An Old Wound Finally Healed: ’s Struggle for Survival

Matthew E. Welsh*

AUTHORS NOTE In the 1955 session of the General Assembly, Vin- cennes University, situated in my Senate district, asked that the state double its support to the school on a continuing and predict- able basis. The university was then receiving public funds by way of a Knox County property tax, which the state matched, but the money thus generated was not nearly enough to meet the school’s needs. I knew that additional funds would not be easily come by unless solid reasons were presented and the interest and support of the legislative leadership obtained. To this end I put together the bits and pieces of the school’s history that I had learned during my many years as a trustee, focusing upon the bitter political struggle that had almost destroyed the school and fashioning the story into a political drama that I hoped would command the sym- pathetic attention of the legislators. What follows is that story and the legislature’s reaction to it. The article was given as a paper before the Literary Club on October 6, 1986, and an abbreviated version was included in the 1978 yearbook of the So- ciety of Indiana Pioneers. ***

After , Indiana’s first territorial gov- ernor, came to Vincennes, the capital of the territory, he caused to be organized in 1801 Jefferson Academy for instruction of the chil-

* Matthew E. Welsh, a Democrat, served in the Indiana House as a represent- ative from Knox County during the 1941 and 1943 sessions. In 1955 he was elected to the from Knox and Daviess counties and served in that capacity until August, 1960. Welsh was from 1961 to 1965. He has been a member of the Vincennes University Board of Trustees since 1943. INDIANA MAGAZINE OF HISTOKY, LXXXIV ISeptember. 1988,. 1988. Trustees of Indiana llniversity 218 Indiana Magazine of History dren of the settlers and the Indians of the area. This was the first educational institution in , which consisted of what are now the states of Indiana, Michigan, Illinois, Wisconsin, and a portion of Minnesota; and it is thought to be the second oldest such institution west of the Alleghenies, preceded only by Transylvania College in , which was founded in 1780.’ In December of that same year, 1801, Harrison and five other trustees of Jefferson Academy petitioned the United States Con- gress for a donation of land to be used for the development of an “Institution for the Education of Youth” similar to the one that had been granted for an “institution on the Purchase on the Mu- skingum.”2 The petition was referred to a three-man committee for consideration but apparently occasioned no congressional action. In December, 1802, however, a “general convention of the [Indiana] Territory,” called and chaired by Harrison as governor, included in its list of “representations to the Congress of the United States” a request for federal assistance for education.3 In response to this petition of 1802 Congress in 1804 adopted an act for survey and disposal of public lands and provided that in each of the three land districts established in Indiana Territory (namely at Detroit, Vin- cennes, and Kaskaskia) one entire township was to be reserved for a seminary of learning, the township to be designated by the sec- retary of the trea~ury.~Thus Harrison and his colleagues were suc- cessful in obtaining a land grant as an endowment for the new institution of learning. The grant consisted of a six-mile-square congressional township, which was set aside by Secretary of the Treasury Albert Gallatin on October 10, 1806, comprising 23,040 acres located at Township 2 South, Range 11 West, which is now known as Patoka Township of Gibson County.s

I E. Bierhaus & Sons, a wholesale grocery firm in Vincennes, erected a large highway sign at the edge of town that proclaimed Vincennes University to be “the oldest college west of the Alleghenies.” When advised of Transylvania’s earlier founding date, the company salvaged its sign by adding in small letters, “and north of the Ohio.” ‘This institution is today Ohio University at Athens, Ohio, which traces its origin back to the Ordinance of 1787 and the Ohio Company. Earlier plans for the establishment of this school at Marietta on the Muskingum River gave way to the eventual site in the center of the Ohio Company land grant. Ohio University was incorporated in 1804. See William E. Peters, Legal History of the Ohio University, Athens, Ohio . . . (Cincinnati, 1910), 86-88, passim. The original petition for funds for an educational institution at Vincennes in Indiana Territory is on file in the National Archives, Washington, D.C. .I Logan Esarey, ed., Messages and Letters of William Henry Harrison: Vol. I, 1800-181 1 (Indiana Historical Collections, Vol. VII; Indianapolis, 1922), 64. Annals of Congress, 7 Cong., 1 sess., p. 497; ibid., 8 Cong., 1 sess., Appendix, pp. 1285-93. Albert Gallatin to John Badollet, October 10, 1806, in The Territorial Papers of the United States: Vol. VII, The Territory of Indiana, 2800-1810, ed. Clarence E. Carter (Washington, D.C., 1939), 394-95. WILLIAMHENRY HARRISON

Courtesy Byron H Lewis Historical Library. Vincennes University 220 Indiana Magazine of History

