Category: Tom L. Johnson

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Tom L. Johnson’s Tax School: The Fight for Democracy and Control of Cleveland’s Tax Machinery by Andrew L Whitehair

Tom L. Johnson’s Tax School: The Fight for Democracy and Control of Cleveland’s Tax Machinery

by Andrew L Whitehair, 2020, Master of Arts in History, Cleveland State University, College of Liberal Arts and Social Sciences.

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Prior to Tom L. Johnson’s election to mayor of Cleveland in 1901, the city’s tax system was rife with inequality. Johnson sought to correct these inequalities by democratizing Cleveland’s tax system. To accomplish this aim, he established a new department in City Hall, called the “tax school,” which was designed to educate Clevelanders about the existing tax system’s failures as well as Johnson’s proposed solutions. The tax school worked to improve the tax assessment process by implementing a scientific approach, improving transparency, and soliciting citizen input. Johnson’s efforts, however, met with resistance from an entrenched business elite that employed the state legislature and courts to destroy Johnson’s tax school. Through political campaigns of misinformation, usurpation of the primary process, and stuffing key tax institutions with friendly partisans, these business elites conspired to control the tax machinery of Cuyahoga County. This study of Johnson’s efforts to democratically reform Cleveland’s tax system reveals how the city’s business elite colluded to destroy the tax school and to retain the levers of tax power. In providing the canonical account of Cleveland’s tax school, I situate the history of the tax school within a multi-party negotiation governed by unequal power relationships between business elites and the rest of society. The wealthiest Clevelanders possessed the greatest access to the tax system, and they used that access to rig the system in their favor.

The City on the Hill: Tom L. Johnson and the Mayors influenced by Henry George Thursday, November 19, 7pm

The City on the Hill: Tom L. Johnson and the Mayors influenced by Henry George
Thursday, November 19, 7pm
A talk by Dr. Alexandra W. Lough, author of The Last Tax: Henry George and the Social Politics of Land Reform in the Gilded Age and Progressive Era

Cleveland during the period of Mayor Tom L. Johnson (1901-1909) was considered by many to be one of the best governed cities in the nation. But Johnson was just one of several mayors who were followers of the 19th century political economist and social reformer Henry George. Dr. Alexandra Lough will explain how the teachings of Henry George influenced Tom L. Johnson’s mayoralty in Cleveland.

The video is here

This series is cosponsored by Cleveland History Center, CWRU Siegal Lifelong Learning and the League of Women Voters of Greater Cleveland

Photo: Cleveland Press Collection

TOM L. JOHNSON’S TAX SCHOOL: THE FIGHT FOR DEMOCRACY AND CONTROL OF CLEVELAND’S TAX MACHINERY – Masters Thesis by ANDREW L. WHITEHAIR

TOM L. JOHNSON’S TAX SCHOOL: THE FIGHT FOR DEMOCRACY AND CONTROL OF CLEVELAND’S TAX MACHINERY
by ANDREW L. WHITEHAIR
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Bachelor of Science in Business Administration Washington University in St. Louis
May 2003
Master of Science in Business Administration Washington University in St. Louis December 2003
2020, Master of Arts in History, Cleveland State University, College of Liberal Arts and Social Sciences.

Tom L. Johnson Aggregation

1 Tom Johnson: Progressive Reform for the Common Man (Video)

2 Cleveland: “The City on a Hill” 1901-1909

3 A Couple of Giants: Mark Hanna and Tom Johnson

4 Tom L. Johnson, America’s Best Mayor (documentary)

5 A Ten Year’s War by Frederic Howe

6 Tom L. Johnson by Robert H. Bremner

7 Confessions of a Reformer by Frederic Clemson Howe

8 Cleveland’s Johnson by Eugene C. Murdock

9 The Double Life of Tom L. Johnson

10 Cleveland’s Johnson: Elected Mayor by Eugene C. Murdock

11 “My Story” The Autobiography of Tom L. Johnson

12. Biography of Tom L. Johnson by Carl Lorenz

13. Tom Johnson’s Obituary in American Magazine

14. Tom Johnson and Henry George

15. “Cleveland’s Johnson: The Cabinet” by Eugene Murdock

16. “The City on the Hill: Tom L. Johnson and the Mayors influenced by Henry George” a talk by Dr. Alexandra Lough (Video)

 

“A Man is Passing” Edmund Vance Cooke poem written in honor of Tom L. Johnson

Poem written in 1910 by Edmund Vance Cooke in honor of Cleveland Mayor Tom L Johnson

A MAN is passing. Hail him, you
Who realize him stanch and strong and true.
He found us dollar-bound and party-blind;
He leaves a City with a Civic Mind,
Choosing her conduct with a conscious care.
Selecting one man here, another there.
And scorning labels. Craft and Graft and Greed
Ran rampant in our halls and few took heed.
The Public Service and the Public Rights
Were bloody bones for wolf and jackal fights.
Now, even the Corporate Monster licks the hand,
Where once he snarled his insolent demand.
Who tamed it? Answer as you will.
But truth is truth, and his the credit still.

A Man is passing. Flout him, you
Who would not understand and never knew.
Tranquil in triumph, in defeat the same.
He never asked your praise, nor shirked your blame.
For he, as Captain of the Common Good,
Has earned the right to be misimderstood.
Behold! he raised his hand against his class;
Aye, he forsook the Few and served the Mass.
Year upon year he bore the battle’s brunt;
And so, the hiss, the cackle and the grunt!
He found us striving each his selfish part.
He leaves a City with a Civic Heart,
Which gives the fortune-fallen a new birth.
And reunites him with his Mother Earth;
Which seeks to look beyond the broken law
To find the broken life, and mend its flaw.

A Man is passing. Nay, no demigod.
But a plain man, close to the common sod
Whence springs the grass of our humanity. Strong
Is he, but human; therefore sometimes wrong,
Sometimes impatient of the slower throng.
Sometimes unmindful of the formal thong.
But ever with his feet set toward the height
To plant the banner of the Common Right,
And ever with his eyp fixed on the goal.
The Vision of a City with a Soul.