USA > Iowa > Washington County > History of Washington County, Iowa from the first white settlements to 1908. Also biographical sketches of some prominent citizens of the county, Vol. I > Part 29
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E. Ross, three hundred and thirty-five. By throwing out the irregular vote in Cedar, arbitrators J. R. Lewis, Jas. Dawson and Duke Story declared Young elected, he having six hundred and ninety-four votes ; Dickey, six hundred and ninety-two; Ross, two hundred and eighty-seven. Heat under many collars. Suppose we count Cedar and toss out Jackson that had given Young, nine : Dickey, eighteen : Ross, sixteen? Young proposed another election- he did not want to serve on the present basis. But he did serve, and so well. he was twice re-elected.
All agree that the campaign of 1860 was primus-nothing like it, before or since. Iowa was too raw and infantile to have taken part in that most unique of all campaigns, 1840-Tippecanoe and Tyler too, log cabins on wheels, hard cider aboard, coon skins nailed to the doors, and Tom Corwin playing the immortal oratorical clown. The campaign of '60 was pitched on a higher note. There was moral flavor in it, that raised it in dignity to a high mathe- matical power, as it were, and even to heights of moral sublimity. Country, liberty, the rights of man were involved in it, and over it all lay the dread shadow of possible civil war. So there was a verve about it that distinguished it as sui generis.
Who can ever forget the vast mass meetings, where earnest orators ad- dressed acres of passionate people, and literally converted men by the acre, scooping honest. generous democrats into republican ranks as Billy Sunday dragoons sinners. That art of oratory has long since lost its charm and power. Editorials may now and then change votes, but stump speeches do only this-confirm a man in his political faith, which may be but a prejudice -warm him up like left-over potatoes for breakfast, interest the average voter enough in the campaign to go and vote.
Who can forget the bands, the singing of the Lombards, the thrills of fine speaking. the wild beauty of torch-light processions, the stately march of the Wide Awakes with hats and capes that needed to be ample to protect clothes from dripping kerosene lamps hung on sticks slung over the shoulders. In the tread of those illuminated hosts a keen car could hear the tramp, tramp. tramp of hundreds of thousands of armed men a year later ; a prescient eve could see armies hurrying southward, the sun glinting on myriads of gun- barrels. It was a prophetic campaign, and a thing inspiring awe.
The Lincoln electors had one thousand seven hundred and twenty-six votes in this county, the Douglas democrats, one thousand and fifty-seven ; Bell, fifty-seven ; Breckenridge, twenty. The population was fourteen thou- sand two hundred and thirty-five.
The Granger campaign in 1873 was a hot tamale, nay, a desperate thing. That was the year of the alleged "Great Crime," that we did not know any-
WILLIAM SAID
JOHN W. PRIZER
WILLIAM WILSON
HE NEW YORK { UBLIC LIBRARY
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thing about till 1896 when Bryan and Coin's school discovered the mare's nest. With a catchy cry of "Anti-Monopoly" and with a club for exacting. discriminating railroads, the Grangers fought like fury, and whipped the Grand Old Party out of its boots. B. F. Brown and E. F. Brockway beat David Bunker and Wm. Allen for the legislature by three hundred and seventy-eight and three hundred and twenty-six, respectively. Editor A. S. Bailey defeated John Alex. Young for auditor by sixty-seven, and John thought chaos and old night had come again, not seeing that it was the best thing that ever happened to him. Clara Harris led E. R. Eldridge for county superintendent by three hundred and three, and John W. Anderson beat Capt. Woodford for treasurer by four hundred and eight, and so on. Some of the Granger laws stood the test in the United States supreme court, and on the whole their agitation and legislation did good. But with their workable notions were ideas that never could be operative, and they made so many promises, no doubt in good faith, that they could not make good, reaction set in, and the next year the republicans vaulted back into the saddle and stayed there ever after, though the broncho bucked pretty hard sometimes.
The Granger movement was: like la grippe;"you could not predict how it would leave a republican who had seceded, In fact, many republicans never came back, but lapsed from one fad and heresy- into another, like a man caught in quick-sand,-descending into greenbackism, into socialism, into free silver, democracy, and may the Lord have mercy on their souls !
The greenback campaign in 1879 was a desperate thing, too. But the gracious Nemesis that came to the aid of the grand old party in 1874 inter- vened again, and the elephant tore his way through the fiat jungle at great rate, trampling down the dreamers. Republican majorities in '79 ranged from five hundred to eight hundred odd.