Shortly thereafter, on November 29, 1806, the territorial leg- islature incorporated “the Vincennes University”-not a college or a seminary but a “university.” The newly chartered school, which took over the activities of Jefferson Academy, was to receive the township of land already set aside by Gallatin.6 The preamble of the chartering act indicates that the legislature, struggling to es- tablish an orderly society in the wilderness, had high hopes for the new institution. It reads: AN ACT to Incorporate an University in the Indiana Territory. WHEREAS the independence, happiness and energy of every republic depends (under the influence of the destinies of Heaven) upon the wisdom, virtue, tallents and energy, of its citizens and rulers. And whereas, science, literature, and the liberal arts, contribute in an eminent degree, to improve those qualities and acquirements. And whereas, learning hath ever been found the ablest advocate of genuine liberty, the best supporter of rational religion, and the source of the only solid and imperishable glory, which nations can acquire. And forasmuch, as literature, and philosophy, furnish the most useful and pleasing occupations, improveing and varying the enjoyments of prosperity, afford- ing relief under the pressure of misfortune, and hope and consolation in the hour of death. And considering that in a commonwealth, where the humblest citizen may be elected to the highest public office, and where the Heaven born prerogative of the right to elect, and to reject, is retained, and secured to the citizens, the knowl- edge which is requisite for a magistrate and elector, should be widely diffused. 1st. Be it therefore enacted by the Legislative Council and House of Represen- tatives, That an University be, and is hereby instituted and incorporated within this Territory, to be called and known by the name, or style of the “Vincennes University”. . . .7 Among the powers given to the trustees of Vincennes Univer- sity by the 1806 act of the territorial legislature was the authority to sell 4,000 acres of the 23,040-acre township grant made by Con- gress “for the use and support of the University . . . for the purpose of putting into immediate operation the said institution . . . and to lease or rent the remaining part of said township, to the best ad- vantage, for the use of said public school, or University.”6 It should be noted that the act contained no specific language formally con- veying legal title of the township to the university, and apparently nothing in the nature of a deed or patent was ever placed on re- cord. Certainly, however, the trustees could reasonably assume that the territorial government by such language had released to the

Francis S. Philbrick, ed., The Laws of Indiana Territory, 1801-1809 (Collec- tions of the Illinois State Historical Library, Vol. XXI; Springfield, 1930), 178-84. Vincennes University is thought to be the thirty-ninth oldest college in the United States and, along with Transylvania, shares the distinction of being founded by a future president of the United States. was governor of Virginia in 1780 when Transylvania was chartered. The University of Virginia was later founded by Jefferson in 1820, after he left office as president of the United States. Quoted from ibid., 178. “ Quoted from ibid., 179. Vincennes University’s Struggle for Survival 221

university any claim it had to this grant. Also granted by the act was the authority to conduct a lottery as a means of raising funds, and a lottery to raise six thousand dollars was in fact authorized by the university’s Board of Trustees in 1806. It was a financial disaster! The tickets did not sell even when offered on credit. The proceeds received were refunded, and the university had to pay the expenses incur~ed.~ A word needs to be said here about the men who served on the Board of Trustees of Vincennes University throughout the years. Many were among the most prominent citizens of the territory and state. One indication of their prominence is the fact that a number of Indiana counties were named after board members; viz., (Henry) Vanderburgh, (John) Gibson, (Toussaint) Dubois, (Benjamin) Parke, (Francis) Vigo, (William Henry) Harrison, etc. Other influential trustees were , one of Indiana’s first two United States senators; John Rice Jones, first attorney general of Indiana Terri- tory; General Washington Johnston, lawyer and founder of Free- masonry in Indiana Territory; and John Badollet, first register of the Vincennes Land Office. Harrison, who was a member of the Virginia gentry and who had attended Hampden-Sydney College and briefly studied medicine under the famous Dr. Benjamin Rush of Philadelphia, was elected chairman of the board on December 6, 1806; he was then thirty-three years old.’” At the meeting of the board on August 17, 1807, , a politically ambi- tious young man, was appointed clerk pro tem to fill a vacancy created by the resignation of General Washington Johnston. At the same meeting the resignation of Harrison, who had been president of the board, was reaffirmed, Harrison having submitted his resig- nation at the meeting of August 7, 1807. On August 29, 1807, the twenty-three-year-old Jennings was elected permanent clerk, and on September 12 Harrison was reelected a member of the board and was also reelected president.” At a stated meeting of the Board of Trustees called April 4, 1808, Harrison presiding, a motion was adopted that a committee be appointed to inquire into the conduct of Jennings as clerk of the Board of Trustees. Obviously something was seriously amiss! My own supposition is that Harrison and his friends on the board

