USA > Indiana > Public men of Indiana : a political history, 1890-1920, v. 2 > Part 6
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The election of 1898 was a one-sided affair. The Republican State ticket won by majorities of about twenty thousand. Union B. Hunt was elected secretary of state; William H. Hart, auditor of state; Leopold Levy, treasurer of state; William L. Taylor, attorney general; Robert A. Brown, clerk of the Supreme Court. Alexander Dowling, John V. Hadley and Francis E. Baker were elected supreme judges. For judges of the Appellate Court the following were elected: Woodfin D. Robinson, William J. Henley, James B. Black. Daniel W. Comstock and Ulric Z. Wiley. The congressional delegation was composed of nine Re- publicans and four Democrats. The Republicans were James A. Hemenway, George W. Faris, James E. Watson, Jesse Overstreet, George W. Cromer, Charles B. Landis, Edgar D. Crumpacker. George W. Steele and Abraham L. Brick. The Democrats were Robert W. Miers, Wm. T. Zenor, Francis M. Griffith and James M. Robinson. The same State ticket (other than judges) and men- bers of Congress were elected in 1900, and Winfield T. Durbin was elected governor, defeating John
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W. Kern. Newton W. Gilbert was elected lieu- tenant governor, defeating Capt. John C. Lawler, and Charles F. Remy, Republican, was elected re- porter of the Supreme Court.
The Republican majorities in 1902 and 1904 were very great, especially in 1904, when the plurality of J. Frank Hanley over John W. Kern for gov- ernor was about 85,000, and greater than that for other candidates on the Republican State ticket. Daniel E. Storms was elected secretary of state; Hugh Th. Miller, lieutenant governor; Oscar H. Montgomery, John V. Hadley and David A. Myers were elected judges of the Supreme Court; David E. Sherrick, auditor of state; Nathaniel U. Hill, treasurer of state; Charles W. Miller, attorney general; George W. Self, reporter of the Supreme Court; Fassett A. Cotton, State superintendent of public instruction; and J. H. Stubbs for State statistician.
The Republicans carried eleven of the thirteen congressional districts, electing James A. Hemen- way, John C. Cheney, Elias S. Holliday, James E. Watson, Jesse Overstreet, George W. Cromer, Charles B. Landis, Edgar D. Crumpacker, Fred- erick Landis, Newton W. Gilbert and Abraham L. Brick. The Democrats elected were William T. Zenor and Lincoln Dixon.
During the time that the Republicans were en- joying the great prosperity and excesses in vic- tories and when it seemed that their domination of the State politically would be perpetual, they organized a great social and political club called
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the Columbia Club, composed exclusively of Re- publicans, and constructed a magnificent and palatial home for it on the Circle in Indianapolis, where with its marble steps and granite walls it stands as a splendid ornament of the city. It has at all times been considered as a home for Repub -. licans of both the city and State, but the lines of distinction between the "Swallow-tails" of the city and the "Ragged Reubens" from the rural districts are sometimes observable, unless the latter happen to be members of the Indiana legislature. It was a favorite resort for legislative lobbyists who exercised careful supervision of all proposed State legislation, and it has seemed that it was quite as important that meritorious measures should pass the Columbia Club as the house or senate, especially if they were in any sense "revenue measures."
One of the important measures introduced in the State senate at the session of 1903 and that duly passed the Columbia Club was what was known as the "Joss bill," sponsored by Senator Joss, of Indianapolis, that provided for a system of railroad combinations in the State.
While it was pending for final consideration and passage, Frank Burke, a prominent Democratic lawyer of Indianapolis, who had been United States District Attorney during the Cleveland adminis- tration, addressed a letter, that became public, to each of the few Democratie members of the legisla- ture, explaining what a consolidation of the rail- roads meant to the people of the State, and urged them to vote against it, which they did; but it passed
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by a strict party vote, whereupon the railroad attor- neys and the lobbyists that had put it over resorted immediately to the Columbia Club to feast at a banquet and jollification that had been arranged for in anticipation of the joyful event. While they were greatly enjoying the courses between sherry and champagne and gleefully felicitating each other, they were suddenly shocked by information that Governor Durbin had just vetoed their pet measure. This was the last of the proposed con- solidation of railroads in Indiana. Governor Dur- bin was very watchful of legislation and could not be cajoled or influenced by the Columbia Club or any other group of politicians into giving his assent to measures that were harmful to the public in- terests, and perhaps in this instance also considered the embarrassing position that the Republican party would find itself in during the campaign in the year following with this kind of legislation fac- ing it.
