The center ol Clfulaiul. one of .America's Iiiggcst melting pots. Som
T H E
C I T T E S
O F
Ill the .ily, hut 1.Ï0.0O« have retreated to suburbs.
A M E R I C A
CLEVELAND
By MARY ELLEN and MARK MURPHY
Tbift U llie sixlietli of a series of articles on
America's niosl colorful cities. Tlie nr\t.
uhicli deals with Key Viest, FIori<lii. will
be piiblinbed in our January 22nd issue.
STORY often told in Cleveland, the sixth largest city of the United States, goes like this:
2 ^ ^ group of Clevelanders have died and are
going to heaven. They come to a crossroads. One
sign reads: "To Heaven.'* The other sign says:
"To Meeting to Discuss Going to Heaven." The
Cleveland party takes the path leading to the
meeting.
22
Cleveland was founded hy aome canny promoterB
from Connecticut who, after the Revolution, sUrted
it as a real-eBtate development. They laid out a lown
square and expected to have the New England
town-meeting system of govemment. Since then,
Cleveland haa had nearly every form of government'
except monarchy, known to man. But the founders'
basic idea haB peraisted through all these changes;
each change waB arrived at by solemn deliberation!
Each form of govemment except the moat recent
one waa abandoned after much soul-aearching discuBsion —more town meeting. Today, with the
Yankees well outnumbered by tbe Slavs, tbe town
seems continually to he in town meeting. It waa a
hardy tradition that Connecticut planted on Lake
Erie and it aurvives in a polyglot population work-
Known as the One-Per-Cent
Town, this Midwest metropolis
has one per cent of our populalion, one per cent of our hirths
and deaths—buta considerahly
larger share of the nation's stock
of New England conscience.
ing away in amoky steel milla, clanging factories, on
railroads, on ore dockB and on lake ahipa, and in
financial offices and department storeB.
Like moat large cities in this country, Cleveland
is also a county-Cuyahoga. Greater Cleveland, the
city and the suburbs that make tbe county, is distinguished among American citiea as being tbe One-PerCent Town. It haa 1 per cent of the nation's population, and 1 per cent each year of its births and deaths.
It varies a little in having 1 y¿ per cent of the country's bank deposits and 1 î^ to 2 per cent of its manufacturing. Of divorces, it haa 1 per cent plus. People who run polls love the place—it is so pleasant
mathematically. The town has actually more neighborhood aBBOciations, more neighborhood cluba,
more neighborhood fights, more neighborhood
8a.oona, more neighborhood churches and more
leighborhooda than any other area of like acreage
anywhere.
Cleveland ia a town of truly tremendous cultural
activity. It has 210 little, theatera; the Cleveland
Symphony Orchestra, one of the country's best, now
led by George Szell; pop concerts by tbe Cleveland
Summer Orcbeatra led by Dr. Rudolph Ringwall;
one week of Metropolitan Opera, which makea
money in Cleveland, but not in ita home town of
New York; the Cleveland Museum of Art; the
Cleveland School of Art; numeroua well-run academiea and colleges where people can leam to fingerpaint, sculpture, compoae music, design hats or
^^ite ahort atories; the Garden Center, which
teaches horticulture and fiower arrangement. All
these are fumished with committees of one kind or
another.
Such lush extracurricular activity on the part of
its citizens can do a lot for a town; it can also take a
lot out of it. Critics of the city say that the young
and middle-aged are given little time for contemplation or thought; that only the aged or ill have the
time to ponder on what's going on. While giving
people about the beat in music, in books, in art
in education, Cleveland has produced few musi>a, writers, artists or philosophers of any distinc1. It is a town of powerful men in their seventies
and eighties; of a lot of old leaders dying oíT and a
^6ry few young ones coming up.
Louia B. Seltzer, editor of the Cleveland Press, the
'biggest paper in Ohio, holds aa much aovereignty aa
anyone in town. He ia considered a leader oí the
young men, and he ia in hia fiftiea. His love for
lÙ8 town is that of the old New Englander for his
jand: he ÍB critical of it, but he would never leave
it. He describes his home soil aa being in a kind of
transition; as being at a sort of civic dead cen**r. with the old impetus dying and the new not
yet applying its power or even proving that it's
got any.
