BIOGRAPHIES

† Source:
A. History of Northwestern Ohio
A Narrative of Its Historical Progress and Development
from the First European Exploration of the Maumee and
Sandusky Valleys and the Adjacent Shores of
Lake Erie, down to the Present Time
by Nevin O. Winter, Litt. D.
Assisted by a Board of Advisory and Contributing Editors
Illustrated
Vol. II
Published by
The Lewis Publishing Company
Chicago and New York
1917

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	ALVIN C. JONES.  Twenty-five years ago a limited number of people in Toledo knew Alvin C. Jones as a glass blower in the Libby Glass Works.  He had too much energy and enterprise to remain in a trade or as an employe.  Many thousands of people are acquainted with Mr. Jones' standing as a real estate man and particularly as president of the Jones-Knepper-Kinnison Company, one of the largest real estate and general fire insurance agencies in the city.  This company, which has its offices in the Gardner Building, handles fire insurance, loans, real estate, rentals, and has done much subdivision and home building work.  The other active members of the company are Ora C. Kinnison, secretary, and Albro L. Knepper, treasurer.      One of the distinctions of Mr. Jones is that he put on the market the first suburban allotment in Toledo or in Northwestern Ohio.  This was in 1907.  It was called the Douglas Farm Addition of 400 acres, located on the Lake Shore Electric on Woodville Street.  Recently the company has bought a tract of two ten acre tracts in West Toledo, which are soon to be developed.      Alvin C. Jones was born in New Brunswick, Canada, on Washington's birthday, Feb. 22, 1872.  His parents were Frederick W. and Anna F. (Crosby) Jones, the former a native of New Brunswick and the latter of Nova Scotia.  His mother now lives at Elmira, New York, where the father died Jan. 1, 1911.  Frederick W. Jones was a stone mason by trade, but earlier in his career followed the lumber industry in Canada and also in Pennsylvania, and subsequently became a contractor for railroad bridges and general stone mason work.  There were four children:  R. K., of Elmira; Fred M., of Elmira; Ella, who died in April, 1913, at Big Bay, Michigan, where her husband, L. L. Woodruff, is a lumberman.      Alvin C. Jones, the youngest of the family, when about eighteen months old was taken by his parents to Wellsboro, Pennsylvania.  Most of his education came from the schools there, and the town was his home until he was about eighteen.  Hard and practical experience was more of an educator for Mr. Jones than schools, and practically since he was twelve years of age he has looked after his own welfare and he is an excellent type of that sturdy product of Americanism, a self-made man.  As part of his early career he worked four years at Wellsboro in a grocery store.  Later he went to Corning, New York, and was employed in a glass factory, and there had his first experience in a strike.  From there he came to Findlay, Ohio, and was in the glass factory known as the Richardson Bulb Factory for a year and a half.      In September, 1891, Mr. Jones arrived at Toledo.  For some time he was employed as a glass blower in the Libby Glass Works, and in 1893 the company sent him to the World's Fair in Chicago for three months, where he represented the Libby glass products in connection with its exhibits and as a salesman.      Finally leaving the glass business, Mr. Jones in June, 1897, embarked in the real estate business for himself.  His first connection was a member of the firm of Bowland and Jones.  For a number of years he operated alone and then consolidated his business with that of several insurance companies.  He is now at the head of three distinct business organizations, all conducted in the Gardner Building.  This separation is due to the laws of the State of Ohio, which forbid the conduct of two related lines under one business organization.  One company is the Jones-Knepper-Kennison Company, already mentioned, another is the Jones-Knepper-Kinnison Realty Company, and the third is called the United Associate Company, organized and maintained for the buying of securities and second mortgages.  Mr. Jones is also president of the third company.      His business interests have been gradually extending for the last fifteen or twenty years.  He is a stockholder and director of the Lucas County Abstract Company, and is also distinguished for an unusual quality of public spirit, which makes him active in behalf of every worthy local institution.      In January, 1916, his term expired as a member of the Library Board of Toledo. For thirteen years he was a trustee of the Toledo Y. M. C. A. until he resigned in 1913.  He was one of the leaders in the campaign for funds that resulted in the building of a splendid Y. M. C. A. Building.  He is a member of trustee of the First Baptist Church of Toledo.      A paragraph should also be given to his political activities.  He is a sterling republican, though his partisanship is not specially manifest when the interests of Toledo are at stake.  In 1911 he was a candidate for mayor, being defeated at the primaries by 400 votes by former Mayor Keller.  In 1914 he was chairman of the Lucas County Dry Campaign Committee.  In the fall of 1915 he was again a candidate for mayor, and among the fourteen aspirants for that office he stood sixth in number of votes.      