By occurrences like these an increasing number of influential citizens were convinced that the gas companies would hold a power over the comfort and daily life of the people not wise to surrender entire to any corporation. An agitation was begun for the supply of gas to the people by themselves acting through the municipality. Six thousand citizens sent a petition, in the session of 1887-88, to the Legislature to pass the necessary enabling act. There was a discussion of the project for two years. Public opinion grew more favorable every day. The citizens chartered a special train to carry a delegation to Columbus the day the pipe-line law came before the Senate. The Legislature in 1889 passed the law. It authorized the people of Toledo to issue bonds to the extent of $750,000 to buy gas land and build pipe lines. This legislation was, of course, bitterly opposed by the existing gas companies, and they demanded of the Legislature that before the law became operative it should be ratified by a three-fifths vote of the people. The friends of this scheme of municipal self-help and independence accepted the challenge. In the ensuing campaign the opposition to the people was officered by the president of one of the natural-gas companies, twice Governor of Ohio, afterwards United States Secretary of the Treasury. The natural-gas trustees of the City of Toledo in an official communication said: "There is reason to believe the money of the natural-gas companies was freely spent to defeat it."