USA > Maryland > Governors of Maryland : from the Revolution to the year 1908 > Part 17
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This term in the senate from 1875 to 1881 is marked by three chapters of unusual brilliancy: these are Senator Whyte's championship of sound currency, at a time when the congress of the United States was being tempted to adopt a false financial policy; his determined opposition to a course in the presidential election of 1876 that lost to
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Tilden his undoubted victory over Hayes through the action of the national legislature; and his devising a form of gov- ernment for the District of Columbia. In the last of these services Senator Whyte made the greatest personal con- tribution to the nation's welfare, for he labored individ- ually to a larger extent than in either of the other two causes.
It was in 1880 that the rupture between Senator Whyte and Mr. Gorman occurred. The legislature of that year was called upon to select a successor to Senator Whyte, who had some time previously announced that he would not be a candidate for reelection. Subsequently, however, cer- tain leading democrats declared that the retirement of Mr. Whyte from the United States senate would be an irrep- arable loss to both state and nation, and they prevailed upon him to alter his purpose. Mr. Whyte had on more than one occasion accepted the decree of other friends of good government in preference to his personal judgment, and he followed a like course now, But in the meantime Mr. Gorman, who had previously disclaimed any intention of seeking senatorial honors, listened to the siren voices of those who would make him Whyte's successor, and his professed determination was changed almost simultane- ously with that of Senator Whyte. As a consequence the supporters of the two candidates engaged in a bitter con- test for the senatorship, and the Gorman element, having had a slight advantage in point of preparation, won out.
The same year that Senator Whyte retired from congress, the Old Line democrats of Baltimore inaugurated their movement for reform within the party lines. They named Mr. Whyte as their candidate for mayor, and the regular or organization democrats, finding themselves too weak for warring on both the reform candidate and the repub- licans, also named Mr. Whyte for first place upon the regular
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democratic ticket. Then the republicans, duly impressed with the former senator's strength, declined to name an opposing candidate, and so it was that Mr. Whyte was elected mayor of Baltimore without opposition, in 1881. Although he found his new duties somewhat irksome, he held faithfully to the office to which he had been elected; and in some matters, such as the question of the water department, he succeeded in improving the service given the residents of the municipality. It was not long, however, before he once more found himself in conflict with Senator Gorman. In 1882 the so-called "new judge" movement occurred. Several judges were to be elected in Baltimore, and a ticket of men already on the bench-all known to be kindly disposed personally to Mr. Whyte-was regularly named by the democrats. Then the Gorman democrats, who did not favor Whyte's influence in city politics, started a revolt. The war-cry was, that Mayor Whyte was seeking to be dictator in Baltimore's public affairs; new candidates for judges were named and the assertion made that this second ticket was brought into the field solely because of the need for reform in the judiciary. The Gorman forces, aided considerably by republicans, defeated the so-called "Whyte judges," and the next year, 1883, at the close of the mayoralty term for which Mr. Whyte had been elected, he retired from politics and for four years thereafter gave his entire time to his legal practice.
The democratic state convention of 1887, which nomi- nated E. E. Jackson for governor, called Senator Whyte once more into the political arena by naming him, without his permission or knowledge, for attorney-general of Mary- land, an office to which his grandfather, William Pinkney, had been elected eighty-two years before. Mr. Whyte was successful in the campaign and for the next four years directed the affairs of the attorney-general's department
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with ability and justice. In the year that he terminated his attorney-generalship, Senator Whyte was wedded to Mrs. Raleigh Thomas, a widow who had formerly been Miss Mary McDonald. This marriage, which was solem- nized on April 22, 1892, was Mr. Whyte's second. His first wife, to whom he was married December 7, 1847, was Miss Louisa D. Hollingsworth, of Baltimore, who died in 1884.
