My Story (4 page)
Authors: Elizabeth J. Hauser
“Mr. Johnson's most Titanic recreative exploit was what his friends called âGreased Lightning' or âSlip-Slide.' One day in the midst of a conference at the City Hall a man waited to see the mayor. When his turn came he said, âMr. Johnson, I have an invention out in Chicago â a street railway operated by magnets laid between the rails. It does away with the trolley.' Mr. Johnson replied: âThat interests me. For years I have been thinking of a railway operated by magnets between the rails; but
that does not interest me so much. What I want to do is to get rid of the wheels. They are the obstacle to speed. You cannot go much faster than the present rate of speed because when you do the wheels fly asunder from the rapidity of the revolutions. Now there must be a way of running a train without wheels and that is what I am most interested in. We ought to be able to travel three or four hundred miles an hour but we can't do it so long as we are dependent on wheels.'
“He finally went to Chicago and saw the invention. Shortly after his return trucks loaded with great square timbers and pieces of steel drew up in front of his mansion on Euclid avenue. The area ways to the basement floor were opened up and the unwieldy freight was pushed into the basement. Electrical machinery followed. Then Mr. Johnson picked out the best electrician he could find in the city and explained his idea. It seemed too absurd for trial but they went to work. Day after day and month after month in the early morning and late at night he worked in the cellar with these strange appliances for solving the problem of rapid locomotion. He jokingly told his friends what he was planning to do. They laughed at his monster plaything which covered the floor of the cellar and extended as a track for ninety feet from one end to the other. It was given the derisive name of âGreased Lightning.' There were no wheels above the tracks, only a rough car on steel shoes like flat bottomed skates. Below and between the tracks were steel magnets. That was all, with the exception of powerful electrical devices connected with similar machinery in the back yard. The underlying idea in non-technical terms was to propel the car by a series of magnets laid between the tracks, which would act in succession, the current being cut off as the car passed over the one below it. This was the propelling power. But this power was downward. There was nothing to relieve the friction of the shoes on the tracks, nothing to lift the car so that the forward movement would be possible. Finally the day was set for the trial. Powerful currents were turned on and by the carefully studied electrical formulas the car should have moved
forward. Instead of that the magnetic power under the car was so strong that it crushed the structure to the earth. âGreased Lightning' failed to move.
“For weeks Mr. Johnson studied the problem. He went over his calculations. They were theoretically correct. Of that he was sure. He had his processes proved up by his mechanician. Then he threw away the road bed, the car and the appliances which had cost thousands of dollars and reversed the arrangement.
“A structure was built across the top of the cellar and consisted of a series of magnets that were energized at the proper time to lift the car and carry it forward. At the top of the car were shoes which were made to fit loosely between upper and lower tracks located on the elevated structure. To the shoes were attached light contact fingers made of a spring bronze which touched the tracks slightly in advance of the shoes. The car when not in motion would hang by the shoes upon the lower track. The contact fingers would be in tight contact with the same. The instant the controller was turned on the current would pass through the contact fingers energizing lifting magnets sufficiently to lift the car and the shoes from the bottom track. If, however, it were lifted sufficiently for the contact fingers to touch the top track the current in the lifting magnet would be reduced so as to float the car practically half way between the two tracks. Thus the car theoretically would float in the air and when the magnets designed for forward propulsion were energized it would move forward in proportion to the speed at which these magnets were energized.
“This is a description of what he planned to do as explained to my non-technical mind. It was finally completed, after many delays, and the current turned on. âGreased Lightning' actually moved. The car was propelled forward and backward as rapidly as it was safe to permit in the short ninety feet of track in the cellar. It was interesting to watch the loading of the car, for as each additional passenger stepped on there would be a slight downward movement until the contact finger touched the lower rail when it would immediately resume its former position.
“The car in motion was necessarily absolutely noiseless and without the least vibration. With eyes closed, at the slight rate of speed at which it was necessary to move in the cellar, the occupant could not tell whether the car was in motion or not. Had the speed been greater the only difference would have been the feeling of the air current.
“Mr. Johnson was satisfied that he had demonstrated the correctness of his long study of the subject. If the device was theoretically correct it must be practically correct, he argued. But he had no time and not sufficient money to build a large model. That would require hundreds of thousands of dollars. It would also revolutionize locomotion and scrap the railroads of the country. For, as he said, with âSlip-Slide' one could go from Chicago to New York in four or five hours; from New York to Philadelphia in half an hour. There was an end of space; an end of the tenement and the slum. Here was a means of making the ends of America touch one another.
“He went to Schenectady and interested the General Electric Company. They were incredulous. But they sent three expert electricians to Cleveland. They spent weeks there studying the device. They checked up every process in the reasoning and finally reported that the project was scientifically sound and correct. The General Electric was still unconvinced so they sent their chief electrician to Cleveland. After investigation he, too, was convinced that space was annihilated. He so reported to the company. Then there were conferences between Mr. Johnson and the company. Contracts were drawn for the building of a model and the trial of the project.
