USA > Arizona > Arizona, prehistoric, aboriginal, pioneer, modern; the nation's youngest commonwealth within a land of ancient culture, Vol. II > Part 5
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LEWIS WOLFLEY 8:" GOVERNOR
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JOHN N. IRWIN 9 T.H GOVERNOR
N. O. MURPHY 10""&14 ** GOVERNOR
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L.C. HUGHES It T- GOVERNOR
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B.J. FRANKLIN 12 ** GOVERNOR
M.H. MCCORD 13 TH GOVERNOR
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GOVERNORS OF ARIZONA
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argument concerning his convictions. He wrote altogether too many letters to the secretary of the interior concerning the administration of Arizona affairs, and finally was removed from office. One of the principal causes for his removal is said to have been the official character he gave his newspaper. After leaving the office of governor, Wolfley devoted himself to an irrigation project near Gila Bend. When construction had been almost completed, the dam was swept away by a flood, and in the resulting expense Wolfley lost control of the enter- prise. There was much litigation, carried to the Supreme Court of the United States, decided adversely to Wolfley's interests. Thereupon, he distinguished himself by addressing the national House of Representatives, demanding the impeachment of the justices of the Supreme Court, possibly one of the most extraordinary applications ever presented to Congress. This application was made in good faith and was supported by a printed petition and argument. Nothing was done with the matter, much to Wolfley's disgust. He died in Los Angeles in September, 1910, from injuries received in a street car accident, and his body was taken to Prescott for burial.
A PEACEMAKER'S DIFFICULT ROLE
The new governor of Arizona was John N. Irwin (rep.) of Iowa, the last executive to be appointed from outside of the limits of the territory. He was rather a distinguished man in his own bailiwick, and at one time in his career was minister to Denmark. But in Arizona, according to the ideas of the times, he was far from satisfactory as an executive. Possibly this was reflected in a remark said to have been made by him, "I would sooner be a constable in peace than a governor in hell." He started in with the idea that a political millennium could be reached here by the simple process of appointing many democrats to office. As a result, he had the support of neither party. Himself a man of unblemished probity, several of his appointees fell under suspicion, and his prison warden bad investigation by a Yuma County grand jury on a charge of taking away the furniture from the superintendent's house when he departed from the job. In the leading offices of his administration he gathered some strong men, including William Herring of Tombstone as attorney-general, William Christy of Phoenix as treasurer, and Thomas Hughes of Tucson as auditor. M. P. Freeman of Tucson was made chancellor of the university. Governor Irwin spent a considerable part of his short term out of the territory, dropping the burdens of the government on the capable shoulders of Secretary N. O. Murphy.
Secretary Murphy came to the office of governor in legitimate line of succes- sion in May, 1892, in his place as secretary being appointed N. A. Morford, owner of the Phoenix Herald. Murphy's term was short, however, for in the fall of that year Grover Cleveland was elected President.
In the 1892 election Mark Smith again went to Congress by a substantial plurality of votes over W. G. Stewart, the republican nominee.
Governor Murphy, however, had most to do with the Seventeenth Legislature of 1893, which body met February 13 and adjourned April 13. Its first act was the offering of a reward of $5,000 for the capture, dead or alive, of the Apache Kid. Provision was made for a reform school at Flagstaff, the building to be constructed and the school to be maintained by general tax.
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HOW A GOVERNORSHIP WAS LANDED
The new democratic governor was Louis C. Hughes of Tucson, appointed April 5, 1893. This appointment, so near the date of the inauguration of the new President, might indicate a degree of harmony in the territorial democratic ranks. It was very much otherwise, however; a battle for the office had been going on for months, with many participants. Hughes was decidedly at outs with the majority of the central committee, which was headed by a Tucson gam- bler. Hughes was an early-day advocate of woman suffrage, prohibition and the suppression of gambling, and thus managed to secure much support both in Arizona and in the East. It was told that the final straw which gave him the office was the presentation to the President of a photograph that showed the chairman of the central committee busily engaged in dealing faro with a mixed racial clientele before him. So Hughes was appointed in time to avoid compli- cations such as had been known before.
