1903-04 Volume 28 No 1–5 - Phi Delta Theta Scroll Archive

THE SCROLL. 361members of the faculty and representative Lincoln businessmen began to solicit subscriptions for the new building—the "university temple."From the beginning there was much opposition to acceptingMr. Rockefeller's gift, but it was not until the committeeannounced that three-fourths of the $33,333 had been subscribed,and that Mr. Rockefeller's donation and the templewere assured, that violent opposition developed. The OmahaWorld-Herald took the initative in the anti-Rockefeller crusade.Its owner, Gilbert M. Hitchcock, is a member ofcongress, a democrat and a trust buster." In this oppositionmost of the Populist papers, some of the Democratic,and a few of the Republican papers joined.The World-Herald, in support of its demand that the stateshould not accept the Rockefeller gift, called attention to thealleged throttling of Leland Stanford Junior University bythe influence of Mrs. Stanford. It declared that freedom ofopinion and academic liberty are impossible in an institutionof learning that permits itself to be supported by monej' obtainedin a questionable way; and it said:It is to be hoped that the effort of this trust magnate to lay his foul handsupon the Nebraska State University will not succeed. . . . A plagueupon your contributions, Mr. Rockefeller. . . . Nebraska wants noneof them until you are willing to offer them as a contribution to the consciencefund, to which you and all other trust magnates of the day arelargely indebted.The World-Herald called for opinions of the state press onChancellor .Andrews' proposition "to erect a monument toJohn D. Rockefeller" on the state university campus. Oneeditor replied as follows:After a marble shaft shall have been raised to the memory of AaronBurr; when a university chapel shall have been dedicated to the devil; whenbronze statues of Captain Kidd and Pat Crowe shall grace the universitycampus; when all these things have come to pass—it will then be time totalk about permitting the chancellor of our state university to erect a Rockefellermemorial building upon Nebraska soil.Miss Sarah B. Harris, an alumna of the university, writingfor a Lincoln paper, declared that Mr. Rockefeller had intrenchedhimself in Illinois by building the University ofChicago, and that he purposed to gain followers in Nebraskaby similar means. She compared him to Robin Hood, butsaid the fiction hero had a better code, in that "he robbed therich and gave food to the poor." Miss Harris saw little goodin the University of Chicago, because she believed Mr.Rockefeller's "ill-gotten gains" had contributed to the crea-