RAISING HUNDREDS OF THOUSANDS A YEAR
DURING recent years the expenses of Tuskegee Institute have run to between $250,000 and $300,000 a year. Of this sum Booker Washington had to raise over $100,000 annually aside from the large sums constantly demanded for new equipment such as the great central heating and power plant which was installed in 1915 at a cost of more than $245,000.
At the ceremonies commemorating the twenty-fifth anniversary of the founding of Tuskegee Institute President Charles W. Eliot of Harvard was one of the speakers. He said that one of his "first impressions of Tuskegee Institute," after just a glimpse, was "that the oldest and now largest American Institution of learning was more than 200 years arriving at the possession of much less land, fewer buildings, and a smaller quick capital than Tuskegee had come to possess in twenty-five years. That's just a fact," he said, "Harvard University was not as rich after living two hundred years among the people of Massachusetts as Tuskegee is to-day, after having lived twenty-five years among the people of Alabama. And that's the first impression that I have received here.
In 1906, the Tuskegee Institute celebrated its 25th anniversary. In the group above appear such well-known American characters as Dr. William J. Schieffelin, New York; Dr. H.B. Frissell, Hampton Institute, Va.; J.G. Phelps Stokes, philanthropist, New York; Isaac N. Seligman, banker, New York; Dr. Lyman Abbott, editor of the Outlook; Dr. Wallace Buttrick, Secretary General Education Board; William G. Willcox, now President of the New York Board of Education; Robert C. Ogden, philanthropist, New York; Andrew Carnegie, and Miss Clara Spence of the Spence School, with numbers of their friends.
"This evening I have received another impression from your Principal. He said that the great need of Tuskegee, to-day, was a considerable sum of money, which could be used at the discretion of the Trustees, to fill gaps, to make improvements, and to enlarge and strengthen the different branches of the institution. Now I should not find it possible to state in more precise terms the present needs of Harvard University. The needs of these two institutions, situated, to be sure, in very different communities, and founded on very different dates, are precisely the same." This comparison is the more striking when we realize that President Eliot had at the time been at the head of Harvard University for thirty years, five years longer than Tuskegee had been in existence—President Eliot of whom it was said, "When he goes to rich men they just throw up their hands and say, 'Don't shoot! How much do you want?'"
The magnitude of Booker Washington's financial task is indicated in his last annual report which he made to his Trustees in 1915. He reported:
"As of May 31st, we have received from all sources for current expenses $268,825.17; for buildings and improvements, $28,919.47; for endowment, $28,102.09; from undesignated legacies, $53,858.10, making the total receipts for the purposes named for the year $379,704.83.
"The gifts to the Endowment Fund for the year amounting to $28,102.09 now make the Fund stand at $1,970,214.17.
"The budget recommended for your consideration for the new year calls for an expenditure for current expenses, repairs, renewals, and equipment of $291,567.92...."