He had once heard Peter C.
Frome say in a speech to the students that he contributed to the
support of Verden University because it was a "safe and
conservative citadel which never had yielded to demagogic
assaults." At the time he had wondered just what the president of
the Verden Union Water Company had meant. He was slowly puzzling
his way to an answer.
Chancellor Bland referred often to the "largehearted Christian
gentlemen who gave of their substance to promote the moral and
educational life of the state." But Jeff knew that many believed
Frome and Merrill to be no better than robbers on a large scale.
He knew the methods by which they had gained their franchises and
that they ruled the politics of the city by graft and corruption.
Yet the chancellor was always ready to speak or write against
municipal ownership. It was common talk on the streets that
Professor Perkins, of the chair of political science, had had his
expenses paid to England by Merrill to study the street railway
system of Great Britain, and that Perkins had duly written several
bread-and-butter articles to show that public ownership was
unsuccessful there.
The college was a denominational one and the atmosphere wholly
orthodox.
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