“It was practically agreed that the General Electric was to furnish the money for an experiment on a large scale; a two-mile track was to be built at Schenectady. The General Electric was to have certain rights of manufacture and Mr. Johnson certain selling rights, but before the contract was signed it was found that the proposed experiment would cost at least half a million dollars. The company decided that it would not be justified in expending
so large an amount on an experiment, and it was then proposed that a number of individuals join in financing the experiment on some equitable basis of division of final profits. This arrangement was never completed, for at about that time the panic of 1907 interfered and Mr. Johnson was immersed in his political fight to the exclusion of all interests of a personal nature. Negotiations were stopped, no further progress was made on the invention which Mr. Johnson fully believed would have practically annihilated space and joined the two sides of the continent more closely together than Boston and New York now are.”
With all his resources, all his interests, all the dominating traits of character which were his, Mr. Johnson was as dependent on his friends for happiness as a little child is dependent on its mother for care. His play like his work had to be shared. Friends were the supreme necessity of his life. When reduced fortunes compelled him to give up the spacious mansion on Euclid avenue where he had lived for years in luxury, that had been generously shared with friends and kinsfolk, it is inconceivable that the sacrifice cost him no pang. Yet he made it smiling, and more than once was heard to say, “It is worth losing money to find friends. I know now who my real friends are.” And they had to be
real
friends; for he who gave friendship in such royal measure demanded genuine affection and plenty of it in return. “I cannot stand the counterfeit,” he often said.
What history will do with the name of Tom L. Johnson we do not know. But this we know, that it was this human quality in him, this love of his kind, that sent him into the people's fight and kept him in it to the end. It was this which made him turn aside from money-getting, this which made him forego the keen pleasures of me
chanical pursuits, this which made the loss of wealth and of what men call success, the loss of health, yes, of life on earth itself, seem of small account to him. And because he loved much, he lived much. No one who reads his story can fail to realize that he lived more in almost any ten years of his adult life than it is given to most men to live in a long, long lifetime; nor can they fail to see that his living was a complete and constant givingâa giving of that greatest gift within man's power to give â
HIMSELF
.
E
LIZABETH
J. H
AUSER
.
“The man who is worthy of being a leader of men will never complain of the stupidity of his helpers, of the ingratitude of mankind, nor of the inappreciation of the public.
“These things are all a part of the great game of life, and to meet them and not go down under them in discouragement and defeat is the final proof of power.”
T
HE
greatest movement in the world to-day may be characterized as the struggle of the people against Privilege.
On the one side the People â slow to wake up, slow to recognize their own interests, slow to realize their power, slow to invoke it. On the other, Privilege â always awake and quick to act, owning many of the newspapers, controlling the election and appointment of judges, dictating to city councils, influencing legislatures and writing our national laws.
What is Privilege?
Privilege is the advantage conferred on one by law of denying the competition of others. It matters not whether the advantage be bestowed upon a single individual, upon a partnership, or upon an aggregation of partnerships, a trust â the essence of the evil is the same. And just to the extent that the law imposes restrictions upon some men and not on others, just to the extent that it grants special favors to some to the exclusion of others, do the people suffer from this evil.
These law-made restrictions and benefits are many, but substantially all may be grouped, in the order of their importance, in the following five classes: land monopolies, taxation monopolies, transportation monopolies, municipal monopolies and patent monopolies.
The greatest of all governmental favors or special privileges
is land monopoly, made possible by the exemption from taxation of land values.
The special privileges growing out of conditions created by our local, State and national tax systems are so far-reaching and disastrous in their effects that one might devote a volume to the discussion of this division of Privilege, and then not begin to compass the question.
Under transportation monopolies come the governmental favors to railroads and to those enterprises dependent upon the railroads, such as special freight lines, sleeping-car companies, express and telegraph companies.
Municipal monopolies consist of rights and special privileges in the public streets and highways which in the nature of the case cannot be possessed by all the people and can be enjoyed only by a few. Under this head come the franchises which our cities grant to street railways, to water, gas, electric light and telephone companies, and in these lie the chief sources of corruption in municipal life.
Patent monopolies are the last distinct survival of a policy which once had a very much wider application and which in every other case has been abandoned because it was recognized to be unsound. At one time it was common enough to reward public service of almost any kind by the grant of a trade monopoly. Soldiers in war were tempted by the prospect of such a grant and often got it as the result of a victory. Statesmen were tempted and were often rewarded in the same way for services to the State, or services to their party. Now this is universally recognized to be an error.
Patent monopolies cut off from us the opportunity to take immediate advantage of the world's inventions. They exert upon many men an influence as baneful as the
most corrupt lottery by tempting them from regular work and useful occupations. They interfere with the natural development of invention.
Useful inventions come naturally and almost inevitably as the next necessary step in industrial evolution. Most of them are never patented. The patents that are granted interfere with this natural development. If inventors must be rewarded it would be better to pay them a bounty than to continue a system productive of so much evil.
