My friend Joel is also interested in the history of the bicycle in the San Francisco Bay Area, pre-1918, especially the doings of a specific bicycle club, the Bay City Wheelmen. Where I'm a story-teller, getting old stories into digital form, researching and then sharing them, he's a collector. Oh boy does he have a collection. One of the items in his collection is a scrap book of newspaper clippings, and other paper ephemera from the Bay City Wheelmen.

It is a treasure trove! Within that scrapbook are many newspaper clippings, pasted onto the pages. Here's one:

The B.C.W. were a racing and touring club. I found no evidence that Joseph Leggett was a member, but it's possible. What's more likely was that they recognized how significant the story and the man were, and included the clipping in their scrapbook. That story really captured my fancy. As a life-long bicyclist, a bicycle commuter almost exclusively, (before covid changed everything) it spoke to me. I was really just thinking about bicycles when I snapped the photo, and found the article in online newspaper archives, but when I read the article, I found someone passionate about economic equality, justice, compassion and civil service. The story meant more to me. Joseph's beliefs are very timely, and resonate for me, right now, in 2024. Consider California State Proposition 13, and the land tax. Consider the incoming presidential administration, and Joseph's stories about investment, Henry VIII and graft. I certainly understand his love of the bicycle, as a man in middle years who thrives on fresh air, natural beauty, exercise and a chance to think, away from work and duty.

After the transcribed article below, I include a few more newspaper clippings about Joseph Leggett, and I'll be transcribing one for this blog later; I've been meaning to for a while, it's a good one. - MF

No Automobile For Him

POLICE COMMISSIONER JOSEPH LEGGETT FINDS HIS BICYCLE A VASTLY IMPORTANT FACTOR IN HIS BUSY LIFE

NEXT TO SINGLE TAX THE DISTINGUISHED LOOKING OFFICIAL THINKS THE WHEEL THE BEST HOBBY FOR ANY MAN TO RIDE

HEARKEN, ye who think that the age of the bicycle is dead, that its glories have departed, that the whirring music of its song sounds no longer gently over smooth, hard driveways or sand floored beach or red macadamized roads. Hearken to the tale of Police Commissioner Leggett and his beloved of the tire and wheel.

Here is a picture of the rider, well known and respected by all San Franciscans. Joseph Leggett, born in 1840, therefore aged 67, tall, gray bearded, spare, hard muscled, vigorous, with the biceps of a Hercules and the strength of a modern Samson, clear eyed, sunshiny, wide awake, bodily and mental vigor keen - this is the man who defies age, and proves himself a living exponent of eternal youth.

Ask him how he does it, and the answer comes in a word, "Bicycle, young man, bicycle. Get up at 5 every morning, put on your sweater and cap, grip your wheel between your knees and pedal away. You'll be a new man, son, Take my word for it."

And so it came to pass that being really interested in this matter of eternal youth obtained bicycally, I visited Commissioner Leggett in his Dolores street office and sat myself down to find out more about the whys and wherefores of the bicycle as a health factor.

"Feel that muscle," he exclaimed, bringing up his closed fist to his shoulder and offering me his bicep. And while I felt his ironlike arm my gaze wandered about the snug little office till finally at the same instant our eyes reached that corner of the room where stood the "beloved bicycle."

Even at his advanced age Police Commissioner Leggett is up and out every morning, weather permitting. And at 7 o'clock, when I awake and look at my clock to see if it is getting up time, which is 9 o'clock for me, and hope it isn't, the hardy police commissioner is at his breakfast and ready for the day's work, having already pedaled his way across the Mission, through Golden Gate park on a high geared bicycle to the ocean beach and tumbled into his bath on his return, feeling as fresh and active as a boy in steady training.

