C-H – Ruined City Hall

Frederick Handles’ wife Eulalia wrote: “Early on 23 April, someone posted a bid notification for a competitive telephone system on a heat-warped girder in the blackened, shattered masonry heap of City Hall! At two o’clock that afternoon, Schmidt, Ruef and the board of supervisors awarded it to a Mr. Frick for $25,000 in exchange for a rumored substantial bribe. Daddy says a rival telephone company would pay one million dollars to the City for the same franchise. Daddy says the ‘Boodle Board’ is corrupting the relief and recovery effort, profiteering off tragedy, and compromising the rebuilding program. It’s not repairs they want, but bribes and cover-up of their sinful theft and ‘prostitution’ of the public interest. (Forgive me, but that is Daddy’s precise word).”
“It doesn’t matter if ‘Daddy’ says it, dear,” he muttered.