USA > Kentucky > The history of Kentucky, from its earliest discovery and settlement, to the present date, V. 2 > Part 42
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774
HISTORY OF KENTUCKY.
vention was one complimentary to Benjamin H. Bristow, a distinguished citizen and native of Kentucky, who had been appointed and was then acting secretary of the treasury in the cabinet of President Grant. Curtis F. Burnam, of Richmond, was appointed first assistant secretary.
In the message of Governor McCreary, in December following his inaugural, he made his financial summary showing the entire bonded debt of the State to be only $184,394, all having been redeemed but these. To meet the outstanding indebtedness, the State held $145,559 in the sinking fund, government bonds valued at $246,000, and stocks of the bank ot Louisville, the Louisville & Frankfort Railroad Company, and turnpike stocks, together amounting to $350,032, besides a balance in the treasury. The State also owned two hundred and sixty shares of the preferred stock of the Louisville, Cincinnati & Lexington railroad, and 2, 178 common shares in the Frankfort & Lexington railroad. There remained unpaid of the war claim against the United States, $248,863. At the beginning of the fiscal year, October 11, 1874, there was a surplus in the treasury of $241,741. The receipts of the year were $1, 378,788, and the expenditures, $1,258,925, leaving a balance in the treasury of $361,604. Thus it will be seen that in any year since the close of the war the State has been in a financial condition, with assets abundant to pay off her entire indebted. ness, and hold a handsome balance in the treasury; to abolish the sinking- fund machinery, and in future to have all revenues and receipts directed to the payment of the current expenses, a consummation which will await the tardy processes by which the people of the Commonwealth favored them- selves with a new and modern State constitution.
During this year. 1875, the Appel- late Court finally confirmed the sale of the State's large interest in certain turnpike stocks to Baldwin & Co., which was made under an act of the Legislature in 1871, empowering the sinking fund commissioners to so sell and convey. The bids of Baldwin & Co. had been accepted, and other GOVERNOR LUKE P. BLACKBURN. terms complied with by them, but the contract had not been signed nor bond executed. The commissioners, finding the sale too great a sacrifice, refused to complete the contract ; hence, the suit, and the result.
The Legislature of 1875-76 established a bureau of agriculture, horti- culture, and statistics, providing for a commissioner, "whose duty it shall
775
THE PRESIDENTIAL ELECTION OF 1876.
be to gather information and statistics upon agriculture, horticulture, and other industrial interests, and to assist and encourage the formation of asso- ciations to promote the same, and to make annual reports thereon." This bureau is yet sustained, and has been the agency of much good in the State. Provision was made at the same session for the continu- ance of the geological survey, and also for the propagation and protection of food-fishes in the waters of Kentucky.
At this session James B. Beck was elected United States senator, to serve six years from the 4th of March, 1877; and at the session in January, 1878, John S. Will- iams waselected United States senator, to serve six years from the 4th of March, 1879. In November, 1876, the rep- resentatives-elect to the suc- ceeding Congress were Oscar Turner, James A. Mckenzie, & John W. Caldwell, J. Proctor Knott, Albert S. Willis, John HON. WALTER EVANS. G. Carlisle, J. C. S. Blackburn, Philip B. Thompson, Jr., George M. Adams, and Elijah C. Phister.
In 1876, the election for president and vice-president came off, followed by results the most extraordinary and revolutionary that ever attended a similar event in the history of this country. Tilden and Hendricks were the candidates of the Democratic party ; Hayes and Wheeler, of the Repub- lican ; Cooper and Carey, of the Greenback or National ; and Green Clay Smith and Stewart, of the Prohibition party. Even by the count of the celebrated returning-board expedient, Tilden's popular majority was 157,394. Few unprejudiced minds of any party questioned that his majority was as decided in the electoral college. Yet the Republican party in power con- trolled the vast machinery of the Federal Government, with its bold and able leaders, by the instrumentalities of the carpet-bag agencies in the Southern States, and by the menace of the military forces, determined upon the reversion of the returns made as expressed at the polls, and the control of national affairs for the next four years. The history of the methods and proceedings by which Hayes and Wheeler were counted in as president and vice-president we can not give here. It became apparent to the en- thralled people of the South that Tilden and his advisers would submi:
.
