which I do not believe were known by many members of the Board.

As a result of this comprehensive information showing that the housemother and the
waitress affair were not the real reasons back of the so-called investigation, many leading
citizens, alumnae, and friends of Mary Washington College, as well as my personal friends,
became alarmed that such a thing could happen in the State of Virginia. A movement was started,
which spread rapidly, to inform the Board of the fact that it had been misled. Many efforts
have been made by many different people to have this case re-opened, in view of the fact that
we now have both documentary evidence and witnesses to refute all of these charges beyond the
peradventure of a doubt. In general, these appeals have fallen on deaf ears. For instance,
one prominent citizen received the impression, after talking to the Rector, "that the Board, right
or wrong" would not change its decision. Can any Board or Body representing the public afford
to take such an attitude?

Regardless of anything else, I am sure you must realize that this whole unfortunate affair
has been a long and dreadful nightmare to my wife and myself. With each passing day, it
becomes more and more evident that the decision of the Board on February 12, 1954, was based upon
false and prejudiced information, and motives which I did not understand at that time, and
that, as stated before, I was induced to agree to this compromise without the slightest knowledge
of what crime I was supposed to have committed except talking to a housemother and attempting to
discipline four insolent students.

I feel sure that when these charges were made, had the Board sent a small committee to Mary
Washington College, and that committee had stayed here long enough to ascertain the facts and make
a first-hand investigation, and had been able to talk to the approximately ninety per cent of the
faculty and staff who were absolutely loyal to the administration, I would have been completely
exonerated.

I now appeal to you in the name of American standards of justice and fair play to use your
influence as members of the Mary Washington College Committee to have this case reopened and
arrange a public hearing, at which time the witnesses on both sides are sworn, or to have the
Board authorize the Mary Washington Committee to make a thorough first-hand investigation of
everything pertaining to my record as President of Mary Washington College and report back to the
full Board.

On Friday at the meeting of the Board of Visitors, Mr. Dowell Howard read to the Board members
your statement made to the Mary Washington College Committee when it met in Fredericksburg on
December 9, 1954. I was asked to reply to this statement.

I shall not attempt to answer each and every assertion made in your statement for the reason
that to do so would merely involve a repetition of what already appears in my correspondence, or
in other parts of the record.

However, I should, at the outset, deny most emphatically the charge you make of conspiracy.
No conspiracy existed. When you state that Mrs. Bertha P. Wailes "appeared antagonistic towards
the President of Mary Washington" you are merely saying that Mrs. Wailes did not always agree
with your ideas as to how Mary Washington should be run - nothing more. The College never had
a more unselfish or devoted friend than Mrs. Wailes.

The matter of the unrest and disturbances at Mary Washington first came to my attention by
way of a phone call on or about November 25, 1953, from Mrs. Wailes, who was then Chairman of
the Mary Washington Committee. I had no details of the matter. Nor did I know whether there was
any substance to it. I suggested to Mrs. Wailes that she collect whatever data there was regarding
the situation and that the Committee assemble at Richmond, talk to whoever could give us any information
in regard to the matter. This was done. Later, on December 10th at Charlottesville,
the Committee interviewed Dean Alvey and Mr. Woodward. Up to this point, our proceedings had been
merely to develop the facts on the question as to whether any charges should be filed. The
Committee reported to the Board on December 11, 1953. It was then decided by the Board that the
situation was such as to require that charges should be filed and that you be notified at once,
and given a full opportunity to explain them. Upon my return to Norfolk, I carried out the
Board's instructions in my letter to you of December 12, 1953. The only element of secrecy in
regard to these Committee meetings was our quite natural desire to keep the matter out of the
press. That we failed in this was certainly no fault of the Committee.

I think, however, that a brief review of this case might be helpful, because it appears that
some of what has transpired is not now clearly before you.

What you seem to have completely overlooked is that the present position which you occupy
at Mary Washington was your own proposal, initiated by your own attorney.

During the early part of February, 1954, and after your appearance before the Board on
December 22, 1953, but before the Board's meeting on February 12, 1954, I received a phone call
from Mr. Jere Willis, your attorney. He requested that I confer with him in Richmond. I
acquiesced in this, and it was agreed that we would meet on February 10, 1954, at the office of
Mr. Thomas B. Gay.

We did meet at the appointed place and on the agreed date.

