THE CITY'S WEALTH AND POWER - 725 As the automobile evolved, mechanics came first. The engine suspended underneath was taken up and placed definitely in front, so that repairs, adjustments or lubrication could be attended to without lying on one's back under the car. Structure was strengthened by the use of steel frames. The radiator was set in front of the engine, because there it was most effective. Bodies and seats were lowered, because a few years' experience showed that the driver no longer had to look over a horse to see the road ; also that a lower center of gravity was safer in turning corners. Cars sank still lower, as roads improved, making them easier to get into. Gear shift levers moved in from the running board for easier handling. The number of levers decreased. Springs became less obvious and more comfortable, as they were tucked away beneath the body. Chain drives disappeared in favor of the simple and invisible shaft. The displacement of kerosene and acetylene carriage lamps with electric headlights improved the looks as well as the illumination. Radiators grew in size to provide better cooling for more powerful motors, and hood lines began adjusting themselves to body form. Mud guards grew into modern fenders, likewise tending to take more graceful lines and grow into unity with the rest of the equipage. The most notable step toward beauty was the closed body, which came to be stamped out of sheet steel and shaped by artists, for looks as well as comfort. The evolution of the coupe, coach and sedan bodies is in itself an interesting art study. The front of the car grew larger. Eventually, as speed increased and wind resistance became a serious problem, the tendency toward streamlines became more marked. It was finally realized that the lines of speed were also the lines of grace. In this development the automobile designer learned from the aircraft builders, who in turn had learned from the fishes and birds. All the colors of the rainbow, and far more, were utilized for decoration, supplemented by new, rustproof metals. The motor car at last began to justify itself in appearance as well as function, looking almost as well adapted to its purpose, and as attractive in motion or at 726 - THIS CLEVELAND OF OURS rest, as if nature, not man, had made it. At least, so it appears to its human contemporaries. The next generation may laugh at it. Of the strictly mechanical evolution nothing adequate can be said in this brief sketch. The automobile of 1932 was as much superior to that of twenty years before as a fine racing horse is to a Shetland pony. Ease of operation has advanced along with comfort. There has been a steady growth in power, speed, control and efficient use of fuel, also in the quality of the fuel itself, and notably in the quality of rubber tires. A motorist drives as easily now at 50 miles an hour as he used to drive at 25, and covers 300 miles a day as easily as he used to cover 100 miles. Thus the range of the motor car has vastly increased. The biggest improvements since the early years have been the electric starter, supplemented by the generator for bat-tery-charging; balloon tires, making easier and swifter riding; four-wheel brakes, making safer driving; and anti-knock gasoline, permitting greater compression and higher-speed motors, with resulting increase of engine horsepower and road speed. Control has kept pace with speed and power, and grows more and more automatic. The slowest part of the automo-bile mechanism to improve has been the power transmission from motor to driving shaft, awkwardly combining the foot-operated clutch and the hand-operated, selective gear-shift. Recent devices have enabled the driver to shift gears more easily, smoothly and quickly, without clashing, by a system of continuous meshing. At the close of 1932 there were said to be devices perfected, and soon to be applied in manufacture, which would make such operation almost entirely automatic, eliminating the clutch and leaving nothing for the driver to do but steer the car and feed the fuel, the car itself selecting the requisite gear for any situation. Thus the auto was evidently destined to become as simple and easy to operate as an electric car ever was, with its added advantages of speed, power and range. Control tends to become more and more electric. THE CITY'S WEALTH AND POWER - 727 Nothing in recent transportation changes has been more remarkable than the growth of the motor truck, whose early history has already been traced. Not content with supplanting the work horse for heavy hauling in the city, and between farm and city, it has become a serious competitor of the rail-roads. Its flexibility has long made it superior for hauling moderate loads for distances of twenty-five to one hundred miles, because, given a road, it can load or unload anywhere at any time without being limited to tracks. Latterly it has gained in power, capacity and distance, often adding one or two trailing cars to the powered truck itself, until it becomes virtually a small freight train, and transports bulky and heavy loads for as much as several hundred miles. All this to the peril of highway roadbeds and annoyance of automobile drivers, as well as the resentment of railroads, but with an economic value so demonstrable that railroads themselves have taken to using truck fleets as feeders for their long hauls. Early in automobile history the auto cab took the place of the horse cab, for which purpose it was admirably suited. The "jitney," which appeared about 1910 as a vehicular epi-demic in American cities, was at first merely a private automobile used as a cheap, free lance cab, though it soon came to carry passengers on regular schedules. Before long it became a nuisance, and was legislated against until it