Jefferson County, Pennsylvania : her pioneers and people, 1800-1915, Volume II, Part 75

Author: McKnight, W. J. (William James), 1836-1918
Publication date: 1917
Publisher: Chicago : J.H. Beers
Number of Pages: 972

USA > Pennsylvania > Jefferson County > Jefferson County, Pennsylvania : her pioneers and people, 1800-1915, Volume II > Part 75

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After his recapture he was taken back to Macon, Ga., and then to Charleston. S. C., and put in the workhouse there with others under the fire of our batteries on Morris Island, where that famous gun called the "Swamp Angel" was shelling the city of Charleston.

When, in the latter part of September, 1864, General Sherman and General Hood, of the Rebel army, were allowed to exchange prisoners captured at and after the battle of Peach Tree Creek, which was in June, 1864, Harry White, by a ruse, got out of the prison with these officers and was taken back to Macon, and thence with others marching to Rough and Ready, ten miles below Atlanta, got over into the Union lines, and after six- teen months of imprisonment, breathed in Atlanta the atmosphere of liberty. The many trials, sufferings and peculiar experiences he had during these sixteen months of prison, his different escapes and the different prisons in which he was confined, would require a volume for the narration of most harrowing details.

While belonging to the Army of the Poto- mac he was temporarily put on General Thomas's staff, and with him went to Nash- ville and thence, after some narrow escapes from recapture through Tennessee and Ken- tucky, reached his home in the midst of the excitement of the presidential campaign be- tween Lincoln, the Republican, and Mcclellan, the Democrat. A mere political campaign was farthest from the thought of Harry White when he reached home the night of the 5th of October, 1864, to receive the welcome of lifelong friends and the embrace of his own family. While attenuated in body from a long and harrowing imprisonment, through- "hairbreadth 'scapes and imminent peril." yet the atmosphere of freedom and the cordial welcome of home and friends soon brought to him health and vigor.

A demand was made of him for service in the great campaign to keep Lincoln as the leader of the people against the heretical proclamation that "the war was a failure." At a meeting in Philadelphia, Nov. 2, 1864, in the Academy of Music, with Governor Curtin presiding, a great reception was given for Harry White, and he was made to narrate, for the information of the people, many of his trials and experiences of himself and com- rades in Rebel prisons.

In due time, having been commissioned by the governor of Pennsylvania colonel of his regiment, and by President Lincoln brevetted brigadier general, he returned to his regiment and served until victory came at Appomattox. When the army was disbanded, returning to his home in the early spring of 1865, there was a natural demand among the people that he should be returned to the Senate of Penn- sylvania, his election to which, in 1862, had caused him to suffer so long and painful in- prisonment. He was elected in the fall of 1865. again, to the Senate of Pennsylvania, once more in the fall of 1868. and again in 1871. He became the leader of his party in the Senate during all these years, and wrote and had enacted much, very much important legislation. Among many important measures in the session of 1869 he wrote and had passed what was known as the Evidence Act of 1860. which changed the old rule that excluded in- terested parties from testifying in their own cases, so as to allow parties, themselves, to be witnesses in their own cases, leaving their credibility as a question for the jury. At the close of the session of 1870 he was elected speaker of the Senate.

While not posing as a reformer, yet Gereral

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White was sensible of great corruptions and betrayal of the people's best interests in the Legislature of Pennsylvania, and during his third term in the Senate gave much time and effort to creating public sentiment throughout the State for a Constitutional convention, to remedy what he thought were the ills of the time. This sentiment he thought to excite by delivering lectures in different parts of the Commonwealth, the principal thought of them being the necessity of correcting certain errors of the time by a new constitution. The initial lecture, entitled "The Manhood For The Time," which was published at length in the Pittsburgh Commercial, April 26, 1870 ( now the Commercial Gasette ), was delivered in Mechanicsburg, Cumberland Co., Pa. Inas- much as this is a matter of general public in- terest and of history, we make some extracts from it. With ample illustrations from history and anecdote, self-reliance. courage, independence, enthusiasm, sensibility, all with continuity of purpose, were indicated as quali- ties to make up the manhood required by the necessities of the times. Never, said he, was a manhood. made up of such qualities, more needed in our Pennsylvania than now. The employments of the mere "litterateur" seem to have taken wings and fled to the utter- most. The fires of native poetry have been quenched. Public life, public office, attract all with desire. Survey the field. How many there master the situation ? The insincere demagogue stares at you on every corner. Rare to find, treading the high plane of authority, him who, with confident heart, relies upon the powers kindly given him and with independent boldness asserts convictions, made effective by an earnest enthusiasm, tempered by a heart sensitive to the plain principles of right and justice between man and man. How little does public position, as at present re- garded, offer to the laudable ambition of our young men! No longer does it seem honor- able or, indeed. respectable to be a member of our State Legislature. Look at the press of the day! Pick tip any newspaper in our State. Abuse of the Legislature abounds in every coltimn. (Here were narrated illus- trative incidents. )

It is urged the personnel of the legislative hody ought to he improved: that better men should be selected. I have seen this tried, or a pretense of trial, for a number of years. Allow me to say, how- ever, there are now in the Legislature, in the Senate, at least, some as high minded, honorable, intelligent gentlemen as can he found in Pennsylvania. . . .

