Religion: Franciscan into Jesuit

For ten years, four historical bas-reliefs have adorned the pylons of Chicago’s Michigan Avenue Bridge. The Defense (of Fort Dearborn) and The Regeneration (the Chicago fire) were given the city at a cost of $60,000 by the William Ferguson Fund, and the late William Wrigley Jr. laid out $57,350 for The Pioneers and The Discoverers, the latter plaque representing the landing of Père Marquette and Explorer La Salle on the site of the present city. Though Michigan Avenue Bridge is one of the most heavily-traveled in the world, few Chicagoans knew until last week that the 15-ft. Marquette bas-relief contains a ridiculous error. The explorer-priest, a Jesuit, is shown in the robes of a Franciscan monk, simply be cause Sculptor James Earl Fraser saw him that way in an old print.

Two months ago, memorial services commemorating the 300th birthday of Père Marquette (TIME, May 17) were held on the Bridge. Present at the event was Dr. Marjorie Marion Nesbit, 33-year-old physician and surgeon of Will Rogers Memorial Hospital, who stood near a priest whom she did not know, but who casually asked her if she had ever noticed that Marquette’s garb was incorrect. Though no Catholic, Dr. Nesbit was incensed, lost no time in lining up such good Catholics as Judge John Patrick McGoorty, Dennis Francis Kelly of The Fair store and Edward Aloysius Cudahy Jr. of the packing company to raise $200 to have Marquette’s robe altered. Last week Dr. Nesbit’s plans became public when Commissioner of Public Works Oscar Edwin Hewitt approved the project on condition that a competent sculptor could be found to do a historically accurate job at no cost to the city. Fortunately, Pere Marquette’s Franciscan habit can easily be chiseled into resemblance of a Jesuit mantle without even moving the plaque. Sculptor Eugene Romeo will reduce the Franciscan hat to a skullcap, take the fullness out of the robe, remove the monk’s cowl, incise a flat cincture about the waist.

Only objector to the project was Vice President James S. Cox of Wrigley’s, who barked: “They better watch what they do to that sculpture. It cost a lot of money, and they might ruin it.”