Interested in fraternalism, he is a member of Sanford L. Collins Lodge, Free and Accepted Masons, the Knight Templar Commandery, and the Toledo Chapter Royal Arch  Masons.  He also belongs to Viking Lodge, Independent Order of Odd Fellows at Toledo, and to the Modern Woodmen of America.  Other associations are with the Toledo Commerce Club, Toledo Real Estate Board, and the Toledo Automobile Club.      On Nov. 30, 1898, at Toledo he married Bertha L. Groendyke, daughter of M. L. and Olive (Kemmer) Groendyke.  Her parents lived for many years at Greenville, Ohio, but are now residents of Toledo.  Mrs. Jones was born in Dublin, Indiana, was reared and educated in Greenville, Ohio, and since her marriage has been altogether devoted to the interests of her home and her church.  To their marriage were born six children:  Ruth in high school; Chester and Alice, both in grade school; Alvin who died at the age of five and a half years; Robert, in school, and Bertha  All the children were born in Toledo. † Source: History of Northwestern Ohio - Vol. II _ 1917 - Page 1109
	JOHN CORYDON JONES, for many years a leading member of the Lucas County bar and otherwise well known for his service in the legislature and in other important capacities, was appointed deputy oil inspector of the State of Ohio in July, 1915, and has since removed his family from Sylvania to Toledo, where he has his official headquarters with offices in the Ohio Building.      Mr. Jones is nearly sixty years of age, having been born in Milford Township, Knox County, Ohio, Apr. 9, 1857, and has filled those years since early youth with a variety of performance and experience such as to make him deservedly prominent among his fellow citizens.  His father, Basil Jones who was born in Steubenville, Jefferson County, Ohio, Nov. 7, 1826, lived retired for fifteen years at St. Louisville in Licking County, Ohio, where he died at the advanced age of eighty-five years.  His wife was Isabelle (Evans) Jones who was born in Newton Township of Licking County in 1835, and died Aug. 19, 1858, when her son John C. was about eighteen months of age.      The latter spent his boyhood in Licking County, attended the public schools there, and made such a diligent use of his opportunities that in 1874, at the age of seventeen, he was granted a teacher's certificate and began teaching his first term of school in Licking County.  For a number of years his chief work was done in the educational field.  He would teach in the winter and during the spring and fall terms would attend an advanced course of study in the normal school at Utica in Licking County.  He was graduated from that normal school June 3, 1881, and for the following four years continued teaching in Licking County.  In the fall of 1886 he was elected superintendent of the public schools of Sylvania, and that brought him to Lucas County, where he has now resided continuously for thirty years.      During the five years he spent as superintendent of schools at Sylvania Mr. Jones was applying himself to the study of law.  One of his instructors was Gen. J. Kent Hamilton of Toledo, and he also studied under the late J. D. Ford of Toledo.  After examination before the Supreme Court at Columbus he was admitted to the Ohio bar Oct. 5, 1892.      Until his recent removal to Toledo Mr. Jones was in practice at Sylvania, though he became well known in the courts of this entire sectoin of the state.  He was also associated with Judge L. W. Morris at Toledo.  He was a man of mature years and experience when he began the practice of law, and brought to the profession more than a theoretical knowledge of jurisprudence.  Careful, painstaking and conscientious, with a knowledge of the law and how to apply it, he has naturally enjoyed both a splendid practice and a position prestige in his profession.      Ever since he reached his majority Mr. Jones has been a loyal republican and has assisted in bringing about many republican triumphs in Lucas County.  In November, 1901, he was elected to the House of Representatives and two years later was re-elected.  At the second election he received the highest vote given any candidate on the victorious republican ticket.  That liberal support of his candidacy tells better than anything else the personal esteem which he had won and the confidence reposed in him by people of all parties.  He served with credit and distinction in the 75th and 76th General Assemblies, 1902-1906, and at the present writing, 1916, he is again a candidate for the State Legislature.       In the fall of 1907 the people of Sylvania elected him their mayor for a term of two years.  He was chosen on the republican ticket.  Later President William H. Taft appointed him postmaster of Sylvania and he held that office four years and two months.  Though he taught his last term of school more than twenty years ago Mr. Jones has never relaxed his deep interest in educational affairs, and for ten years was a member of the Lucas County Board of School Examiners and for six years president of the Board of Education at Sylvania.      Soon after his appointment as deputy oil inspector Mr. Jones and family removed to Toledo.  He is a member Sylvania Lodge No., 287 Free and Accepted Masons; to the Eastern Star Chapter at Sylvania, and for two terms he was master of his lodge and also secretary and held other chairs.  He and his family are members of the Christian Church of Toledo.      On Christmas Eve, 1885, Mr. Jones was happily married to Miss Addie M. Harris, a daughter of Perry A. and Elizabeth (Myers) Harris of St. Louisville, Licking County, Ohio.  Mr. and Mrs. Jones have an interesting family.  Of their seven children, the second born, Hattie B., died Dec. 9, 1891, at the age of two years.  The others, all living, are: Waite D., of Toledo; Bessie B., wife of S. J. Storer, assistant cashier of The Farmers & Merchants Bank of Sylvania; Lucile E., wife of George L. Bowen of Toledo; John C., Jr., of Toledo; Ila Isabelle and Ayalene H., both at home. † Source: History of Northwestern Ohio - Vol. II _ 1917 - Page 1272
