He loved to tell how, returning from a trip to Europe, the warmest
welcome (and that which shows the popularity of the man) was that given
by a crowd of his employees gathered at the Toledo depot to greet him
as the train rolled in.
The election of Mr. Jones to the mayoralty of Toledo is an interesting
story. He was the candidate nominated in the spring of 1897 to bridge
the chasm between the two opposing factions in the Republican party.
The saloons, corporations and rings of the city were marshaled against
him, but his stout supporters, the wage-earners and the law-abiding
people, carried the day after a lively campaign.
The frankness and plainness of Mr. Jones pleased the people as well
as his eight-hour day and his ideas of social equality. His messages
as mayor to the common council of Toledo were models of businesslike
integrity and acumen, showing a vital interest in the welfare of
the city, and the value of having a practical and upright business
man at the head of civic affairs. Among measures pertinent and
practical for the city’s self-government advocated by the mayor were
a single-chambered board, city bids, the wage system, a municipal
lighting plant, the abolishment of the contract system, the
establishing of a purchasing agency to stop the waste of department
buying, park and street improvements, etc.
His address before the annual convention of the League of American
Municipalities, at Detroit, on “Municipal Ownership” was characterized
as the best of the convention, and attracted wide attention. It was
repeated at Chicago by request.
Mayor Jones was accorded a warm reception in Boston. He addressed the
Twentieth Century Club at a dinner; he was banqueted by the Mayors’
Organization of Massachusetts; he dined with Mayor Quincy, who is
something of a reformer himself; and he gave utterance to his views at
a public mass-meeting of Boston’s best people. But with characteristic
modesty, he looked upon such invitations merely as new opportunities to
spread the new gospel, and not in any sense as the means of bringing
fame or glory to himself.
The story of Mr. Jones’s successful career carries with it
encouragement and example for the young man who starts in life with no
capital but manliness, courage, persistency, and a willingness to work.