Club members insist on tile floor in the Downtown Library Building March 1904

FRICTION OF THE LIBRARY BOARD

MRS. W.F. MITCHELL AND DR. HEATON HAVE ---- OVER THE FLOORING FOR ROTUNDA.

MRS. MITCHELL WINS

EFFORT TO DELAY DEFEATED—MAJORITY OF BOARD FAVORED TILE FLOORS.

A woman’s persistency was pitted against a man’s fortitude at a meeting of the library board yesterday afternoon, and the woman won. After clashing and finessing for an hour in a heated discussion as to           whether the floor of the rotunda of the new library should be laid with cork or tile. Mrs. W. F. Mitchell headed a vote of four members in favor of the latter. and defeated the pronounced wish of the president of the board, W. M. Heaton by a score of four to one.

President Heaton favored flooring the rotunda with cork. He said that cork will lessen the noise reaching the reading room. Mrs. Mitchell was emphatically in favor of the tile for the rotunda. She said that the cork would mar the architectural beauty of the interior. With a voluminous array of claims she urged her belief and when the vote was taken, she had the support of Secretary Lafayette Higgins, Mrs. Samuel Green, and Mrs. W. L. Reed who stood by her in a vote for tile. President Heaton alone voted for cork, and this ended the battle. G. D. Ellyson, W ---_harbach, and George Henry, the other members were absent.

“Do you know,” said President Heaton, “that if I should leave this meeting, you wouldn’t have a quorum left, Mrs. Mitchell?”

“If you do such a thing as that,” replied Mrs. Mitchell, “it would only be in keeping with your actions since you have been president of the board.”

President Heaton, members say, did not conceal his desire to prevent the question going to a vote, and Mrs. Mitchell demanded that the matter should be given immediate consideration. She said that the object of the meeting was to settle the problem once and for all and she didn’t see any reason why it should be postponed. Mr. Heaton said that the absent members had something to say on the subject, and this was another signal for a fresh release of Mrs. Mitchell’s wrath.

“I suppose you think that with some of the other members present, and time to do some talking to others, you could alter the present decision, and do just like you did when the officers and committees were selected. Yet there is no logical reason why we should wait longer to settle this.”

Mrs. Mitchell had several reasons why she wanted the rotunda floored with tile or cement. In the first place, she argued that it was necessary (looks like necellary)  to preserve the architectural beauty of the work as well as to observe---- , and she claimed that the conditions were in her favor in both these  particulars. She claimed that as far as noise was concerned, no noise would ever reach the reading room, anyway, but that even if it did this could be overcome by the stretching of rubber mats. Her contention was that in the long run tile would be cheaper than cork. The difference in the first cost is about $600 and she thought that the cork floor would have to be changed often, at a cost of $250 each time. She further thought that from a sanitary standpoint tile was preferable.

“Six members were sent east,” she said, “to look at several modern libraries. In not one of them did I find cork floors. No modern library had them.”

On the other hand, Mr. Heaton was staunch in his belief that cork flooring was most desirable and he wanted to wait longer in arriving at a decision. Mrs. Mitchell spoke sarcastically of any mention of -----.  ----  the manner in which the reading rooms have been fitted ----- chandeliers. She said that there are twenty-six chandeliers in the reading room, each having four gas and four electric lights. To say nothing of the lighting ---- of the question, ---the building committee should be instructed to purchase according to the judicort, tile or cement, to flooring the rotunda. The vote resulted as stated.

Register and Leader

March 3, 1904