Cleveland's Johnson: First Term
By EUGENE C. MURDOCK*
BACK IN THE EIGHTEEN FORTIES a number of railroads had pur-
chased from the city of Cleveland a
strip of lakefront land one
hundred and fifty feet wide between
East Ninth Street and the
Cuyahoga River. In the decades that
followed, a valuable area of
"made land" was built up on
the lake side of the original strip.
The Union Depot, erected in Civil War
times, and the adjacent
railroad yards were located on this
"made land." In 1893 Law
Director James S. Lawrence filed suit
to regain this land for the
city. Lawrence received little backing,
and after fighting alone for
several years, abandoned the struggle.
At this point the railroads
moved to secure perpetual rights to the
disputed ground.1
Late in Mayor John Farley's
administration (1899-1901), a pro-
posal went before city council in which
the city disavowed any and
all claims to the valuable lakefront, in
return for which it would
receive a negligible strip of land at
the mouth of the Cuyahoga.
While the general public showed little
interest in the matter, the
chamber of commerce campaigned actively
for the ordinance. On
March 20, 1901, two days after council
passed the measure, 12 to 10,
Tom L. Johnson, then a "private
citizen and taxpayer," requested
Law Director Thomas Hogsett to enjoin
Farley from carrying out
the lakefront ordinance.2
When Hogsett delayed, Johnson himself
filed for a temporary
*Eugene C. Murdock is assistant
professor of history at Marietta College.
This is the fifth in a series of
articles by Dr. Murdock on Tom L. Johnson to be
published in the Quarterly. Preceding
ones are: "Cleveland's Johnson" (October 1953),
"Cleveland's Johnson: At Home"
(October 1954), "Cleveland's Johnson: Elected
Mayor" (January 1956), and
"Cleveland's Johnson: The Cabinet" (October 1957).
1 Tom L. Johnson, My Story, edited
by Elizabeth J. Hauser (New York, 1911),
113. A good history of the case appears
on the editorial page of the Cleveland Plain
Dealer, February 7, 1901.
2 Plain Dealer, March 19, 21, 1901; Council Proceedings, 1900-1901,
470-475.
Taxpayers were required to file such
suits through the law director, and only if the
law director failed to act could they
proceed through a private attorney.
36
THE OHIO HISTORICAL QUARTERLY
order to restrain Farley from executing
the ordinance. Following
a great deal of bickering and
considerable inconvenience, Johnson's
attorneys secured the order March 28.
No less than seven judges
on one pretext or another refused to
hear the case. At length, Judge
Ford granted the order at 1:30 P.M.,
and the papers were served
on Farley at 5:00 P.M. The mayor was
enjoined from executing the
lakefront ordinance until 11:00 A.M., April 4.3
On April 1, 1901, three days before the
injunction expired, Tom
L. Johnson was elected mayor of
Cleveland, trouncing "Billy"
Akers, the Republican candidate by over
six thousand votes. The
law fixed no specific date for
mayors-elect to take office, merely
stating that, as soon as they
"qualified" they could take the oath.
In most instances there was no
particular rush to move in, and a
decent interval of from two to three
weeks generally elapsed be-
tween election and installation. The
circumstances of Johnson's
election were not typical, however, for
unless the former monopolist
took office before 11:00 A.M., April 4,
the lakefront ordinance,
which he bitterly opposed, would go
into effect. "I therefore re-
quested the members of the board of
elections," he wrote, "to work
day and night in order that the vote
might be canvassed before the
expiration of the injunction."4
At 10:00 A.M. on the morning of April 4,
City Clerk Burgess
was quietly at work in his third floor
office of the old city hall,5 when
Johnson, his son, Loftin, and a group
of friends pushed their way
through the door. Certainly, queried
the perplexed clerk, the
mayor-elect did not propose to become
mayor so early, or did he?
He did, and at 10:23 Burgess
administered the oath of office. After
the several guests congratulated the
new mayor, Johnson turned to
the door and grunted, "Now let's
go downstairs."