vanished. The omnibus or true motor bus then appeared. At first it was a crude affair, usually a carry-all body mounted on a truck chassis. Before long the automotive engineers set to work seriously to design buses suitable for the traffic evidently awaiting them. They were ugly and noisy, but people liked them better than street cars, and they could pick up and deliver passenger regardless of rails and trolley wires. Size and power rapidly increased, looks and comfort improved. By 1927 there were 80,000 of them in the United States, more than half common carriers, and more than 7,000 subsidiary to electric railways. This type of conveyance was cutting into the railroad passenger business as severely as the truck was cutting into its freight business. And the 728 - THIS CLEVELAND OF OURS rail lines were beginning to use bus lines themselves as adjuncts to their passenger train service. Numerous short railroad lines and branches were being discontinued, sometimes with replacement of the trains by buses, sometimes with abandonment of the routes. At the same time the bus and private passenger car together were driving electric suburban car lines out of business. It may be recalled that historically the bus line and also the truck really preceded the railroad. The first steam locomotives, built in England early in the nineteenth century, were intended to run on roads. It seems to have been an afterthought to put them on rails. As has been told earlier in this chapter, steam coaches were frequently used on English highways in the third decade of the century, running on regular schedules and carrying as many as fifty passengers. If those early steam trucks and buses, traveling over unpaved roads with iron tires, had not been outlawed by Parliament because they ruined the roads—which is as much as to say, if England had then possessed better roads, or rubber tires—there might never have been any railroads. And in Cleveland, now the bus center of America, the bus might be occupying the Terminal on the southwest corner of the Public Square. As it is, the bus has on the corner of Prospect Avenue and East Ninth Street one of the best Union Bus Terminals in the country, used by the Short Line Bus system and the Penn Ohio Coach lines, with their subsidiary companies ; and there is another terminal for the Greyhound Lines at Superior and East Ninth Street, with a depot on the Public Square. These facilities give Clevelanders what is probably the best and most extensive bus transportation service in the United States. The Greyhound Lines, with Cleveland as their headquarters, constitute the world's largest motor coach system, covering 50,000 miles of highways and serving every important city in America. The Short Line system, whose spread belies its name, likewise has a network extending from coast to coast and from the Great Lakes to the Gulf of Mexico. It has added to the original Vanderbilt bus system of New Eng- THE CITY'S WEALTH AND POWER - 729 land and Atlantic Coast lines, the Great Eastern Stages, owned and operated by Cleveland capital, covering the territory westward to the Mississippi River. Also the Penn-Ohio system, serving northeastern Ohio and western Pennsylvania, and minor branches reaching to the Ohio River, with connections for all southward points. The new Union Bus Terminal was described, at the time of its opening early in 1932, as accommodating a volume of arriving and departing passenger traffic closely approximating that of the Cleveland Union Railway Terminal itself, though far less pretentious in size and equipment. Not only does Cleveland appear to deserve, by its enter-prise and geographical position, the title of national bus transportation center, but it has played a foremost part in bus manufacture. The White Motor Company, a pioneer in this field, has its buses operating in every civilized country, and in 1932 was reported to have sold about $70,000,000 worth of them for American use. In 1929 it stopped using truck chassis for the purpose and, in cooperation with Great Lakes Stages and the Bender Body Company of Cleveland, began building a modern motor bus from the ground up, with admirable results. Its latest contribution to this industry is a revolutionary one, a "pancake motor" of twelve horizon-tally-opposed cylinders developing 225 horsepower, only eighteen inches high, placed under the floor of a newly de-signed coach. This arrangement gives more room and comfort for passengers, leaving no mechanical obstructions from front to rear except the radiator and steering gear. It has seating capacity for forty-four passengers, and with standing space filled will carry a hundred. There are other important bus-makers in northern Ohio, especially the Kent-Fageol Company at Kent. Cleveland had taken the lead in the motor industry with the pioneer work of Winton, Baker and their contemporaries, and held it until 1905. Detroit then forged ahead in the race, and has been ahead ever since. In the year 1932 nearly all of the old Cleveland manufacturers had disappeared. White and Peerless remained, the former now making only trucks 730 - THIS CLEVELAND OF OURS and buses and the latter confining itself to automobiles, and Jordan, reviving production after a period of inactivity. There was, too, the Cleveland Tractor Company, which formerly made the Rollin automobile. The Winton plant remains, a monument to a great car long associated with Cleveland, but not the Winton car. In 1912 Winton abandoned automobiles and went over to marine engines, with which he had greater success than before. Finally, turning to a new field in his old age, he did so well with new types of Diesel motor that he accomplished much toward making it the engine of the future, whether for water, land or air. The advantages of