USA > Michigan > Michigan as a province, territory and state, the twenty-sixth member of the federal Union > Part 8
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A drastic measure to prevent railroad strikes, intro- duced in the house by F. A. Baker of Detroit, was passed and remained on the statute books several years, but was finally repealed through the influence of union labor agitators. This law made it an offense punisha- ble by imprisonment not exceeding two years, to ob- struct the regular operation of railroad trains. A con- spiracy between two or more individuals to hinder rail- road operation subjected all engaged in it to the same penalties. This law certainly accomplished its object, for while there were railroad strikes and their accom- panying violence on every side, there were none in Michigan during the existence of the law. But the la-
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bor element finally mustered sufficient political strength to secure its repeal. It was an example of what might be done by law makers who had the courage to do their duty to put an end to lawless and destructive riots of strikers and their sympathizers. The walking delegate has been responsible for many evils, but it must be said that the state has been remarkably free from disturb- ances due to strikes among laborers of every class.
A scheme of savings and loan associations, or build- ing societies, as they were commonly called, advocated by Amos Fayram, an accountant of Detroit, was en- acted by the legislature. The plan worked out success- fully in practice. It provided a method by which wage earners and persons of limited incomes could invest their earnings in small sums on monthly payments and receive dividends therefrom. They could also borrow for building purposes upon mortgages upon their real estate at a low rate of interest, the money being drawn as required to meet contract payments, and the monthly deposits of a certain rate per share to apply on principal as well as interest. The stock matured when the pay- ments and earnings reached the par value of the same. The holder was then paid off in full a lump sum in cash. It was a good investment for any who could lay by a small sum monthly, and it was good for the borrower who found it convenient to make monthly payments up- on a mortgage. It encouraged thrift among workers for wages. A number of such societies were organized and where there was careful management they were uni- formly prosperous. They served a good purpose among a class of persons to whom habits of saving were of the utmost value. A few years later these societies, having become an established feature of banking, were placed under the general supervision of the secretary of state, who made periodical examinations of the same.
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There was also legislation requiring all life insurance policies to be non-forfeitable after three payments; also requiring the publication of all bank statements. The legal rate of interest was reduced from ten to seven per cent., and at the session in the following year it was further reduced to six per cent., with a provision limit- ing the contract rate to eight per cent. A commissioner of mineral statistics was provided for and Charles E. Wright of Marquette was appointed to the position. The saloon question occupied much of the time of the session, as it has of most legislative sessions for a gener- ation or longer. The result in this instance was a tax of one hundred and fifty dollars annually upon the retail sellers of liquors and fifty dollars upon those selling beer only. At the following session these sums were in- creased to two hundred and one hundred respectively, and there the tax remained for a number of years.
In April 1879 the common council of Detroit voted to buy Belle Isle situated in the river directly opposite the upper portion of the city. This matter, which had been agitated for some time, met with great popular fa- vor. The island is seven hundred acres in extent. The price agreed upon was two hundred thousand dollars, which was generally conceded to be much below its real value. For manufacturing or business purposes it would unquestionably have brought at that time much in ex- cess of the sum paid. The legislature promptly passed an enabling act authorizing the city to issue its bonds to pay for the island as a public park. At the same time it also passed an act authorizing the city to establish a boulevard and creating a park and boulevard commis- sion for the city. The boulevard thus projected started from the river at the approach to the bridge contem- plated to be built to Belle Isle. It ran northerly for some distance and then swept around the north side IV-10
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of the city in territory outside the limits and some three or four miles back from the river, and again approached the river near the then westerly limits. This roadway was laid out two hundred feet in width, and there were special regulations with reference to its use and improve- ment. It has since been macadamized and parked in the middle or upon the sides. It now forms one of the most attractive features of the park system of the city.
