Another disappointment of McDonald's political career was when he got
a bill past the county commissioners and city aldermen authorizing
Harry Holland to paint the outside of the City Hall and County
Building with a mixture which was guaranteed to prevent the stone from
decaying.
Holland applied his marvelous preparation, but when the time came
to pay the bill a newspaper man, John J. Lane, who died only the
other day in St. Louis, had dug up evidence tending to show that
Holland's preparation was nothing but water and chalk, and not quite
so efficacious in preventing the decay of stone as prune juice or ice
cream would have been, but much cheaper. The county has never yet paid
the $80,000 that Holland wanted for the job on the county building.
After the close of the Harrison administration a new day began in
Chicago. The independent voter broke the power of party bosses. Mike
McDonald's rule was broken. He could no longer do what he pleased with
city administrations and be unofficial chief of police.
He bowed pleasantly to the inevitable, and stepped down and out. He
was wise in that he saw the handwriting on the wall, and gracefully
submitted instead of "kicking against the pricks" and wasting his
time and his money, as did other gamblers and sports, who were
finally crushed out simply because they could not recognize that new
conditions and new men had come.
McDonald quit every sphere of his old life and went into business.
It was he who, with William Fitzgerald, built the first elevated road
in town, the Lake street "L." Then, in 1891, he thought he would like
to be an editor. He bought control of the Globe, a daily morning
paper, and ran it for over two years. It was not a financial success,
and finally McDonald gave it up. "I guess I was never cut out for a
literary man," was his laughing remark. "There are other things I know
more about."