the Diesel over other motors, provided its weight can be reduced, are well known. It requires no electric firing system, offers no explosion risk, uses cheaper fuel and gives more power per fuel unit. It is being rapidly simplified and lightened by improved design and the use of new metal alloys. One of the most interesting of the recent Winton products has been a Diesel airplane motor. This work has continued since Mr. Winton's death in 1931. One of Winton's early rivals, Frank Ballou Stearns, pioneer builder and maker of the Stearns car, has likewise been laboring on a new Diesel engine, with which he hopes to revolutionize both automotive and marine transportation, in an experimental laboratory at his Shaker Heights home. For further privacy and convenience, he started in 1932 to build himself a new laboratory for the purpose in Geauga County, near Chardon, with homes for himself and his engineers and assistants. The White Motor Company for some years was Cleveland's largest independent manufacturer in any field. It has continued to be one of the country's foremost automotive concerns, with its varied lines of trucks, from small delivery vehicles up to ten-wheel truck-and-trailer units, its big passenger buses arid its special duty cars such as fire engines, police patrols, ambulances and armored cars. In September of 1932 announcement was made of the merger of the White Company and the Studebaker Corporation. The latter has become one of the chief independent THE CITY'S WEALTH AND POWER - 731 makers of motor vehicles, with plants at Detroit and South Bend. It produces passenger cars and trucks in various price ranges, including the Studebaker, Pierce-Arrow and Rockne. The combined capital of the two companies was $161,000,000. Assurance was given that the identity of the White Company would be maintained. In an interchange of officers and directors, A. R. Erskine, the sturdy accountant who built up Studebaker, assumed the chairmanship of the White Company board. Thomas H. White, the founder of the White business, died in 1914, and Rollin H. White retired in the same year from ill health, afterward going into other ventures. Walter C. White was killed in an automobile accident in 1929. Recently Thomas H. White, of the third generation, has been vice president and general manager, with W. King White, son of Rollin H., heading the Cleveland Tractor Company. This combination will make one of the strongest groups of independent manufacturers in the industry, and in many ways the two companies will complement each other. The White Motor plant, covering forty-two acres and employing normally 4,000 men, is one of the industrial show-places of Cleveland. As Cleveland has lost in the field of integral automobile manufacturing, she has gained correspondingly in the manufacture of parts, accessories and materials. Thus she has remained second only to Detroit in her contributions to the automotive industry. Car bodies, made by the Fisher Body Company, the Bender Body Company and various other firms, constitute a large part of this production. But the items are almost end-less. One motor car company in Detroit in 1932 was buying in Cleveland tools, foot rests, copper tubing, bushings, gas tank caps, radiators, shock absorbers, cap screws, bolts and nuts, washers, screw machine parts; pins and screws, buck-ram parts, door check straps, frame and axle housings, trunk racks, scuff plates, castors and wheel carriers. The Cleveland Census of Manufactures for 1927 gave the value of motor vehicles produced as $77,000,000, and of 732 - THIS CLEVELAND OF OURS motor vehicle bodies and parts as slightly more, both together amounting to $155,000,000, surpassing the city's basic steel industry. According to computations of the Cleveland Engineering Society, Cleveland produced in 1929 between $250,000,000 and $300,000,000 worth of cars, trucks, bodies, parts, accessories, steel and castings for the automotive trade. Steel has long been regarded as the city's leading industry, but steel feeds motors. About 70 per cent of the steel manufactured here finds its way into motor cars. In 1929 the bars, shapes and fabricated steel produced here for the industry amounted to $117,000,000. Nearly $20,000,000 of gray-iron castings were made into engine blocks and pistons, and there were $25,000,000 worth of malleable iron products and stampings used here or shipped elsewhere for the industry. But this is not the whole story. According to Allard Smith, chairman of the industrial development committee of the Cleveland Chamber of Commerce, ten dollars out of every hundred spent for automobiles in the United States comes to Cleveland for steel, parts, paint and other essentials. And how much money does the country spend for automobiles? For the answer we turn to records published by the National Automobile Chamber of Commerce. The ten leading American industries in the boom year of 1929 were, in order of importance, motor vehicles, slaughtering and meat packing, steel works and rolling mills, foundry and machine shops, petroleum refining, electrical machinery, printing and publishing, women's clothing, motor vehicle bodies and parts, bread and other bakery products. The value of all these manufactures together was $68,000,000,000. Motor vehicles were first, by a good lead, with a wholesale value of $3,718,000,000. Adding $1,545,000,000 for parts and bodies and $777,000,000 for tires, we have a total production volume of $6,040,000,000 for the year. The Census of Manufacturers, which compiled the figures, added $2,611,000,000 for petroleum refining, which provides the motor fuel and lubricants, making the stupendous total of THE CITY'S WEALTH AND POWER - 733 $8,650,000,000 for automotive manufactures. The summary was for the United States and