During Whites travels with his family in Europe he kept in close touch with Cornell University, United States politics, and his own financial affairs in Syracuse. Garfield wrote on January 6 of the dark outlook of the country’s financial future. A number of letters in the spring referred to Felix Adler and the executive committee's resolution on May 3 to accept no endowed professorships if the committee were not allowed to select the men to fill them. An August 5 letter from White to his brother referred to an anti-Jewish incident in Saratoga, and in September Horace K. White suggested that Russel be removed from the university vice-presidency. Sage's letters in the fall discussed the shifting political powers of Conkling and Hayes. On December 30 Edward Payson Evans wrote of the difficulties orthodoxy imposed on the liberal scholar, and in February of 1877 he and his wife commented candidly on White’s “The Warfare of Science. In February of 1878 the university's land holdings were threatened by a suit in Wisconsin. In early March Sage sent word of the hearing in Madison that ended the threat, and noted that the snowless winter had seriously slowed down the lumber industry and, consequently, the land sale.