by Charles Erskine Scott Wood
[This article appeared in The Oregon Historical Quarterly, vol. 34, no. 2 (June 1933), pages 97-102, and was forwarded to me by Nedra Brill. I was delighted to find that a German brewer had offered to pipe his lager there, an offer declined (alas) by the city fathers. It probably would not have thrilled the dogs or horses of Portland, but would certainly have pleased their masters. A definitive history of the fountain by Eugene E. Snyder called Skidmore’s Portland: His Fountain & Its Sculptor From Buckboards to Bustles, Binfords & Mort (1973), who suggests that free lager was only supposed to run on the day that the fountain was unveiled. For an account of Stephen Gregg Skidmore (1838-1883), the benefactor of Portland’s thirsty, see his father Andrew Reed Skidmore (family no. 245) in my Westerleigh book. (Warren Skidmore)]
I have been asked to give some account of how the Skidmore fountain came to be, and particularly how it came to be placed where it is now; and I am glad to place my recollections at the service of the Oregon Historical Society, but it must be understood that I am writing absolutely from memory, unrefreshed by any note or memorandum of any kind, and naturally there will be errors, and I do not pretend to know dates.
I resigned from the army and entered the practice of law at Portland, Oregon, in 1884; and eventually succeeded to the law business of Morris Fechheimer by association with his surviving partner, Henry Ach. This partnership was arranged by Fechheimer himself on his death bed, and Judge George H. Williams was invited to join us, which he did, and the firm of Williams, Ach and Wood was established in the former offices of Fechheimer and Ach in the First National Bank Building on the corner of First and Washington streets. I am giving these facts because from them I hazard the guess that it was sometime about 1887 (1) that one day as I was sitting in my office in the First National Bank Building I received a message from Henry Failing, in the bank below, requesting me to come to his private office, as he wished to speak to me on a matter of importance to him and to the city of Portland. When I called on him, he said to me, “I do not know that you are aware that Steve Skidmore left in his will a bequest of $5000 for the erection of a drinking fountain, to be placed in the business part of the city, for men, horses and dogs.” He then showed me the drawings of several designs of fountains from one or more marble or granite works making a business of doing this sort of thing, and he asked me what I thought of them. I looked at them, but told him without hesitation that they looked to me more like designs for soda
__________________________
(1) In May, 1887, Mr. Wood received from the sculptor the agreement in regard to the price, style and date of completion of the fountain; Oregonian, May 25, 1887.
fountains in drug stores, and if one of them were put up, I felt sure, or at least I hoped, that the artistic taste of later generations would tear it down. He said I had expressed his ideas exactly and that was why he wanted to talk to me, and then continued, “Now, you know many of the best artists in New York,” and I said I knew Saint-Gaudens and Warner, and others, but I considered these as our best sculptors, and of course, I knew a lot of painters, such as J. Alden Weir, Ryder, Brush, and the architect Stanford White — and so on. “Well,” he continued, “I wish you would take up this matter for me, and write to the ones you think are the best, because I think in justice to Steve Skidmore and this youthful town we ought to begin with the very best, and I will have you appointed on the committee by the mayor.”
Of course I gladly accepted this trust, but I at once said to him, “Mr. Failing, it will be utterly impossible to have a civic fountain, such as I know you have in mind, for anything like $5000.” “Never mind about that,” he answered, of course Skidmore had no more idea that the rest of us about cost, but pay no attention to the amount of the bequest. just do the best you can, regardless of cost, for the present.”
I wrote to Augustus Saint-Gaudens and to Olin L. Warner. Saint-Gaudens said he was so far behind in important commissions that he did not dare undertake another, and thus eliminated himself from consideration. Warner wrote that he would gladly undertake it, but wanted some idea of the site where the fountain was to be placed, and the surroundings. Mr. Failing told me that the city was going to furnish the site and all the expenses of installation, and that the angle where First Street changes direction and where the fountain now stands had been selected. (2) Mr. Failing was quietly collecting a fund and Mr. Woodward, who was connected with a bank, said that if the fountain was placed at that particular site he would give a certain sum of money, considerable, but the exact amount I do not remember, and he made that condition because he was at that time the owner of a lot on First Street which was just opposite the fountain site.
Mr. Warner sent out two designs, one in a general way similar to the present fountain; but instead of two caryatides supporting the basin, and standing back to back, with a block of granite between, there were three caryatides and no central pillar, the three caryatides carrying the bronze basin. This, if I remember rightly, was about $35,000,
_____________________________
(2) The city vacated ground 23 feet in diameter at the intersection of First, Vine and Ankeny Streets.
the city or the Skidmore committee to bear the expenses of transportation and installation. The design for the fountain as it now exists was $18,000. Mr. Failing, Charles E. Sitton and a very few others quietly made up the $13,000 necessary to be added to the Skidmore bequest, and none of them would ever have a word said about it, and even I never knew how much Mr. Failing or any of them gave. They said they wanted it to be absolutely Steve Skidmore’s bequest with no thought of any other person associated with the gift. But though I do not know how much Mr. Woodward gave, I do know he gave a considerable amount, because it had that condition attached to it, and Mr. Failing told me of the gift and the condition.