The new territorial secretary was C. M. Bruce. One of the most notable appointments made by Hughes was that of F. J. Heney of Tucson as attorney- general. For a while it was understood that Heney might be considered the government of Arizona, but this condition was shaken off by Hughes after a short time, and Heney was succeeded by T. D. Satterwhite of Tucson.
The Hughes administration was a stormy one, mainly due to causes within his own party. In 1894 an attempt was made to indict him for various alleged misfeasances, but he had the active support of a considerable portion of the people and continued in command of the situation for several years.
The eighteenth legislative session started its work by the establishment of a board of railroad commissioners. Possibly the most important act of the session was that creating a board of territorial control to take up duties there- tofore in the hands of separate commissioners for the insane asylum, prison and reform school. This new board, consisting of the governor, auditor and a secre- tary, the last named an off-party appointee of the governor, has endured to this day, despite biennial attacks upon it as conferring too much power upon the executive. An interesting paragraph in the new election law passed was that which prohibited candidates from asking any person or persons, directly or indi- rectly, to drink beer or other intoxicating drinks, thus striking directly at an electioneering practice that had been both time-honored and expensive. That preparedness for defense had consideration in those days was shown by authoriza- tion for the formation of the "American Guard," out of pupils in the high and common schools of the territory, a body that should be placed under military discipline. The grant to ex-Governor Wolfley has been mentioned heretofore. Authorization was given for the establishment and maintenance of high schools in school districts or union districts. Political animus is shown in the record of an appropriation of $1,222 to the Arizona Gazette Company over the veto of the governor, this a printing bill two years old. Classification was made of the counties into six divisions. The governor was authorized to grant paroles. The County of Navajo was created out of the western portion of Apache County. The governor was authorized to appoint a board of immigration commissioners.
LEGISLATIVE MANEUVERING
The Navajo County act was the most exciting feature of the session. There was no particular objection to the creation of this county, but, coming up in the
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very last hours of the session, it served as a bulwark behind which to fight the removal of the territorial prison from Yuma to Prescott, a change that was imminent. In the turmoil which continued till midnight, Speaker Carpenter, representing Yuma County, at all interruptions formally observed, "The gentle- man from Apache (Crosby) has the floor." Thus for hours the bill was kept before the House. At the fateful striking of midnight it had been usual, if business remained unfinished, to set the hands of the clock back, or stop the clock altogether. An experienced janitor, with stepladder, appeared to perform the usual ceremony, but was ordered away by Carpenter, who brought down the gavel and declared the House adjourned sine die. This not only killed prison removal, but left the appropriation bill unpassed. The territorial auditors, how- ever, honored all regular accounts for the succeeding two years and little actual damage was done by the omission.
One of the pleasant measures that passed the Legislature of 1895 was that of establishing the office of commissioner of immigration in each of the counties. The commissioners were to receive a salary of $50 a month, payable out of the county treasury, yet the appointments were to be made by the governor. The appointees almost without exception were proprietors of newspapers. The administration thus would secure at least one journalistic supporter in each county. The boards of supervisors generally failed to provide the necessary appropriations, denying the legality of the act. Its legality was established, however, in a suit brought by the Maricopa County commissioner, T. C. Jordan. But Hughes was removed from office not long thereafter and his idea did him little good.
Another action of the Eighteenth Legislature that had lasting consequences was the passage of a memorial to Congress asking "such curative and remedial legislation as will protect the holders of all bonds issued under authority of acts of the Legislative Assembly, the validity of which has heretofore been acknowl- edged, and that you so further legislate as to protect all innocent parties having entered into contracts resulting from inducements offered by our territorial legislation and relieve the people of the Territory from the disastrous effects that must necessarily follow any repudiation of good faith on the part of the Territory."
The previous election (1894) had resulted in the return of a republican congressman, former Governor N. O. Murphy. It should be stated, however, that this was not an indication of republican preponderance, but was due to the fact that the vote was divided among three candidates. The democrats had nominated John C. Herndon of Prescott, possibly their strongest man. Much of the strength that would ordinarily have gone to him was taken by Wm. O. O'Neill of Prescott, who had entered the contest as the candidate for the populist party, to which he had gone from the republicans. The vote stood: Murphy, 5,686 ; Herndon, 4,773; O'Neill, 3,006.
