Turner agreed to meet Wheeler in Chicago on September 16.
News that Turner might be available spread quickly. Adams made another pitch from Palo Alto, which Turner quickly rejected.86 Bolton must have known about Stanford's approach to Turner and probably had heard of California's offer.
So Wheeler went to Chicago, and the world waited on Turner's decision. No one waited with more anticipation than Morse Stephens, who stewed in Berkeley on the day Turner and Wheeler met. “The result of that interview means so much to the Pacific Coast, to California, to the u. of C., and—oh! selfish that I am—to me. I think my cup of happiness would run over, if you were to be my colleague here.” Everything was in readiness for Turner if only he would come. If only. Perhaps Stephens's nervousness sprang from his intuitive understanding of Turner. Turner intended to leave Wisconsin, but this did not mean that the great prize was in California's hands; it meant that the great prize was truly up for grabs.
When Turner and Wheeler met in Chicago, Turner was almost certain that he would cast his lot with Berkeley, but he wanted to give his alma mater the courtesy of one more opportunity to hold him in Wisconsin. Wheeler gave Turner some time to think it over.87 Turner had a second reason for stalling Wheeler in Chicago. Haskins had learned of the meeting with Wheeler and sent a telegram directly to the meeting place. “Can't you delay decision?” it read. “If you leave should like to see what can be done elsewhere.”88 Elsewhere, of course, meant Harvard. Turner was an expert delayer, so he easily acceded to Haskins's wish. Luckily for Haskins's cause, Turner was slated to receive an honorary doctorate from Harvard on October 5 as part of the inauguration of President A. Lawrence Lowell. It was a grand occasion with many university presidents and prominent academics in attendance, including Wheeler and Stephens. In Cambridge Turner finally made up his mind. Seeing the sickly Stephens convinced Turner that he might soon die or retire. Then the responsibility for building the history department would fall entirely on Turner's shoulders, a prospect decidedly repugnant to him. Turner would go to Harvard.
When the announcement of Turner's move to Harvard finally came, congratulations flooded in to him. In acknowledging Bolton's letter, Turner responded: “Needless to say, I shall watch your conquest of the Pacific coast and southwestern history with keen interest. Let me know what you are doing.”89 Turner's decision to go to Harvard had left Morse Stephens in the lurch. “Poor Morse,” Turner wrote his wife, was “badly cut up. And it hurts me too.”90 Stephens's wounds stemmed from a practical problem as well as emotional distress. He had a great library and no one of great stature to work in it. The development of graduate studies in history was one of the reasons for the acquisition of the library, but there was no nationally recognized specialist in American history at Berkeley. He wanted a big name, but if not Turner, who? Bolton was a rising star. His experience in the Mexican archives, his spectacular discovery of the Pike papers, his publications, and his research interests made him the most obvious candidate for the Berkeley position, but now the gentlemen's agreement between Jordan and Wheeler prevented Stephens from directly approaching Bolton. With Turner finally out of reach and no plausible alternative in sight, Stephens departed for Europe.
When Stephens went to Spain in 1910, he made Teggart acting department head even though he did not have a regular appointment and only held a bachelor's degree. This proved to be a revealing mistake. Teggart took it upon himself to openly accuse his department brethren “of wholesale bad teaching.” At his urging, the department met weekly rather than monthly, a schedule that would carry into the summer too, if the interim chair had anything to say about it. Teggart was concerned that the doctoral program was not up to snuff. Consequently, the department named a committee of three to consider changes in the graduate program. When the committee presented its report, Teggart offered an alternative that the department adopted instead of the committee's. In short, Teggart's new rules required that students be examined in fields determined by the faculty before being advanced to doctoral candidacy, which seemed reasonable enough. However, Teggart decided to apply the new regulations by requiring a student who was already advanced to candidacy to stand for a snap examination. The poor chap failed, as Teggart suspected he would. Teggart claimed that the man was studying for reexamination, “was entirely satisfied with the treatment accorded,” and regretted only that he had “not been held up last year,” a comment that must have been read as a rebuke of the student's unnamed advisor. The upshot of all of this meddling, Teggart claimed, was a “remarkable bond of unity.” The faculty were resolved to maintain “the new spirit that has been developed this year,” a remark that implicitly criticized Stephens's leadership of the department.91
Stephens must have gone slack-jawed when he read Teggart's letter. It was as if Teggart had set out to destroy departmental harmony while undermining Stephens's authority. His sheer effrontery was mind-boggling. A lecturer by annual appointment with comparatively little classroom experience had taken it upon himself to condemn the teaching of the entire department. Without a PhD himself, Teggart believed he should determine standards and procedures for the degree instead of professors who had earned the doctorate. Having never been a doctoral student, Teggart decided to terrorize graduate students in the name of standards he had never had to meet himself. The department went along with him, but that only speaks to the power that a department chair in those days had over his colleagues, if only temporarily in Teggart's case. They could wait for Stephens to return and put things right, but their docility may also speak to the considerable power of Teggart's personality and intellect. If Stephens had not recognized that Teggart was a loose cannon, he certainly knew it after reading the interim chair's letter.
When Stephens returned to Berkeley, he faced the problem of appointing a respected scholar to the Berkeley history department, a need that Teggart reinforced with his high-handed behavior. But Wheeler and Stephens could do nothing to actively recruit Bolton away from Stanford without risking a controversy between the two universities. And then came the gift. On July 3, 1910, George Pierce Garrison suddenly died.92 Bolton still had strong personal ties to the University of Texas, so on July 30 he sent a telegram to President Mezes indicating his interest in Garrison's old job. “From the very first I have been very desirous of returning to Texas,” Bolton explained. He was interested in the entire Southwest, but “Texas is the center,” and because of the “sympathetic atmosphere,” Bolton's work could “be done better there than elsewhere.” He liked Stanford, but Bolton felt that “local patriotism” would force him “into the study of Pacific Coast problems” instead of Texas and the Southwest, which he preferred.93
Bolton looked forward to building a “really distinctive and distinguished School of History” in Texas. For the next twenty-five years, Bolton believed, Spanish- American and western history would be the most promising fields in American history. Three universities would lead the way. Wisconsin covered the Old Northwest and Mississippi Valley, the University of Texas naturally commanded southwestern history, and the University of California dominated the study of “the Far West and the Pacific Coast” because of the Bancroft collection. With a “proper organization…nothing” could stop Texas's ascendance in the field of history. To all of these reasons Bolton added his “real fondness” for Texas.94 “A larger institution” had asked him to consider a place, “but my preference is for Texas.” Bolton did not reveal the identity of the university that had made the offer, but it must have been Berkeley, though Stephens claimed that Bolton was on his way to Texas before he recruited him.95
Mezes offered Bolton the position but not a raise in salary.96 Within days of Bolton's receipt of Mezes's offer Stephens invited him to Berkeley, where he met Stephens and Wheeler. The three men reached an understanding. Bolton would be Stephens's “second-in-command with entire charge of…everything pertaining to American history.” If Berkeley could not have Turner, “let us have Turner's most promising pupil.” The Berkeley chairman was punctilious about having Bolton's assurances that he had intended to leave Stanford for Texas before Stephens contacted him.97
Stephens recommended Bolton for a full professorship at $4,000. “It is clearly