Winfield Taylor Durbin, elected governor in the year 1900, was born at Lawrenceburg in Dearborn County, but spent his youthful days in Washington County and his manhood days, while not serving his country as a soldier, in Madison County. He was the youngest of seven brothers who served as Union soldiers in the Civil War, first joining the 16th Indiana Volunteer Infantry in which he served for a time and participated in the battle of Arkansas Post; next in the 139th Indiana Volunteer In- fantry. Returning to civil life he was engaged in the banking business at Anderson until the war
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with Spain was declared in 1898, when he again enlisted as a soldier and became colonel of the 161st Indiana Regiment which became part of the Seventh Army Corps. His administration of the affairs of the State as chief executive was highly creditable and proved that he had not only capacity but courage in the performance of his duties. Among others of his acts showing his independence was his veto of the consolidated railroad act passed by the legislature in the interests of railroad com- binations, above mentioned. His neighbors of Anderson, without regard to party, were justly proud of him and of his record, both as a citizen and an executive. . While he was a pronounced Republican partisan, that fact did not influence his executive action and he was tolerant of the political opinions of others, though differing with them.
David E. Sherrick, a Hamilton County school teacher of Quaker descent, was elected auditor of state in 1904 and took his office at the same time that Governor Hanley did. The glitter and glare of the city and the social attractions of the Columbia Club had their effect in soon diverting the atten- tion of this innocent young man from his duties of state auditor to matters much more to his liking. He was charged by Governor Hanley with neglect of his official duties, with gambling with public funds and other wrongs, and Hanley resolved him- self into a court of impeachment to hear the charges he had preferred, with the result that Sherrick was not only expelled from his office but was adjudged
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guilty of a crime and sentenced to a term in the State prison, where he remained for a few months until the Supreme Court could reach his case on appeal, when that court held that the indictment upon which he was convicted was insufficient in law, and he was released, but made no claim to be restored to his office. While there was but little sympathy for Sherrick and no excuses for his con- duct, there was much criticism of the governor be- cause of the extreme and arbitrary measures that he employed in this matter.
Before his election as governor, Hanley had rep- resented the Ninth Indiana District in Congress, and became so very popular that his choice for governor was made without being seriously con- tested by Republicans, but his inauguration was soon followed by the appearance of factional war- fare in his party and an open disapproval of his extreme views in dealing with the liquor dealers of the State who he insisted should be put out of busi- ness by quick prohibition, and to that end he called a special session of the legislature in 1908 and de- manded that it pass a prohibition act, which so dis- rupted his party that most of its State ticket was defeated at the ensuing election.
The Democrats had made some gains in 1906 to offset their great losses in 1904, but still the ma- jority against them on the State ticket was about 30,000. Fred A. Sims was elected secretary of state; John C. Billhymer, auditor of state; Oscar Hadley, treasurer of state; James Bingham, attor- ney general; Edward V. Fitzpatrick, clerk of the
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Supreme Court; Fassett A. Cotton, state superin- tendent of public instruction; Joseph N. Stubbs, state statistician; Willis S. Blatchley, state geolo- gist; James H. Jordan and Leander J. Monks were re-elected Supreme Court judges, and for Appellate Court judges Cassius C. Hadley, Ward H. Watson, Daniel W. Comstock, Joseph M. Rabb and Frank S. Roby were elected. The congres- sional delegation stood nine Republicans, four Democrats. The Republicans elected were John H. Foster, John C. Chaney, Elias S. Holliday, James E. Watson, Jesse Overstreet, Charles B. Landis, Edgar D. Crumpacker, Clarence C. Gil- hams and Abraham L. Brick. The Democrats elected were William E. Cox, Lincoln Dixon, John A. M. Adair and George W. Rauch.
