THE CITY'S LIFE - 925 there a home for the sick and the aged poor, too. Not only that, but he founded a home for erring boys at Hudson, so that they might be freed from the influences of older men, more hardened in wrong-doing. There were others in this "bright young men" group, some in official position, some not, but all loyal and enthusiastic, some adoring. With Johnson, who ran as a Democrat, was elected a council which he controlled. The battlefield was ready. Nearly all the street railway lines in the city were under one management, the Cleveland Electric Railway Company, whose president was Horace Andrews and whose directors and stockholders were powers in business and finance. The company's franchise was about to expire and the council had authority to renew it or grant it to some competitor. Johnson demanded that the fare be reduced to three cents, and had a company all ready to take over the franchise on a three-cent-fare basis. But the railway was not without resources and staunch friends. One of the latter was Mark Hanna. Johnson might control the city council, but Hanna had the legislature of the state and the state officials. One month after Johnson's election Hanna had prevailed upon Attorney General Sheets to bring ouster proceedings against the Cleveland council upon the grounds that the Federal plan of government was unconstitutional. Naturally the ouster was against every city in the state, in its effect. The supreme court upheld the attorney general's contentions, and all city governments in the state were destroyed, all improvements stopped and—every council enjoined against the issuance of any franchises. In August, 1902, Hanna placed before the legislature a plan to put the administrations of city governments into the hands of boards, members of which were to be elected. This plan also gave the Governor power to remove any mayor for malfeasance. Hanna went to the length of asking legislation to make possible the granting of perpetual franchises, whereupon Johnson went to Columbus and fought the issue out on the floor of the legislature. He won the fight on the franchise issue, but lost his charter battle, although Hanna's plan 926 - THIS CLEVELAND OF OURS was considerably modified when finally adopted. The mayor was allowed to name the three members of the board of public safety, which controlled the fire and police departments. The three members of the board of public service were elected, as were also the city solicitor, city treasurer and city auditor. The council contained one member from each ward, and four members were elected at large. The most that Hanna gained by this maneuver was a respite of two years for the old railway company; for Johnson still controlled the council and, for that matter, the administrative officials as well, so that, when the smoke of battle had cleared away, he was able to grant to a low-fare company of his own creation the first of the expired franchises of the Cleveland Electric. On the twenty-third of September, 1903, ground was broken for the three-cent fare line on the West Side. That fall the Municipal Association opposed the Mayor for re-election, fearing his domination of the council and still doubtful as to his sincerity. The Association threw its support to Harvey D. Goulder, attorney for the vessel owners and president of the Chamber of Commerce. But "Mayor Tom" was elected again and the fight was pushed. With his Forest City Railway Company ready to take over the franchises of the old company as fast as they expired, and with a city council ready to do his bidding, the mayor's problem was to hang onto his office and he would win to a certainty. The strategy of his opponents was to beat him at the polls and harass him in the courts. Battalions of lawyers were engaged. The mayor was on the aggressive, the old company of the defensive. Most of the action was thought out by Johnson and his lieutenants, while the other side usually replied by court injunction. One night the railway men got word that something had been started. They rang up Attorney Fred L. Taft, known thereafter as "Paul Revere Taft," who dashed through the midnight to the home of a judge, routed him out of bed and got an injunction. Plans had been agreed upon, late in 1905, for the annexation of South Brooklyn to Cleveland, but the final papers had THE CITY'S LIFE - 927 not been signed. In his "History of Cleveland and its Environs," Elroy M. Avery tells a delightful story of this and other episodes. He writes : "Mayor Johnson was informed that the village council (of South Brooklyn) was likely to grant an extended franchise to the Cleveland Electric Railway Company before the annexation proceedings were completed. Then Peter Witt, the city clerk and staunch lieutenant of the mayor, was sent with a policeman to South Brooklyn to seize all village papers and records and to take the clerk of the village into the city and hold him there as long as might be necessary. Then a force of the city police was sent to the village to guard the village hall and to prevent any meeting of the village council until the annexation was a thing accomplished. "A holding company known as the Municipal Traction Company was formed and leased the property (of the Forest City Company). The Cleveland council gave this Municipal Traction Company a franchise to lay a duplicating line on the west side of Fulton Road and, by resolution, ordered (June 11, 1906) the Cleveland Electric Railway Company to move its track from the middle of Fulton Road to make room for the proposed track and to do so within thirty days. Fulton Road was an important bit in the proposed advance of the low-fare lines toward the Public Square, but the order of the council was disregarded by the old company. Mayor John-son laid his plans for a coup with care and secrecy. On the morning of the twenty-fifth of July, the mayor, the president of the board of public service, the street superintendent, with other city officials, the president of the Traction Company and workmen were at Fulton Road by five o'clock and promptly began the work of tearing up the tracks that were still in the middle of the highway. When the officials of the Cleveland Electric Railway Company tardily heard of the mayor's move, they applied for an injunction which the com-pliant court promptly granted. The process server who was rushed to the scene did not find the really responsible party and, as