Repository: UIHistories Project: Dedication - Memorial Stadium Drive Book #2 [PAGE 22]

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" 1 AM BUYING $10 0 0 0 WORTH OF HAPPINESS-ROBERX E CAKR.

Robert F. Carr, '93, was president of his freshman class, a Major in the U. S. Army during the war, Trustee of the University IQ15-21, and president of the Dearborn Drug & Chemical Works of Chicago since IQO6

"WHEN 1 PLEDGED $1000 1 WAS THINKJNG OF HOMECOMING, IO24" -ALBERT MOHPv

Albert Mohr has three sons in the University—Joseph, '21, who has been track manager and football manager; Albert,'22, All-Western football guard; and Louis, '23, baseball pitcher

*T HAVE found t h a t I share most things with other people, t h a t the things JL I do not share are not as enjoyable as the others. "Pleasure in life to me does not consist of a one-seat automobile, a one-person house or a one-meal table. If I have a beautiful home, I want others to appreciate and enjoy its beauty. If I have a car, I want others to share its convenience and comfort. If there is good food at my table, I want the pleasure of good company with it. "When I pledge $10,000 to the Stadium, I am doing it, in a way, selfishly. It is a most profitable investment in happiness. "I am sharing a great thing with a vast number of people. I shall be able to point to t h a t beautiful structure with a certain sense of proprietorship. I shall be able to feel that I was substantially a factor in making the Stadium an actuality. I should rather have my modest share in that great memorial than have a large share in a lesser thing. "I have talked to other men about things of this kind. I have asked them wThat their feelings are about making financial contributions. Those among them who have given with any degree of generosity have told me invariably t h a t they have never done anything which they regretted less. All of them enthusiastically insisted t h a t every year brings a new sense of gladness t h a t they helped, and a new sense of satisfaction t h a t they are a part of a larger and greater movement than any one man can contain within himself. "I believe I can say quite sincerely t h a t when I pledge $10,000 to the Stadium I am buying $10,000 worth of happiness."

I

AM not an alumnus of the University of Illinois. My only claim to a connection is that I live in the State and that my three sons attended the University. But I feel very close to the heart of the alma mater of my sons—as close, I am sure, as any alumnus. 4 'I have attended the Homecomings regularly for years, and I have never failed to find a renewing of my youth and a brighter outlook on life. "When I heard about the Stadium, I pledged $1,000. I made this pledge for various reasons, but one of them, perhaps the foremost, was the picture in my mind of the Homecoming football game in 1924, the first year when the Stadium will have been built. "I could see myself standing, a tiny figure against the massive towers of the Stadium, with my sons and friends. I could see myself looking up, up, up at the great graceful white bulk of the greatest college stadium in America, and at a moment like that it is very good for one to know t h a t he has a vital part in the whole affair. "I could see myself going through the honor court, examining, on the Doric columns, the inscriptions to the dead war heroes. I could see myself entering the great gates and mounting across vast tiers of seats to my special, reserved place—always with my sons and with their friends and my friends. " I t was such a vision mainly which made me so eager to pledge $1,000 and which makes me now very glad, indeed, that I made t h a t pledge."