A Brick Barn or a University? Olympia Presses Seattle on Its Grand Campus
A newspaper duel over the University of Washington's costly new buildings asks who pays for civic grandeur—and whether Seattle's generosity comes with unpaid debts.
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.
Representative Meany, in an article in the P.-I. relative to the State University, says: "The city of Seattle has sustained it, and more than once the regents found it necessary to avail themselves of Seattle's generosity to keep the institution from sinking." All this may be true, and yet the records show that certain citizens of Seattle owe the university upwards of $2,000 borrowed money, which we believe has never been paid. Mr. Meany complains that the commission proceeded to build the new university on altogether too elaborate plans. Probably they did, but the commission contends that it is building for the future as well as the present, and that a solid and enduring structure is better than a brick barn. Relative to the elaborate equipment of the offices of the university building commission in Seattle, to which Governor Ferry and others objected as too luxurious, it is said that the equipment is not too rich for Seattle, where everything is done on a grand scale at first, like the wonderfully constructed municipal government of that city. It is true that the said office is handsomely furnished. It looks much better than a rusty old carpet, a cuspidor swimming with tobacco juice in each corner, two or three chairs, and an old tumble-down desk; but the furnishings are not any finer than those of some of the offices at the McKenny building in this city, notably the office of the adjutant general. It is all very well to have things plain and substantial, but in nine times out of ten the best is the cheapest in the long run. The Stanford University in California is already crowded with pupils. It started right. Its buildings are elaborate, costly, cozy, and comfortable, and the best teachers in the country were glad to secure places in the faculty of such an institution. Washington is entitled to have a splendid state university and a brainy faculty. It has money enough for both; but with mountains of marble, granite, and blue stone, why build of brick? Washington is not a brick state.
“Washington is entitled to have a splendid state university and a brainy faculty. It has money enough for both; but with mountains of marble, granite, and blue stone, why build of brick? Washington is not a brick state.”
The 1891 argument over marble, brick, and office furniture sounds like any modern fight over university construction or public-building budgets. Then as now, Seattle's grand ambitions and Olympia's suspicion of them shaped how Washington paid for its flagship campus.
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