searching inquiry into the subject of representative government. This was involved in the dispute as to the propriety of political machines, for the Republicans by that time had a party organization so strong that it was easily denominated a machine; it was so strong that it controlled every branch of the city government except the executive; it never could defeat Jones. There was a good deal said, too, about the enforcement of law, a subject which has its fascination for the people of my town.
XXIV
Besides these interesting topics there was the subject
of municipal home rule. This had already become
vital in Toledo because, a year or so before,
the Republican party organization through its influence
in the state, without having to strain its
powers of persuasion, had induced the legislature
to pass a special law which deprived the Mayor of
Toledo of his control of the police force and vested
the government of that body in a commission appointed
by the governor of the state.
It had been, of course, a direct offense to Jones, and it was intended to take from him the last of his powers. He had been greatly roused by it; the morning after the law had been enacted he had appeared at my house before breakfast to discuss this latest assault upon liberty. The law was an exact replica of a law that had been passed for Cincinnati many years before, and that law had been
