William W. Campbell
attempt to resolve the medical school situation, which he regarded as "the University's largest and most difficult problem." Like Barrows before him, President Campbell traveled east to confer directly with Abraham Flexner and the Rockefeller board, and discovered that, although the donors' offer of endowing a third great school of public health at Berkeley was still on the table, they would not assist the medical school if it remained in San Francisco. On the other hand, if the Medical Department was consolidated at Berkeley it was clear that the Rockefeller interests would be "instantly and tremendously
University of California, Berkeley
interested in its financial problems." President Campbell delivered an ultimatum to the regents in 1924, arguing that "the Berkeley location of the medical school would tend to make it a statewide institution, in greater degree than it is today, and it would bring many millions of help from outside the State." He emphatically pointed out that "if the location is to remain in San Francisco, then I respectfully represent, the regents should be prepared to find in San Francisco or elsewhere, very soon, many millions of dollars for the consolidation expansion and maintenance of the Medical School and Hospitals."
UC President Campbell, as shown in the Blue and Gold (yearbook).
Once again, the regents stood firm for the Parnassus location, sealing the fate
of the UC Medical School for the next three decades. Despite their stubborn rejection of an all-Berkeley medical campus, the regents responded to President Campbell's call for dramatic reform at the medical school and joined him in mobilizing state resources to accomplish the task.