S. M. Jones	SAMUEL M. JONES.  Many things in American life are accepted now in practice and belief that a few years ago were regarded as utopian and unassimilable.  It is really a better way to measure progress by this gradual readjustment to new principles of social justice than by mechanical inventions and colossal aggregations of material power a towering factory, a railroad system, is something of a testimonial to the creative power of the individual mind and energy, but it is less significant in the long view of centuries than the establishment of some principal or role in human conduct that abolishes forever an aged old injustice.      It was as a pioneer in giving practical vitality and practice to ancient truth that Samuel M. Jones will have his place in history.  He brought no new philosophy; he merely practiced what had been preached so long as to have lost its real meaning.  He was known as Toledo's Golden Rule Mayor. Strangely enough, in carrying the golden rule into business and politics, he made himself a singular and picturesque figure in American life and in regulating his life by a standard upheld by church and moralists for centuries, he found himself exposed to as much ridicule and denunciation as though he were the originator of the rule.  "What he actually accomplished as an administrator of a successful business concern and of the municipal government of Toledo gives him a high place in the history of that city, but altogether that is less important than the influence from his life and character that were introduced as a practical and definite fruitage into a wide and national if not international campaign for a revision of our social ideas and industrial methods which have gradually gathered increasing momentum since his death.      Samuel M. Jones was born Aug. 3, 1846, and died July 12, 1904.  Beyond this brief introduction it is not the purpose of this article to interpret his career but merely set forth the significant and essential points of his biography.  This can best be done by quoting appropriate passages from his auto biography, which appears in his book, "The New Right," and written by Mr. Jones in 1899 while he was mayor of Toledo.  He remained Toledo's Golden Rule mayor for five years after the book was published, and really died at his post.  But the vital experiences of his life and the formulation of that political philosophy which he exemplified are contained in his autobiography. With only such changes therefore as the necessity for abbreviation requires, the following paragraphs are quoted in his own language: "I was born on Aug.3, 1846, in a small stone house still standing known as Ty Mawr (Big House) about three miles from the peaceful village of Bedd Gelert, Caernarvonshire, North Wales. Three years ago I had the privilege and pleasure of visiting the rude house where I was born, the floor of which was composed of rough flag stones.  I am glad that I left the place at such an early age and I cannot recall any of the hard experiences that my parents must have had there.      "When I was three years of age they emigrated to America.  As I understand the situation, and as the story has been told me, they were what would not be classed as 'assisted' emigrants,  who are today denied the right to land.  The passage across the Atlantic was made in the steerage of a sailing vessel and the voyage completed in the unusually fast time of thirty days.  From New York passage was taken in a canal boat up the Hudson River through the Erie Canal to Utica, whence they went by wagon forty-five miles to the northward and settled in the vicinity of Collinsville, Lewis County.  In Wales my father had worked in the slate quarries, and so he naturally drifted into the stone quarries and stone mason work in this country; soon afterward he became a renter of tenant farms, with the result that he usually succeeded in getting a tolerable livelihood for himself and family, but that was about all.      ''At ten years of age I worked by the month for a farmer who used to get me out of bed at four o'clock in the morning.  It was true that my work was not of the heaviest kind - that is I was not required to carry things I could not lift - but I was dragged out of bed at an unearthly hour when a growing boy should be sleeping, and started off after the cows, and my day's work was not ended until sundown; and for this service I received the munificent salary of $3 per month.  I went to the schools in the winter, more or less, and there got my start for an education that I am still acquiring.  I have not yet graduated and never expect to graduate; I am far more of a student today than I ever was at any earlier period of my life.  As nearly as I can remember I went to school all told about thirty months; during that time I did not get beyond fractions in arithmetic, and I have never studied grammar in or out of school an hour in my life.  