USA > Massachusetts > Commonwealth history of Massachusetts, colony, province and state, volume 5 > Part 18
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Roosevelt, who favored the recall of judicial decisions, which Mr. Taft termed an attack on the judiciary involving the police powers, which legislators of late years had appropriated for their special purposes. Taft declared that "assaults upon either in intemperate language, or in baseless assumptions of corruption or bias or incompetency, made by those whose statements have influence with any part of our people, are a serious menace to enduring government." Taft carried the State on a preference for the nomination, but lost more than half the delegates, apparently by a mix-up in marking the bal- lots. Holding that a preferential vote was binding, Colonel Roosevelt renounced any claim he had on the delegates and asked them to vote for Taft; but this they refused to do.
MASSACHUSETTS PROGRESSIVES (1912)
After the Republican convention, in which the Massachu- setts Roosevelt delegates were very active, had renominated Taft, Colonel Roosevelt and his adherents formed a new party, called the Progressive or "Bull Moose" party. In this inter- esting chapter in the political history of the country, Massa- chusetts had an important part. Charles Sumner Bird was named for governor by the Progressives, and Joseph Walker by the Republicans. Ex-Mayor Fitzgerald, of Boston, was nominated by the Democrats for Senator, to fill the vacancy caused by the retirement of Senator Crane, whose health was declining. It was a feverish campaign and Massachusetts broke its record. Among the three tickets the Democrats came in ahead and gave the 18 electoral votes to Woodrow Wilson for President. Foss, her Democratic governor, was elected for a third term. A Democratic lieutenant governor was for the first time elected, David I. Walsh; and a Democratic secretary of state, Frank J. Donahue. The Democratic congressional delegation was increased, besides adding to the Democratic strength in the legislature. A few Bull Moose candidates suc- ceeded in getting into the legislature. In fifteen congressional districts the Progressives polled a total of 93,665. The legis- lature was Republican, and that ended Ex-Mayor Fitzgerald's hopes to succeed Senator Crane.
The contest on the Republican side for Crane's seat aroused
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FOSS BREAKS WITH DEMOCRATS
a lot of ill feeling. Samuel W. McCall was the favorite at the start, but on the thirty-first ballot John W. Weeks won the nomination and the subsequent election by the legislature, and McCall and his friends were piqued over his defeat. The Democrats, though in the minority, held several stormy meet- ings and finally nominated Sherman L. Whipple.
Foss BREAKS WITH THE DEMOCRATS (1913)
Governor Foss professed to be getting nervous over the tariff program of the Democratic administration at Washing- ton and let it be understood that he was not, and never had been, a free trader; and the Republicans passed resolutions condemning the proposed Underwood Democratic tariff, which Mr. Foss regarded as inimical to New England industries. When the House acted on the governor's tariff message, Foss was roundly denounced by the Democrats for his attitude.
Though the legislature and the governor "locked horns" many times, Mr. Foss succeeded in getting through several meritorious measures, including the Public Opinion Act, the resolve approving the Federal Income Tax Law, and another favoring the direct election of United States Senators.
Early in the summer of 1913 Lieutenant Governor Walsh entered the gubernatorial race. One prominent Democrat, incensed at Governor Foss, remarked that history would "record with incredulity, that such a monumental fraud es- caped detection so long." The hand of almost every Demo- cratic politician, except those whom he had appointed to office, was against him. For lieutenant governor, Ex-Councillor Edward P. Barry won the nomination in the primaries. To the surprise of many voters Congressman Augustus P. Gard- ner defeated Everett W. Benton for the gubernatorial nomina- tion. Governor Foss filed his papers as an independent candi- date.
The most picturesque canvass was conducted by Bird, the Progressive candidate, who delivered 519 speeches covering every nook and corner of the State. The Bull Moose party made such inroads on the straight Republicans that the entire Democratic ticket for executive officials was elected. Even the executive council showed a Democratic majority. The
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Republicans still controlled the senate by a small margin, but they were seven votes short of a majority in the House. Gardner came in third. Foss, a capable man and good fighter, was left outside the breastworks, a scant 20,000 marking the ballots for "the old boy."
