USA > Nebraska > York County > York County, Nebraska and its people : together with a condensed history of the state, Vol. I > Part 23
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of the first independent convention, refused to stand for the same honor at the second people's independent convention in August, and Charles H. VanWyck, this time, won the nomination. In the democratic convention, a revulsion of sentiment caused largely by the veto of the Newberry Bill had swamped Governor Boyd. Samuel N. Wolbach of Hall and Frank P. Ireland of Otoe were under consideration for the gubernatorial nomination, but both withdrew and the plum swiftly went to J. Sterling Morton, areh-enemy to the Miller-Boyd faction. A truly aggressive campaign followed, with the election of Crounse resulting; the vote standing Crounse. 78,426, Van Wyck, 68,617 and Morton, 44,195. Bryan, for Congress, defeated Allen W. Field ; MeKeighan was re-elected over William E. Andrews, and Kem defeated Whitehead, in the first, fifth and sixth districts respectivly. This campaign had been enlivened by joint debates between Bryan and Field, and between MeKeighan and Andrews, which still lurk in the memories of the older citizens of the state. Hon. G. M. Lambertson, a Nebraska citizen, who had served as counsel for the Interstate Commerce Commission, in December. 1892, assumed the duties of assistant secretary of the treasury.
GOVERNOR CROUNSE'S ADMINISTRATION. 1893. In January of this year, the Capital National Bank in Lincoln failed, and on February Ist. an indictment was returned against President C. W. Mosher. Out of this failure grew famous litiga- tion, the fag-ends of which are still in the courts, twenty-seven years later (1920). The fifteenth legislature met in twenty-third session ( 13th regular ) on January 3. 1893, and remained until April 8th. Lieutenant Governor Majors remained as presiding officer of the Senate, with E. M. Correll, of Hebron, Thayer County. as president pro tem., and H. A. Edwards, of Grand Island, as secretary. In the House, J. N. Gaffin, independent, of Saunders, was elected speaker and Eric Johnson again served as chief clerk. Another Newberry railroad bill fixing freight rates and classification was passed at this session. In the election for United States Senator, William V. Allen, independent, defeated Senator Paddock. There had been many other candidates and John M. Thurston had once been within three votes of election. Impeachment proceedings, directed against Secretary of State John C. Allen, commissioner of public lands and buildings Augustus R. Humphrey. Attorney-General George H. Hlastings and Treasurer John E. Hill, were launched by passage of a resolution through the House. The three attorneys chosen were, Stephen B. Pound, republican, William L. Greene, democrat, and George W. Doane, democrat, in place of Eleazer Wakeley, who did not care to serve. The specifications were mainly directed at acts of these officers as members of board of public lands and buildings, in relation to the conduct of the penitentiary, and the construction of a cell house there. The whole affair led to considerable investigation among the different state institutions. Gross corruption and mismanagement were found at the penitentiary, and even worse conditions reported at the insane asylum : Superintendent Mallileu of the Kearney Industrial Home was exonerated from charges of misappropriation of funds: impeachment proceedings against Ex- Treasurer Ilill, Ex-Auditor Thomas Benton were dismissed on the ground they had retired from office, as was the case against Attorney-General Leese, and the cases against Humphrey, Hastings and Allen were dropped on technical grounds, without determination of the facts.
Nebraska had for the first time been honored with a national cabinet port- folio, when J. Sterling Morton was appointed secretary of agriculture by President
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Cleveland, in 1892. On April 22, the employees of that department at Washington planted a white oak tree in the honor of this "father of Arbor Day." In July of this year, President Mosher of the defunct Capital National Bank was sentenced to five years' imprisonment in the penitentiary. Legislation was started this summer to prevent the board of transportation from reducing freight rates. In September, Congressman W. J. Bryan introduced a bill for the guarantee of national bank deposits, which may have then been a futile effort. but which forecast one of the progressive reforms to come some twenty years later.