There are no real political bosses, or even political leaderB. Frank Lausche, twice mayor of Cleveland, and recently elected governor of Ohio for a
second time, is a political hybrid. Elected governor
in 1944, defeated in 1946 in tbe Republican landslide, he was an eaay victor in 1948. This was i\ot
wholly because of the Truman upset, inasmuch as
Lauache ia considered by experts to be the greatest
vote getter in Ohio, despite his not getting along
particularly well with hia own party, the Democratic,
or with business and labor. He representa a peraon
rather than a political program. He was astute
enough, though, to apeak sincerely of Truman's
strength as early as last summer.
The hold of the past is atrong upon the city, and
it ia phyaically evidenced in the four connected
buildings which house the Cleveland Trust Company, the sixth largest aavings bank in the nation.
Vk OS t e r n
Kei^ervc
Liiivrrsilii
ir- o n e n l ' i i i a i i \
<-iiltiirul
cnti-ritriscs
into
^vhii-b
rirli
Cle\eliiiid<-n
pumped some of their weallb. 1 be «ily lias apera, ísyniphonics, art c\liibití« and 2IÜ lilllc iheatcrH.
The buildings are known as A, B, C and D. Building
A is a relatively amall, domed building of atone occupying the beat corner in town. Buiidinga B, C and
D stretch around a corner and give the impression
that maybe the diBtrict is going to seed; they don't
matcb, and they hear great neon aigns advertising
the bank's perBonal-loan department. Ground-floor
space is rented out to amall shopkeepera—a haberdasher, a watch repairer, a cobbler and so on.
George Gund, the president of Cleveland Truat, is
no man for ostentation. If some fellow wants to borrow $200 be can go to the trouhle of walking upstairs
to get it. In Cleveland, the firat generations and foreign bom share a mutual admiration with the original families, each group highly praising the other.
The ones in the middle tend to be ignored. Gund,
a big, handsome man, who looks as though he would
be at home on the bridge of an ore carrier, had a
grandfather who came to town and became a
brewer. Gund ia, therefore, in the rather lonely poaition of belonging neither to the old New England
group nor to the exotic Slavic one.
Others prefer to. think of T. Arthur McBride, a
sportsman and self-made capitalist, as a man who
became a real Clevelander. McBride made money as
a newspaper-circulation man when that business required four bodyguarda, and eyea in back of one's
head. He made more money in real estate and in proPIIOTOGKAPIIY
BY
There are no real political bosse«." IVlayor Burke (left) and a man who was
mayor of Cleveland, is now Ohio^B govemor-elect—Frank Lausche.
CUS
PASQUARELLA
viding people with information about what was going on at race tracks. Some time ago he built a football team named the Cleveland Browna. Usually it
won, and the people of the community were much
pleaaed with the Browna. They also liked the pretty
drum majorettes who led a resplendent band and
were themselves occasionally led hy McBride.^
McBride waB once asked why he wanted to get
into the football business. He hesitated, and then
said, quite convincingly, " I wanted to co-O|>erate
with the city."
People seem really to want to do that in Cleveland. At times they appear morbidly preoccupied
with the verb "co-operate"; at other times it seems
a thorough, healthy and useful instinct. Here is the
town that started the Community Chest idea, although Cleveland calls it a Community Fund. Children of rich parents get only a million or so of wbat
the old man has stored away when he dies at the age
of ninety-five. The rest of the money goes to Western Reserve University, the Bymphony orchestra, to
a museum or some gardens.
' •
As townB go, Cleveland is one of the beat in •
the United States. It is clean and well governed. I t
posaessea competent newapajKira and it enjoys
good racial relations, excellent schools, well-cooked
food, superb libraries, fine medicine and much
amateur aport. Yet tbe old Puritan conacience keeps
telling Cleveland that the devil finds work for
idle hands.
(<:t>nthiiird an Pane 69)
The Cuyaboga River, gateway to Lake Erie, is '*a narrow, twisting navigational menace." Despite tbis, Cleveland dominates Great Lakes shipping.