no one else could call off the workmen, the injunction was ignored. For this palpable offense, the mayor and the 928 - THIS CLEVELAND OF OURS president of the board of public service were cited for con-tempt of court. The mayor was exonerated, but his subordinate was fined $100, 'which I am happy to say, he never paid,' Mayor Johnson says in his autobiography entitled 'My Story.' " On the first of November, 1906, the West Siders decorated their houses and made gala day as the first three-cent car went by with Mayor Johnson acting as motorman. "All that now stood between the three-cent line (the `Three-fer' it was commonly called) and the coveted center of the city was the lower part of Superior Street from the eastern end of the viaduct to the Public Square, then occupied by four tracks of the old company. For years this had been 'free territory,' but the courts had tied it up with an injunction. In the night following the twenty-sixth of December, 1906, the board of public service held a meeting and authorized the action that quickly followed. Hundreds of men and scores of teams and the needed material had been assembled in secluded but convenient parts of the downtown district. At midnight the work in hand was begun, and morning found a straggling, zig-zag track laid on top of the pavement from the viaduct to the Square. The trolley wire overhead hung loosely from scantling arms carried by trolley poles that 1,vere planted in cinder-filled barrels that were nailed to weighted wagons to keep them in place. And so the three-cent cars got to the center of the city. The performance was audacious, picturesque and characteristic." The day of triumph for Tom L. Johnson came on the twenty-seventh of April, 1908, when all car lines in the city were operated by the Municipal Traction Company on the three-cent basis, and on the following day all cars were operated free to the public. The battle had been won but the war was not yet over. President A. B. DuPont, of the Municipal Traction Company, gave the choice runs to his men—those who had fought with him against the old company—and a strike resulted. Capital was timid and would not help the new company in its financing. The city council placed the credit of the city behind the Municipal Company, but the law provided that such legisla- THE CITY'S LIFE - 929 tion should be subjected to a referendum, if called for. The strikers took up the job of getting signers to the referendum petition and the ordinance was killed on October 22, 1908, by the small majority of about 600. The Municipal Company could not get money, and all its lines went back to the control of the Cleveland Railway Company on March 1, 1910, under a new franchise directed by Federal Judge Robert W. Tayler. The basic rate of fare under this franchise was three cents, varying according to conditions. Lincoln Steffens, who had been "muck-raking" American cities in the interest of good government and McClure's Magazine, had saved Cleveland and Tom Johnson as a piece de resistance. Steffens had no doubt that Johnson, "the loud, laughing mayor of Cleveland," a big business man in politics, was a "demagogue and a dangerous man." Frederick C. Howe, one of the mayor's group, introduced Steffens to Johnson. "What are you up to, Mr. Mayor? What are you after ?" "That I cannot tell you," Johnson answered. "You wouldn't understand if I did. The town is open to you. You may go where you like, ask anything you want to know, and if anybody refuses to open a door or answer your questions, you come back to me and I'll tell you. And then, when you know something, we can talk." Howe told Steffens later that Johnson had ordered that no one try to influence Steffens, but that he was to be aided in getting any information he wished. Steffens was unable to get anything "on" Johnson, and went away with a sense of defeat, still convinced that this rich man, this railway monopolist, was not giving his time and his service to the city for the city's sake, and that time would show him up. He would be running for governor or senator, or his innocent young associates would be passing some franchise for his guilty use. Steffens came back in a year and, sure enough, Johnson was running for governor. But by this time Steffens had seen the compulsion that drove city reformers to the state, like Folk at St. Louis, or governors to the Senate, like LaFol- 930 - THIS CLEVELAND OF OURS lette in Wisconsin. It was, he said, an effort to reach to the higher seat of authority, in order to accomplish the purposes which could not be gained in the cities, where the state dom-inated. Steffens asked Johnson what the latter had meant when he told the writer a year before that Steffens would not understand. In his "Autobiography" Steffens quotes Johnson's reply: "Oh, I could see that you did not know what it was that corrupted politics. First you thought it was bad politicians, who turned out to be pretty good fellows. Then you blamed the bad business men who bribed the good fellows, till you discovered that not all business men bribed, and that those who did were pretty good business men. The little business men didn't bribe; so you invented the phrase 'big business,' and that's as far as you and your kind have got : that it is big business that does all the harm. Can't you see that it is privileged business that does it? Whether it's a big steam railroad that wants a franchise or a little gambling house that wants not to be raided, a temperance society that wants a law passed or a big merchant occupying an alley for stor-age—it's those who seek privileges that defend our corrupt politics. Can't you see that?" Steffens could and did. But there were plenty who could not or, if they could, did not believe in Johnson's sincerity. The Municipal Association had not endorsed Johnson in 1901, opposed him as a "boss" in 1903, supported him in 1905 and opposed him in 1907 and 1909. In 1907 the Association reiterated its fear that his domination of council and the administration held dangerous elements of bossism, and added new objections to the effect that Johnson was spending too much money and had failed to regulate the dance halls. The Association favored the election of Theodore E. Burton, Republican congressman, later senator and president of an important New York bank, honest, orthodox, conventional. The same reasons were advanced in 1909 by the Association which this time, inclined to