Mr. Whyte was a member of the commission appointed by Mayor Malster, upon authority accorded by the legis- lature of 1896, to frame a new charter for Baltimore, and was chairman of this body. The work to be accomplished was monumental; the time at the commission's disposal was unfortunately scant; but the charter commission per- formed its work judiciously and promptly. President Benjamin Harrison appointed Senator Whyte, in 1889, a delegate to the congress of American nations, but because of pressing public duties the Marylander had to decline the honor.
Appointed city solicitor in 1900, Senator Whyte performed the duties of this office for three years. Senator Whyte retired as city solicitor in 1903, and for the three years there- after gave his time chiefly to his legal practice. But in 1906, upon the death of Senator Gorman, he was once more called into public service. Governor Warfield appointed Mr. Whyte to the vacant senatorship until the legislature should in due form elect another. The commission bore date of June 8, 1906. In the first democratic senatorial primary in Maryland, held in the fall of 1907, Mr. Whyte was the sole candidate to be his own successor for the remaining portion of Mr. Gorman's unexpired term, and he was given a very flattering vote. He died before the completion of his term, March 17, 1908.
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COPYRIGHT 1908, BY H. E. BUCHHOLZ.
XXXVI JAMIN BLACK GROOME
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JAMES BLACK GROOME 1874-1876
XXXVI JAMES BLACK GROOME
Because a people live under a republican form of gov- ernment is not conclusive evidence that all, or for that matter that any of them are, as far as political views are concerned, positively republican; no more than can citi- zenship in a kingdom or principality be finally accepted as the badge of royalism. Indeed, many a royalist is streaked with republican theories, which he seeks to down because he fears they may undermine his royalist faith; seldom, if ever, does the despot believe absolutely in despotism; and the professing democrat is frequently democratic in just so much as suits his worldly purpose. In brief, within a nation whose political doctrines have been produced by natural evolution it is difficult to find a pure type of any particular class of political believer. The masses, of course, are not generally positive in their convictions as are the leaders-or, at least, those who stand forth in strong relief against the background of the average, but even the pro- fessions of these conspicuous ones are distressingly often at variance with their conscious, opinion. Thus, for exam- ple, when colonial word-jugglers cried: "Give us liberty or give us death," the majority had in mind as the attain- ment of the former simply a continuance of monarchical rule under home-made rulers. On the other hand many a self-styled republican is unable to distinguish the auto- cratic demagogue from the true democrat.
When, however, the historical student approaches the life of Governor Groome and lays bare the most secret recesses of his public and private career, he is tempted to
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write him down-a democrat pure and undefiled. By so doing he may err, but it will be an excusable transgression, for the record left by the man who succeeded Governor Whyte in the executive mansion is deeply impressed with the tracings of a remarkably democratic spirit. A demo- crat, in the broader sense, is "one who believes in or adheres to democracy as a principle of government or of organized society; one who believes in political and natural equality; an opponent of arbitrary or hereditary distinction of rank and privilege." A man who champions the masses and opposes the classes is too often accorded the credit of being democratic, but he is no more democratic in truth than one who favors the few and is antagonistic to the mass. The real democrat is he who is able to be friendly to the many and the few simultaneously, who will not oppose, instinc- tively or otherwise, the proud nor the humble, the strong nor the weak, the rich nor the poor; one who will not dis- criminate in favor of any class because of its class-and such a man was Mr. Groome. The first claim of Governor Groome to posterity's recognition rests upon the fact that he, to an extent never before equaled by a chief magis- trate of Maryland, was possessed of a broad and undiluted democracy. Governor Groome, according to a very sane editorial in his home paper at the time of his death, "was everybody's friend. * The humblest could approach him without a sense of restraint, but none were so mighty as to feel disposed to trifle with him."