23
TIIE SATLKDAY EVK.MNG i»OST
69
many relatively recent strains in the
United States have felt. The surnames
of Cleveland's councilmen are: Staple(f'uiitinued from Pane 23)
ton, Suhajcik, Fusco, Walker, Speeth,
Berkebile, Betley, McCaflerty, Witt^ There is a hopeful belief among
hubn, Zimmerman, Parker, Finkle,
Cleveland people that they will find
Dolejs, Klementowicz, Probeck, Russome form of committee, some method
sell, Carr, Gassaway, Costelio, Zingler,
of electing legislators and magistrates,
Murphy, McCafTery, Kovacic, Marsome system that will solve all their
Khail, JafTe, Taylor, Cohen, Lucak,
problems. Some American cities have
Sotak, Atkinson, Grisanti, Vehovec
Jong Bince given up the battle; Cleveand Donnelly.
land won't BO long as a Tuxedo and a
The New England conscience, which
banquet chicken patty remain.
felt a responsibility at a time wben
PoUtically, Cleveland is as indepenotber cities let tbeir immigrant groups
dent as a refrigerated hog. In Franklin
buddle forlornly in slums, made CleveRoosevelt's time,, Cleveland would g
give
land early and consciously try to assimllai^e majority while electing
l i a
ilate and belp its new population. For
years it was considered a social worker's
publican mayor. In 1924, it was tbe
paradise. A number of noted settlement
only important city or town to choose
bouses, such as Hiram House and Goodt ne elder LaFollette's Progressive ticket
rich House, worked with foreign-lan•^ver those of Coolidgeand Davis.
guage groups. Karamu House, started
Cleveland has at times called itBelf
by Rowena and Russell Jelliffe in 1915,
the "Forest City," and it does have
aided Negroes through the arts, and its
«>me admirable trees, but essentially it
Gilpin Players is one of the most dis« a town tbat looks to the Lakes. From
tinguished of Cleveland'slittle theaters.
•^oe Great Lakes have come ita treAlthough Cleveland may have apniendouB wealth and ita reason for beproximately 1 per cent of everything in
''îg- The major lake shipping compaTHB SATI.'RDAV BVRNtKC POST
the United States, there is a good chance
nies have their headquarters in Cleve"Uow iitiich d<M.'ii lie weigh?**
that it has considerably less tban 1 per
' ^ d , and tbe town controla lake trafñc,
cent of tbe nation's slums, as the term
Whether to its own docks or to Toledo,
is understood by tbe layman and not
I^troit, BufTalo, Gary, Chicago, Conneaut or Duluth-Superior. Ita great named it after the supennt«ndent. convenient to ita inland lakes, and man tbe sociologist. One of ita most pictur^n-and-steel industry and its hun- Other settlements were also estab- has yet_ to find a cheaper way to move esque areas is a place known as old
University Heigbts. It is on a bluff
oreda of metal-working shops are there lisbed. General Cleaveland stayed bulk goods tban by water.
ly because of tbe iron ore brought around for a few weeks in bis village, and
The sbrewd Yankees of Cleveland above tHe flats, and, before the river
Cleveland sbips down from Lake tben went bome to the comforta of realized t.be importance of where they bank« became a tangle of metal and
erior. Tbe town is dominated by Connecticut and never camo-back. He lived. They bought into Minnesota iron chimneys and ore unloaders, it was in"flatß," a sooty, lake-level maze of died in 1806.
lands and they bought and built ships. tended to be tbe town's cultural center.
•^fineries, giant ore unloaders, steel
Cleveland-a printer dropped the They made fortunes out of the ore and It is a poor, working-class neighbor^iUs, ore docks and factories that line first "a"in 1832,sobe could get the name its transportation, and out of tbe man- bood. The houses are tiny and neat, and
Ibe Cuyaboga River. Tbe Cuyahoga, of bis paper, Tbe Cleveland Gazett« ufacture of steel and of products made each has a hedge or a picket fence and
^i* " Kinky River," is a narrow twisting and Commercial Register, into one line from steel. Shortly after tbe Civil War, a garden of flowers and vegetables,
navigational menace which i« highly of type—grew slowly at first. Most of John D. Rockefeller came along with tastefully comhined. There are streets
"ndustrialized merely because it is tbe migration west in the lat« eight- his ideas about oil, and be and his such aa Professor and College avenues
tnere. Crews of ships wbo bave to incb eenth and early nineteenth centuries Cleveland associates also did all right. and Literary Road. On Starkweather
5 ¡-faeir 600-foot vessels around the Cuya- went. Ihe relatively easy way down the
As docks, factories and mills sprang Road is a domed Orthodox Church givJioga's bends, backing and filling to go Ohio River. Only a few adventurous up along tbe lake front and river banks, ing a sort of Eastern benediction to tbe
100 feet, curse the place.
bands used a path tbrough swamps and people came from Europe to feed them smoking fiats below.
