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Caption: Book - History of the University (Powell)
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Activity Illinois Industrial League 77 It is quite possible that Governor Matteson feared such a staunch opponent of corruption as Turner, ior the governor was involved even at this time in certain questionable doings for some of which he was later indicted by the grand jury of Sangamon county.81 Later in the year friends of Bronson Murray considered him as a possible candidate either for the state legislature or as a representative from his district to congress, but for various reasons these plans failed. It is possible that these men were not astute enough to hope to win in the political field. However, they were not very much disappointed for they were not making politics an end in itself but endeavoring to employ it as a means to accomplish their main purpose, advancement of industrial education, as is clearly evident from their confidential correspondence. The movement for a state university or for a state agricultural college was beginning in other states. Many of them were watching with keen interest what was transpiring in Illinois. Dr. George F. Magoun of Burlington, Iowa, later the first president of Iowa college, Grinnell, in a letter of February 25, 1854, asked Turner for information which he and others might lay before the people of Iowa who were soon to take up the question of a state university. A. G. Henry of Lafayette, Oregon territory, a representative-elect to the legislature, asked for a detailed plan of a state industrial university and pledged his support to the Illinois movement. In April President Henry P. Tappan of the University of Michigan wrote that he approved of congress granting lands to educational institutions and that he was willing to enter into a league to bring this about. In May President F. G. Gary of College Hill, Ohio, invited Turner to deliver an address before an industrial convention, adding that he regarded the work Turner was doing | as the great work of the age, and one vital to the physical interests and well being of our country." Turner replied to this letter in such manner as greatly to "Bateman and Selby, Historical Encyclopedia of Illinois, Sangamon county, 1:356.
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