Then came the constitutional prohibition amendment canvass of 1882, which was no less fierce for being non-partisan. Sentiment swept the county by a big majority.
The Blaine-Cleveland campaign of 1884 was watched here with great anxiety. It was pitched low. Mugwumpism was born. Nasty stories were told of both nominees. Beecher, who had been there himself, gave Grover a character, and many thought it a case of pot calling kettle white. Malignity, scandal, Ananiasism, a swarm of lies, and finally Okd Burchard of rum, Romanism and rebellion fame, pursued Blaine, and republican journals de- serted him only less numerously than democratic papers repudiated Bryan in '96. It was a Sheol of a time. Things were so muddled, that The Nation newspaper, which was the weekly edition of the New York Evening Post, and
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the most scholarly and critical journal in the country, though edited in heaven, proclaimed two standards of morals for the sexes, and said it was vastly more important to the universe for Marie Halpin to have been chaste than for Grover Cleveland, her alleged paramour.
Well, Blaine went down under four thousand votes cast in New York city for Gen. Ben Butler, greenback nominee for president, his votes being fraudulently counted by Taminany for Cleveland. It was the first time the grand old party had been beaten in the nation since '56, and who does not recall the perfectly sickly feeling republicans had? It seemed as if the bottom had fallen out of the whole secular order of things-the universe had gone to everlasting smash-only it hadn't. We were not used to defeat, and couldn't take it with any grace at all.
From time immemorial any sort of a ballot had been used here. Ballots were left in stores, in election booths, in saloons, and peddled on the streets by candidates and their friends and partisans. The electioneering was funny. and if a vote was bought, buyer collared buyee, took him to the booth and saw that the ballot went into the box. In factory towns and slummy cities the vote was debauched. America went to the antipodes to get a corrective in the Australian ballot. It was as big as a barn door, but it did business by freeing the voter-he could in secret vote as he pleased. We used that ballot first in this county in 1892.
Then it occurred to a good many that we had a surfeit of politics in annual elections. Hundreds of indifferent and bored voters would not go to the polls if the weather or roads were bad-they would rather go to prayer meeting or recite the catechism. So, to get rid of redundant politics, we got biennial elections in 1906, and right off we had more politics than ever-had politics to burn, only it wouldn't burn any more than clouds in a thunder storm.
Nor was that the limit-the dear "Peepul" had no show, some said, in nominating conventions-the politicians euchred them-we must have primary elections, and we got the first one on June 2, 1908, on the U. S. senatorship, and Allison won by some ten thousand majority in the state. As Allison made the mistake of his life by dying the next August, it all had to be done over at the general election on November 4. '08, and Cummins beat Lacey decisively. All the state, district, judicial and county officers submitted to the same ordeal. The last senatorial primary in this county stood for two thousand two hun- dred and fifty dollars expense. but the state paid half of it.
What the next political fad may be, no one can guess.
Some famous men have talked politics in this county-Wendell Phillips, Fred Douglass, U. S. Senators J. C. Burroughs, James Harlan, J. W. Grimes, Jas. F. Wilson, Allison ; Governors Kirkwood, Shaw. Cummins; Generals
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A. C. Dodge, J. B. Weaver, Fitz Henry Warren ; Bryan, Henry Clay Dean, et al.
Here is another version of the Dean-Morgan incident. Hon. M. Good- speed sat by Morgan and heard it all, and his memory is good. His version is likely to be the correct one. In the fall of '60 Dean spoke to an immense crowd on the east side of the court house in the square. He was a comical looking man, short, rotund, dirty, small sunken piggy eyes, who carried everything in front of his spine, hardly a thing about him to indicate his striking individ- uality, mother-wit and powerful intellect. He had just been chaplain of the U. S. senate, and was bragging about the democratic party, the big things it had done, it had never made mistakes or mis-appropriated public funds, and he challenged any one present to cite an instance of the latter. Up piped Morgan's squeaky treble voice, "I can tell you."
An electric thrill went through the crowd.
"When? Where?" asked Dean.
"When congress paid you for your prayers."
Crowd: "Put him out !"
Dean: "No, no, let him remain where he is. I thank God I never shai; pray for you till I pray for the redemption of the brute creation."
Goodspeed says the crowd, mostly democrats, thought the retort was sharp, but Dean himself admitted, years after, that he was never so gravelled and neatly and effectively winged by a critic's shot.