The education I have acquired has been gained under the severe handicap of a lack of technical training in the fundamental rules.      "When I was fourteen years of age I worked in a sawmill twelve hours a day, sawing barrel heading, and one day I brought the little finger of my right hand in contact with the saw.  I still bear the marks of the wound as a memento.  Shortly after this I secured a boon I had longed for for years; that was a job on the steamer L. R. Lyon, running on the Black River between Lyon's Falls and Carthage.  I had a mechanical turn of mind, and was very ambitious and hopeful that some day I might rise to the exalted position (as it seemed to me) of a steamboat engineer.  The getting of this job, which was that of 'wiper and greaser,' seemed like the beginning of the realization of the hopes of future happiness.  I spent the greater part of three summers on this boat and gained some little knowledge of mechanical engineering that proved useful to me in after life; indeed, it was the advice of a steamboat engineer who had spent the winter of 1864-65 in the oil regions of Pennsylvania that in all probability was instrumental in changing the course of my life; for it was he who said to me one day, 'Sammy, you are a fool to spend your time on these steamboats; you should go to the oil regions; you can get four dollars a day there.'  A little conversation with him soon led me to determine that his advice was worth considering, and a few days later I landed at Titusville, Pennsylvania, the headquarters and gateway practically of the oil regions, with fifteen cents in my pocket and without the benefit of the acquaintance of a single individual in the city."      Then followed several days of disheartening search for work.  At only one place did he receive consideration and kindly advice, and that was n experience that Mr. Jones always remembered and he said that he had made it a point, no matter how busy he was, to try to find time at least for a kindly word for the man out of a job, and when he had a factory of his own the walls were never defaced by any sign "no help wanted."  On the following day he started for Pithole, then one of the noted boom centers of the oil industry.  There his recommendation secured him work as an engineer at $4 a day.  In his autobiography Mr. Jones describes the mushroom growth of that city and its equally rapid decline.  After some months of steady work he found one day the offices of the company closed and the following winter he spent in the ranks of those "out of work."      "From 1865 to 1870 I had a varied experience, working as driller, pumper, tool dresser, pipe liner, in fact, doing all kinds of work in the oil regions and for about six months working as a tool sharpener on a 'rock job' in the construction of a new railroad in Northern New York.  Returning to Pleasantville, Pennsylvania, in the summer of 1868 I was fortunate enough to strike a steady job, that boon which the toilers of earth so much crave and which they are so often denied.  In the two years that followed I save a few hundred dollars and 'started in for myself,' moving about from place to place as new oil fields were discovered - from Pleasantville to Parker's Landing, and from there to Turkey City, Clarion county, where I lived for six years and where I secured quite an important part of my literary education in the meetings of the Turkey City Literary Club, of which I was a member and part of the time president.  It was while I lived there that I married, Oct. 20, 1875, the wife of my youth, Alma Bernice Curtiss of Pleasantville, as sweet-spirited and helpful a soul as ever inhabited this world of ours, with whom I lived for ten years.  She bore to me three children:  Percy, born at Turkey City in February, 1878; Eva Belle, born at Duke Centre, August, 1879; Paul, born at the same place, May, 1884.  Our little girl, Midgie, we called her, died shortly after she was two years of age, and her mother's death followed in December, 1885.      "The separation from these two souls was the greatest trial and severest shock of my life.  The little girl in the first place had somehow gotten nearer to my heart than any other creature, and the cloud that obscured the sunshine from my sky had scarcely cleared away during the four years that followed her death, when the greater trial came in the death of the wife of my youth.  I think now that my suffering was greatly intensified by the confused notions I then held regarding life and its purposes.   I now no longer think of them, or of any of the many friends who are gone, as dead, as I then thought of death.      "Taking a backward glance over the twenty-four years that have passed since my first marriage I do not recall any happier years than were the first three which we spent in a small cottage, our first home, on the Shoup farm about one half mile outside of Turkey City, where I had a small interest in an oil lease.  I pumped an oil well, cultivated a small garden and assisted my wife with the washing, which we used to do jointly at the boiler house, where I had steam and hot water convenient for the purpose.  She repaid me by watching the engine while I was gone to town on necessary errands and together we dug a part of our living out of the small garden; in addition to this, my wife taught music to two girl friends and presided at the organ in the Sunday school that was held in the hall of the literary club.  