Herman C. Baehr, an estimable, handsome man, with an irreproachable record in county office and in his brewing business, where he had been most successful. THE CITY'S LIFE - 931 Johnson's policy on vice had perplexed a good many people. Once a committee of clergymen approached him to protest that he did not enforce the law. He had called in the saloon keepers and told them that if they would not sell to children, would permit no gambling machines, keep good order and not offer bribes to his policemen, he would not hold them to the exact limitations of the law. One clergyman had been quoted in a newspaper to the effect that there was corruption in the police force. When pressed for particulars the clergyman stated that he knew of one case where a saloon-keeper had given a policeman five dollars for the privilege of keeping his saloon open after closing hours. Johnson told the clergyman that he did not understand vice, but he did know that it stood in with business and political corruption because it sought also the privilege of breaking the law. He gave vice that privilege in order that it might not interfere with his police force, and might leave him free to deal with the corruption that he, a business man, did understand. Early in his mayoralty career Johnson had called in a young policeman, Fred Kohler, and made him chief. Between them they figured out and enforced some police policies that gained attention all over the country and in Europe. One of these was the "Golden Rule" policy, by whose operations minor offenders were released without appearance in court. There was a "sun-rise court" at Central Police Station where "drunks" were reprimanded and set free after a night of sobering sleep in a cell. Then there was a famous policy of dealing with gamblers. The police had had great difficulty, and still have, in obtaining convictions of gamblers in court, because the possession of gambling devices was not held to be sufficient evidence that gambling for money had been going on, and it was seldom indeed that the police could catch their suspects in the act. So Kohler and his men adopted the simple but effective plan of conducting their raids with axes. When they found gambling devices they smashed them, added a few blows to mirrors and bar fixtures for good measure, and went away without making any arrests. Another novel method was inaugurated that is still being 932 - THIS CLEVELAND OF OURS used. When complaints were received against a questionable resort, the police did not bother to make arrests, which meant either that the defendants would win in court or that they would be subjected to a fine, payable from profits, and go their way. Satisfied that the complaints were justified, Kohler merely stationed a policeman in uniform on the sidewalk in front of the house. There he stood, hour after hour, asking no questions, making no fuss. Just stood there. Trade faded away and the house closed, without court procedure, without cost to the city, without any bother or trouble except to the inmates. There was vice, but there was no tribute by vice to government. There was no vice "graft," unless one considers such cases as the one mentioned before—the five dollar one. Chief Kohler controlled the underworld as no other chief in Cleveland has controlled it, before or since. During the Johnson administrations the citizens were planning for grouping their public buildings on the Mall, and a newspaper was curious to know whether the property owners in that section were going to submit to condemnation without putting up a fight. A reporter called upon a saloon-keeper down there and asked: "Do you own this place?" "Yes." "Doing a good business?" "Fine." "Well, what are you going to do if the city tells you to get out?" "Boy, if Chief Kohler comes down here at nine o'clock in the morning and tells me to get out, you come back at noon and you won't see me no place. And I ain't asking no ques-tions." President Roosevelt called Kohler "the best police chief of the best governed city in the United States." History would be kinder to Kohler if it could stop with his record as police chief. The struggle for three-cent fare has so dazzled the eyes of the spectators that they have failed to note some underlying acts and motives of the Johnson administration. Johnson THE CITY'S LIFE - 933 went far beyond the limits of the course he and Henry George had set at the outset, so far beyond, in fact, that the original purpose seems to have been lost in the heat of the street railway battle. Had not Johnson died, soon after his last administration, he might have returned to that purpose, which was to fight for the single-tax theory, but it seems more likely that he would have gone on further along the main road which crossed the George lane. He had become a "champion of the common people" to such an extent that he would champion the cause of a petty crook if by so doing he could further his warfare against privilege in the bigger business circles. That is what he meant when he answered the clergymen and puzzled them, as he puzzled the people and his own crowd as well on another occasion. The new baseball park on Lexington Avenue was completed and he publicly granted to the railway company he was fighting an extension of its line to the ball park. This looked like a surrender, or even treason. But he explained that he was not fighting the street railway company nor its service, but the franchise and the principle which underlay the franchise. He said : "We want the street railway to carry people where they want to go, right up to the ball park. I would force them to deliver passengers at the park if they wouldn't do it voluntarily. So I give them a right to extend the line—not a franchise, not a property." The railway company went back to the management of the old group, but not to the old control. The people held and still hold control under the terms of the Tayler grant. Johnson's victory was complete. Not only did he reduce the fare, which was a side issue, but he abolished monopolistic privilege in street railway ownership, his main objective. Having turned his mind away from the making. of money to fight against his former economic companions, he saw the condi-tion of those outside the moneyed group, for the first time, and sympathized with them. Some men in Cleveland today cannot bring themselves to believe that Tom Johnson was a friend of the common people. While