ARTHUR E. DeMATTEO
The Downfall of a Progressive: Mayor
Tom L. Johnson and The Cleveland
Streetcar Strike of 1908
On November 6, 1907, Cleveland Mayor Tom
L. Johnson awoke to head-
lines announcing his landslide triumph
in the previous day's municipal elec-
tion. Democrat Johnson, the champion of
progressive urban reform and pub-
lic control of utilities, had solidified
his position as the city's most powerful
politician by crushing the best
candidate the Republican Party could offer.
The vote was a referendum on the mayor's
six-year crusade for low streetcar
fares, and the Cleveland Plain Dealer
reported that"the victory of Mayor Tom
and 3-cent fare was complete."1
Johnson immediately declared his intention
to run for a fifth term two years hence,
and appeared to desire nothing more
than leadership of the Ohio Democratic
Party. But the mayor's impressive
reelection had attracted national
attention, and some party luminaries, notably
House Democratic leader Champ Clark,
began to eye Johnson as a possible
1908 presidential alternative to the
twice-rejected William Jennings Bryan.2
A series of mishaps and miscalculations,
centered around Cleveland's street
railway situation, soon eclipsed the
promise of that autumn morning. The
1907 victory was Johnson's last, and
within two years he lost city hall to a
political lightweight, the victim of a
reversal in fortune more dramatic than
any in the city's history. Robert H.
Bremner has described Tom Johnson as
"greedy for affection and greedy
for accomplishment."3 In the months follow-
ing the election these characteristics,
manifested in a single-minded determina-
tion to push through his streetcar
reforms, set the mayor on a collision course
with Cleveland's unionized transit
employees. The ensuing strike of 1908 ru-
ined Johnson's political career and
probably hastened his death.
Arthur E. DeMatteo is a Ph.D. candidate
in American labor history at the University of
Akron. He wishes to thank Professors
Daniel Nelson and James F. Richardson for reading
earlier drafts of this article and
providing helpful criticisms and suggestions.
1. Cleveland Plain Dealer, November
6, 1907.
2. Ibid., November 11, 22, 1907; New
York Times, November 8, 9, 1907.
3. Robert H. Bremner, "The Civic
Revival in Ohio: The Fight Against Privilege in Cleveland
and Toledo, 1899-1912" (Ph.D.
diss., Ohio State University, 1943), 46.
Downfall of a Progressive
25
Tom L. Johnson was the quintessential
"self-made man." The product of
an impoverished Southern family, he made
his fortune in the street railway
business after developing a new-style
glass-and-metal farebox in Louisville,
Kentucky, in 1873. The money earned from
this inventionenabled Johnson
to purchase interests in streetcar lines
in Indianapolis, St. Louis, Brooklyn,
Cleveland, Detroit, and Johnstown,
Pennsylvania. To produce rails for his
lines, he obtained interests in steel
mills in Lorain, Ohio, and in Johnstown,
where he also manufactured electric
streetcar motors. Johnson deservedly
earned a reputation for innovative
business techniques, particularly in his op-
eration of the Johnstown plant.4 But
he also gained notoriety for his ques-
tionable ethics, as he specialized in
refurbishing rundown lines, watering the
stock, and then selling his interests at
inflated prices.5
In 1883 Johnson became familiar with the
writings of Henry George, the
single-tax reformer. He later claimed to
have been deeply troubled by
George's condemnation of the
inequalities in society, and nearly retired from
business. After the two became friends,
however, George convinced Johnson
to continue his entrepreneurial
pursuits, but to devote his riches to the causes
of reform. Johnson followed this advice
by financing George's political cam-
paigns and subsidizing various
single-tax publications, most notably The
Public. With George's encouragement Johnson ventured into
politics him-
self, representing Cleveland's
Twenty-first District in Congress from 1891 to
1895.6
Eugene C. Murdock has written that
"the pre-Georgian Johnson and the
post-Georgian Johnson were two different
men,"7 but Johnson's struggle with
Mayor Hazen Pingree of Detroit from 1895
to 1899 provides evidence to the
contrary. In 1894 Johnson's brother
Albert headed a group of investors which
purchased Detroit's Citizens' Street
Railway Company, and upon leaving
4. James R. Alexander,
"Technological Innovation in Early Street Railways: The Johnson
Rail in Retrospective," Railroad
History, 164 (Spring, 1991), 64-85; Alfred Chandler Jr. and
Stephen Salsbury, Pierre S. DuPont
and the Making of the Modern Corporation, (New York,
1971), 25-28; "Louisville Scenes:
The Autobiography of Fr. Richard J. Meaney," Filson Club
Historical Quarterly, 58 (January, 1984), 11-12; Tom L. Johnson, My Story,
ed. Elizabeth J.
Hauser, (New York, 1911), 1-33; Michael
Massouh, "Innovations in Street Railways before
Electric Traction: Tom L. Johnson's
Contributions," Technology and Culture, 18 (April, 1977),
202-17, and "Technological and
Managerial Innovations: The Johnson Company, 1883-1898,"
Business History Review, 50 (Spring, 1976), 46-68; Eugene C. Murdock,
"Cleveland's
Johnson," Ohio State
Archaeological and Historical Quarterly, 62 (October, 1953), 323-33;
Daniel Nelson, "Scientific
Management in Transition: Frederick W. Taylor at Johnstown,
1896," Pennsylvania Magazine of
History and Biography, 99 (October, 1975), 466-67.
5. Frederic C. Howe, The Confessions
of a Reformer, (New York, 1925; reprint ed.,
Chicago, 1967, with introduction by John
Braeman), 87; Eugene C. Murdock, "A Life of Tom
L. Johnson" (Ph.D. diss., Columbia
University, 1951), 15.
6. Johnson, My Story, 48-81;
Murdock, "Cleveland's Johnson," 327. For Johnson's
Congressional career, see Robert Gordon
Rawlinson, "Tom Johnson and His Congressional
Years" (M.A. thesis, Ohio State
University, 1958).
7. Murdock, "Cleveland's
Johnson," 327-28.
26 OHIO HISTORY
Congress Tom Johnson joined the company
as president. The Citizens' line
enjoyed monopoly control of public
transit in the city, and charged a fare of
six tickets for twenty-five cents. In
1895 Pingree, determined to provide low
fares for Detroit's working class,
convinced the city council to franchise a
new privately-owned streetcar line, the
Detroit Railway Company, stipulating
a fare of eight tickets for twenty-five
cents and free transfers. Realizing the
danger this new competition posed to the
Citizens' Company, Johnson at-
tempted to stop the low fare line.