We lived quite a natural life, comparatively free from the care and burden of  'things' and being so, we were at liberty to contribute our share to the common welfare of the community, and we had the best kind of times in so doing.  I merely make mention of this because I want to impress the thought upon the minds of young people that the simpler the life the better it is, and the greater its possibilities in an artistic sense.  Jesus made no mistake when he said that 'life does not consist in things.'      "From Duke Centre in the Bradford oil fields, McKean county, to which we had moved in 1878, and where we lived for six years, I moved after the death of my wife to Bradford, and one year later in 1886 to Lima, Ohio, being induced to do so mainly by my friends, who thought that a change of scene would serve to divert my mind from the great sorrow that had come upon me in the separation referred to.  I at once engaged in the oil business in Lima, leasing lands, and drilled what was known as the 'first large oil well' in Ohio; it was known as the Tunget well, located about three miles east of Lima, and it started at about six hundred barrels a day.  The Standard Oil Company was the only buyer of Lima oil at that time, and was paying forty cents a barrel for it, but on the day after the Tunget well was struck the price declined to thirty-seven and one-half cents and a few days later to thirty-five cents.      "When I arrived at Lima there were but twenty oil wells in the State of Ohio.  The development of oil in the Ohio field marked an epoch in the history of our greatest oil trust, the Standard Oil Company.  Prior to 1886 this company had never been a producer of petroleum—merely a buyer, manufacturer and shipper—but soon after the drill had demonstrated that Ohio and Indiana contained vast areas of prolific oil territory, it entered the field as a producer.  And right here I want to say that I have been familiar with the development and growth of this company from the beginning, and that while there has always been vigorous and pronounced opposition to it and to its methods, much of this opposition has seemed to me to be a 'waste of powder,' for I have always observed that as soon as those who were most pronounced in their antagonism to the Standard Oil Company and its methods were taken into the fold and made to share in the profits of the concern, their complaints suddenly ceased.  From an intimate knowledge of the methods of the Standard Oil Company, covering twenty-five years, and the methods of business generally, I feel that as a socialist, as a man who believes in brotherhood, simple justice requires me to say that the ethics of that corporation are simply a reflex of the ethics prevailing in the business world and that guide and control the business men of today.      "My experience as an oil operator in the Ohio and Indiana fields has been that of hundreds of others.  I have simply taken advantage of opportunities offered by an unfair social system and gained what the world calls success—that is I have accumulated some property.  I was one of the original incorporators of the Ohio Oil Company, now the producing department of the Standard Oil Company, and in proof of what I have just said I will say that in its early history the Ohio Oil Company had the opportunity before it practically to capture the Ohio oil field.  It was composed of experienced oil producers, men who knew every detail of that business, but who lacked the ability to go forward and carry the thing through to the success that has been realized by the Standard Oil Company.  We did not understand the art of competition, and so we surrendered (sold out) to the Standard.      ''In 1892 I married my present wife, Helen L. Beach, of Toledo, who has been to me a helpmeet and to my children everything that their own mother could have been except that she did not bear them."  On Oct. 3, 1897, a son was born to them, Mason Beach Jones, who is attending the Toledo High School, class of 1917.  "At that time 1892 I moved from Lima, where I had made my home for six years, to this city (Toledo).  During 1892 and 1893 I spent a great deal of my time in the oil fields among the wells and invented some simple but valuable improvements in oil well appliances and in 1894 I began the manufacture of these and other oil well appliances at 600 Segur Avenue, where the work was carried on under the name of the Acme Sucker Rod Company (now known as the S. M. Jones Company).      "Prior to this time I knew little about 'labor conditions.'  As a rule, labor in the oil fields had enjoyed fair wages compared to similar work outside, and having passed most of my life in small towns I had seen little real suffering among the working people.  I think the first real shock to my social conscience came when the swarms of men swooped down upon us begging for work, soon after signs of life began to be manifest around the abandoned factory which we rented for our new enterprise.  I began to think about the thing called wages, and as I learned that men were employed at common labor at a dollar a day and even less, the whole hideous wrong of the wage system began to reveal itself to me.  I saw at once that it was a purely arbitrary arrangement, in which the man who had nothing but his labor to sell had no choice; he must accept what his employer offers, the alternative being usually starvation for himself and his children.  