My Story

My Story by Elizabeth J. Hauser Page A

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Authors: Elizabeth J. Hauser
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the level of Lake Erie. Each of these plateaus runs down a sheer bluff into a valley through which the Cuyahoga river flows. The river is less than 200 feet wide, but bridges three-quarters of a mile long are required to span the valley and bring the plateaus onto a level. Before these plateaus, known as the West Side and East Side, were connected by a viaduct the Simms-Hanna horse-cars traveled down the steep hill on the west side, across a short river bridge and up the hill on the east side.

    TOM L. JOHNSON AT TWENTY-SIX
    â€œJust ten years after my entrance into the business as an office boy I became a bidder for a street railway grant in Cleveland.”
    The viaduct was completed by the time I got possession of the Pearl street line.
    At this time all the car lines, except the Pearl street, which had its terminal on the west side, ran to the center of the city only. It cost two fares to go from one side of town to the other, passengers going east or west being obliged to change at the public square since there were no through lines. A very short ride, if it necessitated using two lines, cost ten cents also, while the authorized fare for the entire system (covering the city and extending half a mile beyond the city limits) was sixteen cents. Cleveland was not unlike other cities in this respect. Most of them had several private companies and the people who were obliged to use the various lines had to pay several fares.
    One of my early street railway discoveries was that the best way to make money was to operate a through line at a single fare, and to supplement this by the transfer system where more than two lines were involved. In these days when this principle of operation is in such general use it is hard to believe that it was not always recognized, but I believe I was the first to introduce this plan of operation which I developed early in Indianapolis.
    The Pearl street line had its terminal at the West Side Market House from which point to the center of the city it operated over the Hanna-Simms tracks. Passengers from the Pearl street cars were obliged to change to Mr. Hanna’s cars at the Market House and to pay an additional fare. Failing to get permission to operate our cars over the Hanna-Simms tracks we established an omnibus line and carried our passengers without extra fare from our terminal to the heart of the city in buses. Thishalf mile of Mr. Hanna’s track which lay between the end of the Pearl street line and the viaduct was what prevented our cars from running to the center of the city.
    When the viaduct was completed the city laid car tracks over the bridge though it had no legal right to do so. The State legislature not having delegated to the city the right to build, own or operate a street car line, it had no right to lay tracks even on its own property. If the street railroad company which was empowered by law to build these tracks had done so instead of permitting the city to do it, the whole street railway situation in Cleveland would have been changed and my operations would certainly have been eliminated.
    To permit the city to build these tracks over the bridge was the greatest blunder Simms and Hanna ever made for it was the city ownership of this three-quarters of a mile of track that gave the city so much power in the street railway controversy which occurred years later. These tracks terminated at the beginning of four tracks in Superior street, which was free territory and which led to the heart of the city. The three-cent-fare contest running through my nine years as mayor might have resulted in final defeat for the people but for this mistake on the part of the railroad company. I say mistake on their part advisedly, for I never attributed the laying of those tracks on the viaduct to any foresight of the city council. They built wiser than they knew.
    City ownership of tracks, the city’s right to allow companies the use of tracks, short-lived grants have always been

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