1894. In January, the state supreme court declared the law for deposit of state funds not in conflict with the Constitution. It was in this year that the terribly destructive hot winds, and lack of rain. destroyed the crops in the state and plunged Nebraska into the terrible, never-forgotten drought period. The repub- lieans decided to buck the oncoming wave of radicalism with their stalwart conserva- tive, Thomas J. Majors, while the people's independent party nominated for gover- nor, Silas A. Holcomb of Broken Bow, upon the first ballot, and the democrats after endorsing William J. Bryan for U. S. senator split into two camps; one staying by their colors and endorsing Holcomb, and thus taking the first step in hision. The bolters went to another hall and nominated John A. MeShane for governor. The increasing hard times had not only brought Bryan back to a posi- tion where he was endorsed by the party that so emphatically repudiated him two years before, but they swept Judge Holcomb into the governor's chair. But fusion prevailed this time only on the head of the ticket, and except for Kem, the repub- licans won out in congressional contests. In November, 1894, Judge Brewer of the United States Circuit Court declared the Newberry Bill unconstitutional. In December, Turner M. Marquette, whose career in Nebraska political affairs dated from territorial days, died at Plattsmouth.
GOVERNOR HOLCOMB'S FIRST ADMINISTRATION. 1895, On January 5, Silas A. Holcomb. the first fusion or populist governor was inaugurated. The sixteenth legislature, in twenty-fourth session convened this week, and adjourned April 5th. Lient. Gov. Robert E. Moore, of Lancaster County, was president, with John C. Watson, of Otoe County. president pro tem .. and T. E. Sedgwick, of York, secretary. Charles L. Richards of Thayer County was Speaker of the House, and W. M. Geddes, chief clerk. This legislature restored the sugar bounty repealed by its predecessor. It made an appropriation for drought sufferers, and a still larger one for supplying seed and food for teams during the spring of 1895. Illustrative of how far reaching the slightest acts or most thoughtless votes of a legislator may prove to be "chickens that long after came home to roost"-is the incident, that one member of this 1895 legislature voted against this seed measure and twenty- one years later when running for governor and calling attention to the fact that he had once homesteaded in Nebraska, this "vote" was most decisively used by the opposition in contributing to his defeat. There was little real notable legislation passed at this session. John M. Thurston won the U. S. senatorship at the hands of this session. Governor Holcomb vetoed both the sugar bounty and chicory bounty bill, and both were passed over his veto. The governor approved a resolution designating Nebraska as "treeplanter's state" and this same session named the goldenrod as the state flower.
1896. In January, Senator W. V. Allen introduced a bill in the United States senate providing for a Trans-Mississippi exposition. In March of this year,
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Senator Allen declined to be populist candidate for president. But a few months later, another Nebraskan, most unexpectedly to the country in general, won the democratic nomination, and the campaign of 1896, between William MeKinley of Ohio, and William Jennings Byran, was one that will never be forgotten by any citizen, over five years of age at that time, as long as he can remember anything. In March, State Engineer R. B. Howell resigned from the state board of irriga- tion. Eighteen years later he was the gubernatorial candidate of the republican party. The republicans in Nebraska in convention on April 15th, declared for William Mckinley for president. May 15th, W. J. Byran and Edward Rosewater debated the question of free silver at Omaha, and on July 3rd. Byran debated this question with John P. Irish at ('rete, and one week later, he was nominated for president at Chicago. JJuly 12th, Lincoln had a wild demonstration in honor of its presidential candidate. Byran was nominated by the silver republican national convention at St. Louis on July 24th, and on July 25th. with Watson, by the populist national convention. In November, Nebraska gave her own candidate her electoral vote. but he met defeat in the nation. In the state campaign, the republicans duplicated the conservative Major's nomination of 1894, with that of an alleged railroad adherent. John H. McCall of Dawson County, who was defeated by Governor Holcomb. In the congressional contests, the republicans saved J. B. Strode in the first and David H. Mercer in the second districts : and the fusionists won Samuel Maxwell, over Ross L. Hammond : William F. Stark defeating Eugene JJ. Hainer in the fourth : Roderick D. Sutherland over William E. Andrews in the fifth. and William L. Greene over Addison E. Cady in the sixth.
GOVERNOR HOLCOMB'S SECOND ADMINISTRATION. 1892. The seventeenth legis- lature met in twenty-fifth session. January 5th and remained until April 9th, Lieut. Gov. James E. Harris was president of the senate, with Frank T. Ransom, silver republican, Donglas County, as president pro tem., and W. F. Schwind, as secretary. In the house, James N. Gaffin, independent, of Saunders County, was elected to the speakership he had held four years before, and F. D. Eager was chief clerk. This session threatened to pass some of the reform legislation to be forthcoming in a decade or so, such as anti-pass and two cent passenger fare bills, but failed. It did accomplish a stock yard regulatory measure. In January, President Cleveland and his cabinet decided that the Union Pacific Railroad must be sold, and a petition for foreclosure of the government mortgage on that road was filed in the office of clerk of the United States Circuit Court. In February, the Legislature appointed a joint committee to make recommendation concerning defalcations and embezzlement by Ex-Treasurer Joseph S. Bartley, who was soon thereafter placed under arrest, as was likewise Ex-State Auditor Eugene Moore. Another conflict in this session arose from the sargent-at-arms and a committee of the house of representatives seizing the ballots from the state canvassing board, and the state supreme court denied a writ of mandamus to compel the canvassing board to continue a recount of the ballots on certain constitutional amendments.