9 Minutes of December 6, 15, 1806, January 2, September 5, 12, 1807, in “Min- utes of the Board of Trustees for Vincennes University,” ed. Robert Constantine, Indiana Magazine of History, LIV (December, 1958). 321-22, 323, 324, 329, 362-63, 363-64; minutes of October 16, 1807, in ibid., LV (September, 1959), 250-51. In Minutes of December 6, 1806, in ibid., LIV (December, 1958). 320. See also minutes of succeeding meetings and notes thereto in ibid. 1) Minutes of August 7, 17, 29, September 12, 1807, in ibid., 354, 355, 356, 358, 364. See also Dorothy Riker, “Jonathan Jennings,” Zndiana Magazine of History, XXVIII (December, 1932), 226-27. 222 Indiana Magazine of History wanted an investigation of the lotteryI2 as well as an investigation of a pamphlet dealing with proceedings of the board, which Jen- nings, as clerk, had certified. In a further statement concerning board proceedings, also certified by Jennings, it was alleged that, among other things, there was “political persecution of Jennings at the April 4th meeting of the Trustees” and that a resolution was introduced and seconded to expel Jennings for providing the certi- fication for the pamphlet. There is no record of such a resolution in the available minutes of the board.13 Subsequently, on November 21, 1808, the trustees accepted the resignation of Jennings, who had moved to Clark County.14 It is not difficult to visualize the chill that enveloped the board nor the affront that Jennings felt. Dorothy L. Riker, a Jennings biographer, concludes that the controversy involving Jennings and the Vincennes University Board of Trustees had long-range significance “in view of the later hostil- ity of Jennings to Harrison.” Riker suggests, in fact, that “the later location of the state seminary at Bloomington instead of at Vin- cennes may have resulted from this animosity.”15 Whether or not this supposition is true, from 1807-1808 on, a bitter feud existed between two of the most influential and politically powerful men in Indiana Territory-namely Harrison, the proslavery eastern aris- tocrat, and Jennings, the aspiring antislavery frontier politician- and their conflict had far-reaching effects. In the territorial election of April 3, 1809, Jennings offered himself as the candidate of the antislavery faction for the position of territorial delegate to the . He was op- posed by Thomas Randolph, who was the proslavery, Harrison can- didate, and by John Johnson, who was rather proslavery but anti- Harrison. It was a bitter campaign. To the many residents who disliked Harrison, Randolph “was anathema-aristocratic, proslav- ery, and above all a friend of the Governor!” When the votes of the four counties in the territory (Knox, Clark, Dearborn, and Harri- son) were counted, Jennings had 428, Randolph 402, and Johnson 81.16 Passions continued to run high even after the election. The

l2 Minutes of April 4, 1808, in “Minutes of the Board of Trustees for Vincennes University,” LV, 258. In his biographical sketch of Jonathan Jennings, Logan Esarey comments that Jennings’s sudden departure from Vincennes, where he was em- ployed in the land ofice and by the legislature in a secretarial position, “was thought to be due to a misunderstanding concerning university funds.” Logan Esarey, ed., Messages and Papers of Jonathan Jennings, , and , 1816-1825 (Indiana Historical Collections, Vol. XII; Indianapolis, 1924), 27. l3 Riker, “Jonathan Jennings,” 227. I4 Minutes of November 21, 1808, in “Minutes of the Board of Trustees for Vin- cennes University,” LV, 263. Riker, “Jonathan Jennings,” 227. Ifi John D. Barnhart and Dorothy L. Riker, Indiana to 1816: The Colonial Period (Indianapolis, 1971), 357-59, quotation p. 357. Shortly after the election, while the results were still in doubt, Randolph challenged the author of an uncomplimentary letter in the Vincennes Western Sun to a duel, whereupon the writer, a Quaker, swore out a warrant against Randolph and obtained an order for a peace bond from Judge Henry Vanderburgh. Ibid., 357; , Indiana: A Redemption from Slavery (Boston, 18881, 399-400. JONATHANJENNINCS

Portrait of Jonathan Jennings by Theodore C Stele a5 copied from Jennings portrait by James Forbes Courtesy Indiana Historical Bureau 224 Indiana Magazine of History

