- pose this sounds very much like the trite generalities
of the politician, but we sincerely tried to express the theory with definiteness and particularity. We sought not only a reduction of the fare and a regulation of the service in the public interest, but we wished to provide for that future day when, as a result of the certain growth of the city, the sure improvement in transportation facilities, and the inevitable development of the democratic function, the municipality is to undertake these enterprises as a proper public function.
It was these principles we tried to bear in mind in those long negotiations which we held all during the months of one spring and summer over that big table in the council chamber. We were nervous when we entered upon this work, nervous as are those who enter the finals in some tournament of sport; we did not know much about the subject, and we were confronted by the street railway magnates and their clever lawyers. But we could learn as we went along, and we always had to our assistance Newton Baker over in Cleveland, and Peter Witt, and Carl Nau, whom we had employed as the city's accountant when the time came at last when we could examine the company's books; they had all gone through the long civil war in Cleveland, as had Professor Edward W. Bemis, whom we afterwards engaged in his quality of expert adviser on valuations.
Perhaps at first we laid too great stress on three-cent fares, though I do not know how we could have done otherwise. Dr. Delos F. Wilcox, who has writ-