The funniest political incident in our county history came as an inspira- tion to the humorist Jonathan H. Wilson-his bringing of Kirkwood to town. Kirkwood and Gen. A. C. Dodge were rival nominees for governor in '59. The men were utterly unlike in appearance, temperament, spirit-Kirkwood a slovenly man, careless in dress, common as daylight, while Dodge was by na- ture an aristocrat, dainty in dress, dignified, proper ; very chesty, traveling on his shape, courtly in manners, a gentleman of the old school. These men, in joint debate, were coming here from Sigourney. Geo. D. Woodin was driving Kirkwood. Between 2 and 3 p. m., John H. Bacon drove a swell barouche out to bring in Dodge, in style. Brother Jonathan saw John and divined his pur- pose. In the same instant he saw two yoke of oxen and a wagon with an empty hay-rack, standing on the square, and a picture flashed on him. He found the owner of the rig, easily negotiated the rental of the uncouth outfit for two hours, when the tickled farmer learned the object of it, and grabbing the g'ad Wilson whoa-hawed 'em down to the creek on the Sigourney road. Bacon swelled by. Dodge inside, and John wondered what Wilson was doing down there. He found out about an hour later, at the hotel. Jonathan intro- duced himself to Kirkwood, and said. "1 want you in there." "In there?"
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grinned Kirkwood. "Yes, in there, Governor." He caught on "immegit." and climbed aboard and chuckled clear to the square at the homespun humor of it. Jonathan kept pace with the oxen and chariot, followed by a retinue of shouting folks, and he whoa-hawed the motors up to the Yellow Brick corner, and by this time the whole town was onto the joke, and as Wilson plied the g'ad on the leaders and the wheelers and made 'em squirm and crowd and loll out their tongues, the people yelled and laughed and screamed, and gave Kirk- wood the greatest ovation ever. He stood up and bowed acknowledgments. and grinned, and expectorated tobacco juice, and he couldn't have worn a larger smile unless his face had been enlarged and his ears set back on the rear of his neck. Dodge and Bacon saw the ridiculous spectacle with emo- tions, Dodge knowing that his egg was hard-boiled, and as for Bacon he was so chagrined he said then and there he would never vote another demo- cratic ticket, and he kept his word. One circuit of the square was not enough to satisfy the people and take the tickle out of their funny bones, so Wilson sailed round again. nothing loath. He was having the time of his life.
In '61, Senator Harlan ordered an election for postmaster here. Andrew Kendall, C. H. Wilson and Vint Andrus ran, and Kendall won. But Lincoln appointed Editor A. R. Wickersham of the Press because it was his settled policy to stimulate the papers to stand loyally by the government. Wicker- sham held into Lincoln's second term. After Andrew Johnson came in, John Wiseman, a briefless lawyer but a delicious tenor singer, sought the post office, was named, but the senate would not confirm him. A little secret plebiscite here settled his case. Harlan wired Lewis & Bennett and a mer- chant I will not name, "Shall Wiseman be appointed?" "No." "Shall Horatio Anderson?" "No." "Shall Col. H. R. Cowles be confirmed ?" "Yes." And it was done before Cowles knew a thing about it. He had not sought the place. It was a genuine surprise party to him. One of the trio said to him on the street, "You are P. M." "The - I am," he exclaimed.
Usually, a school director election is tame, but now and then it was great fun, and astonishing votes were recorded. One of the most amusing was engineered by Joe Rader. the most humorous and persistent tease ever. I forget the issue-probably there was none -- but it was the personalities that lent piquancy to the contest. "Billy" Wilson. Jr., as he was affectionately called by everybody, for he was one of the most useful men in our history, had been nominated for director, when Joe trotted out Maggie Axtell, a "character" in petticoats. The populace did not care a bawbee, but saw a chance for fun, and snaking men to the polls became a riot of mirth and a jolly jamboree. All day electioneerers and laughing fans pulled and hauled voters to the booth. The vote was unprecedented, exceeding that at a national
HORACE H. WILLSON
JOHN P. HUSKINS
D. B. PARKINSON
WILLIAM B. LEWIS
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election. Maggie came in first under the wire by a few votes. Wilson saw the fun of it-a few days later.
Dr. W. F. Rodman was a democrat of mild manners, and enjoyed getting Dr. Chilcote in a crowd and telling a remark he made during the first Lincoln campaign. At a night spectacle fire balls, soaked in turpentine, were safely thrown by hand if one were quick about it. Chilcote grabbed one, but he had a woman's defective clavicle and couldn't throw any straighter than a cross-eyed man, but he did slam the fire ball into an open building. Rodman screamed, "Doctor, you might fire the house." "D- the building, hurrah for Lincoln!"
