USA > Kentucky > The history of Kentucky, from its earliest discovery and settlement, to the present date, V. 2 > Part 47
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818
HISTORY OF KENTUCKY.
dollars would accomplish the desired end. Or, a poll-tax of two dollars on each citizen subject to the same would accomplish the result in each county. The plea for the latter method of taxation is, that it appeals to that manly sense of equity and right which every citizen should feel, that for every great benefit enjoyed by all each individual should assume some share of the cost, however little it might be. There are many who pay no ad valorem tax, owning no assessable property, yet who are industrious, virtuous and valuable citizens. Many have children to educate. Few of these, who would accept seven months' free schooling for one or more chil- dren, worth at least fourteen dollars for each child pupil, would object to paying a poll-tax of two dollars yearly for all. Indeed, if the opportunity was given by law, the good citizen's self-respect and sense of justice would lead him to contribute this much for the common good of all with pride and pleasure. But the rarest few among laboring men would deem it a burden to pay so small a sum, in so good a cause, in which he was so largely a beneficiary. There are some persons, perhaps, who would pay no poll-tax ; there are very many now who pay no ad valorem tax.
Another serious omission is the refusal of our legislators to adequately provide for training schools of an order, and in numbers sufficient, to ele- vate the grade of teachers, and to qualify them for the rapidly growing demands of our schools. Graded schools are multiplying in our towns and cities, and the country schools are improving throughout the State. Kentucky commonly keeps pace with the progress of the age, by adopting the most improved methods and means of advancement known to experi- ence. These two reformatory features added to our system, good admin- istration and management will rapidly place the people of the Common- wealth in the front with the most favored of the country.
It is gratifying to the friends of education to note the genuine and healthy improvement of our common school interests in their every detail. Within the last few years there has been almost a complete evolution from the typical old and unsightly log hut, with its poverty-stricken internal and external shabbiness, to the tidy, commodious, and attractive modern schoolhouse, with cheerful environment without and tasteful comforts within. The backless and bare slabs for benches and desks are supplanted by modern furniture of elegant style and convenience, and the walls supplied with choice maps and charts, with the convenient blackboard in view for ready use. These changes embrace entire counties in many instances, and extend over large portions of all others. The progress made in the train- ing and improvement of teachers, the superior work done by a more effi- cient corps of county superintendents, and the greater interest manifested by the trustees, are evidences that the campaign of education going on is far-reaching and effective. The recent system of grading the studies and classifying the pupils in the respective grades, introduced under the pres- ent State superintendent for all the country schools, is a radical reform,
819
THE STATE TEACHERS' READING CIRCLES.
long and imperatively needed. It should be faithfully observed by every teacher, who may thus make the work done in the schoolroom doubly val- uable to the pupils. The efforts to build up libraries for the counties, and sometimes for the schools, can not be too highly commended. Books are educators of themselves, under the pleasant companionship and tutorage of which the teacher, the pupil, and ofttimes the patron and neighbor are ever expanding the horizon of knowledge, and drinking in new inspiration of thought and emulous desire for that which is noblest and best in life. They are the joy and strength of youth and the solace of old age.
It is related of Mahomet, that one of his disciples approached and said : "Prophet, my father is dead ; what can I do best to show my filial affec- tion, and to honor the memory of an ancestor so worthy and beloved ?" "Go, my son," replied the Prophet, "and dig a well in the desert, and for all time to come the weary pilgrim, the thirsty traveler, and others who pass by and drink of its cool waters will bless the name of your father!" So of every one who builds a library of good books in a community of people; he digs a well in the desert, and may ever after be remembered and blessed.