they do not ascribe to him sinister and selfish purposes, they say that, having made 934 - THIS CLEVELAND OF OURS all the money he needed, he turned to the street railway battle for diversion, for the joy of battle itself, for the sake of the game. "A leopard does not change his spots," they argue. Johnson did not change his spots. He only shifted his gaze. You can see an exactly similar situation anywhere today. A lady in comfortable circumstances turns the beggar from her door in the belief that "all beggars are shiftless loafers." The next day a friend takes her on a tour with a welfare worker and the lady becomes a welfare worker herself. She hasn't changed. Her heart was all right all the time. She just hadn't been looking in the right direction. Johnson had opened up the parks to the people and had removed the "Keep Off The Grass" signs. Cooley had built the Warrensville Farm Colony. Friedrich stamped out the small-pox epidemic. Street car fare was three cents, instead of five. Graft and privilege had been eliminated from municipal government and the political machines of the professionals had been dismantled and stored away to await better days. So the people of Cleveland proceeded to kick Tom Johnson out. The late William H. Taft had the only believable explanation. Speaking in Cleveland of his experience as President he said : "The American people just get tired of seeing the same face all the time." The northwest corner of the Square, as everybody knows, is dedicated to free speech and anybody can go there at any time and blow off his excess steam to anyone that will listen. It's a feeding ground for the pigeons, too, and children like to go there with peanuts, for the pigeons are so friendly and trustful that they will rest on your outstretched hand or perch on your shoulder. Sometimes you can see a long line of men, late in the afternoon, waiting for a truck that brings kettles of hot soup and bread. The truck comes right over the sidewalk without regard to traffic laws, and the policemen say nothing. Other parts of the square may be railed in, but you can walk all over this one. And there are comfortable THE CITY'S LIFE - 935 benches under the trees where a tired fellow can actually go to sleep and no policeman will give him a "hot-foot" with a night stick. Right in the center of this section is a monument to Tom L. Johnson, sculptured by Herman N. Matzen. It shows him seated in an office chair, a book in his hand. The sculptor was inspired to place the statue almost on a level with the ground so that you can walk right up a couple of low steps and sit in the figure's lap, if you want to, and as the children do. Often the statue is completely covered by Communists and their red flags and banners, holding a demonstration. That doesn't hurt the statue any. It is of bronze and will endure. On the pedestal is this : "He found us groping, leaderless and blind He left a city with a civic mind." There has been a lot of controversy over that "groping, leaderless and blind" statement, but not so much about the "civic mind." No better illustration of the condition of the civic mind of the first decade of the new century has come to light than a sentence which appears in a pamphlet recently issued to set forth the purpose of the Citizens League. In a brief history of its progress, the League says that county conditions were bad, during the Johnson years, and also that politics were rife in the board of education. But, "The Municipal Association was unable to arouse much non-partisan interest in city or county affairs while the public mind was interested in the mayor's doings." Johnson taught the people that their government was theirs, and the streets and parks and franchises that went with the government. He conducted a free school of political economy and made the study interesting and applicable to everyday life. He showed that municipal government was actually of intimate concern to the citizens, that it touched their daily lives and should be intelligently attended to, lest the rights and privileges that belong to all be usurped by the designing but clever and industrious few. An observer of the Johnson days said that Cleveland was the only city in the 936 - THIS CLEVELAND OF OURS world where you could get up a fist fight over a bond issue. That sort of awakened civic thought was the great heritage that Tom L. Johnson left. He left little else, in a material sense, for his great fortune had dwindled to a few thousands at the time of his death. The years since 1900 had been famine times for the "organization" men of both parties, yet those who had the courage and the persistence to hang on to the shreds of organization found ample rewards for their faithfulness. The Johnson regime was a freak episode in politics and not to be reckoned on as a normal force. Neither Democratic nor Republican organization men profited, nor was the regular machinery of either party damaged other than by the rust of long disuse. A few far-sighted organizers saw that the party leader who held on while his fellows turned aside would some day find himself in the driver's seat with the way cleared for the machine to start. Such a seer was our Harvard acquaintance of the nineties. He got behind Herman C. Baehr, together with the Municipal Association, some of the newspapers, the "best" citizens and the common citizens, and together they booted Johnson out and Baehr in. The event best remembered of Baehr's administration was his appointment of a young backwoods lawyer from Wisconsin to the job of commissioner of street railways in Cleveland, at a salary of $12,000. However, Baehr's two years of peace and calm gave opportunity for a plan to develop that was of great importance to Cleveland—home rule for cities. In 1910 the Paine law added to the power of mayors in Ohio by permitting them to name a director of public service, who, with the mayor and a director of public safety, made up the board of control. This Paine law also established a civil service commission. But the Municipal Association and Newton D. Baker now launched a determined effort to gain the right for Ohio cities to choose their own form of government, best adapted to their local needs. They were successful in getting a constitutional convention called in 1912, and went before that convention with a most carefully planned campaign. Their demands, in general, were that communi- THE CITY'S LIFE - 937 