Governor Hughes was removed from office March 30, 1896, his political enemies at last being successful. His office had been investigated the previous July by an inspector of the Interior Department. There had been charges that Hughes had worked against the democratic nominee for Congress in the previous election and had used undue influence in the Legislature to secure the passage
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of acts that he favored. Governor Hughes held on for two days and then surrendered his office to Secretary Bruce.
FRANKLIN SUCCEEDS HUGHES
The new governor, B. J. Franklin, was nominated the same day that Hughes was removed, and was confirmed promptly. He took office April 18. He had been a resident of Phoenix for five years, engaged in the practice of law. Most of his active life had been spent in Kansas City, from where he had been elected to Congress in 1876, thereafter serving two terms. For four years following 1885 he was consular agent at Hankow, China. At the time of his appointment as governor he was considered a "single standard democrat," something assumed to have had influence.
One of the early acts of the Nineteenth Legislature, which met in January, 1897, was the codifying and revising of the laws in relation to live stock. Pro- vision was made for the erection of a capitol building, with an initial appropria- tion of $100,000, this money to be raised by the sale of bonds. New railroads were exempted from taxation for fifteen years, and the Santa Fé was given the courtesy of an act under which it was made legal to absorb the Atlantic & Pacific Railroad, which soon was to be sold under foreclosure of mortgage. A grant of $3,000 was made to the Society of Arizona Pioneers for the preservation of Ari- zona's historical records. This amount later disappeared when under the charge of none other than Fred G. Hughes, President of the Territorial Council and also an officer of the Pioneer Society, and was one of the reasons why Hughes spent a few years in the penitentiary.
In an effort to find a civic gift acceptable to Flagstaff, the reform school then at that city was changed into a home for the insane. The reform school idea was not lost, however, and a special tax was levied for the establishment of such a school at Benson.
A memorial was passed against the cession by Congress to Utah of that part of Arizona lying north of the Grand Canon, a cession possibility that endured up to the date of statehood. There was also a protest against the passage through Congress of an act (which was passed) permitting funding of the Pres- cott & Arizona Railroad bonds and of the fraudulent Tucson & Globe Narrow Gauge Railroad bonds.
The closing hours of the session were torrid, due to disagreement between the House majority and Governor Franklin. The House passed a resolution ask- ing an immediate change in the office of governor. But the Council not only tabled the resolution, but almost unanimously passed a resolution of confidence in Franklin's integrity and ability. The governor had vetoed a number of bills, including salary increases to county officials and tax exemptions to beet sugar factories, reduction works and irrigation enterprises. Part of the governor's unpopularity with some legislators was due to his charge that it had only needed $2,000 to defeat a legislative bill that contemplated taxation of the net product of mines.
A committee of the Nineteenth Legislature made an investigation of the board of control, which, under Hughes, had been charged with gross irregulari- ties. It was found that things were wrong in two points, the pardoning of a
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convict from the penitentiary to act in a clerical capacity at Yuma and the purchase of a tract of land without publicity or advertising.
A LABOR DONATION BY THE TERRITORY
About the most unpopular action of the Hughes administration was an agree- ment entered into with the State of Arizona Improvement Company, a corpora- tion organized by Eugene S. Ives for the digging of a canal from the Colorado River above Yuma. It was appreciated that the Yuma country needed such a ditch, but the contract would have thrown three-fourths of the expense upon the territory. The canal company for ten years was to have the labor of all available convicts, the territory to guard and feed the men and to receive for their labor 70 cents a day per man, with the proviso that this remuneration was to be received in the form of "water rights" in the canal that was to be dug. This did not in any way include the territory as an owner of the canal; it simply gave the right, at a stated price of $20 an acre, to purchase water, at the regular service price, from the canal company for the irrigation of any lands that the territory might then or thereafter control. There was no limitation as to the character of the work that the convicts might have been compelled to do. They could have been called upon to labor on a railroad if the company so chose. Possibly some such idea was in view, for the canal construction would hardly take ten years, the term of the contract. The company was about ready to proceed with its work when Hughes suddenly retired from office. His suc- cessor, B. J. Franklin, absolutely refused to recognize the prison contract, uni- formly referring to it in terms too forcible to be printed. The company was denied a draft of prisoners and suit was brought, which, in the Arizona courts, was decided in favor of the company, but which later, in the Supreme Court of the United States, went in favor of the territory. Gov. M. H. MeCord, who followed Franklin, had been citizen member of the territorial board of control at the time the canal contract was made. He insisted upon the purchase by the corporation of $30,000 worth of machinery as evidence of good faith and then turned over about 100 convict laborers. The canal company failed in an effort to secure as subsidy from the City of Yuma about 1,000 city lots remaining unsold in the possession of the municipality. Some work was done upon a canal above Yuma, but soon was stopped. When the prison contract was summed up, it was found that the territory had lost through its operation just $13,741. In addition, eleven men had escaped from the camps and only four had been recaptured. The company, in return, owed the territory, under the contract, $7,500-in water rights.