With the mayor heading the procession,
the party moved down
to Farley's office in the southwest
corner of the second floor. Enter-
ing the outer office, Johnson asked of
an unoccupied newsman, "Is
this the place?" Assured that it
was, the group passed into the inner
3 Plain Dealer, March 28, 29, April 3, 4, 1901; Council Proceedings,
1900-1901,
489-501.
4 Johnson, My Story, 117.
5 The old city hall was located at Superior Avenue and East Third Street
on the
present site of the Cleveland Public
Library.
CLEVELAND'S JOHNSON: FIRST TERM 37
office, where the surprised Farley was
cleaning his rifle. "Well,
Tom," greeted Farley, "when
are you going to take hold?" Tom,
of course, had already taken hold.
While Johnson and the others
watched with interest from a
leather couch, Farley packed his
papers and belongings. A few minutes
after 11:00 o'clock the ex-
mayor, gun over his shoulder, departed
for his Georgian Bay lodge.6
Johnson had taken the oath of office
thirty-seven minutes before
the order restraining Farley from
carrying out the lakefront ordin-
ance expired. Now mayor, Johnson of
course would never execute
the ordinance, and if the railroads
wanted the lakefront they would
have to go to court to get it. Judge
Ford extended the order one
more day, and on April 5, on plea of
Tom Johnson, "citizen and
taxpayer," it was continued until
further instruction from the court.
The Pennsylvania and the Cleveland and
Pittsburgh railroads
shortly began mandamus proceedings to
compel Johnson to carry
out the ordinance, but no more was
heard of the suit. At the instance
of Councilman Frederic C. Howe, a loyal
Johnsonite, the ordinance
was repealed May 13, 1901.7
* * *
In this melodramatic manner did Tom L.
Johnson become mayor
of Cleveland. He had won an important
victory over the railroads,
but his fight for reform had not really
begun. Soon he was to clash
with other railroads, with powerful
public utility corporations, and
with state tax commissions. Here only
the minor aspects of the first
6 Johnson, My Story, 118; Plain
Dealer, April 5, 1901, August 28, 1904; Charles
Kennedy, Fifty Years of Cleveland (Cleveland,
1925), 119-124.
7 Plain Dealer, April 6, 16, 30,
May 14, 1901. The subsequent history of the
case can be summarized briefly. Although
the suit was initiated in common pleas court,
the railroads succeeded in having it
transferred to federal jurisdiction. On February 6,
1906, the United States Circuit Court
ruled that the railroads were the rightful
owners of the disputed lakefront
territory. However, four months later, because of
a recent United States Supreme Court
ruling which bore upon a similar case, the
circuit court reversed itself, stated
that federal courts had no jurisdiction, and
returned the whole matter to the local
judiciary. The common pleas court in 1910
held for the city, and was sustained by
the district court, the circuit court, and
finally on October 22, 1912, by the Ohio
Supreme Court. Still unconvinced, the
railroads then took the case to the
United States Supreme Court. Associate Justice
Day delivered the knockout blow to the
railroads on November 16, 1914, when
he denied the appeal. Plain Dealer, February
7, June 17, 1906, October 23, 1912,
November 17, 1914; Johnson, My Story,
118; 87 Ohio Reports 469; 235 United States
50.
38
THE OHIO HISTORICAL QUARTERLY
term can be treated, for the major
matters of taxation and street
railways require special handling.
When Johnson chased Farley off to
Georgian Bay, the Repub-
licans enjoyed a 12 to 10 advantage in
council. Eight of the Repub-
licans were remnants of the
"Notorious 13," a group which was the
target of frequent criticism for its
abject subservience to the street
railway companies. Two other
Republicans, however, Fred Howe
and William J. Springborn, quickly
identified themselves with the
administration, which gave Johnson a working majority.
In the 1902
spring election, seven more
"notorious" ones were not returned,
while the Democrats picked up two
seats. With Howe and Spring-
born still in his column, the mayor now
enjoyed a comfortable
14 to 8 advantage.8 Despite
periodic revolts during his nine-year
administration, Johnson remained the
master of council.
