The San Francisco call., 1909-03-11
STUBBORN GODDESS
FINALLY BUCKLES
Lady of the Dome Spends Night
in Very Undignified
Posture
TelesCOped and Caved In, She
Is No Longer What She
Used TO Be

The goddess of liberty on the city
hail dome buckled yesterday. She tel
escoped. caved and retired into herself
-perpendicularly But for all that
she came off her perch. and at quit
ting time last night was dangling in
an undignifed posture from guy ropes,
with her head at about the level
where her feet used to be
During the operation she went all to
pieces. Her neck creased, so that her
head points away at an angle. Her
waist, once model for the anti-corset-
ers to rave about, wrinkled in unnat-
uraI and inartistic contortions. In her
tantrum the lady almost negatived her
value as work of art and converted
herself into junk
This all happened BECAUSE the god
dess is made of zinc. which is a soft
metal and not to be trified with. The
interior Of the female, including her
head, is hollow, and cast over an iron
tubing Her beauty is not more than
skin deep-there is only an inch of
metal between her exterior and her
interior.
TELESCOPES At WAIST
Being thus unfortified within, the
statue naturally could not Withstand
the strain of being lifted bodily in the
air. and when a cable was placed
around her hips and the donkey engine
started the lady telescoped at the
waist.
Then an arm came loose, but finally
all the goddess sagging members were
tied together, and at quitting time last
night she had been lowered some 20
feet below the position she formerly
occupied.
A ladder was lashed right up against
the figure, and up and down this work
men ran all day, sitting on her head,
smuggling in her arms, and using all
the time the most shocking language
at her stubbornness- The 600 rivets
holding the statue TO its position were
removed, and then the steel ribs which
composed the giant gilt ball upon
which she stood. With that out of the
way the process of letting her down
right through the middle of the dome
was begun.
FOREMAN EXPLAINS 1T
J. B. Williams. foreman of the gang
OF five men who are removing the
historic stetue, explained the lady's
regrettable actions yesterday in the
following lucid style:
You see. when we put a strain on
the old girls waist why she just nat
urally buckled, as she is made of zinc
and so, not any too robust. She was
stubborn and stood her ground, being
a woman, and didn't listen to argu-
ment- We argued with her, all right
but we had to use force, and she came
out a little the worse for it."
The riggers and steel workers who
have been hacking away at the statue
for so long are as well muscled a lot
Of men as could be found. and Williams,
the foreman, would not suffer in COM
parison with big Jim Jeffries. They
have worked hard on the dome and
should have the goddess on the ground
today. The mems names are J. @. Will
hams. Jim Pierce. w. r. Cross, J. A.
Taber and T. Mckinney. c. Z. La
Grange is the engineer of the donkey.
Representatives of the Dome COM
pany. which was organized to build
replica, in miniature, of the city hall
down town somewhere, We're on the
ground yesterday TO see that the statue
Of the goddess, which they have Sc
cured TO adorn the dome of their pro-
posed building, arrived on terra firma
in safety. They were thrown into con-
fusion by the lady's contortions.