James Black Groome, born on April 4, 1838, at Elkton, Maryland, had his early life cast in an atmosphere of cul- ture and refinement. His father, Col. John Charles Groome, was a man of considerable prominence. A lawyer by pro- fession, he occasionally took a hand in political affairs, and in the exciting times when the know-nothings held Mary- land in a grip of steel opposed Thomas H. Hicks for the
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governorship, but was defeated. Mrs. Elizabeth (Black) Groome, the governor's mother, was the daughter of Judge Black, of New Castle, Delaware. When an infant, James Black Groome met with an accident that resulted in physical injuries from which he never fully recovered, and throughout his life he had to fight constantly against sick- ness. When a youth he entered Tennent School, at Harts- ville, Pennsylvania, to prepare for Princeton College, but his eyesight failed him and he was forced to abandon his purpose of taking a collegiate course. He made the best of his misfortune, returned home and studied law under his father, and was admitted to the bar of Maryland in 1861.
Unable to take active part in the Civil War, Mr. Groome set himself the task of watching over the interests of those who, because their bodies were stronger, took up arms, and as soon as the conflict had been ended he worked faithfully to repair the injured political fabric. Active among those who favored the calling of a constitutional convention, he was a delegate from Cecil county to the gathering which, in 1867, framed the present constitution of Maryland. Under the operation of the new constitution, Mr. Groome labored untiringly for the success of the democratic party in his own county, though he did not appear for some time as a candidate for office. It was not until 1871 that he asked his neighbors to honor him by sending him to the lower branch of the legislature, and in the election he was successful. He served as a member of the house of dele- gates in the session of 1872. During this term evidence of Mr. Groome's popularity among the Eastern Shore members was shown when the general assembly met to elect a United States senator, for, although not able to marshal enough votes to make him a very hopeful aspirant, he, nevertheless, had sufficient support for the senatorship to show that he was highly regarded by those who knew him best.
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Mr. Groome stood for reelection in 1873 and was chosen a member of the legislature which met in the following year. Early in the session the general assembly elected William Pinkney Whyte, then governor of Maryland, to a seat in the United States senate; and, while the term for which Mr. Whyte was chosen did not begin until 1875, he immediately placed his resignation as chief magistrate of Maryland before the legislature in order that that body might elect his suc- cessor. Of the many aspirants for the honor, Mr. Groome had the heartiest support, and he was elected governor for the unexpired term of Mr. Whyte. The latter relinquished the executive office on March 4, 1874, and Mr. Groome, who assumed the duties upon that occasion, served Mary- land as its executive until January 12, 1876, when his suc- cessor, John Lee Carroll, was inaugurated.
When Mr. Groome became governor he was just thirty- five years of age, and, therefore, one of the youngest chief magistrates in the history of Maryland. His administra- tion, especially at its close, witnessed much bitter feeling and passion in Maryland, part of which found expression in the contest of the election of several leading state offi- cials. A notable incident in this connection was the effort of S. Teackle Wallis, the unsuccessful candidate for attorney- general in the election of 1875, to prevent the governor from issuing a certificate of election to his opponent, Charles J. M. Gwinn. Governor Groome's position was one of ex- treme delicacy; here was a political enemy calling upon him to sit in judgment over an election that had been declared in favor of Mr. Gwinn, whom the governor, if he pursued a strictly partisan course, must naturally favor. Through- out this controversy, Mr. Groome showed that same absolute independence of partisan bias which characterized his course generally in administering the affairs of the state. Gwinn was successful in the contest but every opportunity was
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given Mr. Wallis to prove his claim. Indeed, Mr. Groome went so far as to choose as his own representative in the case Wallis' attorney, explaining afterwards that he "knew that this selection of counsel would be misunderstood by many and would bring upon me their temporary censure, but I knew, under the peculiar circumstances, that it was eminently the proper one to make, and I made it."
