he gentlemen who had this measure in charge weighed well these
assertions and trifled for weeks with the matter, trying to make up
their minds.

Meanwhile election time approached, and amid the growing interest of
politics it was thought unwise to deal with it. A great fight was
arranged for locally, in which every conceivable element of opposition
was beautifully harmonized by forces and conceptions which it is almost
impossible to explain. Democrats, republicans, prohibitionists, saloon
men and religious circles, all were gathered into one harmonious body
and inspired with a single idea, that of defeating the mayor. From some
quarter, not exactly identified, was issued a call for a civic committee
of fifty, which should take into its hands the duty of rescuing the city
from what was termed a "throttling policy of commercial oppression and
anarchy." Democrats, republicans, liquor and anti-liquorites, were
invited to the same central meeting place, and came. Money was not
lacking, nor able minds, to prepare campaign literature. It was openly
charged that a blank check was handed in to the chairman of this body by
the railway whose crossings were in danger, to be filled out for any
amount necessary to the destruction of the official upstart who was
seeking to revolutionize old methods and conditions.

As may be expected, this opposition did not lack daring in making
assertions contrary to facts. Charges were now made that the mayor was
in league with the railroad to foist upon the city a great burden of
expense, because the law under which cities could compel railroads to
elevate their tracks declared that one-fifth of the burden of expense
must be borne by the city and the remaining four-fifths by the railroad.
It would saddle a debt of $250,000 upon the taxpayers, they said, and
give them little in return. All the advantage would be with the
railroad. "Postpone this action until the railroad can be forced to bear
the entire expense, as it justly should," declared handbill writers,
whose services were readily rendered to those who could afford to pay
for them.

The mayor and his committee, although poor, answered with handbills and
street corner speeches, in which he showed that even with the
extravagantly estimated debt of $250,000, the city's tax-rate would not
be increased by quite six cents to the individual. The cry that each man
would have to pay five dollars more each year for ten years was thus
wholesomely di