Canada, which as far as this industry is concerned are virtually an economic unit. Other statistics given by "Facts and Figures of the Automobile Industry" were as follows: Production of cars in 1929 for United States and Canada was 5,621,000. There were over 5,000,000 persons employed in the auto-mobile industry in the United States, about one-fifth of them directly and four-fifths indirectly. Normal replacements were nearly 3,000,000 units a year. The average life of a car was seven years. The number of cars registered in the United States in 1930 was 26,523,000, including 23,042,000 automobiles and 3,481,000 motor trucks and buses. New registrations, showing ownership increase, averaged 3,450,000 a year from 1925 to 1930 inclusive. In 1930 there were 35,603,000 motor vehicles in the world, of which three-fourths were in the United States. American motor output was 87 per cent of world production. Automotive freight on the railroads was 3,330,000 car-loads, largely offsetting the freight traffic taken from rails by autos and trucks. Motor vehicle taxes of various kinds in 1930 totalled $1,000,000,000, of which state gasoline taxes alone were $494,000,000. Of the $1,700,000,000 income for building and maintaining rural roads in this country, three-fifths came from motor taxes. Miles of surfaced road in the country were 700,000 out of 3,000,000, with new surfacing and reconstruction going ahead at the rate of 55,000 miles a year. American gasoline consumption for the year was 15,761,400,000 gallons. There were 95,400 buses in use in the United States, run-ning 11,130,000,000 passenger-miles. Automobile fatalities (nothing to brag about) were 30,500. 734 - THIS CLEVELAND OF OURS Premiums for automobile insurance were $556,000,000. There were more than 50,000 automobile dealers in the country. One-fifth of all retail sales were automotive products. Rank of cities in manufacturing and assembly of cars was as follows : Detroit, Cleveland, Indianapolis, Lansing, Flint, Toledo, Auburn, Buffalo. The motor industry ranked first in consumption of iron and steel, gasoline, rubber, plate glass, nickel and lead. Net tangible assets of American motor vehicle manufacturers for several years had averaged about $2,000,000,000. In registration of cars New York State was first, California second, Ohio third, Pennsylvania fourth, Illinois fifth and Texas sixth. In city registration New York was first, Los Angeles second, Chicago third, Detroit fourth and Cleveland fifth. Automotive manufacture shared in the terrific fall of production in general industry in the depression beginning in the fall of 1929, and was especially low in 1932. There was much question as to what was going to happen to this leading industry. An interesting comment was made by John Love, business interpreter for the Cleveland Press, after talking with Howard Scott and his associates in Columbia University. This economic coterie, known as "technocrats," had been conducting an "energy survey" of North America. Love interpreted their technocratic explorations as indicating either an industrial Armageddon or a mellennial dawn by the year 1942. "Scott and his Columbia group," he wrote, "have been studying the auto industry, with results that have a tender meaning for the Lake Erie manufacturing region. Beginning around 1910, the production of autos began to vibrate up and down while it maintained a general upward direction. From 1910 to the present, it has been increasing the rate of vibration until it has reached unprecedented violence. It used to be that in poor years the production of cars would be four-fifths of the output of good years, but now it has reached the stage where it is only one-fourth that of good years. And THE CITY'S WEALTH AND POWER - 735 the industry does not seem able to get out of this vicious oscillation. "The swing grows deeper and higher, and the length of the waves shorter, as everybody in Cleveland connected with the auto parts industry has noticed. Scott believes that if the auto industry snaps out of this sink, it will rush up to unprecedented volume. Another boom, then, the greatest boom in history. That will be the time to sell, for a thundering crash will follow." The soaring of the new production cycle, according to the technocratic graphs, seemed due early in 1934. The phenomenon of increasing oscillation in general industry, Love remarked, had been discovered independently in Cleveland by Colonel Leonard P. Ayres. In 1931 he observed with alarm that depressions had tended since 1900 to go deeper. But "the Colonel never announced what he would do about it." Why was this great industry localized around the southern shore of Lake Erie, in northern Ohio, southern Michigan and northern Indiana? There are obvious reasons. Here was the meeting place of iron, coal and lumber, the three great raw materials, with unsurpassed transportation facilities by land and water. Here was not only the best production area but the best distributing region, because the states mentioned and those adjacent constituted the most densely populated region of the country and the region with the greatest consuming power. The national center of population during nearly all of the automotive era has been in northern Indiana. This western half of the "American Ruhr," extending from Cleveland to Detroit, was strategically located also for shipment to other sections. An intangible factor may be added. It is probably no accident that so many of the prime movers in this industry, with its unequalled demand for originality in invention and business method, were of New England stock, consisting largely of Connecticut Yankees transplanted on the Western Reserve. Many of the Michigan leaders themselves were originally Ohio men from east of Toledo, where the Connecti- 