ties numbering less than 5,000 inhabitants were to be classified as villages and those over 5,000 to be classified as cities, both classes to have the right to frame their own charters. They asked that each community should have control of its schools and police and have the right to own its public utilities. The state might continue to limit taxes and public debt, audit city accounts and supervise elections. The opposition came from the voters in rural sections, who had nothing to gain from the proposed change and much to lose in the advantages they had enjoyed in their control over the big, rich centers; from the "drys," who feared for the effects upon local option, and naturally from the owners of public utilities. Against these forces were arrayed the delegations from the big cities, strongly organized. Newton D. Baker headed the Cleveland group and became the most influential figure in the long fight. There were forty-one amendments agreed to, but the cities carried their point in principle and the state gave the cities home rule in November, 1912. Cuyahoga County supplied nearly one-half the majority for the resolution. Cleveland elected a charter commission in which A. R. Hatton, a university professor, played a prominent part. The charter was approved by the voters in July, 1913, and became effective January 1, 1914. It gave the mayor power to name all city department heads; and these, with the mayor, passed on contracts and routine matters. The charter provided for non-partisan elections, initiative, referendum and control. Baker had followed Baehr in the mayor's chair. So much is said of him elsewhere that words here would be but purposeless repetition. It is striking, though, that so little is said against this big man who has done big things. He seems to have no enemies. He made some when he was war secretary, but most of them have retracted their former criticisms. He has been in politics since 1900 continuously, heads the local county Democratic organization, is intellectual leader of the national party and takes an active part in campaigns, yet has no mud slung at him. It is seldom that magnitude in a doer is so unanimously recognized. 938 - THIS CLEVELAND OF OURS Baker was re-elected in 1913. He had not as yet reached his full stature, and some of his popularity may be traced to the Tom L. Johnson influence on civic thought. The city charter, in its provision for municipal ownership of public utilities, is most certainly a reflection of that influence. While Baker was mayor, the "best police chief," Fred Kohler, was surprised in an adventure of gallantry and summarily dismissed from the force. Harry L. Davis, Republican, staunch organization man and public officeholder of long experience, was elected in 1915 to succeed Baker. Baker did not want the office any longer and the Republican organization was in splendid condition. Davis' administration was chiefly notable for its activities in support of the Nation in the World war. He was re-elected in 1917 and again in 1919, but resigned May 1, 1920, to be-come governor. His law director, William S. Fitzgerald, succeeded him. The next mayor, elected in 1921, was Fred Kohler, neither Republican nor Democrat, organization man nor anybody's man, with no great Cause, filling no emergency. No one had heard much about Kohler since he had been dismissed by Baker, and no one expected to hear much about him in future. As police chief he had gained a lot of knowledge about men and things, much of which knowledge was not current, but for which there was enough demand to give it value, and Kohler was engaged in the business of informed advising. This man plays his part in a story of the development of political thought because of the marvelous circum-stances of his successful campaign for election, but he also deserves note on his own personal account. In the first place, he was as fearless physically as a human being ever is. When he was chief of police he was told, late at night, that a notorious criminal was boasting that he would shoot Kohler on sight. Alone and in citizens' clothes, Kohler went to the "tenderloin" saloon where the man was boasting, walked up to him through the hostile crowd, collared him and took him to jail. No chief was so hated by his men or so feared and respected, hated for his ruthless THE CITY'S LIFE - 939 discipline and feared and respected for his undoubted courage and ability. During the Johnson administration he and his police were free from suspicion of grafting, and a thorough investigation by one of the newspapers failed to disclose the slightest indication of police corruption, except in sporadic and unorganized instances. He played no politics, never "belonged" to any group, but played a lone hand always. When he decided he would like to be mayor, he went about the job as he went after the threatening crook—walked up to it alone and collared it. He could not make a speech and did not try to. His campaign consisted simply of going from house to house, ringing the doorbell and announcing : "I'm Fred Kohler, and I would like to have you vote for me for mayor." Asked what he would do, if mayor, he said : "I will fire all the loafers and cut down the expenses." The voters weighed the situation with normal thorough-ness, and elected Kohler. He did just what he said he would do, namely, fired officeholders by the hundreds. Every employee that held his job in that administration did more than a day's work every day. Department heads were forced to ring in at eight-thirty in the morning and quit when the whistle blew, just like the street repair gang. When he left office, at the end of one term, his report claimed that he had saved the city $2,800,000, and he left $1,800,000 in the treasury. The criticism most often heard against Kohler's methods was that he used too much orange and black paint. He liked the combination and, to save money, bought barrels of it and had it spread everywhere, on fences, park benches and shelter houses. Other outcry was against his practice of putting up billboards, also in orange and black, announcing : "City of Cleveland. Corporation limits. Fred Kohler, Mayor." But the city had meanwhile decided to change its form of government again, this time in favor of the city managership brand, which was working successfully in smaller cities, not- 940 - THIS CLEVELAND OF OURS ably Dayton and Springfield, but had never been tried in so large