Joseph W. Sharts was a Dayton attorney and leading member of the Socialist Party in the early 20th century. This excerpt from his 1922 book, Biography of Dayton: An Economic Interpretation of Local History presents a view of local politics highly critical of businessmen such as John H. Patterson.
The Class Struggle Enters Politics
It was inevitable the changing and enlarging industrial structure of Dayton should outgrow the old political system; inevitable a demand should arise for a new political apparatus to meet the new and larger needs. The new wine could not be contained in the old bottle. This demand was not confined, of course, to Dayton. The choking hand of the state legislature upon municipal activities had long been a cause of discontent in business circles. The old provincial way of sending delegations to Columbus to get the general assembly to authorize local acts was adequate while Ohio was dominated by agricultural interests. But times had changed; the dominant interests were in manufacture and commerce. Speed and simplicity were necessary in getting things started and finished. Already on September 3, 1912, the people of Ohio had met this demand by amending the Ohio Constitution. Chief among the amendments were clauses giving to cities enlarged autonomy or "home rule." In Dayton all classes recognized the inefficiency of the old form of city government. It was regarded generally as anti-quated and clumsy. The call was for something new. But there was wide difference of opinion on what shape the new form should take.
Wage Workers' Parties
A new and disquieting factor had entered Dayton politics - a political party of the wage-workers as distinct from the voters styled Republican and Democratic parties. This was the Socialist Party, based on the belief that the interests of the wage-workers were separate from those of the employers and property-holders, and could not be reconciled therewith under the competitive system of industry. The growth of this new movement requires some notice. It was another of the inevitable effects following the development of industry. Already before the dawn of the Twentieth Century, deepening industrial and economic difficulties of wage-earners had produced some political ferment in Dayton of a blind, confused sort. In 1876-77, when John G. Doren, editor of the "Democrat," had his dispute with his union printers, a "Workingmen's Ticket" was launched, its main object revenge on the Democratic organization, its platform vague. With the ebbing of that wave of discontent it vanished. Again, in 1896, the "People's Party" put forth a ticket in Dayton. Doren, who had long ago settled his differences with organized labor, was the nominee for mayor. Willard Barringer, afterwards a prominent Socialist, acted as secretary of the convention.
These sporadic outbursts were the first wavering advances of a rising tide of working class disillusionment. They broke against the rock and sand of popular ignorance and inertia. But the fundamental forces that raised them were all the time active; social inequalities were steadily increasing with the growing aggregation of capital and wealth; the western frontier had now vanished; wage-earners were growing in numbers and in. their total dependence upon large machinery for a livelihood, and with rapid development of automatic machinery were finding that livelihood more and more precarious, more and more subject to short periods of feverish overwork and long periods of enforced idleness.
Dayton Local Organized
In 1899, six Dayton workingmen obtained a charter as Local Dayton of the newly-formed Social Democratic party. Perplexed as yet in principles and tactics, they surrendered their charter to support the picturesque "Golden Rule" Jones of Toledo for governor, but repented and recovered their charter. With the fusion of radical parties which gave birth to the Socialist Party of the United States, Local Dayton passed into this new organization. Among the six charter members were: Willard Barringer, a printer; Charles E.Geisler, a machinist; Charles I. Fulwiler a pattern maker, and Frank I. Allen, an old-time Abolitionist, a Civil War veteran, a bookkeeper. All were of American birth; and inasmuch as the "irreligious" features of Socialism are often adverted to by its adversaries, it is noteworthy that two at least of these were of strong religious conviction: Allen, a Protestant, and Fulwiler, a Roman Catholic.
Socialist Propaganda
The new political party pursued bizarre methods of propaganda. It rented a room in the Pruden Block at Main and Fifth streets, where open meetings were held to discuss Socialism and ways and means of overturning the industrial and political supremacy of the capitalists. New members were attracted, who received a red card into which dues stamps were pasted. Itinerant speakers dropped into town; sometimes these were sent by the National Office, sometimes invited by the Local. They required neither newspaper advertising, a brass band, nor a hall; a street-corner, a soapbox, and their own stout lungs sufficed to get up a meeting. For expenses and pay they passed the hat and sold cheap Socialist booklets, pamphlets, and magazines.
