A history of Cleveland, Ohio, Volume I, Part 32

Author: Orth, Samuel Peter, 1873-1922; Clarke, S.J., publishing company
Publication date: 1910
Publisher: Chicago-Cleveland : The S.J. Clarke Publishing Co.
Number of Pages: 1262

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Subsequent disturbances of an unusual nature have been due to strikes. There have been several minor disturbances and two general strikes on the railroads en- tering Cleveland. The great unrest of 1877 reached Cleveland from Pittsburg with feverish haste on July 22, when five hundred men employed by the Lake Shore railroad walked out and paralyzed the business of that system. Thousands of men were thrown out of work by this action and traffic was virtually at a standstill. With the strikers, the unemployed, and the lawless elements on the streets, the air surcharged with tremors of expectation and the public in a state of feverish excitement over the terrible news from other cities, it required the greatest courage and calm self-control on the part of both the strikers and the city authorities to avoid open outbreaks and mob violence. This fortunately was accomplished. The strike leaders counseled moderation, Mayor Rose and his associates warned the citizens to abide by the law, at the same time without show of preparation, they promptly prepared for the suppression of any violence. In every police station and armory of the city the militia and police reserve were gathered ready for immediate action. At the end of two weeks the men and the railroads agreed on terms and the strike was over without the loss of property or the good name of the city.

On June 16, 1890, a general strike of switchmen was declared on all the lines that entered the city and traffic was at a standstill. The demand for a new wage scale was acceded to by the company. On the 19th the switchmen of the Big Four, the Lake Shore and the Erie returned to work; on the 21st the Pennsyl- vania; and on the 22d the strike was ended without acts of violence.

On June 10, 1899, a strike was declared on the Cleveland Electric Street railway line on what was virtually a demand that only union men should be em- ployed. The strike lasted all summer. It was a bitter and long continued struggle accompanied by acts of violence and boycotts.

There have been a number of strikes in the industrial plants of the city. Among the severest of these unfortunate struggles are the following: In May and June, 1882, the workers in the great iron mills at Newburg went out on a strike ; July, 1883, the telegraph employes employed by the Western Union, struck for higher wages. In July, 1885, a second great strike in the Newburg mills made precautions for the safety of the mills necessary. In May, 1891, the lumber hand- lers struck, there was some violence before an adjustment was reached and a new scale adopted. In the summer of 1896 occurred the historic strike of the Brown Hoisting Company. There were many acts of violence and the strike lasted several months. From August Ist to October 21, 1898, the employes of the American Steel and Wire Company struck for higher wages. The differences were finally adjusted by a compromise.

CHAPTER XXIV.

AN HISTORICAL SKETCH OF THE FINANCES OF CLEVELAND. 1 By Charles C. Williamson, Ph. D., Department of Economics and Politics, Byrn Mawr College.

In the financial history of Cleveland no peculiarly striking events are to be recorded. The changes that have taken place from decade to decade are those which any normal community experiences in passing from the small village of a few hundred inhabitants to a great commercial and manufacturing center with a population of half a million. The development of Cleveland's public finances is chiefly characterized by a budget keeping pace with, or outstripping, its growth in population and wealth; while the administrative machinery has been developing, for the most part, in the direction of greater efficiency and economy.

Revenues from all sources did not reach the million mark until 1868. Since that date the total receipts have increased steadily at a rate of about two hundred and twenty thousand dollars each year. In Cleveland, as in every American city, the most important source of revenue is the general property tax. The taxing system, however, is not under the control of the city so fully as are certain other sources of revenue. Such taxing power as cities possess is merely delegated by the state, definite and rather narrow limits being imposed upon its exercise by state laws. A comparison of the maximum tax rate allowed by the statutes and the actual municipal levies shows that on the whole Cleveland has pressed close to the limit imposed, which probably means that state, rather than local authorities, have been relied on to keep the tax rate down to a proper level. The Board of Education in 1868 first acquired the power of levy- ing taxes independently of the city council and a decade later the Library Board also became an independent taxing body. Both of these boards, as well as the city council itself, in order to secure what they regarded as adequate revenue, have been obliged to make constant appeals to the state legislature for higher maximum levies. The property tax for state purposes in Ohio is gradually being abandoned. In 1905 the state levy stood at one dollar and thirty-five cents per thousand dollars, having been reduced from two dollars and ninety cents in 1900, a rate that had not been exceeded in twenty-five years. Instead of taking advantage of this reduction in the state levy to relieve local rates, the various city taxing authorities have made additions which have more than counterbalanced its effect on the total tax rate in the city of Cleveland. The following table shows the total tax rate for a series of years in Cleveland as compared with that of other Ohio cities :