The Democrats were quick to seize upon the advantages to them that resulted from the acts of Governor Hanley. They had become tired of vot- ing for Bryan for president, and seeing no hope of carrying the State for him in 1908 over Taft, they concentrated their efforts on a State ticket and so confident were they of electing it that there were spirited contests for the nominations to be made. Six candidates were proposed for governor, but the contest narrowed down to three, Samuel M. Ralston, L. E. Slack and Thomas R. Marshall, and the latter won on the fifth ballot and defeated James E. Watson, the Republican nominee, by about 15,000 plurality, while Taft for President defeated Bryan by about 10,000.
Frank J. Hall, Democrat, was elected lieutenant
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governor and Robert J. Aley, a Democrat and learned educator, was elected state superintendent of public instruction. The Democrats had a ma- jority on joint ballot in the legislature and at the session in 1909 elected Benjamin F. Shively United States senator. The congressional delegation stood eleven Democrats and two Republicans. The Re- publicans elected on the State ticket were John C. Billhymer, auditor of state; Oscar Hadley, treasurer of state; Fred A. Sims, secretary of state; James Bingham, attorney general; George W. Self, reporter of the Supreme Court; Quincy A. Myers, judge of the Supreme Court; and David A. Myers, judge of the Appellate Court.
The Democratic congressmen were John W. Boehme, William A. Collup, William E. Cox, Lin- coln Dixon, Ralph W. Moss, Charles A. Korbly, John A. M. Adair, Martin A. Morrison, George W. Rauch, Cyrus Cline, Henry A. Barnhart.
The Republicans were William O. Barnard and Edgar D. Crumpacker.
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CHAPTER XIV
E ARLY in the year 1900 a bloody political con- test over the election of a governor in Ken- tucky occurred. William Goebel was declared by the legislature to have been elected and a riot occurred when he attempted to enter the office that resulted in his being mortally wounded when Gov- ernor Taylor, declaring that an insurrection existed, called out the State militia in an effort to preserve order. In a grand jury investigation that followed indictments for Goebel's murder were returned against a number of Republican politicians, includ- ing one charging Governor Taylor as an accessory, who, fearing his arrest and probable conviction by a Kentucky court, took refuge in Indiana where a requisition for his return would probably not be granted by the Republican governor then in office or others that might succeed him. It is not certain that the Kentucky authorities asked for a requisi- tion, but Governor Taylor became a permanent resident of Indiana, having nothing to fear except the possibility of being kidnapped or the election of a Democratic governor in Indiana, and this did not occur until 1908, and Governor Marshall was saved any embarrassment in the matter of any application for a requisition by the fact that a Republican governor elected in Kentucky granted
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pardons to all the alleged offenders, including one who was serving a life term and went from his cell to a seat in Congress to which he had been elected.
Thomas R. Marshall was the first man in the State to go direct and without any intermediate steps from private station to that of governor and was then twice elected vice-president of the United States. He is now in the minds of many political forecasters the most available Democrat to revive the principles of Jefferson in the next presidential contest.
His twelve years' experience in presiding over the United States Senate only matured his quick and vigorous growth that began when he was gov- ernor.
His association with the great senators and his observation of the defects and divisions in their views in respect to the relations of this great country to other nations of the world would greatly aid him in the formation of a foreign policy that would re- move the barriers to its commerce and prosperity, vouchsafe the world's democracy and insure the permanent peace for which its brave legions fought.
If his party may call in its elders and administer a new baptism of faith to its followers the grand old Hoosier State democracy may again present one of its able citizens for President.
Samuel M. Ralston, born in Tuscarawas County, Ohio, in 1857, was taken by his parents to Owen County, Indiana, in 1865. His father was a coal miner when not engaged in farming. Samuel M.
