Ambassador Bridge

Smith faced re-election, and at the time needed to assert his position as a champion of the electorate. His ally, powerful Robert (Wildflower) Oakman, did not welcome competition for his real estate activities in northwest Detroit from the direction of southwest Ontario. But the pair might have gauged their opponent more warily. Joseph Bower knew that his support among the citizenry was as solid as the planned bedrock foundation of his bridge. Detroit's political and business leadership was committed to the project. With customary thoroughness, every objection had been refuted or resolved. Bower declined to fight Smith in court. With bravado, he personally assumed the estimated $50,000 cost of the referendum.

The issue became a publisher's bonanza. Full-page advertisements darkened newsprint in Detroit with charges and counterclaims. Smith and Oakman warned of the greed of the "Barons of Wall Street"; the signatures of Detroit's first citizens were affixed in public support of the proposition; even merchants closed their ads with the motto: "Build the Bridge". Public meeting fueled private debates. John Lodge, then a member of the Common Council, became a leading supporter of the bridge, and saw his mayoral candidacy enhanced.

The Esselstyn Affair
Finally, the eve of the election, Mayor Smith took to the airwaves for a final condemnation of the proposal. It proved his undoing.

As Smith was leaving the studio, he encountered H. H. Esselstyn, a highly respected engineer on the Belle Isle Bridge works, and, at the time, Commissioner of Street Railways. Esselstyn was about to broadcast a statement favorable to the bridge interests. Smith fired him on the spot. The professional was stunned by the politician's vengeance. Nonetheless, he spoke into the microphone with a calm suited to his considered technical opinions, as he had prepared to do. Then, a pause, and this final sentence: "I want all Detroiters to know that because I have made this short speech, I have been discharged as Commissioner of Street Railways. "

Victory
The following day, June 28, 1927, 74,558 votes were cast, an extremely high turnout for such a special election. The bridge carried by an 8 to I margin. In October of that year, John C. Lodge defeated Smith in the mayoral primary election.