To the Editor of the Illinois Staats Zeitung:

I think it my duty to make a public statement about what occurred in the investigation that Fire Marshal Williams initiated against me.

Every non-partisan will have to admit that my case was prejudged, and that everything was agreed upon before Williams made the complaint against me, that he wanted to force me to resign, because I am a German by birth, and Williams wanted to have no German in his department. (Schank then mentions frequent instances when Williams was drunk).

I am ready to prove, that if Williams had followed my advice during the Great Fire on Sunday, we would have succeeded in restricting the fire to the West Side. I advised him to fight the fire with the engines from in front; instead he attacked it from behind and so drove it over to the South Side. Then he lost his courage and his head and lay down for rest in some hidden place. So the fate of Chicago was sealed, because this place had a fire marshal who cowardly left his post. While he slept, I fought heroically. Williams showed himself on the South Side only, accompanied by men and cars of the department in order to remove his own belongings out of his boarding house. Did he save, on that memorable day, any property but his own?

If he did, it is not known to the public........