<--PREV Doc #140  |  Memorial Commission Home Page  |  First Term Table of Contents  |  Presidential Papers Home Page  |  Doc#  |  NEXT--> Doc #142 Document #141; April 9, 1953 To Milton Stover Eisenhower Series: EM, AWF, Name Series The Papers of Dwight David Eisenhower, Volume XIV - The Presidency: The Middle Way Part I: Charting a New Course; January 1953 to April 1953 Chapter 2: "A number of misunderstandings": Party and International Struggles   Dear Milton: This morning I sent word to Joe Dodge that, in my opinion, the small amount that was possible to save from the appropriations from Land Grant Colleges would not be worth the dislocations and consequent resentments that would be occasioned by such action. I asked Sherman Adams to point out to him that in many States the Legislatures had already adjourned for this calendar year and that shortages in accustomed federal receipts might have an effect which could scarcely be remedied, unless a State would go to the unusual expense of calling a special session for a very inconsequential item.1 As I recall, you are now President of the Land Grant College Association; at least, you are very closely identified with it. Could you send me a memorandum of figures as to the history of this whole project?2 I had always supposed that the primary reason for federal help to the Land Grant Colleges was because of the assistance they rendered in training officers for military purposes--apparently, there is some wider philosophy than this lying behind the whole business.3 If, along with a philosophical discussion of the project, you could give me something of a record of federal appropriations over the past thirty or forty years, I would be really appreciative.4 As ever 1 Budget appropriations for FY 1954 for land-grant colleges totaled $2,550,000; each state and territory received $50,000 for college instruction and facilities. The government was also authorized to provide colleges of agriculture and the mechanical arts $2,501,500, with each state to receive a minimum of $20,000 and the balance to be distributed on a basis of population (U.S. Office of Management and Budget, Budget of the United States, Executive Branch Version [Washington, D.C., 1954], pp. 215, 256. 2 Milton Eisenhower had served as president of the Association of State Universities and Land Grant Colleges in 1951; he was currently chairman of the association's executive committee. We have found no reply to Eisenhower's request in EM. 3 The land-grant colleges were created by federal law in 1862 to further instruction in the agricultural and mechanical arts. Publicly supported since 1940, the nation's sixty-nine schools had broadened their curricula to include studies in the social sciences and the humanities. 4 Annual federal appropriations for land grant schools over the past thirty to forty years were in the $2.5 million range. By 1938 the additional appropriations totaled $1,980,000 annually; this figure increased to $2,480,000 in the following year and remained at that level until 1953 (U.S. Office of Management and Budget, Budget of the United States, Executive Branch Version [Washington, D.C., 1923-1954]). Bibliographic reference to this document: Eisenhower, Dwight D. To Milton Stover Eisenhower, 9 April 1953. In The Papers of Dwight David Eisenhower, ed. L. Galambos and D. van Ee, doc. 141. World Wide Web facsimile by The Dwight D. Eisenhower Memorial Commission of the print edition; Baltimore, MD: The Johns Hopkins University Press, 1996, http://www.eisenhowermemorial.org/presidential-papers/first-term/documents/141.cfm <--PREV Doc #140  |  Memorial Commission Home Page  |  First Term Table of Contents  |  Presidential Papers Home Page  |  Doc#  |  NEXT--> Doc #142

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