This is an account of the rise and fall of T. Frank Hayes, Mayor of Waterbury, CT from 1930 - 1939. It focuses on his election campaigns, his bitter fights with William J. Pape, publisher of two local newspapers, and his ultimate trial, conviction, and sentencing for corruption. Ironically, what appeared to have been a defeat for Hayes was not really a victory for Pape, and the stage was set for further corruption in Waterbury in the second half of the century.