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voice to the idea of “honest graft.” Al would defend that to say that Plunkett, in his lights, was right. There had been a habit of dipping into the public till and Plunkett and McManus were against that, but it hadn't occurred to them that it was wrong to make a shakedown on a contract - after all the city got the building and no money was taken away out of the treasury.

It was quite an advanced ethical concept for the time. Smith had the highest concept of personal integrity and honesty, but that was his mother. He had a beautiful mother - a very severe looking, tall, straight, heavy featured woman who had seen trouble, but must always have known right from wrong, good from bad. She was a good Roman Catholic who had never heard of John Calvin, and who derived her ethics from the Catholic faith. After all the Catholics know only too well the difference between right and wrong - they invented it. Aristotle, who is the principal philosophical background for the modern expression of the Catholic faith, is our principal delineator of right and wrong. The Calvinistic idea of right and wrong was pretty mixed if you come right down to it.

She had a strong moral fibre and knew that your honor could be tarnished. If you honor was tarnished, you never had any strength. I heard her say that. Honor was the strong