In April of this year of grace 1879, it was announced that Edison had established the success of his incandes- cent electric lamp. This revolutionized the lighting of interiors which had hitherto depended upon foul smell- ing and atmosphere vitiating gas. We at this day can scarcely realize the discomforts and deleterious effects of gas consumption, especially in public halls and thea- tres. It may be noted in passing that, though not a na- tive of Michigan, Edison spent his early life, and made his first successful inventions in the state.
At the biennial election in 1880, David H. Jerome of Saginaw, was chosen governor by a vote of one hundred and seventy-eight thousand, nine hundred and forty- four, to one hundred and thirty-seven thousand, six hun- dred and seventy-one for Frederick M. Holloway, dem- ocrat, thirty-one thousand and eighty-five for David Woodman, greenback. When Mr. Jerome assumed his duties as governor in January, 1881, the other state of- ficers associated with him were Moreau S. Crosby, lieu- tenant governor; William Jenney, secretary of state; B. D. Pritchard, state treasurer; W. I. Latimer, auditor general; James M, Neasmith, commissioner of land of- fice; Jacob J. Van Riper, attorney general; Cornelius A. Gower superintendent of instruction. Governor Jerome was a native of Detroit, where he was born November, 1829. His father died soon afterward and his mother
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removed to central New York, where she remained five years, returning then to Michigan and settling at St. Clair. Here the son received his education in the com- mon schools. After reaching his majority he went to California and engaged in gold mining in the mountains with fair success for a year or two. Returning to Michi- gan he settled at Saginaw, west side, and in 1855 com- menced business as a general merchant, afterward giv- ing attention exclusively to hardware. He prospered and built up a considerable fortune. He was elected to the state senate in 1862 and again in 1864 and 1866. He served six years as chairman of the committee on state affairs. He vigorously opposed railroad aid and supported Governor Crapo in his vetoes.
During 1865-6 hewas militaryaid to Governor Crapo and was afterward president of the state military board until 1873. During the war he raised the Twenty-third regiment of infantry and was commissioned its colonel, but did not go into the field. He was a member of the constitutional commission of 1873 and chairman of its committee on finance. In 1875 he was commissioned by President Grant a member of the board of United States Indian Commissioners. In his official capacity he visited nearly all the uncivilized Indian tribes of the west and was influential in the settlement of land diffi- culties in the Rocky Mountain states.
During his administration of a single term as gover- nor there were some important events, chief of which was the transfer to the general government of the St. Mary's Falls ship canal. This canal had been built by the state from the proceeds of a grant of lands made by the United States for the purpose. A small tonnage tax had been levied to pay the running expense. But the commercial marine had developed so rapidly that already there were clamors for the enlargement of locks.
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The transfer relieved the state of all responsibility and expense in connection with the canal. It also relieved the shipping interests of all tonnage dues, and resulted in the early building of greatly enlarged locks.
About this time arrangements were made for a thor- ough compilation of the laws, for which service Judge Andrew Howell was employed. In this year by the ex- tension of the Jackson, Lansing and Saginaw railroad northward to the Straits of Mackinaw, and the opening of the Detroit, Mackinaw and Marquette railway the two peninsulas were for the first time connected by rail. This marked an epoch in the commercial development of the state, which had long been anticipated with deep interest.
An event of the time which excited a profound sen- sation throughout the state was the Crouch tragedy. It occurred on the night of the 2 1st of November, 1883, in a rural neighborhood not far from the city of Jack- son. On that night four persons in the Crouch home- stead were shot to death in their beds as they slept. These were all the inmates of the house at the time, ex- cept two, the domestic and the colored stable boy, the former of whom heard nothing of the shooting, while the other was so frightened that he hid in a closet and did not venture out until morning. The night was stormy and tempestuous, causing windows to rattle and the old house to shake, which may account for the failure of the domestic to be awakened by the shooting. The mur- dered persons were Jacob D. Crouch, the wealthy own- er of the premises, aged seventy-four; Moses Polley, aged twenty-three a cattle buyer from Pennsylvania, who had come to the farm that evening in the line of his business and was merely stopping for the night; Henry D. White, son-in-law, and his wife, daughter of Jacob D. Crouch, and her unborn infant. With the
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exception of Mrs. White, none of the victims, appar- ently, were awake when shot. She had evidently strug- gled with the assassin and was shot in several places, while all the others were shot only in the head. The only traces which the murderers left behind were tracks in the soft earth at the corner of the house, as though some person had been standing there to watch, and foot- prints leading away from the house back toward the orchard.
