Page:A History of the University of Chicago by Thomas Wakefield Goodspeed.djvu/215

 FIRST STEPS IN EXPANSION 185 George C. Walker gave a hundred and thirty thousand dollars. President Harper received assurances that three men would unite in giving a hundred and fifty thousand dollars for a dormitory, and on June 22 wrote to Mr. Gates: We have just passed the million mark We shall try to make it a million and a half. The subscription from the three men, however, failed to materialize. Three or four others on which the President depended proved illusory, and on June 30 Mr. Goodspeed wrote: It looks today as though we were beaten. We have got eight hundred and sixty thousand dollars in good shape. We can, of course, get something, a little more, but we have absolutely nothing in sight. There are some things possible. We may get them if the unexpected happens Almost incredible results have been gained, but we are likely to fail in sight of the goal We are at our wits' end. Some small subscriptions were found, and at the end of the week, on July 2, the workers were sitting in the University office in a somewhat subdued frame of mind. It was about four o'clock and they were saying that, as Sunday was the next day and Monday the Fourth of July they had only five working days left. At that moment a messenger from Mrs. Jerome Beecher came in and said that she had sent him to say that she might be depended on for fifty thousand dollars. Seldom have men been so uplifted. They were inspired with new hope and new purpose. President Harper went at once and called on Mrs. A. J. Snell, and three days later received from her fifty thousand dollars. The last day of the canvass was Saturday, July 9, and when on that day the Trustees met, the President was able to announce that a little over a million dollars had been subscribed. To crown the work Mr. Hutchinson read a paper signed by twenty of the leading business men of the city, pledging themselves pro rata, for any deficiency up to one hundred thousand dollars. The following were the names attached to this guaranty: H. N. Higinbotham, Charles L. Hutchinson, H. H. Kohlsaat, Henry H. Getty, Ferdinand W. Peck, Clarence I. Peck, Charles Counselman, E. Buckingham, Henry Botsford, Ernest A. Hamill, Byron L. Smith, Edwin G. Foreman, William T. Baker, T. J. Lefens, John J. Mitchell, A. A. Sprague, O. S. A.