Hon. Brand Whitlock, Mayor of Toledo

              HON. BRAND WHITLOCK
MAYOR OF TOLEDO
Mayor Brand Whitlock
A BRIEF BIOGRAPHICAL SKETCH
MAYOR BRAND WHITLOCK of Toledo, Ohio, was born March 4, 1869, at Urbana, Ohio.    He is descended on his father's side from the
Whitlocks who came to America early in the 17th century, settling first in Massachusetts and spreading later to New Jersey and Wash¬ington. On his mother's side he is descended from the Brands of Virginia and Kentucky. The Brand family came to Virginia from Scotland where for generations they had lived in Forfarshire, near Dundee. The Virginia branch of the family was founded by a Brand who was a Jacobite exile.
Major Joseph C. Brand, Mayor Whitlock's grandfather, was one of the earliest Abolitionists and helped to operate the underground railroad at his home in Urbana, Ohio. His connection with the last fugitive slave case is set forth at length in Howe's History of Ohio and is mentioned by William Dean Howells in his "Stories of Ohio."
When his father, a Methodist clergyman, was appointed presiding elder for the Toledo district in 1884, Brand Whitlock came to Toledo. He was then fifteen years old. He attended the local schools and took a course at the Toledo High School. After he finished his studies he became a reporter and worked on several of the Toledo newspapers. At the age of twenty-one he went to Chicago and for several years he acted as special reporter and political editor of the Chicago Herald, reporting the sessions of the Illinois legislature and attending all conventions.
In 1893 he was appointed by Governor Altgeld as his secretary. He began to study law soon after coming to Chicago and continued his studies in Spring¬field under Senator John M. Palmer, who was Democratic candidate for president in 1896. He was admitted to the bar in 1894, on June 14th. On June 8, 1895, he married Miss Ella Brainerd, niece of Senator Palmer. Early in June of 1897 Mr. Whitlock resigned his post on the Chicago Herald and gave up the newspaper business to practice law. He returned to Toledo on the 18th of June, 1897, and entered into the active practice of law and has continued that work ever since. He is a member of the firm of Whitlock, Milroy & Mallow.
Before he came to Toledo Mayor Whitlock had begun to write short stories and articles for magazines. His first book, "The Thirteenth District/' appeared in 1892. It was called by Ex-President Grover Cleveland the best political novel ever written. It was followed by "Her Infinite Variety" in the spring of 1904 and "The Happy Average" in the fall of the same year. His latest book and his most important work so far, "The Turn of the Balance/ was published in March, 1907, and at once created a sensation. It is a study of our methods of dealing with criminals and an indictment of our entire legal system, of the procedure and punishment of crime.
In November, 1905, Mr. Whitlock was elected Mayor of Toledo on an Independent ticket, in a field of five candidates,—a Republican, a Democrat, a Socialist and a "fake" Independent put up by the party machine. In November, 1907, Mr. Whitlock was re-elected Mayor of Toledo, and is now serving his second term.
SUBJECTS
The Reality of Ideals
Abraham Lincoln
The Ideal City
Crime and Criminals
The Golden Rule
at Work
The Moral Element
in Fiction
Realism in Art
Walt Whitman, the
Poet and Prophet
of Democracy
Mayor Brand Whitlock
AN APPRECIATION
THE KNIFE AND FORK CLUB which, in its personnel and policy, is more nearlv ex-pressive of the communal spirit than any other, has placed Kansas City under additional obligation by its introduction of Brand Whitlock to our personal  acquaintance and closer
regard.
The Forward and Upward movement in America, that has become more or less stigmatized as reform, is cursed by the temporary prominence of Political Accidents and an ever-present camp following of freaks, fanatics, blatherskites, duffers, cranks, and jays,
It is to such as these that Brand Whitlock is a sufficient answer. His character, abilities and achievements constitute a simple and sufficient reply to those who hamper progress and fight better¬ment by cheap appeals to the average American's sense of the ridiculous.
The forces that fight for Fairness, Equalitv of Opportunity, Freedom, and Advancement may have their sprinkling of fools and freaks, their percentage of the impractical and unworthy, but as long as the movement enlists the efforts and loves of the Whitlocks, the Johnsons, the Folks, and the La Follettes, it cannot be laughed away, jeered at or disregarded.
Brand Whitlock, however, more than any other man in the fight for the Many against the Few, gets under the skin, closer to the heart of the thing. It's not a case of sparring at long range with him, but a clinch from start to finish. He looks far ahead, but never loses sight of his feet, and the beauties of an ideal Tomorrow do not blind him to the necessities and opportunities of Today.
With the exception of Tom Johnson, Brand Whit¬lock has done more for the American city than any other living man today. He has blazed all sorts of broad trails through the jungles of stupidity and ignor¬ance, discovered undreamed powers for municipalities, pointed out innumerable chances for betterment and beauty.
Of course, everybody knew about it in a vague way, but it was not until Brand Whitlock began to work and talk and write, that the "city sense" began to be intelligently and profitably considered; that people came to the realization that streets, lights, buildings and people didn't make a city; that the dream, the ideal, fraternity, and justice were essential to the perfect making.