Appealing to the Wayne County Court and
the Michigan Supreme Court, Johnson
contended that his company's fran-
chise gave it exclusive rights to
operate streetcars in Detroit, but both courts
ruled in favor of the city's right to
grant competing franchises.8
Having failed to thwart the new low-fare
company, Johnson lobbied city
council for a thirty-year franchise
renewal for the Citizens' line. Pingree, ve-
hemently opposed to Johnson's plans to
institute a five-cent fare, vetoed the
enabling ordinances. When Johnson
retaliated by raising fares and eliminat-
ing free transfers, Pingree led
thousands of angry workers in a boycott of the
Citizens' Company. Forced to capitulate,
Johnson temporarily reinstated the
old fare in December 1895. But a short
time later he purchased the Detroit
Railway Company and merged it with the
Citizens' line. By 1897 Johnson
once again had monopoly control over
Detroit's public transportation sys-
tem.9
Nonetheless, Pingree's political clout
prevented Johnson from winning his
coveted thirty-year franchise. After a
series of maneuvers and negotiations,
Johnson agreed in 1899 to sell his lines
to the Detroit Street Railway
Commission, a quasi-public holding
company conceived by Pingree. But the
mere fact that he was willing to sell
raised suspicions, so great was the pub-
lic's distrust of Johnson. Detroit's
newspapers and numerous civic leaders
questioned Johnson's motives and feared
that he would swindle the city. "If
Tom L. Johnson has not always been an
enemy of the people," asked one city
official, "then in the name of
common sense who has?" Under increasing
public pressure, the Citizens' Company
withdrew its offer to sell in July,
1899. Johnson resigned his post soon
after and departed for Cleveland.10
The conflict with Pingree began twelve
years after Tom Johnson's sup-
posed conversion to humanitarian reform,
and is inconsistent with the "pre-
Georgian/post-Georgian" argument.
During most of his stay in Detroit
8. Melvin J. Holli, Reform in
Detroit: Mayor Hazen S. Pingree and Urban Politics, (New
York, 1969), 101-04; Graeme O'Geran, A
History of the Detroit Street Railways, (Detroit,
1931), 126-41.
9. Holli, Reform in Detroit, 105-11;
O'Geran, History of the Detroit Street Railways, 146-47.
10. Holli, Reform in Detroit, 111-20;
Ashod Rhaffi Aprahamian, "The Mayoral Politics of
Detroit, 1897 through 1912" (Ph.D.
diss., New York University, 1968), 92-96. Holli's account
of Johnson's experiences in Detroit,
culled from local newspapers and court and city council
records, contrasts with Johnson's self-serving
version in My Story, 91-97.
Downfall of a Progressive 27
Johnson did everything in his power to
disrupt Mayor Pingree's progressive
streetcar program. In the process, he
also learned a great deal from the mayor.
As Melvin Holli has noted, Pingree
undoubtedly had a more profound impact
on Johnson than any of George's
writings. Many of the reforms Johnson
would promote as Mayor of Cleveland were
similar to Pingree's programs in
Detroit, most notably the low-fare campaign.ll
Johnson admitted in his au-
tobiography that "It was Mayor
Pingree's promotion of that three-cent-fare
line for Detroit that first impressed me
with the practicality of this rate of
fare."12 The public
ridicule he experienced in Detroit humiliated Johnson.13
Cleveland's city hall and the low-fare
issue presented the means to resuscitate
his bruised ego.
Tom Johnson won election as mayor of
Cleveland in April 1901. During
his years in office he attacked
corruption in government, modernized and ex-
panded city services, provided parks and
playgrounds, fought for tax reform,
worked for the humane treatment of
prisoners, and promoted various beautifi-
cation projects. But these
accomplishments were peripheral to Johnson's ma-
jor goal: municipal control of public
transit. Running his campaigns on the
slogan, "Three Cent Fares and
Universal Transfers," the mayor waged a high-
energy crusade against the private
streetcar companies from the day he took
office. 14
Although Ohio laws at this time
prohibited municipal ownership of public
transportation systems, Johnson devised
a scheme to give the city control
over the street railways. As the
franchises of the high-fare companies expired,
the mayor and city council denied
renewals of the old grants. Instead, they
franchised new companies, bound by the
terms of the grants to charge three-
cent fares-the average had been 4.71
cents-and to sell the lines to the city
once state laws could be amended. After
numerous delays caused by nearly
sixty court injunctions obtained by the
old companies, Cleveland's first three-
cent streetcar line, the Forest City
Railway Company, went into operation on
November 1, 1906. One month later, a
second three-cent line, the Low Fare
Company, was added. A quasi-public
holding company, the Municipal
Traction Company, took control of the
lines. To insure de facto public con-
trol over Municipal Traction, a number
of Johnson's political allies served on
the board of directors. The high-fare
lines, meanwhile, had merged into a sin-
gle entity called the Cleveland Electric
Railway Company, or "Concon," in
11. Holli, Reform in Detroit, 121-22,
242fn.
12. Johnson, My Story, 95.
13. Holli, Reform in Detroit, 120-21.
14. Bremner, "Tom L. Johnson,"
Ohio State Archaeological and Historical Quarterly, 59
(January, 1950), 3-4; George W. Knepper,
Ohio and Its People, (Kent, Ohio, and London,
England, 1989), 330-31; Murdock,
"Cleveland's Johnson: Elected Mayor," Ohio Historical
Quarterly, 65 (January, 1956), 28-43; Hoyt Landon Warner, Progressivism
in Ohio, 1897-
1917, (Columbus, 1964), 72-73.
28 OHIO
HISTORY
1903. The company carried its battle
with Johnson all the way to the United
States Supreme Court, but after an
unfavorable ruling in December, 1906,
Concon reasoned that it would be only a
matter of time before the city re-
scinded all of its franchises. Concon's
very survival, therefore, depended on
the defeat of Johnson in the 1907
mayoral election.l5
Mayor Johnson did, in fact, show signs
of political vulnerability.
Although elected by large pluralities in
1901, 1903, and 1905, extenuating
circumstances in each case prevented
Johnson from demonstrating anything
approaching invincibility. In 1901, for
instance, the Republicans nominated
William J. Akers, whose association with
previous, scandal-ridden administra-
tions doomed him to likely defeat.