In April George D. Meiklejohn was appointed assistant secretary of war by President Mckinley. The Trans-Mississippi exposition was formally dedieated on April 22nd, by laying of the corner-stone of the arch marking the entrance to the grounds. In June the state supreme court decided that the constitutional amend- ment increasing the number of judges of that court from three to five had not
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been adopted by the people. On June 26th, Ex-Treasurer Bartley was sentenced to twenty years in the penitentiary and to pay a fine of $303,268.90. On June 29th, another wheel horse of Nebraska republicanisin was rewarded, Church Howe being appointed to consul-general post at Apia, Samoa, which post was taken by Judge Osborne of Blair and Howe given a better location at Palermo, Italy. In Septem- ber Ex-State Auditor Moore pleaded guilty to embezzlement, and on November 30th, was sentenced for eight years in penitentiary. Ex-United States Senator Paddock died in October at his home in Beatrice. Ex-Anditor Gillespie of terri- torial and state goverment died in Lincoln on December 19th. December 20th. suit was filed by the state against Bartley and his bondsmen for $335,000, of school funds lost, and the week later the state sued Omaha National Bank for $201,884,05 arising out of the Bartley defaleation, and on January 5, 1898 the Supreme Court affirmed the judgement of the lower court in the Bartley case.
1898. In February, the Supreme Court upheld the validity of $100,000 expo- sition bonds voted by Douglas County. In February, the Supreme Court reversed the conviction of Ex-Auditor Moore and he was released. In the same month, the bondsmen in the Bartley case won a verdict, and an indictment was returned by a grand jury against Moore on another matter.
Nebraska in the Spanish-American War. In this year the Spanish-American war broke out, and on April 25th, Nebraska was called upon to furnish two regiments of infantry. The First and Second Nebraska regiments of national guard were ordered mustered in at Lincoln at once.
On May 14th, Governor Holeomb proclaimed the Trans-Mississippi exposi- tion opening day. June Ist, a public holiday. On May 16th, the First Nebraska regiment entrained for the Philippines. This regiment went into its Philippines eamp. July 14. 1898. It participated in an attack on Manila on August 13th, and took part in numerous other engagements. It was mustered out at San Francisco, Angust 23. 1899. It had a total enrollment of 1,376. Its colonel was John P. Bratt ; its lieutenant colonels were George R. Coulton, Frank D. Eager and Majors John M. Stotsenburg, H. B. Mulford, Fred A. Williams, Wallace C. Taylor and J. N. Kilian. The second Nebraska entered into service in April. 1898, and remained until mustered out on October 24, 1898, It was ordered to Chickamauga Park, Georgia, and lost twenty-six by death and eight by accident and was denied actual fighting service. Col. C. J. Bills was commanding, with Emil Olson, lieutenant colonel and as Majors William S. Mapes and Ernest H. Traey. It has enrolled a total of forty-six officers and 1.366 enlisted men. The third Nebraska was organ- ized with Col William Jennings Bryan at its head. On July 13, 1898, it went to Jacksonville, Florida, and thence to Havana, Cuba. In April, 1899, it came back to Augusta, Georgia, and was mustered out. Victor Vifquain and John H. McClay were Lient. Cols. and Majors were Conrad F. Seharman and Harry S. Dungan. Troop K of Milford, under Capt, Jaeob H. Culver, organized as Troop A, Cavalry went to Chickamauga, and was mustered out in September, 1898.
The Trans-Mississippi Exposition was successfully conducted during the balance of 1898, and held over until 1899. The executive committee who so ably assisted President Gurdon W. Wattles in the successful accomplishment of this venture, were Z. T. Lindsay, Edward Rosewater, Gilbert M. Hitchcock, E. E. Bruce, A. L. Reed, F. P. Kirkendall and W. N. Babeock. This wonderful show contributed very much toward advertising Nebraska most thoroughly to the entire nation and even
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the world. In June, the supreme court reaffirmed the Bartley conviction, and in July, he started to serve his twenty year sentence. The state campaign was not entirely lost sight of in this war and exposition year, and the populists, democrats and silver republicans "fused" upon the nomination of William A. Poynter as governor, and in the fall election he defeated Monroe L. Hayward for governor.
