Political controversy stalled the completion of the murals. Expensive Italian marble slabs covered the spot in the rotunda where the eight panels depicting scenes from "the Life of the Kansas Homesteader" were to be painted. The legislative committee refused to move them from the wall to make way for Curry's mural. However, behind the refusal were two real issues with Curry's paintings, the first being that Curry's factual details were incorrect. For instance, "they criticized the tails of his animals calling them not natural-like." In Curry's opinion, those problems could be easily fixed. However, with the next issue the committee had an even stronger objection; and that was the image of Kansan abolitionist John Brown, in front of a crowd of people and a tornado. In particular, the committee objected to the blood on John Brown's hands, the prairie fires, and tornadoes. These inclusions were thought by some to show the state in a negative light because Brown, who was executed in 1859 for treason (leading an abolitionist raid on Harpers Ferry, Virginia), was considered by some to be a traitor and a murderer. Curry tried to explain that while the blood on Brown's hands was not literal, his acts caused bloodshed, and that the tornado was a symbol of the abolitionist's passion. However, the people of Kansas saw its inclusion as a negative statement about bad weather. In his presentation to the people, Curry expressed that he wanted to get into his pictures the irony that is the Kansas people; not a soft, soppy presentation. When rejected, Curry in anger left the finished murals unsigned at his death in 1946. Since Curry's death, his murals have come to be regarded as on par with similar works done by his contemporary Thomas Hart Benton.