St. Paul daily globe. [volume] (Saint Paul, Minn.) 1884-1896, 1890-12-21


building i'll his life. They also say that Mr..
Foley, Chief of the Fire Department in Mil
waukee, said that they had had the Ruttan
System in Milwaukee for some time and he
was prepared to say the system was simply q
1re-trap. Some one IS in error regarding
this, and for this reason: This Company, or
any Of its predecessors, never put in one
dollars worth Of Ruttan apparatus in any
school building in Milwaukee until the Gum
mer or 1890, and the building was not COM
plete or the apparatus in running order until
after the Committee OIL Retrenchment had
visited Milwaukee. This committee say they
nave also visited Chicago, ana the Superin@
tendent said that they mad the Ruttan Sys-
tenn i'll use in Chicago, but were displacing it
with mechanical ventilation as soon as
1t was possible to make the change.
ana that ,vo he was prepared to say
Rnttan System, il offered for nothing Now,
what are the facts? Nine years ago the man
agement Of the Ruttan Company placed fur
on plans of the architects. These buildings
did not contain the Ruttan System Of VENT
lation or dry closets Qhe dry closets were
not put in any building. until 1880. This
was done contrary 10 the judgment Of tho
management of the Ruttan Company, Who
placed the system in the st. Paul schools, and
IL is in very few of these schools that they
have substituted mechanical ventilation.
AS to the statement that Chicago will not
put IN any more Ruttan WORK, viii say that
during this summer (iS9 we have placed
our work in scho i buildings in Chicago. and
are now at this date dee. l. 1907 placing
our full system, including the Smead DRY
Closets, in Il twelve-roOm building for the
Chicago Board of Education, and have con
tract for still another twelVe-room building TO
place Our system III as soon as the board are
ready with the building.
The whole report of the retrenchmept COM.
mlttee is made up of fault finding. Bus
when 1t is considered that one of the COM
mlttee was against lis (fOr reasons unknown
n . from In II . L.
one other member of the committee is in the
steam-heallng business and competitor Of
ours, he having bid on several of the St Paul
schools and done some work for the Board OF
Education before ne became a member of the
board, as he had perfect right to do, the re-
port. perhaps. treats us as fairly as We could
expect But it certainly is not an unbiased
report, and 10 is manifestly unfair to US TO be-
IN yestlSated by any OF our competitors. Had
this committee given figures showing cost OF
maintaining systems in use in the schools
OF Minneapolis and Milwaukee, as they
say they were instructed to do, | should
have been glad to make comparison OF
cost of maintenance with those schools as
they did not, had 20 compare the cJst OF the
systems in the It. Paul schools. have been
in the school house warming and ventilating
business fourteen years. and during this time
have visited more school buildings and done
business with more boards of education than
any other man i'll America, with the possible
exception OF Col. Isaac ID. Smead, OF Toledo.
anu ucN CT EiSI more HOuOrdDlG set men.
or men who had the interests of the schools
and taxpayers at heart than the gentlemen
who have been members of the st. Paul
Board Of Education since first did business
with them IN 1876. up to the present time
They have always tried to do the best they
knew how for the interests of the City OF ST.
Paul, SO far as my business with them was
concerned. by one of the st. Paul papers
should be so severe on Maj. 3. F. Wright in
connection with the Ruttan system in
the st. Paul schools, is beyond nv
comprehension. In placing the Ruttan
system in the schools Of st. Paul. a large part
OF the business was done with the commit
tee on real estate, but Maj. Wright was never,
to my knowledge, a~memper of this commit
tee since / have done business with the ST.
Paul Board. II he was, he was never pres
ent when had any business before il. When
ever the committee has recommended the
adoption of the Ruttan system to the Board
OF Education. and Maj. Wright has been
present, he has done the same as all other
members of the Board have done. and that is
vote for it believing it to be the best system
for the cost now known. From the time Of
putting in our first plant i'll the st. Paul
schools, ! have never asked a single member
of the st. Paul Board to vote for its adoption.
