When the contract was signed in April 1914 the sculptor began to work on two different models. Before they were done he wrote to his friend Felix Frankfurter saying that he had been reading up on Altgeld’s life and ending his letter with this statement: “That man has become a perfect giant to me. He was a kind of hero when I was a kid, but he lived out his governorship and died before I got back from Europe. So he comes along almost like a new star to me.” Of the two small models submitted, the one selected by the committee represented Altgeld standing on a slight eminence, his right hand extended as if quelling a disturbance, his left stretched over a man, woman and child beside him. The pedestal was low, so that the governor seemed to be near his audience, his expression was noble, almost defiant in his determination to protect his charges. The committee unanimously accepted the full-size model of this statue except for slight changes which the sculptor approved. The figure was cast in bronze and erected in Lincoln Park for unveiling on Labor Day, 1915. Then a thing occurred which to the sculptor was incomprehensible. The model had been on exhibition in the Chicago Art Institute for a whole year with no voice raised against it. Then various municipal art commissions suddenly declared they didn’t approve of it and would not permit it to be unveiled. The reason, they said, was that it was not big enough and that the laborer’s family seemed to occupy a servile position. To this the chairman of the purchasing committee, Daniel Cruice, made a quick and indignant reply: I take exception to the criticisms which have attempted to show an insult to labor. I do not believe that labor is making a fight on the statue. Altgeld’s enemies in life are the enemies of his memory. They do not wish the perpetuation of the principles for which he stood. Consequently they are doing all in their power to destroy any reminder that such a man lived. When the sculptor declared in characteristic fashion that he forgot more about art overnight than ordinary art commissions learn in a lifetime the Brooklyn _Eagle_, always quick to record a Borglum controversy, declared editorially: The controversy between Gutzon Borglum and the Municipal Art Commission of Chicago over the statue of the late John P. Altgeld adds to the gaiety of nations. The Art Commission criticizes the conception of the work--Altgeld raising a protecting hand over a man, a woman and a child, typifying the working classes. It likewise objects to the proportions of the Borglum design. And the artist answers in his characteristic temper.