In the careless pseudo- democracy of the frontier, in which American psychology had been molded, one tenet was "free speech." It had been registered in all state constitutions. It is one of those popular delusions rudely shattered whenever the conflict between classes intensifies. During the ante-bellum Abolition agitation it had been shattered, but had been revived after the downfall of the slave power. And now with the emergence of this new phase of class struggle, the dominant class -the "business interests"- were too smugly complacent at first in their sense of security, too indifferent to what the "soap-boxer" might be bawling, to invoke their tremendous political power against him. Why draw the bridle at every little restless motion of the steed? Thus, the old-time "soapboxer" enjoyed for a while practical immunity. Traffic ordinances, permits from the chief of police, arrests for disturbing the peace, etc., were held in abeyance.
Old Soapboxers
In that liberal atmosphere splendid orators developed. As we recall some that visited Dayton. what memories arise! Charles Oliver Jones, an erratic genius who perished in an experimental airplane of his own invention. Father Thomas McGrady, of Dayton, Kentucky, a fearless Catholic priest who accepted ostracism, poverty and ultimate death by drudgery and privation, for his political belief. Father Haggerty, Jack London, Ben Hanford! ... Most soapboxers were men or women of deep research on economic lines; their learning would have put to the blush almost any Republican or Democrat "statesman." Withal they had a rough and ready humor, a fine skill in handling street crowds. Jones, interrupted by the noise of an automobile, pointed to it. "Look !" cried he. "We're divided into two classes-the tired and the rubber tired !" "If your brains were dynamite," said Midney turning on a heckler, "the explosion wouldn't blow off your hat!" They had in them, too, that prime requisite of true oratory -a burning sense of the iniquities of a society which heaped luxuries, wealth and power upon the few and condemned the many to drudgery meanly requited or to idleness and want. They were the descendants of those ancient "soapboxers," the fierce spokesmen of the people, the Hebrew prophets.
Local Speakers
Powerful speakers were broughtto locate in Dayton or developed locally by the requirements of Socialist propaganda: Frank Midney, lean, tall, with long black hair, his tongue sharper than a razor; Howard CaIdwell, big, burly, blonde; Rev. Fred Guy Strickland, a "little giant" of pulpit. platform, or soapbox; Walter Millard, a homeless English lad stranded in Dayton, who while waiting on table in restaurants became a Socialist and by aid of. members of Local Dayton attained a career as a brilliant professional speaker.
Pioneers of Industrial Democracy
Names of Dayton's early Socialists swarm about the writer as he writes: William G. Mattern, "Shorty" Motter, John Glen, E. L. Rodgers, Dan P. Farrell, Joseph Woodward, Dr. A. J. Krehbiel, John Grill, Jim Deck, Gabriel Huettner, the Hager brothers, Billy Bailey and his brass band - it is impossible to record them! The German branch was formed by such sturdy pioneers as Fritz Hohman, Jacob Kohl, Joseph Ehrhard and Philip Trautman; it disintegrated during the World War; a remnant sought to form a branch of the short-lived Communist Labor party and went "underground" and died. At first the Socialist vote in Dayton was negligible. In 1902, although the labor unions fiercely attacked the Democratic candidate for congress, Thomas A. Selz, a laundry proprietor, the Socialist candidate, Jacob Wemler, received but 1,667 votes in Montgomery county; and at that he ran more than 800 votes ahead of his ticket. In the presidential year, 1904, the Socialist candidate for congress, Walter G. Critchiow, received only 1,088 votes against 21,347 for the Republican and 14,475 for the Democrat. American workingmen are slow to abandon their ancient idols.
Another Richmond in the Field!