Our first plant being put in on trial, the mem
bers Of the Board voted for il because they
believed II to be good thing, and the sue
cess of the system has shown that they acted
wisely and well, and we have given the
Board of Education an equivalent for every
dollar they have paid US.
One of the st. Paul papers saws we have
got 5000 worth of work in st. Paul in one
year. This is untrue, as we got less than
$4,000 worth of work in st. Paul in any
one year, ana that was year when we tad
to equip FIVE old school buildings (besides
some new buildngsl, we furnishing all ma
terial. and had only thirty days in which to
do the work. and we paid out in ST. Paul for ma
son and carpenter work and other ex enses
incident to puttingin the work nearly S1o, 000
in cash. a large part OF our work in ST Paul
& NJ iDST cd
ness, for which we had to stand the dis
counts, and all work we have done in st.
Paul has been done as low as good work can
be done for.
Regarding the cost of mechanical ventila-
ton in the II. Paul schools viii say that
know something of its cost in other places,
and the. st. Paul board paid no more for this
work than it cost TO put the system in IN
other places. l had nothing to do with plac-
ing this system in the Franklin, Jefferson.
Madison or Lincoln schools, but l know
something about the cost of putting in this sye-
tenn. When the steam heating aud meehan-
zeal ventilation was put into the four schools
above mentioned, steam heating in cOnDec-
ton with mechanical ventilation was in its
infancy. There was none of it in school
buildings west of Chicago, and only one firm
in the West had ever had any experience in
putting it III. All OF The school buildings in
st. Paul in which the system is now in
use were old buildings when the
work was put in, and nothing N
the system had TO be built in, complete; yet
the work did not cost more than it costs in
other places. The company that put in the
steam heating and mechanical ventilation in
the above mentioned schools, did noS at
their price. make any money, and have since
gone out of business because il did not pay.
1t has been SAID that the system could not be
put into the Franklin school for less than it
cost. but these statements are made by
parties who never put this kind of work In q
school building already built and knew
nothing of its cost in the old buildings. 1t is
q well known fact by all who have had ex-
perience that the same system, or any sys-
TEN, can be put into building during its
construction for n great deal less money
than it can be but into an old building.
1t also may be true that the sys EN-
can be put in some cheaper now,
as men in that business have had more
experience and understand its cost better
than when put into the st. Paul schools.
am informed by steam heating and ventilat-
ing contractor of Minneapolis that steam
heating and mechanical ventilation in some
of the Minneapolis schools cost $500. 90 per
room to put in. The last annual report OF
the Minneapolis Board says that in some Of
their new buildings it has cost S50I.n0 per
room If it costs cit her of the above amounts
to pat the system in new school buildings, il
will readily be seen that the price paid by the
st. Paul Board for putting it into old build
lngS was not an eXtravagant price. In the
annual report of 1899 Of the Chicago Board
of Education they give prices of steam heat
1uS anu mecHdulCdl NcDlldllOn IN new
school buildings, which amounts to $4,000
per room and in some buildings over 81 900
per room. These figures show that the steam
heating and mechanical ventilation in use in
the st. Paul schools cost much less to put in
than it costs IN the Chicago schools.
1t should be remembered that the steam
heating and ventilating plant in the Franklin
school, ST. Paul, cost SI3,7S0: the putting in
of the water closet plant and some other
work necessary for the introduction of the
system makes the total 81 1000 as shown by
the annual report. But the same work that
costs $50, 900 in an eighteen-room old build
ing III st. Paul costs Sl3629. 81 in thirteen
room new building in Chicago in 1882. sup
pose the Board of Education had adopted
steam heating and mechanical ventilation in
their eight-room buildings instead of Ruttan
System, which they would have done had
they not Investigated and used the Ruttan
System, as they were disguised with their old
furnaces, and steam heating without fan
ventilation is a failure so far as ventilation is
concerned, what would have been the result?
just the difference on each eightroom