Page:Forty years of it (IA fortyyearsofit00whitiala).pdf/357

 *tion of the phrase as a shibboleth or slogan of the progressive forces was simply and easily explained, for in the mind of Johnson and in the minds of those who were like him or were influenced by him, the difference between the prevailing fare of five cents and the proposed fare of three cents somehow measured the franchise value, or that social value which belonged to the people. Tom Johnson, indeed, used often to say that he favored a three-cent fare simply because it was two cents nearer nothing, thereby revealing a glimpse of his dream of a social order in which the municipality would provide transportation just as it provides sidewalks, sewers, bridges, etc., all of which are paid for at the treasury in taxes. It was believed and held by all of us, that this franchise value should be reclaimed or retained by the people in this direct and simple manner of lowering the fare.

There was never any notion, of course, of interfering in any way with the existing rights of the company; it was to have all that to which it was entitled under its old franchises or contracts. But it was proposed that when we came to draw a new contract, the political relations of the city and the company were to be considered as of paramount importance, using the word "political," of course in its old authentic sense, and not as expressing in any wise the sinister thing it has come to connote in the popular mind. We were determined to meet not only the conditions of the present, but to do what our forerunners in office had never done, that is, to protect the interests of the people of the future. I sup