The Late-Night Fight That Killed Washington's First University Building

There was wild and weird music in the governor's office last night at the meeting of the state university building commission. Imaginary daggers and long knives were frequently displayed. It was a red-hot ghost dance between the state auditor and the governor and commissioners Hayden, Arthur, Leavenworth and McBeavy. Hayden, the Seattle commissioner, stroked his beard, grew red in the face, and boldly charged bad faith on the auditor. Leavenworth, of Olympia, told the governor and auditor that it looked like a conspiracy to knock out every commission Laughton had appointed and to ruin the Republican party of the state. John Arthur was amazed that the work of the commission was to suddenly end. McBeavy, the Mason County commissioner, sat immovable, though he silently enjoyed the Republican quarrel. After three hours the meeting broke up near eleven o'clock. The auditor and governor had downed the commissioners.

There will be no state university building erected until after a special session of the legislature is called, or until after the next regular session. The men who have been working on the site since the first of October, and to whom is due two thousand dollars, will have to wait for their money; the architect will get nothing at present; there will be no more five dollars per day for the commission; and the students of the state will be educated in a tumble-down wooden shanty for the next few years. The new university scheme is as dead as the geological survey or the manufacture of jute in the state penitentiary.

CAUSE OF THE TROUBLE. Asked what occasioned the trouble with the university fund, one commissioner said the governor first objected to the commission to be paid to the architect and to the furnishings of the commission's office in Seattle as too elaborate. The governor did not agree with Auditor Reed that the auditor was unauthorized to issue warrants for debts incurred in constructing the university building. Some months ago the whole commission met in the governor's office with Auditor Reed; the proposed expenditure of $400,000 was talked over, the law examined, and the auditor said he would honor the vouchers as presented. They had been honored until now, when he suddenly stopped and said he would take nothing short of a decision of the supreme court to approve any more vouchers. The commission resolved to ask the supreme court for a mandamus compelling the auditor to honor its vouchers, and ordered all work to cease. Treasurer Lindsley said he would not accept any warrants if the auditor drew them. Auditor Reed demands an extra session to straighten out the matter. Attorney-General Jones arrived that afternoon and met with the commission.