Correspondence (incoming): Phillips, Welton J., 1895-1896

Welton J. Philips wishes to see Mrs. Stanford ans. June 7/95

Post Office, San Francisco, Cal., Station E June 3, 1895

Dear Mrs. Stanford,

I am extremely anxious to see you, if only for a moment. And I write begging that privilege. I do not come seeking additional favors at this time, though I well know that, like your noble husband, your ear is ever open to such. But you have done for me, more than you will ever realize, and in my pride I could have attempted to have told you. And I wish to take occasion to add that I am getting along nicely in my position.

It is very distasteful to me, to ask to be allowed to disturb you on a Sunday, and do not wish to do so, unless perfectly agreeable to you. But that being the only day which I have to myself, and desiring to see you as soon as possible, I trust you will understand the circumstances and pardon me if I ask to be allowed to come down next Sunday, say 1:14, or any hour which would best suit you. I will promise to detain you but a few moments.

However, if any other day would better suit

you, I will gladly arange [sic] with Mr. McCoffin to get away any day you may see me.

I regret my inability to have seen you since receiving my position so generously at your hands, and I am extremely desirous to see you at as early a date as possible.

My estimable wife, who has long been an admirer of yourself and your grand and noble husband and deeply interested in the University, wishes to accompany me that she may meet the lady who has done so much for us and others.

Hoping that I may see you very soon, and assuring you of our earnest prayers in your grand work, I remain

Yours Sincerely, Welton J. Phillips

Station E Post Office, San Francisco, Cal., June 11, 1895

Dear Mrs Stanford,

Your kind note at hand, at the time I saw you about the first of the present year, I longed to express to you the deep reverence in which I hold the sacred memory of your beloved husband. But the circumstances, under which I came to you, did not tend to make that the proper time.

But now that I am getting along so nicely and prospering (thanks to the generous interest you took, at a time when positions were so scarce) I long for some way in which to partially repay the debt of gratitude which I owe the memory of your dear husband, as well as yourself. And I trust that you will understand, to the fullest, my sincerity, when I tell you of the sacredness with which I hold his memory, and each work of council and advice which fell from his lips.

I feel that I owe him, for his kindness to me, a debt which I can never hope to repay.

Mr. Stanford was never content with having made

for himself a name which shall endure through coming ages, a name which to achieve, most men would have thought, and on the best grounds, that they had attained the greatest success. But we all know that he counted his success in the success of the University.

No one could have foreseen that any man or men should, for the sake of political capital, attempt directly or indirectly to tear down such a grand and glorious institution, destined to be the pride of the nation.

Here in American where we pay nearly twice as much per capita, for schools, as any other nation on earth, I can scarcely conceive of our glorious Government trying to tear down one of, and destined to be the, foremost of her institutions of learning. It cannot be! It must not be!!

I wish you to fully feel my hearty earnestness, in this matter and then I do not offer, but I beg of you to allow me to do something, any thing if ever so small, toward the success of this noble plan. It would be one of my greatest pleasures to be able to do something for the memory I hold so dear and sacred.

Post Office, San Francisco, Cal., -2-

I am so thoroughly in earnest in this matter that, if by so doing, I could devote after office hours and occasionally a day to this end, I would gladly rent me a home down near the University and come up very early every morning and back at the earliest possible moment to devote every minute.

If it should be possible that any court should decide in favor of the "Government" I firmly believe no Congress of the United States could accept such a decision or fail to see that justice was done. I do not suppose I should ever make a lobbyist, or do I aspire to such. But in such a case I feel that nothing could scarcely keep me from Washington, or any where, if I could do ever so little.

I realize that you have an abundance of friends who stand ready to do all that an outsider can do, yet on account of the blood relationship between your husband and myself, and my great feeling of gratitude toward him I should be most happy if there was now, or ever should