My Story (21 page)

In his first annual report Mr. Cooley recommended that a farm colony be established in the country within ten or twelve miles of the city, where all the city's charges, the old, the sick, the young and the delinquent might be cared for. To quote his own words:

Before the end of his nine years' service Mr. Cooley's hope was in part at least realized. From time to time the city purchased land upon his recommendation until twenty-five farms — nearly two thousand acres in all — had been acquired. The city council voted to name this great acreage the Cooley Farms, and so it is known. It is divided into the Colony Farm, which has taken the place of the old infirmary or city almshouse, the Overlook Farm for tuberculosis patients, the Correction Farm for workhouse prisoners, the Highland Park Farm, the municipal cemetery. Then there is the farm of two hundred and eighty-five acres at Hudson, twenty-three miles from the city,
which is the Boys' Home. This farm was the first of the city's purchases and the land was bought at less than forty-four dollars an acre. Here in eight cottages, each in charge of a master and matron, the boys from the juvenile court find a temporary home. There is no discipline suggesting a reformatory. There are schools with some manual training in addition to the regular school curriculum, and the care of the stock and other farm work to occupy the boys. The principle is the same as that of the George Junior Republic, but adapted to municipal needs. The boys respond wonderfully to the normal environment provided here. The juvenile court, though a state institution, always had the hearty support of the city administration and the court and the Boys' Home have coöperated most successfully.

The city's purchase of the first eight hundred and fifty acres of the Cooley Farms, on which the whole magnificent project hinged, was almost prevented by special privilege. Everything the administration attempted had come to be the object of its attack and at that time we no longer had a majority in the council. One Monday afternoon Mr. Cooley took one of our friendly councilmen out to the farm to show it to him. As something of the greatness of the proposed work dawned upon the man he grew enthusiastic and expressed himself most feelingly in favor of it. That night at the council meeting, when the purchase of the land was under consideration, this man got up and denounced the whole plan in a speech so bitterly sarcastic that it was with extreme difficulty that we saved the day. His speech all but defeated the appropriation. Mr. Cooley was so surprised that he could hardly credit the evidence of his own senses. It was perfectly clear that
the councilman had “been seen,” between the time he had visited the farm site with Mr. Cooley in the afternoon and the hour of the council meeting at night. Mr. Cooley felt, as I did, that the enemy might at least have spared this project. The appropriation was made, the farm was purchased, but the incident had sad consequences.

The councilman — a young fellow — had undoubtedly gone into his office with the thought of doing good work and making it a stepping-stone to bigger and better service. When he talked with Mr. Cooley in the afternoon it was himself, the real man in him, that spoke. He believed in Mr. Cooley's work. What happened between that time and the hour of the council meeting we do not know, but that man was never quite the same afterwards. Somehow he had been undone. He has since died. He wasn't bad, but Privilege came along and laid hands upon him and spoiled his chance. Its path is strewn with tragedies like this.

All of the departments under Mr. Cooley were placed on a new basis, each as radical and as rational as the parole system or the method of conducting the Boys' Home. Over the entrance to the Old Couples' Cottage is inscribed, “To lose money is better than to lose love,” and the old men and women, instead of being separated as formerly and simply herded until death takes them away, live together now, and useful employment is provided for all who are able to work, for idleness is the great destroyer of happiness. Especial care has been taken to better the surroundings of the crippled and the sick. The buildings on Colony Farm are of marble dust plaster finish with red tile roofs and the Spanish mission style of architecture. Beautifully located on a ridge
six hundred feet above the city, they look out onto Lake Erie ten miles away. A complete picture of the buildings, even to the olive trees which are one day to grow in the court and the fountain which is to splash in the center, to the canary birds singing in gilt cages in the windows of the cottages, to the old ladies sitting at their spinning wheels in the sun and to the old men cobbling shoes or working in wood in the shops, existed in Mr. Cooley's mind when the city bought the first of the land and long before a spadeful of earth had been turned in excavating.

The tuberculosis sanitarium is half a mile from the colony group, protected by a forest of seventy acres on the north and northwest and looking out over open country on the other sides. Here is waged an unequal contest with a disease which science can never eliminate until the social and industrial conditions which are responsible for it are changed.

A mile and a half from Colony Farm is the Correction Farm for the workhouse prisoners. The men come and go as they like from their work on the farm, at excavating for new buildings or quarrying stone. Refractory prisoners, instead of being dealt with by the old brutalizing methods, are bathed and given clean clothes and then sent off by themselves to reflect — not to solitary confinement in dark cells, but to one of the “sun dungeons” originated by Mr. Cooley. These rooms — three of them — in one of the towers of the building are painted white, and flooded with light, sunshine and fresh air. It is part of Mr. Cooley's theory that men need just such surroundings to put them in a normal state of mind when they are feeling ill used or ugly.—“Sending them to the Thinking Tower,” he calls it.— A volume would be in
adequate to give even a partial conception of this branch of our administration's activities.

All of the land in the city farms has increased greatly in value since it was purchased. Purely as a business venture it has been a good investment. Its value as a social investment cannot be estimated.