The Appalachianridgeendsat Cleve- brush along the Lake Erie shore from manpower. There were Italians and
Tbis was the scene of the Tremont
^nd Heights, a residential section in Buffalo to Cleveland, fanning out over Greeks and Bulgarians, and Ukrain- Area project, an experiment publicized
^ e eastern part of tbe city, and tbe tbe western country from there.
ians, Russians, Slovenes, Slovakians, only in sociological journals, of a few
Great Plains start flowing westward at
Some, daring the vicious squalls that Serbs, Letts, Croats, Macedonians, Bo- years ago. There was a really bad
about l.be center of town. This exciting make Erie a dangerous lake, tried the bemians, Hungarians, Lithuanians and juvenile-delinquency problem tbere,
geological transition provides wooded trip by boat, and many were lost. To- Estonians. The meeting of tbe immi- and the entire area pitched in and
ravines of whicb Cleveland bas taken day, on the land path used by tbe pio- grant cultures witb tbose of tbe estab- whipped it. The experiment led to tbe
advantage in a fine park system. Tbe neers, tbe New York Cent.ral operates lished order was not without friction, formation of about a dozen neighborfirst parks were tracts given by J. H. its Water Level Route. Witb tbe com- but there developed an appreciation on hood area councils, which are an atWade, one of tbe founders of Western pletion of tbe Ohio-Lake Erie Canal tbe part of tbe old for the new, and of tempt to solve the problems of a big
Union, and by William J. Gordon, an which linked the Ohio River with the tbe new for tbe old. Somehow the vola- city by working on tbem in tbe city's
^arly resident and iron-ore and sbip- lake in 1832, Cleveland expanded tile Slavic strain revitalized tbe New neigbborboods. Tbey are made up of
Ping magnate. Later, Gordon and rapidly. A commercial war, complete England order. Now Cleveland is a local businessmen, service clubs, church
Wade parks were united by land given with cannonading and rifle fire, was town where the wholly advantageous groups, block associations, settlement
*»y Jobn D. Rockefeller. In the parks, fought with Ohio City, across tbe results of the melting pot may be seen. houses and individuals of the section,
with their fine trees, picnic tables and Cuyahoga River, and settled by CleveFrank Lausche, recently elected gov- and they tackle problems like tubercushady walks, one has no feeling at all land's absorbing its upstart neigbbor. ernor of Ohio, a lai^e, sentimental losis, rat control, zoning, playgrounds
of being in a bigbly industrialized city.
As cabins were replaced by bouses of man of Slovenian extraction, a Catholic and delinquency, or anything else.
^
Cleveland was intended to be tbe New England design the uprigbt New who married a Protestant girl of ScotchThere is a strong feeling for homes in
capital of the Western Reserve, a strip Englanders established free schools, Irish descent, says, " Originally the city Cleveland, and for a place of its popuof land 120 miles long and some fifty a lyceum, a literary association witb was settled in little colonies wbicb were lation there are relatively few apartniiles wide, stretcbing westward from 800 books, and tbree musical societies. pretty well insulated against each other. ment houses. Not much goes on in
Pennsylvania along tbe Lake Erie The pattern was established.
