The New York herald., 1922-10-10
.'CIWC VIRTUE TOMB
OF MOTHERS LOVE
Donor Cut Off Bride With
Dollar, Left $125,OOO
for Foumt.
SEES 1T FIRST TIME
EXiled Daughter Comes
From South Dakota to
Admire.
MONUMENT OF SORROW
Tried Thrice to Break Will
That Created Rough Guy
She Calls 'Mine.'

years of bitterness-went to City Hall
Park yesterday and looked for the first
time upon the muscle bound limbs
and the childlike face of the rough
guy, who day and night Is battling for
the right amid a deepening coat of
CRIME and soft coal smoke.
However noble may be the concep-
ton of "Civic Virtue" and however
important may be the lesson, If any,
which Frederick MacMonnies intended
it to point out, it was an old woman's
unrelenting spite that built it. The
fund of $125.0O0 from which the statue
finally has come was left to the city
in the will of Mrs. Angelina Crane,
who died in 1894 in her home in Fifth
avenue. All her fortune-and 1t was
a sizable fortune for that period of
New York-went to the statue. To
her only child, she who was Miss
Edith Hawthorn Crane, the present
Mrs. Simmons, she left 81.
During all the riot of praise and
denunciation of "Civic Virtue" no one
thoubnt W stth OUT olIIlIIlOHS. l. his
oversight appeared yesterday to have
miffed her somewhat For, she believes
that If the statue pleases her. when
she has had to suffer for it all her life,
then certainly those who have no per-
sonal interest in it should not be dis
pleased.
story Starts in sos.
For Mrs. Simmons, although she has
lived most of the last twenty years in
Sioux Falls, S. D., trying to shut out
the memory of the youth she spent in
New York and trying to become gen.
timely interested in country that was
new to her. still has a certain pride of
proprietorship in the statue. She calls
1t, rather fiercely. my statue"
And since "Civic Virtue" raised his
back to the City Hall. Mrs. Simmons.
out in South Dakota, has been reading
every scrap that has been printed of the
resulting discussions. At last she de-
cided that she would come TO New York
to see 1t. Yesterday she got up courage
enough to go down to City Hall Park.
Her verdict. in short, Is that the statue
is a wonderful piece of work. She in
tends to see MacMonnies and tell him
so.
The story of how "Civic Virtue" came
to be goes back in the eighties. when
little Edith Hawthorn Crane was In her
teens. Her father, Alexander Patterson
Crane, who at one time held the office
of public weigher and had many in
terests along the New York waterfront,
died in 1891. She remembers that he
was inordinately fond Of her, for she
was his only child. After he died she
lived with her mother In the big house
in lower Fifth avenue. They Travelled
to E.trA k.,o
Fifth avenue. The daughter saw horses
and dogs and people going along the
streets without a place to get q drink
of water. That gave her an idea.
Husbands Father DispIeased.
Mother" she said, don't you think
II would be a good idea to take some of
our money and build a pretty fountain,
maybe on Fifth avenue. like some of the
ones we saw In Europe. We could fix
one level for the dogs and horses. and
another for the people. And we could
make II ornamental"
The mother, who was interested in
such things and was an amateur artist
of considerable talent. was non-com-
initial. A few years later. when Edith
Hawthorn Crane had become a young
woman, she fell In love with Robert s.
Simmons, the only child OF DR.. James>B.
Simmons, man of some prominence In
that period. The mother did not favor
the marriage. but they were married
anyhow. A short time later the mother
died. In her will she set forth that her
money, all save the 81. should 20 to
build "a drinking fountain for man and
beast" the same idea that the girl had
Lad years before.
The young husbands father was dis
pleased similarly and left his estate, all
save his old house In East Fifty.ninth
street. to found Simmons College in
Abilene. Tex. Young Simmons, grad
uate physician without a practice, had
only the house and some pictures of his
ancestors.
stays at Old House.
But Mrs Simmons did not accept her
mothers award without fight Three
times, employing the best counsel she
could find and taking advantage Of
every possible point, she tried 20 break
the will. But the courts held that old
Mrs. Crane must have known what she
was doing when she dccreed that her
fortune should 20 to "a drinking fount-
ain for man and beast" 50 the money
was held by the city, auarreled over by
artists and politicians. and finally spent
on the fountain In City Hall Park, with
tho stalwart figure Of "Civio Virtue"
atop AS soon as water begins gushing
from the ugly mouths OF the dolphins,
IL VIII In truth be fountain. according
70 the terms OF the will. though neither
man nor beast ever shall drink there.
After the fight over the will Mrs.
Simmons went to South Dakota. Her
husband, the young physician who had
no practice. remained In the old house
In East Tifty-ninth street
When Mrs. Simmons came back on
this trip TO see the statue SHE went 10
the old house and moved into room
that was vacant on the fourth floor.
The house, once a representative man.
sion of the section just east OF Fifth
avenue, has not changed much in the
last thirty years. Trade has invaded
the first two floors. A bottle merchant
is on the second floor and a furrier on
tho ground floor. Both pay rent. Tho
third floor IL to let, but the fourth has
been kept inviolate as living quarters.
Mrs. Simmons, flushing from the exer-
tion Of walking down three flights and
from anticipation OF seeing the statue
which had deprived her Of what she
always has considered her natural birth
right, refused to ride the subway down
town. They make her feel creepy and