Suddenly, in the city election of 1911, the Socialist vote boomed. The competitive wars between local public utility interests had furnished abundant campaign material for demonstrating the capitalist control of the old parties and of the city council, and the wholly mercenary and selfish class purpose of their reign. For mayor, the Republican Phillips, received 10,092, the Democrat, Ely, 9,634, and the Socialist, Willard Barringer, 7,306 votes. Socialists were elected to council in the Third and Tenth Wards; and only by oddly belated returns from one precinct (the "red light" district) in the Eleventh Ward, where an in-experienced Socialist watcher left before the count was complete and certified, was a third Socialist councilman prevented.
Thus formidably had the Socialists leaped into the local political arena. Old party politicians, businessmen and employers generally, viewed the apparition with alarm. Their fears that the next city election, if conducted as a three-sided struggle, would give the Socialists the victory over the divided conservative parties, was undoubtedly the compelling motive behind their demand for a "non-partisan" charter. In February, 1912, the "Miami Valley Socialist" began publication. Foremost of Dayton's capitalists to see the need of prompt action against the menace to class interests and class supremacy was John H. Patterson, president of the National Cash Register Company. With characteristic energy, in October, 1912, he appeared before the Dayton Chamber of Commerce. The president of the chamber appointed five leading manufacturers· and business heads a committee to consider and recommend a new charter for the city. Patterson was chairman. The committee reported in favor of the "Commission-Manager" plan.
Under Capitalist Auspices
It was John H. Patterson's plan, also his driving force and money mainly, that put the plan through. The new charter was to be a model for capitalist interests everywhere. Its class purpose was revealed in a report by the Dayton Bureau of Municipal Research in "Municipal Research" for September, 1916:
"It was the opinion of the committee of five and of the Dayton Chamber of Commerce that the type of administration similar to that existing in their own private businesses was best fitted to secure the most desirable results in the conduct of public business."
Capitalists naturally view factory government as the best. The new charter provided for a City Manager corresponding to the General Manager of a corporation, with power to appoint his department heads, but responsible for everything; a City Commission of five, corresponding to the Board of Directors of a corporation, with power to "hire and fire" the Manager and to make rules for governing the city, but meeting only once a week and drawing only nominal salaries. According to Marxian theory, every political structure is, at least approximately, the result and reflex to the industrial structure, the interests of which it is designed to serve. How significant, therefore, is this plan of Dayton capitalists to re-shape the City Government to resemble their own industrial organisms! Factory government, however, while satisfactory, to capitalists, has disadvantages for working people. It is not democratic; in fact, most nearly approaches the autocratic, so far as they are concerned. The wage-earner and even the petty shareholder have no real voice in it. Its "efficiency and economy" are designed mainly towards benefitting not the workers, but the capitalists. The board of directors is the executive committee of the property interests involved, not of the human lives involved.
Sugar-Coated Pills
So to persuade voters to adopt this new factory government, an adroit and vigorous campaign was begun. The undemocratic origin and nature of the charter was smothered under attractive features and phrases. The Initiative, Referendum and Recall were tacked on, and emphasized as giving "Direct Government to the People." This was accompanied by other slogans: "Efficiency and Economy," "Fixed Responsibility," "Spotlight of Pitiless Publicity," etc. A terrific bombardment of the "corrupt political gangs" was opened, although the remnants of the old "Lowes gang" (the Republican organization) were already in the assailants' camp, and also many prominent members of the "Hanley gang," or Democratic organization. The new charter would by its "non-partisan" features, put an end to all "gangs"and political corruption. Candidates would run as independent individuals.
Large funds were quickly forthcoming, their source at first a mystery. John H. Patterson was the main contributor. By October, 1912, he had organized a Dayton Bureau Municipal Research with Rev. D. Frank Garland as its resident and a New York "expert," L. D. Upson, as its director, employed and brought to Dayton for the initial purpose of showing up" the existing city government.
Garland was sent at Patterson's expense on a flying trip to Germany, where he spent some two weeks inspecting municipal governments. On his return Dayton newspapers trumpeted him as an authority on the subject. Of he marvelous development of public ownership in German cities he said little or nothing; to have told of these matters would have furnished wind to Socialist sails and alienated his patron. But he was loud for the German plan of hiring the 'burgomeister," and for the eliminative primary by which conservative factions when necessary could combine to defeat socialist candidates at the final elections.
