Education: Downey for Reardon

A rubber stamp would have served the people as well.

So concluding, Massachusetts’ Governor Leverett Saltonstall and his executive council last week summarily dismissed Education Commissioner James G. Reardon, who week before had testified that he signed more than $400,000 in contracts to repair hurricane damage to teachers’ colleges because former Governor Charles F. Hurley told him to (TIME, Jan. 30).

Governor Saltonstall promptly appointed to succeed Mr. Reardon, Walter Francis Downey, headmaster of Boston English High School, like Mr. Reardon, a Roman Catholic. Trim, white-haired Walter Downey, 54, a summa cum laude graduate of Amherst and a crack tennis player, sits on the bench with coaches and players at English High football games, in his excitement twists & squirms as hard as anyone on the field.