The Wide Awakes went to every town in the county, and to Fairfield, Mt. Pleasant, Muscatine, etc. One night about sixty rode horses from here to Pilotburg, and as many of them had not been on a horse for years, there was so great a demand for arnica and court plaster, the drug stores were bank- rupted. It was the sternest reality of the campaign.
'Squire Anson Moore, of Brighton; had striking individuality and keen humor. A townsman had been elected to some office, and came to the 'Squire to "qualify," as he said. Moore said, "I can swear you in, but all - can't qualify you."
The Greeley campaign, though it had a pathetic, tragic sequel, had amus- ing local features. Not many republicans flocked to Uncle Horace's standard, and many democrats flouted him. Gen. A. R. Z. Dawson, a republican, was made chairman of the democratic county committee, and one rainy day, after much advertising, and a day of wallowing in mud, and the slick hickory pole slipping back several times, Dawson and Lyman Whitcomb finally got a flag- staff set up on the south side. Many times it had slipped and sloshed around, and the gallant general in hip boots addressed many pungent remarks to "the god of things as they are." Republicans meanly joshed the toilers a good deal, but they had bad luck with their own taller pole on the north side. The flag ropes were cut one night. Whitcomb, though a democrat, was furiously mad, offered ten dollars for the discovery of the "galoot" who did it, and paid for a new set of ropes.
It hardly fits in here, but it has to go "sommers." There was to be a cele- bration here in honor of some foreign hero, whether Kossuth or Garibaldi, no matter. Howard M. Holden was chosen to respond to a certain toast. When called, he rose, appeared greatly surprised and flustered, prefaced his off-hand remarks with a long apology for not being prepared, but he would do the best he could under the circumstances, but he was sorry, both for hini- self and the audience, that notice had not been given him. etc. A good while after, in hoeing and cleaning out the bank where he served as cashier, the
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manuscript of his extempore speech was found, verbatim as he had reeled it off, when he "fulmined over Greece." The town laughed over his extem- poraneity. They say he had a hard time explaining it to his solid girl.
In the Blaine-Cleveland campaign the republicans missed out once or twice on night parades. The democrats matched our displays, if they did not exceed them, in numbers and brilliant pageantry, particularly the equestrian show-out, with torches. We led off in that, and fancied that the spectacle was as brilliant as Vauxhall. But the country, not the city, raises horses, and the democrats brought in a caravan of them. The entire space around the square, Cleveland night, was solid with Centaurs. . Every horse's neck was clothed with "O thunder," as the envious, jealous republicans said. Many rustic horses "raired" and pitched and snorted, and waltzed on hind legs. in a panic of fear of the lights, noise of drums and the shoutings of the democratic captains. This veracious historian has to admit that for once the democrats kept us busy in this county.
This recalls a ludicrous incident on a Memorial Day when Judge Dewey was marshal. He wanted a white horse. Humorist Sheriff Tom Johnson loaned his, knowing how very touchy it was about martial music. When the band struck into a dirge, the splendid steed went into the air, and wished to shake hands with all and sundry. It turned and faced the band till it came near with its throbs and muffles, then wheeled and ran like the wind several rods, and turned again to watch the dreadful thing. Again and again it cut that caper, much to the irritation of the gallant rider. As all knew the judge was a clever horseman, and could not be thrown, they enjoyed the fun, which rather destroyed the solemnity of the day.
It was worth the price of admission to see and hear Everson and Patterson discuss politics on the street. There was no attempt at argument, and logic and fact and courtesy were interlopers ; they'd raise their voices to the highest pitch, shout, scream, gesticulate violently ; pay no attention to each other's statements, but yell and sweat. Nothing more absurd was ever seen in our politics.
Some thirty years ago we tried a primary system of nominating county tickets, for two or three years. The country fancied the city beat them to base in nominating conventions, but the country was the first to tire of the new scheme, as the plan was expensive, costing lots of time and mileage to button- hole voters, and all gladly went back to the old system. Van Doren was running for auditor or treasurer, but being an absent-minded but really a very able clerical man, he strolled, unawares, over into Keokuk county, and was working those aliens hard before he learned by their grins and winks that he
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was beyond his bailiwick. He took a few more turns of his inevitable com- forter around his neck and hiked back to his jurisdiction.
