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eight years ago, he sold garden truck from his father's farm and conducted himself as a model of youthful obedience. He worked hard and lived frugally while he studied law in the University of Illinois and eleven years after he graduated there as a Bachelor of Law he established himself in Kansas City. As president of the upper house he was chief executive of the Municipal Water Works and he has largely the credit of increasing its value in less than eight years from $3,000,000 to $8,000,000.

To the average politician, a gentleman without brains in public life is negligible; a gentleman with brains without a conscience is purchasable; but a gentleman of brains and conscience is inexplicable. Ask the political mechanicians of Missouri why the state voted for Roosevelt and they

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will reply that the Democrats were sleeping; ask the Democratic managers of Kansas City-there are quite a number of these-why Beardsley was swept into office on a wave, almost of popular acclamation, and the reply will be as varied as the character of these leaders. Ask the men of the city, the younger Democrats especially, how they voted on the mayoralty and the almost invariable reply will be, "Well, I voted for Beardsley, because he was the best man." Which explains something the party mechanicians do not yet understand. It expresses the nexus of the rising third party. Formerly there was the Democratic machine and the Republican machine. Now there is the American people, voting more largely on every fresh occasion for "the best man."

TOM L. JOHNSON

MAYOR OF CLEVELAND

Portrait on page 669

BY

GEORGE C. SIKES

OM L. JOHNSON, who has been characterized by Lincoln Steffens as "the best mayor of the best-governed city in the United States," is one of the most picturesque and interesting figures in American public life, and in the world's great democratic movement of to-day is unquestionably one of the forces to be reckoned with. A successful business man, he has quit business in the prime of life for politics and the propagation of the elemental ideas of social justice as propounded by Henry George. A monopolist by occupation, he is now engaged in the interest of the masses in fighting private monopoly.

Mr. Johnson is looked upon by most of those who have not followed his career closely as a doctrinaire and the advocate of a particular panacea for social ills. He is both, but he differs from most other men of this class in that he is also possessed of practical sense and administrative capacity. Unlike doctrinaires of the familiar type, Johnson can make money. He has done so and from the experience has gained the power to get results. He also

has a saving sense of humor, which constitutes an important difference between the visionary and the practical idealist.

Mr. Johnson was born in Kentucky in 1854. His given name is really Tom and not Thomas. He was christened Tom. His father was a slaveowner and an officer in the Confederate Army. The close of the war found the family in poverty. Young Tom at eleven years of age took to selling papers and it was in the capacity of newsboy that he learned his first lesson in the value of monopoly. He established friendly relations with the conductor of the one train running into his village and for a time that conductor allowed no one else to bring papers into the village on his train, a type of favoritism that has since been extensively utilized by other seekers for wealth. In 1869 the boy, then fifteen years of age, found employment with a small street railway in Louisville. He progressed rapidly. progressed rapidly. Profits from the invention of a fare box helped to give him a start. In 1876 he joined with others in buying the street railway lines of Indianapolis, where he demonstrated the

value to traction managers and public alike of introducing through routes and the general use of transfers. Mr. Johnson later became the owner of street railway lines in Cleveland and Detroit. His holdings in the former city brought him into intense business rivalry with the late Senator Hanna, afterward a bitter political opponent.

A chance reading of one of Henry George's books on a railroad train is said to have been responsible for turning Johnson's mind from business to economics and politics. A close friendship between Johnson and George sprung up in 1885 which endured until the sensational death of Mr. George in the midst of the New York mayoralty campaign in 1897. Mr. Johnson's main purpose in life at the present time is said by him to be the promulgation and practical application of the teachings of Henry George. In 1890 Johnson was elected to Congress as a free-trade Democrat and served two terms, going down to defeat in the landslide of 1894. He refused to vote for the Wilson Bill as emasculated by the Senate under the leadership of Gorman.

