His choice of a subject had never been made known, so that curiosity was greatly excited on the day of the unveiling. Barton had brought the governor of an adjoining State, who was just then much in the public eye as a fighter of grafters, to deliver the oration. It was a speech with a sting to it, but our people had long been hardened to such lashings. The mayor spoke in praise of the civic spirit which had impelled Follonsby to make so large a bequest to the public; and then, before five thousand persons, a little schoolgirl pulled the cord, and the statue, a splendid creation in bronze, was exposed to the amazed populace.
I shall not undertake to depict the horror and chagrin of the assembled citizens when they beheld, instead of the statue of Follonsby, which they were prepared to see, or a symbolic representation of the city itself as a flower-crowned maiden, the familiar pudgy figure, reproduced with the most cruel fidelity, of Mike O’Grady, known as “Silent Mike,” a big bipartisan boss who had for years dominated municipal affairs, and who had but lately gone to his reward. The inscription in itself was an ironic master-stroke:
To
Michael P. O’Grady
Protector of Saloons, Friend of Crooks
For Ten Years a City Councilman
Dominating the Affairs of the Municipality
This Statue is Erected
By Grateful Fellow-Citizens
In Recognition of his Public Services
The effect of this was tremendously disturbing, as may be imagined. Every newspaper in America printed a picture of the O’Grady statue; our rival cities made merry over it at our expense. The Chamber of Commerce, incensed at the affront to the city’s good name, passed resolutions condemning Barton in the bitterest terms; the local press howled; a mass-meeting was held in our biggest hall to voice public indignation. But amid the clamor Barton remained calm, pointing to the stipulation in Follonsby’s will that his money should be spent in memorials of men who had enjoyed most fully the confidence of the people. And as O’Grady had been permitted for years to run the town about as he liked, with only feeble protests and occasional futile efforts to get rid of him, Barton was able to defend himself against all comers.
Six months later Barton set up on the same boulevard a handsome tablet commemorating the services of a mayor whose venality had brought the city to the verge of bankruptcy, and who, when his term of office expired, had betaken himself to parts unknown. This was greeted with another outburst of rage, much to Barton’s delight. After a brief interval another tablet was placed on one of the river bridges. The building of that particular bridge had been attended with much scandal, and the names of the councilmanic committee who were responsible for it were set forth over these figures:
| Cost to the People | $249,950.00 |
| Cost to the Council | 131,272.81 |
| ————— | |
| Graft | $118,677.19 |
The figures were exact and a matter of record. An impudent prosecuting attorney who had broken with the machine had laid them before the public some time earlier; but his efforts to convict the culprits had been frustrated by a judge of the criminal court who took orders from the bosses. Barton broke his rule against talking through the newspapers by issuing a caustic statement imploring the infuriated councilmen to sue him for libel as they threatened to do.
The city was beginning to feel the edge of Barton’s little ironies. At the club we all realized that he was animated by a definite and high purpose in thus flaunting in enduring bronze the shame of the city.
“It is to such men as these,” said Barton, referring to the gentlemen he had favored with his statue and tablets, “that we confide all our affairs. For years we have stupidly allowed a band of outlaws to run our town. They spend our money; they manage in their own way large affairs that concern all of us; they sneer at all the forces of decency; they have made serfs of us. These scoundrels are our creatures, and we encourage and foster them; they represent us and our ideals, and it’s only fitting that we should publish their merits to the world.”
While Barton was fighting half a dozen injunction suits brought to thwart the further expenditure of Follonsby’s money for memorials of men of notorious misfeasance or malfeasance, another city election rolled round. By this time there had been a revulsion of feeling. The people began to see that after all there might be a way of escape. Even the newspapers that had most bitterly assailed Barton declared that he was just the man for the mayoralty, and he was fairly driven into office at the head of a non-partisan municipal ticket.