“WANTED TO KNOW.”

New Zealand Mail, 29 January 1902, Page 17

“WANTED TO KNOW.”

Dennis Mulvihill, a stoker, employed for the last thirty years in tlie factory of a sewing machine company, lias been installed as Mayor of Bridgeport, Connecticut, a bustling manufacturing city of 70,000 inhabitants, after having received the largest majority ever given a .candidate for that office in the city. Mayor Mulvihill was practically unknown until four years ago, when he was elected an alderman. Then he developed a habit of “wanting to know.” Bridgeport aldermen are not paid for their services, but there are lots of little public jobs at their disposal, and they have—or at least they had—a way of voting themselves into inevstigation committees, and setting out on junketing parties, for which the public treasury was copiously bled.

The new admission to their ranks—the Irish fireman, Mulvihill—jumped to his feet over the first expense bill that was submitted for his vote, and shouted, “I wanter know.” He wanted to know a multitude of things, and his questions were embarrassing, and he repeated them on the subject of every item of expenditure. His colleagues disliked him, and nicknamed him, “I wanter know.” But the public warmed to him, and called him “The Watchdog of the Treasury.”

When Mulvihill’s name was first mentioned for the mayoralty nomination, it was looked upon as a joke, but the movement rapidly developed, and two days before the convention a majority of the delegates pledged themselves for him, and notwithstanding the strength and influence of his several opponents for the nomination, they were obliged to retire from the field. Mulvihill retained liis situation as stoker until two days before liis installation as Mayor. His fellow-workers in tho factory seized a chair occupied by ; him for many years in tlie fire-pit, and reduced it to splinters for souvenirs.