WALSH THE FIRST CATHOLIC GOVERNOR (1913)
The election of David I. Walsh proved that, after all, there was very little in the old bugaboo that a Catholic could not be elected governor of Massachusetts. That fine example of the twentieth-century Puritan, Dr. Charles W. Eliot, presi- dent emeritus of Harvard University, cast his ballot for him. This result also proved that a poor man could be elected governor without the aid of the powerful rich or the "in- terests" which have axes to grind on Beacon Hill.
The political complexion of the house of representatives made it necessary for Speaker Cushing to bestir himself. He and his friends set themselves to work to secure support from the Bull Moose ranks. In this they succeeded-and the legis- lature of 1914 was organized by the Republicans.
The new chief executive had received his education in the public schools and Holy Cross College. At the death of his father he was obliged to work outside of school hours; and after securing his college degree, he had to earn funds to en- able him to take up the study of law. Before his election as lieutenant governor he served one term in the House of Repre- sentatives from a strong Republican district. He gave the legislature plenty to think about in his inaugural address; and considerable "progressive" legislation was passed during his administration.
A so-called Sectarian Bill had been strongly urged by so- called "patriotic" societies, who insisted that an amendment to the Constitution was necessary to prevent private schools from securing public funds. This would have applied to any attempt to support the Catholic parochial schools out of the public treasury. Feeling ran high and the fight was bitter, in- volving Republicans in the legislature and leading Democrats ; it was beaten by a close vote in the House-116 to 107.
From a photograph by Chickering, Boston Courtesy of the Boston Transcript SAMUEL W. McCALL
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GOVERNOR McCALL
GOVERNOR MCCALL (1915-1917)
Samuel W. McCall, the defeated Republican candidate for governor in 1914, was opposed for renomination by Lieuten- ant Governor Grafton Cushing. Supporting the latter were the "Guardians of Liberty," "Minute Men," and others of their ilk, who were fighting for the sectarian amendment to the Constitution, which had received the support of Cushing in the legislature. McCall deplored the lugging of religion into a political campaign, and declared that he would "prefer defeat by 100,000 votes to victory under the black flag of bigotry." Ex-Governor Foss added gaiety to the campaign by announcing himself as a candidate for the Republican gubernatorial nomination on a prohibition platform.
McCall beat Cushing easily for the nomination, and the Republicans went to the polls with a conservative ticket on a Progressive platform. McCall was elected by 6,000. Most of the Progressives returned to the Republican party, their candidate for governor receiving only 6,975 votes. After five years of wandering in the political desert, following new prophets, the Republicans had come into their own. Back of McCall's personal dignity was strength of character and a wide knowledge of public men and affairs. His independence was well known. He refused to follow his party in Congress when it favored exploiting the Philippines and holding subject races.
When he gave way to his successor, Lieutenant Governor Calvin Coolidge, at the close of his third term, Governor McCall turned over to him a well-organized, harmonious State government. The respect in which McCall was held by the public when he was first chosen governor was enhanced during his three years in office by his clear, able, progressive administration of public affairs. During the World War he ranked as one of the outstanding governors of the country. Although a man of peace, when his country cast its lot into the scales with the allies across the water, McCall put his heart, soul, and energy into the World War conflict. A native of Pennsylvania, a graduate of Dartmouth College, he for a time combined law with journalism, for which he always had a liking. He served in the lower branch of the legislature in his
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early days, going from there to Congress, retiring from the latter body after an honorable service of twenty years. He wrote the lives of Thaddeus Stevens, the Vermont-born Pennsylvanian antislavery leader in Congress, and of Speaker Thomas B. Reed, of Maine, his friend of many years stand- ing. When President Wilson called for volunteers for duty on the Mexican border in 1916, Governor McCall's pride was thrilled by the fact that Massachusetts troops were the first to reach the Rio Grande.
CONSTITUTIONAL CONVENTION (1917 -1919)
During Governor McCall's administration, the first con- stitutional convention since 1853 was convened for the pur- pose of remodelling that instrument and bringing it up to date to meet changed political and economic conditions. Every important element in the population was represented in its membership. It was a matter of general satisfaction that among the chosen delegates were to be found the historic names of Quincy, Lowell, Choate, and Story, as well as men of other races who have become an important factor in public affairs. Charles Francis Adams of Concord, a descendant of John Adams, the second President of the United States, who presided over the Constitutional Convention of 1820, headed the poll. The son of another President of the United States, Harry A. Garfield, was also chosen a member.