The frictions of Europe frequently downtown Cleveland at nigbt. Some of
shore. Connecticut bad claimed the
Tbe canal and tbe swelling of trade manifested themselves in antipathies. the suburban communities in tbe foot'and after the Revolution, basing her on tbe lakes brought the first foreign Now intermarriages occur frequently. bills like Chagrin Falls, Hunting Valley,
fief on the Charter given her by Charles immigration to Cleveland. Irish came Slovenians and Italians who in Europe Shaker Heights and Gates Mills are as
II. In 1795, Connecticut gave 500,000 and dug the canal, to be followed later are at swords' points are living adjacent beautiful as can be foimd anywhere.
acres at the western end of the tract to by otber Iriab wbo built tbe railroads, to each other here. A new creature ÍB
Greater Cleveland is made up of
people whose homes had been bumed and at the same time came Germans. being bom, tbe product of those people. twelve cities and forty-two villages,
or spoiled by the British. The area is Skilled German and native labor was The sharp edges came off with the witb 900,000 persons in the city proper,
still called "the Firelands."
utilized in clotbing and blanket facto- Cultural Gardens. Those edges were and 450,000 in the towns outside. It is
Tbe remaining land, about 3,200,000 ries, and even today Cleveland produces eliminated through the acquisition of enough_ to drive a regional planner
acres, was sold to tbe Connecticut a lot of men's clotbing.
batty. Tbe complicated political setup
knowledge."
I-and Company, a group of sage citiThe gardens Lausche mentioned in imposed on Cleveland by a rurally domTbe discovery of "mountains of
zens, at forty cents an acre. Gen. iron" in tbe Lake Superior area in tbe his rolling periods are a group of formal inated state legislature includes, beMoses Cleaveland, a lawyer from 1840*8 and 185O'a, to be followed ones in Rockefeller Park, and are sides tbe cities and villagtïs, a number
Canterbury, in Windbam County, Con- tbrougb tbe years by greater findings, [joints of pride to the city and its na- of sanitary-sewer districts, planning
necticut, was appointed general super- made tbe town musbroom. Steelmak- tionality groups. Each nationahty has commissions, county school districts,
intendent, and in 1796 be led a survey- ing needs ore, limestone and coal, and a garden with a statue of one or more of nineteen boards of zoning appeals, a
» ing party over tbe lands. In September arranging for them to meet in one place its national heroes. Wedding parties are park district and a bunch of other politof that year, Cleaveland and bis party has been a problem which has vexed often photographed in them. Cleveland ical entities wbich defy rationalization.
picked a plot of forest on tbe east side of nations. America has been singularly is a town where few names are changed
This tends to make some leading
tbe Cuyaboga above tbe lake as tbe lucky in having stone, coal and iron all to meet exigencies, false or real, that citizens pessimistic—for example. Erplace they wanted for a capital, and
CLEVELAND
70
THE SATURDAY EVENING POST
nest J. Bohn, director of the Regional pert with several patents on streetcars.
Association of Cleveland and of the He started his meetings in 1914, when ens. The two men entertained seldom town Sheet and Tube with Republic
Cleveland Metropolitan Housing Au- there was a strong prohibitionist move- and dourly, slept in the same room and Steel in the late '2O's. Eaton won a
thority. Bohn is an imaginative man ment on. He offered to debate the drys. went to bed early, shared an office in moral victory and lost his money. H^
who has a reputation of being one of There were no takers. Then he offered the Terminal Tower, and apparently was one of the few financiers who ever
the hest city planners in the country. to dehate the wets—no takers again. So had no interests whatever beyond their came back, and he now is involved with
He shakes his head hitterly when he he rented the old Hippodrome, sold seats remarkable schemes. Their fantastic the SEC about some financing, or nonstructure finally collapsed in the depres- financing, of Kaiser-Frazer.
thinks of his town.
at twenty-five cents each, and debated
"Cleveland is typical of all cities," both Sides. He moved to the Auditorium sion. The empire was so complicated
Eaton generally is credited with forche said recently. *'We don't face our when It was built, and charged a doUar that the two brothers were hired as con- ing Govemment agencies to require comproblems. We run away from them. We a head. He told people what was wrong sultants in its liquidation; no one else petitive bidding for the underwriting oi
don't like our schools; we don't like our with the town, and they loved it. The could understand it. But, though the corporate issues, a clear victory of the
smoke; we don't like our police depart- town still values his opinions, although money was gone and many persons were Middle West over New York's Wall
rumed, what the Van Sweringens had Street. During the war. Jack and Heintz,
ment; so we extend our electric and they often make it wince.