When I was received by Leggett at his office I found him surrounded ceiling high by the majesty of the law, leather bound and shelved, in parchment shape and locked away in formidable black deed boxes. "Law" pervaded the atmosphere; that is, such of it as was not taken up by pipes, strong tobacco, bicycle necessaries and the works of Henry George and other single tax writers. The room bore evidence of the outdoor liver and of the deep thinker. Order reigned supreme. There was no proverbial dry dust on the shelves, the bicycle was spick and. span, an ash tray held the pipe ashes and the occupant of the room could, without hesitation, place his hand on any article required, whether it was a bicycle pump or the latest in single tax lore from the southern hemisphere.

Single Tax and Bicycle

Four hours with Mayor Taylor's choice of an honest police commissioner brought back to me the days when the bicycle was half my life; days that I had thought were gone forever. [The bicycle's hey day was in the mid-1890s. Once the automobile and motorcycle arrived in the early 1900s, interest began to wane. - MF] They also served to renew my acquaintance with Henry George, taught me to know him and his principles, and left me with the knowledge that the vigorous single taxer had, in 1871, founded the San Francisco Evening Post. From Leggett's talk I learned that single tax is not a tax on bachelors, but that it has a lot to do with the land. Commissioner Leggett and I fell to talking land, and he let me into "the know" as to the date, of the first land boom in English history. Leggett also told me the meaning of the word "invest" as it is used in connection with real estate and other matters of business.

The old freebooters, says Leggett, used in early Italian days to "invest" a town; that is, to lay siege to it and hold it until such time as the city dwellers were willing to pay a certain sum of money - usually a large one. While this siege was going on the besiegers lived at the expense of the besieged, demanding food and all sorts of things. Usually the besieged people paid. The difference in modern methods is that now the people always pay. Leggett told me that, in his opinion, the large tract investors of today who purchase tracts for subdivision are no better than freebooters, but obtain the profit of the holdup game by waiting until such time as the growth of cities compels the purchase of their land on their own terms.

"The idea is the same if the means are slightly different," said Leggett, "and, in fact, they invest." He did not, however, express any opinion, perhaps because I did not ask him, as to 1whether the acquirement of a bicycle necessitated an investment on the part of the retailer from whom he bought his. I gathered, though, that this was a a purchase, although its owner admits having found it a splendid investment.

While the freebooters were at it sky high in Italy, the barons were at it in England. The earl of Warwick, king maker and king breaker, was pursuing his way, taking, making and breaking, but mostly "taking," in a little different fashion from the barons of today. Sometimes the barons of old would meet with a slight check. So they do today - a $29,000,000 fine, for instance. Leggett likens the Rockefeller and other large interests to Earl Warwick. "They own the courts," declared Leggett. "They try to make, and do make, laws to suit themselves; they elect judges and rulers, just as did the barons of old. Instead of getting people's blood by means of the sword, however, it is ground out of them by slavery."This is the philosophy of the police commissioner, from whom I learned that the first land boom occurred in the reign of Henry VIII, when the king promised the English parliament that if it would confiscate the lands of the Catholic church and turn them over to him he would never demand money from parliament again. When the lands were actually in his possession the king turned realty man and boomed the business like a prince of "investors." Following the example of their noble ruler, others did likewise, buying and selling, and 'so creating the first land boom in history.

The scandalous act of fat, old Henry in debasing the coinage of the country to make money, thus turning forger. was recalled by Leggett, and referred to as a "graft." "Oh, they had their grafters in those days," he said. "The highwaymen were there then, as Highwayman Ruef is here today, and we are the pillaged ones."

His Morning Ride

Leggett commenced to ride the bicycle in 1890. Since then he has used hardly any other means of progression. In the days when hard tires, sloping frames and rubber pedals were in vogue Leggett was early in the field. On his 40 pound "bone shaker" he was seen daily. The park viewed him every morning and health culture fads tempted him not. Many were the long rides around the bay counties that he enjoyed. A 5 o'clock rise in the morning and away on his tireless steed to the sea, Leggett declares, is the reason of his splendid health today. "Ills of the mind," he says, "are only ills of the body." He has none and never had any, and the reason is bicycle - just plain bicycle.

