Was Telshe in the US supposed to be a YU at first?

A kind and devoted reader sends us this letter, written by Reb Elya Meir to Reb Lozer (Lazer) Levi in the fall of 1941/ Aseres Yemei Tshuveh 5702. REMB thanks him for his new year's wishes and informs him of his plans to re-establish the Yeshiva in Cleveland, where his (then) brother-in-law Reb Mottel Katz is now, trying to organize the logistics. (They had no real idea as to what was happening in Telshe, that by then the Yeshiva and their familes had been murdered.) Said reader seems to think that R' Elya Meir wanted to open a sort of "competitive Yeshiva to YU," maybe thinking that only that would work in the US, or that yungeleit would never join a system that only pays the minimum kolel wage. Meaning a Yeshiva that allows the yungeleit to go out into the world after some time at the Yeshiva, and thus have enough to be מפרנס their families בכבוד.