Page:A History of the University of Chicago by Thomas Wakefield Goodspeed.djvu/64

 38 A HISTORY OF THE UNIVERSITY OF CHICAGO New York plan, he had not dismissed the Chicago appeal from consideration. Mr. Rockefeller wrote to Mr. Goodspeed on May n, 1887: I have continued to think and talk in regard to the Chicago University and have your papers at hand in regard to the same. Only yesterday at Cleveland had a conversation with Mr. Charles L. Colby of Milwaukee on the subject, but I have had other very large claims an unusual number this year and I am unable to give any affirmative answer. Although I have not abandoned the consideration of the question, I do not feel hopeful that I can give any encouragement. I leave for Europe in a few days and probably cannot say or do much, if anything, about it before leaving. Dr. Strong accompanied Mr. Rockefeller on this trip and took occasion to expound more fully his plan for a great university in New York. In answering the foregoing letter, Mr. Goodspeed, after expressing his satisfaction in knowing that Mr. Rockefeller had not dismissed the matter of a university for Chicago from his mind, and expressing the hope that he would continue to entertain the question, concluded his letter by saying, "Perhaps in another year or two you may make some money for its foundation." In reviewing the events of the years 1887 1888, and 1889, it is apparent that the Chicago appeal had one possibly decisive advantage over that made for New York. Mr. Rockefeller was not unwilling to unite with others, particularly with his denomina- tion united and sharing in the effort, in founding a university in New York or in Chicago. In all his appeals, Mr. Goodspeed emphasized the point that it was neither expected nor desired that Mr. Rockefeller should do more, at the outset, than make the first subscription which should be duplicated by others. Dr. Strong, on the other hand, insisted that the founding of the New York university was a thing to be done by one man alone, and that Mr. Rockefeller was that man. Mr. Rockefeller afterward established and sustained great foundations, some of them costing him far more than Dr. Strong demanded, and did this alone and with almost unexampled liberality, but at the period under review and for the founding of a university he desired the generous co-operation of others and the approval of his denomination. Meantime another factor hi the preparing of the way for the University of Chicago came into prominence during 1887. Dr.