And so by securing in different ways “special privileges to some” and denying “equal rights to all,” our governments, local, State and national, have precipitated the struggle of the people against Privilege.
It matters not what the question â whether a water or gas franchise, a street railway monopoly, a coal combination, an ordinary railroad charter, or the grabbing of the public domain â the issue between them is always the same.
Owners and managers of public-service corporations may change; so may their methods. They may respect public opinion or scorn it; they may show great consideration for their employés or treat them as machines; their policies may be liberal or the reverse; they may strive for all the traffic will bear, looking to dividends only, or they may share their profits with the public.
What of it?
So, too, political parties may change.
And what of that?
A Republican boss or a Democratic boss is equally useful to Privilege. It may seek legislative power through dealing directly with corrupt bosses, or it may find the control of party machinery by means of liberal campaign
contributions the more effective; again it may divert the attention of the people from fundamental issues by getting them to squabbling over nonessentials.
This is often demonstrated when the contest is made to appear to be between two men, though in reality both are committed in advance to obey the wishes of Privilege. Superficial moral issues are especially serviceable in this particular line of attack.
But it is on the judiciary that Privilege exercises its most insidious and dangerous power. Lawyers whose employment has been entirely in its interests are selected for the bench. Their training, their environment, their self-interest, all combine to make them the most powerful allies of monopoly. Yet this may be, and often is, without any consciousness on the part of the judges themselves that their selection has been influenced by an interest opposed to the public good.
Thus unwittingly men, otherwise incorruptible, become the most pliable agents of Privilege and the most dangerous of public servants. No mere change of political names or of men can correct these evils. A political change will not affect judges with their judge-made laws, and so long as Privilege controls both parties, a political change will not affect the legislative bodies which create judges. An effective recall of judges would furnish the machinery to correct many abuses, and this step can be taken without waiting for the economic changes which must afford the final and fundamental relief.
For it is to
economic change
, and not to political change, that the people must look for the solution of this problem. Not
lawbreakers
, but
lawmakers
are responsible for bad economic conditions; and these only indirectly, for it is
business interests controlling lawmakers that furnish the great motive force in the protection of Privilege.
The economic change that will correct these political abuses is one that must remove the prizes which Privilege now secures from the People. It must reserve to the public the ownership and management of public-service utilities so that they shall be regarded no longer as private loot, but as public rights to be safeguarded and protected.
That good, law-abiding corporations and good, well-meaning men cannot correct these wrongs without changing the economic conditions which produce them, has been proved times without number, and only serves to emphasize the fact that the real fight of the people is not to abolish lawbreaking, but to put an end to that lawmaking which is against the public good.
It is true that the contest looks like an unequal one; that the advantage seems to be entirely on the side of Privilege; that its position appears invulnerable.
Is there then no hope? Let us see.
The people's advance guard has been routed often, and will be time and time again. New recruits must come to the front. As the firing lines are decimated the discontented masses must rush forward to fill the gaps in the ranks. Finally, when
we are fighting all along the line
, public opinion will be strong enough to drive Privilege out of its last trench.
Agitation for the right, once set in motion, cannot be stopped. Truth can never lose its power. It presses forward gaining victories, suffering defeats, but losing nothing of momentum, augmenting its strength though seeming to expend it.
Newspapers controlled by the Interests cannot stop this forward movement, legislatures must yield to it, the courts finally see and respect it and political parties must go with it or be wrecked.
What more striking example could be cited than the disintegration of the Republican party as shown at the 1910 election, following so closely upon the almost unparalleled vote for its candidate for President?
Big Business, corrupt bosses, subservient courts, pliant legislatures and an Interest-controlled press may block, delay, apparently check its progress, but these are only surface indications. The deeper currents are all headed in the same direction, and once fairly started nothing can turn them back.
It is because I believe that the story of my part in this universal movement helps to illustrate the truth of this proposition that I have decided to tell it.
I am going to show how Privilege fights in the city, the State and the nation, but I shall deal more largely with the city since it is here that the abolition of privilege must begin.
In the main, the things I shall tell about Cleveland are the things that might be told about any city or state. The source of the evil; the source of the good; the source of the shame and corruption; the contest between opposing economic interests; the alliance among those identified with the franchise corporations on the one hand, and the unorganized people on the other, is the same everywhere.
Cleveland's experiences are the experiences that other cities will have in their efforts to be free. Privilege may not be quite as irresistible for them as it was for us, because the people have been gathering strength, party lines
are being broken and knowledge of the meaning of Privilege is spreading. Privilege no longer asserts itself with the arrogance of unlimited and unchallenged power as it did a few years ago. The pressure of right is reaching into the higher places. It is disintegrating the classes which have ruled.
The influences which operated to arouse my interest in the struggle of the people against Privilege are significant only as they show one of the many ways in which our minds are made to meet and grasp these great problems, for, while really sincere investigators arrive at last at the same conclusion, nearly all of us travel different roads to get there.