his own original character and personality, he compelled a discussion of fundamental principles of government. Toledo to-day is a community which has a wider acquaintance with all the abstract principles of social relations than any other city in the land, or in the world, since, when one ventures into generalities, one might as well make them as sweeping as one can.
Jones's other great contribution to the science of municipal government was that of non-partizanship in local affairs. That is the way he used to express it; what he meant was that the issues of national politics must not be permitted to obtrude themselves into municipal campaigns, and that what divisions there are should be confined to local issues. There is, of course, in our cities, as in our land or any land, only one issue, that which is presented by the conflict of the aristocratic, or plutocratic, spirit and the spirit of democracy.
Jones used to herald himself as "a Man Without a Party," but he was a great democrat, the most fundamental I ever knew or imagined; he summed up in himself, as no other figure of our time since Lincoln, all that the democratic spirit is and hopes to be. Perhaps in this characterization I seem to behold his figure larger than it was in relation to the whole mass, but while his work may appear at first glance local, it was really general and universal. No one can estimate the peculiar and lively force of such a personality; certainly no one can presume to limit his influence, for such a spirit is illimitable and irresistible.