Johnson's margin of victory was 6056
votes; any reputable Democrat would have
done as well. The 1903 election
represented an opportunity for the
electorate to show its disapproval of the so-
called "Nash Code," a
Republican-sponsored effort to weaken the mayor's
control over city government. Strongly
associated with political bossism and
the city's unpopular private streetcar
faction, the code was a burden to the
GOP's Harvey Goulder, who fell to
Johnson by 5985 votes. In 1905
Johnson crushed Republican William H.
Boyd by over 12,000 votes. But
Democrats throughout the state scored
similar victories that November by rid-
ing the coattails of gubernatorial
candidate John M. Pattison, whose landslide
victory over Governor Myron T. Herrick
can be attributed to the public's re-
pudiation of the political machine of
Cincinnati's George B. "Boss" Cox.
Pattison's margin of victory in
Cleveland was actually greater than
Johnson's.16
Republicans took note of the peculiar
nature of these elections and pointed
to the gubernatorial race of 1903 as a
true indicator of Johnson's standing
with the Cleveland electorate. After his
mayoral reelection in April of that
year, Johnson challenged Governor
Herrick, a fellow-Clevelander, in Novem-
15. Edward W. Bemis, "The Street
Railway Settlement in Cleveland," Quarterly Journal of
Economics, 22 (August, 1908), 543-49; Bremner, "The Street
Railway Controversy in
Cleveland," American Journal of
Economics and Sociology, 10 (January, 1951), 186-94, and
"Tom L. Johnson," 4-5; Electric
Railway Review, January 5, 1907, 11, January 12, 1907, 55,
January 19, 1907, 66-67; Warren S.
Hayden, "The Street Railway Situation in Cleveland,"
Proceedings of the Cincinnati
Conference for Good City Government and the Fiftieth Annual
Meeting of the National Municipal
League, (1909), 403-04; Howe, Confessions
of a Reformer,
116-18; Johnson, My Story, 237-38,
246-49.
16. Barbara Clemenson, "The
Political War Against Tom L. Johnson, 1901-1909" (M.A.
thesis, Cleveland State University,
1989), 239-69. There are slight, inconsequential discrepan-
cies in ward-by-ward vote totals in
Cleveland's daily papers for municipal elections from 1901
to 1909; Clemenson's figures, obtained
from the Cuyahoga County Archives, are used through-
out this article, unless otherwise
noted. Cleveland Leader, October 21, 1907; Knepper, Ohio
and Its People, 332; Murdock, "Cleveland's Johnson: The Burton
Campaign," American
Journal of Economics and Sociology, 15 (July, 1956), 408, 412-13, and "Cleveland's
Johnson:
Elected Mayor," 31-32, 38-41,
42fn., 43; Plain Dealer, April 2, 3, 1901, April 7, 8, 1903,
November 8, 1905; James B. Whipple,
"Municipal Government in an Average City: Cleveland,
1876-1900," Ohio State
Archaeological and Historical Quarterly, 62 (January, 1953), 1-24.
Downfall of a Progressive 29 |
|
ber. Herrick captured the statewide contest and topped Johnson by 4591 votes in the city, taking seventeen of twenty-six wards. As a result, the Republicans reasoned that a high-profile, well-supported candidate could un- seat the mayor in 1907. A significant voter registration increase, particularly in traditional Republican wards on the city's east side, was another cause for party optimism that "the latent anti-Johnson sentiment of the community" would defeat the mayor.17 The Republican nominee in 1907 was Congressman Theodore E. Burton, "one of the ablest and best-trusted men in the city."18 An expert on banking, monetary, and economic issues, and Chairman of the Rivers and Harbors
17. Cleveland Leader, September 11, October 21, 1907. For background on Johnson's statewide efforts, see Warner, Progressivism in Ohio, 119-42. 18. Paul Leland Haworth, "Mayor Johnson of Cleveland: A Study of Mismanaged Political Reform," Outlook, 93 (October 23, 1909), 469. |
30 OHIO
HISTORY
Committee, Burton represented the
progressive wing of the party. President
Theodore Roosevelt's personal choice to
oppose Johnson, Burton had gained a
reputation for high principles and
independence after clashing with the Marcus
Hanna political machine from 1902 to
1904. He and Johnson were hardly
strangers, having faced each other at
the polls on three previous occasions. In
1888 Burton defeated Johnson to capture
the Twenty-first District seat. Two
years later Johnson defeated Burton, and
served two terms before Burton re-
gained his seat in the Republican
landslide of 1894.19
Johnson and the Democrats understandably
made the street railway contro-
versy the issue of the 1907
campaign, and painted Burton as a representative
of big business, "privilege,"
and the Cleveland Electric Railway Company.20
Burton denied "any alliance or
other affiliation with any public service corpo-
rations, street railway or other."21
He questioned the practicality of three-cent
fares, proposing instead a temporary
rate of seven tickets for twenty-five cents
until October 1, 1908. Afterwards, an
independent commission would estab-
lish the lowest possible fare, one which
would provide sufficient funds for
improvements and expansion. If Concon
agreed to maintain this fare for at
least ten years, and to keep its books
open for inspection at all times, a
twenty-year franchise would be awarded
to the company. But this compro-
mise to end Cleveland's divisive
streetcar battle backfired on Burton. The
Johnson forces condemned him for
surrendering to the interests of Concon,
and on October 28 the company
unwittingly played into the mayor's hands
when it publicly announced its
acceptance of Burton's proposals. Despite his
efforts, Burton had become the
representative of the private street railway fac-
tion.22
As the campaign progressed, it also
became painfully obvious to the GOP
that its candidate was ill-suited as a
local campaigner. Burton was out of place
in the rough-and-tumble world of
Cleveland ward politics and, according to
Johnson, "exhibited a surprising
ignorance of local affairs."23 Burton was
unable to deal with the hecklers and rowdies
placed at his rallies by the
Johnson forces. In desperation he
questioned the competence of certain mem-
bers of the mayor's administration, but
only managed to create martyrs out of
those being attacked. Most damning to
his campaign was an awkward last-
19. Plain Dealer, November 8,
1888, November 6, 1890, November 9, 1892, November 7,
1894; Cleveland News, September
18, 1907; Forrest Crissey, Theodore E. Burton: American
Statesman, (Cleveland and New York, 1956), 132-37; Johnson, My
Story, 59-63, 74; Murdock,
"Cleveland's Johnson: The Burton
Campaign," 414-15; David D. Van Tassel and John J.
Grabowski, eds., The Encyclopedia of
Cleveland History, (Bloomington, Ind., 1987), 139-40.
20. Murdock, "Cleveland's Johnson:
The Burton Campaign," 416, 419.