An incident in congressional debate well illustrates the man's character and point of view. Through his street-car business Johnson had become interested in the manufacture of rails, a tariff-protected industry. On one occasion an opponent said in debate that Johnson ought to vote for the measures he denounced as monopolies because he was himself a monopolist enjoying the benefit of the legislation. Johnson retorted: "As a business man I am willing to take advantage of all the monopoly laws you pass; but as a member of Congress I will not help you to pass them and I will try to force you to repeal them."

In 1901 Johnson was elected mayor of Cleveland, the street-car question being the chief issue. His purpose was to give the people three-cent fares through the introduction of a competing company, the city not having from the legislature the power to municipalize. He has been twice reëlected by growing majorities. In 1903 he was the Democratic nominee for governor of Ohio, but was badly beaten at the polls. His aim in running for governor, however, may be said to have been largely accomplished, inasmuch as his enemies

were defeated last year by a candidate for governor representing Johnson's party and reflecting his views on municipal questions.

As mayor, Johnson has had an uphill fight and has been able to accomplish little as yet in furtherance of the street railway policy on which he was first elected. But on the administrative side Johnson has done much to place Cleveland in the front rank of American cities. The work of the police department has been improved. The administration of public charities has been such as to attract outside attention. An efficient merit system has been introduced in the water-works department, in advance of any state legislation requiring such a system, and the management of the water-works plant has been creditable and progressive. The law department has been notably capable. As a popular leader Johnson has urged high-minded citizens to become candidates for elective offices and has aided in bringing about their elections. In this work he has not limited his interest to Democrats or single-taxers, but has sought rather to draw into the public service any one who would meet the test of good citizenship.

Considerable success has attended his efforts in the line of tax reform, a subject that lies close to his heart, and one on which he has settled convictions to which he adheres on all occasions. An incident will illustrate. It was my good fortune on one occasion to be present at a committee meeting in Cleveland at which the grocers were asking the imposition of a heavy license tax on peddlers. The grocers were present in force. The peddlers were unrepresented by any one from their own ranks. Mayor Johnson declared himself squarely against the plan, in so far as it involved a tax on the peddlers. He was willing to approve any purely regulative provisions that might be needed, but he would fight any plan to use the taxing power to restrict in any way the business of the peddlers. The political support of the grocers as a class was doubtless worth more than that of the peddlers. But this did not seem to be taken into consideration by Mayor Johnson in the least.

It is one of Mayor Johnson's ambitions to have his city the first in the United States to municipalize its street railway system.

BRAND WHITLOCK

MAYOR OF TOLEDO

Portrait on page 670

BY

WILLIAM HARD

BOUT fourteen years ago Brand young reporter doing politics for a Chicago newspaper, tried to persuade an Ohio politician to run independent for governor. The politician had offended the machine.

"Even if you get the nomination," said Whitlock, "the machine will knife you and kill you on election day. But if you appeal from the machine to the people you will have a chance to pull through. Run independent.”

The politician laughed. "You seem to think I want to be a stereopticon hero," he said. "The only way to win is to have the organization with you. The people aren't enough interested. The only workers you can get are machine workers. Wait till you are as old as I am."

Whitlock did not wait as long as that. Last year, still a young man, he proved that the people are more than enough interested. He defied both the party machines of Toledo. He also defied the newspapers. All he wanted was the people. The people, without organizations and without newspapers, straggled promiscuously to the polls and in the course of a few hours of individual work made Brand Whitlock mayor.

A few weeks after his election Whitlock joined the Mayors' Association of Ohio. This association includes both Republicans and Democrats. Or, rather, it includes neither. It is based on the idea that the words Republican and Democrat should be stricken out of municipal dictionaries. This association believes that cities should govern themselves. It believes that the internal affairs of cities should not be regulated by the issues of state campaigns. It believes that local officials should not be appointed by state. party administrations. It believes that cities should be removed from the field of state party politics.