Mr. Willis was accompanied by his law partner, Mr. Garnett. Mr. Gay was also present
Mr. Willis proposed that in the interest of Mary Washington College the investigation of the
charges against you be abandoned, that, if this were done, you would be willing to relinquish the
burden of administrative duties at the College, providing you could continue in charge of new
construction, fund raising and related matters, and could retain the title of President. He
dwelt at length upon your demonstrated ability in the two latter categories and I expressed my
hearty agreement with him on this point. But neither Mr. Gay nor I thought it wise or proper that
you retain the title of President. We thought that you could retire and assume the position of
Vice Chancellor, or some other position of dignity, and that it would be less pointed and less
humiliating to you. The meeting ended in disagreement on this one point.

I gave some thought to the matter in the interval before the meeting on February 12, 1954,
at Fredericksburg. I came to the obvious conclusion that I had a duty to lay Mr. Willis' proposal
before the Board. I told Mr. Willis that I was going to do this, and asked him if the proposal
was still an open one. His reply was in the affirmative

Meanwhile, I had reached my own conclusion that I would urge the Board to accept the
proposal of your attorney, you to retain the title of President, and that I would take the step
for two reasons, first, because of my concern for the damage being done to Mary Washington College
by the unfortunate publicity, and second, and I am quite sure you will question this, because of
my concern for you. I was firmly convinced then, and still am, that had all of the details of
the session in your office with the four girls become public property, that the result would have
been catastrophic for you as a man. Despite the evident bitter feeling which your statement
indicates you hold towards me, I did not then, and do not now reciprocate that feeling.

As you know, the Board agreed to the compromise proposed by your attorney. Messrs. Talbott,
Gay and I conferred with Mr. Willis as to the wording of the resolution of the Board carrying
out the compromise agreement, and the letter to be signed by you. As to the letter, there was
little or no disagreement. As to the resolution, there were several changes made at Mr. Willis'
suggestion, and after he had again conferred with you. I am not sure that we ever reached
exactly the language desired by you and Mr. Willis regarding the resolution, but I am sure that
the content of the resolution was satisfactory to everyone.

The letter and resolution were presented to you by your own attorney, and not in the
presence of any member of the Board. Mr. Willis returned to us with the letter signed by you
and the statement that the resolution of the Board in its final form was acceptable to you.

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In the letter signed by you, it was stated that the resolution adopted by the Board, had "my
full approval and the implementation of it will have my full cooperation". You further agreed to
give "my full and complete cooperation to the person or persons who are selected by President
Darden to function in the manner contemplated by the resolution and will so state publicly to the
faculty, student body, and alumnae of Mary Washington College."

In accordance with your agreement, you wrote a letter, composed by you, to the large number
of people who had written the Board regarding this matter, the closing paragraph of which read
as follows

"I want you to know that the administrative changes were made with my knowledge and
consent, after they had been discussed at some length, and I hope in spite of unfortunate
newspaper speculation, that they will work out to the satisfaction of all parties concerned."
(Excerpt from your letter of March 22, 1954, five weeks after the compromise decision.)

In your statement you waive all of this aside upon the ground that when you made this
agreement, and did the things I have mentioned above, you acted under duress.

Since no member of the Board had dealings with you when you signed the agreement, the duress
could hardly have emanated from the Board

I have reviewed the matter with your attorney, Mr. Willis, and have read to him the
paragraph in your statement in which you state.

"I had also expected the Board to take ample time to hear numerous witnesses who were
ready and anxious to testify in my behalf. Instead of that, they either proposed to my attorney
or he proposed to them, without my permission, a humiliating compromise which I accepted under
duress because of my ignorance in regard to the charges or the factors involved and my desire to avoid
undesirable publicity and hurt the College."

Mr. Willis indignantly denies that he or anyone else subjected you to duress or coercion of
any kind, or that he proposed a compromise without your full permission and knowledge. He says
that in his conversations with you he was accompanied by his law partner, Mr. Alfred Garnett,
and that the latter will fully support his statements.