736 - THIS CLEVELAND OF OURS cut immigration wave subsided. The suggestion is not submitted as proved fact, but is probably worth looking into. Why did Cleveland lose its early leadership in the industry? Malcolm Keir in his "Manufacturing Industries of America" regards it as probably accidental that Olds and Ford established themselves at Detroit. Their motives were casual. "The expansion of the Ford business alone," he says, "would have set Detroit on the pinnacle of automobile manufacturing." The industry, being largely an assembly business, naturally went where it got a good start. Makers of parts located their plants where the market for them was greatest. Cleveland gained and kept her position in the big supplemental business of bodies, parts and accessories by a combination of enterprise and admirable facilities for ship-ping her output to Detroit. Recent gains in this respect, after a slight relapse, may be connected with the advantageous shipment of parts by motor truck. It may be interesting to speculate on what Cleveland's present automotive status might be if Winton had given Henry Ford a job when Melanovsky brought him here. The concentration of the motor industry in this small area, Keir thinks, will continue. Local consumption on the country's outer fringes is so slight, compared with the whole, that they cannot do their own manufacturing profitably, for lack of the benefits of mass production and accessibility of materials and parts. Here must end the story, already too long for its setting, of an industry which has had a large part in making Cleveland what it is, which has given our people and all the world more flexible, cheap and pleasant transportation than they ever enjoyed before, which has covered America with incomparable cars and incomparable roads to drive them on, which has spread cities out and brought distant friends and markets near, which is rapidly amalgamating city and country, which in one generation has wrought a greater revolution in human life than any other industry in human history. An appropriate ending may be a brief statement of the city's honorable share in a closely related industry which has developed THE CITY'S WEALTH AND POWER - 737 mainly within a decade, and which holds untold possibilities for the future. AVIATION Some future chronicler may present Cleveland aviation adequately in its setting with relation to the development of aviation as a whole, as the present writer has sought to do for other vital Cleveland industries. Here the narrative must be confined to local and recent developments. Cleveland's positive contribution to aeronautic progress until a few years ago centered about Glenn L. Martin, who for twenty years, starting in 1909, was engaged here in de-signing and constructing airplanes. During the war and later he was one of the largest builders of military and naval planes for the government. In 1929 he removed to Baltimore, in order to obtain tidewater facilities for new production plans, selling his local interests to the Great Lakes Aircraft Corporation. It has been, since that time the foremost builder of heavier-than-air craft in the Cleveland area, though there are numerous and rapidly multiplying producers of airplane parts and accessories. Conditions appear favorable for a rapid increase in the local scope of this industry, if local capital and enterprise take advantage of an opiportunity which Cleveland industry, on the whole, has hardly appreciated thus far. The big step forward came in 1925 with the building of the Municipal Airport, which constitutes most of this story. Its establishment was due to the vision and enterprise of William R. Hopkins, then city manager. There were a few privately owned landing fields around the city, operated by flying schools, but nothing adequate to accommodate or invite air traffic. His proposal immediately caught the public imagination, and the City Council appropriated $1,125,000 to acquire a large area of level farm land, admirably suited for aviation purposes, just outside of the city limits to the southwest, at the junction of Riverside Road and Brook Park Road. Development of the field began on May 1 of that year, under 738 - THIS CLEVELAND OF OURS the direction of Major John Berry, who brought the Airport to completion and has managed it ever since. In two months the port was ready for use. It opened on July 1, 1925. And it was just in time. Its opening night was the first night of flying by transcontinental mail. The next year the Ford hangar was built, to accommodate the traffic originated by the Ford Motor Company, which had begun making Ford-Stout planes and operating them between Detroit and Cleveland. In 1927 the Thompson hangar was added, for general passenger transport. Then came the great Lindbergh flight across the Atlantic, and commercial aviation really began growing. The airport grew with the traffic and always in advance of it. Levels and slopes were graded and, cindered for landing and taking off. Concrete aprons were provided. The land was drained. Roadways were made for automobiles. An administration building and service stations were provided. Private airplane companies were persuaded to use the field's facilities. There was complete cooperation with other aviation centers and with the Federal government. There are about 1,000 acres in the Airport, of which 660 acres were in use in 1932. The cost of the land to the city was $1,200,000, and of buildings and improvements $600,000. It was estimated in 1930 that the port represented an investment of $2,500,000. In contrast with this figure, the Pittsburgh airport cost $5,000,000, and the New York airport at Newark, New Jersey, $12,000,000. In 1932 the entire port, with its numerous buildings, municipal and otherwise, including