THE GINGHAM DRESS

A lady in a faded gingham dress and her husband,
dressed in a homespun,threadbare suit, stepped
off the train in Boston and walked timidly
without an appointment into the Harvard University
President's outer office..
The secretary could tell in a moment that such backwoods,country
hicks had no business at Harvard and probably
didn't even deserve to be in Cambridge ...

'We'd like to see the president,' the man said softly.

'He'll be busy all day,' the secretary snapped.

'We'll wait,' the lady replied.

For hours the secretary ignored them, hoping that
the couple wouldfinally become discouraged and go away.

They didn't, and the secretary grew frustrated and
finally decided to disturb the president, even though
it was a chore she always regretted.

'Maybe if you see them for a few minutes, they'll
leave,' she said to him!


He sighed in exasperation and nodded. Someone of his
importance obviously didn't have the time to spend
with them, and he detested gingham dresses and
homespun suits cluttering up his outer office.
The president, stern faced and with dignity, strutted
toward the couple.

The lady told him, 'We had a son who attended Harvard
for one year. He loved Harvard. He was happy here.
But about a year ago, he was accidentally killed.
My husband and I would like to erect a memorial to
him, somewhere on campus.'

The president wasn't touched. He was shocked.

'Madam,' he said, gruffly, 'We can't put up a statue
for every person who attended Harvard and died.
If we did, this place would look like a cemetery.'

'Oh, no,' the lady explained quickly. 'We don't want
to erect a statue. We thought we would like to give
a building to Harvard.'

The president rolled his eyes. He glanced at the gingham
dress and homespun suit, then exclaimed, 'A building!
Do you have any earthly idea how much a building costs?
We have over seven and a half million dollars in the
physical buildings here at Harvard.'

For a moment the lady was silent. The president was pleased.
Maybe he could get rid of them now. The lady turned to
her husband and said quietly, 'Is that all it cost to
start a university? Why don't we just start our own? '

Her husband nodded. The president's face wilted in
confusion and bewilderment.

Mr. and Mrs. Leland Stanford got up and walked away,
traveling to Palo Alto, California where they established
the university that bears their name, Stanford University,
a memorial to a son that Harvard no longer cared about.

You can easily judge the character of others by how they
treat those who they think can do nothing for them.

---- A TRUE STORY by Malcolm Forbes

I don't understand this version of the story. The usual premise of the tale is that Stanford was a giant F-U to Harvard, which it wasn't but if it makes those in Palo Alto sleep better then more power to them.

But, this version seems to go out of its way to make Leland Stanford look sympathetic and morally righteouss, which is discordant. Stanford wasn't any kind of champion for the impoverished, he was one of history's biggest fat cats along with the likes of Andrew Carnegie (Carnegie-Mellon), Cornelius Vanderbilt (Vanderbilt) and John Rockefeller (University of Chicago).

Begle1's Sig:

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You missed the point of the story, but thanks for playing

Yeah Begle. Ignore history as it can't do anything for you. Sheesh don't you know anything?

And since the story is fictional it would probably be better to change their names entirely as it casts them in a way that demands sympathy from the reader. I mean do we really need to expend our sympathy on a US senator and Governor of California?

Also, Leland Stanford Jr. died in Italy of Typhoid. The fact that the story suggest the Stanfords wanted to erect a memorial to their son who died of a common disease( in another country no less) while ignoring all the rest who died from it shows their arrogance and sense of entitlement and could make me care less about them or their son. And It kind of makes me want to give the dear old President a pat on the back though I'm sure he is just as much of a asinine social elitist as the Stanfords.

Doing some research would show that the Stanfords were purely concerned about themselves and I highly doubt that such socialites would ever wear something like the story above.

Other then that, The moral of a story is a good one even if the rest of it is made up bull honkey. Why would we be concerned with reality anyways? Fantasy worlds are much better.

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The morrow of the story was don't judge a book by it's cover, didn't ask for the history lesson, but that is a good way to bend the story to show how all the rich people are evil.

The whole story was always bent to support your point. You even went so far as to include the "TRUE STORY" at the bottom of the article. Which if anybody were to use their heads, instead of allowing someone else to spoon feed them information that may or may not be true, they would know that the above story is a LIE and that "Malcom Forbes" is a LIAR and so are you for perpetuating the LIE.

If you would rather stick your head in the sand and be oblivious to the world around you then be my guest.