I resolved that the 'going wages' rule should not reign supreme in the Acme Sucker Rod Company, but rather, I said, we would try to recognize the rule that every man is entitled to such a share of the product of his toil as will enable him to live decently, in a way that he and his children may be fit to be citizens of a free republic of equals; and since that time, as best I know how, I have tried to be true to this principle.      "I soon discovered that I was making the acquaintance of a new kind of man.  Always a believer in the equality of the Declaration of Independence, I now for the first time came into contact with working men who seemed to have a sense of social inferiority, wholly incapable of any conception of equality, and this feeling I believed it was my duty to destroy.  Without any organized plan, and hardly knowing what I was doing, I determined that this groveling conception must be overcome; so we began to take steps to break down this feeling of class distinction and social inequality.  The first year we began to 'get together' with little excursions down the bay, we invited our workmen and their families and also some other people who live in big houses and who do not work with their hands or anything else for the matter of that; we sought to mix them, to let them understand that we are all people—' just people,' you know.  As our business increased we took in new men, we made no special effort at selection; there were always plenty of  'out of work' willing and waiting to rent themselves out to us, that is, to allow us to use them to add to our wealth and incidentally to get an existence for themselves.  We asked no questions as to their habits, their morals or their religion; we ignored the sacred rules of business that go so far in some cases as even to submit the men to physical examinations in order to avoid the risk of responsibility incurred through physical weakness.  In fact we were going along in a free and easy way, occasionally giving the boys a word of caution, perhaps printed on a pay envelope, or a little letter expressing good will and fellowship and a word of friendly advice.      "It was the distress of mind occasioned by seeing a string of rules a yard long in another factory, at the tail of every one of which was a threat of dismissal, that led me to say to my wife, 'I am going to have a rule for our shop; I am going to have the Golden Rule printed on a piece of tin and nail it up as the rule that governs the place.'  It was not any belief in my own goodness of heart or my ability to reach the lofty ideal of doing to others as I would be done by, but it was the reaction that came from the contemplation of the outrageous injustice that was practiced upon my fellowmen by the ironclad rules to which they are made abject slaves in order to gain the right to a bare living, that led to the setting up of the Golden Rule on our wall.  At that time I did not realize the limitations that are placed upon our better natures by the economic conditions that surround us.  I did not know that the competitive system of industry was calculated to bring out everything that is bad and to suppress all that is good in us, as I now know that it is.  The putting up of the Golden Rule was the first radical move that was made at the Acme Sucker Rod Factory.  There were several things about that that may properly be called radical.  In the first place, it was acknowledging a basis of equality for all about the premises; next, it was ignoring the time honored precedent, 'doing as other people do; ' finally it was an assumption at least that this fundamental rule of conduct, given us by the founder of Christianity, was a livable and practical thing.      ''Perhaps the most helpful thing of all has been the opening of the Golden Rule Park and Playground.  This is a lot of ground only 150 feet square adjoining the factory at the corner of Segur and Field avenues.   Some fine old forest trees made it possible to convert this into a little park for the people and playground for the children, and it has been used and enjoyed to the utmost. The Sunday afternoon meetings for the people have been most delightful experiences.  Brother hood and Golden Rule and Golden Rule and Brotherhood have been the popular themes we have been preaching from its platform.  We have now supplemented the Golden Rule Park with the Golden Rule Hall, which was opened last Thanksgiving Day, where we hope to join in the teaching and study of this idea of brotherhood that is yet to save the world that Jesus died to redeem.  We wish to have it distinctly understood that we do not lay claim to have done anything for which we either desire or deserve any credit.  No man wants or deserves credit for having done what was simply his duty and we cannot lay claim to having done more; in fact we do not feel that we have lived up to our convictions.  We started out by joining in the universal admission that 'something was wrong.'  The wronged men and women and children have been and are so constantly before us, whether asleep or awake, that we have been impelled by an irresistible power to do what we have done in the hope that we might uncover something that would correct the wrong.  In following this impulse we have uncovered something; we have found the source, the evil, that we believe to be the cause of all the misery, wretchedness, want, poverty and crime that afflict this fair earth today.  