twelve hangars, was considered worth $3,500,000 for field and equipment and $750,000 for buildings. The port is one of the best in the world, and the safest ever built in its approaches and safety devices. With its key station for weather reports, it is headquarters for information regarding upper air conditions for the eastern half of the United States. It handles thousands of weather reports a day, and through its radio station and ship teletype station maintained by the Department of Commerce broadcasts THE CITY'S WEALTH AND POWER - 741 weather maps and ship positions. It also has airway traffic supervision and control for the area of Washington, Cincinnati, Chicago, Detroit, Albany and New York. It has a control car, the only one of its kind in the world, and is described as the only port that absolutely handles traffic. Its volume of traffic is greater than that of any foreign port and second in America only to Newark, with which it runs nearly even. In 1932, a dull year, there were eighty-four transport movements a day, with service out of Cleveland to every part of the United States. At that time the port expected that a new transport service of express ships, carrying nothing but parcels, would start soon, delivering its freight anywhere in fourteen hours. The transportation prospect was for speedier schedules all round, and diversification of pay load, perhaps separating passengers, freight and mail. The air mail rates, it was realized, were excessive and unwise, holding back aviation. Further improvement of the port was expected as soon as public finance eased from the business depression. The chief need was more companies to use it. The Airport beacon serves not only as a lighthouse for airmen at night, but for landsmen for many miles around. There is always a thrill in approaching the place either by day or night, for there are always planes in the air, always ships landing and rising; but at night there is a special apipeal because of the varied illumination of the grounds, buildings and flying craft. The fine administration building and its half-mile of flanking structures, which might be called Aviation Row, steadily gaining in number, themselves tell much of the Airport story. They are quarters for American Airways, Pennsylvania Airlines, United Air Lines and the Thompson Aero-nautical Corporation, which operates Trans-American Airlines, together giving comfortable and swift transportation to every important city in America. Thompson also operates seaplanes to Detroit from the lake front at East Ninth Street. Local flying, the training of flyers and airplane sales and service are amply provided for, through the facilities of the 742 - THIS CLEVELAND OF OURS Cleveland Institute of Aviation, Skyways Incorporated, Aircraft Service Incorporated, and Sundolph Aeronautical Corporation. Opposite, across the field, are the big grandstands for air races. Air buses and private training schools are also found at various places around the city outside of the Airport. There are supplementary air ticket offices down town, and there is rapid bus service between the city and the Airport. The administration building serves as a passenger station, with ticket offices, restaurant and other facilities for air travelers. The traffic is handled very much as it would be for railroad trains. Eight years before the writing of this sketch, there was no flying in Cleveland, except for testing factory planes, or the occasional adventure of some dare-devil sportsman, or a few minutes' flight in some flimsy, hired plane left over from the war. Now a visitor remembering those days, and walking into the waiting room of the Airport, stares with astonishment at the big bulletin board giving the time of arrival and departure of the next plane from or to— Akron, Albany, Atlanta, Boston, Buffalo, Chicago, Cincinnati, Columbus, Dallas, Detroit, Kansas City, Los Angeles, Louisville, Memphis, Moline, New Orleans, and so on down the alphabet. The formal opening of the Airport in 1925 brought out the greatest crowd ever seen in Cuyahoga County up to that time. There have been immense crowds at the national air races held at the Airport in recent years. Here is a community enterprise in which the community takes obvious pride and pleasure, yet perhaps without realizing its potentialities. Through this outlet the city's horizon is immensely widened. Around the airport may grow an air city. Other American cities have airports now. There were 411 of them in 1932, and they are increasing continually. It is to the glory of Cleveland that she built the first muni-cipal airport and set the example for the rest. Therein the city builded better even than she knew. The following statement is from one of the highest authorities in American aviation : THE CITY'S WEALTH AND POWER - 743 "Airports had to come before aviation. And they had to be built by public enterprise. Private enterprise could not have done it. Cleveland saw the need and opportunity, and enabled other cities to see it. Aviation has grown as they have provided the facilities. The Cleveland Airport created American aviation." Some day, no doubt, there will be a monument to William R. Hopkins set up at the Cleveland airport. But the Airport itself will be his real monument. CHAPTER IV WAR—HOW CLEVELAND WAGED IT If Moses Cleaveland were to return in the flesh, there is no doubt that he would be guest of honor at a meeting. of the Chamber of Commerce, and a strong probability that the presiding officer would say, among other things: "With almost incredible prevision and imagination he founded a city which was to know no floods, no earthquakes, no plagues nor drouths, no crippling conflagrations and no tornadoes : a city for which the elements seem to have established a covenant, in