Tom L. Johnson Mural at Cleveland’s John Hay High School
Tom L. Johnson Mural at Cleveland’s John Hay High School
Chapter from “Progressivism in Ohio 1897-1917” by Hoyt Landon Warner Ohio
Tom L. Johnson Mural at Cleveland’s John Hay High School
Tom L. Johnson Mural at Cleveland’s John Hay High School
Chapter from “Progressivism in Ohio 1897-1917” by Hoyt Landon Warner Ohio State University Press (Google Books)
Cleveland: “The City on a Hill: 1901-1909”
In the fall of 1900, after an absence of six years, Tom Loftin Johnson had returned to Cleveland to devote himself to the cause of reform by taking part in municipal politics. He was already well-known as a former congressman and as an eccentric millionaire who had become a disciple of Henry George. Johnson had recently sold the last of the street-railway lines and steel mills which had been the source of his wealth, in order to free himself from business cares. His opportunity to enter upon his new political career was, however, as fortuitously timed as had been that of Samuel Jones in Toledo.
Within weeks of his return he was unexpectedly importuned to run for mayor. There had been a popular outcry during the summer of 1900 against attempts to force through the city council a franchise renewal favorable to Mark Hanna‘s street railway. A faction among the Democrats, sensing the political advantage of capitalizing on this protest, was looking for a candidate who would have the energy, knowledge, and money to lead the fight. The availability of Johnson seemed heaven-sent; they seized upon the retired millionaire who knew the street-railway business from top to bottom and who seemed eager to champion the people’s cause in this contest.
Johnson, who had known Hanna for twenty years and did not underestimate him as an opponent, realized from the outset that it would be “a very hard fight.” “But,” he wrote to his friend Samuel Jones, “I have learned the lesson from you that fear of defeat must never retard one from going into a contest and I am going into this in earnest. I have no doubt that much of what is done here will bear fruit with you and help you in the good fight that you are undertaking in Toledo.”
On February 6, 1901, Johnson allowed himself to be “surprised” at his home by the Committee of Fifty, bearing a petition of several thousand signatures drafting him as the Democratic nominee for mayor. Producing from his pocket a prepared statement, he read his acceptance speech, which announced the platform on which he would campaign: a business administration, home rule, a three-cent fare for street ra