1 This sketch is a brief summary of an elaborate study published by the author in 1907. (The Finances of Cleveland, New York, 1907, pp. 266.) The original work was based on all statistical data in print at the time. In this summary it has not been practicable to incor- porate the financial results of 1906 and later years .- C. C. W.

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HISTORY OF CLEVELAND

1902.

1903.

1904.

1905.

Cleveland

30.5

30.I

29.8

31.7

Cincinnati

23.18

22.7

22.54

22.38

Columbus

27.5

30.

29.

Toledo

29.6

29.8

29.

Dayton

.25.4

28.6

28.2

Next in importance as a source of revenue is the special assessment. The annual receipts from special assessments have increased at practically the same rate as those from the general property tax. From 1890 to 1905 the amount grew from an average of about five hundred thousand dollars to nearly eight hundred thousand dollars. Prior to 1850 small amounts were raised by special assessments under the charter of 1836 which gave the city power to levy "dis- criminating assessments" for local improvements in proportion to benefits ac- cruing. The constitutionality of this form of taxation was early established* and after 1850 considerable revenue was raised in this way, the motive appar- ently being a desire to find adequate revenue in the face of a very low limit on the tax levy (five mills). This pressure of state limits on local tax levies caused special assessments to increase enormously, so that by 1870 they were looked upon as a great evil. The decade from 1870 to 1880 was characterized by a tre- mendous amount of litigation. "The subject of distributing special assessments" declared the mayor in 1876, "has raised the most difficult questions to solve met with in municipal management." The general features of the present highly satisfactory methods of levying special assessments were evolved from the ex- perience of those troubled years. Revenue from this source is relatively greater in Cleveland than in most cities of a population of over two hundred thousand in the United States.

Of the remaining sources of municipal income the "liquor tax" has, since 1887, been the most productive, excluding receipts from loans, and excluding also the water works revenue which is of course not net income. In addition to receipts from the liquor license a certain irregular income has always been realized from miscellaneous licenses, but a general licensing of trades and occu- pations has never been popular in Cleveland. From 1880 to 1900 there was a good deal of agitation for a system of licenses such as was to be found in many other cities. Cincinnati, for instance, had, as late as 1904, more than thirty kinds of municipal licenses, yielding an annual revenue of over seventy- nine thousand dollars. Since 1900 the only use made of licensing in Cleve- land has been for purposes of regulation, rather than for revenue.

The most noticeable feature of Cleveland's public expenditure is constant and rapid growth. Not only have expenditures increased absolutely, as they necessarily must with the growth of population, but in almost every depart- ment of government they have grown far more rapidly than population. Per capita expenditures have doubled, trebled and quadrupled. The same thing, of course, has occurred in most American cities.

The city's expenditure may be discussed, in the brief space allotted to this chapter, under the following seven heads: (1) General Government; (2) Pro-

* Scoville v. Cleveland, I O. S., 126.

5.8,1895.

Mr. SIR-You are hereby notified to appear on ade Public Square, in front of the Court House, in the City of Cleveland, at 7 o'clock A. M., 2 8-1850 with a good and sufficient shovel, to perform two days labor on the publ highway.

Cleveland, July 3℃16. 1550.

Street Supervisor.

From original. Western Reserve Historical Society

A COMMAND TO PAY ROAD TAX, 1850

"Two days' labor on the public highway, with a good and sufficient shovel"

255

HISTORY OF CLEVELAND

tection to Life and Property; (3) Health Conservation and Sanitation; (4) Highways; (5) Charities and Correction; (6) Education; and (7) Recreation.