In view of what I have said above, the other points in your statement have little or no
significance

It is quite easy to pick out of one letter an isolated excerpt, and rest your case on that
alone. But you and I exchanged a total of nine letters and telegrams, all relating to the matter
of charges against you. On December 12, 1953, I summarized the general charges against you
On December 15th, you asked that the hearings be held at Fredericksburg rather than
Charlottesville. On December 16th, I told you I was circularizing the Board members as to this
request. On December 17th, I wired you and acquiesced in this request, and offered to send you
the statements of the waitresses. On the same day you replied, requesting that I send these
statements. On December 18th, I sent them. I also in the same letter outlined what Mrs. Jacobus
and Miss Payne had said. On January 11, 1954, I wrote you, outlining the procedure to be
followed at our meeting on February 12, 1954, and stating that the Board would give you a full
opportunity to present your side of the matter, suggesting to you that you might wish to be
represented by an attorney, and offering to obtain for you a copy of the stenographic record of
the hearing on December 22, 1953. On January 15, 1954, you wrote me and stated that you did not
have sufficient information as to the charges against you, and that you desired the stenographic
record of the December 22nd hearing. You received this record either from me or the public
stenographer, Mr. Craig. I replied on January 21, 1954, gave you the names of those who appeared
before the Committee, and summarized the incidents which they had discussed, sent you a letter
I had received from the Rev. Leslie E. Grace, the father of one of the girls reprimanded in your
office, and promised to you that each of the persons who had made statements to the Committee
would be present before the Board to state what they knew about the matter on February 12, 1954,
and that you would be given full opportunity to question these persons and to refute their
statements. As you know, these persons were present, as well as the girls who had been reprimanded
in your office, and the sole reason why they did not appear before the Board was because of the
compromise. I am at a loss to understand why you blame me for the fact that these persons did
not make their statements before the Board, when the reason they did not do so was because of
the compromise initiated by your attorney and agreed to by you.

One of the reasons given by you for entering this compromise was the avoidance of publicity
which would surely have developed had the hearing proceeded. But it is hard for me to understand
how in one breath you can maintain that you were attempting to avoid publicity, and in the next
complain that the witnesses did not testity.

On January 23, 1954, I was informed that you had engaged Mr. Willis to represent you. I
replied to his letter on January 29, 1954, writing in part as follows

"I had told Dr. Combs that we would hear his witnesses and listen to his statement on
the 12th of February. However, in view of the exchange of correspondence between him and myself,
this does not now seem feasible because he should have the opportunity of listening to and
answering these witnesses who appeared before the Committee and who will now appear before the
Board. Of course, I am very anxious to expedite the matter, and I had hoped that we could
conclude the whole matter on February 12th, and have our regular meeting on February 13th
However, it does not now seem to me that this will be possible, and I am wondering if you
could have your witnesses ready to go on late in the afternoon of the 12th or the morning of
the 13th - all in accordance with the time that is taken in hearing the witnesses produced by
the Mary Washington Committee."

On February 8th, I wrote Mr. Willis as follows

"I think you are entitled to know every detail of the charges. Do not hesitate to
ask any questions you desire, and if I can answer them, it will be done. It is for this reason
that I am arranging to have those witnesses who appeared before the Mary Washington Committee
appear before the Board so that you may listen to their statements and question them."

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I received no further letters from Mr. Willis before the hearing on February 12, 1954, and
it appears quite clear that I was justified in believing that you had all of the information
you desired.

I did not turn over to you Mr. Berkeley's notes of our meeting in Richmond and Charlottesville
in which we were attempting to find out if there were any substance to the charges against
you. Mr. Berkeley is not a skilled shorthand reporter. He does not get all of the questions
and answers in the order in which they are given, nor does he get the questions and answers in
verbatim form in which they are made. What he is able to transcribe is his own idea of the
substance of the questions and answers. In other words, he is not a court reporter. As you know,
the omission of a single sentence may unconsciously distort the whole meaning. Mr. Woodward
was most emphatic in saying that Mr. Berkeley's notes did not clearly represent what he had
said. It seemed to me, after consultation with the Board members, that the fairest thing I could
do with due regard to those with whom the Committee had conferred, and to you, was to require that
the same people who had appeared before the Committee (when it was deliberating solely on the
question as to whether there was any substance in the reports) again appear before the Board to
tell their stories in your presence, and that of your attorney, with the full opportunity on your
part to question these parties and to refute their statements. Had you desired a continuance
after hearing these witnesses, I have not the slightest doubt that the Board would have agreed
to this. I wrote you to this effect, and arranged to have those parties present, as well as
the students whose statements you already had. It was upon the incidents which occurred in
your office when you reprimanded these students that the Board's action was largely predicated.