Harrison faction was bitter and let no opportunity pass without expressing their sentiments. At the 4th of July celebration near Vincennes shortly after the election, with Harrison presiding, the following toast was proposed and drunk: “Jonathan Jennings-the semblance of a delegate-his want of abilities the only safety of the peopleThree Groans!”17 Randolph announced his intention to contest the election re- sults, alleging irregularities. Both Jennings and Randolph made the trip to Washington for the opening of Congress, where Jen- nings produced his certificate of election signed by John Gibson, secretary of Indiana Territory, and was seated pending an exami- nation of his credentials by the House committee on elections, to which Randolph’s petition was also referred. The committee re- ported back to the House that in its opinion the entire election was illegal and that Jennings’s seat should be vacated. After two days’ debate the House, somewhat unusually, refused to accept the re- port, and Jennings was permitted to retain his seat.lS This was not to be the last election contested in the United States Congress by a representative from Indiana! Jennings became active in Congress as a disseminator of gos- sip and charges unfavorable to Indiana’s territorial governor. He repeatedly introduced resolutions inimical to Harrison and, bent upon “laying the groundwork for an impeachment,” went so far as to lay before President documents accusing the governor of bribery and collusion in land sales.19 No love was lost between these two! Continuing to harass Harrison at every oppor- tunity, Jennings aggressively promoted the admission of Indiana to the Union as the best way to get rid of the territorial governor. When this event did occur in 1816, Jennings became a candidate for governor of the new state and soundly trounced Thomas B. Po- sey, the candidate supported by Harrison and the other prominent landholders of the area. The vote was 5,211 to 3,936-not a land- slide, but decisive. The Jennings forces were in charge.20 In 1816 the Enabling Act, by which Congress authorized the formation of a constitution and state government for Indiana, granted the state one entire township of public land “in addition to

Vincennes Western Sun, July 8, 1809, quoted in Dunn, Indiana, 400. Dunn further noted that over the next ten years there was never a respectful allusion to Jennings in the Western Sun. In Barnhart and Riker, Indiana to 1816, 359. 19 Freeman Cleaves, Old Tippecanoe: William Henry Harrison and His Time (, 1939), 77, 106; see also John D. Barnhart and Donald F. Carmony, Indiana: From Frontier to Industrial Commonwealth (1954; reprint, 2 vols., Indi- anapolis, 19791, I, 117-18; Jonathan Jennings to Samuel Manwarring, January 22, 1811, in Messages and Letters of William Henry Harrison, I, 501-503; Riker, “Jona- than Jennings,” 231. Barnhart and Carmony, Indiana, I, 149-50, 183. Vincennes University’s Struggle for Survival 225

the one heretofore reserved for that purpose . . . for the use of a seminary of learning. . . .”2L The township selected was more cen- trally located in what was to become Monroe County than was Vin- cennes, which was situated on the western boundary of the new state.22Jennings’s animosity toward Harrison, as well as his hu- miliating experience at Vincennes University, undoubtedly leR him with neither fond memories of that institution nor desire to sup- port it. In 1819, as governor, he proposed locating the new semi- nary of learning in or near the township chosen for its support and signed legislation adopted January 20, 1820, establishing a Board of Trustees for a state seminary at Bloomington, Perry Township, Monroe County.2“ From that point on, the school at Bloomington was to be Indiana’s state university, notwithstanding the fact that Vincennes University had been recognized by a grant of public lands from the United States Congress in 1806. In my judgment it was not a mere coincidence, but rather the next step in a well-organized program, that the legislature two days later, on January 22, 1820, “Appointed a superintendent for the Seminary Township in Gibson County . . . with full power and au- thority to rent [italics added] . . . all the improved lands in said Township, which are now under control of the State of Indi- ana . . . .”24 Still later, in 1827, the General Assembly passed an act appointing a commissioner to sell in the name of the state of Indi- ana the congressional township that had originally been granted to Vincennes University by Congress. The township was cut up into farms and sold to private owners. The proceeds of the sales went to a trust fund, the income from which was to serve as an endowment for the institution now known as Indiana University.25 Vincennes University no longer was an institution supported by public funds and was left to survive in any way it could.26

I’ Annals of Congress, 12 Cong., 1 sess., pp. 1841-44. Thomas D. Clark, Indiana University, Midwestern Pioneer: Vol. I, The Early Years (Bloomington, 1970), 21. 23 Governor’s annual message to the legislature, December 7, 1819, in Messages and Papers of Jonathan Jennings, Ratliff Boon, and William Hendricks, 78; Indi- ana, Laws (1820), 32-34. Indiana, Laws (1820), 160. Is Indiana, Laws (1827). 95. LR It should be noted that from at least as early as 1812 through the next two decades the Vincennes University Board of Trustees met erratically if at all. Vacan- cies on the board were frequently not filled. In fact, it is questionable that a board even existed between 1824 and 1828. In 1824 the “adopted” the Knox County Seminary as the institution of higher learning in Vin- cennes, and the university as such ceased to exist until it was rechartered by the legislature in 1838. Robert Constantine, ed., “Minutes of the Board of Trustees for Vincennes University (April 6, 1812-April 24, 1824),” Indiana Magazine of His- tory, LVII (December, 19611, 312-14; Constantine, ed., “Minutes of the Board of Trustees for Vincennes University (October 3, 18184uly 4, 1842),” ibid., LIX (De- cember, 19631, 323-24; Clark, Indiana University, 190. 226 Indiana Magazine of History