The cause of all this horrid category of evils is found in social injustice, springing out of a denial of brotherhood; from this social in justice proceed the causes which produce and perpetuate all the miseries that I have enumerated."      After becoming established as a successful manufacturer Mr. Jones broadened his experience by a number of journeys both in this country and in Europe, and everywhere he used his keen observation to learn more about the problems of social justice which had so long perplexed him. Continuing he says: "The revelations of truth that came pouring in upon me as a consequence of my experience with the swarms of hungry men looking for work about the Acme Sucker Rod factory brought me more and more every day to a realization of the truth that I have talked so much about, the truth of brotherhood and the equal right of every man to an place upon the earth, as well as an equal right to live an entire human life.  It was the result of these revelations and reflections and my seeking some way of escape from the guilt of the dreadful system in which we are all caught that led me, in the conduct of the work of our own business, to take such steps looking toward a mitigation of these evils as I have already outlined.  The social gatherings, wherein we made an attempt to break down the absurd notions of social distinction between employer and employed; the shortening of the time of labor to a fifty hour week; the practicing of a little profit sharing at Christmas time and during the last year the giving a week's vacation with full pay, are measures we have employed in the hope of moralizing the system of industry in our plant.  I now see that all these measures while they are steps in the right direction, are insufficient.  Fundamentally and scientifically, as well as according to all Christian conception, it is plain that every man is entitled to all the fruit of his toil.  It follows therefore that neither I nor any other man has a right to take profit from his fellows, nor shall we want to in a just social order.      "It was the application of these principles at the Acme Sucker Rod factory that brought my name with some degree of prominence before the Toledo public.  In the spring of 1897 the Republican convention to which I had been chosen a delegate, assembled in the city for the purpose of nominating a city ticket.  There were three candidates for the office of mayor.  After four ballots there was no choice and two of the candidates looked about for a man upon whom they could combine their forces to defeat the third who was likely to be the winner on the next ballot.  In this emergency my name was placed before the convention, and I was nominated on the fifth ballot.  I had been a resident of the city a little more than four years, had never been in a convention before, was not a member of a single club or fraternal society, and as my time had been largely spent outside the city in the oil fields I had of course but a limited acquaintance.  The politicians and the wise men who fancied that they knew how it was all going to turn out were simply astounded; they could not by any possibility account for such a strange performance, that an entire stranger, who had never done anything for the party, a comparatively unknown man, should walk in and capture a plum so longed for and so highly prized; should jump, as it were, right over the heads of faithful party workers who had toiled long and patiently during many weary years to serve the party.      "And yet it was all due to a little effort put forth to deal justly with our fellow-men, and the workingmen, the toilers who produce all and have so little, were quick to realize, keen to appreciate and anxious to place the seal of their approval upon even this small effort in behalf of the right."     "Being unacquainted with the city I decided at once that the wise course for me to pursue was not to attempt the organization of a political machine, but to start out at once to tell some of the truths that had been crowding in upon me, speak my mind, make a plea for a better social order, for fair play, for a Golden Rule deal all around.  In line with this policy I entered upon the work of the campaign, and though unused to public speaking made many speeches in various parts of the city, in parks, factories and little halls over saloons where I could assemble men together.  On one occasion I addressed a Democratic club, advocating non-partisan municipal politics.  (I have gone only a step further now that I am advocating absolute non-partisan politics under all circumstances, the absolute destruction of partisan politics as the necessary first step to the realization of free government.)  Though vigorously opposed by the forces of individualism, and particularly by the saloon-keepers, who feared on account of the fact I was known to be a member of a church, that a drastic policy would follow my election, I was elected by a majority of 534."      During his first administration Mayor Jones says that he made no effort to serve the Republican party or to serve any other party, sect, clique or clan.  He advocated some measures looking toward social justice in the management of the affair and work of the city; he strongly advocated the shorter work day, and at least two important departments are now operating under it, the police department and the waterworks department.  