21. Plain Dealer, September 4,
1907.
22. Electric Railway Review, November
2, 1907, 742; Haworth, "Mayor Johnson of
Cleveland," 473, (on the
questionable practicality of three-cent fares); Murdock, "Cleveland's
Johnson: The Burton Campaign," 419;
Plain Dealer, October 11, 1907.
23. Johnson, My Story, 271.
Downfall of a Progressive 31
minute mailing of a pamphlet attacking
Johnson's integrity. As the cam-
paign closed, Burton appeared to be a
pathetic, confused man.24
Although a Johnson victory was a
foregone conclusion by election day, the
magnitude of his triumph could hardly
have been expected. The mayor cap-
tured twenty of the city's twenty-six
wards, topping Burton by 9326 votes.
Despite the fact that his plurality was
2799 votes less than in 1905, this vic-
tory was far more impressive for a
number of reasons. In the eight strongly-
Democratic working class wards of the
west side, for example, Johnson had
defeated Boyd by 4871 votes in 1905,
winning over 59 percent of the total.
But in 1907, with 4643 additional voters
going to the polls in the west side
wards, Johnson beat Burton by 6782
votes, increasing his total to nearly 62
percent of the vote. On the
heavily-Republican east side, Johnson had de-
feated Boyd by 7261 votes in 1905,
capturing close to 56 percent of the total.
With the Republicans fielding a
formidable candidate in 1907, with an in-
creased turnout of over 10,000
additional voters in these wards, and without
the coattails of John Pattison to assist
him, the mayor could hardly have been
expected to win again on the east side.
Yet, he was victorious in twelve of
the eighteen wards east of the Cuyahoga,
winning over 51 percent of the total
vote, for a plurality of 2542 votes.
Additionally, in each of eight so-called
"debatable" wards, which the
Republicans felt confident of winning given the
significant voter registration
increases, Johnson emerged victorious. His total
margin over Burton in these wards was
3074, despite increased turnouts in
each, totalling 4295 over 1905. Finally,
counting the six "at large" council
seats, twenty-five of the thirty-two
city council members were now pro-
Johnson, three-cent fare advocates.25
Seeing the handwriting on the wall, Concon
entered into negotiations with
the city to resolve the streetcar
controversy. After numerous meetings be-
tween December 1907 and April 1908,
Concon and the low-fare companies
consolidated into a new entity, the
Cleveland Railway Company, which the
city granted a franchise. Municipal
Traction took control of Cleveland
Railway, with the understanding that
three-cent fares would be charged within
the city. The deal took effect on April
27, 1908, and all streetcars were free
of charge the following day, to
celebrate Tom Johnson's victory over
"privilege." But this
jubilation was short-lived, due to a labor impasse then
developing.26
24. Johnson, My Story, 271-72;
Murdock, "Cleveland's Johnson: The Burton Campaign,"
416-22.
25. Clemenson, "Political War
Against Tom Johnson," 260-79; Cleveland Leader, October
21, 1907; Plain Dealer, November
6, 7, 21, 1907. Wards 1-8 are west side wards; wards 9-26
are east side wards. According to an
article by John T. Bourke in the Cleveland Leader of
October 21, 1907, the
"debatable" wards were nos. 7, 9, 10, 15, 18, 19, 23, and 24.
26. Bemis, "Street Railway
Settlement in Cleveland," 549-50, 558-61; Bremner, "Street
Railway Controversy in Cleveland,"
194-97.
32 OHIO
HISTORY
Johnson's union troubles stemmed from
the fact that Cleveland's street
railway motormen and conductors were
working under two separate union
contracts. In 1906, Concon and Division 268 of the Amalgamated
Association of Street and Electric
Railway Employees of America signed an
agreement stipulating that first-year
workers would earn twenty-one cents per
hour, those in their second year would receive
twenty-three cents per hour, and
longer service workers would earn
twenty-four cents per hour. There was also
a clause in the agreement stating that
if the company signed a franchise re-
newal with the city prior to May 1,
1909, all workers would receive a two-
cent across-the-board pay increase. The
workers of the low fare lines, mean-
while, had been represented by Division
245 of the Association since 1906.
Their current contract, signed in
January 1907, called for an hourly rate of
twenty-three cents for the first year of
service, twenty-four cents the second
year, and twenty-five cents thereafter.27
The wage disparity was unacceptable to
both the Amalgamated Association
and the city, and each attempted to have
the contract most favorable to its re-
spective interests recognized as
binding. A.L. Behner, the Association's inter-
national vice-president, claimed that
the traction settlement constituted a
"franchise renewal" with the
city, and that all workers were entitled to the
two-cent per hour raise stipulated in
the renewal clause of Division 268's con-
tract. When efforts to merge the two
locals proved futile, Behner revoked
Division 245's charter in late April
1908. As a convenient excuse, he
claimed that a conflict of interest
existed, since many of the local's members
had purchased stock in Municipal
Traction.28
The city, meanwhile, saw the
Association's jurisdictional dispute as an op-
portunity to destroy Division 268.
Lowered fares meant decreased revenues,
and with the country suffering from a
business recession, strict economies
would have to be imposed on Municipal
Traction's operations. Getting rid of
over one thousand high-priced employees
would make this easier. The mayor
contended that Concon's agreement to the
two-cent raise was merely a cynical
effort to buy the support of the workers
in the company's battle with
Johnson, and on April 28 the city's
traction administrator, A.B. duPont, de-
clared Division 268's contract null and
void. DuPont offered the men only a
27. "The Cleveland Electric Ry. Co.
and Amalgamated Association of Street and Electric
Railway Employes [sic] of America
Division No. 268, Memorandum of Agreement, Cleveland,
O., December 22nd, 1906," Pamphlet
c1646, Western Reserve Historical Society, (WRHS),
Cleveland; Bremner, "Street Railway
Controversy in Cleveland," 198; Murdock, "A Life of
Tom L. Johnson," 384-85; Electric
Railway Review, May 9, 1908, 578; Street Railway Journal,
May 9, 1908, 796; Plain Dealer, April
29, 30, 1908; Cleveland Citizen, May 2, June 13, 1908.
The Citizen was the official
organ of the United Trades and Labor Council (UTLC). The June
13, 1908, edition carries the
"Report of the Grievance Committee on the Street Railway
Strike," hereafter cited as
"UTLC Grievance Committee Report."
28. Johnson, My Story, 280;
Murdock, "A Life of Tom L. Johnson," 386; Street Railway
Journal, May 9, 1908, 796; UTLC Grievance Committee Report.