William J. Springborn, who had been so valuable a member of the city council, proved equal to the duties of his new office. He had charge of all the business departments, the engineering contracts, the building of bridges, the paving of streets, etc. He had had experience enough in both business and politics to keep out corruption and prevent grafting. His biggest work was in connection with contractors where the highest degree of watchfulness and efficiency is required. The conduct of Mr. Spring-born's department was always a matter of pride with the administration, and great was the consternation of his friends and exceeding great the jubilation of his enemies when the newspapers, in sensational headlines, told a story one morning of how Mr. Springborn had been buncoed. He had been swindled in a most artistic manner, the principal mover in the game being a man whom he had known for many years. A few days before this story came out he had told me he was going out of town on a business errand, and though he explained very little of the contemplated transaction to me it aroused my suspicions. I begged him to take a lawyer with him. He refused. I then threatened to send a detective to watch him, but I saw I was hurting his feelings, so I gave it up. I knew I'd have to abandon my plan of helping him and let him go and buy his experience. When he got home from South Bend, Ind., where
the swindle was perpetrated, I sent for him. He came to me at once, explained everything fully, freely, and said that he realized that he was deeply disgraced, that he should have to withdraw at once from his church in which he had been a worker for a long time, and from the public service, so that no odium might attach to church or city because of his demoralization. I remember that I asked him just one question—“Will, did you rob anybody?” “No, I was robbed,” was his answer. “Then,” I said, “I won't hear to your resigning or in any way showing the white feather. It is no crime to be robbed, the crime is in the robbing. You'll stay and I'll stay with you.” His answer to my own question made me understand all I needed to know about the case. His church friends and many of his old admirers were less lenient, but they later saw their error, for Mr. Springborn continued his city work and his efficiency was in no way impaired — if anything, he was better equipped after the unfortunate occurrence than before. Politicians — enemies — made a great deal of the matter and tried to ruin his reputation, but without success. The principal in the bunco game was sent to the penitentiary.

Mr. Leslie had charge of the parks and the market houses. He made the children feel that the parks really belonged to them and continued our policy of summer and winter sports.

The waterworks had long since been placed in charge of Professor Bemis, who kept politics out and business in, in the conduct of this department, better than it had ever been done before. Formerly the waterworks department had provided places for lots of good party workers. Professor Bemis did away with all that. He was invaluable
also in our State taxation fights, and our local street railway contests, for he was the expert on valuations of public service corporations.

Peter Witt was elected city clerk in May, 1903, and held that office as long as I was mayor, though a hostile council once elected in his place someone who never succeeded in getting possession of the office, the supreme court holding that the other man had not been legally chosen.

Not the least notable of the men associated with my administration was Fred Kohler, whom I appointed chief of police at the beginning of my second term. Kohler had been on the police force since 1889. He was a patrolman at first, later a sergeant, then a lieutenant, and for the first five months of my administration a captain in charge of the first police district with headquarters at the central station. Kohler seems to have shown unusual ability almost from the beginning of his connection with the police department and for that reason he was more or less unpopular, arousing the jealousy of the less efficient. Only strong men make enemies and if Kohler's strength is to be measured by the enemies he has made he deserves to rank with the strongest. Some of our partisan party workers brought tales about Kohler to me. I had no reason to suspect these persons of ulterior motives, and thinking I was acting in the best interests of the city I caused him to be removed from the down town district and stationed in an outlying section of the city. Being “sent to the woods,” as this was called, was very inconvenient for Kohler as it made his headquarters some six miles from his home. But he went without protest and continued to do good work. After a while I began to suspect
that I had been fooled about Kohler and one day I sent for him to come to my house to see me. He came. I liked his looks and I liked his manner. He inspired me with confidence at once. I was sure now that he had been maligned and I told him so.

“I have done you an injustice,” I said, “and I've just found it out. How would you like to be chief?”

“I haven't asked for it,” he answered. “I'm a Republican.”

“I don't care anything about your politics and I know you haven't asked for anything.”

As soon as the way was clear, then, that is, May 1, 1903, Fred Kohler was appointed chief of police of the city of Cleveland and he is still serving in that capacity. While I was mayor I had more complaints on account of him than on account of any other city official, but I found that the chief was almost invariably in the right.

I couldn't hold men responsible for their work unless I backed them in what they did, and a man I wasn't willing to back I felt ought not to hold the office. I demanded and expected the best. My fellow-workers knew this and it was not often that they failed to come up to my expectations.

Nobody connected with the administration originated more improvements in his department than Kohler did. I was frequently given personal credit for innovations which properly belonged to the chief. After we got to working together he never worried me with details. He had that judgment so rare in executive officers which made him rely on himself. He discouraged indiscriminate arrests; he gave orders that men merely drunk should be
taken home instead of dragged into police court and made to suffer the humiliation of a fine and branded with a police court record. The greatest efficiency was no longer measured by the number of arrests an officer made.

HARRIS R. COOLEY

“If service of a higher order on humanitarian lines has ever been rendered to any city than that rendered by Mr. Cooley to Cleveland I have yet to hear of it.”