After Mr. Warner had been engaged to do the work he was called west as far as Colorado, and he then came to Portland, for the express purpose of seeing the site and its surroundings, as he felt it important that he have the fountain in proper scale and harmony. At the time the United States Government was taking testimony to forfeit the land grant of the Willamette Valley, and Cascade Mountain Military Wagon Road Company, which had passed by purchase into the hands of Messrs. Lazard Freres. I, as their attorney and manager of the grant, went with the Government’s representatives, taking testimony at various points along the grant. This was in 1888. At Prineville, Oregon, my leg was broken, and while I was laid up there, I received from the Reverend Thomas L. Eliot a request for suggestions for the inscriptions to be cut into the faces of the lower granite basin of the fountain, and I sent down those which are now carved in the granite. An error was made by the stonecutter in some date relating to Steve Skidmore, whether it was birth or death, I do not know, but the error was filled in with concrete and recut, and the place may be seen if carefully examined.
I have been amused by the not infrequent references to that proverb which is on the fountain – “Good citizens arc the riches of a city” – as a quotation from the Bible – a compliment, of course, to the composer, but a reflection on the speaker’s or writer’s knowledge of the Book of Proverbs.
I was asked by Mr. Failing and the committee to make the address at the unveiling of the fountain, and the newspapers published this fact. (3)
_______________________________
(3) The full text of Mr. Wood’s address is printed in the Oregonian, September 23, 1888.
Henry Weinhard, the brewer, as fine and honest an old German as you could find, and whose attorney I was, came to see me, as I supposed on legal business, and when we were alone he unbosomed himself of the proposition that he himself would bear the expense of whatever hose was necessary in addition to the fire hose of the city, to connect his largest lager tank with the fountain, and have the fountain spout free beer!
Of course I gratefully thanked him- perhaps not as gratefully as I might in these days – and conveyed the proposition to Mr. Failing, who felt obliged to decline it.
At the unveiling all of Portland’s great and near-great were present. W. S. Ladd sat in his buckboard right in front of me as speaker, and when I paid a tribute to the boy, Steve Skidmore, who in his last hour thought of the city which had received him penniless, and where he made his money, and spoke of the nature that could think of the down town busy part of the city, the sweaty drivers of trucks and drays, the thirsty horses and the thirsty little dogs, I saw tears trickling down Mr. Ladd’s face unchecked.
And so the Skidmore fountain came to be.
I understand that once more the epidemic to move the fountain is agitating certain members of the community. If I may be allowed to say so, this continual recurrence very seriously reflects on the artistic judgment and good taste of these people. At first blush it may seem natural to collect everything that a city has in the way of works of art in its park as a sort of cemetery or museum. But I think a little serious thought on the matter ought to show that the works of art decorating the public places of a city should remain where they were placed by the city and the citizens of their day, and instead of herding everything in a park, more things ought to be placed in the heart of the city, where the stream of human life flows longest and thickest. I cannot help thinking of the statues and fountains I saw in Rome, Naples, Venice and all the hill cities of Italy, rooted for centuries, in the places which were selected for them. One of the greatest fountains of the world, the Fountain of the Turtles, is down in a quarter of Rome whose elegance has passed for centuries, among beggar population and ragged little children, but the people never think of moving it. In the first place they are not so poor in works of art, and secondly they are more religious minded and know it would be desecration. The very greatest equestrian statue in the world is in a little, obscure, bare plaza in Venice. If a people’s instinct does not teach them to respect a work of art in its original place, to respect those who put it there, if they are actually so bourgeois and new-rich that they cannot bear to leave their one and only work of art where Steve Skidmore clearly willed it to be, where Henry Failing and those men who reverently carried out Skidmore’s will from their own pockets, wished it to be, where the sculptor placed it and came across the continent to view the site, that all might be harmonious, then move it. No skyscrapers can ever affect that harmony; it is not height of line around the Skidmore fountain that can ever affect it, but a widening of space, with trees for environment, would be simply ignorant vandalism. If the city fathers and a controlling element of the city wish to show their ignorance, I suggest that they put the Skidmore fountain on wheels, which might be done in these days of great truck wheels, and move it from place to place, as the mood changes, with a card “This is our one and only work of art, the world celebrated Skidmore fountain. Bids will be accepted for its next location.”
I do not like to stress the legal obligation existing, because Steve Skidmore gave his money specifically that dogs and work horses and thirsty laboring men might have drink; that Mr. Woodward contributed, and all the other gentlemen contributed heavily, to place that fountain just where it is, after careful consideration. If ever there is anybody interested enough to do so, he can bring court proceedings to stop this stupid misunderstanding of art, and works of art.
I have several times written on this subject at the request of various people, William S. Ladd, Miss Henrietta Failing, and others, and I am now writing for the last time and by request, placing the history of the fountain where it may be kept. I hope if this sort of “flu epidemic” ever gets dangerous, that some citizen of Portland will have civic pride enough to take the case into court, as he would have an absolute right to do. But no court decree would be as powerful as an educated good taste and an artistic righteousness in the people to determine that a monumental work of art, made as a very part of the city itself, should be left where the sculptor and the citizens of its own time originally placed it. If ever an ignorant generation without art instinct moves the fountain to the park, they will be surprised to see how it will shrink in importance and will become more insignificant. Or will they see? No. If they are dull enough to move it, they will be too dull to see what they have done. It will always be a great work of art, but it will be out of place, and will have lost its eternal fitness, which the most ignorant must now feel as they contemplate it.
And finally I suggest that the fountain might be used as a text to educate the children of the public schools in culture and good taste and art appreciation which will hold an architectural work of art at least as sacred as a tombstone in a cemetery.