GOVERNOR POYNTER'S ADMINISTRATION. 1899. The Legislature which met this year saw the return of the republicans to power in legislative halls. With Lieut. Gov. E. A. Gilbert of York as presiding officer of the senate, Adolph R. Talbot of Lincoln was president pro tem., and Alpha Morgan, republican, Broken Bow, secre- tary; and in the house. Paul F. Clark of Lancaster County, was speaker, with John Wall, of Arcadia, Valley County, as chief clerk. Hayward, defeated for governor, was elected United States senator, but died on December 5, 1899, without qualifying. Charles E. Magoon, another republican faithful of Nebraska, was appointed in January, solicitor for customs and insular division of the war department at Washington, Governor Poynter vetoed a bill passed in this session providing for Supreme Court commission, and signed a bill locating the state fair at Lincoln. Col. John M. Stotsenburg of First Nebraska Volunteers was killed on April 23rd, in a charge upon the Filipinos at Quingua, and on May 28 his body lay in State in the State Senate chamber. In July. 1899, a jury in the case of the State v. the. bondsmen of Ex-State Treasurer Bartley returned a verdict of $646,382.43 against the bondsmen, releasing Mrs. Fitzgerald from her liability. The First Nebraska regiment returned to San Francisco on July 29th, with the record of having lost more men (sixty-two in all) in the Philippine campaign than any other regiment, except one, of regulars. In September, the $600,000 Bartley bondsmen judge- ment was appealed. On November 1st. Ex-Governor Alvin Saunders died at his home in Omaha. Following the death of Senator Hayward, on December 5th, Governor Poynter appointed Ex-Senator W. V. Allen as United States Senator until the Legislature should elect a successor. In December, the State Supreme Court reversed and remanded for further trial the Bartley bondsmen case, and also the suit against the Omaha National Bank. Petitions for the release of Bartley were commencing to circulate, and early in January, 1900, the Supreme Court decided that the state could recover from insurance companies the fees paid Ex-Audi- tor Moore and retained by him, in amount of $23,000.
1900. In March, the State Supreme Court granted a rehearing in the Bartley bondsmen case, and the state in that month, by decision of Judge Baker, lost its $200,000 suit against the Omaha National Bank. Politics in this year did not reach the height of fervor they had in 1896, but Nebraska again had a presidential candidate. W. J. Bryan was for the second time nominated by the democratic party, but as he was running against President MeKinley, the handicap was greater. The issue had changed from free silver, 16 to 1, to Imperialism. The electorial vote of Nebraska was switched to MeKinley by a majority of approximately 8,000. Governor Poynter polled a vote of 113,018 but his opponent, Charles H. Dietrich, of Hastings bested him a few hundreds, with a vote of 113,879. The fusionists retained four districts on congressional elections, electing John S. Robinson, third, William L. Stark, fourth ; Ashton (. Shallenberger, fifth and William Neville, sixth, but Elmer J. Burkett, first and David Il. Mercer second, republicans, won. In October of this year, Edward Rosewater, of the Bee, and Gilbert M. Hitchcock, of the World-Herald had held a very interesting joint debate on the issues of the
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day. On December 18th, the kidnaping of a son of Edward Cudahy, the million- aire Omaha packer, by Pat Crowe, with a payment of $25,000 ransom money was an event that became noteworthy in the criminal annals of the state.