In his campaign Johnson pledged himself
to a broad program of
public improvements, and it was not
long before this promise was
fulfilled. At the mayor's request
council transferred $160,000 from
the city hall fund to the public works
department. With this money
available Director Charles P. Salen was
able to launch a thorough
cleanup campaign. Johnson himself had
already taken preliminary
steps in this direction. Following a
Sunday tour of the town he
ordered the building inspector to
destroy some thirty hideous, un-
painted structures, all of which were
ten to twelve feet out of plumb,
on the verge of collapse, and buried in
refuse. War was also declared
on billboards, over one hundred of
which were ordered demolished.9
Cleveland in 1901 could take little
pride in its public streets.
Only thirty-five percent of them were
paved, and even these were
rarely cleaned. The city had no
authority to hose its own streets,
and only when surplus funds were
available, did it contract with
a private company to get the job done.
The Plain Dealer summarized
this unhappy situation in the following
words:
Cleveland is not a country village and
the practice of piling up or scatter-
8 Johnson, My Story, 121; Plain
Dealer, April 15, 1901, April 8, 1902. At this
time Cleveland was divided into eleven
districts, with each district having two
councilmen. The terms lasted two years,
but were staggered, so that only eleven
expired each year.
9 Plain Dealer, April
15, 16, 27, 30, May 3, 5, 7, June 15, 1901.
CLEVELAND'S JOHNSON: FIRST TERM 39
ing sweepings and odds and ends of all
kinds out into the street, to be
carried off by the wind or beaten down
by the rain and render the street
untidy until the semi-professional visit
of the street cleaning gang is made,
is out of date.10
The first of several moves Johnson made
to meet this problem was
to dispatch Street Superintendent John
Wilhelm to Newark, New
Jersey, and New York City, to study at
first hand street cleaning
techniques in a large metropolitan
area. When Wilhelm returned,
orders went out instructing gangs of
workmen to clean up the
accumulated filth in gutters. Then a
newly organized crew of "white
wings" was set to work with twenty
new push carts and two
large dump carts. The white-wing force
was gradually expanded,
and all the workers were instructed to
report in freshly laundered
uniforms each Wednesday and Saturday.
While none of this
changed Cleveland into a garden spot
overnight, the regular trash
collections by fit-looking crews did
reduce an ugly eyesore.11
To fulfill another campaign pledge
Johnson turned the city's
parks into playgrounds for the public.
Over violent protests from
"members of the former park boards
and those in their carriages,"
the mayor removed all "keep off
the grass" signs from the parks.
Police who ordered spectators off the
lawn at a Lakeview Park
boat race were reversed and rebuked.
Playgrounds for children
were built in four city parks. Outmoded
as it might seem today, a
new public bathhouse in Gordon Park was
welcomed by the peo-
ple.12 While cynics
denounced these liberating policies, charging
Johnson with "politics,"
there actually was a much deeper purpose
to the mayor's program. He viewed the
city as a functional organism,
capable of performing positive service
for the people rather than
confining itself to preserving peace
and protecting property. His
park policy was an early example of
this philosophy.
A practical realism spiced with a
sprinkling of human under-
standing characterized Johnson's
attitude toward "vice." Believing
that "you can't legislate men or
women into being good," he made
10 Ibid., May 3, 1901.
11 Ibid., April 30, May 14, 17, June 13, July 21, 1901.
12 Ibid., June 6,
15, 30, 1901; The Public, IX (1906-07), 491; XIV (1911-12),
460; Kennedy, Fifty Years of
Cleveland, 147.
40
THE OHIO HISTORICAL QUARTERLY
no effort to pass anti-vice laws.
Despite the constant clamoring of
uplifters for ordinances prohibiting
gambling and drinking, Johnson
refused to act. With Toledo's Brand
Whitlock he recognized that
such laws were futile and despaired of
the uplifters and their agita-
tion.13
In a letter to the City Ministers
Union, Johnson summarized his
views. Noting that periodic anti-vice
campaigns never served any
real purpose, he outlined three courses
of action: (1) official tolera-
tion, accompanied by blackmail, graft, and corruption, which
no
decent administration could follow; (2)
attempted suppression by
crusade, the traditional reform wave which invariably failed;
and
(3) administrative repression, which Johnson thought was the best
policy.
