92 Board of Public Works
The agreement for the acquisition of Morgan was subject to board approval, and, if
approved, the board was empowered to appoint the first public board of trustees of the
college. An agreement was, of course, negotiated, and in November 1939 the board
approved it and appointed the governing board.53
It was not long before some friction developed over the new state college. Appar-
ently there was an unexpended surplus of $125,000 left from the sum appropriated
for the acquisition of Morgan College, and the new board of trustees wanted to use it
to build a dormitory. The trustees made the mistake of selecting an architect to design
the new building without conferring with the Board of Public Works, however, and
when that fact surfaced, the board was quite upset. It expressed its sentiments at a
meeting in January 1940, issuing a stern warning to the college not to select any more
architects, but it approved the project then at issue.54
The outbreak of war in Europe prompted a quickened pace of rearmament here,
and although that helped to hasten the end of the Great Depression, it also created a
number of new dislocations. This became more apparent, of course, after Pearl Harbor,
but it was evident before.
One major effect of the outbreak of World War II was a sharp decline in civilian
construction projects as both men and materiel were diverted to defense efforts. The
General Assembly recognized the problem in its spring 1941 session when, in the 1941
general construction loan, it recommended to the Board of Public Works that the
expenditures authorized by the bill be "delayed and postponed if the labor conditions
are such as to interfere with the defense program or if the commodity prices are such
that construction would result in very high costs compared with normal conditions."
The board followed that recommendation. It ordered a study of what projects could be
eliminated and ultimately decided to defer selling some of the authorized construction
bonds. In 1943 the legislature reappropriated the funds for other, more important,
projects.55
There was, in the beginning, some direct war-related activity for the board, but
most of the impact was indirect. In its first two meetings after Pearl Harbor, the board
discussed with the adjutant general how the "home guard" could best be used, finally
deciding to have it guard the state's water supply (Pretty Boy and Loch Raven dams),
but to leave the protection of industrial plants to "special" policemen commissioned
by the governor. The board's role in deploying the guard was primarily fiscal. The
soldiers had to be paid and covered by workmen's compensation insurance. In what
was obviously an overabundance of caution, the board allocated $5,000 to prepare
abandoned mines in western Maryland for the temporary storage of the state archives,
although it is not clear whether any archives were actually moved. Finally, the board
patriotically rejected a suggestion by the state forester that the state acquire title to
employees' private automobiles in order to enhance their ability to get tires and other
automotive products rationed by the federal government.56
The most significant new activity of the board during the war years was extending
its control over the state bureaucracy and personnel. In February 1942 the board
imposed an across-the-board hiring freeze, declaring that no vacancy in state service
was to be filled without board approval. It then delegated the approval power to the
director of budget and procurement, Walter Kirkman, with the understanding that
53. Acts of 1937, ch. 506; 1939, ch. 331; BPW Minutes, 9, 20 November 1939, 5:320-21, 327.
54. BPW Minutes, 23 January 1940, 5:358.
55. Acts of 1941, ch. 854; BPW Minutes, 12 December 1941, 16 January 1942, vol. 6 (1941-46), pp. 74, 80-
81; Acts of 1943, ch. 668.
56. BPW Minutes, 12 December 1941, 16 January 1942, 6:74, 80-81, 84.
