The students of the university did not feel grateful; fifty-one of them composed and signed a letter of protest which was inserted in the student daily, and put on the presses, when the printer “tipped off” Colonel Blethen’s university president, and the presses were stopped. The students took the letter to the city and there printed it and distributed it. The editor of the college paper refused to publish again until he could publish the letter. When ordered by the authorities to issue the paper, he did so with a blank space where the letter had been!
Colonel Blethen’s president was a gentleman named Kane—bear his name in mind, if you can, as we shall have some adventures with him at the University of North Dakota. President Kane accepted the chimes, and a solemn ceremony of dedication was performed—with the students distributing handbills of protest on the outskirts of the crowd! If you consider the coincidence of Times, chimes and crimes, you will understand that the young men were literally driven to writing verses. The ones they made strike me as exceptionally good, so I quote two stanzas.
ALL IS WELL
Recommended to friends of the University of Washington as a suitable Dedication Ode for the Blethen Chimes:
Clang the Chimes—clang the Chimes,
Help to glorify The Times;
And the fame to which it’s heir
—All the sins that “dailies” dare—
Swell aloud from college walls;
Peal through all the college halls.