Page 42

By Jack Joseph Smith

The Mayor Let us make a bind; purpose is the only other word for silence; let us watch ourselves make this town a better place for our grandkids We fight the railroad on the rivers For the city to be tight in mind All big money must go All thought must have nothing to do with being big All the rivers must be forced into one small work at a time Before the way sout to Shippingport Dredge your way into restraunts and shops Status Quo all abrest the three rivers To find out what a great city is all about

Original Scan

AI Interpretation

GPT

Civic imagination replaces grandiosity with river work, rail conflict, dredging, restaurants, and shops, making greatness municipal rather than imperial.

The page imagines a mayoral civic ethic built against big money and big abstraction. Rivers, railroads, Shippingport, shops, and the three rivers define greatness as local work done one small task at a time.

Claude

Greatness is made municipal — river work, rail conflict, restaurants, and shops replace imperial ambition. The civic imagination insists that real grandeur is local.