Expenses for general government cover the cost of mayor's office, the coun- cil, finance and law offices, elections, public buildings and lands, courts, and public printing. Although statistical data are not wholly reliable prior to 1870, the course of expenditure for general government can be traced. The average per capita expense for the five years, 1846 to 1850, inclusive, was eleven cents; from this it steadily rose to one dollar and forty-nine cents in 1871-1875. In the period 1886-1890 the figures stood at ninety-one cents. No appreciable change occurred under the so-called federal plan of government, the per capita cost being ninety-two cents in 1901. Mayor McKisson was apparently mis- taken when insisting that the cost of government as compared with population had been greatly reduced by the federal plan. A part of his error was doubt- less due to the use of an exaggerated estimate of population. Since 1902 a tendency toward a rapid per capita increase is evident.

The two principal functions calling for large expenditure under the caption "Protection to Life and Property" are the police and fire departments. In 1854, when the police fund was first established, the total expense for police was but seven thousand, five hundred and fifty-four dollars; in 1905 it was about six hundred and thirty-two thousand dollars. A very large part of the total expen- diture of the village and of the city under the charter of 1836 was for fire protection. It may be said in general that the total expense for protection of life and property varies directly with the size of a city. The Bureau of the United States Census has divided into four groups the one hundred and fifty- one cities having a population of over thirty thousand, placing in group I the fourteen cities with over three hundred thousand; in group II, the twenty-five cities of one hundred thousand to three hundred thousand; in group III, the forty-five cities of between fifty thousand and one hundred thousand; and in group IV, the sixty-seven with a population between thirty thousand and fifty thousand. The per capita expense of protection to life and property in group I was, in 1904, four dollars and forty-one cents; in group II, three dollars and six cents; in group III, two dollars and fifty-eight cents; and two dollars and thirty-one cents in group IV. Although Cleveland in population falls in group I, her expenditures under this head averaged in the period 1901-1905 only two dollars and ninety-one cents, or fifteen cents lower than the average for group II. The largest per capita growth of expenditure for protection to life and property occurred before 1875. Beginning in 1846-50 at twenty cents for each person in the city, two dollars and fifty-nine cents was reached in the period 1871-75. Severe economy effected a noticeable reduction in the following decade. In the five years from 1896 to 1900, inclusive, almost exactly the level of 1871-75 reappeared, and this, it is noteworthy, is exactly the figure for the census group III in 1904.

Expenditures for the health department, sewers, street cleaning and garbage removal, are the important items in the general division of health conservation and sanitation. Public expenditures for health protection began in 1832 when an epidemic of "Indian cholera" visited Cleveland and other lake towns. The sewer system dates from 1860, having been made necessary by the installation

25€

HISTORY OF CLEVELAND

of the water system just before that date. Expenditures for street cleaning began to be a regular item in the budget in 1878; problems of administration, centering chiefly in the relative merits of the contract system and direct municipal management, have characterized the work of this department. The collection and disposal of garbage is also included in the general cost of health conservation and sanitation. In 1905 the contract system was supplanted by a municipal system which promises to make this service largely self-supporting through the sale of by-products. Total health and sanitary expenditures in Cleveland are now much greater in proportion to population than ever before in the history of the city. In the years 1861 to 1865 the per capita expense was but twenty-one cents, while in the five years ending with 1905 an average of three dollars and fifty- four cents was reached. Compared with similar expenditures in other cities this is extremely high. But it should be remembered that during this latter period Cleveland expended large sums on her intercepting sewers. With the completion of these undertakings, health and sanitary expenses should be re- duced to approximately two dollars and fifty cents.

Of expenditures for highways the cost of paving forms by far the most important item. Street lighting has also from the earliest years been a large item of expense to the city. The per capita cost of this function, however, has shown little tendency to increase. A study of the statistics for other cities shows that there is no necessary relation between the population of a city and the cost of street lighting. Using the area of the city, therefore, as a basis for comparison, we find that Cleveland's eleven dollars and eighty-two cents per acre in 1904 was forty-seven per cent greater than the average for the fourteen largest cities of the country. Highway expenditures include also the city's por- tion of the cost of eliminating grade crossings of steam railroads. This ex- pense forms one of the most recent additions to the city budget. River and harbor improvement, as well as the cost of erecting and maintaining bridges and viaducts, has always called for considerable outlay, though as early as 1825 Federal aid was received for the former. From 1825 to 1902 the total expen- diture of the Federal government on the harbor at Cleveland amounted to about two million, seven hundred and fifty thousand dollars. The average per capita expenditure for highways from 1901 to 1905 was three dollars and ninety-one cents, which is exactly ten times the annual amount in the five years from 1846 to 1850.