Auxiliary and akin to the library, the institution of the work of the read- ing circles among the teachers and others of the several counties must result in great good in the promotion of a taste for literature and study. The readi- ness with which the superintendents and teachers have responded to the call of the State superintendent and his associate examiners, the first year of experimental trial, is an earnest of success in this field. Indeed, when we recall the marvelous results of reading circle work in other States, we can only wonder that it was not introduced in Kentucky before. The initiative is but one feature of the enterprise and new life Superintendent Thompson is infusing into the system. In the State of Indiana, the " Teachers' Read- ing Circle" was organized eleven years ago. Of its work, the recent official circular says : " Its history has been one of continued growth. It has added greatly to the general culture of the teachers; no agency has con- tributed in larger measure to the educational progress of the State." It embraces almost the entire profession of teachers. Supplementary to this, the "Young People's Reading Circle " was organized in 1887. The same official circular adds : "This circle closes its sixth year with a membership of one hundred and fifty thousand. This phenomenal growth attests the loyalty of the teachers and school officers to the best interests of the children of the State. Hundreds of libraries have been established in the districts, placing within easy reach of the pupils the best thoughts of the best writers, fostering the habit and cultivating the taste for choice litera- ture. A movement so fruitful of good to the young should command our earnest support."
The educational interests of the people of Kentucky have suffered im- measurably from ignorance, enmity and obduracy in our legislative halls,
820
HISTORY OF KENTUCKY.
for the past fifty years. The best efforts of friends have often been baffled and beaten down for a time. The awakening comes tardily, after long waiting.
The year 1893 proved to be the culminating period of disaster resulting from years of methods crafty and factitious, rather than wise and patriotic, and which had brought about conditions abnormal in politics, in finance, and in trade. The shrinkage in values not only kept all properties and articles of merchandise at the lowest ebb ; but the long-continued reaction and stagnation in business so undermined confidence that the creditor classes despaired of the better period for liquidation and payment they had been hoping for. Matters grew from bad to worse, inevitably. The feel- ing of suspense and apprehension rapidly intensified into one of general alarm and distrust. The situation required but the sensational incidents of a few important failures to precipitate a general and widespread panic throughout the country. The incidents came and the catastrophe followed.
The number of failures in the United States for 1893 reached the total of fifteen thousand five hundred and sixty, exceeding by over three thou- sand the number reported for any previous year, and five thousand two hundred and ninety more than for 1892. The total of liabilities for these failures in 1893 was $402,400,000, and the assets $262,400,000, about sixty-five per cent., figures nearly four times greater than for 1892. There were six hundred bank suspensions, of which three hundred and seventy were failures and classed with the above total. Two hundred and forty of these bank suspensions showed an excess of assets over liabilities by which they were enabled to resume again. Deposits in the national banks alone decreased to the amount of $300,000,000, the result of withdrawals from lack of confidence, and private hoardings. General distress followed these disorders and the currents of business and trade settled down into a stage almost of stagnation. The demand for currency fell off until money soon became a drug in the market. Idle money began to accumulate as a natural result in time, and by the close of 1893 there was lying in the associated banks of New York alone $207,000,coo unused. No speculator or trader desired money for a venture at such a time ; no merchant wished to increase his stock of wares or his liabilities in the face of danger.
Farm products shared in the universal depression. Although the yields were comparatively small, prices were the lowest ever before reached. Of the four great staples, there was a decline of six per cent. in corn over 1892; nine per cent. in oats, sixteen in wheat and seventeen in cotton, aggregating a loss of $220,000,000 on these alone. The prices of wheat fell below forty and fifty cents on the farms, according to distances from market; other grain and products shared in the decline. A great deal in hog products in Chicago had forced the price of pork to nineteen dollars per barrel, when, August Ist, in the midst of the crash of toppling banks, com- mercial houses and other institutions, the price dropped in a single day to
821
THE PANIC OF 1893.
ten dollars per barrel, aggregating losses to the amount of many millions. Nearly or fully one-half the factories of the leading products of the country closed down, railroad and other corporations or companies reduced both the number and wages of employes, while mining and other great industries worked on fractional time or ceased work altogether. The numbers of working men and women thrown out of employment, to drone in idleness around desolate homes or to tramp the country in aimless discontent, reached into the millions, while the number of helpless dependents on them swelled to many millions, conditions discreditable to our civilization.