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worked on a farm, as farmer boys usually do, until he was nineteen years of age, when he engaged in school teaching, having acquired sufficient educa- tion in the common schools of Indiana to entitle him to a teacher's license, and having also attended Valparaiso College for one term.
In 1884 he graduated from the Central Normal College at Danville, Indiana, and then took up the study of law for two years, in the law office of Robinson and Fowler at Spencer in Owen County. His preceptors, John C. Robinson and Inman H. Fowler, were able lawyers and prominent in public life, the former serving long as a circuit judge and the latter in the State senate. In 1886 he located at Lebanon in Boone County and probably had the usual experience of the beginner in law practice of waiting for clients, who were not long in dis- covering his qualifications to serve them. The county of Boone was then progressing in its development from one of heavy forests and large areas of swamps to one of the best agricultural counties in the State, and was not lacking in liti- gants over the location of and assessments to pay the cost of construction of drains and highways, and in other respects, and Samuel got his full share of them. The county was named in honor of the great patriot and pioncer hunter of Kentucky and had as one of its foremost citizens and ablest lawyers one of his lineal descendants, Andrew J. Boone, whose great industry and devotion to his profession was only equaled by his devotion to the develop- ment of his county. He served with conspicuous
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ability as a State senator and in other public posi- tions.
The county was very close politically, about evenly divided between Democratic and Republi- can voters, and Ralston did not require much per- suasion to ally himself with the Democrats and soon became not only a leading lawyer but a leading Democrat both in his county and State.
In 1898 he was nominated for secretary of state and defeated by Union B. Hunt at the election, and was a candidate for the nomination for governor in 1908 but was defeated by the "little giant," Thomas R. Marshall, and four years later, 1912, was nominated by acclamation and elected by about one hundred thousand plurality over Albert J. Beveridge, the Progressive candidate.
In 1916 he presided over the Democratic State convention and sounded the party's "keynote" for the campaign, in which he gave a definition of Democratic conservatism and progressivism in con- trast with the attitudes of the Republican and Pro- gressive parties on these subjects. He said: "A few years ago the Republican party and the Pro- gressive party sought to outdo each other in extreme platform declarations-which they both labeled Progressivism. They threw conservatism to the wind and entered upon a campaign of rad- ical and doubtful declamation. Their thundering throughout the State shook the very foundations of free government, and the people stood aghast at the assaults these parties were making upon the faith of the fathers. But the Democratic party
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was true to the traditions of the republic and the people supported it. My word for it there was not a sane and conservative measure found in each of the platforms of these that has not since been enacted into law by the Democratic party, and in addition many other helpful laws have been passed by our party. Our party is conservatively progres- sive and progressively conservative. It knows enough about government to know that the Amer- ican people are opposed to extremes and to emo- tionalism in governmental enactments and policies, and for this reason it opposes with equal earnest- ness the platform that seeks to overthrow the well settled principles of our government and the plat- form that abounds in colorless platitudes."
On the occasion of his nomination for governor in 1912 he said, among other things: "I want no man to support me in my candidacy under the im- pression that when I am governor I will stand for loose morals or non-enforcement of the law. When I become governor I will take an oath to support and enforce the laws and that obligation I shall keep." In view of the fact that at the time this is written he is often mentioned by his friends as an available candidate for the presidency, these quotations are deemed appropriate as definitions of his conservatism and that of his party, and at the same time may be a fair index of his probable stand on the subject of enforcement of the Eighteenth Amendment to the Federal Constitution in case he should become a presidential nominee or executive.
His administration of the affairs of the State
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while governor has been highly praised by his party friends and not unfavorably commented upon by his political opponents, and but for the constitu- tional provision that rendered him ineligible for a second term he would no doubt have again been the nominee of his party.
John A. M. Adair was the Democratic nominee for governor in 1916 and defeated by James P. Goodrich. Adair had been elected to Congress for a number of terms from a district that was normally Republican.
An incident of the administration of Governor Marshall was that of a proposed new constitution that he was in favor of.