The theory is [he wrote] that direct
regulation or suppression in individual
cases, as the circumstances warrant, is
more effective than indiscriminate
raiding and arrest. It is necessary, of
course, that . . . there can be no
favored class or pulls, political or
otherwise. I am aware that this policy
can be corrupted, although I think it is
not so inevitable . . . as the first
method . . . and I believe that the
efforts of the present administration to
apply the policy have been free from
that reproach.14
In carrying out this policy Johnson
cracked down mercilessly on
public gambling and slot machines while
ignoring the "private
poker game." Since the "social
evil" could not be eliminated, he
endeavored to restrict it within
controllable limits. If anyone was
"slugged" in a disorderly
house, the place was closed at once, but
otherwise it was permitted to do
business.15
In this connection Johnson put heavy
pressure on saloons which
operated disorderly houses upstairs.
Although laws could not make
people good, the mayor resolved to
"remove artificial stimulants to
make them bad." In April he
ordered the stationing of uniformed
officers at the entrances to such
places, with instructions to take the
names of all visitors. "I think
this will bring effective results within
13 Johnson, My Story, 122; Brand
Whitlock, Forty Years of It (New York, 1930),
299.
14 Plain Dealer, January
13, 1906.
15 Conversation with Elmore T. Bacon,
August 15, 1949; Johnson, My Story,
122-123.
CLEVELAND'S JOHNSON: FIRST TERM 41
twenty-four hours," he remarked.
While this plan, which Johnson's
father had used when police chief in
Louisville, was at first thought
a failure, it achieved temporary
success. By May 21 four houses
in the "Tenderloin," placed
under surveillance three weeks before,
were forced out of business, and five
others, operating at a great
loss, were ready to quit. Whitlock
adopted this policy a few years
later in Toledo. "We found that
merely by posting a policeman
in uniform before such places, its
patronage was discouraged and
in a few days discontinued."16
With respect to slot machines, the
mayor called in the city's
four biggest owners and put the matter
to them: Would they
remove the machines willingly or would
the police be compelled
to confiscate them? Although the owners
appeared cooperative,
they failed to act quickly enough, and
a few days later Superinten-
dent Rowe, Captain Kohler, and other
officers, all armed with axes,
demolished fifteen machines at Central
Station. Kohler said he put
all the money taken from the machines,
an undisclosed amount,
in the police pension fund.17
* * *
Johnson was in firm step with other
"Civic Revivalists" in his
support of nonpartisanism in municipal
government.18 He chose
skilled administrators, regardless of
party label, to head up the
several executive departments. He
supported Republicans who
believed in his program; he denounced
Democrats who opposed it.l9
"I commenced at once," he
wrote, "to take advantage of weakened
party lines and do what I could to
weaken them still further." He
made Kohler, a Republican, chief of
police; Bemis, a man with no
politics, superintendent of the
waterworks; Friedrich, also of no
party, health officer; while later, in
appointing West Side Market
16 Plain Dealer, April 11, 28, May 22, 1901; Whitlock, Forty Years of
It, 281.
17 Plain Dealer, June
20, 21, 29, 1901.
18 See Robert H. Bremner's Ph.D.
dissertation, "The Civic Revival in Ohio"
(Ohio State University, 1943).
19 In the 1907 campaign the Republican
candidate, Congressman Theodore Burton,
denounced Johnson for this. The mayor,
argued Burton, paid no attention to a
man's party, but only to a man's vote.
Burton Papers, Western Reserve Historical
Society.
42
THE OHIO HISTORICAL QUARTERLY
House commissioners, Johnson named all
Republicans.20 It was
a remarkable departure in municipal
government.
