operated. In the middle and upper-class sections of the East Side, opponents railed against policies they called expensive and "socialistic", pointing out that after only five years Johnson had nearly doubled the city's debt. The tenacious opposition of the Republicans and the business interests kept most of Johnson's big plans tied up in legal battles. By 1909, Clevelanders were becoming increasingly weary of reform and endless political fights, and Johnson was defeated for re-election by a relatively obscure Republican, Herman C. Baehr. Having ruined his health and dissipated his considerable fortune in the cause of reform, Johnson lived just long enough to dictate his autobiography, My Story. He died in Cleveland in 1911, and was buried next to Henry George in Brooklyn's Green-Wood Cemetery. Legacy The revolution in government Johnson effected in Cleveland made him a national figure. The noted muckraking journalist Lincoln Steffens called him "the best Mayor of the best-governed city in the United States." Johnson's vision of a more honest, efficient and humane city government inspired Cleveland politics for decades to come. The years that followed his death were perhaps the most creative period in the city's history, in which it perfected excellent library and school systems, while completing the Group Plan's public buildings on the Mall and the ensemble of educational and cultural institutions at University Circle. The city was frequently cited as a model in many fields of government efficiency and social reform. Though Cleveland's elites would never come around to sharing Johnson's political ideas, his example did much to build a sense of civic duty and cooperative spirit among them. Typical of these was Frederick C. Goff, president of the city's largest bank, who once said "I am more concerned that the Cleveland Trust Company shall fulfill its obligations to the community than make money for the stockholders". Goff was instrumental in founding the Cleveland Foundation, America's first community foundation. A 1993 survey of historians, political scientists and urban experts conducted by Melvin G. Holli of the University of Illinois at Chicago saw Johnson ranked as the second-best American big-city mayor to serve between the years 1820 and 1993. Only Fiorello La Guardia of New York City placed higher. Family Johnson's brother Albert was also prominent in the streetcar business. In 1889, he became the financial backer and organizer of the Players' League, a baseball major league begun by the players themselves, in order