Tom L. Johnson

A former streetcar magnate, Johnson was Cleveland's mayor from 1901 to 1909 and fought for three-cent fares and municipal ownership of utilities against the private franchises he had once profited from. He built public bath houses, parks and a municipal electric plant, and recruited talented reformers such as Newton Baker. The muckraker Lincoln Steffens called Cleveland the best-governed city in America. The Ohio legislature and courts curtailed many of his plans, a reminder of how much depends on state power.