On February 8, 1954, I wrote Mr. Willis, and in response to his inquiry, told him that the
gravamen of the charges rested on the office conference with the students, explaining to him
that in my opinion this was a serious incident, and discussing the statements of Miss Stephenson,
Mrs. Russell and Mrs. Jacobus, as well as Mrs. Dameron's statements.

You complain that you did not secure the minutes of the Board meetings of December 11, 1953,
January 8, 1954, and February 12, 1954, until "three weeks ago". I had thought that you had
received these minutes in the natural course. But you certainly did receive them promptly when
you asked for them. As far as I know, neither you nor your attorney had requested copies of
these minutes until very recently. I had received requests for them from Mr. Walter Chinn, who
said he was a friend of yours, but who also stated that he did not represent you. It did not
seem to me proper to surrender these minutes to him without your permission and request. They
contained matter which you might have objected to my placing in the hands of a stranger. So,
I took the position that if you would request in writing that copies be sent Mr. Chinn, and he
would state his purpose in desiring them, I would acquiesce. If I had surrendered these minutes
to him without your consent, I have no doubt you might have reproached me for so doing. I am
confirmed in this view because you did not give your permission.

You refer to the motion made by Mr. Gay on December 11, 1953, to suspend your administrative
responsibilities pending further proceedings. All that he was suggesting was that during the
period of investigation the administration of the school be placed in other hands, with the
thought that a man who is under fire cannot effectively administer the affairs of the college. I
do not believe that the implications which you draw from this motion that you were "a monster and
a threat to the peace and safety of Mary Washington" are at all justified. At any rate, the
attitude of the Board was pretty well shown by its rejection of Mr. Gay's motion by an almost
unanimous vote, and its passage of a motion to afford to you a full opportunity to explain your
position, and to allow you to remain in control during the investigation.

Your contribution to education has been such a magnificent one that the attitude shown in
your statement to the Mary Washington Committee deeply stirs and troubles me. It seems a pity
that you cannot round out your career in a spirit of unselfish cooperation

I certainly did not knowingly convey the impression to anyone that "the Board, right or
wrong" would not change its decision. In the first place, the decision was one concurred in
by you. In the second place, I think the decision was a just one.

Your request that the matter be reopened was considered by the Board at length. It was
decided not to reopen it. However, in your statement there appear references to what may be
after-discovered facts or evidence not previously considered by the Board. With this thought
in mind, the Board passed the following resolution

"That the Rector shall reply to the letter which Dr. Combs addressed to the Mary
Washington Committee on December 9, 1954, and request that he submit to the Board a specific
written statement of any new evidence that has become available to him since February 12, 1954,
which was not available to the Board on that date, or prior thereto, his statement to include
at least a brief summary of the purport of the new evidence, together with the names of any
new witnesses."

Please submit this statement to the Chairman of the Mary Washington Committee, Dr. Dowell J.
Howard. I am sure it will receive the careful attention of that Committee, and a report will
be made by it to the Board. Any future action of the Board will be predicated on its consideration
of the Committee report. I would appreciate your sending a copy of this statement to me

I have read the resolution today adopted by the Board. It has my full approval and the
implementation of it will have my full cooperation. In so doing I will:

1. Give my full and complete cooperation to any person or persons who are selected by
President Darden to function in the manner contemplated by the resolution, and will so state
publicly to the faculty, student body, and alumnae of Mary Washington College.

2. I will address suitable letters, in form to be agreed upon between my attorney, Jere
Willis, and representatives of the Board, to all persons who wrote the Board regarding the
recent investigation (a list of which will be furnished me by the Rector), stating that I agree
with the action this day taken by the Board and that I am satisfied with the Board's disposition
of the matter and its consideration and treatment of me.

3. That I will write suitable letters of apology to the parents of those young ladies who
appeared in my office for disciplinary action in regard to the disturbances in the dining hall,
in form to be approved by my attorney, Jere Willis, and representatives of the Board

It is understood that the administrative dean or other officer of officers designated by the
President would require and occupy the office facilities now occupied by me.

I further understand that at some time prior to my retirement, the Board will expect to
pursue the matter of securing a suitable successor as President of the College.