which Mars himself has joined, to keep her untouched by major disaster." Moses, being human, would likely have sunned himself in that glorification, but being honest, would have disclaimed credit for such farsightedness. He must have recognized the healthfulness of the firm, high ground and the climate, and the capacity of the lake to take care of the excess waters of the Cuyahoga in flood times. He may have known enough of the law of storms to see that his chosen site was off the path of tornadoes. But he could not have foreseen the singular and blessed fact that for more than a century and one-third, the city he founded was never to be prostrated, nor even halted in her stride, by Nature—or War. Earthquakes and flame devastated a great sister city in the West. The sea rose and engulfed one in the South. A hurricane flattened dozens of East Coast towns. Cleveland knew such horrors through the columns of the newspapers. Sometimes the threat has come very close, as when Dayton and the central Ohio cities were awash in the great rains in the spring. of 1913 and when, in 1924, Lorain, only twenty-five miles to the West, was prostrated by a tornado. But it is - 744 - THE CITY'S WEALTH AND POWER - 745 big news in Cleveland when a "flood" sweeps away a few boards from a Flats lumber yard or a "tornado" blows the roof off a sausage factory. The old Cleveland World listed the city's famous disasters in a thorough search through yellowed newspaper files and found these : There was a cholera epidemic in 1850, sweeping from the East and caused, it was thought, by pollution of water supply. In midiJuly of that year there were twelve cases and six deaths in Cleveland in one week. The next week there were sixteen deaths and the next, eighteen. By the middle of September the total was one hundred and thirty deaths and four hundred cases. But Sandusky was worse off, and Cleveland's council appointed a relief committee of three, through whom money and physicians were sent. In 1854, twenty buildings on the south side of the Public Square were burned. If we accept contemporary editorial opinion as a criterion, the economic loss of that fire was secondary to the loss, by sudden death, of one Captain Taylor, of the ship Western World in Detroit. The newspaper gave a full telegraphic report of the death of Captain Taylor, followed the next day by a column of editorial eulogy, while it devoted a paragraph under a one-line heading to the fire. The same newspaper regarded as a major catastrophe the burning of the Ives Brewery, at the foot of Canal Street, in 1865. This atrocity was attributed to Confederate emissaries, sent North to inflict a staggering blow upon their victors. Fire broke out on September 26, 1872, in the Northern Ohio Hospital for the Insane. Five hundred inmates were safely carried to near-by churches and only two were lost. Long before the days of automobiles, as told in the chapiter on "Oil," the more volatile distillations of crude, such as gasoline, were a waste product, and the Standard Oil Company used to spill these conveniently into Kingsbury Run. Small boys of the period found the practice a source of entertainment and excitement. They used to set fire to the stream. Some of the fires caused much damage, notably one in February of 1880. Firemen had to dam the brook. 746 - THIS CLEVELAND OF OURS "Thousands from every part of the city," ran a newspaper account, "gathered to look upon the fascinating spectacle, and were divided between their fears that the firemen would be unable to subdue the raging flames and the desire not to have the wonderful scene vanish, as it slowly did." In the early part of February, 1883, warm, heavy rains rapidly melted the ice and snow. The Cuyahoga River and the old canal overflowed their banks. Two million feet of lumber, worth $300,000, were carried out into Lake Erie, stores were flooded and vessels damaged. The total loss was estimated at $750,000. There was a big Flats lumber fire on September 7, 1884. The militia was called out to maintain order, and fire departments were called from Elyria, Erie, Delaware, Columbus, Youngstown, Painesville, Akron and Toledo. One million dollars worth of property was destroyed in about six hours. A street car ran through an open draw in the Central Viaduct in November of 1895, and fifteen men were drowned in July, 1896, when a scow upset in the Cuyahoga River. Nearer to the hearts and memories of living residents was the Collinwood School fire, in 1908. One hundred and seventy-two little children and two teachers died behind jammed doors. As to wars : Old men used to tell round-eyed children that Perry's guns were heard in Cleveland in 1813. The Commodore's famous victory over the fleet of the British was won off West Sister Island, in Lake Erie, about seventy-five miles away. There was so little breeze that morning that the ships could scarcely maneuver, and it was not blowing toward Cleveland. The guns used were of trifling caliber as compared with modern armament. However, if respect for the memories and ears of these early chroniclers outweighs other considerations, it may be stated that here was the first, last and only time guns of war were heard in Cleveland. The Revolution was fought before Cleveland was born. The Mexican war was waged far South. During the Rebellion, true, Cleveland saw her sons march away in uniform THE CITY'S WEALTH AND POWER - 747 and saw them later borne through her streets on gun carriages. The scenes were repeated in far lesser scale, in the war with Spain. But there has been no direct contact with war's ravages and there was certainly no war-consciousness in 1914 when the spark of the world's holocaust was struck at Sarajevo. It is valuable to consider our city's lack of consciousness of wars and ravages