Survive it did, but just barely. Ultimately, friends of the uni- versity rallied to its support. Because failure to fill vacancies on the Board of Trustees, together with the infrequent meetings of the board, had made the continued existence of the university subject to challenge, the legislature in 1838 was prevailed upon to fill the existing vacancies, thereby removing argument about the institu- tion’s Over the next few years Samuel Judah, a prominent attorney in Vincennes, initiated a harassment program of filing suits against individuals and other claimants challenging their titles to the Gibson County lands that had been purchased from the state. Judah and Attorney George R. Gibson, who was on the Vincennes University Board of Trustees, prepared a detailed abstract and his- tory of the institution, and the university obtained a preliminary, formal opinion, dated September 11, 1843, from one of the most prominent legal scholars of that time, Chancellor James Kent of New York. Kent held that as a result of the confiscation of the endowment granted to Vincennes University, the institution was entitled to look to the state for compensation. The exact language from the concluding sentence of his opinion read, “. . . I am of the opinion that the legislature of Indiana is bound by the most impe- rious obligations of justice and honor to indemnify the university for the unconstitutional arrest and detention of their property.”2R Kent was less certain, however, that the university would be suc- cessful in its suits against individual purchasers or claimants of the Gibson County lands. In part because of the tremendous outcry resulting from these suits and in part because of Kent’s opinion, Vincennes University in 1845 agreed to drop them, and the legis- lature, in 1846, agreed that the state should assume responsibility, granting permission for the trustees of Vincennes University to bring an action in chancery in Marion County Circuit Court at Indianapolis against the state to settle the question of liabilit~.‘~ Suit for an accounting was accordingly initiated by Vincennes University against the state of Indiana. The Marion Circuit Court rendered a decree in favor of the university, requiring the state to pay $30,099.96, this sum being the proceeds of a portion of the land in the congressional township sold by authority of several acts of the legislature, the money having been paid into the state treasury for the use of Indiana University at Bloomington. The state ap- pealed, and the reversed, holding that the 1804 act of Congress “ ‘making provision for disposal of the public lands in the Indiana territory . . .’ conferred no rights on the trust-

27 Indiana, Laws (1838),281. Trustees for the Vincennes University v. State of Indiana: Mr. Judah’s Brief for Complainants, and the Opinion of Chancellor Kent (Indianapolis, 1847),24. See also Clark, Indiana Uniuersity, 190-91. a Clark, Indiana University, 191-92;Indiana, Laws (18461,233-34. Vincennes University’s Struggle for Survival 227

ees of the Vincennes University to the township of land, reserved by that act for the use of a seminary of learning, and which was subsequently located in Gibson County. They [the university trust- ees] were not then in existence as a corp~ration.”~~ The university appealed to the United States Supreme Court, and the case of Board of Trustees of Vincennes University v. The State of Indiana was argued in the December term, 1852. The Su- preme Court found that when the township was designated by Sec- retary of the Treasury Gallatin and the university then chartered, title vested in the university; thus, title to the Gibson County lands had never been vested in the state. Consequently, Indiana had no power of sale. In effect, the court held that the state had wrong- fully taken the lands of Vincennes University, and they quoted from the famous Dartmouth College v. Woodward decision of 1819.3’ The university now had a judgment against the state of Indi- ana, but collecting on that judgment was a different matter alto- gether! Over a period of time, after protracted negotiations, the university received a series of payments from the state, ultimately aggregating over $200,000. The details of these payments are in- teresting. In 1854 the Indiana Supreme Court, on remand from the United States Supreme Court, ordered a judgment decree against the state in favor of Vincennes University. The legislature then directed the auditor and treasurer of state to ascertain the amount due Vincennes University and to issue bonds of the state in that amount. The treasurer and auditor, however, unexpectedly ordered discharge of the judgment “out of a fund in the charge of the State, and which is designated in the State Treasury as the University Fund,” i.e., they ordered payment of the claim out of the endow- ment fund of Indiana University created in part from the proceeds received by the state from the sale of the Gibson County lands taken from Vincennes University but composed largely of proceeds from sale of the Perry Township lands in Monroe County. This decision was made notwithstanding the fact that Indiana University had never been a party to any of this litigation!32 This order in turn compelled Indiana University-which had had a “great fire” on April 9,1854, and was in desperate need of funds-