a city as Cleveland. So Kohler was the last of the mayors of the first dynasty, and was succeeded by William R. Hopkins. Under the managerial form, the manager was elected by council and the council by the people. The choice of Hopkins was generally approved when he took office January 7, 1924, and his conduct of the office was popularly approved. He had been in the city council in the McKisson days, knew the practical side of politics, had established himself as an able executive and financier in the construction of the Belt Line Railroad, was honest, informed, progressive, constructive. Business was in favor of him and labor leaders found his record acceptable. His conduct of the city's affairs bore out the promise of his record and character. But councilmen found they could not "work with him." Hopkins said he could not work effectively under the hampering tactics of the council. And so Hopkins was discharged, January 13, 1930. The Council chose Daniel E. Morgan, attorney and republican organization man of good standing, for the new manager. Then the city tossed again on its bed of pain and returned, in 1932, to the mayoralty form of government which it had discarded eight years before. Ray T. Miller, the new mayor, as county prosecutor had made a conspicuous record in the prosecution of Republican city officials, some of whom he sent to the penitentiary. He also convicted a fellow charged with the murder of a councilman, William E. Potter, the case arousing great public interest because of the suspicion that Potter was killed at the instigation of politicians who feared he was about to betray them. The reason for the election of Miller and the reasons for the return to mayoralty government were identical. An effort will be made to show what those reasons were. If this writing is to be anything but a mere catalogue of names and dates, if it is to realize its purpose of setting forth an honest and thoughtful revealment of political development in Cleve-land, it may not stop with a bland statement that Ray T. THE CITY'S - 941 Miller became mayor. There is no finality in that conclusion. There is no answer to the query of why the city keeps tossing in pain but finds no solace, and there is scarcely more value to the narrative than would be found in a collection of city directories. The reader may now be interested in a more searching account of how the city has been governed, and why—in an inquiry as to whether this civic pain is really in the bed, or in the patient, and whether anything can be done about it. The political boss as a historical fact is the contribution of American cities to world progress in local government. No-where else is his counterpart. He is more discussed by voters than any issue or candidate in municipal campaigns, and less understood by the voters. His very title of "boss" indicates the utter misapprehension of his status and authority which exists in the minds of most of those who condemn him. The boss is not a self-constituted dictator who has seized the reins of government against the wishes and interests of the majority of citizens and business interests, but rather a product of economic conditions—as much a product as a man who runs a gasoline filling station, created to fill a need and to continue in his niche as long as the need exists. The business of bossism is the business of dispensing privileges, on commission. The boss does not own the privileges; the people own them. He does not buy them from the owners, because the owners are accustomed by indifference to give these favors away, and would rise in their indignant might to smash the clumsy boss who would make them a cash offer for their merchandise. No, the boss is a broker. Now it would seem obvious that if a neighborhood disapproved of a filling. station in its midst, it would consider means for eliminating that filling station instead of directing its efforts against the attendant, who might be a rather decent chap and much preferable to his predecessor or his successor. Other chapters of this history have dealt with evolution in industry, business and other phases of city life, an evolution always progressive. There has been a similar evolution 942 - THIS CLEVELAND OF OURS in the course of boss development. Instead of jowls, black derbies and black cigars in dingy back rooms, there are now suave, clean-shaven smiles, tailored suits and cigaret holders in modish offices. The boss is a pleasant fellow to meet, well read, intelligent and dependable. He has won his way up from the ranks, from precinct to ward and on to the top, by making friends and dealing with them fairly, and not by bribing judges in the defense of pickpockets, thus accumulating ill-gotten funds for further pyramiding. of graft. Today, bossism is an enterprise for profit, as always, but with this distinction from the style of the elder day—that, whereas the pioneer boss took cash tribute from criminals and delivered police protection in return, the modern magnate deals with business men in a business fashion, on the whole legitimately. He has learned the sublimely simple lesson that men who wish to make big profits go where big profits are made. It is the business of the boss to collect more votes for his party than the other party can muster. To get votes, organization is needed. To get organization, money is needed, whether that organization be Red Cross, woman suffrage, Citizens League, prohibition or a church crusade for righteousness. Other factors being equal, victory will go to the organization which has the most money. Both parties may count upon contributions from office-holders, the party in power naturally having the most office-holders. Both may also count upon regular contributions from a few loyal and unselfish partisans, while occasionally there is the blessed advent of the rich man who seeks fame in political life. But the backbone of this financial enterprise is the business organization that needs favors which the dominant party can bestow—franchises for monopolies, tax adjustments, zone restrictions, building permits, official interpretations of ordinances, police protection in labor strife—a long list of preferential needs, ranging from the "fixing" of a two-dollar parking ticket to a franchise worth millions. Years ago an association of firms in the same line of business was accused of violating the Valentine anti-trust law. The secretary called upon an attorney