Page:A History of the University of Chicago by Thomas Wakefield Goodspeed.djvu/113

THE BEGINNING OF THE MOVEMENT 87 others were found in the course of the appeal to the business men. The committee appointed for that purpose co-operated loyally with the secretaries and there were received from the alumni aggregate pledges of thirty thousand dollars. The sons of the first Uni- versity of Chicago, by their interest and liberality fairly won the title of alumni of the new University. The other auxiliary movement, connected with the appeal to the business public, was that of the Jews. On February 20, 1890, the secretaries called on B. Loewenthal, a Jewish banker, who expressed great interest and promised to undertake to inaugurate a movement among his people. Dr. E. G. Hirsch and E. B. Felsenthal entered heartily into the undertaking, as did others who were consulted, and on April 8 the Standard Club, composed of four hundred of the leading Jews of the city, on the motion of Morris Selz, unani- mously and enthusiastically voted to raise twenty-five thousand dollars for the new institution. A committee of ten was appointed which pushed the work with energy through the succeeding two months. The committee assumed the entire labor of securing the subscriptions, wholly relieving the secretaries from any responsi- bility or effort. The latter had secured fifteen hundred dollars from Jews who were alumni of the Old University before this move- ment began. The Committee of Ten finally turned in subscriptions aggregating twenty-five thousand five hundred dollars, making the total pledges received from the Jews twenty-seven thousand dollars. This generous co-operation was one of the essential factors in the final success achieved. The fact that the Standard Club and the Jews generally were making this volunteer contribution for the new institution did much to invite public attention and to interest all classes of citizens in the movement. And thus in the closing days of the campaign another impulse was given to the undertaking. Men were found increasingly ready to respond to the appeals made to them. On May i the secretaries issued "A Brief Final State- ment" setting forth that fifty thousand dollars was still lacking and must be raised during the next thirty days, which was sent to a large number of business men. The next week the subscriptions reached sixteen thousand dollars. The week following they aggre- gated thirty thousand, and when the annual meeting of the