as touching herself, her detached concern in them, in order to gauge accurately the contribution which Cleveland made to her country in the World war. It is well to know, too, what she was thinking of when the blow came, this city which was trained to believe "A thousand shall fall at thy side, and ten thousand at thy right hand ; but it shall not come nigh thee." Theodore Roosevelt was attacking President Wilson for the latter's attitude toward business. Mayor Newton D. Baker arrived home from Europe, full of plans for a splendid new Union Station. John H. Clarke quit the race for election to the United States Senate to accept a Supreme Court justiceship. The baseball team, the "Naps," led by Napoleon Lajoie, was in last place and held a minor share in the con-versation of the street corners. The ripening of $10,000,000,000 worth of grain led people to believe that the business "corner was turned." There was a very active interest in the war, of course, on the part of the large German population, which has been estimated as high as forty per cent, and many were preparing to return and fight for the Fatherland. There were twelve hundred Serbs in the local colony and many more Austro-Hungarians, all of like mind with the Germans. Two thousand of these Austro-Hungarians, reservists, registered in one day, August 8. But just then President Wilson told his Attorney General to inquire about the reported high cost of living and whether prices were being' advanced "upon the pretext of the conditions existing in Europe." The Cleveland District Attorney's office immediately got busy and it developed that potatoes were up five cents a bushel, from 85 to 90 cents, and 748 - THIS CLEVELAND OF OURS sugar up one-half cent, to eight and one-half cents a pound. Here was something real to talk and think about. Belgium "ran in blood." On October 30, William C. Redfield, Secretary of Commerce, said that Monday and Tuesday of that week were the biggest business days the United States had ever known. On Monday the exports from New York were over $6,000,000, the largest day in history. "Now," he said, "we are going to supply the nations of the earth with the things they need. Many auto factories are working day and night and other industries are receiving large orders from Europe." This utterance was made in Cleveland and fell pleasantly upon the ears, although it did not surprise anyone. For some time, now, there had been much activity in the local plants, revamping the ploughshare and pruning hook departments to meet the developing need for heavy shoes, blankets, motor trucks, shells and other requirements of "the nations of the earth." In February of 1915 Great Britain held up the cargo of an American ship and said she might have to declare all food-stuffs contraband. This news was soon forgotten in the excitement over women's suffrage and home rule for the liquor traffic, which issues were closer at home. By January of 1916 there were days and days when the local newspapers carried no European war news at all upon the front pages. Upon this peaceful and somewhat complacent atmosphere there came startingly January 29. President Woodrow Wilson stepped before an immense throng in the Grays' Armory and said : "Let me tell you very solemnly, you cannot afford to post-pone this thing (preparedness) . I do not know what a single day may bring forth. I do not wish to leave you with the impression that I am thinking of some particular danger. I merely wish to leave you with this solemn impression, that I know that we are daily treading amidst the most intricate dangers, and that the dangers we are treading amongst are not of our own making and are not under our control ; and that no man in the United States knows what a single week THE CITY'S WEALTH AND POWER - 749 or a single day or a single hour may bring forth. You may count upon my heart and resolution to keep you out of war, but you must be ready if it is necessary that I should maintain your honor." The effect was halting—a bit chilling—but not long enduring. This president had "kept us out of war" and the city had confidence that he would continue to do so. There was a more immediate interest in Mexico, where there were Cleveland men, the Fifth Regiment of the Ohio National Guard, under Col. Charles X. Zimerman. In the November elections Cleveland helped return President Wilson to office and continued to trust in the security which the years had guaranteed. Accordingly, the sudden swiftness of the events of February, 1917, came with the shock of hostile gun fire upon a peaceful village. Careful study of the happenings of the next five months reveals the soul of Cleveland as no other chapter of her history has shown it. It is a proud record and worthy of the detailed narration which follows. On February 1, Germany announced unrestricted submarine warfare against neutral as well as enemy ships, and the United States severed diplomatic relations two days later. Indignation in America was increased by discovery that Germany had been conspiring with Mexico in an effort to embroil us in a war at home. Congress voted to arm cargo ships. Now watch Cleveland. The crew of the Naval Reserve Training' Ship Dorothea packed their guns and announced that they were all ready to fight; eighty per cent of the citizens declared, in a poll, that they endorsed the arming of merchant ships; the Red Cross local chapter met in special session and made ready to go; Lakeside Red Cross Hospital Base, on November 4, said it was prepared to leave for the front when called; and Frank A. Scott, called to Washington to describe what help Cleveland manufacturers could give, was able to offer the plants of The American Multigraph Co., Hydraulic Pressed Steel, Cuyahoga Stamping and Machine and Morgan Litho-