Downfall of a Progressive 33
one-cent across-the-board pay increase,
to bring them in line with Division
245's pay scales, and rescinded the free
rides to and from work which they had
enjoyed under their old contract. When
the former Concon employees balked
at this offer, duPont began replacing
them with lower-paid, low-seniority
men.29
Angered by duPont's actions, members of
Division 268 voted to strike if
the matter was not resolved.30 On
Saturday, May 2, Behner informed duPont
and Johnson of the union's resolve, and
in the early hours of the following
day the three men finally agreed that a
three-member arbitration board would
be named to make a binding decision on
the validity of Division 268's con-
tract. On May 4 the members voted to
accept this proposal. DuPont and
Johnson then began to stall for time.
The mayor conveniently left town,
while duPont continued to discharge the
old Concon men and place members
of Division 445 on the favored runs. On
May 12 the parties finally agreed on
the membership of the arbitration board,
with the first meeting scheduled for
May 15.31
According to the union, duPont and
Johnson then "displaced over 150 old
men, some of them having been 14 and 15
years in the service, placing them
back upon the extra list, and putting
new men on their runs. They had also
discharged up to this time over 100 old
employes [sic]."32 The union further
contended that "the officers of the
company had been holding meetings at the
various barns seeking to discredit the
officers and committeemen and divide
and destroy the organization. On the
very day on which the arbitration
agreement expired [May 15] the company
discharged 27 old employes [sic]."33
Municipal Traction again offered
arbitration, but Behner, by now convinced
"that the company is planning to
break up the union," refused. Two separate
meetings took place on Friday evening,
May 15, at the United Trades and
Labor Council (UTLC) headquarters. The Plain
Dealer reported that "violent
debate" grew out of a wide range of
issues, including "wages, seniority rights,
[and the] open shop." The speech of
one disgruntled member summed up the
desperation of Division 268's
rank-and-file:
I know, you all know, they are going to
fire us all. They are going to fire me, as
soon as they get around to it. We are
all going to be fired anyhow in the end.
Let's get out now and make a fight for
our rights before we are kicked out. I vote
we strike at once.
29. Bremner, "Street Railway
Controversy in Cleveland," 197-98; Electric Railway Review,
May 9, 1908, 578; Murdock, "A Life
of Tom L. Johnson," 386; Street Railway Journal, May 9,
1908, 796; UTLC Grievance Committee
Report.
30. Murdock, "A Life of Tom L.
Johnson," 386-87.
31. Street Railway Journal, May
16, 1908, 833-34; UTLC Grievance Committee Report.
32. UTLC Grievance Committee Report.
33. Ibid.
34 OHIO HISTORY
Thirteen hundred-fifty of this man's
union brothers agreed, and voted "almost
unanimously" to walk out, effective
at 4:45 A.M. on Saturday, May 16.34
Despite duPont's assurance that the
"cars will run as if there were no
strike,"35 the walkout
of Division 268 inaugurated a week of violence and dis-
ruption. Strikers and their sympathizers
stoned streetcars, cut electric wires,
laid trees across tracks, destroyed
switches, and beat non-striking workers.
The city hired two hundred extra police,
but the remainder of the week was
characterized by arson, shootings,
dynamitings, and the death of a four-year-
old girl crushed under the wheels of a
streetcar.36
On Sunday, May 17, the Association's
international president, W.D.
Mahon, arrived in Cleveland to help
resolve the impasse. Despite assurances
from the Ohio State Board of Arbitration
that the mayor was anxious for a
meeting, Johnson flatly refused to talk
with any union officials. Mahon then
proposed that an arbitration board be
set up to rule on the legitimacy of
Division 268's contract, the cases of
all discharged workers, and discrimina-
tion against high-seniority men. DuPont
refused to meet with the union un-
til "all lawlessness and disorder
has ceased," and further declared that seniority
rights would not be considered under any
circumstances. He then relented, of-
fering to submit all questions to an
arbitration board, providing the men re-
turned to work and waived their
seniority rights pending the board's decision.
The strikers voted to accept this
proposal.37
Meanwhile, however, the conflict had
begun to shift in the city's favor. By
Friday, May 22, most violence had ended
and a number of men had returned to
work. DuPont decided to take a hard line
with the union. He argued that
since the arbitration of Division 268's
seniority rights would affect the work-
ers of both locals, it was only fair to
allow the members of Division 445 to
decide whether arbitration should take
place. Naturally, the Division 445
workers voted overwhelmingly against
arbitration of their seniority and this,
essentially, was the end of the strike.
On May 25 duPont announced that all
Division 268 members who reported for
work by 6:00 P.M. the following
day would be considered for
reemployment. But the company turned down
most of those who bothered to reapply,
and over one thousand strikers lost
their jobs.38
Given Tom Johnson's reputation for
empathy with the laboring classes, it
34. Plain Dealer, May 15, 16,
1908.
35. Plain Dealer, May 16, 1908.
36. Murdock, "A Life of Tom L.
Johnson," 387-91.
37. "To the People of
Cleveland," typed statement of A.B. duPont, May 21, 1908, A.B.
duPont Papers, Mss. A, D938, folder 7,
Filson Club, Louisville, Ky.; UTLC Grievance
Committee Report.
38. Murdock, "A Life of Tom L.
Johnson," 391-92; Electric Railway Review, May 30, 1908,
660; Street Railway Journal, May
30, 1908, 918; Plain Dealer, May 25, 26, 1908. The number
of men who lost their jobs is an
estimate, since it is unknown how many of the original 1350
strikers went back to work during and
immediately after the strike.
Downfall of a Progressive 35
is tempting to blame duPont for the
city's inflexibility. Eugene C. Murdock,
for instance, cites duPont's broken
promises and tactlessness as evidence that
he "thirsted for the fight, and
basked in his victory."39 But duPont, an inno-
vative railway administrator of national
reputation, had long enjoyed amicable
relations with organized labor. When
duPont left his post as general manager
of Detroit's Citizens' Company line in
1901 to accept a similar position in
St. Louis, the Amalgamated Association
sponsored a testimonial dinner in
his honor, prompting the Detroit News
to exclaim that duPont would "never
be more popular with the street railway
men in St. Louis than he had been in
Detroit."40 DuPont and
the mayor were close friends and longtime business
associates since Johnson's early days in
Louisville. The pair met daily for a
morning conference, lunch, and dinner,
and it is inconceivable that duPont
acted without Johnson's knowledge and
direction. DuPont's loyalty and devo-
tion to the mayor made him "not
only willing, but eager, to assume all un-
popular acts which seemed
necessary" in implementing Johnson's programs,
in this case the suppression of the
union.41
Mayor Johnson, apparently confident that
duPont would defeat the strike,
had remained uncharacteristically
passive throughout the ordeal. When direct
intervention would likely have prevented
injuries and destruction of property,
he maintained a low profile, refusing to
meet with union officials and spend-
ing much of his time perfecting a new
coin box to accommodate three-cent
fares.42 But his response to
the strike was also true to the form he had exhib-
ited in Detroit a decade earlier.
