Years ago, during the First World War, an Italian was hired to put a temporary Statue of Liberty, a copy of the one in the New York harbor, across from the City Hall. This was to be a background for speakers to arouse our citizens and sell war bonds, get young men to join the Army, Navy, Coast Guards, and Marines and even to join the accountants and typists in Washington DC. The dollar a year men got their own jobs, and didn't have to be prodded.

When the war was over, some members of the Board of Commerce, and a propaganda committee, decided to have the Italian make a permanent imitation of the statue to honor our victory. This hurt my feelings for two reasons: It was an imitation of another city's statue and the spot could be better used for a much better purpose--as at that time, if you were caught short, you had to go into one of the hotels. I had quite an argument with the committee and eventually they canceled their idea and I had a mad Italian on my neck. I always was proud of this deed, and eventually they built a sunken rest room that has done more good and satisfied more citizens that a statue could ever have done. I admit we could have built the statue with two doorways on the sides (one for men and the other for women) but that would have left it open to jokers.

Now I see we have another problem with our Old City Hall building. I disliked it from my boyhood days, and it looks like it was designed by a self-educated architect and OK'd by the alderman who knew more about running a saloon that beauty. The architect must have had an uncle that was a sculptor and a wife who loved pigeons.

I don't remember anything of great moment that took place in this building as most people only saw it when they had to pay taxes, and had some kick to make to the Mayor--and those are not pleasant memories. The place is full of portraits of poor quality and their ancestors would not accept them if they were offered to them free of charge. The Art Institute doesn't want them, and the only other thing to do is to remove the oil paint and let artists paint other pictures on the canvas.

When it is compared to the old Mariner's Church with its simplicity of design and its satisfying look, and I'll guarantee the services that took place in it did more good, and were on a higher lever than anything that ever happened in the City Hall.

There were some good men in that building like Pingree, Couzens, Thompson and maybe a few others--but the rest were pure politicians who just used it to get publicity, and let a few of their friends and relatives get some of the gravy.

Let's paint a picture of it, record its history on tape, and store the same in the Public Library and then put some kind of a useful building in its place--with any art features to be purely decorative in a modern manner.

It is too bad we did not get some of the professor at Cranbrook Institute to at least have some of his work in our city buildings, but we have some good men coming along one of which is Frederick. He has done a remarkable job for our new city hall, and other civic buildings. His statues are decorative with an idea behind them. Not just a soldier with a gun or a lawyer with a roll of something in his hand.

I hope the days of statues glorifying our war heroes and political geniuses are over, and we move what we have to some city park among the trees and poison ivy.

There are only two people in this country who really deserve statues, and pictures in our building and they are Washington and Lincoln. One typifies the birth of our country, and the other the right of every man to be free. These never seem, to me, not to be portraits of men, but rather wonderful ideas maybe never fully attained, but always a wonderful thought.