This association of Ohio mayors has presented to the state legislature of Ohio

a municipal code establishing a large measure of home rule

rule for cities means that party organizations in cities will be weakened. City offices will no longer be so easy to use in the game of electing governors and presidents. City administrations will be confined more closely to administrative work. They will think more of pavements and less of conventions.

Though formally educated in Ohio, Whitlock was really educated in Illinois. In Illinois, as a newspaper man, he studied polities and politicians. He became a newpaper man because he liked to observe and because he liked to put down the results of his observations on paper. Fundamentally he is a student and a writer He became a politician because his newspaper assigned him to the work of studying polities and of writing political articles. The fact that his newspaper writing took this slant has finally made him mayor of Toledo. But he remains by instinct a writer rather than a politician.

His novel, "The Thirteenth District," is a political story which is honest. Whitlock refused several good offers of publication because those offers carried with them a request for the insertion of a climax which would have been "helpful” and "uplifting," but dishonest, untruthful and insincere. Whitlock is an admirer of Pushkin, Turgenieff and Gorky. He tries to say what he sees. He believes that if the truth is not "helpful" and "uplifting" he is willing to rest the case with Providence. When "The Thirteenth District" was finally published it conformed to the facts as Whitlock saw them.

It may be that Whitlock's approach to politics was made through one other channel besides his newspaper work. Whitlock is by temperament a lover of personal freedom and a hater of coercion. While in Chicago he was closely associated with Clarence Darrow. While in Springfield he held an appointment under Governor

Altgeld. Whitlock, whether he gives himself the name or not, might truthfully be called a non-resister. He believes that evil can not be cured by force. Having these feelings, he naturally became interested in law and in courts and in criminals and in jails. He shared Clarence Darrow's conviction that acts of punishment have done little to improve the world.

Having concluded his newspaper work and having prepared himself for the bar, Whitlock left Chicago and went to Toledo. There he practiced law, particularly in the criminal courts. Confident of the general futility of punishment, his daily work expressed his inner life. Meanwhile, however, his life in the evening was even closer to his heart than his life during the day, for in the evening he wrote.

These employments might have carried Brand Whitlock to the end of his days had he taken up his residence in any other city. But Toledo was a city which was capable of choosing "Golden Rule" Jones to rule over it. Whitlock's principles drew him

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to Jones. Jones was trying to rule Toledo on the basis of the text "Whatsoever ye would that men should do to you, do ye even so to them." As part of the application of this text, he was clement in his dealings with criminals. He was less eager to take vengeance on them than he was to give them an opportunity to improve.

Whitlock spoke with Jones and worked with Jones. They agreed in the emphasis which they placed on the freedom of the individual. They also agreed in their enthusiasm for certain more distinctively political enterprises, such as municipal ownership. When Jones died, Whitlock was, in a way, his spiritual heir. At the last session of the legislature the bill in which Whitlock perhaps took the greatest interest was one for the abolition of the death penalty.

He must now rule a city. Is he capable of ruling? If he is, he may have to choose some day between books and affairs. It will not be a pleasant choice.

JAMES NOBLE ADAM

MAYOR OF BUFFALO

Portrait on page 668

BY

THOMAS P. HAMILTON

CCUPYING the mayor's chair of Buffalo since the first of last January is a shrewd, elderly, Scotch merchant, whose boast is that he runs the city as he formerly ran his department store. Aside from this he has become known as a "veto mayor, the first since Grover Cleveland steered his course from Buffalo to Albany and later to Washington, by judicious application of the veto. This man is James Noble Adam. So far he has delivered more vetoes and blows at queer deals in each circle of the clock hands than has any of his predecessors. It is said to be Mayor Adam's ambition to follow Cleveland's course to the governorship. At present he looms large as a Democratic possibility if the conservative-reform element has its say.

In both business and politics Mayor Adam's career has more than the usual

measure of interest. In the former he climbed from a $1-a-week errand boy in Scotland to a $2,000,000 fortune and the management of the largest store in Buffalo. In the latter he showed unusual farsightedness and he has always won election far ahead of his running mates.

