Page:Forty years of it (IA fortyyearsofit00whitiala).pdf/351

 between the puffs of a cigar. The one was apt to advise that the "traction company be brought to time at once," the other that an "equitable" settlement be "arranged" by conservative business men. Meanwhile the problem obviously consisted in the necessity of recognizing the private right in the proprietors and of securing the public right to the people, and to do this it was necessary to search out, and isolate, like some malignant organism, the injustice that somewhere lurked in this complex and irritating association.

In my first campaign we proposed to grant no renewal of franchises at a rate of fare higher than three cents. Jones had advised it, and I had been committed to it long before. It was Tom Johnson's old slogan, and it was popular. I used to explain to the crowds my own conviction that the problem never would be settled until we had municipal ownership, but there was in Toledo in those days very little sentiment for municipal ownership, and my conviction met with no applause, and was received only with mild toleration. In the second campaign, there was more indorsement; in the third there was a certain enthusiasm for the principle, in the fourth it seemed to be almost unanimous, and now the principle has become one of the cardinal articles of faith. I do not wish it to appear that I had converted all these people to my view; I had not tried to do that, and doubtless could not have done so had I tried, but the conviction came by the very necessities of the situation.