“I have put my whole soul in this matter,” R.B. Oliver wrote Regents President Louis Houck in February 1903, “so let me plead with you to not build any more railroads or write books or history, but come up here to the capital peacefully, but bring your ‘war paint’ along if it has to be put on.”
In order to rebuild Academic Hall on the grand scale necessary to anchor Southeast Missouri Normal permanently in Cape Girardeau, the school sought a whopping $250,000 state appropriation. Considering that Missouri had spent only $350,000 on the institution over its entire 28-year history, securing such an audacious sum required deft political maneuvering. Southeast needed an ally in Jefferson City; a seasoned politician to guide such an appropriation through the legislature. And with 1902 being an election year, they needed him immediately.
Robert Burett Oliver, one of the region’s foremost attorneys – and whose wife Marie designed the state flag – was elected to the Missouri House of Representatives in November 1902 for one purpose: obtain a $250,000 for Academic Hall.
With his political acumen – and Houck’s political connections - Oliver chaired the Committee on Normal Schools for the 1903 session, shepherding the appropriation through the legislature. He tirelessly lobbied officials throughout state government and exhausted every political favor at his disposal.
In March 1903 – just two months after Oliver was sworn in – the Missouri House authorized $246,300; two-and-a-half times more than any normal school in the state.
