TOM L. JOHNSON*
by ROBERT H. BREMNER
Instructor in History, Ohio State
University
In 1901 the voters of Cleveland, Ohio,
chose as their mayor
a resourceful and unconventional man,
newly retired from a suc-
cessful business career, who was the
best known American fol-
lower of Henry George. Tom L. Johnson
remained in office for
eight exciting and enlightening years.
Born in 1854 into an aristo-
cratic southern family which was
impoverished during the Civil
War, Johnson had to go to work while
still a child. At twenty-two
he was the successful inventor of the
first coin fare box in use in
the United States, and at twenty-five
he was already a business
rival of Mark Hanna. Converted to the
single tax philosophy of
Henry George at thirty, he was a steel
manufacturer at thirty-
five and had twice been elected to congress by the
time he was
forty. At fifty he had been hailed by
Lincoln Steffens as the best
mayor of the best governed city in
America.1
Throughout his political career Johnson
struck many as a
mysterious and enigmatic figure. The
reason for this was not that
his political views were obscure, for
he never straddled or
avoided an issue, but that they seemed
to contradict his business
interests. The president of street
railways, he advocated munici-
pal ownership of public utilities. A
steel manufacturer, he
nevertheless favored free trade. In
politics a vigorous opponent
of monopoly, as a businessman Johnson
used monopolistic prac-
tices to amass a large fortune. Such a
quixotic figure, his enemies
claimed, was surely a demagog. Johnson
was never able to con-
vince these critics of what his friends
called his "larger moral-
ity." As a matter of fact, Johnson
was not troubled by, nor in-
* This article is a condensation of
material relating to Johnson in Robert H.
Bremner, The Civic Revival in Ohio, a
dissertation presented in partial fulfillment
of the degree of doctor of philosophy at
Ohio State University in 1943.
1 Lincoln Steffens, "Ohio: A Tale
of Two Cities," McClure's Magazine,
XXV (1905), 293-311.
1