At first, suspicion fell upon some Italian laborers em- ployed on railroad construction in the neighborhood. But as nothing about the premises was disturbed, and money which the cattle buyer had was found intact, it was evident at once that the motive for the crime was not robbery. Detectives were employed to ferret the mystery. As time elapsed and no more plausible theories were advanced, the impression gained ground that mem- bers of the family were concerned in it. Jacob D. Crouch had a considerable estate, and as he was well along in years, it appeared to be understood in the fam- ily that the bulk of it was to go to Mrs. White, the daughter, who had been his housekeeper since the death of his wife, twenty years before. Here was a motive to put the old man and his daughter out of the way, and the theory was that the murder of the others was merely an incidental necessity. This motive involved the most atrocious and cold blooded villainy conceivable on the part of human beings. For this reason the public hesitated to accept the suspicion. The remaining mem- bers of the family were a son in Texas and a son, Judd Crouch, living in Jackson, and a daughter, the wife of Dan Holcomb, a well-to-do farmer living within a half mile of the Crouch homestead. All these people had good reputations in the community. Events soon shaped
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themselves in such way that suspicion was fastened upon Judd Crouch and Dan Holcomb.
Matters were brought to a focus on February 5th, when James Foy committed suicide in the Crouch farm house by shooting himself in the head with a pistol. Foy was a drunken, good-for-nothing fellow, who had been employed for some time as a farm hand by Holcomb. After his death it was recalled that the scene of the murder seemed to have a strange fascination for him, and that he was voluble in explaining to visitors how the thing was done, saying that three persons were con- cerned, one of whom stayed outside to watch while, of the other two, one shot Crouch and Polley, and the oth- er shot the Whites; that all were killed in their sleep but Mrs. White, who was awake and fought desperately for her life. His description was so vivid that it began to be believed that he was describing from actual knowl- edge, and this belief was strengthened by his suicide. Within less than a week thereafter, Galen Brown, a detective who had been employed in gathering evidence was mysteriously shot, though not fatally so, by a man whom he identified as Judd Crouch. Then Holcomb and Judd Crouch were arrested and tried for murder.
The evidence upon the trial was entirely circumstan- tial. Judd Crouch walked with a limp, one leg being slightly shorter than the other. The tracks in the soft earth leading to the orchard indicated a limping man. There were found on Judd Crouch pistol bullets of the same size as those found in the bodies of the victims, which were thirty caliber. The pistol with which Foy killed himself was of the same caliber. The purchase by Holcomb of a pistol of the same size was shown, and it was found in his possession. This was about the ex- tent of the incriminating evidence, and some of it, re- specting the pistols and bullets, was explained away by
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the defense. The jury was not able to satisfy all its reasonable doubts, and so disagreed. No further ef- forts were made in the case.
سيداتمن فتحة صحفي.
CHAPTER IX THE OPPOSITION TICKET WINS
ـحب
F ROM the organization of the republican par- ty in 1854 to the biennial election of 1882, a period of twenty-eight years, that party had been uniformly successful in the election of its candidates upon the state ticket. Al- though the population had increased many fold, the characteristics of immigrants appear to have been pretty fairly uniform, for the bal- ance of political power held along about the same level through all the years. The great question of slavery, the civil war, and the problems grow- ing out of them, determined the political opinions of a great majority of the voters. These questions were now receding and new phases of civil administra- tion were at the front. As has been already explained, the money problem raised new issues. Upon this there was a large defection from the republican ranks.