In the election of 1896, Marcus A. Smith, democrat, was elected delegate to Congress, receiving 6,065 votes. His opponents were A. J. Doran, republican, and Wm. O. O'Neill, populist, who received, respectively, 4,049 and 3,695 votes.
RETURN TO REPUBLICANISM
Following the seating of William McKinley as President in March, 1897, Myron H. McCord became governor of Arizona, taking his seat July 29. He had been in public life for many years. He had served five terms as member of the Legislature of Michigan, and in 1889 was elected a member of Congress from Michigan, seated close to William McKinley, a happy circumstance that helped Vol. II-3
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materially in assisting him to the office of governor. He came to Arizona in 1893, bought a farm and soon thereafter entered office again as citizen member of the board of control. He was one of the few officials who failed to accept dismissal at the hands of Governor Franklin, who to his place had named T. J. Wolfley, then editor of the Phoenix Republican, and took his protest to the courts.
Secretary Bruce was succeeded by Chas. H. Akers. A new chief justice succeeding A. C. Baker was named June 28, 1897, in the person of Hiram C. Truesdale of Minneapolis, who died in Phoenix October 28 of the same year. Then to the place was appointed Webster Street of Phoenix, an Arizonan of twenty years' standing, but only after a typically ugly Arizona campaign had been waged against him. That he finally secured the place has been credited to the support of Governor McCord.
McCord had inherited from Franklin the legacy of the prison contract, which had had a favorable decision in the Supreme Court of the territory. He directed dismissal of an appeal to the Supreme Court of the United States and ordered that the contract be carried out after seven additional stipulations had been secured by the canal company. This contract was the cause of much disturbing argument during McCord's term, assailed especially by T. E. Farish on behalf of the Frnklin administration and, most bitterly, by Wm. O. O'Neill, represent- ing the populists.
In March and April, 1898, Governor McCord gave the strongest of support in the work of organizing an Arizona cowboy regiment for service in the Span- ish war, a body later cut down to only two troops of the First United States Volunteer Cavalry. Rather fired with the fever of war, the governor then took the field himself, and in July secured from his friend, the President, command of a regiment of infantry recruited in the Southwest, with three companies raised in Arizona.
Governor McCord had a long and active political life. About the time of President Roosevelt's accession he was made United States marshal for Arizona. For a while he managed a Phoenix newspaper, but he was in official harness when he died, in April, 1908, for two years having been collector of customs at Nogales.
When McCord marched off to war, his place was filled by the appointment of N. O. Murphy, for the second time made governor of Arizona. His oath of office bore date of August 1, 1898; a second oath was filed by him July 14, 1899.
The part taken by Arizona in the Spanish war is told in a separate chapter. This service was brief and by the fall time most of the participants were back in Arizona, some of them returning to accustomed political activity.
Lieutenant-Colonel Brodie, mustered out with the First Volunteer Cavalry, returning with his arm in a sling from injury by a Spanish bullet, was made the republican nominee for delegate to Congress, in opposition to Col. J. F. Wilson, democrat. Several other Rough Rider officers were nominated in various parts of the territory, but, whatever the ticket, it is notable that not one was successful in the November election.