Bemis provides an excellent example of
the political headaches
which emerge from such a policy. The
waterworks division, long
a repository for wardworkers and
spoilsmen, had never known
sound management. Bemis became
superintendent September 17,
1901, and within a month dismissed the
chief engineer of the
Division Street Pumping Station, James
Meehan, an appointee and
favorite of Charles P. Salen. Salen had
fired the former engineer
to accommodate Meehan. This event
foreshadowed a showdown
between Bemis and Salen, although Bemis
continued to discharge
incompetents for five more months
without apparent opposition.21
The explosion came in mid-March, when
officials of the Buckeye
Club,22 a Democratic party
organization of city employees, came
to Mayor Johnson and protested against
Bemis' "indiscriminate"
firing of club members. Bemis, they
argued, was under the influence
of the chief assessing clerk, an
anti-Johnsonite named Harry A.
McPherson, who insisted that the
superintendent purge the water-
works of any Buckeye Club members who
engaged in political
activity. "You've got to discharge
the professor or we'll fight the
administration," was their parting
threat.23
The unruffled Bemis denied the charges,
and added that the dis-
missed men were water-meter assessors
who did their assessing in
downtown saloons. "The only
consideration has been the ability
to perform the services to which I
assigned or wished to assign the
employees," he said. "In my
conduct of the office, political considera-
tions have never entered nor will they
enter." A few days later,
Johnson, in a public letter to the
Buckeyes, supported Bemis and
rebuked the club, which took its
spanking in good grace. Bemis'
victory was confirmed in April, when
Salen, who had adopted
obstructionist tactics, agreed to
ratify Bemis' appointments.24
20 Johnson, My Story, 121; Plain
Dealer, August 13, 1901.
21 Carl Lorenz, Tom L. Johnson, Mayor
of Cleveland (New York, 1911), 51;
Plain Dealer, September 18, October 26, 1901.
22 The Buckeye Club was founded sometime after Johnson's election for the
major purpose of securing
"consents" in the street railway war. Conversation with
Harry Payer, April 23, 1949.
23 Plain Dealer, March 16, 18, 1902; Johnson, My Story, 168.
24 Plain Dealer, March 15, 21,
26, April 3, 1902.
CLEVELAND'S JOHNSON; FIRST TERM 43
Trouble broke out again in July,25
however, when a waterworks
ordinance by which Bemis hoped to
establish a uniform salary
scale was defeated. Johnson scolded the
Buckeye Club in general
and Martin Thumm in particular for
their opposition to the ordin-
ance. Although Thumm, a veteran
Democratic busybody and at
the time chief clerk in the waterworks
division, assured the mayor
that Bemis and not Johnson was his
target, the mayor promptly
fired Thumm. Harry Payer, the Buckeye
president, then made peace
with the administration by reporting
that only a small minority of
Buckeyes opposed the mayor's waterworks
policy.26 Complaints
about Bemis plagued Johnson throughout
his four terms, but in
all cases he backed up his
superintendent, and the critics had to
suffer silently.
Aside from civil service reform Bemis
also introduced several
scientific improvements in his
department, the most important of
which was the water meter. Cleveland
was one of the few large
cities in the country still without
meters. Bemis planned to place
meters on strategically located trial
streets, so that residents of
adjacent streets could become familiar
with them. He predicted
that meter users would cut their water
rent by from thirty to fifty
percent. Compulsory meter installation
began in February 1902,
and the annual report for the year
brought out the fact that the
department's expenses were down six
percent from 1900 despite a
six percent increase in the number of
consumers. However, as meters
were used only in certain sections of
the city and then only for a
part of the year, these figures were
not complete. The report
covering 1903 indicated a further
decrease in water pumpage of
11.37 percent from the 1902 figure.27
A bitter fight erupted over this issue
in the spring of 1904, when
Councilman Gunn, an anti-Johnson
Democrat, tried to abolish the
compulsory use of meters. His ordinance
provided for a flat rate
to consumers depending on the number of
rooms in the house,
25 A
serious strike occurred in the waterworks in late April and lasted until June,
but the rate of pay was the issue, and
there were no political overtones. Plain Dealer,
April 30, May 8, 15, 17, June 13, 1902.
26 Ibid., July 14, 23, 24, 25,
1902.
