Tom L. Johnson

Thomas Loftin Johnson (July 18, 1854 – April 10, 1911) was the 35th Mayor of Cleveland, serving between 1901 and 1909. He also ran an unsuccessful campaign for Governor in 1903.

John Hay High School
(Clarence Carter?)

Johnson began his fortune in streetcars, investing in companies and even creating devices such as a see-through, glass fare box for use in trollies which he patented. He was also big in steel.

A Democrat, he was what they used to call a progressive* championing efforts to aid the lower classes, including public utilities, meat inspection standards and keeping streetcar fares low. He expanded the city's parks system, and championed public bath houses (but who doesn't, really?)

Johnson was first elected to the U.S. House of Representatives in 1892 for the 21st District, before running successfully for Mayor of Cleveland, campaigning on "Home rule, 3-cent fare, and just taxation!" and was eventually elected to three terms.

A bronze statue of Johnson, designed by Herman N. Matzen, was erected in Public Square in 1915, which bears the following inscription:

He found us striving each his selfish part.

He left a city with a civic heart.

UPDATE: Mayor Johnson was the inspiration for the character of "The Mayor" in Adventures In Slumberland, which premiered at Talespinner Children's Theatre in 2013.

Sources:
Cleveland Historical
Encyclopedia of Cleveland History
Examiner
Wikipedia

See also: John Hay High School

* Today Liberals have tried to revive the word Progressive so as to discard the much-maligned "L" word. Conservative commentators like Bill O'Reilly have simply used the word liberal and progressive interchangeably, which has rendered the entire experiment kind of pointless.

John Hay High School

Built in 1929, this neoclassical structure underwent an extensive $36 million redesign between 2001-2006 creating a 21st century learning facility for the CMSD students lucky enough to go there. I love working with the kids and teachers at John Hay (I am substituting for one of our performers there today) and am constantly delighted by the way they remodeled this old-timey school without altering its original design elements.

As a reminder of things past, however, two large portraits stand in the main hall, shabby and ill-treated over the past seventy years. One is of progressive Cleveland Mayor Thomas L. Johnson, the other of Commodore Oliver Hazard "Don't Give Up the Sip" Perry. They stand before important Cleveland buildings and landmarks, unrealistically overlapping each other at dramatic angles which was all the rage for artists producing work for the W.P.A.

These are, in fact, W.P.A. paintings. Water-damaged, graffitied, slashed, begging for restoration. It has been suggested that the works were created by Clarence Carter, who created murals for post offices around Ohio, but whether he did in fact create the John Hay High murals is in dispute, and other candidates are unknown.