It is not the province of State history to enter into descriptive details of the financial, industrial and social disorders which resulted from what will be known in the future as the great panic of 1893. The prostration and dis- order to business and finance have been, perhaps, as great on the whole as from the eventful panic which began in September, 1873, and to which we have referred in a previous chapter of this history. The latter spread its pall of ruin and wretchedness over the people of the country throughout a period of over five years. During these long years of distress factories were closed, industries were paralyzed and hundreds of thousands of idle but honest working people roamed the country vainly seeking for employ- ment and wages to drive the wolf from the door. Whether the causes of the present panic are as deep-seated and the remedies as ineffective to stay the evils or not, the future must tell. At the present date, two years after the panic set in, the omens for a return to a more healthy and prosperous era at an early day are promising.
Radical changes in political sentiment have been manifest within the past three years, threatening new alignments of party organizations in the future. After the inauguration of Mr. Cleveland as president, in 1893, Congress was called together for the purpose of effecting a repeal of what was known as the Sherman law of 1890, providing for the monthly purchase by the government of not exceeding $4.500,000 of silver, and the issue of treasury notes therefor. The views of the president in favor of a single gold standard for the currency of the country were openly pronounced before his inauguration in 1885, in opposition to the traditional doctrine of the Democratic party, as set forth in the declarations of its platforms, and the utterances of its leaders. The Democratic congressmen, led by Beck, Blackburn, Carlisle, and others, were understood to favor a bi-metallic policy of both gold and silver coinage ; the Democratic State Convention in 1891 so declared itself. The Democratic National Convention, declared, in 188o, for " Honest money, consisting of gold and silver, and paper convertible into coin."
In 1884, that " We believe in honest money, the gold and silver coinage of the constitution, and a circulating medium (paper) convertible into such money without loss."
822
HISTORY OF KENTUCKY.
In 1888, "it renewed the pledge of fidelity to Democratic faith, and re-affirms the platform adopted in 1884."
In 1892 the platform said : "We hold to the use of both gold and silver as the standard money of the country, and to the coinage of both without discrimination against either metal ; but the dollar unit of coinage of both metals must be of equal intrinsic and exchangeable value, and that all paper money be kept at par with coin."
The Republican national platform of 1888 declared that "The Repub- lican party is in favor of the use of both gold and silver money, and condemns the policy of the Democratic administration in its efforts to demonetize silver." In 1892 it again said: "The Republican party demands the use of both gold and silver as standard money, with restric- tions to be determined by contemplation of values of the two metals, so that the purchasing and debt-paying power of the dollar be equal at all times."
It was agreed by all parties that the Sherman law was a vicious measure, the result of a compromise between the Eastern monometallists and the dele- gates in Congress from the silver-producing States to prevent the passage of a bill pending for the free coinage of silver in 1890. The issue now made was to repeal only, or to repeal with a provision added for the resto- ration of the coinage of silver on the same terms with gold. It was soon obvious that the whole power of the Democratic administration was to be wielded in favor of establishing a gold basis for the currency of the future. It was just as obvious that a powerful opposition to the administration, within the party, was arrayed in Congress. The administration measure for simple repeal finally passed, but it was by the anomalous conditions of the support of the Republican senators, who voted a majority for repeal. The Democratic senators voted by over two-thirds against the measure.
The bold and determined stand of the president and his political house- hold against the policy of bimetallic coinage caused a formidable breach in the national Democratic party, and crystallized an issue that will doubtless breed contention until the coinage policy is settled one way or the other. The Republican party is likewise almost as much divided in sentiment on this question. It dominates the politics of Kentucky to-day, and the ground here is being fought over with the same earnestness and intensity of feeling as in other States.
