They Went to the Steel Mills, the Churches, the Bowling Alleys

by Shonnie Finnegan

Walter Cooke is my hero. He was chairman of the Council at UB. In fact, he was acting president between 1920 and 1922, when they hired Capen.

Cooke was the one who organized the great endowment campaigns in 1920 and 1929. He evidently was a marvelous man and a very active citizen of Buffalo, held in high regard by everyone. Capen said in Cooke's obituary that Cooke had an uncanny ability to go to a meeting where people had totally opposite points of view and somehow, because he had a belief that there'd always be a new solution, achieve a new idea, a new synthesis. He had been chairman of the Liberty Loan campaign, which was a war bond drive - very aggressive and highly patriotic, like a crusade. He had a fabulous organization, and it was very successful. But after the war, they found themselves high and dry. They had this wonderful organization, and no purpose - you know, all dressed up and no place to go.

George Crofts, who'd been part of that group too, persuaded Cooke that he should turn his attention to the university. So Cooke invited the most prominent and important people in Buffalo, took them out on a ship, and sailed up the lake. During this trip, he explained to them that the progress of the city depended on having a university, and that UB was a university in name only: it had no real core. He told these people that it was up to them to provide a university.

So they conceived this idea of a big endowment campaign. They raised $5 million in ten days, with something like 24,000 contributors.

This campaign was very intensive, with meetings every day. The whole city was divided up into different trades and professions and neighborhoods and ethnic groups, and all of those had captains. They went to the steel mills, they went to the churches, they went to the bowling alleys. All of this money came in - everything from a dollar to half a million. It was really like a crusade. It was very exciting for them, and apparently it was unheard of; I mean, nothing like this had ever been done before.

It was only because of that money that the university was able to go out and hire a full-time chancellor - Capen - and develop the Main St. campus.