who was a power in the THE CITY'S LIFE - 943 dominant party. The secretary admitted that his group were technically violating the provision of the law, but he argued : "We have to do something to protect the industry against the simpleton who does not know how to figure costs, and makes bids that not only ruin him but prevent experienced firms from making. proper profits. We employ thousands of men in Cleveland, buy material from Cleveland supply houses and are an important factor in prosperity. We are not trying to squeeze out the little fellow and gouge the public. We are trying to prevent the complainant from putting himself out of business, and us as well. The prosecutor can smash business generally if he proceeds with every technicality that he can find on the statutes. We wish to retain you, as a lawyer, to act for us." The lawyer took a retainer fee and called upon the prosecutor, who held office at the discretion of the party which the lawyer led. Presumably the lawyer argued the case on its merits. Certainly he did not split his retainer fee with the prosecutor : first, because he was not a crook ; second, because, had he been one, he would not have been foolish enough to expose himself by such a flagrant act ; and third, because he did not have to. He had much merit in his argument, enough, at any rate to establish a nice balance in the prosecutor's mind ; and what more natural than that the latter should in-cline to the appeal of reputable employers, even if they had not been represented by the man who controlled the prose-cutor's job? It is lawful for a business house which wants its taxes reduced to employ an attorney to negotiate with the county officials and, if the attorney happens to be the political boss, are charges of graft and corruption to be sustained? The average citizen takes little part in primaries and none at all in pre-primary activities. He waits until the leaders have selected two tickets for him before he exercises his rights of citizenship. And the political boss is about as little interested in the Average Citizen as the latter is in forming tickets; for the boss knows all about him and his convictions long before election, and has him all catalogued and card-indexed in advance. 944 - THIS CLEVELAND OF OURS Suppose there was a hamlet with twenty-one voters, ten of them Republicans, loyal, staunch and true, whose fathers had been Republicans before them and who would think it treason to forsake principle by voting any other way. And suppose there were ten similar Democrats and one lone repro-bate, too mean in spirit to cleave to one creed but voting as fancy dictated. The result would be that the reprobate would control the elections, and any party leader who had good sense would pass by the twenty reputable regulars and woo the reprobate. That condition simplifies matters for the boss. If we take 100,000 votes as a convenient total in Cleveland, we may consider only twenty-five per cent, or 25,000, as "floating vote." The remaining 75,000 may be depended on to vote stolidly along party lines. Normally one party will have most of these 75,000, but conditions change as new issues come up, and the normal advantage may be lost from time to time. In general, it is the 25,000 who swing the elections, and it is they who must be brought into line. Campaign speeches, with their arguments, have their values in this city's campaigns, but the converts made by such efforts are hardly enough to matter much. The astute leader bends his energies to lining up the 25,000 "free" voters. He knows where they are and how they can be reached—not by bribery, but by more legitimate and less expensive methods. Suppose there are two racial groups of voters, each cohesive through ties of common birth, each group wielding. 2,000 votes. Usually these groups live together, in one ward. The party leader can promise to elect one of group "A" to a judgeship this time and one of group "B" to the job next time, provided, of course, the party remains in power. Such a promise seems likely to be fulfilled when made by the party which has been in power most of the time, and it is good for 4,000 votes under such conditions. Clambakes and barbecues, political jobs for active work-ers, public improvements, bargains and trading—there are many ways of getting at this "floating vote." But all methods are most successful when used by the party which has mostly prevailed and consequently has the most money to spend. THE CITY'S LIFE - 945 The power of the boss is safe as long as he can supply the needful sinews for campaign warfare, and he can get those sinews as long as he can continue to deliver the favors, the franchises and the special privileges which the contributors ask for. No particular boss is of much importance to this discussion. There are good bosses and bad bosses, but there will always be some kind of boss as long as the system is maintained that makes bosses possible. It is as fatuous to crusade against the holder of political power as it is to trace civic ills to forms of charter. The boss is not fundamentally interested in whether Cleveland has board of Federal form, state control or home rule, mayor or manager ; but he is interested in the business of raising funds to be used, under his personal control, for keeping his organization in power, so that the organization may serve out to its "friends," the contributors, the favors asked. No one is likely to "get" such a boss as is described here, because he has probably not done anything to make himself "getable." His own party cannot get rid of him if it would, because he holds the funds. He is the party, for that matter, and his position perpetuates itself. Only a succession of defeats, resulting in loss of contributions and alienation of the loyal machine he has built, would cause him to lose. And that would not alter the public predicament, for the contributors would either contribute to his successor, or to the boss who led the other party, according to which leader appeared better able to deliver. The boss is really not the dictator any more than is the general manager of a private corporation ; for, just as the general manager is accountable to the board of directors, so the boss is accountable to his contributors. And as the board of directors must account to the stockholders, so the contribut-ors, the business firms, must account to those from whom they obtain money. Which fact brings