1‘1 State of Indiana v. Trustees of the Indiana University, 2 Indiana Reports 293 (1850). Board of Trustees of Vincennes University v. The State of Indiana, 14 Howard 268 (1852).The state argued, among other things, (a)that the 1804 act of Congress reserving a congressional township for use of a seminary of learning failed as a grant since there was no seminary corporation then in existence; (b) that the act of 1816 admitting Indiana to the union gave the state full authority to deal with its lands; (c) that the university charter had expired in 1822 through failure to elect trustees; (d) the statute of limitations as well as adverse possession barred a recov- ery. See also Clark, Indiana University, 192. 02 The State v. Trustees of the Vincennes University, 5 Indiana Reports 77 (1854); Indiana, Laws (18551, 50; quotation from Indiana, Documentary Journal (1854), 597; see also Clark, Indiana Uniuersity, 194. 228 Indiana Magazine of History to work frantically to persuade the legislature to have the state assume this liability directly rather than have the claim paid from Indiana University funds. The General Assembly finally agreed, by a slim one-vote margin in the Senate, that the state of Indiana, not the state university, should assume responsibility for the pay- ment.33The state auditor and treasurer then designated $66,585 as the amount due in settlement of the controversy pursuant to the opinions of the United States Supreme Court, but Judah retained $26,728.23 of the total for fees and expenses. The trustees of Vin- cennes University then sued Judah for an accounting, but the state supreme court found for J~dah.~~In 1895 a second “final payment” of $15,000, payable in two equal installments, was included as a line-item in the state’s general appropriations act without any ex- planation for the grant. In 1907 the state appropriated a further $120,548 for Vincennes University, but the act authorizing this third “final payment” was vetoed by Governor J. and passed over his veto. He then refused to sign the bonds, and there the matter rested until Thomas R. Marshall took office as governor in 1909 and signed them.35Hanly then sued as a private citizen to enjoin delivery, but the Indiana Supreme Court held against him.36 Getting money from the state for higher education certainly was not easy! Vincennes University continued to serve as an institution of learning in the southwestern part of Indiana, although it must have been a struggle for it to stay open. By the time of the Great Depres- sion in 1929 the school was in desperate straits, and it became obvious that the university could no longer depend upon tuition as its principal source of income. Curtis G. Shake, a young Vincennes attorney who had graduated from Vincennes University and who had been elected to its board in 1923, conceived the idea of request- ing the Indiana General Assembly to allow Knox County to levy a five-cent property tax on each one hundred dollars of assessed value within the county, the proceeds of which would go to the support of the university. This legislation was passed in 1931, and since that time the university has enjoyed this support from its home county. The levy was raised to nine cents in 1961 when the univer- sity took over the nursing education program of the county’s Good

l3 Clark, Indiana Uniuersity, 194. 34 Indiana, Documentary Journal (1855), 281; Judah v. The Trustees ofthe Vin- cennes University, 16 Indiana Reports 56 (1861). 3s Indiana, Laws (1895), 316-17; ibid. (1907), 497-99. Governor Hanly disagreed with the United States Supreme Court ruling and took the position that this was an unconstitutional appropriation of public funds for a private purpose. He further observed that this claim had already been settled twice. See Jacob Piatt Dunn, Indiana and Indianans; a History of Aboriginal and Territorial Indiana and the Century of Statehood (5 vols., Chicago, 1919), 321. lfiHanly v. Sims, Secretary of State, et al., 175 Indiana Reports 345 (1910). Vincennes University’s Struggle for Survival 229