The month following his retirement, Mr. Groome was married, February 29, 1876, to Miss Alice L. Edmondson, of Talbot county. The first years of their married life were passed at the governor's boyhood home in Elkton; later six years were spent in Washington, and upon the close of Mr. Groome's official business in the national capital he purchased a house in Baltimore, where he passed most of his remaining years. The legislature that met in 1878 was called upon to elect a United States senator, and al- though he had as his opponents such men as ex-Governor Philip Francis Thomas, Montgomery Blair-postmaster- general under Lincoln, and Robert M. McLane, Mr. Groome was chosen for the six years beginning March 4, 1879. The full term that Senator Groome was in congress ran concurrently with the closing two years of Senator Whyte's term and the opening four years of Mr. Gorman's term in the senate, and he did not measure up spectacularly to the activity in the national legislature of either of these Mary- landers. He was, however, no pygmy among the con- gressional giants; he helped to make up the conscience of the senate, he contributed much toward the sound reason- ing of the upper house, and he served his state faithfully in the position to which he had been chosen. His record in the senate might have been a somewhat prouder one though it could not have been cleaner, had not ill health at times prevented him taking the part he was well equipped to play.
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Senator Groome's term in the senate terminated on March 3, 1885, and on February 17, in the year following, he was appointed by President Cleveland collector of cus- toms at the port of Baltimore. This position-the last public office he held-he filled for the next four years. The remaining years of his life were mostly passed in his Baltimore home, where he died, October 4, 1893. His body was interred in the Presbyterian cemetery at Elkton. No more fitting eulogy could be penned regarding Governor Groome than a certain passage which he himself wrote when making his final address as governor of Maryland to the legislature in January, 1876: "I cannot but recall with pleasure, not unmixed with pride, the fact that all times during my term in office I have freely granted a hearing to every resident of Maryland, however humble, who had a petition to present, a grievance to be redressed or a suggestion in regard to any public matter to make. * As to all matters of public interest, I desired the whole people of the state to consider themselves my counselors. If, then, the state has been the loser by the fact that any portion of her citizens did not aid me by their advice in reaching a correct conclusion upon any important matter, the fault was with those citizens, and not with me. But while in season and out of season all who desired it have had free access to me, none has been permitted to obtain a controlling influence. The whole responsibility for the mistakes of my administration, whatever they may be, must rest, therefore, upon me, for all my official acts had the approval of my own judgment."
COPYRIGHT, 1908, BY H. E. BUCHHOLZ.
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XXXVII JOHN LEE CARROLL
Back in the seventies of the nineteenth century, when times were hard and money scarce, business generally became depressed. To be able to eke out a modest living for his family satisfied the average business man, while the big corporations, which were large employers of labor, found it a matter for careful calculation to make good their reduced payrolls. The railroads especially felt the full bur- den of the commercial sluggishness, and they were forced to take immediate steps looking toward a lessening of operat- ing expense. This end was obtainable by one of two methods: the reduction of the working forces, which meant that a portion of the employees would be deprived of their entire incomes, or a decrease in the scale of wages, by which the working corps could be kept intact. The Baltimore and Ohio Railroad, among others, determined upon the latter course. But when the announcement of this plan was pub- lished there resulted some muttering among the workers to be affected, particularly among the firemen and brake- men. This leaven of dissatisfaction spread until it had aroused, even more violently than the men most concerned in the reduction, a host of disinterested laborers, who sym- pathized with the railroad men chiefly, perhaps, because the general stagnation of business had brought them to the point of ready irritation. A strike was instituted; the strikers were replaced by substitutes; then violence followed and the men who refused to work sought to prevent more willing ones from performing their duties. This initial uprising was mild, but it was sufficient to fire the hearts of
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thousands upon thousands of workmen of all grades and of idlers who, as one body, moved to usurp the authority of law in Baltimore and in other parts of Maryland and to in- augurate a season of riot rule.