Paul Tyner, a newspaper man, was sent in November, at Patterson's expense, to a number of commission-ruled cities of he west and northwest, whence he wrote back glowing panegyrics on the idyllic conditions prevailing, love feasts in the city halls, capital and labor locked arm in arm. The Burns detective agency was employed in December to secure evidence of graft and fraud for the purpose of further discrediting the existing form of government; a great uproar was raised in the press, but the grand jury balked and refused to indict anyone. The original committee of five, having enlarged itself to a "committee of one hundred," styled itself the "Citizens' Committee," and employed as campaign manager a professional promoter, Lucius Wilson, at a salary afterwards reported at $750 a week. The daily newspapers were subsidized or gagged, billboards covered with grandiloquent promises, tons of printed matter distributed from house to house. Still the campaign lanquished. The public was apathetic. The common people had had no lot nor part in all this. It was said it would take another flood like that at Galveston, Texas, (where a commission of leading business men was appointed under martial law) to put the Patterson charter through in Dayton.
Promptly, like a deus ex machina, the flood came. March 23, 1913, an immense rush of muddy waters swept down the Miami Valley and buried the lower districts and business center of the city. There were rumors and some evidence of the opening of the gates of the Lewistown Reservoir; but there is no doubt the bulk of ruin was wrought by the persistent heavy rains rolling down from the hills which had been denuded of their timber by the shortsighted greed of a competitive civilization. The National Cash Register plant stood on the southern hill above the flood. John H. Patterson was thus in an exceptional position for public service. He acted with his accustomed initiative and energy. He put the great resources of his great industrial organization to the task of rescue and relief. Boats were built and launched by his workmen with amazing rapidity; families clinging to roofs or in garrets were brought to dry land; a system of supplies was organized. Donations from all over the United States poured in, and these were speedily taken in charge and distributed. Great honor is due the memory of John H. Patterson for his part in salvaging people and property from the flood. But neither can a just history be silent upon the political use also made by him of the vast disaster.
Political Advantage
Although Patterson and the officers of the National Cash Register Company were at that time under sentence of the District Court of the United States at Cincinnati for violation of the criminal section of the anti-trust act (the verdict was later vacated by the upper court), Governor James M. Cox was induced to appoint him, under martial law, the head of a commission to govern Dayton, with the rank of Colonel.
This commission, called "The Flood Emergency Commission," at once superseded the regular city government. When working class opponents of Patterson's commission-manager charter crawled out of the mud of their devastated homes, they found the bayonets of the militia stopping them from holding meetings down town, either indoors or out. The voice of protest and criticism was silenced. The daily newspapers on resuming publication sang paeans of praise over the wondrous "efficiency and economy" of the new commission government. Not a word of adverse comment appeared in any print that reached the bulk of the people. Only long afterwards, when the accounts of this Emergency Commission were audited, was opportunity afforded of learning something about its workings. Then, indeed, appeared such ridiculous items of expenditure as the approval of an army officer's cigar and liquor bill- at his Eastern club, huge taxicab bills run up by members of the Dayton Bicycle club, etc. May 30, 1913, martial law having been lifted a few weeks before, the special election of fifteen commissioners to draft a new charter was held. Three tickets were in the field. The "Citizens' " ticket, with John H. Patterson at its head, won by a large majority. The Socialist ticket ran second, the Democratic third. The Socialists had pledged themselves to draft a democratic charter with wide powers of municipal ownership, the Democrats a slightly modified form of the government then existing.