Johnson could be ruthless when dealing with
threats to his success. The motormen and
conductors of Division 268 bore
the brunt of this ruthlessness.
In fairness to Johnson, it must be
emphasized that he was not anti-union
and had no quarrel with working-class
movements. As a congressman
Johnson had supported the eight-hour day
for federal employees and con-
demned police brutality against Coxey's
Army in 1894.43 Samuel Gompers
commented that while in Congress
"Mr. Johnson always expressed a friendly
feeling to our cause and was favorable
to the measures in which labor was in-
39. Murdock, "A Life of Tom L.
Johnson," 392-93.
40. Undated clipping, A.B. duPont
Papers, Filson Club, folder 1.
41. "The Forest City Railway
Company, new sale of stock, Statement by Mayor Johnson,
Issued by The Municipal Traction
Company, Superior Building, Cleveland, O.," n.d., Tom
Johnson Vertical File, WRHS; Hauser,
"A.B. duPont-An Appreciation," reprint of article
originally published in The Public, June
28, 1919, n.p., A.B. duPont Papers, Filson Club, folder
3; "Around the Clock with a Human
Steam Engine," and "A.B. duPont's Daily Dose," uniden-
tified clippings, ca. 1908, scrapbook in
A.B. duPont Papers, Filson Club, folder 17. For Tom
Johnson's connections with Louisville
and the duPont family, see Chandler and Salsbury, Pierre
S. duPont, 25-28, "Louisville Scenes," 11-12, and My
Story, 9-14.
42. Hauser, introduction to Johnson, My
Story, xxii; UTLC Grievance Committee Report.
43. Warner, Progressivism in Ohio, 71,
83fn., citing Rawlinson, "Tom Johnson and His
Congressional Years," 64, 105.
36 OHIO
HISTORY
terested."44 Johnson's
steel workers received higher wages than employees of
his major competitors, and even during
economic slumps he refused to enact
layoffs. When, on the eve of the 1907
election, a committee of Cleveland
trade unionists supporting Theodore
Burton condemned Johnson for allegedly
thwarting unionization and running
"the dirtiest scab mills in America," a
former employee came to the mayor's
defense, claiming that Johnson had
never discouraged unionization at the
Johnstown plant, and on one occasion
had even provided the company's
facilities for an organizer to hold a meet-
ing.45
One need look no further than the
Cleveland streetcar workers themselves
for evidence that the mayor was not
anti-labor, for the men of Division 445
met no resistance in their organizing
efforts of 1906, and enjoyed rates of pay
exceeded by only a few railway locals in
the country. Johnson campaign lit-
erature boasted that "there has
never been a strike on any railroad lines with
which Mr. Johnson has been
connected."46 When asked about the high wages
and good conditions granted to his steel
and railway employees, Johnson ex-
plained, "I did not do that because
I loved the men. I did it because I thought
it was the best thing for the
company."47 Johnson biographer Carl Lorenz
summed up this attitude by commenting
that Johnson "favored labor unions
as long as they did not interfere with
the success of legitimate business."48
Johnson apparently saw Division 268 as
just such an "interference." Given a
mandate to implement a three-cent line,
the mayor may have considered the
elimination of the union necessary.
Despite the boasts of one Johnson
cabinet member that "the strikers were
utterly defeated, and the union has gone
to pieces,"49 the outcome of the con-
flict was a dubious victory for Johnson.
The disruption of the strike and the
use of inexperienced replacement
motormen and conductors caused poor ser-
vice, alienating much of Municipal
Traction's ridership. Accompanying this
loss of business were the expenses
incurred through the destruction of prop-
erty. Expecting a profit of $40,000 for
the month of May, the company in-
44. Plain Dealer, November 1, 1907, citing a letter from Gompers to A.B.
Crutch, Secretary
of the UTLC Political Committee, October
17, 1907.
45. Massouh, "Technological and
Managerial Innovation," 61, 62; Plain Dealer, November
3, 1907; "To the Workingmen of the
City of Cleveland," Pamphlet c838, n.p., WRHS.
46. "Manager duPont's
Statement," June 6, 1908, in UTLC Grievance Committee Report;
"Tom L. Johnson's Past Utterances
on Present Issues: Three Cent Fares and Other Municipal
Questions, Cleveland, March, 1901,"
3, Tom Johnson Vertical File, WRHS.
47. Murdock, "A Life of Tom L.
Johnson," 306, citing Plain Dealer, March 14, 1901.
48. Murdock, "A Life of Tom L.
Johnson," 306, citing Carl Lorenz, Tom L. Johnson: Mayor
of Cleveland, (New York, 1911), 85.
49. Bemis, "Street Railway
Settlement in Cleveland," 572. Edward W. Bemis was
Cleveland's Water Works Superintendent
and one of Johnson's most important advisors. See
Murdock, "Cleveland's Johnson: The
Cabinet," Ohio Historical Quarterly, 66 (October, 1957),
386-88.
Downfall of a Progressive 37
stead lost over $50,000.50 More
importantly, the workers who had lost their
jobs were eager to strike back at the
mayor and desperate to regain employ-
ment. The opportunity to achieve these
goals came in the form of the
Schmidt Act, a state law passed earlier
in 1908 stipulating that fifteen percent
of the electorate could petition for a
referendum on public franchise grants.
As the strike died out in late May, the
men of Division 268 collected 23,000
signatures, 9000 more than required.