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CHAPTER XV
T 1 people of the Indiana territory were en- abled, under an Act of Congress of April 19, 1816, to form a constitution and State govern- ment, and upon doing so their State was admitted into the Federal Union. Preliminary to the form- ing of the constitution it was provided by the Act of Congress that the qualified voters of the territory should choose representatives to form a convention to meet on the first Monday in June, 1816, and first determine whether it was expedient at that time to form a constitution and State government and if it was determined to be expedient that then the representatives so chosen should form the con- stitution. These representatives consisted of but forty-three citizens of the territory. Their work was seemingly not submitted to the voters of the territory for ratification, but the constitution that they adopted made provisions whereby the question of whether a constitutional convention should be called should be submitted to the people of the State to be voted upon every twelfth year there- after. On three separate occasions thereafter the people were called upon to vote on the question, and on each the proposition failed to receive a majority of the votes. Without waiting for an- other twelve year period to end, but independent
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of that provision in the first constitution, the legis- lature of 1849 made provision for a call.
The question of calling the convention was dis- cussed for some time before the call was made and the proposition met with considerable opposition, but the call was authorized and at the election held a majority of the voters authorized the legislature to provide for the election of 150 delegates to com- pose the convention to be chosen from the same dis- tricts as the members of the house and senate were chosen from.
The election of delegates was held in August, 1850. The members elected met and organized on October 7, 1850, and continued in session until February 10, 1851, when its work was completed and submitted to the people for ratification or re- jection, along with an address explaining its pro- visions that was prepared by Robert Dale Owen, a prominent member. The people of the State ratified the instrument by a majority of only 9,469 votes and it went into effect on November 1, 1851. The small county of Starke enjoys the distinction of having cast a unanimous vote for its adoption. In all the other counties of the State the people were divided in opinion as shown by their votes.
Three elections by the people were deemed neces- sary to give the State this new constitution-one authorizing the convention to be called, one for the election of delegates to it, and the third to vote upon the question of ratification of the work of the dele- gates. A number of proposed amendments to it have from time to time been submitted to the peo-
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ple of the State, but in most instances failed of adoption. About the only important ones adopted was one in 1881 changing the time of holding State elections from October to November, and one limit- ing the amounts of indebtedness that municipal cor- porations may incur, and its design has failed in some respects because of judicial constructions as to what constitutes municipal indebtedness.
The satisfaction of the people of the State with this constitution that was framed by men whose names have been familiar in all the subsequent his- tory of the State has been manifested by their re- peated refusals to adopt amendments to it.
The only time that any serious proposition to set it aside and substitute a new one was made dur- ing the administration of Governor Thomas R. Marshall.
The general assembly at its regular session held in 1911 drafted and incorporated in a bill what was therein termed a proposed constitution which was a copy of the existing constitution, with twenty- three amendments or changes of its provisions, and it provided that if it should be adopted it should take effect on January 13, 1913.
There was no pretense of complying with or pro- ceeding under provisions of the present constitution for amendments of it.
The bill duly passed both branches of the legislature with the usual formalities of ordinary legislation, was approved by the governor March 4, 1911, and published with the acts of the session. It was therein provided that the proposed organic
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instrument should be submitted to all the legal voters of the State at the general election regularly to be held pursuant to law in November, 1912, and to that end it was provided that the State Board of Election Commissioners should prepare ballots as provided by law, and that all election officers and other officials required by law to perform any duties with reference to general elections should perform like duties with reference to the submission of the so-called proposed new constitution.
A general discussion of the needs of a new con- stitution, and of the right of the legislature to sub- mit its own draft of one to the people without their consent followed in the newspapers and among the people of the State. And about the time that notices of the election were to be given a test suit was brought by John T. Dye, a prominent lawyer and citizen of the State, who averred in his com- plaint that he was a taxpayer, citizen and eleetor of the State and as such, and also on behalf of and for the benefit of all other citizens and electors of the State, he asked the court to enjoin the Secre- tary of State and the State Board of Election Commissioners from the performance of ther duties as outlined in the act on the ground that the general assembly was without power thus to prepare and submit to the people the proposed fundamental law, whether considered as an entire new constitu- tion or an amendment.
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