776
HISTORY OF KENTUCKY.
without resistance to this remarkable expedient to retain administrative power. The ablest and most sagacious of the Democratic statesmen in the Southern States, held in subjection by the carpet-baggers, seeing that the fruits of the Democratic victory they had so gallantly helped to win were about to be lost, made a virtue of necessity. They prudently sought con- cessions from the president and his advisers. Their aim and desire were to induce the incoming administration of Hayes to remove the military forces from the subjugated States that the people might drive out the carpet-bag element and their rule of corruption, and restore home government to the citizens. After the inauguration of President Hayes, he generously complied in the case of South Carolina, March 22, 1877, and in other States soon after. Thus ended these odious and corrupt usurpations, after a dynasty of twelve years of fraud and spoliation upon a fettered, helpless, and im- poverished people.
Recognizing his superior fitness, President Hayes appointed General John M. Harlan, of Kentucky, a judge of the Supreme Court of the United States, which office he yet fills.
On the expiration of the appellate term of Chief-Justice William Lind- say, in September, 1878, Judge William S. Pryor, having the shortest term, became chief-justice of the State, and Judge Thomas H. Hines succeeded the former upon the appellate bench for the next eight years. In 1881, Joseph H. Lewis was elected to fill the vacancy of M. J. Cofer, deceased.
In the State election for 1879, the Democratic ticket was successful by majorities approximating forty-four thousand over the Republican. The National party ticket polled over eighteen thousand votes. Luke P. Black- burn, for governor, was elected over Walter Evans, Republican, and C. W. Cook, National ; for lieutenant-governor, James E. Cantrill, over O. S. Dem- ing and D. B. Lewis ; for attorney-general, P. W. Hardin, over A. H. Clark and I. H. Trabue; for auditor, Fayette Hewitt, over J. Williamson and Henry Potter ; for treasurer, James W. Tate, over R. P. Stoll and W. T. Hardin ; for superintendent of public instruction, J. D. Pickett, over Mc- Intire and K. C. McBeath ; and for register, Ralph Sheldon, over J. H. Wilson and Gano Henry.
Governor Blackburn's message embodied some important recommenda- tions, most of which were acted on by the Legislature. Among these were measures for the increase of the revenues to meet the annoying deficits which had repeatedly occurred in the annual exhibits for fifteen years past, or longer ; the substitution of the warden system for the lessee plan, and other changes in the penitentiary management; the creation of a commis- sion for the regulation of railroads, and the transfer of the State's improve- ments in the Kentucky river to the general government. The overcrowded condition of the penitentiary, productive of much suffering and sickness. and unusually fatal, caused Governor Blackburn to exercise the power of pardoning with a liberal hand, until the nine hundred and sixty nine con-
777
THE ASSASSINATION OF PRESIDENT GARFIELD.
victs were reduced to a number that could be better accommodated by the seven hundred and eighty cells of the prison.
In the presidential election of 1880, the Hancock and English electors, Democratic, received in Kentucky 148, 715 votes, against 106,306 for the electors for Garfield and Arthur, and 11,499 for Weaver, National. Garfield and Arthur were, however, elected president and vice-president, and in- augurated on the 4th of March, 1881. The tragic wounding of the president in July after, by a pistol-shot from the hand of the assassin Guiteau, and his protracted suffering and final death, together with the trial, convic- tion, and execution of the assassin, are matters yet fresh in the memories of the people.
In the session of 1881-82, an act was passed by the General Assembly creating the Superior Court, to be held in Frankfort, for the relief of the GOVERNOR J. PROCTOR KNOTT, Appellate Court, the docket of which was overcrowded hopelessly with delayed business. It was to be composed of three judges from three dis- tricts embracing the entire State, and to have a defined and limited jurisdic- tion over the less important cases before the Court of Appeals. In the First district, J. H. Bowden was elected a judge of this court; in the Sec- ond, A. E. Richards; and in the Third, Richard Reid. This court has proved efficient, and has rendered most valuable and indispensable services toward relieving the docket of the accumulated excess of business, and the people of the long waiting for the ends of justice. Though the original law provided for a term of four years, the Legislature of 1885-86 re-enacted the law for a continuance of four years longer.
In the eastern portion of the State, mainly, the peace and good order of the Commonwealth have been seriously disturbed by turbulent and vio- lent factions and parties from time to time since the termination of the war, and to an extent that required the calling out of the State troops to aid the civil authorities in the enforcement of the law.
