18853 Struggle with the Legislature 



University altogether on the plea that it wasted 

 state money "to throw it into that sink hole." Still 

 others, not without show of reason, wished to unite 

 the institution at Bloomington with Purdue, the 

 State Agricultural College at Lafayette. The latter 

 proposition naturally did not appeal to our sectarian 

 rivals; the citizens of Bloomington stood out bravely 

 against both plans, and both were defeated for the 

 time being. 



As for the second obstacle, I found the chairman 

 of the finance committee of the senate, James H. 

 Willard of New Albany, Floyd County, violently op- 

 posed to granting any help whatever to the State 

 University because I was its president. Meeting me 

 in the lobby, he recalled the fact that a few years 

 before I had given a talk to students on "College 

 Oratory" and had then taken one of his greatest 

 efforts, famous like the others for rotund periods 

 and florid adjectives, as an example of a style to 

 avoid, and had urged the boys to forswear all at- 

 tempts to "rival the member from Floyd." "You 

 little dreamed when you laughed at me before your 

 students," said he, "that very soon I would be 

 chairman of the senate committee of finance and you 

 would come before me begging for appropriations." 



Replying that I was there solely in the interest of 

 the state to which we both belonged, and that it 

 was not in the least a personal question, I asked 

 him to do the right thing. He was not appeased, 

 however, and I turned for help to another quarter. 

 Fifteen graduates of the University then sat in the Loyal 

 legislature, and before them I laid my case ; regard- alumni 

 less of party, they were loyal to a man, and gave 

 me their fullest support. When the matter came 



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