exact date unknown
WARD CANFIELD
Ward 4449,
General Hospital.
Dear Ward:
You told your wife-as our Tribune reported-that you "couldn't understand why so many people should care about a policeman"
I can tell you.
You see, the day the Fossum-Canfield fund took to the downtown street corners, volunteers checked out milk cartons with holes torn in the tops and stakedout likely spots. It all went so fast that anybody who came to the mayor's office, signed for a carton, was given little stickers for coat lapels, sent on their way.
I FIGURED it was a good way to spend a few hours, so they started me off downtown. (The volunteers in the mayor's office from shirtsleeves, on-the-phone-with plenty - of-persuasion Bob Wishart down to housewives who said they'd count money or do anything, ran a mighty efficient activity.)
So I started towards Nicollet Avenue. Two gals at the phone company corner on Third Avenue. Two more at Second avenue. In mid-block, I met a middle-aged woman whose feet obviously hurt, carrying her milk carton in both hands.
"Heavy." she said. "Isn't it wonderful? I'm going to get en empty, some more tags, and go back!"
At the southwest corner of Fifth and Nicollet, the gal had just left, her collection carton full. I stood by the hydrant and began to collect.
It was easy.
A BOY about 10 gave me his afternoon movie money. Women would eye me, look at the tags I held, go about three feet, stop, and look back.
Then they'd start that probing operation deep inside their handbags.
(I never realized how much rummaging a woman does to get to her money in her handbag. I swear some of the gals went in up to their right elbows.) They'd hand me the coins (and often it was dollar bills.)
You see, the office ran out of tags with the non-stain stickum on the back. I had just little squares of cardboard with FOSSUM-CANFIELD FUND on them. How could people fasten them to their clothing?
One of your fellow officers I zipped into the nearby variety store, came out with a box of paper clips. He stuck some of them, to the cards.
After that, I went in and bought two MORE boxes of the clips. People seemed to get a bang out of the special service-free paper clip!
A few people asked me what the tag was all about. When I told them, not one I walked away without contributing.
RIGHT in the middle of doing a nice business, the gal whose Corner I had taken over came back so I walked to Seventh and Nicollet. Now there's a corner! Within a half-hour my container wouldn't hold another contribution.
Ward, in the number of people who told me "Hope Canfleld's going to be okay" you'd get your answer to who cares about a policeman. Remember, this tag day was very sudden. No long publicity buildup. The news media did what they could in the short time.
But the public took it from there, I'm sure you've heard about the guys from the force who painted your house last Sunday. And the way the public responded with anything that might be a clue, or a part of one, to zero in on those mugs who put you where you are.
Lots of people care. I can prove it-a nickel, a dime, a dollar at a time-just standing on that corner.