Tells Her Story at Last.
"It is sixteen years since I have talked to a newspaper reporter," said Mrs. Mary Noonan McDonald. "Again and again have I been besought to tell my story, but long ago I determined to remain silent until after the death of Mr. McDonald. For the sake of my children's relations with their father I held my peace, and now, for the sake of my children's name, I have decided to give my story to the world.
"The lies that have been printed about me for the last twenty years are but a feeble testimonial of the tremendous power wielded by Mr. McDonald and his friends. None knows better than I how he made and unmade public officials, set judges on the bench, determined public politics in the old days, and fought his enemies with a ruthlessness that made him feared far and wide. When I became his enemy, I, too, began to feel his power, as it was manifested in the public press.
"The lies have multiplied day by day, but I have so far refused to answer them. Only during the last week the papers have said that Dora McDonald, who ruined Mike McDonald's life, and I, met at the bedside of the dying man. We have never met. The only time I ever saw her was in a Providence (R. I.) hotel, ten years ago, where I was stopping while at a convention of charities. We sat at the same table, and I heard her say to a girl with her that I looked like Guy's mother. Then I knew who she was. I have not seen her since, not even at the grave today, though I was told she was there."
Guy McDonald interposed to explain that his stepmother had not been allowed to attend the funeral service at the church, being taken directly to the cemetery.
Says Charges Were Invented.
"The statement I want to make to the world," resumed Mrs. McDonald, "is that all the stories told of my conduct at the time I was separating from Mr. McDonald, are absolutely false, and were maliciously invented and circulated. The trouble between my husband and me grew out of his brutality. He was a big, red-blooded man, but when under the influence of liquor he was rough and disorderly. He often struck me at such times, and mistreated me in other cruel ways.
"I finally came to the conclusion that I could stand the life no longer. So I ran away. But I went alone, and not with Billy Arlington, the minstrel, as the story was told afterwards. I went to San Francisco and visited with friends, and while there I met Arlington. He was only a casual acquaintance, and I never saw him after I left San Francisco. I went from there to Cincinnati, and thence to New York, with friends. We stopped at the Gilsey house, and there William Pinkerton, Al Smith, the old-time gambler, who had a resort at 86 Clark, and Mr. McDonald, coaxed me to come back home.
"But it was not long before the old trouble began again. Mr. McDonald was extremely abusive when in liquor, and Mr. A. S. Trude will tell you that I went to his office one day and asked him to get me a divorce. He tried to smooth matters over, and succeeded for a time.