This crucial moment in the history of Maryland supplies an appropriate background for the study of one of the commonwealth's governors, because the strike afforded him an opportunity for displaying those traits which his other- wise tranquil life had concealed. Inactivity on the part of state officials at this stage was certain to encourage the rioters in their unlawful course; but on the other hand rash activity was equally sure to incite the uprising mobs- which at times numbered as many as 15,000 men and boys -to greater violence. When the Baltimore riot assumed gigantic proportions there entered the arena the chief magistrate of Maryland. He set up his executive office in Baltimore and, entering the very thickest of the fight, he pronounced his courageous and unalterable decree: The law was to be obeyed; if any man had suffered wrong his redress must be through lawful channels, for whoever sought to disobey or disregard the law-whether he had been wronged or not-would find the state powerful and ready to punish him as a public enemy. There was neither class favoritism nor unkindness in his words, but behind the utterance was an irresistible determination and also a hint of that same righteous fearlessness that had prompted Charles Carroll of Carrollton, one hundred years before, to sign the Declaration of Independence-for this chief magistrate of Maryland was a descendant of the illustrious signer: he was Governor Carroll.
John Lee Carroll was born on September 30, 1830, at Homewood, the old Carroll property on Charles Street avenue above Thirty-first street. If noble deeds and vir- tuous living can put their stamp upon the blood of those
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who perform the one and practice the other, then in the veins of the boy there coursed the best colonial blood of Maryland. He was a son of Col. Charles and Mary Digges (Lee) Carroll; the former a grandson of perhaps the most famous public character that Maryland has produced- Charles Carroll, the signer-and the latter a granddaughter of Thomas Sim Lee, who in the early days of Maryland's independence twice served his native state as its chief magistrate. The infant days of John Lee Carroll were passed at Homewood but when he had reached the age of three his father removed to Doughoregan Manor, a much more expansive estate of the Carroll family, situated about six miles from Ellicott City. The boy's elementary studies were pursued under the guidance of private tutors at the manor; but in 1840, when ten years old, he was sent to Mount St. Mary's College, at Emmitsburg, where he remained for two years. He studied for a brief period thereafter at Georgetown College prior to his entrance at St. Mary's College, Baltimore.
During the three years that Mr. Carroll spent in academic studies at St. Mary's he decided to enter the legal profession, and with this end in view he went to Cambridge, Mass., where for two terms he attended the lectures at Harvard Law School. Upon returning to Baltimore he entered the law office of Brown and Brune as a student, and was ad- mitted to the bar upon attaining his majority in 1851. Before beginning his professional career, however, he made a trip to Europe and traveled extensively about the conti- nent. It was in 1854 that he settled down to practice law in his native state, and the following year he was named by the democratic party for the legislature, but was defeated by his know-nothing opponent. About this time Mr. Carroll, while on a visit to New York, met Miss Anita Phelps, daughter of New York's famous merchant, Royal Phelps,
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and he was married to her on April 24, 1856. This matri- monial venture of the Marylander threatened to deprive his native state of his citizenship, for, although he continued his law practice in Baltimore until 1858, in that year, upon the solicitation of his father-in-law, he took up. his residence in Mrs. Carroll's home city.
Upon removing to New York, Mr. Carroll accepted a· position as deputy clerk and United States commissioner in the office of the clerk of the United States district court, his motive being to gain a wide legal acquaintance before setting up his practice in that city. But the declining health of the elder Mr. Carroll and the gathering of war clouds prompted the son to return home in 1861, and thereafter he remained a constant Marylander, although frequently leaving his home for foreign shores. With his return to the manor, the management of the estate fell largely upon his shoulders, and the great plantation, with its 200 slaves, was no light burden in those troubled times. In 1862 the senior Mr. Carroll died, naming John Lee Carroll as his executor. It required the next three years to wind up the affairs of his father. By this settlement Doughoregan became the property of Governor Carroll's brother, Charles, from whom, however, he purchased it in 1867, and there- after made it his home. The estate is one of the finest in Maryland. The mansion has attached to it a chapel in which the neighbors worship, and here under the altar rests the body of Charles Carroll of Carrollton.
Upon the completion of his labors as his father's executor, Mr. Carroll once more ventured into the field of politics. This was in 1867, when he received the democratic nomina- tion for the state senate, and was elected for a term of four years. At the expiration of his senatorship he appeared for reëlection, and was once more successful. During this second term, Mrs. Carroll died, 1873, and the master of
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