In the presidential contest of 1892 the living and paramount issue was that of tariff reform. It is but due to say that the administration and the Democratic Congress in 1893 redeemed the pledges of the party platform fairly well, in an elaborate measure reducing and adjusting the tariff laws more nearly to a revenue basis ; although powerful opposition on the part of Eastern members of the party, supported by Republican sympathy and aid, forced many modifications of the bill favored by the administration. The law as revised is now operative and on trial before the people.
823
THE AMERICAN PROTECTIVE ASSOCIATION.
There appeared on the political horizon, some three years since, what seemed "a cloud no bigger than a man's hand." It was soon manifest that the "ghost" of the old Know Nothing party of forty years ago had reappeared and had actually taken the form and attributes of a political personality. With its secret lodge colonies, its rituals and pledges, and signs and pass-words, it is modeled much on the same order, while the spirit of hostility to the Catholic Church and to foreign emigration and foreign influence in our politics betrays much of the characteristics of the sensational party that came and passed away so strangely in 1854-55. It reappears under the name of the American Protective Association. Under an active propagandism it has spread with marvelous rapidity throughout the country, and is already domiciled in every State and in almost every city and leading center. In many of these headquarters, and in a number of State elections, it has shown itself to have become a formidable balance of power, if not in control of a majority of the votes. Its potent influence has been felt in recent elections in Louisville and at other points in Ken- tucky. What the future bearings of this phenomenal movement may be upon the politics and parties of the day time only can determine. Its promotors and its membership are intensely zealous and aggressive, and with close and compact organization are likely to wield an influence to be felt.
In the Federal elections for representatives in Congress in November, 1894, a significant expression of the general and restive discontent of the people over the unsatisfactory methods of government in past years was given. Just two years before, the popular vote in the presidential election indicated a want of confidence in Republican rule under the administra- tion of President Harrison. The transitional changes under the Demo- cratic rule which succeeded were attended with much irritating contention and friction in the proceedings of Congress, and acrimonious criticism outside. The distress and disorders attending the great monetary panic, which was unfortunately coincident in time with the Democratic attempt at reform and readjustment, gave new cause of discontent for the supposed wrongs of government, whether real or imaginary. In the elections of November, 1894, the people were as ready to reverse their judgment and disapprove and to rebuke the Democratic administration as they were that of the Republican in 1892. The majority of the members of the latter elected to the present lower house of Congress was about as great as the majority of the Democratic members in the preceding body.
The defection extended to Kentucky, and in the aggregate vote of the State the regular Democratic majorities of 30,000 to 50,000 in past years were overcome almost totally. From the First, Second, Sixth, Seventh, Eighth and Tenth Congressional districts there were respectively elected John K. Hendricks, John D. Clardy, Albert S. Berry, W. C. Owen, James B. McCreary, and W. M. Kendall, Democrats ; and from the Third,
824
HISTORY OF KENTUCKY.
Fourth, Fifth, Ninth and Eleventh districts, W. Godfrey Hunter, John W. Lewis, Walter S. Evans, S. J. Pugh, and D. G. Colson, Republicans, standing five to six. It remains to be seen by what finesse of tactics and arts of pleasing the Republicans, whom fortune so favors at present, will be able to meet the fickle humors of the multitudes in their restless discon- tents, and long retain the powers intrusted.
The year 1895 closes the administrative term of John Young Brown, governor of Kentucky. It is but a just tribute to say of this distinguished gentleman that he has served the people of the Commonwealth with con- summate ability and with a fidelity which commands the highest admiration and praise. The ordeal has been a trying one. The transitional change from the old constitution to the new, and the adjustment of our code of laws and our institutions to the changed conditions required the discretion and acumen of a judicial mind, and a ready tact of statesmanship of the high- est order. Governor Brown has shown himself to be equal to every emer- gency that has arisen within the jurisdiction of his realm of official duty. It is not invidious to say that Kentucky, perhaps, never had a chief magis- trate of superior judicial and administrative abilities, nor one more impe- riously true to his convictions of right and to the interests of the people whom he served.