Digging away in Toledo, following in the path marked out by that beautiful soul—"Golden Rule" Jones—Mr. Whitlock has given the Ohio town a greater prominence and importance than would ever have been earned by its bank clearings, its street car mileage, or its factory output. He has exposed the evils of partnership in local affairs, and demonstrated the benefits that accrue from its elimination—given the country new ideas with regard to the solution of the criminal problem—proved that the Christ idea of fraternity need not necessarily be regarded as one of modernity's choicest jokes.
A workhouse where the dungeons are filled with potatoes—a police court system that protects the law without robbing an innocent family of support—strikes settled without bloodshed—oppression or injustice—a police force that carries no clubs and exacts no tribute from crime—a civil service in its truest sense—a proper understanding of the value of franchises and the true relation of public service corporations to the community—these are some Toledo achievements under the Whitlock regime.
But if Brand Whitlock had never actively entered public life, and sweat his blood in putting his preachments into practice, encouraging by force of example, if he had never done a single thing but write "The Turn of the Balance," he would still deserve the fine things that are said about him all over the country
"The Turn of the Balance." A terrible arraignment of the old, stupid theory that all bad men are all bad, and that all good men are all good. "A hair's breadth between the false and true," the weight of an impulse between the criminal and the Highly Respectable! No shrieks, no tearing of hair or shaking of hands, but a fascinating, absorbing novel of modern life, written by a master of character delineation, a deep and intensely interesting student of human nature, and a passionate lover of justice. —George Creel in the Kansas City Independent, December 5, 1908.
Mayor Brand Whitlock
PRESS AND PERSONAL MENTION
BUFFALO.—Brand Whitlock, Mayor of Toledo, and like his predecessor, the late Golden Rule Jones, one of Ohio's many famous heads of municipalities, exploited his idea of the Free City at the Liberal Club dinner last night at the University Club. Mavor Whitlock is a man whose dazzling ideals are intermingled with common sense and know¬ledge of conditions that his visionary city, run by esprit de corps rather than by politics, may yet become an establish¬ed fact under his leadership. At the same table sat Mayor Adam, who confessed that he had lost his old ideals on muni¬cipal government and had been forced to get down to sordid, solid business.—News.
BOSTON.—Mayor Whitlock was one of the principal speak¬ers. His address was brief, delivered laconically in smoothest English, and was as full of humor as it was of forceful argu¬ment, and he was interrupted alternately by applause and laughter, or both. The two hundred men fairly shouted when he declared that "men belong to parties because grandpa did, and grandpa is the most influential man dead today." —Journal.
CHICAGO.—The Chicago suffragists had a meeting on Sunday, January 17, that some of us will not soon forget. It was the Whitlock mass meeting. Handel Hall was well filled. After the preliminaries, a short address by Mrs. Maud Wood Park, and a talk by Senator McMillan, the president of our own "Men's Equal Suffrage League," Miss Jane Addams introduced his Honor, Mayor Whitlock, of Toledo. He looked so young, so unassuming, he might have been just some nice Irish boy, or Scotch laddie, hardly out of school. Then he spoke. It is now three days since I heard him. A reporter would have made notes at the meeting. I made none, but I think that on the day I die something will remain with me of that speech. In a fine, clear, low, quiet, distinct voice he began. He believes in woman suffrage because he believes in democracy. Like all the great suffra¬gists, he knows that equal suffrage is but part a of a still larger principle. One by one he trotted out the time-worn objections to the movement. He seemed to demolish one after another of them by quietly holding it up for careful inspection. Just the turn of quiet humor that he gave to each seemed to brush away all haziness regarding that one. Finally he came to the well worn word about woman's place being at home. This argument is made, he says, for the most part by men who never go home until every other place is shut up. Then followed some fine, strong talk about the ideal city, the ideal democracy, and he was done. My neighbor thinks he is an anti. But when the plate was passed by a pretty college girl in cap and gown, he slipped in a ten dollar bill. I wish we had more such voices as Whitlock's for our cause.—Anna E. Blount in the Woman's Journal.
CHICAGO.—Not an ultimate achievement, a great end, but a mere step, a means to an end, was the way Brand Whitlock, Mayor of Toledo, pictured woman suffrage to an enthu¬siastic audience at Handel Hall yesterday afternoon The youthful wearer of the mantle of "Golden Rule" Jones, who told his hearers at the beginning and the end and through the body of his speech that he was "a democrat with a small d," ranged over the wide field of economics and political science in his talk. He derided the arguments against woman suffrage, criticized the women whose indifference made the work of their militant sisters so hard, and prophesied great things for the world as the result of women's votes. "Ec¬onomic as well as political liberty" for both men and women was his plea.—Tribune.
CITY OF CLEVELAND
EXECUTIVE OFFICE TOM L.JOHNSON, MAYOR
Louis   J.   Alber,   Esq.
Citizens   Bldg,   City,
Dear   Sir:
February  23,   1909
In  response   to   your   letter   of  February   18,   1909,   it   gives me  pleasure   to   say   that   I   know   few men   in public   life whose attitude   toward  public   questions   is   so  wholesome,   and   so   free from  tradition  and   cant   as  Mayor  Whitlock,   of  Toledo.     To some  men   idealism  is  a  pose;   to  Mayor Whitlock   it   is  a reality,   and   the  beauty   of  his  life  and  work   consists   in  his ability   to  dream great dreams   of   the  betterments   of mankind and   to  aid   in  bringing  his   dreams   to  pass.
Very truly yours,