us to the customer, our old familiar friend, the "ultimate consumer." The writer of this chapter does not consider that he need concern himself with the ethics of Cleveland's political condi- 946 - THIS CLEVELAND OF OURS tion. But he assumes that, inasmuch as the city has changed its form of government three times in twenty years, it feels a pain somewhere and is trying to ease it; also that the tossings from mayor to manager and back to mayor have not brought the desired surcease from pain. The historical facts, to which he must confine himself, indicate that the patient, and not the bed, is sick, and that the patient is the ordinary citizen, the voter, the ultimate consumer of government. He, the consumer, pays the political tax added by the manufacturer to the price of the goods the consumer buys. The manufacturer passes the proceeds of this tax on to the party leader, who uses them to keep himself in power. This extra-legal tax the consumer pays is in the price of everything he buys from anyone who contributes to the perpetuation of party dominion. It is far more in the huge waste, from in-efficient government by professional politicians, which is reflected in the legal tax levies. The voter is not satisfied, and he blames party leaders, whom he calls "bosses." The voter elected Ray T. Miller mayor because Miller prosecuted corruption in party politics, and the voter changed his city government from managerial to mayoralty in the hope that he could throw off bossism. The voter unmistakably ascribes his pain to bossism, but has just as plainly shown that he doesn't know that the trouble is in him and not in the bed. Mere changes in governmental form are obviously less important than changes in political habits of thinking. These require statesmanship of a high order. There are two definitions of the term "statesman" which may fittingly be quoted here. The first is from Webster's New International Dictionary, and reads : "A man versed in the principles and art of government; one who shows unusual wisdom in treating or directing great public matters ; also a man actually occupied with the affairs of government and influential in shaping its policy." The second is found in Lord Charnwood's preface to his "Lincoln" : "The chief work of a great statesman rests in a gradual THE CITY'S LIFE - 947 change of direction given to the policy of his people, still more in a change of the spirit within them. He has to do all his work in a society of which a large part cannot see his object, and another part, as far as they do see it, oppose it." The liberal requirements of Webster afford an ample supply from Cleveland's history, but the severe restrictions imposed by Lord Charnwood narrow the historical field down to one—Tom L. Johnson. This city has produced great public men, a few of whom were capable of producing "a change of spirit" among the people, had the opportunity been present to them. Johnson and the opportunity coincided. A greater opportunity is present now.—W. C. M. CHAPTER III EDUCATION THE PUBLIC SCHOOLS The city's greatest industry, when all is said, is education. It represents the biggest investment, the largest production, the steadiest progress, the most profit. It directly touches the lives of the most people. If we do not think of its greatness, that is because we are too familiar with it, and because it is not spectacular. We seldom pay any attention to the schools unless something goes wrong, and then we exaggerate the trouble. Usually we take them for granted. They go right ahead, day after day, year after year, taking the endless, swelling stream of charming little savages that we feed into them as raw material, and turning out young men and women fit for civilized life and citizenship. These in turn pour other little savages into the stream; and so the process goes on continuously, almost regardless of booms, panics and changes of administration. There is no other mass-production equal to this. The early story of Cleveland education has been treated briefly in the first volume of this work, under the headings "Dawn of Culture" and "Civic Growth." The present chapter is intended to complete the story, within the limits available. It deals with public schools, private and parochial schools, colleges and museums. The growth of the public school system, from the beginning until recent years, is given here in rapid chronology. School Chronicle 1800. First schoolhouse within present Cleveland limits - 948 - THE CITY'S LIFE - 949 built near Kingsbury Ridge with Miss Sarah Doan, daughter of Nathaniel Doan, teacher. 1802. First school in the village held in the front room of Lorenzo Carter's log cabin, taught by Miss Anna Spafford. 1806. Asael Adams, born in Moses Cleaveland's Canterbury, Connecticut, signs a contract to teach in a log school-house near the foot of Superior Street for ten dollars a month, payable in money or wheat. All these are private schools. 1817. Village trustees vote to refund money paid by public-spirited citizens for building a little schoolhouse on the site of the later Kennard House, acquiring it three years later as the first public school property. It is operated as a private school, with free rent for qualified teachers and pupils expected to pay tuition. 1822. Cleaveland Academy. Another private school, established with Harvey Rice headmaster. A block school-house (square logs) fifteen by twenty feet, with five windows and fireplace six feet across, is built on Giddings Avenue and used for three months during the winter. 1830. A "Free School" started by subscription, in basement of Bethel Church, "for the education of male and female children of every religious denomination," intended mainly to fit children for Sunday School. 1836. First City Council employs a teacher and assistant to continue the Free School "until a school system shall be organized at the expense of the city." 1837. City Council, during business depression, starts organizing a public school system. Three hundred pupils in Free School, eight hundred in Academy and other private schools. 1838. Eight common public schools in operation, with sexes separated. 1839. Private Academy building bought and added to public school system. Total enrollment 823 pupils, only one-fourth of those privileged to attend. Quarters rented and inadequate. 1840. Lots bought by city, and school buildings erected on Prospect and Rockwell streets for $3,500 each.