The most notable and tragic instance of this occurred at Ashland, in Boyd county, in 1882. A triple murder, with incendiarism, of a character to excite the profoundest horror and indignation in the public mind, was per- petrated in the near vicinity. Suspicion fell upon Neal, Craft, and Ellis, as the guilty persons, and threats and attempts were made to lynch the parties by the enraged populace. Judge George N. Brown sat in that judicial dis- trict at the time, and did all in his power to administer the law. Finding
778
HISTORY OF KENTUCKY.
this impossible, on requisition, Governor Blackburn dispatched several com- panies of the State troops, under command of Major John Allen, to the scene of riot, to protect the court and prisoners during a hearing for a change of venue. The troops, with the prisoners in charge, left on a steamer going down the Ohio. When opposite Ashland, the steamer was fired into by the mob, when the troops returned the fire, killing over twenty of the citizens, unhappily among them several women and children. The final result was that all three were found guilty at their trials, Ellis taken out by the mob and put to death, and Neal and Craft executed by the sheriff. The firmness and fairness of Judge Brown in this affair were creditable to the bench and to himself.
In the election for representatives in the Forty-eighth Congress, of Dem- ocrats there were elected: Oscar Turner, in the First district; James F. Clay, in the Second; J. G. Halsell, in the Third; T. A. Robertson, in the Fourth; Albert S. Willis, in the Fifth; John G. Carlisle, in the Sixth; J. C. S. Blackburn, in the Seventh; P. B. Thompson, in the Eighth ; and Frank Wolford, in the Eleventh. Of Republicans: W. W. Culbertson, in the Ninth; and John D. White, in the Tenth.
In the Third district, Joseph H. Lewis was regularly elected to succeed himself upon the appellate bench, for the term of eight years.
In the State election in 1883, the Democratic ticket was successful by the usual majorities, approximating forty-five thousand votes. For governor, Thomas Z. Morrow was defeated by J. Proctor Knott; for lieutenant-governor, Speed S. Fry, by J. R. Hindman ; for attorney-general, L. C. Garrigus, by P. W. Hardin; for auditor, I .. R. Hawthorne, by Fayette Hewitt ; for treasurer, Edwin Farley, by James W. Tate; for superintendent of public instruction, J. P. Pinkerton, by J. D. Pickett ; for register, J. W. Asbury, by J. G. Cecil. These were the State officers installed for the term, with the additions of James A. Mckenzie, secretary of state ; H. M. McCarty, assistant secretary ; John Davis, commissioner of agriculture; L. C. Norman, insurance com- missioner ; and John R. Procter, State geologist. On the appellate bench were Chief-Justice Thomas F. Hargis, Thomas H. Hines, William S. Pryor, and Joseph H. Lewis. In the year 1884, Judge Hargis' term having ex- pired, William H. Holt was elected from the Fourth district to succeed him. J. C. S. Blackburn was early in this year elected United States senator for six years, from March 4, 1885.
In the first message of Governor Knott is the statement that, "Notwith- standing the gratifying evidences of the extraordinary popular prosperity, there has been but little change, and certainly no improvement, in the con- dition of our State finances during the two years since the meeting of the last General Assembly." In the exhibit made, there was in the treasury at the close of the fiscal year, June 30, 1882, a balance of $48,064, and receipts to June 30, 1883, $1, 622.328. Total disbursements, $1.661,768 ; leaving a balance of $8,624. To meet previous accumulated deficits, the treasury
779
A STATE EDUCATIONAL CONVENTION.
had borrowed $500.000 ; deduct the balance shown, and the actual deficit June 30, 1883, was $491,375.
The governor unquestionably touched the main and only problem of this inexcusable condition of State revenues and finances, in the comment, that " the difficulty is to be found in our grossly defective system of assessment, rendered still more inefficient by the negligent and unsatisfactory manner in which it is administered. The last assessment made the taxable property of the State $374,500,000. Our real property alone is worth double that sum." The auditor has repeatedly set forth the evils in his reports, and strenuously urged reform, on the basis of the draft of a bill carefully prepared through him, and on which the favorable action of the Legislature of 1885-86 was asked. If these estimates of our best informed authorities be not over- drawn, and we have no reason to believe they are, an equitable and full assessment of the property of the State would justify a reduction of the State tax for current expenses to twenty cents, while the school tax would be made to increase the school fund over fifty per cent .; to extend the school term to six months, and to pay the teachers over thirty per cent. more on monthly wages.