27 Ibid., September 19, November
30, 1901, January 21, February 19, 1902, March
15, 1903, January 8, 1904.
44
THE OHIO HISTORICAL QUARTERLY
rather than a sliding charge dependent
on the amount used. It passed
council by a one-sided margin, 24 to 9,
on April 11, but was vetoed
by the mayor. The anti-meter forces, by
mobilizing their full
strength, could have overridden
Johnson's veto, but the mayor was
able so to divide their ranks that they
had to play for time. Mean-
while City Solicitor Newton D. Baker
had ruled that the depart-
ment of public works (or the board of
public service as it was now
known under the Nash Code) controlled
the waterworks, and that
the city should continue to set the
meters. Insulted by this impertin-
ence, council refused to appropriate
any funds for the department,
and Bemis had to furlough fifty
meter-setters. At length, on June
6, when the Gunn ordinance was again
taken up, Johnson's veto
was overridden and compulsory
meter-setting was abolished. Within
two weeks after the passage of the Gunn
ordinance, however,
thirteen hundred citizens applied for
new meters, which forced
council to reconsider the whole matter
and vote the full appropria-
tions requested by the waterworks
department.28
* * *
The effort to pipe in natural gas from
West Virginia precipitated
one of the most spectacular episodes of
the first term. Because the
East Ohio Gas Company, the corporation
which sought the franchise,
was a Standard Oil subsidiary, doubt
existed as to whether Johnson
would oppose or favor the proposition.
The mayor, however, while
regretting that a monopoly company was
involved, assured East
Ohio representatives that if they (a)
could provide cheaper gas,
and (b) would not meddle with council
in securing the franchise,
he would support them.29
The ordinance went before council in
May, and a spirited clash
between the natural gas and artificial
gas people broke out at once.
The Cleveland Gaslight and Coke, and
the Peoples Gaslight and
Coke, the two artificial gas companies,
both stood to lose millions
and were understandably concerned. The
coal dealers who supplied
the gas companies also lined up against
the measure. The influential
28 Ibid., April 12, May 10, 17,
30, June 1, 7, 21, 1904.
29 Ibid., April 24, May 6, 1902; Johnson, My Story, 213-214.
CLEVELAND'S JOHNSON: FIRST TERM 45
chamber of commerce opposed natural
gas. On June 2 the president
of the Cleveland Gaslight and Coke
Company in a speech which
covered one full newspaper page,
denounced natural gas, arguing
that it would be dangerous and that the
supply would rapidly
give out.30
June council meetings witnessed rousing
exchanges before the
crowded galleries. Several times the
ordinance was nearly killed,
but prompt action kept it alive. One
overwrought councilman
charged that he and others were being
"shadowed" by the city
police. The mayor denied this but added
that he had been paying
private detectives out of his own
pocket to shadow certain council-
men and that their efforts were likely
to be well rewarded.31
At length, public meetings were held in
every ward to give
council a clue to sentiment at the
grass roots. Although the news-
papers opposed the ordinance, they did
not necessarily reflect public
opinion. On the other hand, with the
new company promising gas
at thirty-one cents per one thousand
cubic feet, when the old
companies were charging eighty cents,
the advantages seemed
clear enough. Howe noted that
"other large cities had natural gas
which had proved safe, convenient, and
cheap." Yet had it not
been for a series of unusual events,
the gas ordinance might well
have been defeated.32
Final action on the ordinance was taken
Monday night, June 23.
Spectators, who had been waiting since
four thirty, quickly filled
the chamber when the doors opened at
seven forty-five. A Plain
Dealer reporter described the action:
The galleries were tense with suppressed
excitement. The discussion
had just begun when Mayor Johnson took
the floor. The tension eased,
almost disappointedly, when he announced
that there were no new develop-
ments in the matter of detailing private
detectives. . . . "But," the Mayor's
voice rose sharp as a trumpet call,
"a member of the City Council came
to me today and said he had been offered
$5,000 for his vote. I told him to
take it!" Johnson's voice rang out.