New Charter Adopted
August 12, after a spectacular campaign and huge expenditure of money by the "Citizens' Committee," the Commission-Manager plan was adopted by a vote of 13,317 for and 6,022 against. The opposition after the May election had been conducted solely by the Socialists and Central Labor body. The Democratic organization had quietly lain down or gone over to the victor after the first battle. A statement by Edward W. Hanley, the Democratic "boss," published August 13, contained significant comments:
"Since the result of the election in May, it has been my opinion that the responsibility for Dayton's government should be assumed by those who have succeeded in convincing the people, for the time at least, that Dayton is a city of municipal crime, rotten to the core in its various departments and wholly under the domination of political bosses with low and debasing instincts. Even if a small percentage of their charges are true, then the change will be worth all and more, than it cost in time and effort. But with my knowledge of conditions, I feel safe in predicting that there will be some amazing surprises and that the people will live to learn that there is a wide distinction between promises and performance and that an ideal government will continue to exist in theory only. And It must not be forgotten that these two elections were conducted and won without limit, as to financial resources and by practically the same methods in use by all so-called political machines."
Classes In Politics
Hanley's prophecies were fulfilled during the next eight years. At the September primary all candidates were eliminated but the five presented by the "Citizens' Committee-and the five by the Socialists. Thus, for the first time a capitalist or business ticket was pitted against a labor or workingclass ticket. The Class Struggle had definitely and openly entered local politics. At the November election after a campaign of unprecedented bitterness, the Socialists were defeated: The average vote stood 11,767 to 6,240. Thenceforth the Socialist party was the opposition. All other political organizations were perforce merged in the "Citizens' Committee," whose campaign funds were systematically contributed by the industrial and commercial interests. A powerful political machine re-tained entire control for eight years, until an internal revolt shattered it. January 1, 1914, the city passed under the new charter and the new regime.
Disillusionments
Initiative, Referendum and Recall speedily proved a farce. In 1914 the Socialists tried an initiative ordinance for a municipal electric plant, which was fought and defeated by the united forces of the City Commission, Chamber of Commerce and Dayton Power and Light Company. The mere preliminary expense and labor of getting one-fourth of the registered voters to understand and to sign the petition, as required by the charter, exhausted the resources of Local Dayton, and taught them that this weapon was too expensive and unwieldy for a workingmen 's organization. The United Trades and Labor Council in 1915, tried a petition to amend the charter. They obtained signatures far in excess of the ten per cent required by the Ohio Constitution, and filed these, certified, with the Clerk of the Commission. Instead of performing his purely clerical function of transmitting the petition to the Commission for its action, the clerk, John Harshman, held it for several weeks for "investigation." A card index of the signers was prepared in his office; members of the "Citizens' Committee," which comprised most of the employers of labor, visited a number of the signers employed by them, with requests to withdraw their names. It was a time of widespread unemployment; fear was instilled into the hearts of the workingclass by this menacing procedure. Finally, on technical quibbles, such as changes of address, hundreds of signatures were rejected, and the Commission refused to rec-ognize the validity of the petition.
In 1921, another attempt was made to amend the charter, this time by organizations of disillusioned citizens: the Gas Consumers' League and Taxpayers' Association. Again a pe-tition containing abundant signatures was presented; but the City Attorney (the same Harshman who had formerly been clerk) advised the City Commission on technical grounds to ignore it as insufficient. A legal fight was carried by the mal-contents to the Ohio Supreme Court without success.
Meanwhile the "efficiency and economy failed to materialize. The first City Manager, Henry M. Waite, proved an executive of ability, and introduced some minor economies. But the task set him would have baffled a Hercules. He was the salaried political employe of capitalists, bankers, manufacturers and merchants, the very class who owned and controlled the public utility com-panies and other industrial and commercial interests that re-quire special privileges from city government and fatten upon them. Every real move towards efficiency or economy was of necessity an invasion of the private profit claimed, by some or other of the backers of the "Citizens' Committee." These were the workers of iniquity who spoke peace with their neighbors, but mischief was in their hearts. Here was no foundation for reform. Waite saw futility facing him at every turn, and after several years' struggle seized the opportunity of the World War to resign and enter the engineer service of the army.
--- Joseph W. Sharts, Biography of Dayton: An Economic Interpretation of Local History (Dayton: Miami Valley Socialist, 1922)
