The State College Funding Feud
A fiery public debate erupts in the Courier-Reporter over whether the State College (now WSU) favored prestige programs over the practical needs of Washington farmers.
The story, cleaned up
A cleaned-up reading of the newspaper page: spelling and layout repaired, one story lifted off a crowded page. It follows the original closely but it is not a transcription. The original page is below; read it if a detail matters.
Gordon C. Moores challenged Prof. M. S. Lewis following a Commercial Club luncheon debate. Moores alleged that the State College spent more money graduating two students in architecture and forestry than it had ever spent on experimental research for the farmers of the state. Citing specific tables from Bulletin 136 and state reports, Moores argued that the college’s appropriation was being diverted into academic vanity projects at the expense of agricultural science. Moores left the documentation at the newspaper office for public verification and explicitly refuted Lewis’s previous claims regarding the college's priorities.
“The State College has spent more money out of its state appropriation in graduating two students than it has in all its history spent on solving problems for farmers!”
The tension between academic prestige and regional service is a recurring theme in Washington politics. This 1917 debate mirrors modern critiques of university budget priorities—balancing the demand for expensive, specialized research against the practical, applied knowledge required by the state's agricultural backbone.
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