They reasoned that the referendum
would embarrass the mayor regardless of
the outcome, and that a defeat of
Municipal Traction might lead to a
return of Concon, and their jobs. Despite
earlier support for the Schmidt bill,
Johnson challenged the petitions and used
delaying tactics to prevent the public
from voting, thus disillusioning many
of his closest supporters. When the
referendum finally took place on October
22, 1908, Clevelanders voted to rescind
Municipal Traction's franchise grant,
38,249 to 37,644.51
Although ostensibly a referendum on the
city's streetcar system, the vote
was nothing less than a rejection of
Johnson. The nucleus of strikers, led by
Behner, had joined forces with the
Republican-sponsored Citizens Referendum
League to create a formidable, if
improbable, anti-Johnson coalition.52 The
mayor had long relished the animosity of
the city's business establishment,
but his poor judgement in handling the
strike had now begun to erode his
support among Cleveland's working class,
as illustrated by Johnson's show-
ing on the west side. After winning all
eight wards in 1907 with nearly 62
percent of the vote, the mayor lost
outright in three wards, and slipped to 53
percent of the total. This was not
nearly enough to offset the expected losses
on the east side.53 In light
of the 1907 Johnson landslide, the referendum rep-
resented a stunning defeat for the
mayor.
The administration charged that the striking
conductors and motormen had
been paid by "interested parties,
in printing literature and actively canvassing
against the Traction Company."54
It claimed that large sums of money had
been provided by former Concon
stockholders, the Cleveland Electric
Illuminating Company, and streetcar
interests throughout the country, and
even that the May strike itself had been
planned and financed by anti-Johnson
business interests. Johnson's followers
contended that the public had been
misled, since the local newspapers were
supposedly under the control of
50. Clemenson, "Political War
Against Tom Johnson," 172, citing figures from The Public,
July 3, 1908, 324; Johnson, My Story,
281.
51. Murdock, "A Life of Tom L.
Johnson," 395-99, 404-06; Lorenz, Tom L. Johnson, 171-
72; Plain Dealer, October 23,
1908.
52. Murdock, "A Life of Tom L.
Johnson," 404-06.
53. Plain Dealer, October 23,
1908.
54. Bemis, "The Cleveland
Referendum on Street Railways," Quarterly Journal of
Economics, 23 (November, 1908), 179.
38 OHIO HISTORY
"privilege."55 Citing
alleged irregularities in precincts where voting ma-
chines were used, one of the mayor's
assistants went so far as to claim that
"thousands appear to have voted
against the franchise who thought they were
voting to sustain the Mayor and his
policy."56 These charges ignore a more
compelling explanation of the outcome of
the referendum: the men simply
wanted their jobs back. They had been
denied their livelihoods, and the refer-
endum was their last recourse. The
people of Cleveland, meanwhile, used the
referendum to voice their disapproval of
Tom Johnson's handling of the trac-
tion situation. It is undeniable that
business interests subsidized the cam-
paign against the franchise grant, and
quite plausible that they extended finan-
cial assistance to the men during the
strike. But to paint the strikers as un-
thinking pawns in the hands of evil
monopolists, and to portray the public as
easily-manipulable and too ignorant to
read a ballot correctly, was an affront
to the intelligence of the very people
whose cause Johnson had long champi-
oned.
In the wake of the referendum, Municipal
Traction went into receivership,
under the direction of the Federal
Circuit Court. As a result, the Depositors'
Savings and Trust Company, a bank
organized by Johnson in 1906 to finance
Municipal Traction and facilitate the
sale of stock, immediately failed, caus-
ing hundreds of stockholders to lose
their investments. Meanwhile the re-
ceivers, anxious to make peace with
Division 268 and concerned over the
poor service plaguing the system,
announced on November 18 that they
would give the strikers preference in
filling job vacancies. Three days later
A.L. Behner declared that "our
fight was on the Municipal. The receivers
have met us in a spirit of fairness, and
we are glad to cooperate with them."
The union members voted to accept the
conditions, and the streetcar strike of-
ficially ended on November 21, 1908.57
Despite his defeat Tom Johnson
stubbornly continued the crusade for three-
cent fares. A referendum election held
on August 3, 1909, asked whether an
east side franchise should be granted
to the mayor's friend, Herman Schmidt.
By this time even many of the mayor's
longtime political supporters ques-
tioned his sincerity in serving the
city's interests, while the normally sympa-
thetic Plain Dealer criticized
Johnson for "a spirit of obstinacy and narrowness
that is far from agreeable to
contemplate."58 Anti-Johnson, pro-business
forces, officially known as the
"Citizens Committee of 100," waged a spir-
55. Bremner, "Civic Revival in
Ohio," 199; Howe, Confessions of a Reformer, 125; Johnson,
My Story, 282.
56. Murdock, "A Life of Tom L.
Johnson," citing Bemis, "Cleveland Referendum on Street
Railways," 182.
57. Hayden, "Street Railway
Situation in Cleveland," 412-13; Lorenz, Tom L. Johnson, 177;
Johnson, My Story, 265; Murdock,
"A Life of Tom L. Johnson," 413-15; Plain Dealer,
November 19, 22, 1908.
58. Plain Dealer, August 1, 1909.
Downfall of a Progressive 39
ited, well-financed campaign against the
ordinance, and succeeded in defeating
the Schmidt grant, 34,785 to 31,022. The
low turnout was a disappointment
to the Johnson administration, which had
expected at least 85,000 voters to
participate. The lack of interest was
particularly pronounced on the city's
west side. Wards One through Eight gave
the grant a slim majority of 1740
votes, but Johnson had anticipated a
margin of three to four times that. As in
the 1908 referendum, the west side
plurality was not nearly enough to offset
the Republican wards on the east side.
In one particularly-strong GOP ward
the Schmidt franchise lost by 2121
votes, 381 more than the entire pro-
Johnson west side margin.59
With his traditional base of support
crumbling and his prestige at low ebb,
Tom Johnson was obviously ripe for
defeat in the November 1909 mayoral
election. To oppose him the Republicans
chose the "weak and colorless"
Cuyahoga County recorder, Herman Baehr.60
A brewer by trade, Baehr had a
strong following on the west side, which
was heavily populated by his fellow
German-Americans. The party reasoned
that Baehr could take advantage of
Johnson's decreasing strength on the
west side, while winning easily on the
east side. In contrast to 1907, Johnson
avoided the street railway controversy,
campaigning instead on a tax reform
platform, while stressing his administra-
tion's achievements over the past eight
years. Baehr, meanwhile, said little
of substance and avoided controversy. He
ignored Johnson's calls for public
debate, and knowing that the east side
was safely Republican, did most of his
campaigning on the west side.61
Baehr defeated Johnson by 3694 votes,
winning fifteen of twenty-six wards,
including three of the eight west side
wards. The Republicans also took
twenty-five of the thirty-two council
seats, as a number of pro-Johnson in-
cumbents lost. The Plain Dealer described
the results as a case of the mayor's
streetcar troubles "frightening his
friends and driving his opponents to the
polls." This was particularly true
on the west side, where the Republican
candidate's popularity "cut the
heart out of Johnson's strength on Baehr's side
of the city." With 1242 fewer west
siders going to the polls than in 1907,
the mayor's 6782-vote west side majority
in the Burton election shrunk to a
mere 1052 votes in 1909. This was not
nearly enough to offset the expected
huge losses on the east side, where
Baehr crushed Johnson by 4746 votes.62
59. Cleveland Press, August 4,
1909; Johnson, My Story, 288; Murdock, "A Life of Tom L.