The grangers had become impressed with the belief that the farmer was not getting his share of the results of his toil. The agriculturists complained that the mid- dle man was absorbing too much and that the railroads were cutting deep into the profits which should be theirs. Accordingly numerous granges, or farmers' societies, were organized in the rural communities throughout the state. This was a crude attempt to master the economic problems which faced them. The farmer and his wife and children worked early and late at the hardest of manual labor. Before he could get his crops to market and realize on their sale, he saw the railroads exacting a heavy toll for the enrichment of the capitalist who had his money invested in railroad stocks and bonds, and who lolled in a sumptuously furnished office and did no harder work than clipping coupons from bonds. He saw that after the railroad had taken its profit out of him, the middle man, or selling agent, took a good
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sum as a commission for doing the business. This lat- ter individual had no capital invested and took no chances. His profit was simply so much deducted from the proceeds of the sale, and the balance was turned over to the farmer.
The grangers undertook to cut out the middle man by organizing to dispense with his services. This was really the beginning of organizations to control the economic situation. It is a curious commentary on the malevolence of fate that this initial effort on behalf of the most deserving element of the community should have been the least successful of all such modern or- ganizations. Granges still exist, but they are little more than social societies for the pleasure and entertainment of their rural patrons. In the days of their greatest strength, the granges had undertaken to secure reduced rates for railroad transportation. An examination of the records of several legislatures will show the repeated introduction of measures for the relief of shippers. But it does not appear that they were successful, to any great extent. The railroads found it easy to give rebates to the Standard Oil Company and other large shippers, especially when competition among themselves was in- volved, but they determined that their interests lay in maintaining a powerful lobby at the capitol to counter- act the grange influence. In this manner there came about a very strong popular prejudice against railroads. Though these were indispensable to the building up of the interior of the state, there was somehow a feeling, especially in rural communities, that they were getting more money than they were entitled to, and that they were not bearing their due share of the burdens of taxa- tion. We shall see that this condition of mind prevails widely throughout the state, even to this day, and that efforts to bring the roads to what is considered an equit-
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able basis of just sharing of profits and burdens have not been realized.
It was this rural discontent with the situation and the belief that somehow the republican party was playing into the hands of the moneyed interests that led so many to break away from it on the greenback issue, and to join the opposition variously known as nationals, green- backers, populists, etc. In the campaign of 1882 Gov- ernor Jerome was put forward as a candidate for a second term. The democratic and greenback elements succeeded in setting up a fusion ticket, with Josiah W. Begole of Flint, as its candidate for Governor. At the election Jerome received one hundred and forty-nine thousand and seven hundred votes, Begole one hundred and fifty-four thousand four hundred and fifty; D. P. Sagendorf, prohibition, six thousand seven hundred and fifty, and Waldo May, national, two thousand. Begole's plurality over Jerome was four thousand seven hun- dred and fifty. The other state officers elected at the same time, all on the republican ticket, were, Moreau S. Crosby, lieutenant governor ; Harry A. Conant, secre- tary of state; Edward H. Butler, treasurer; William C. Stevens, auditor general; Minor S. Newell, commis- sioner of land office ; J. J. Van Riper, attorney general ; Varnum B. Cochrane, superintendent of public instruc- tion. The plurality of these over the opposition candi- dates ranged from eight thousand five hundred to four- teen thousand. Mr. Cochrane shortly after resigned and Henry R. Gass was appointed in his place.
Governor Begole was an anti-slavery man before the war and joined the republican party at its organization. He served his county as treasurer eight years and was a member of the state senate of 1871-72. He was a mem- ber of the republican national convention in 1872 and was upon the committee appointed to notify General
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Grant of his renomination to the presidency. He was elected a member of the forty-third congress and served upon several important committees. He favored the remonetization of silver, the currency bill and other sim- ilar measures, and so found himself in the greenback camp. It was these views which secured him the nomi- nation for governor by the greenbackers, which being supported quite generally by the democrats, led to his election. His administration afforded very little satis- faction to the democrats, from a partisan point of view. Fusion was tried several times later, but met with no success, except at the election of judges of the supreme court and regents of the university. In April 1883, John W. Champlin was elected to the supreme bench for the full term, and Thomas Sherwood to fill the va- cancy caused by the resignation of Judge Isaac Mars- ton. At the same time Arthur M. Clark and Charles J. Willett were chosen regents of the university for the full term. Again in 1885 the fusionists succeeded when Allen B. Morse was elected to the supreme bench to succeed Thomas M. Cooley, who was defeated for re-election, and Charles R. Whitman and Moses W. Field were chosen regents.
