The Saint Paul globe. (St. Paul, Minn.) 1896-1905, 1899-03-07
LIBRARY MEN REPLY
PLANS REGARDING MANUFACTURE
ERS' EXHIBIT ARE FULLY
SET FORTH
WOULD REDUCE THE RENTAL
Members of the Building Commit
tee OF the Library hoard Express
Desire to Conform as Far as
Possible With the Wishes of the
Officers of the Manufacturers
Association.

The building committee of the
library. composed Of Maurice Auer-
bach. Burnside Foster, Edward Field
hauser and Harris Richardson, has
sent a reply to the officers of the
Northwestern Manufacturers associa-
ton. in which a hope is expressed that
the two bodies may eventually be able
TO come to an understanding.
The reply, which is signed by all the
members of the committee, Is as fol-
lows:
Your communication of March 8 relative to
proposition for lease of portion of the
site Is received. Judging from your letter
and the account given of the proceedings of
your meeting in the newspapers, have
concluded that your body has acted under
Misrepresentation as to what our proposition
really meant, although we can scarcely I'M
derstand how you could misconstrue the
language used.
We intended to say that you could have
the use OF the floor space on the first floor,
b5x150 feet, and on the second floor of 55x150,
which would amount in all to one-half Of the
entire building. In addition to this, pro-
posed to give you arcade entrance on both
Wabasha street and st. Peter street, in order
to make thoroughfare through the build
ing, We reserved simply the small stores
at the Wabasha and st. Peter street en-
frances, with the offices above, to produce
revenue for the library. You doubtless, over
that II you would pay US 5000 per year as
rent for this space, we would furnish you
with light and heat. You know better than
we the cost of light and heat for such large
calculated that the rental imposed would
just about reimburse us for the expense Of
lighting and heating and making the neces-
sary repairs We judge that you are of the
opinion that the rental price is too high,
and that you can get light heat and re-
pairs for much less. II SO, we should be
pleased to have you make us a proposition
stating what you can afford to pay, or what
der the circumstances. We have heard from
outside sources that you expected us to offer
you the use of the entire building free Of
rent, but we can scarcely believe that you
could expect us to do as much as that
So far as raising the $4,000 with which to
erect the building is concerned we wish to
say that We did not expect that the mem
bers OF your association would necessarily
pay that sum out of their own pockets We
presumed that a large portion would be
raised by subscription. We also contemplat-
ed assisting you in every way to raise the
amount by subscription, in case you wished
our assistance.
We are we'll aware that the Northwestern
Manufacturers association was organized for
the purpose of extending the manufacturing
interests of the city, you state in your
members, individually, are numbered among
the most generous of our citizens From
expressions we have had from your individ-
ual members we know that we can rely on
have undertaken in building I'D the public
library of the city.
Thanking you for the appreciation you
have already shown, and with the hope that,
II you see fit to lay before us your wishes
with respect to the property in question we
may eventually arrive at a conclusion which
will be of the highest benefit to your body.
the public library and the city Of st. Paul.