LEGISLATION AND POLITICS
The Twentieth Legislature met January 16, 1899. It gave a tax exemption of fifteen years to water development enterprises; created the County of Santa
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OLD CAPITOL AT TUCSON, LATELY DEMOLISHED
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Cruz out of southern Pima County; gave Chas. D. Poston a pension of $25 a month; authorized a revision of the laws; provided for the completion of the territorial capitol; gave new railroads a ten-year tax exemption and cut off all financial support to the National Guard. An appropriation was made for the burial of former Territorial Secretary John J. Gosper, who had died, penniless, in the Los Angeles County Hospital.
The doubt concerning the form of appropriation to be expended at Flagstaff was resolved finally by turning over the building, grounds and money to the normal school board. Thus was started the Northern Arizona Normal School.
Another memorial was sent to Congress covering especially the Tucson & Globe Narrow-Gauge bonds, which were declared fraudulent and without con- sideration. Statehood was asked of Congress, more pay for the legislators and an appropriation for the survey of a water storage damsite on the Gila River. A move to tax the mines more heavily was defeated, it was told, at a cost of only $9,000, the mining fight led by H. J. Allen of Jerome.
Morris Goldwater was elected president of the Council, the choice being notable for the reason that his opponent for the honor was none other than George W. P. Hunt of Gila County, who seems then to have met about the only defeat of his political career. As speaker of the House, the unanimous demo- cratic choice was Henry F. Ashurst, now one of the Arizona senators. Ashurst had served in the House two years before, being elected at the age of only twenty-two.
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The Twentieth Legislature authorized the governor to appoint a commission of three lawyers with broad authority to "revise the laws and eliminate there- from all crude, improper and contradictory matter and also to insert such new provisions as they may deem necessary and proper." To this commission Gov- ernor Murphy in March, 1899, appointed C. W. Wright of Tucson, J. C. Herndon of Prescott, and L. H. Chalmers of Phoenix. The death of Mr. Wright in Decem- ber, 1900, caused a vacancy that was filled by the appointment of Judge R. E. Sloan of Prescott. The report was submitted to the Twenty-first Legislature, by which it was passed with few amendments.
The republican territorial convention which met in Phoenix, April 30, 1900, for the selection of delegates to the national convention, was remarkable mainly for the bolt of the Yavapai County delegates, headed by Joseph E. Morrison of Prescott, later United States attorney. The bolt immediately followed a call for a speech from Robert E. Morrison, then United States attorney. The row was really between Isaac T. Stoddard, who was leader of the Yavapai delegation, but whose faction had lost in the territory generally to a combination headed by ex-Governor McCord and C. H. Akers.
One of the high lights of Arizona political history was the territorial demo- cratic convention in Phoenix, September 12, 1900. From start to finish it was a riot, with its membership divided and with two sets of officers upon the opera house stage, not to speak of the sheriff and chief of police. The trouble was between factions supporting Marcus A. Smith and Col. J. F. Wilson. It resulted in the nomination of both and both accepted from the same rostrum, with thanks. Wilson would have abandoned the weary struggle early had his wife not in- formed him that "she'd sooner die than be a quitter." But he did quit a few weeks later and, though the democrats were very much split up for the time
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being, Smith was re-elected, just as usual. The republicans in the same year nominated as their congressional candidate Governor N. O. Murphy.
Till the completion of the capitol building in Phoenix, Arizona's seat of government had been on wheels. The government had been inaugurated at Navajo Springs in December, 1863, in the midst of a snow storm. There was a brief stop at the Chino Valley Springs until Prescott was selected as the first real seat of government.
The meeting place of the First Legislature in the winter of 1864-5 was a long one-storied log house on Gurley Street, fronting the north face of the plaza. Part of this building still was standing at the time of a Prescott fire in 1900. It was told that the structure was built for the occasion, the logs hewn by hand; the roof was covered with shakes and the floor was of whipsawed pine. Illumination at night was by tallow candles. The heating arrangements were inadequate and the cold wind from the snow-covered hills whistled through the illy-chinked crevices between the logs. Yet in this house was adopted the Howell Code, the foundation of all subsequent Arizona laws. The second ses- sion was in more comfortable quarters, with refreshments very near at hand. It was held in the old Montezuma saloon building, with the Council in the upper story and the Assembly below. The third session was held in the old court house, a two-storied log-and-frame building at the northeast corner of the Prescott Plaza.
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