IN: Columbus Delano, (June 4, 1809 - October 23, 1896) was a lawyer, rancher, banker, statesman and a member of the prominent Delano family. Delano was elected U.S. Congressman from Ohio, serving two full terms and one partial one. Prior to the American Civil War, Delano was a National Republican and then a Whig; as a Whig he was identified with the faction of the party that opposed the spread of slavery into the Western territories, and he became a Republican when the party was founded as the major anti-slavery party after the demise of the Whigs in the 1850s. During Reconstruction Delano advocated federal protection of African-Americans civil rights, and argued that the former Confederate states should be administered by the federal government, but were not part of the United States until they met the requirements for readmission to the Union.

In 1875, Delano's reputation for personal honesty came under increasing scrutiny as revelations of corruption in the Grant administration continued to be the subject of investigations and media revelations. Westerners unhappy with Delano's rulings on land grants and other issues accused Delano's son John, an employee of the Interior Department, of corruption, bribery, and fraud. Governor Edward M. McCook of the Colorado Territory, claimed that John Delano had accepted a $1,200 bribe from a Colorado banker, Jerome B. Chaffee, to secure land patents from the Department of Interior.  The New-York Tribune reported that John Delano was profiteering through Interior's Office of the Surveyor General by accepting partnerships in Wyoming surveying contracts without having been trained in surveying or map making, and without providing any meaningful contribution to the fulfillment of the contracts; the obvious implication was John Delano had taken extortion money from illicit contract agreements. In March 1875, the former chief clerk of the Surveyor's Office, L. C. Stevens, wrote to Benjamin Bristow, Grant's Secretary of the Treasury, stating that Surveyor General Silas Reed had made several corrupt contracts which financially benefited John Delano. Stevens also said both Reed and John Delano had blackmailed five deputy surveyors for $5,000. More damaging was Stevens' charge that Columbus Delano knew and approved of what Reed had done for John Delano.  Both Bristow and Secretary of State Hamilton Fish demanded that Grant fire Delano. Grant declined, telling Fish, "If Delano were now to resign, it would be retreating under fire and be accepted as an admission of the charges." The controversy did not abate; by mid-August it became clear that Delano could not remain in office; Delano offered his resignation and Grant accepted, but Grant did not make it public. Grant finally announced his acceptance of Delano's resignation on October 19, 1875, after Bristow threatened to resign if Delano was not replaced. Grant replaced Delano with Zachariah Chandler, who quickly initiated civil service and other reforms in the Department of the Interior. Delano's administration was investigated by Congress, Chandler, and a special presidential commission; his personal conduct was exonerated, but his reputation as an honest, capable administrator was damaged, and Delano never again ran for office or served in an appointed one. In April 1876, The Committee on the Expeditures in the Interior Department confirmed that Reed had set up an illicit slush fund for John Delano's financial benefit, and that Delano thanked Reed while also telling him "to be careful to do nothing that would have the semblance of wrong."

Why did he resign?

OUT: corruption, bribery, and fraud.


IN: George Orson Welles was born May 6, 1915, in Kenosha, Wisconsin, son of Richard Head Welles (b. Richard Hodgdon Wells, November 12, 1872, near St. Joseph, Missouri; d. December 28, 1930, Chicago, Illinois) and Beatrice Ives Welles (b. Beatrice Lucy Ives, September 1, 1883, Springfield, Illinois; d. May 10, 1924, Chicago).

Breaking with the Federal Theatre Project in 1937, Welles and Houseman founded their own repertory company, which they called the Mercury Theatre. The name was inspired by the title of the iconoclastic magazine, The American Mercury. Welles was executive producer, and the original company included such actors as Joseph Cotten, George Coulouris, Geraldine Fitzgerald, Arlene Francis, Martin Gabel, John Hoyt, Norman Lloyd, Vincent Price, Stefan Schnabel and Hiram Sherman.  "I think he was the greatest directorial talent we've ever had in the [American] theater," Lloyd said of Welles in a 2014 interview. "When you saw a Welles production, you saw the text had been affected, the staging was remarkable, the sets were unusual, music, sound, lighting, a totality of everything. We had not had such a man in our theater. He was the first and remains the greatest."  The Mercury Theatre opened November 11, 1937, with Caesar, Welles's modern-dress adaptation of Shakespeare's tragedy Julius Caesar -- streamlined into an anti-fascist tour de force that Joseph Cotten later described as "so vigorous, so contemporary that it set Broadway on its ear." The set was completely open with no curtain, and the brick stage wall was painted dark red. Scene changes were achieved by lighting alone. On the stage was a series of risers; squares were cut into one at intervals and lights were set beneath it, pointing straight up to evoke the "cathedral of light" at the Nuremberg Rallies. "He staged it like a political melodrama that happened the night before," said Lloyd.  Beginning January 1, 1938, Caesar was performed in repertory with The Shoemaker's Holiday; both productions moved to the larger National Theatre. They were followed by Heartbreak House (April 29, 1938) and Danton's Death (November 5, 1938). As well as being presented in a pared-down oratorio version at the Mercury Theatre on Sunday nights in December 1937, The Cradle Will Rock was at the Windsor Theatre for 13 weeks (January 4-April 2, 1938). Such was the success of the Mercury Theatre that Welles appeared on the cover of Time magazine, in full makeup as Captain Shotover in Heartbreak House, in the issue dated May 9, 1938--three days after his 23rd birthday.

What was said of this performance?

OUT:
"When you saw a Welles production, you saw the text had been affected, the staging was remarkable, the sets were unusual, music, sound, lighting, a totality of everything.