Samaritan Hospital, which had its own four-cent levy.37Shake was also instrumental in obtaining passage of an act in 1939 that en- abled the university faculty to become members of the Indiana State Teachers Pension fund beginning in 1941. This legislation was a first step in Shake’s long-range plan to have Vincennes University become a part of Indiana’s state university system as an independ- ent institution.J8 In 1946, at a time when all of the institutions of higher learn- ing in Indiana were overwhelmed by the returning veterans of World War 11, it became apparent that Vincennes University must have additional financial support if it was to be able to carry its share of the load. Shake (by now Judge Shake, having served as a justice on the Indiana Supreme Court from 1938 to 1945) conceived the idea of asking the state of Indiana to match the funds raised by Knox County in support of the university. This concept was sup- ported by Governor Ralph F. Gates and adopted by the General Assembly in 1947. As the student load became heavier and heav- ier, it became apparent that even more public support was required if the school was to fulfill its mission. Legislation was passed in 1955 providing that the state should furnish two dollars of state funds to the university on a continuing basis for every dollar raised by Knox County; this formula still prevails today.3y On June 1, 1950, Dr. Isaac Beckes was called to be the presi- dent of Vincennes University. He was a graduate of Vincennes University with degrees from Indiana State Teachers College, McCormick Theological Seminary, and Yale. He was a dynamic forty-year-old Presbyterian minister and came at a time the school had a student body of 180 and total annual budget receipts of some $ 103,000.4u Things changed fast. A local fund drive for capital funds was successful. The city of Vincennes and the United States govern- ment conveyed Harrison Park to the university for a new campus, and the school moved into its new classroom and administration building in October, 1953. The renovated old pump house of the city’s water utility and some army-surplus frame structures consti- tuted the remainder of the new campus. A number of vacant brick industrial buildings in the area were then acquired (a former brew- ery-distillery complex in 1960 and a cold-storage warehouse in 1965) and converted into classrooms, laboratories, and shops. These ac-

l7 Indiana. Laws ( 1931). 627-29, 161d (19611. 206-208. Indiana, Opmlons ofthe Attorney General (1961). 261-75 Indiana. Lows (1939). 673. Indiana. Oplnwns of the Attorney General (1941). 26 1 1’) Indiana, Laws (19471. 1049-50, 161d (1955). 309-10 4L1 Dr Isaac Beckes retired in 1980 He was succeeded by Dr Phillip M Sum- mers, the incumbent PHILLIPM. SUMMERS PRESIDENT, VINCENNESUNIVERSITY 1980-

ISAACK. BECKES PRESIDENT, VINCENNESUNIVERSITY 1950-1980

CURTISG. SHAKE BOARDOF TRUSTEES, VINCENNES UNIVEKSITY 1923-1975

Courtesy Byron K Lewis Hibtorical Library, Vincennes University Vincennes University’s Struggle for Survival 23 1 quisitions obtained the university a deserved reputation for mak- ing a dollar go a long way. Judge Shake’s comment that “the school had the best second-hand campus in the U. S.” was appropriate. A student union building was constructed in 1959 and a library in 1960. The university was now in business on a much larger scale. Vincennes University and its two-year program was approved and fully accredited by the North Central Association of Colleges in 1956, and the school grew rapidly to its present size of 6,500 students, 40 percent of whom are in liberal arts transfer programs and 60 percent in the forty-three degree programs offered by the business, health, technology, and public service divisions. In 1959 Lieutenant-Governor Crawford Parker, in a discussion with me, suggested that in light of the substantial funds being fur- nished to the university by the state-together with the broad pow- ers of eminent domain given its board, which was at that time a self-perpetuating body-provision should be made for appointment of some of the trustees of the university by the governor. This propo- sal was acceptable to all concerned, and in 1959 the General As- sembly passed legislation which provided that the governor would appoint six trustees to the university’s Board of Trustee~.~’ I was serving in the Indiana Senate in 1955, 1957, and 1959 and was Senate sponsor of the legislation affecting the university during those years. (House sponsors were Representative Charles H. Schenk of Vincennes and Representative Paul E. Strate of Free- landville.) I used a condensed version of the above history of the tumultuous relationship between Vincennes University and the state of Indiana in the presentation to the legislative committees and in the floor debates. The members of the legislature were fas- cinated by the story, as all of them had been exposed to enough political vendettas themselves to understand how the feud between Harrison and Jennings could have destroyed Vincennes Univer- sity. An effective argument in the debate over whether Indiana still owed a financial obligation to the university was the fact that the congressional township which had been granted by the federal government to Vincennes University lay within the area of the Gibson County coal and oil fields! The Indiana Department of Nat- ural Resources Geological Survey Report of 1975 discloses that fifty- one separate oil fields now exist in Gibson County in addition to extensive, rich coal fields.42Had Vincennes University been per- mitted to retain the grant, and had the school kept the land, it would now be a very wealthy institution. By the 1950s and 1960s Vincennes University, because of its unique educational program as the only comprehensive junior col-

Indiana, Laws (19591, 975-76. 42 G. L. Carpenter and Stanley J. Keller, Oil Development and Production in Indiana during I974 (Indiana Department of Natural Resources Geological Survey Report; Indianapolis, 19751, Table V, pp. 8-20. 0

