Daily globe. [volume] (St. Paul, Minn.) 1878-1884, 1883-03-24
Mr. A,,chitect Randall E.p,ai,,s.


To the Editor of the Globe:
The report of the doings of your city
board of education in your issue of the 9TH
inst, does me great injustice and injury,
and desire to correct some of the mis-
statements of one or two members of the
board that are calculated to mislead the
public.
In the first place it is said that I have
greatly misled them in regard to the cost
of the building, In regard to
this 1 never made an estimate
after the drawings were made and 1 could
not make one before, but accepted their
say-so, in regard to cost and it should be
understood that they gave me the number
and sizes of the rooms and this alone de-
termined the cost.
When 1 had the drawings fully made I
sent them forward and wrote them in re-
gard to cost, these words, Il expect it (the
building) will go a good way over $780,
000," etc., thus advising them of what they
might expect regarding the cost, and, had
| it been an essential matter with them or
| if they were still believing that they
were going to build it for what they ex-
pected when they begun, over a year be-
fore, they should have ordered an estimate,
| but as neither architect nor builder could
| have estimated until the plans and
| specifications were made, and as they were
soon to obtain estimates from the build
| ers whose estimates alone would or could
determine the cost of the building, they
| very properly, as l think, had no estimate
4 IL ol~N ~
builders.
The design as shown by the preliminary
sketches which were first adopted were
entirely remodeled and the drawings recon
structed, finished basement story added
by their direction, and the whole re-sub-
mitted and had their approval before go
ing on with the work. More than this, a
whole building season, the summer of 1881,
passed between the date of adopting the
preliminary sketches and the making of
the drawings, they having delayed giving
the final order to go on with the work on
account of some disagreement about
the site, SO that the drawings were
not ready for the builders Jill
something over year after the original
sketches were submitted and adopted, and
in all this time the cost of building was 60
ing up from the low prices that prevailed
following the panic of 1873, to the nominal
cost of building of the present tune OF
last year, which, every one knows, was
nearly double.
1t is difficult to see why I should be held
responsible for this change of affairs, or
why l should be defrauded of my proper
pay for my labor in consequence of it; or,
what is still worse, be held up to the
public gaze as fraud and a cheat, or
why the public should be told by these of
fcials that have misled and deceived
them in regard to the cost of this building.
They ascertained what it was going to cost
but still they contracted it. The assertion
of some of the members that 'guaranteed''
that it should be built for $4,000 is the
merest nonsense and an unmitigated false
hood out OF whole cloth. So also is the
assertion that my fees were to be comput-
ed on the basis of a cost of $4,000.
| They contracted with me for the plans
for which they were to pay me 40 of
per cent. on the COST of the building.
This, as will be seen by the report of their
own committee, they admit, but notwith-
standing this they propose to bully me
out some part of it though my bill is not
for single dollar that is not legally and
honestly my due. Whether they will sue
coed or not is thing yet to be determined.
The course the board has pursued from
the beginning, shows plainly that they did
not expect to construct the building for
$4,000, nor did 1 ever tell them as some
of them claim, that they could do SO, and
all they did or neglected to do indicates
either that they soon learned that they had
misiudged in regard to the cost, or else
| that they were Indifferent about it. The
unanimity and avidity with which they
| voted to increase the cost of the building
would indicate the latter. G. P.RANDALL.
| Chicago, March 20, 1888.