The episode of panic and financial troubles came in the midst of the service of the present governor. From these troubles Kentucky has suffered, but not as many other States. Her people were not unusually burdened with debts, excepting in some speculative circles before alluded to. With fair crop productions, safely limited trade, and cautionary economy, the masses of the population have tided over the perilous event with compara- tively little real suffering. The future seems cheering and hopeful for an era of years of steady prosperity and improvement of all material interests. While the people of the rural districts have dwelt in the midst of compara- tive repose and competence, the dwellers in the towns and cities have reasonably prospered in the lines of legitimate business. These municipal- ities themselves have almost, without exception, had a healthy growth in material improvements, which the vicissitudes of financial changes can not take from them. Especially has the improvement in our cities of the first. second, and third classes been gratifying. The increase in populations, in manufacturing industries, and in all modern institutions for the comfort and convenience of the people, is evidence of progress and enterprise.
Few cities of its class in the United States compare with Louisville, the metropolitan mart of Kentucky, in the attractions offered as a site for pur- poses of residence or business. The railroad facilities of the city have been quadrupled within ten years past. Five distinct trunk lines enter this great gateway between the North, the South, the East, and the West over three magnificent bridgeways, which span the Ohio river at the Falls, and make connections with the centers of trade and commerce on the Atlantic
825
THE POPULATION OF LOUISVILLE IN 1890.
seaboard, on the Lake shores, and on the upper Mississippi waters. Six lines of railways on the south side give ingress and egress to trains connect- ing with the marts of the lower Mississippi, the Southwest, the Gulf shore, and the South Atlantic waters. The Ohio river bears upon its broad bosom fleets of competing boats and barges carrying the products of the country, the mines, and the factories, from the foot-hills of the Alleghanies to the base of the Rocky Mountains, and from the watersheds of Minnesota to the Gulf of Mexico, over the entire valley of the Mississippi. Coal fields, iron ores, timber forests, natural gas wells, cotton and grain, and fertile lands are in easy vicinity. Few cities on the continent possess the elements of successful manufacture and commerce in greater abundance and more eco- nomic form.
The population of Louisville by the census of 1890, very imperfectly taken, was approximately 162,000. Since that time the city limits have been extended, taking in several suburban towns. If the ratio of increase continues as heretofore, it may reasonably be expected that the census of the next decade will make a return of over 200,000 population. One phe- nomenal feature of growth is worthy of note: Since the subsidence of the speculative mania four or five years ago, the increase of population, of buildings, and of business, has been the greatest of her history. While other notable centers of population have lost ground or fallen into stagna- tion, Louisville has forged ahead with greater rapidity than ever before. This may be attributed to several incidental causes, which have had a favor- able bearing.
Within four years Louisville virtually acquired her magnificent park system. To this date $1,600,000 has been voted by the citizens for parks. Some three hundred acres of beautiful, undulating woodlands on the east, adjoining Cave Hill Cemetery, were purchased, laid out, and converted into Cherokee Park; five hundred acres south constitute Iroquois Park, and two hundred and seventy-five acres at the west end, fronting the Ohio river, Shawnee Park. These are connected, or to be connected, by broad boule- vards paved with asphalt, affording beautiful drives and promenades of ten or twelve miles extent. A number of interior small parks, neatly embel- lished, have also been purchased at convenient points throughout the city. Adjacent to the eastern park lies Cave Hill Cemetery, with its natural and acquired scenic beauty, unsurpassed by any other burial site in America, embracing four hundred acres.
Louisville lies in an elevated valley, above the highest known overflow, bordered on the north and west by the Ohio river, which here flows west and deffects to the south, making an elbow, and giving a frontage and natural drainage to the city of over twelve miles. The falls, while offer- ing an obstruction to navigation formerly, make a unique feature in the view of the picturesque and beautiful Ohio. The obstruction is now over- come by the enlargement and improvement of the canal at the expense of
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