Leggett has found that after an early morning ride he can get through more work and do that work better than when he goes straight to his breakfast. Sunday morning is his own. He and bicycle spend it together among new scenes, new surroundings and new atmospheres.

Clad in sweater and cap he is seen at the beach and in the park, inhaling the health giving, fresh air. No physical culture faddist is Commissioner Leggett. In his curriculum the bedroom invigorator is absent. The strenuous measures of youth he abhors. Moderation is his motto, and the motto has an excellent testimonial in his appearance.

"At break of day, and sometimes before then," he told me, "I used to mount and ride away on my machine, with one of the morning papers in my hip pocket. When I arrived at the beach I would sit and chat with any one there for a while, afterward taking my paper from my pocket and reading of events that had transpired the day before. Then, riding home again, I would breathe in the fragrance of the trees in the park. Riding slowly, I would enjoy the different colors and watch the play of the lights and shadows in the foliage. I would open my lungs wide and breathe in the grand old air - the same old air, but yet how different it always seems. What an invigorator it is, and how fresh in the early morning! I would return home with a tremendous appetite. Yes, I know how to enjoy my breakfast."

When the new style of machine came into use - the pneumatic tire - he purchased one and found it of much more use and greater comfort than the old style. During these days of his early morning rides he goes over the same ground almost as in those "bone shaker" times, and the watchman at the life saving station has learned to know the commissioner and look forward with pleasure to the chat that he invariably has with him before the latter's return.

I talked to Leggett on the subject of speed limits, and learned that in that, as in all else, he is moderate. Fifteen miles in crowded places he names as a reasonable speed. He considers the bicycle a great invention and a great help to business people. it is a fine invigorator, and as a muscle builder is way ahead of the many physical development fads that have come and gone. But the bicycle has come to stay - at least in the office and the life of Police Commissioner Leggett.

His long experience with the whirring wheel has not been without mishaps. He confesses to many falls and breakdowns. He even admits having carried a broken wheel many a mile.

A Few Mishaps

"Once I tried conclusions with a trolley car," he said, "and that time I got the worst of it. Then another time I fell three times in one morning and carried a bruised hip around for a day or two."

But, nothing daunted, the plucky rider still continued on his cycling way, always game for what was coming. Visitors to the offices of the police commissioners on Tuesday afternoons may see the little light wheel of Commissioner Leggett on hand and can afterward behold the long bearded rider pedal away home. He rides a light machine these days, which weighs about 20 pounds. It is kept spick and span, like everything that belongs to him.

Leggett has always lived an out of door life. He was born in Dublin county, Ireland, and came to America in the early '40s.

"I was a farmer boy in western New York," he told me. He traveled about the world, and then studied law in the offices of Patterson & Irvine, San Francisco, about 1873. In 1875 he was admitted to practice as an attorney in all the courts of the state. From 1873 to 1875 he was deputy superintendent of schools, but has not since, until yielding to the persuasions of Mayor Taylor, held any public office. In 1890 came the great event of his life. Which of us can tell what the future has before him? Before Commissioner Leggett was the bicycle, and it is with him still. It is his tonic, and he recommends it to all as a health producer, a system builder and a nerve and brain invigorator.

Leggett never rode on the old high machine with the little hind wheel. He had no use for it, but he was among the first to see the advantage to be gained and the pleasure to be derived from the small machine. On the matter of future improvements of the bicycle he has nothing to say, for he sees none ahead. He thinks that the bicycle day is over and that the time when it was a fad is gone. It has now reached the prime of life, and behind are the frivolous cycling days. Sedate and matronly is its behavior today. Many of its traditions have fled, but some few yet remain, and at 918 Dolores street they are warmly fondled by Police Commissioner Leggett, brim full enthusiast.

No Automobile For Him Police Commissioner Joseph Leggett finds his bicycle a vastly important... 19 Jan 1908, Sun The San Francisco Call and Post (San Francisco, California) Newspapers.com