"He tells me that he has part of the
money. He tells me that Dr. Daykin gave
him the money." . . . A death-
30 Plain Dealer, June 8, 1902.
31 Ibid., June 10, 1902; Council
Proceedings, 1902-1903, 84.
32 Plain Dealer, June 17, 22,
1902; Frederic C. Howe, Confessions of a Reformer
(New York, 1925), 102.
46
THE OHIO HISTORICAL QUARTERLY
like silence followed Mayor Johnson to
his seat, and Councilman Kohl,
pale in his excitement, slowly rose from
his seat in the front of the chamber,
and without a word, dramatically held
aloft a long thin package, wrapped
in tissue paper. The galleries shrieked,
"Kohl! Kohl! What's the matter
with Charley?"
With his face flushed and his hair
askew, Kohl explained to his
astonished audience how Daykin offered
him the money for intro-
ducing an amendment which would so
hamstring the gas ordinance
as to make it of little use to the East
Ohio Gas Company. Kohl
then shouted across the hall: "Two
thousand dollars won't buy my
vote. Five thousand dollars won't buy my
vote . . . . There isn't
enough money in the Society for Savings
to buy my vote!" Following
this fit of eloquence, Kohl sat down
while Johnson again jumped to
his feet.
The mayor charged that other councilmen
probably had gas
money in their pockets too, an
accusation which provoked indignant
denials from Councilmen Emerson and
Beilstein. Furious, Council-
man Fred Howe got the floor and lashed
out against boodlers and
boodling.
I have heard complaints about the
so-called anarchists who speak on the
Public Square. Anarchy, as I understand
it, means the destruction of organ-
ized government. What is bribery but the
destruction of the government?
It means substituting money for honest
discussion. It means an end to
democracy. The anarchist on the Public
Square, if such there be, merely
talks about putting an end to the
government. Here are men who have
substituted corruption for discussion
and ours is a government by discussion.
The real enemies of the state, the most
dangerous anarchists, are the men
who have plotted this thing, to subvert
the will of the elected representatives
of the people.
An investigation by council was
immediately voted. After the
excitement had abated, and while Dr.
Daykin was detained in the
mayor's office, the gas ordinance passed
easily, 15 to 6.33
33 Plain Dealer, June 24, 1902; Howe, Confessions of a Reformer, 101-104;
John-
son, My Story, 214-215. Howe's
account, however colorful, loses a good bit of its
accuracy in the twenty-five years it
took to get it down in print. He speaks of a
preliminary vote on the ordinance before
the Kohl exposure, which, in fact, did
not occur. On other points his testimony
is in error. See also the rather incomplete
record in Council Proceedings, 1902-1903,
112, 121.
CLEVELAND'S JOHNSON: FIRST TERM 47
In the investigation, which began that
same night, Dr. Daykin, a
prominent west-side practitioner,
denied Kohl's charge, claiming
he did not even know the gas ordinance
was to be voted on. Kohl,
however, said that when Daykin had been
in Kohl's store the previ-
ous Saturday night, the doctor remarked
that since everyone else
was making money on the gas ordinance,
Kohl should profit from
it too. Kohl pressed for particulars,
and plans for the transaction
were completed. The money was passed
before council convened on
Monday evening, in Daykin's inner
office. As the two emerged, a
woman was sitting in the outer office.
Daykin pulled Kohl quickly
back into his office, seized a bottle
of muscle liniment from the cab-
inet and pushed it into Kohl's hand,
saying, "Give your wife a
teaspoonful of this every half
hour."
Council carried on its fruitless
investigation for about two months,
when the case went before a grand jury,
which indicted Daykin.
At the trial, however, the jury
acquitted Daykin after four hours'
deliberation. What saved the doctor was
Kohl's admission that he
solicited the bribe. Actually the whole
matter was so involved that
no one could determine who was really
guilty. Kohl seemed to be
as much involved as Daykin, while
Daykin appeared only to be act-
ing for the gas and coal companies.
