Page:Forty years of it (IA fortyyearsofit00whitiala).pdf/191

 ills of democracy is not less democracy, as so many were always preaching, but more democracy. And how delighted he was when Fred Howe brought out his book "The City the Hope of Democracy." He had the joy of seeing marshaled there in the thesis of a scholar all the arguments he had apprehended but had never reduced to terms; there they were, all in their logical order—and Johnson straightway sent a copy of the book to every member of the Ohio legislature, to their amazement no doubt, if not to their amusement.

I used to like to go over to Cleveland and meet that charming group Johnson had gathered about him. There was in them a spirit I never saw in such fullness elsewhere; they were all working for the city, they thought only of the success of the whole. They had the city sense, a love of their town like that love which undergraduates have for their university, the esprit de corps of the crack regiment.

But Johnson used to set me to work with the rest of them. I went over there once to spend the week's end, for rest and relaxation, and he had me working far into three nights on amendments to the municipal code. He had terrible energy, but it was a joy to work with him. I wish I had gone oftener.

I have said enough I hope to make it clear that Tom Johnson was one of those mortals who have somehow been lifted above their fellows far enough to catch a vision of the social order which people generally as yet do not see. It was inevitable, of course, that such a man, especially since he was a rich man, should have his motives impugned, and