The convention organized with Ex-Governor John L. Bates as presiding officer. There were three sessions of the con- vention and it adjourned, August 13, 1919, its work having been approved at the polls by the people at the recent election. The two most important amendments were the initiative and referendum and the so-called Sectarian Measure, which pro- hibits the appropriation of public monies for private or sec- tarian institutions, thus settling a troublous question. The amendment was the result of a compromise brought about by Edwin U. Curtis, chairman of the committee in charge of the subject, and Martin M. Lomasney, a Democratic leader. Only nine of the ninety delegates professing the Catholic faith voted against it. The amendment affected several Protestant insti- tutions which had from time to time received State aid. The
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GOVERNOR COOLIDGE
head of the Catholic church in the State, Cardinal O'Connell, opposed its adoption at the polls, but it was ratified by the people by a big majority. The history of this amendment, by one of its leading members, will be found in another chapter of this work.
GOVERNOR COOLIDGE (1918-1920)
By a process becoming frequent in the recent political history of Massachusetts, the lieutenant governor was ad- vanced to the governorship on the retirement of Governor McCall. Calvin Coolidge, a native of Vermont, graduate of Amherst College, had served as mayor of his town of North- ampton, and in both branches of the legislature, before becom- ing lieutenant governor. While a member of the Massachu- setts senate, Coolidge formed the acquaintance of Frank W. Stearns, a Boston merchant, another alumnus of Amherst. Stearns felt that the larger New England colleges had had more than their share of public honors and was determined that his alma mater should be recognized. He induced Cool- idge to allow the use of his name for lieutenant governor, the beginning of one of the strangest and most potent personal and political friendships in the pages of American history. Politicians used to smile when Mr. Stearns predicted that some day Mr. Coolidge would be President of the United States.
At the State election in 1918, Governor Coolidge was re- elected over his Democratic opponent, Richard H. Long, by a reduced plurality, while Ex-Governor Walsh defeated Senator Weeks, who was running for reelection, by a plurality of over 17,000, on a platform pledged to support President Wilson's program for world peace. Yet when Wilson re- turned from the Paris peace conference, with his League of Nations plan, Senator Walsh refused to vote for it, joining his Republican colleague, Senator Lodge, in the fight for reserva- tions for the protection of the interests of the United States in the proposed world alliance. This defection from his own party President offended many of Wilson's supporters, who remembered what they were pleased to call "Walsh's treach- ery," and they opposed his reelection six years later, helping to bring about his defeat. Wilson had a long memory and
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one of the last political acts of his life was to write to a Massachusetts friend advising the defeat of Walsh.
After his failure to retain his seat, Senator Weeks gave much of his time to aiding his party organizations, State and national, in preparing for the presidential contest in 1920. The Republicans elected their presidential ticket that year, and Weeks, a close friend of the new President, Warren G. Hard- ing, was made Secretary of War, a position he filled for five years with credit to the administration and himself, resigning on account of ill health, and dying shortly after his retirement.
THE BOSTON POLICE STRIKE (1920)
There comes a time in the lives of most men when oppor- tunity knocks at the door. Coolidge's opportunity came in the Boston Police Strike: had there been no police strike, there would have been no President Coolidge. Boston police- men, dissatisfied with working conditions and pay, organized a union, affiliating with the American Federation of Labor. Edwin Upton Curtis, the police commissioner, forbade the men to join the union. When they disobeyed his orders, several of the ringleaders were dismissed from the force. Thereupon practically every patrolman went out on strike, leaving the city at the mercy of the lawless elements. The governor, though he delayed in the taking of positive action and left the matter mainly in the hands of the commissioner, eventually acceded to the demands of citizens and called out the State Guard, which restored order.