On April 5. 1883, a great State educational convention met at Frankfort, for the purpose of considering the situation, and devising and organizing means for the final reform of the school system. A committee was named, reported defects and needed amendments to an adjourned meeting, called to be held at Louisville, on the 20th of September. The report recom- mended the most liberal reforms which were practical for adoption and use; and this great prompting movement among the friends of education in the Commonwealth was responded to by the succeeding General Assem- bly, in the enactment of a law adapted in the main to the general wants of the common schools, a great improvement on any which had existed heretofore.
For the third time, the Legislature of 1883-84 passed an act providing for taking the sense of the people, as to the calling of a convention to frame a new Constitution for the Commonwealth, at the ensuing August election. The proposition was again defeated by the indifference of the people, and a general neglect to vote. Another act at this session provided for the con- struction of a new penitentiary at Eddyville, Lyon county, for the accom- modation of the increasing and overflowing number of convicts, and to be occupied by an exclusive class of prisoners, toward whom the discipline aims to be reformatory.
The temperance and reform sentiment growing steadily in volume and activity throughout the State, acts have been passed during the sessions of past years and to 1885-86 granting towns, districts, and counties local option laws, or the right to prohibit the manufacture of or traffic in intoxicating beverages within the limits of such districts, on a ratification by a popular vote of the citizens of the same. Under this legislation, quite a number of
785
HISTORY OF KENTUCKY.
counties, towns, and districts of the State have adopted stringent measures of prohibition, and which are yet in force. The sentiment for temperance reform, though greatly retarded by the indiscreet zeal of many advocates, is every year more strongly demanding the purgation of the body politic and social of the great evils of the injurious traffic and habit. Intemperance is held to be a matter of legislative control.
Among the laws most significant of the growth of sentiment toward the determined eradication of the most flagrant forms of vice from society is one recently enacted making gambling a felony to both the gamester and the keeper of the gambling-house, or to any one in the employ of the latter. With such laws upon our statute books, together with the ample and splendid asylums for the insane, the feeble-minded, the deaf and dumb, the blind, and our improved and liberal school law, the Commonwealth of Kentucky may proudly be ranked with the governments most advanced in all that rep- resents the benevolence and humanity of modern civilization.
In 1884, a noted presidential campaign of our historic period came off. The nominees of the Democratic national convention were Grover Cleve- land for president and Thomas A. Hendricks for vice-president; of the Republican, James G. Blaine and John A. Logan; of the Greenback-Anti- Monopoly, Benjamin F. Butler and A. M. West; of the Prohibition, John P. St. John and William Daniel. The popular vote in Kentucky was : For the Democratic ticket, 152,961 ; Republican, 118, 122; Greenback, 1,693; Prohibition, 3, 139. In the United States it was: For the Democratic, 4,911,017 ; Republican, 4, 848,334; Greenback, 133,825 ; Prohibition, 151,- 809. The electoral vote for Cleveland and Hendricks summed up two hundred and nine, against one hundred and eighty-two for Blaine and Logan and none for the other tickets.
On the 4th of March, 1885, Grover Cleveland and Thomas A. Hendricks were installed president and vice-president of the United States, inaugurating the first Democratic administration in power since the retirement of James Buchanan and John C. Breckinridge and the accession of Lincoln and Hamlin, on the 4th of March, 1861-a period of twenty-four years of Republican administration.
Of the citizens appointed to important offices, Federal and State, by President Cleveland, and accepting service, were Judge Milton J. Durham, first comptroller of the treasury at Washington; Charles D. Jacob, minister to the United States of Colombia ; Boyd Winchester, minister to Switzer- land ; E. A. Buck, minister to Peru; Attilla Cox, Hunter Wood, James F. Robinson, and Thomas S. Bronston, collectors of internal revenue ; J. Cripps Wickliffe, United States attorney for the district of Kentucky, and Thomas C. Bell, assistant attorney ; John T. Gathright, receiver of customs: Andrew Jackson Gross, United States marshal for Kentucky; Don Carlos Buell, pension agent ; Thomas H. Taylor, superintendent of the canal, and Judge C. W. West, governor of Utah.
781
AUDITOR'S REPORT OF 1885.
Vice-President Hendricks suddenly dying in office, on the 25th of November, 1885, less than nine months after his inauguration, John Sher- man, Republican, was elected by the United States Senate to preside over that body in his stead, on its assembling in December.
