The threat to Baltimore’s future posed by a single, mummified rat

The late William Donald Schaefer was a controversial four-term mayor (and later two-term governor). Unabashedly pro-business, but socially progressive, he could be mercurial, stubborn and even childish. But one thing he had an absolute genius for was in pushing, scolding, embarrassing and perhaps even, at times, terrorizing a potentially indifferent bureaucracy into prompt action. Esquire magazine famously dubbed him “Mayor Annoyed” for his obsessive attention to detail. But here was the consequence of his toughness: People living in Baltimore could have faith that someone cared about trash that wasn’t picked up or streets that weren’t cleaned or snow that hadn’t been removed.