Samuel Gompers, president of the American Federation of Labor, telegraphed Governor Coolidge, asking him to sus- pend the order of the police commissioner forbidding the men to join a labor union; to which Coolidge made a reply that "there was no right to strike against the public safety by anybody, anywhere, any time." Seventy thousand people from all over the United States took pains to write to Governor Coolidge, commending his answer to Gompers and his stand against the strikers. Richard H. Long, his Demo- cratic opponent for governor at the ensuing election, leaned to the side of the strikers; Coolidge was reelected by a big majority. From his sick bed in Washington, the Democratic
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CALVIN COOLIDGE, VICE PRESIDENT
President, Woodrow Wilson, sent his greetings and congratu- lations on election night, saying to Governor Coolidge : "When law and order is the issue, all Americans stand together."
CALVIN COOLIDGE, VICE PRESIDENT
Governor Coolidge was now a growing potentiality in national politics, and he was frequently mentioned for the Republican presidential nomination. One of his most im- portant vetoes as governor was his refusal to approve a beer bill, which would permit the manufacture and sale of beer containing not over 21/2 per cent of alcohol, notwithstanding the recently adopted Eighteenth (or "Dry") Amendment to the Federal Constitution. He pungently remarked: "There can be no constitutional instruction to do an unconsti- tutional act." Coolidge's friends put out his speeches and public addresses in a little volume entitled Have Faith in Massachusetts, and sent thousands of them all over the coun- try. Nevertheless, at the Republican convention in June he made a poor showing in the balloting for President.
His supporters retired to their hotel rooms chagrined and downhearted, but were suddenly aroused by the startling news that the convention had nominated Coolidge for Vice-Presi- dent. This sudden turn in affairs was brought about by an Oregon delegate, McCammant, who had formed an admira- tion for the Massachusetts governor after reading Have Faith in Massachusetts. The Oregonian went to the platform and urged Senator Lodge, the presiding officer, to allow him to present his name to the convention for a second place on the ticket, with Warren G. Harding, of Ohio, for President. Lodge refused, for the reason that he did not think it would be fair or honorable for the chairman of the gathering to countenance such a move. McCammant returned to his seat on the floor, and without consultation nominated Mr. Coolidge. The name of the Massachusetts governor swept the convention like a prairie fire, and the party bosses had to abandon plans already made to name Senator Lenroot. The Republicans elected their presidential ticket by a huge majority, and Cool- idge was duly inducted as Vice-President, March 4, 1921.
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THE THIRD MASSACHUSETTS PRESIDENT (1922-1929)
In the early morning of August 3, 1922, news reached Colonel John C. Coolidge's farm house at Plymouth Notch, Vermont, where his son, the Vice-President, was spending a few days of his vacation, that President Harding had died in San Francisco on his way back from a visit to Alaska. The oath of office of President of the United States was adminis- tered to the Vice-President by his father, a justice of the peace, in the parlor of the little farm house-the strangest inaugura- tion scene in American history.
A few hours later the third Massachusetts President was on his way to Washington, where his career became an im- perishable part of American history. He was nominated for President at Cleveland in 1924, and elected by a tremendous majority. In August, 1927, Coolidge was summering in the Black Hills, South Dakota. Although a renomination for another term would have been his without a serious struggle and his election was regarded as a foregone conclusion, he surprised his closest friends by the unalterable declaration, "I do not choose to run for President in 1928."
During his entire career in Washington, Mr. Coolidge con- tinued to be an enigma to the politicians. He took few of them into his confidence. While they could not seem to understand him, the people as a whole liked his old-fashioned New England democratic ways and sound common sense. He preached and practiced economy in government ; and he gave the country a clean, honest, businesslike administration.
GOVERNOR COX
The "escalator process" was still working smoothly when Mr. Coolidge left Beacon Hill to assume his new duties as Vice-President; and the Republican Lieutenant Governor, Channing Cox, stepped into Governor Coolidge's shoes. Cox had been in politics several years, represented Ward 10, Boston, on the fringe of the Back Bay, and worked his way to the speakership of the House, from which he passed to the lieutenant-governorship. The governor, a native of New Hampshire, a graduate of Dartmouth College, came to Boston
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END OF LODGE REGIME
to practice law, taking on politics as a side line. As governor, in his first term he pursued the line of least resistance.