"J. N." Adam is best known by his initials, as that is how his name appears over his department store. He entered politics a dozen years ago and was elected councilman. As such he realized that his future must be along reform lines and he was clear-headed enough to follow the lines without making enemies unnecessarily. Nevertheless he always was regarded as the most independent man on any board on which he served. Often he voted with the opposite party, many times he voted alone. He was a stickler for little things as well as against large irregulari

ties. People began to notice that when Adam got into a fight, whether successful or not, time eventually showed he had been on the right side.

Later on Councilman Adam became Alderman Adam. He was the first and last Democrat elected in the twenty-fourth ward, the fashionable residence district. Alderman Adam delved into city finances and spent some of his own money, having experts help him. He became an authority on taxation statistics. When he made a speech and cited figures he could not be tripped up. Those who opposed and disliked him called him Santa Claus, on account of his white hair and beard. All city hall termed him a fusser, but he was fussing with an end in view.

Three years ago he was nominated by the Democratic party as an alderman. They put him up to lend tone to the ticket. He was the only man on it elected, surviving a vote of about seven thousand against his party. In the board of councilmen it was said at once "Adam wanted to be mayor." Adam said nothing, but he hired a newspaper man, Victor Speer, a political writer, to manage the advertising of his store and incidentally to manage the practical end of his campaign for the mayoralty nomination. He was as much of a reformer as ever. In that he was and is sincere. But a reformer is entitled to political rewards if he can get them, and Adam was not neglecting promotion.

While he was away in Scotland last fall Mayor Adam was nominated. There was no opposition. The convention cabled him. The answer came back "I accept.' Adam was elected by a majority larger than the city ever before gave a mayor.

Since assuming office Mayor Adam has been a tireless worker and has forged ahead steadily in his record for honesty and efficiency. The biggest men in the city have failed to influence his action on municipal business that has come before him. They tried, but they got the cold shoulder. In making appointments that were free from politics and in some of his reforms proper attention has been paid to advertising the fact that Adam did it, but nevertheless the thing done has been undeniably for the good of the city. Mayor Adam may have taken his due share of thunder, but the people got the benefit.

Among the things Mayor Adam has

done in a comparatively short time have been the removal of the superintendent of police, who made good a $9,000 shortage in his accounts two days before the new mayor entered office, the starting of actions to compel one electricity and two gas corporations to reduce prices, the elimination of ninety per cent of dive saloons, persistent refusal of the city to pay bills to public service corporations till they pay taxes and dues they owe the city, and the appointment of a commission to revise the city charter so that real estate can be legally sold for non-payment of taxes, and other defects can be remedied. These are only a few of the more important reforms started.

In closing the saloon dives the mayor showed his diplomatic ability by dealing with the Brewers' Association, instead of resorting to slow and doubtful legal proceedings. The brewers at that time were fighting the Tully-Wainwright local option bill in the legislature and wanted all the popular support they could get. Mayor Adam talked business with them. He said he wanted the dives closed. First he threw a few broadsides against them. The brewers got nervous.

Finally they said they would close obnoxious places. A committee so informed the mayor.

"My list will be ready to-morrow,' said he.

"What list?"

"Why, the list of the worst places. Those that must be closed," said the mayor.

The brewers were nonplussed. They expected to do their own selecting. When the list was given them they threw fits. It contained sixty of the worst dives, many of them big money-makers. They debated the subject, but the mayor was firm and threatened a crusade against saloons if these places were not closed. A crusade at that stage of the game was the worst thing in the world for the brewers and they capitulated. They made good, too. The mayor informed them that as they controlled these dives through holding the leases and licenses they must close them. Only three of the sixty survived. Through the police the mayor reached these by stationing a "copper" at their doors. He spoiled their business and two of the three finally gave up the fight.

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