sentences:  Opponents accused the University of Chicago of attempting to appropriate Northwestern's tax-free charter to avoid $300,000 in annual taxes, while an anonymous author promised a $25 million endowment on the condition that there be only one university in the Chicago area, while still other rumors purported that the merger was a plan for the city of Chicago to annex Evanston.However, a significant stumbling block concerned each university's respective medical schools which differed significantly in their respective approaches to teaching and research.The concerted opposition by the medical school combined with the increasingly vocal concerns of the alumni, deans, and trustees as well as the untimely death of Melvin Taylor, who had led Northwestern's merger committee, caused both universities' boards of trustees to reject the proposal in February 1934.