On the Sunday night after Ash Wednesday, the night before the " Morgestraich " in Basel city, a procession begins of people carrying burning bundles of pinewood chips ( called " " " " ", the Alemannic German for " pinewood besom " ) through the medieval town center along the " Rathausstrasse ", entering through the city gate from the south.
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Rev . Harvey stated, " The beautiful shops, full of valuable goods; the stores behind, containing thousands of barrels of flour and provisions of all kinds; the fish stores; the wharves, which it had cost immense sums to erect,-- disappeared one by one into the maw of the destroyer . . . the whole of Water Street, on both sides, was'swept with the besom of destruction . '"
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During this time he served as chairman of the committee on accounts and was responsible for considerable reform, and significant saving by cutting business costs . " A more destructive besom of economy could not have been selected from all the ranks of the democracy, or from either party, for that matter, " one observer wrote . " Lank, for all the world like Lincoln, and as tall, with a face which might be photographed for Lincoln's, and a shambling gait and a carelessness of dress exactly like the dead president's, Williams is a figure that never fades from the minds of the thousands who have once seen him, " a reporter wrote . " Dressed always in the plainest of plain Kentucky blue jeans, he is a standing reproach to the more luxurious livers of his own party . " While still in Washington he was informed that his party had nominated him to run for governor, a nomination he was not a candidate for.