He advocated, and the police commissioners adopted, the merit system instead of the spoil system that had for years kept the police department a wrangling, fighting, jarring collection of men, hating one another instead of loving one another.  Many things that he did and the measures he advocated were called "radical," but on the whole the administration was well received by the people of the city and that portion of the country outside that knew anything about it.      In his second annual message Mr. Jones advocated a large program of measures, favoring the establishment or control by the municipality of such public utilities as a fuel gas plant, electric lighting plant, civil service rule in all departments, the granting of no franchises without popular approval, the abandonment of the contract system of public works, and the improvements and extension of the park system, the schools, bathing beaches, etc.  Some weeks after he sent in this message Mr. Jones received a letter from William Dean Howells who wrote:  "I know of no public paper in these times of greater value than your annual message, of which some unknown friend sent me a copy.  It is full of good sense springing from the humanity which is the source of all good sense.  With yourself and Governor Pingree in official life we cannot quite lose courage, even when the republic is trying to turn itself into an empire."      In March, 1899, came the Republican convention for the nomination of a candidate for mayor.  The interesting account Mr. Jones gives of this convention is too long to be quoted, and it must suffice to state that as a result of familiar manipulation and after three ballots had been taken another nominee was named this constituting practically a repudiation of the preceding mayor's administration.  Immediately following the convention Mr. Jones announced himself as a candidate for the office of mayor on an independent ticket.  A part of the letter making this announcement is as follows:  "The principles which have guided me and upon which I shall go before the people as an independent candidate are:  Equal opportunities for all and special privileges to none.  Public ownership of all public utilities.  No grant of new or extension of existing franchises.  The abolition of the private contract system of doing city work.  A minimum wage of one dollar and a half per day of eight hours for common labor; organized labor to be employed on all public work.      "As no criticism has been entered against the administration of the mayor's office.  It follows that my defeat for renomination in the convention today is a repudiation of these principles.   The methods employed to accomplish my defeat were so notoriously corrupt as to excite the indignation of all classes of the entire community, irrespective of party.  The unqualified promise of support from these is a comforting assurance that government by the people has not yet perished from the earth. * * * The movement to defeat me found its chief inspiration in my well known opposition to the extension of the franchises of the street railway company and those sought for by the Water street railway, as the plans of men of eminent respectability will be seriously interfered with if these schemes are blocked."      In the campaign that followed Mr. Jones had to deal not only with the determined opposition of the "interests" but also with the ministers of the various churches in the city, who found fault with him because he had not closed or would not promise to close the saloons and gambling houses of the city.  In his reply to the ministers he said in part:  "The records of the police court in this city reveal the fact that there have been many attempts in the past to enforce various phases of the saloon laws with the practically uniform result of a failure to make a case and the saddling of the costs of the city.  This simply proves a well known truth that, no matter what law is on the books, the only law that can be enforced is the law that the public sentiment of the community will uphold.  On this point I shall be explicit.  I have enforced and shall continue to enforce all the laws according to the standard of existing public sentiment."  Another spectacular feature of the campaign was a revival meeting led by the famous evangelist Sam P. Jones, who made some very violent attacks upon Mr. Jones' personal character and his conduct of both business and municipal affairs.      The labor vote was almost unanimously in support of Mr. Jones, and in spite of many predictions that he could not be elected the counting of the ballots showed that out of a total vote of over 24,000, Jones, the independent, received fully 70 per cent, carrying every precinct but one in the city.      The funeral services of Samuel M. Jones were conducted at the family residence, and on the day that he was to be laid to rest friends began congregating in the morning many bringing with them their lunches, and thousands paid their last respects to the man they had so dearly loved and honored.  The streets were thronged with friends from the house to the cemetery.  Services were conducted by Rev. Marion Hyde, Rev. Allan A. Tanner and Brand Whitlock.  Never in the history of Toledo was there ever such a gathering of sorrowing friends, and too much could not be said of the love the people held for this grand good man. † Source: History of Northwestern Ohio - Vol. II _ 1917 - Page 1166

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