Mayor Johnson wrote, "We
thought he [Daykin] was acting for a
combination of coal dealers
and the artificial gas people, but did
not know positively and weren't
able to prove it."34
Although the ordinance had already
passed, the coal dealers
urged the mayor to veto it. However,
when the old companies
refused to reduce their rates to fifty
cents per one thousand cubic
feet, he signed the ordinance July 3.
Meanwhile, as the chamber of
commerce had given its reluctant
approval to natural gas, every-
body except the coal and artificial gas
people was now happy. The
first natural gas from West Virginia
reached greater Cleveland the
following January at the Newburgh
standpipe. A crowd of one
thousand braved a wintry afternoon to
observe the East Ohio Gas
Company representative shoot a burning
Roman candle at the
34 Plain Dealer, June 25, August 21, September 28, October 7, 8, 1902;
Johnson,
My Story, 215.
48 THE OHIO HISTORICAL
QUARTERLY
escaping gas. The ignited gas sent arcs
of rose-colored flame from
twenty to thirty feet into the air
while spectators cheered.35
A final first term incident, worth only
minor consideration, con-
cerned paving contracts. Shortly after
the election Johnson decided
that the city was paying too much to
get its streets paved. Standard
procedure was to open bids for one,
two, or three streets at a time,
with the contracts going the rounds of
a small group of local con-
tractors, usually at the same figure.
The mayor at first thought this
was a conspiracy among contractors, but
later decided that it was
a conspiracy among northern Ohio paving
brick manufacturers, who
supplied the contractors.
To frustrate the combine he proposed to
put up a large number of
streets for bidding at one time, hoping
to induce an out-of-town
company to come to Cleveland and
underbid the local contractors
on the whole lot. Early in February of
1903 the city advertised for
bids to pave some sixty streets. The
contract was awarded to the
Barber Asphalt Company, a non-Cleveland
firm,36 which in March
received additional contracts, making
in all a total of seventy-six
streets. These contracts cost the city
$50,000 less than the local
combine rates.
The contractors, of course, did not
submit to this without protest.
On February 9 they filed suit to enjoin
the city from entering into
the first set of contracts, arguing
that it had no authority to make
contracts of such magnitude. The day
after the second batch of
bids went to the Barber Company,
combine representatives journeyed
to Columbus and secured a temporary
order restraining the firm
from paving any of the streets for
which it had contracts. At the
hearing, however, the supreme court in
a 4 to 2 decision ruled that
Cleveland had the right to contract for
the paving of its streets in
any way it desired.
Some days before the second group of
bids was opened, a number
of contractors told Michael A. Fanning,
Cleveland manager of the
35 Plain Dealer, July 3, 4, 1902, January 4, 1903.
36 The Barber Asphalt Company, interestingly enough, did most of its
paving with
brick. Its Cleveland manager, Michael A.
Fanning, was to become a loyal Johnsonian
during the mayor's tax fight with the
steam railroads. Fanning had already clashed with
one of the local contractors, Fred
Bramley, back in 1901, over a contract to pave
a section of East Ninth Street. Plain
Dealer, June 11, 1901.
CLEVELAND'S JOHNSON: FIRST TERM 49
Barber Asphalt Company, that they would
be unable to bid against
him because of his low price. As twelve
noon neared on the day of
the bidding, no one was present to
compete with Fanning and he
toyed momentarily with the idea of
increasing his price. At the last
moment a combine delegate arrived with
a new bid, barely above
Fanning's, so that had Fanning
increased his at all, he would not
have received a single contract.37
* * *
Johnson's right to membership in
Progressivism's hall of fame did
not rest solely on the foregoing
achievements. Obviously, repossess-
ing the lakefront, destroying
ramshackle buildings, cleaning the
streets, opening up the parks, building
playgrounds, and introducing
water meters and natural gas, did not
compare with Johnson's
important contributions to tax reform,
home rule, municipal owner-
ship, and streetcar fare reduction.
Still they represented a number of
minor improvements, which fitted in
well with Johnson's mystical
ideal of "A City on a Hill."
No earlier mayor had done these
things, and that Johnson accomplished
them in less than two years
is a substantial tribute to his skill
and leadership.
37 Ibid., February 10, March 6, 7, 11, 1903.