Corpun file 25485 at www.corpun.com

The Kenna Record, New Mexico, 15 March 1912, p.8

Beat Boy With Rubber Hose

Supreme Court may Decide School Whipping Case.

Iola Citizens Took Sides and Controversy Over Punishment is Already in Court.

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Iola, Kansas. -- Is it brutal and inhuman to whip a pupil with a piece of rubber hose and must such an instrument of punishment be abolished in the public schools of Kansas? That is a question that has wrought a marked division of sentiment in Iola and one that, in all probability, is on its way to the supreme court.

Thirteen-year-old Everett Urict started all the trouble. At school a few days ago Everett failed to observe the rules of decorum established to govern the pupils while forming in line to march into the Washington school building where Frederick C. Walters is principal. The boy began to scuffle with a companion and Prof. Walters called him out of the line to receive punishment.

"You lick me and my father will come down here and lick the dickens out of you," Everett yelled defiantly.

The bluff failed to work and Prof. Walters started to administer corporal punishment. Everett fought back and that did not tend to calm the irate pedagogue, so as soon as he could procure the rubber hose with which whippings are administered in Iola schools, he gave the boy a sound beating. Then the case got into court.

Leading the boy to the office of the county attorney, the father swore out a complaint for the arrest of Prof. Walters on a charge of assault and battery.

"The most damaging evidence introduced came from Prof. Walters himself," Justice Duncan says in a statement issued to the public, "the instrument used to punish the boy. This article was a piece of half-inch gas hose about three feet long, with one end doubled back on itself for a handle and with some 15 or 18 inches of lash with which to beat the victim."