huilt was stm t h e r e - t h e Terminal aircraft-parts manufacturers, got nasewer lines and we create a suhurh. Then
Cleveland has had a number of atthe policeman is Uncle Freddy. He takes tractive old men such as Witt, among Group, Shaker Heights and an inte- tional attention with some rather uto*
grated system of railroads. Their ghosts pian labor policies. The Fifty Club
the kiddies across the street.
them Charles O t i s - " Mr. Cleveland""The schools are run by the parent- an urbane conservative who had no use were evoked in 1948, when tbe Erie didn't like them, either, and was ratbeT
teacher association, and we're a part of for Tom Johnson. "I'd go to his meet- Railroad finally moved its terminal into glad when they quit their factoryit. We don't want those cops heing run ings, Otis said recently, "and Johnson Union Station.
Some of the powerful companies in tbe
Activities of Cleveland financiers and town are Wamer and Swasey, machine
by the city; we don't want those schools would say, 'There's Little Lord Fauntrun by the school hoard we ran away leroy. He's cheated the people for years industrialists continually astound read- tools; Sherwin-Williams, paints; Grasfrom. We enjoy the town meeting. Then Oo home and put on your high collar. ers of financial pages and journals. They sein Chemical Company, now a part
upset Cleveland, too, on occasion, and of DuPont; White Motor Company,
we find it really is costing too much."
Bohn believes that some form of county
trucks; Republic Steel; Thompson Prodgovemment must he formed to run esucts, headed hy Frederick C. Crawford,
sential services.
former president of the National AssoHAZEL
The town has maintained the New
ciation of Manufacturers; the lamp diEngland respect for free speech and
vision of General Electric, and Lincoln
thought, and there is a statue of Mayor
Electric Company, whose president,
Tom L. Johnson in the public square, a
James F. Lincoln, believes in incentive
strong fighter for free speech and one of
labor, now and then paying a machinist
the greatest chief magistrates any town
as high as $9000 a year.
in the country ever had. Johnson, an inCleveland's wealth, plowed back into
dustrialist and traction magnate tumed
it by the bulk of the conscientious and
Single Taxer, was mayor from 1901 to
austere New Englanders who made it,
1911, and, at a time when possibly it
has given the town its Cultural Center
could have lost its old values, Cleveland
with Severance Hall, tbe home of the
was shaped by Johnson into the alert,
Cleveland Symphony; the Cleveland
YJgorous, independent town it is today.
Art Museum; Westem Reserve UniverAs much to Johnson's memory as the
sity, which has an excellent medical distatue is the "free-speech stone," a sinvision; Case School of AppUed Science,
gle hlock of granite on the square, where
and the Garden Center. Some of the
any man can stand and have his say.
city's institutions have been created alJ^ohnson put the stone there. He also
most singlebanded by determined peogave Cleveland a three-cent fare «(hieb
ple such as Mrs. Adella Prentiss Hughes,
lasted for a while, and a municipal light
wbo not only got tbe Severances and
plant which has acted as a yardstick,
Rockefellers to give ber money for the
and he gave it garbage collection. He
sympbony but brought the Metrópolibattled mightily with Mark Hanna, the
tan Opera and other attractions to tbe
industrialist and national Republican
town at a profit.
boss. Johnson planned the beautiful
Bill Veeck came to Cleveland as an
lakeside mall which is flanked hy a numoutsider, buying tbe baseball Indians
ber of public buildings and tbe offices oí
witb some money he found in Chicago
the Cleveland Plain Dealer. He also had
and some he got from Boh Hope. For
Cleveland build a city hall after having
the first time in years, the town had a
rented spaces for its municipal offices
team with a look-in on the AmericaD
League
pennant, and promptly went
for seventy years.