Unlike the expenditures for every other group of municipal functions those . for charities and corrections, including the infirmary department, the workhouse and house of correction, have not shown a tendency to increase more rapidly than population. In 1851-55 the per capita expense was sixty-one cents, while for 1901-05 the average was seventy-one cents. This figure is low as compared with that found in other cities of Cleveland's class.

Twenty-two and nine-tenths per cent of the total expenditures of the city in the five years 1901-1905, exclusive of debt payments, was used for school purposes. In sixty years the per capita school expenditure for the entire popu- lation increased from fifty cents to five dollars and fifty-two cents, while per capita expenditure based on the average daily school attendance increased in the same time from six dollars and four cents to forty-three dollars and one cent.

John Hutchins

John Crowell

William Collins

James M. IToyt

Moses Kelley

Gen. . J. J. Elwell

GROUP OF EMINENT CLEVELAND LAWYERS

257

HISTORY OF CLEVELAND

The expansion of the high school curriculum in the last twenty-five or thirty years is undoubtedly an important cause of this increase; but additions have also been made in the lower stages of the educational process. Expenditure for education also includes the maintenance of the public library system. The per capita expense of the library was nine cents in 1866-70. In the five years 1901-1905, owing largely to the erection of buildings, a total of forty-five cents was reached; in the single year 1905 the per capita amount was sixty-three cents.

Public parks were not regarded as a regular object of expenditure until after 1870. In the half decade ending Igo5 the annual cost of maintaining and extending the park system, was nearly half a million. In the creation of Cleve- land's vast park system real estate in private hands has been enhanced in value many fold, so that the taxes collected from increased valuations should in time probably more than equal the total cost of the parks. This effect of parks on the value of private property suggests a fundamental error in the methods of park development in American cities. Instead of accepting tracts of land from private individuals as gifts made on condition that the city spend large sums in improvement, it might be wiser for the city to purchase the land and assess the cost of improvement on property owners benefited thereby to the extent of millions of dollars.

The only industry of prime importance carried on by the city of Cleveland has been the furnishing of a water supply; but not until private enterprise had declined the task did the city undertake the construction of a water works plant in 1854. One of the important administrative problems of the water works has been the question of the rates charged to consumers. A conflict of ideas as to what principles should guide in the fixing of rates has always existed and may still be said to be a live issue. Though vaguely conceived, the principle upheld most of the time has been the cost of service; but as to what items cost of service should include, there has been little tendency to agreement. One theory has been that the revenue should be made to cover the cost of operating the plant. The other theory, and the one which on the whole has prevailed, is that construction also should be paid out of earnings; the few who can afford to use the privilege should aid in extending it to all, said Mayor Otis, in recommending an increase of one-third in the rates in 1874. Earnings of the plant, plus income from loans, have paid expenses of operation and the cost of construction from the beginning; in other words, consumers have borne the cost both of the water supply and the extension of the plant.

The policy of introducing meters at the expense of the city is also an inter- esting feature of the administration of the Cleveland water works. Though meters were first installed about 1875, their general introduction was not be- gun until 1901. It has been calculated that for every dollar spent on meters two dollars have been saved in machinery, buildings, and other construction which would have been required by the rapid increase in pumpage accompany- ing an unmetered service in a rapidly growing city. Consumers have bene- fited by lower rates, while a beneficial influence on the health of the city is also claimed for the present meter policy.

258

HISTORY OF CLEVELAND

One more important financial matter remains to be mentioned-the city debt and sinking funds. With the exception of half a million dollars incurred for the erection of the water works, Cleveland's debt before the Civil war was small and unimportant. From 1866 to 1875, while the population of fifteen of the principal cities of the United States increased a little less than seventy-one per cent, their indebtedness increased two hundred and seventy-one per cent. In the same period Cleveland's population increased seventy-two per cent and her debt three hundred and fifty-five per cent. To check this alarming increase of local indebtedness, statutory limitations were placed on the borrowing power of cities in many states. The Ohio General Assembly in 1874 passed a law limiting the debt that cities could incur to five per cent of the assessed valua- tion of property. Although this limit has been raised from time to time, the city has on several occasions felt greatly hampered by a lack of power to issue bonds for needed public improvements.