GOVERNORS DIETRICH-SAVAGE ADMINISTRATIONS, 1901. In January of this year, W. J. Bryan began the publication of a weekly paper. "The Commoner," and in February, Judge Samuel Maxwell died at his home in Fremont. He had been a member of the territorial Legislature, the first constitutional conventions, 1864-1821; first State Legislature, served the longest term of any Nebraska state jurist on her Supreme Court and served in Congress. The nineteenth Legislature, in twenty-sev- enth session met in January of this year. J. C. F. MeKesson was secretary of senate and John Wall chief clerk of the house. Its main feature was one of the most picturesque senatorial contests ever staged in Nebraska. David E. Thompson. of Lincoln, afterwards Ambassador to Mexico, had for more than a year been leveling his enemies and corralling his friends and building fences for this contest and started ont as the most formidable candidate. His strength at one point arose to 50 votes : six short of success in the republican canens, and while he was forced to withdraw on March 28th. he still had strength enough to dictate the final course. The democrats or fusionists were backing Senator William V. Allen. incumbent of the term left vacant by Senator Hayward's death with fifty-seven votes, and William Il. Thompson, for the full term, with fifty-eight votes. A switch gave Gilbert M. Hitchcock fifty-seven votes at one time. Edward Rosewater held a block of 11 to 16 votes most of the time, which grew to thirty-two on the fifty- third ballot. The final outcome was the withdrawal of D. E. Thompson, and the election of Governor Dietrich to the unexpired Hayward term. For the full term, Joseph I. Millard, a very prominent banker of Omaha, was chosen. So apon May 1st, Lieut .- Gov. Ezra P. Savage of Custer County became governor, when Governor Dietrich assumed the senatorship. In May. Ex-Secretary of State W. F. Porter was sned by the state for $1.518,85 of fees under the "cattle brands law." In July of this year, came the event that stirred Nebraska to its depths and made Governor Savage so unpopular that upon his retirement from the executive chair. he removed from the state shortly afterwards-this was the parole of Ex-Treasurer Bartley for sixty days. This stir was deep enough that in 1911, ten years later, it sprang forth in a United States senatorial campaign. On August 27th, Governor Savage made a public statement of his reasons for this action, but on the next day revoked the parole at the request of the republican state convention passed by a vote of 998 to 165. In September of this year, Nebraska with the remainder of the Union suffered a shock from the assassination of President Mckinley. In this same month, Judge Smith MePherson, of the Federal Court, declared unconsti- tutional three laws enacted by the 1897 Legislature, the anti-trust, stock yards rates and the insurance compaet laws. In October, the State Supreme Court declared that the democrats and populists must each have a separate circle opposite their names on the ballot, and from the moment of this destruction of fusion, the days of electing populists waned, and the democrats stayed out of office to any great extent for about eight years longer.
1902. On January 1st. Governor Savage, insistent upon having his own way. granted a full pardon to Ex-State Treasurer Bartley. On this day occurred the death of W. H. B. Stout, a member of the 1868 Legislature, who had constructed the State Capitol and penitentiary. Acting Governor (Lient .- Gov.) C. F. Steele
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deelared January 29th, MeKinley Day, a holiday. Governor Savage did not stand for re-election, withdrawing from the race in April. John H. Mickey, of Polk County, won the republican nomination and was elected over William H. Thompson, of Grand Island, by a vote of 96,471 to 91,116. The republicans won all congress- ional seats except the second, in which Gilbert M. Hitchcock displaced David 11. Mercer; the others were, Burkett, first ; and other four districts, John J. MeCarthy. Edmund H. Hinshaw, George W. Norris and Moses P. Kinkaid. Two of these six congressman, Norris and Hitchcock, have been Nebraska's two senators at Washington since 1915, and Kinkaid has served continously since 1903 from the Sixth district. In June of this year, the State Supreme Court held the Bartley bondsmen were liable for any shortages. G. M. Lambertson died in June.
GOVERNOR MICKEY'S FIRST ADMINISTRATION. 1903. In January, the State Supreme Court relieved the Omaha National Bank from liability in the Bartley case. The Legislature of this session met, with Lieut. Gov. C. F. Steele again presiding over the senate, and W. Il. Harrison, of Grand Island, as president pro tem., and A. R. Keim as secretary and John H. Mockett, Jr., of Lincoln, was speaker of the house and John Wall was again chief clerk. During this session the house subpwnæd Ex-Governor Savage, Ex-Treasurer Bartley and R. J. Clancy to appear and answer questions in an investigation. Governor Mickey approved a resolution which petitioned Congress to pass an Act giving each homesteader 640 aeres of land. Ex-Congressman Neville of the Big Sixth had been working on this during his term there, but after he went into office, Congressman Kinkaid took up the matter and stayed with it until its successful passage, in April, 1904, and it became known as the Kinkaid Law, and further than that, the homesteads became called "Kinkaids" and the homesteaders themselves pretty generally known as "Kin- kaiders." President Theodore Roosevelt visited the state in April and again in June. A teamsters' strike in Omaha in May brought forth a visit of the governor and injunctions issued against the strikers by Judge Munger of the Federal Court and against the employers by Judge Dickinson of the State District Court. A settlement of the Bartley case was attempted by the bondsmen in Angust and rejected by the state but in November, another decision came forth exonerating the bondsmen from liability.
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