Why don't you give up? She own« all i h . bank., ulilitic, railroad. . . . »
crazy. Besides a winning team, Veeck's
Among Johnson's prot^és were Peter
patrons also got fireworks, special trains
Witt and the late Newton D. Baker.
and a nursery where mothers could park
Witt, who died a few months ago,
their children while they watched a
told one day of how the statue of John- Little Lord Fauntleroy. You oughtn't
son was put up. "There were no cere- to he in politics.' Oh Tom Johnson was leave the house untidy. The Fifty Club game. The games were played in the
monies. Tom Johnson was an uncommon the greatest josher! Well, we lived the inner circle of the Union Club, i^ Municipal Stadium, and the largest
man, and I wanted a dedication in an through the Johnson era; we lived supposed to run things financiaUy and crowds ever to see a haseball game in
uncommon way. When the statue was through eight yeara of tbe three-cent industnally, and, in the main, dL so. this country—including World Series—
packed the stadium. It got more customcompleted, it was shipped here. We fare, and we lived through the Van
went down to the railroad station and Sweringen era. I guesstheseeighty yearB In tbe 189O's, wben an auto manufac- ers than the annual Cleveland Air
And it won the pennant. The
put the casting on a truck, and a man of mine have heen pretty good years to turer wanted to locate there, he was Races.
National
Advisory Committee for Aerogiven
no
encouragement.
"We
want
took it home. We put the casting on the live through, if you didn't get shot."
nautics maintains huge lahoratories in
pedestal in the dark hours of the night.
Those strange brothers, Oris P. and steady reliable businesses," the head of Cleveland, and from them have come
When people came to work in the mom- Mantis J. Van Sweringen, are a part of the Chamber of Commerce told him. some of the country's most important
In the recent war, Walter I. Beam
ing, they saw it there."
tbe folklore of American finance. In
improvements in airplanes.
There are a number of inscriptions on thirty years the Van Sweringen broth- present executive vice-president of the
chamber,
says
proudly,
Cleveland
the pedestal, but the one on the hack, ers built an empire valued at $190,000,Typical of the spirit of Cleveland is
written by Witt, probably tells best how 000. They buiit Sbaker Heights, the turned down a $40,000,000 plant tbe the town's reaction when Robert Feller
Govemment
wanted
to
locate
tbere
beCleveland feels about tbe great mayor: town's fancy suburb and, to get a mile
lost his fast ball last year. Veeck was
"Erected by popular subscription in and a half of rapid-transit line, bought cause tbe town didn't want to import paying Feller some $80,000 a year, and
memory of the man who gave his for- the Nickel Plate Railroad, and finally any Southern labor. Tbe shop wasto had not yet added old Satchel Paige to
tune and his life to make Cleveland, as put together a logical railroad system of employ 10,000 men and tum out ma- his staff. Feller couldn't get any batters
he often expressed it, A happier place to 23,000 miles. They huilt the Terminal cbme tools. Cleveland, the home of a out, and committees were formed to
live in, A happier place to die in. And Group, an imposing group of huildings huge machine-tool industry, conceiv- cheer him up. E. J. Kulas, president of
located on the spot he dedicated to the on the public square, containing Ter- ably could have supplied somenecessary the Midland Steel Company, got a letfreedom of speech."
minal Tower, the tallest building west know-how. Nevertheless, Cleveland's ter suggesting that he as well as some
Witt himself waa quite an institution. of New York. They put the Union Sta- war record, like that of all the industrial few hundred more prominent Cleveland-*
ers write a letter to the disconsolate
From 1914 until 1945 be conducted his tion in the group, winning a fight against cities of the lakes, was superb.
Cyrus Eaton, at one time a lay min- pitcher. " Why don't I kiss him?" Kulas
own town meeting in the Public Audi- Witt and other old Johnsonites who
ister, occupied the pulpit at John D. scrawled on the letter, and sent it
torium, which Cleveland, Yankeelike, wanted it on tbe lake-front mall.
Rockefeller's church. Charley Otis back.
calls the Public Hall. Witt, often deTheir Daisy Hill Farm contained pos- brought him into his own company, and
scribed as "the town scold," was an iron sibly the world's most complete collecBesides a sense of bumor, Cleveland
molder and a member of the Knigbts of tion of Dickensiana—manuscripts, first by 1929 Eaton was dominating the has independence and spirit, and even
Labor when he first met Johnson, and editions, letters, drawings. Never, to company. Eaton split tbe Fifty Club while it is attending a meeting on How
later he became a highly paid transit ex- anyone's knowledge, did they read Dick- down the middle when he got in a fight to Reach Heaven, it is probably better
about the proposed mei^ing of Youngs- than halfway there.
THÉ END
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