He was obliged to fight Attorney-General Allen for a re- nomination. The latter had attracted wide attention by his vigorous prosecution of District Attorney Tufts, of Middlesex County, and District Attorney Joseph C. Pelletier, of Suffolk County, for malfeasance in office, both of whom were removed from office by the courts, after lengthy and sensational trials, revealing startling tales of corruption in office. He also caused the disbarment of several lawyers on the charge of blackmail, and some of them were sentenced to long prison terms. Allen, in his primary campaign, alleged that he had not received all the aid from the governor to which he was entitled in these prosecutions, intimating that Governor Cox's relations with some of the lawyers involved were altogether too friendly. The governor replied with vehemence on the stump, and satisfied the public that the attorney-general did him a great injustice. His accuser was snowed under for the nomination and Cox was reelected.
END OF THE LODGE REGIME (1924)
The Cleveland convention of 1924, which nominated Presi- dent Coolidge to succeed himself, marked the end of the in- fluence of Senator Lodge in the councils of the party that he had served with devotion and zeal from his youth. It was no secret that President Coolidge's friends disliked the senior Senator, who was one of the delegates-at-large. Coolidge was a part of the personal political machine of the late Senator Crane, as was Chairman Butler of the national committee, Coolidge's campaign manager. Towards the end of his political career Mr. Crane and Mr. Lodge differed. Crane was for President Wilson's League of Nations; Lodge was the leader in the fight against it. Crane felt hurt at the way he was ignored at the Chicago convention in 1920.
Lodge's friends were surprised and chagrined when they learned on arriving at Cleveland, the convention city of 1924, that Governor Cox was to be the chairman of the delegation and spokesman for Massachusetts. No part was assigned the Senator in the convention proceedings. Lodge's admirers
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were indignant and protested to Chairman Butler, but he refused to interfere with the plan to ignore the Senator. Lodge made no complaint. He was too loyal a party man to start a public row over such a personal matter. Illness prevented him taking part in the campaign, the first time in more than forty years. A few weeks before election he was stricken, and died a few days after receiving the final election returns, indicating another great Republican victory. An hour after Senator Lodge's remains had been interred at Mt. Auburn cemetery, Governor Cox announced the appointment of Wil- liam M. Butler to fill the vacancy in the United States Senate.
There would be no popular election for two years; and Butler appeared in Washington in the dual role of a Senator from Massachusetts and chairman of the Republican National Committee. When ex-senator David I. Walsh went before the people in 1926, having been beaten in the senatorial cam- paign of 1924 by Speaker Gillett of the National House of Representatives, the Democratic candidate succeeded in de- feating Butler for the balance of Senator Lodge's term. The election returns showed that Mr. Lodge's friends did not for- get his humiliation at Cleveland.
FULLER'S COURAGE TESTED (1927)
Alvan T. Fuller, a wealthy motor-car dealer, who broke into Congress without asking the bosses' permission and joined the Bull Moose party in 1912, followed Cox in the governorship, coming up on the old, reliable, smooth-running "escalator." Like most of his associates in the Bull Moose party, Fuller went back to the Republican fold when Taft and Roosevelt kissed and made up, and he captured the second place on the State ticket without serving the customary apprenticeship.
He was fated to face one of the hardest trials ever endured by a Massachusetts governor. It was an acid test of his courage, and he did not flinch. April 15, 1920, a paymaster and his guard were held. up, robbed, and brutally murdered at South Braintree. Nicola Sacco and Bartolomeo Vanzetti were arrested, charged with the crime, and found guilty at a long-drawn-out trial presided over by Judge Webster Thayer of the Superior Court. They were duly sentenced to die in
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the electric chair. Sacco and Vanzetti were charged with being radicals, or "Reds."
The verdict was followed by several motions for new trials, and the case dragged along in the courts for seven years. The convicted men were represented by able counsel both at the trial and in their appeals to set aside the verdict. Their conviction aroused the Reds of the world, who kept up agita- tion for their freedom and contributed to a large defense fund in their behalf. Demonstrations were superfluously and, from the defendants' point of view, unwisely made against American embassies and legations in different parts of the world by their radical sympathisers, until the case became of international interest and importance. It is perhaps the most celebrated case in the history of Massachusetts criminol- ogy.
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