Judge Cooley had made a national reputation by his writings upon legal subjects, especially by his great work upon "Constitutional Limitations," and by editing the "Blackstone Commentaries" for modern use. He was widely recognized as one of the leading jurists of the country, whose name would long be held in honor. His defeat for re-election was, therefore, a great humilia- tion to his friends. But it simply showed the fickleness of popular favor. The causes which led to it were strictly ephemeral and outside the question of his fitness and integrity. Although differing politically, President Cleveland rose above partisanship sufficiently to recog-
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Ill Regole
منجنيز كية مريضسيس
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nize the great qualities of Judge Cooley and placed him on the Inter-State Commerce Commission. In this po- sition his marked abilities still found field for exercise for several years. His decisions upon the bench and in the commission are ranked among the highest authority upon the questions which they discuss.
Governor Begole was a native of Livingston county, New York, where he was born January 20, 1815. His ancestors were of French descent, and the original im- migrants to this country first settled in Maryland. Hu- man slavery being repugnant to them, they later mi- grated to New York. He received his education in the country district school and at an academy in Genesee. In August 1836, he left the parental roof and set out to make a home for himself, as did so many other New Yorkers at that time, in the wilds of Michigan. He lo- cated in Genesee county and with his own hands aided in the erection of many of the early dwellings in what is now the flourishing city of Flint. Having acquired a little money, he bought a farm of five hundred acres adjacent to Flint, and here the remainder of his life was spent. He earned a competence and in his declining years enjoyed the good things of life and shared the confidence and esteem of his neighbors. He was an upright and conscientious man and served the state with sagacity and unselfish devotion.
The event which excited the greatest interest in the early part of 1883 was the election of a United States senator to succeed Thomas W. Ferry, whose second term was then drawing to a close. The republicans had a clear majority of both houses of the legislature, and Senator Ferry received the caucus nomination of that party. There were some republicans however, who re- fused to be bound by caucus action and they steadfastly declined to vote for Mr. Ferry. Upwards of sixty-one
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votes were necessary to election. The highest vote he received was fifty-six. Byron G. Stout, the fusion nomi- nee, received forty-eight. The remaining votes were scattering. The balloting proceeded according to law, at least one ballot being taken on each day when the legislature was in session. For a few weeks these bal- lots showed little change from time to time. Then, when it had become very evident that neither Mr. Fer- ry nor Mr. Stout could be elected, various other names appeared in the balloting. At one time or another, al- most every man in the state, of political prominence, was brought forward. Some of these received a con- siderable vote for a few ballots, and then, as they showed no prospects of success, dropped out of sight, while fresh candidates came to the front. As may well be supposed there were many conferences and political manipulators were kept very busy, while obvious uncer- tainty of the result provoked considerable excitement. At one time there were rumors of corrupt practices, and these were finally so boldly declared that the legislature was forced to take notice. An investigating committee was appointed, which gathered in all available evidence and reported that there was absolutely nothing to the unpleasant story. There is little doubt that it started in the exercise of a vivid imagination.
At length, on the first day of March, on the eighty- first ballot, Thomas W. Palmer of Detroit, received seventy-five votes, to forty-seven for all other candidates and was declared elected. This was a most happy out- come of the affair. Mr. Palmer was eminently fit and deserving. He had served a term in the state senate, with unqualified acceptance. He was popular, a natural born leader in all good work, and with talents and a disposition which seemed to point him out as a political chieftain. His subsequent career in public affairs, as
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