Johnson," 417-19; Plain Dealer, August
3, 4, 1909.
60. Carol Poh Miller and Robert Wheeler,
Cleveland: A Concise History, 1796-1990,
(Bloomington, Ind., and Indianapolis,
1990), 108.
61. Murdock, "A Life of Tom L.
Johnson," 424-28; Plain Dealer, November 1, 1909; Van
Tassel and Grabowski, Cleveland
Encyclopedia, 65. Johnson's attempt to downplay the street-
car issue and instead promote tax reform
is apparent in 1909 campaign literature in the Tom L.
Johnson Vertical File at the Western
Reserve Historical Society, and the A.B. duPont Papers at
the Filson Club.
62. Clemenson, "Political War
Against Tom L. Johnson," 270-79, 291-302; Cleveland
40 OHIO HISTORY
Johnson's defeat was not an example of labor punishing its enemies. There is no evidence of a union campaign to "get" the mayor in any of Cleveland's newspapers, including the Citizen, published by the UTLC. Labor's Political League did refuse to endorse the mayor in 1909, citing Johnson's "unwarranted stand against the street railway men's union."63 But Johnson had never enjoyed strong support from organized labor; the UTLC, wary of the mayor's business background, usually backed a Socialist candidate for city hall. The shift away from Johnson was more subtle, marked by an increasing loss of support in the traditionally pro-Johnson, working class wards of the west side. This is illustrated by the mayor's west side vote percentages in his final four municipal elections: |
|
After winning almost 62 percent of the vote in 1907, Johnson slipped to 53 and 54 percent in the referendums of October 1908 and August 1909, respec- tively. In the 1909 Baehr election, Johnson garnered only 51 percent of the
Leader, November 4, 1909; Plain Dealer, November 3, 1909. 63. Plain Dealer, October 31, 1909. |
Downfall of a Progressive 41
vote, his lowest total west of the
Cuyahoga since the loss to Governor
Herrick in 1903. Tom Johnson's
supporters had obviously grown tired of the
street railway controversy.
The strike was central to this
development. Prior to May 1908 the traction
issue had been a catalyst for Johnson's
electoral support, as shown by his
huge vote totals in 1907. But the
strike, by itself quite damaging to the
mayor's prestige, set in motion a series
of events which killed this enthusi-
asm in only a few months. The
mistreatment of the strikers led to the peti-
tion drive and a referendum which would
not otherwise have taken place; the
mayor's awkward attempts to invalidate
the petitions disappointed many of
his closest friends; the loss of one
thousand experienced men caused poor
transit service, angering riders and
providing ammunition to Johnson's critics;
the expenses of repairing and replacing
property damaged in the strike put
added strain on a system already
strapped for revenue, hindering service even
further; and the failure of the
Depositors' Savings and Trust Company caused
hundreds of the mayor's strongest
supporters to lose money.64
In his eight-year battle with
"privilege," that amalgam of industrialists,
bankers, and crooked politicians
supposedly intent on destroying him, Tom
Johnson portrayed himself as a champion
of the common people. But his
mistreatment of the motormen and
conductors of Division 268 exposed the
mayor as a cynical elitist, convinced he
knew what was best for the people of
Cleveland, and determined to realize his
dream of three-cent transit. It was the
misfortune of the strikers to
unwittingly get in the way of this dream. The
irony is that these working class men
accomplished with petitions what
"privilege," with all of its
money and power, could not. And that was Tom
Johnson's misfortune.
64. Haworth, "Mayor Johnson of
Cleveland," 471-72; Lorenz, Tom L. Johnson, 171-72;
Murdock, "A Life of Tom L.
Johnson," 399-403.
ARTHUR E. DeMATTEO
The Downfall of a Progressive: Mayor
Tom L. Johnson and The Cleveland
Streetcar Strike of 1908
On November 6, 1907, Cleveland Mayor Tom
L. Johnson awoke to head-
lines announcing his landslide triumph
in the previous day's municipal elec-
tion. Democrat Johnson, the champion of
progressive urban reform and pub-
lic control of utilities, had solidified
his position as the city's most powerful
politician by crushing the best
candidate the Republican Party could offer.
The vote was a referendum on the mayor's
six-year crusade for low streetcar
fares, and the Cleveland Plain Dealer
reported that"the victory of Mayor Tom
and 3-cent fare was complete."1
Johnson immediately declared his intention
to run for a fifth term two years hence,
and appeared to desire nothing more
than leadership of the Ohio Democratic
Party. But the mayor's impressive
reelection had attracted national
attention, and some party luminaries, notably
House Democratic leader Champ Clark,
began to eye Johnson as a possible
1908 presidential alternative to the
twice-rejected William Jennings Bryan.2
A series of mishaps and miscalculations,
centered around Cleveland's street
railway situation, soon eclipsed the
promise of that autumn morning. The
1907 victory was Johnson's last, and
within two years he lost city hall to a
political lightweight, the victim of a
reversal in fortune more dramatic than
any in the city's history. Robert H.
Bremner has described Tom Johnson as
"greedy for affection and greedy
for accomplishment."3 In the months follow-
ing the election these characteristics,
manifested in a single-minded determina-
tion to push through his streetcar
reforms, set the mayor on a collision course
with Cleveland's unionized transit
employees. The ensuing strike of 1908 ru-
ined Johnson's political career and
probably hastened his death.
Arthur E. DeMatteo is a Ph.D. candidate
in American labor history at the University of
Akron. He wishes to thank Professors
Daniel Nelson and James F. Richardson for reading
earlier drafts of this article and
providing helpful criticisms and suggestions.
1. Cleveland Plain Dealer, November
6, 1907.
2. Ibid., November 11, 22, 1907; New
York Times, November 8, 9, 1907.
3. Robert H. Bremner, "The Civic
Revival in Ohio: The Fight Against Privilege in Cleveland
and Toledo, 1899-1912" (Ph.D.
diss., Ohio State University, 1943), 46.