November 1, 1914 was a Sunday, and the Evening Ledger did not publish on Sundays.

But earlier in the week, the Ledger wasn’t shy about taking credit for firing the open shot in the war for rapid transit. On Tuesday, October 27, the paper devoted all of its second to a passionate plea for the Frankford Elevated, a transit line that would connect downtown to the Northeast section of the city. Such a line was long overdue. The trolleys were overcrowded. The city could afford it, the paper argued. And the “L,” it said, could cut the commute from Frankford to City Hall from 49 to 25 minutes, which would come as a relief to the 181,000 or so residents of the Northeast. Clearly the Ledger was preparing for a long war. At the bottom of the page, in large type:

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