A republican orator was speaking in Uncle John Iams' school house, and voided the stale hot air about poor boys in this country having a chance to be presidents of the United States, and he punched this hole in the doughnut- "who knows but some boy in this audience may become president." This convulsed Iams, and he slapped his knees, roaring with laughter, and shout- ing, "Hell! think of a president from Dutch Creek."
At this date, the summer of 1909, the general aspect of politics leads one to remark that there is no politics visible to the naked eye or even to high magnifiers. The tariff debate in the special session blots party distinctions. Democrats are as keen for "pork" as are republicans. Even the holy insur- gents want to snatch chunks of pork here and there, as La Follette on paper and wood pulp, since his state makes paper ; southern planters for sugar, rice, pineapples ; California for lemons ; Tillman for a few cups of tea ; Dolliver prefers pork without cotton or woolen fibers in it as butter without hired girl's hairs in it. Cummins wants pork in the guise of free tapioca pudding, and gives small hunks of pork to Iowa farmers on hides, while saying that the tariff does farmers no good, or hardly any good. Republicans, democrats, insurgents are practically all alike.
What reduced political parties to this common, neutral paste or mush ? It was that glacier Roosevelt operating in the last four strenuous years. He triturated parties into pulp, into drift. Every thing he did was done in a way either to tickle the people by its outlandishness, as his spelling reform that fell flat, his undignified swatting of nature fakirs, his storm-day horseback ride to shame lazy army officers, his absurd hunts of bob cats and black bears, his going down in a sub-marine boat, etc. Or to enthuse the Hoi Polloi by attacking corporations, by assailing judges who did not decide his rash way, by vigorously punching Judge Parker, Gov. Haskell, Senator Foraker, Bryan. Or to electrify the people by his original and meritorious proposition to con- serve national resources, etc. Or to stampede timid business by throwing populace and banks into a panic. He won partisans from all parties. His ideas, manner and spirit were solvents in which parties literally dissolved. Naturally, he was so spectacular, he made more adherents than enemies. He won many thoughtful admirers and friends, but alarmed the fewer conserva- tives, and attracted all the undiscriminating crowd of jealous, envious folk who like to see more prosperous people assailed and put in soak, whether justly or no. Certain types of people are beginning to murmur because Presi- dent Taft does not do things in Roosevelt's frantic, half crazy way. When folk get used to high seasoning, a chief magistrate who does not shake pep-
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pers, salve with mustard, dope with tobasco, and drench with vinegar, seems tame, and splits observers into factions or parties. Roosevelt disintegrated parties ; Taft may re-establish party lines. But at present, republicans, demo- crats, insurgents are as like as peas in a pod.
CHAPTER XIX.
WASHINGTON COUNTY IN WAR.
We do not claim Timothy Brown, the soldier of the Revolution, who died in this county and was buried in Elm Grove with honors and with oratory by Federal Judge McPherson, nor do we claim any soldiers in the war of 1812. But we may properly count on volunteers in the Mexican war. who settled here after it. One was Capt. N. A. Holson, of Cedar township, who enlisted in March, '47, in Company D. Fourth Ohio Infantry, when sixteen years old, and was mustered out in '48, and became captain of Company E, Tenth Iowa, in the Civil war.
Thomas C. Scott, of Iowa township, was another. He went out with the First Louisiana Battalion, Company B.
Elias Leynard. of Riverside, was a third. He enlisted in the third New York, and served two years, and was wounded in the fights around Mexico City, but he got a land warrant in compensation for his services, for one hun- dred and sixty acres, as did Mr. Scott.
Daniel Mickey, of Oregon township, served fourteen months, and located near Brighton his one hundred and sixty acres.
Phillip Haynes, of Lime Creek, was another Mexican war soldier. Per- haps there are others.
Wm. Corbin came here from Kentucky in '41, locating four miles north- east of Washington. He served in the Black Hawk war in 1832.
But what would one think of this true statement? This county in 1860 had but fourteen thousand two hundred and thirty-five population, but under Lincoln's calls of 1861-2, she furnished one thousand two hundred and forty men, a surplus of five hundred and fifty-four. So says a report of the adju- tant general and acting quartermaster general. Her quota was six hundred and eighty-six men. Think of a township like Lime Creek giving one hun- dred and thirty-eight men, sifted through twenty Iowa regiments and the First Connecticut Cavalry and Bird's Sharpshooters.
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