TOWNSHIP(PATOKA) IN GIBSONCOUNTY GRANTEDTO VINCENNES UNIVERSITY IN 1804

Prepared by the Drafting Department, Vincennes Univei sity

Reproduced from Robert C Kingsbury. An Atlas oflndr onn IHloomington. 19701. 8 Vincennes University’s Struggle for Survival 233

lege in Indiana,13 together with its very impressive record in offer- ing individualized two-year career instruction, had developed a broad-based, statewide group of supporters. The school continued to grow to its present student body of over 6,500 students from all over Indiana. The continued growth to an institution of this size created financial pressures that required the state to furnish sup- port in addition to its matching funds, and in 1965 Indiana began to provide substantial direct line-item appropriation aid to the uni- ver~ity.~~ In 1976 the financial problems of the university reappeared, and the legislature, after having tried to resolve them in 1975, felt structural changes should be imposed, especially since the state was now the principal financial support of the school. It was felt that the university’s accounting system should conform to the pro- cedures recommended by the Indiana State Board of Accounts, and the legislators were further of the opinion that the unwieldy 24- member university board should be reduced in size so that it would be comparable to boards of the other state-supported institutions of higher learning. These views were consistent with the recommen- dations that had been made to the Vincennes faculty and staff on October 23, 1975, by Beckes and Robert Stryzinski, the new direc- tor of administrative services of the school. Stryzinski’s familiarity with the legislative process was of great help in developing the program that was finally adopted. On January 29, 1976, Senate Finance Committee Chairman Lawrence M. Borst and Senate Education Committee Chairman Eldon F. Lundquist called a conference with the Vincennes Uni- versity Board of Trustees. House Ways and Means Committee Chairman Spencer J. Schnaitter also attended. The university trustees met informally for dinner at the Columbia Club in Indi- anapolis on the evening of the conference, and after discussion unanimously agreed to accept the proposal being suggested by the legislators. They then attended the meeting with the legislators in a body. The conference was held at 7:OO p.m. in one of the large legislative hearing rooms in the state capitol. The atmosphere was cordial, and the legislators were advised that the proposals for re- structuring the university board were acceptable to the trustees without a dissenting vote. A largely self-perpetuating board thus

According to a memorandum from Gus Stevens, librarian, Lewis Historical Library, Vincennes University, to Dr. Isaac Beckes, president, Vincennes Univer- sity, the first actual use of the term “junior college” in Vincennes University’s 1899 catalog, says: “It [Vincennes University I is halfway between a commissioned high school and a full fledged college. It is in fact a junior college. Its graduates are admitted to junior standing in all the best universities.” Stevens to Beckes, October 26, 1979. Indiana, Laws (1965),409. VINCENNESUNIVERSITY 1878-1953

VINCENNESUNIVERSITY 1980s VIEWOF THE CAMPUS

Courtesy Byron R Lewis Historical Library, Vincennes University. VINCENNESWATER COMPANYPUMP HOUSE BEFORE AND AFTER RENOVATIONAS VINCENNESUNIVERSITY’S ROBERTE. GREEN AUDITORIUM

Courte5y Byron R Lewis Historical 1,ibrdry. Vincennes Univer5ity 236 Indiana Magazine of History agreed to give way to a board all of whose members were appointed by the governor.45 The 1976 legislature responded by passing Senate Bill 370- authored by Senators P. Merton Stanley and Lundquist and spon- sored in the House by Representatives Schnaitter and William L. Long-by a vote of 45 to 3 in the Senate on January 28,1976, and a vote of 91 to 0 in the House. House amendments to the Senate bill were accepted by the Senate 44-3 on February 10, 1976. The act became Public Law 150 when approved by Governor Otis R. Bowen on February 20, 1976. It provided for appointment by the governor of all trustees of Vincennes University. The new board took office October 4, 1976. In the same legislative session House Bill 1101, adopted by the House and Senate on February 20,1976, and signed by Governor Bowen on February 25, 1976, provided an appropria- tion of $5,140,842 for Vincennes University in the state’s operating

Today the Vincennes University Board of Trustees consists of ten members, one of whom must be a student, all of whom are appointed by the governor of the state of Indiana. The president of the university and superintendents of Knox County’s three school corporations serve as ex-officio members. Vincennes University with its unique two-year program is now a part of the state university system and is Indiana’s only community college. An old wound has finally healed!

4s It appears that no minutes were taken at either the trustees’ discussion or at the meeting with the legislators. I have compared my recollections of the evening with Senator Lawrence Borst, Senator Merton Stanley, and Representative Spencer Schnaitter, and they concur generally with this summary. Note that the conference of the university trustees and legislators on January 29, 1976, was held after pas- sage of Senate Bill 370 by the Senate but prior to its passage by the House of Representatives and prior to passage of the state’s operating budget on February 20, 1976. 46 Indiana, Laws (1976),983, 879.