Interest on the public debt has regularly constituted one of the largest items of municipal expenditure. In 1873 more than one-third of the entire tax levy was required for this purpose. A per capita expenditure of two dollars and seventy-three cents in 1876-1880 is the largest in the city's history, although for the decade preceding 1875 the amount was but slightly less. After 1880 it gradually declined in importance. The net per capita interest payment in 1904 was one dollar and ninety-five cents, which was larger than that for Chicago, Philadelphia, St. Louis, Detroit or Milwaukee. No important city in Ohio bears as large a per capita burden of interest as Cleveland, with the exception of Cincinnati, whose heavy interest payment is due largely to the debt of the Cincinnati and Southern railway.

In spite of full powers to establish and maintain sinking funds, the record of many years of Cleveland's history is one of indifference and neglect. The lack of adequate sinking funds has called for much refunding of debts which should have been canceled at maturity. The most important sinking fund of the city is the so-called Sinking Fund of 1860, the primary purpose of which was to pay the debt incurred in building the water works. Its foundation was laid in certain railroad stocks owned by the city, and its accumulations resulted solely from the income on investments and not at all from taxation. Yet its growth was altogether remarkable and did much to stimulate later foundations. The half dozen other sinking funds maintained at one time or another have played a distinctly minor rôle in the city's financial history.

CHAPTER XXV.

THE COURTS.

The courts may be divided into county, townships, municipal and federal courts.

COUNTY COURTS.

COMMON PLEAS COURT.

The constitution of 1802 provided: "The several courts of common pleas shall consist of a president and associate judges. The state shall be

JUDGE SHERLOCK J. ANDREWS

259

HISTORY OF CLEVELAND

divided by law into three circuits. There shall be appointed in each circuit a president of the courts, who, during his continuation in office, shall reside therein. There shall also be appointed in each county not more than three nor less than two associate judges, who during their continuance in office shall reside therein, the president and associate judges in their respective counties, any three of whom shall be a quorum, shall compose the court of Common Pleas, which court shall have common law and chancery jurisdiction in all such cases as shall be directed by law." Under this authority the legislature elected all the judges and in its first session John Walworth, Calvin Austin and Aaron Wheeler were ap- pointed for Trumbull county, and in January, 1806, Aaron Wheeler, Jesse Phelps and John Walworth for Geauga county. John Walworth was the first man from Cleveland to sit on the Common Pleas bench. On February 15, 1810, the legis- lature appointed August Gilbert, Nathan Perry, Sr., and Timothy Doan as the first court of Common Pleas in the newly erected county of Cuyahoga. The law was liberal in the range of jurisdiction given to this court and from the first it has been the people's tribunal. On June 5, 1810, the first session of the Common Pleas court in Cuyahoga county was opened in the newly completed store rooms of Elisha and Harvey Murray on Superior street, near the old For- est City block. The building was torn down in 1855. The following were the officers of this court: presiding judge, Benjamin Ruggles; associate judges, Nathan Perry, Sr., Augustus Gilbert and Timothy Doan; clerk, John Walworth; sheriff, Smith S. Baldwin. Only the presiding judge was "learned in the law." His associates merely sat with him to uphold the English traditions. The first docket contained five civil cases and three criminal prosecutions. The first indictment was found in the November term 1810, and the first divorce was sued in 1816. The early litigation seems petty now. It dealt with the in- fringements of the numerous license acts, with land boundaries, assault and battery and small business transactions. It was still the day of personal feel- ing in litigation, when neighbors would go to court to soothe their desires for revenge. Therefore it was the day of legal oratory, when the favorite pleader would draw an audience of the town's indolent and indigent, who usually hung around the stores and the Square.

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A history of Cleveland, Ohio, Volume I, Part 32

Author: Orth, Samuel Peter, 1873-1922; Clarke, S.J., publishing company Publication date: 1910 Publisher: Chicago-Cleveland : The S.J. Clarke Publishing Co. Number of Pages: 1262

Author: Orth, Samuel Peter, 1873-1922; Clarke, S.J., publishing company
Publication date: 1910
Publisher: Chicago-Cleveland : The S.J. Clarke Publishing Co.
Number of Pages: 1262