The auditor for the period 1883-85 sets forth very clearly the existence of certain defects in our laws for the assessment and collection of revenues, and suggests very obvious and practical remedies in the same report, and also in the draft of an improved revenue bill, which was carefully prepared under his direction and submitted to the legislative session of 1885-86 as the basis for a new law. In this last report, the financial statement of the auditor shows that June 30, 1885, there was a balance in the treasury of $122,311, which, adding total receipts for the year. $3, 323, - 055, makes the sum of $3,445,367 in the treasury. Disbursements for the same year to June 30, 1885, were $2,919,779, leaving a balance of $525,- 587. This balance was credited : To the general expense fund, $35, 812 ; to reserve to meet bank loan, $200,000; to the sinking fund, $180,896 ; to the school fund, $108, 879. But of the total receipts, $512, 500 was derived from the sale of bonds, as ordered, leaving only $2, 810,555 actual receipts
from revenue. Of the expenditures, $300,000 was paid to banks, making the actual expenditures for the government $2,619,779. At the same date, June 30, 1885, there were of unpaid claims $146,000, and of unpaid balances upon appropriations made by the previous Legislature $182,- 997. So, instead of a net balance of $35,812, as above, there was an actual deficit of $293, 185. The auditor but reiterates that these ever- recurring deficits have their causes in the shrinkage of values under defect- ive revenue laws and their still more defective execution in the assessment of property.
From the statistics of the census of 18So, some interesting conclusions are reached, which throw much light upon the growth of population and wealth. When we consider the very large emigration from Kentucky of its native-born people and the steady natural increase of her population, with the very small comparative additions from other States and foreign countries, we note that the fecundity of the Kentuckians is most remarkable, and, perhaps, not surpassed by any other community in the world. Of 1, 648,690 population, 1,402,612 are native born, 186,561 are immigrants from other States, and 59,517 from foreign countries, or 245,078 immigrants in all. The total number of persons born in Kentucky, and resident beyond the State, as shown by the census of 18So, amounted to about 400,000. This statement, of course, includes the colored race. The following figures will show the steady and healthy increase of population each decade, since 1790: The population in 1790 was 73,677; in iSoo, 220,955; in 1810, 406,511 ; in 1820, 564, 135 ; in 1830, 687,917; in 1840, 779,828; in 1850, 982,405 ; in 1860, 1,155,684; in 1870, 1,321,011; in 1880, 1,648,690.
782
HISTORY OF KENTUCKY.
Table Showing the Relative Production, as Compared With Other States, of Certain Agricultural Staples in Kentucky, in Successive Decades.
ARTICLES.
1840.
1850.
IS60.
IS70.
Wheat .
First.
Ninth.
Ninth.
Eighth.
Maize .
Second.
First.
Sixth.
Rve .
Fourth.
Fifth.
Fifth.
Tobacco
Second.
Second.
Second.
First.
Flax . .
Third.
First.
Third.
Eighth.
Hemp
Cotton
Eleventh.
Twelfth.
Swine
Second.
Second.
Fourth.
Fifth.
Mules .
Second.
Second.
Second.
Third.
Home (or household ; manufactures
Third.
Second.
Third.
First.
First.
First.
Thus it seems that Kentucky has long stood first in the production of hemp, by the advantage of her fertile bluegrass soil; and by the stimulus given to the growth of white burley tobacco, she has taken precedence in the production of this staple article.
A source of wealth and industry of inestimable value for indefinite years in the future has been opened up through the instrumentality of the State Geological Bureau. Public attention was directed to the importance of the superior mineral and timber resources of Kentucky under the administra. tion of Professor N. S. Shaler, as chief of this department of exploration. The interest was continued and steadily increased under the enterprising and able management of Professor John R. Procter, the successor of Pro- fessor Shaler. In connection with the regular duties of his office, as chief of the Geological Bureau, Professor Procter has given attention to the work of advertising abroad the advantages of Kentucky, as an attractive land for the settlement of emigrants and the investment of capital from abroad. Under his intelligent direction, the features of geological formations, the diversity and value of soils, and the distribution of many natural sources of wealth were indicated upon State and county maps for the convenience of the public. The results of this work have been to bring a large amount of foreign capital for investment in our midst, to locate quite a number of colonies and individuals from other States and from foreign countries, and to give quite an impetus to many new industries within the borders of our Commonwealth. Professor Procter is a native Kentuckian, born in Mason county, and reared there to manhood. He continued to serve at the head of the Geological Survey until the termination of the existence of the bureau in 1893, during the administration of Governor Brown.
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