The effort to reestablish that confidence hetween

the people and the lawmaking power of the Com- monwealth, so necessary to the happiness of the community and the stability of Republican institu- tions, is an indulgence in no mere abstraction. The legislative department affects all the concerns of life-in the organization, indeed, of the family itself and the enjoyment of property. Today there is a want of confidence in the legislative department of government. This confidence should be restored. The remedy, I have thought for years, is a Constitu- tional convention. Salutary amendments can be there matured and submitted to the people, correct- ing existing abuses, and when placed in the organic law a measure of security will be reached.

Thirty-five years have elapsed since our last Constitutional convention. Changes have been great in the meantime. Our physical development, our social condition, our material necessities, our polit- ical elements, have changed and changed immensely since the convention of 1838. We have now. cities and towns all over the Commonwealth where vil- lages scarcely existed in 1838. . .. Such marked changes in our condition as a people, clearly, indi- cate the necessity of some modifications in our State constitution; not, indeed, to change our sys- tem, but the manner of dealing with details. (It was here indicated that a Constitutional convention was better than making amendments.)

The method I propose is to provide by bill for the election of, say, thirty-two delegates at large, each elector to vote for sixteen delegates, thus securing thirty-two gentlemen, possibly the best men of either party, as delegates at large, and the balance, one hundred, to be elected in the Senatorial districts. When the convention assembles it should direct its attention, first, to the executive office. I would extend the gubernatorial term to four years, and make him ineligible more than once in eight years. This, in the hope of preventing an administration acting in the interest of a reelection.

In our legislative organization I would have radical changes, increase the numbers of both branches, to make corrupt combinations more diffi- cult. I would make special legislation practically impossible by withdrawing from legislative jurisdic- tion all subjects leading to corrupt practices and discontent among the people. All corporations, public and private, should be created and regulated by gen- eral laws. A more careful manner should be pro- vided for the appropriation of public moneys. Hasty legislation should be prevented, as it has been most prolific of scandal and reproach. All bills should he read in extenso when under consideration and the yeas and nays called and recorded on the final pass- age of all bills. It has long since occurred to me that biennial sessions of the Legislature would be abund- antly frequent, with the power, of course, in the executive to convene extraordinary sessions. . .

Increase of population, enlarged commercial rela- tions, the discovery of oil, coal operations, and-other new sources of wealth have augmented the business of courts, necessitating an increase of judicial force.

While I am proud to believe no Commonwealth has an abler or purer judiciary than Pennsylvania, yet new arrangement of Judicial districts is abso- lutely necessary. The careful attention of the wisest and best of the State in Constitutional convention to the subjects indicated, and kindred ones, would bring the legislation of our Commonwealth greater purity, more security, and that confidence so much to be desired in the administration of her affairs.

This brief reference to a question so important to

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every Pennsylvanian may, I hope, excite more than the passing attention of this audience. If I had the power I would engage to it the attention of all the good people of the whole Commonwealth. Here, then, is a theme worthy your truest manhood.

As a result of this and similar lectures in different parts of the Commonwealth, a desire was created for a Constitutional convention. In the session then of 1872 General White in the Senate was made chairman of the commit- tee on Constitutional Reform, prepared a bill for a Constitutional convention, and conducted its passage through the Legislature of that year. In the debate in the Senate about this bill, it was charged with being partisan, Sen- ator Davis, of Berks county, saying in oppo- sition to it, "The Senator from Indiana has had his own way in framing and passing this bill." After being charged with being parti- san, the only vote in opposition to the bill was that of the senator who made the charge.

As said above, it would extend to undue length this intended brief epitome of General White's career to give all details, but it is quite proper to record that while he presided in Committee of the Whole during the entire consideration and discussion of the Judiciary Article, V, yet it is pertinent to say it was through his influence and that of his boyhood friend and neighbor, Silas M. Clark, then a delegate in the convention and afterwards a Supreme judge of Pennsylvania, that the entire plan of judicial districts throughout the state, as the Constitution provides, was formed and passed. General White also wrote several sections of Article IV, which relates to the governor's department, as well as sections of other .articles of the constitution. All the changes and reforms indicated in the extracts from the address delivered in 1870, and pub- lished above, as part of this sketch, were adopted and are parts of the Constitution.

In 1872 he became a candidate for the Republican nomination for governor of Penn- sylvania He never had the support of what were called the bosses, but in the State con- vention of 1872 he was next in strength of delegates to that distinguished soldier, Gen- eral Ilartranft, who was nominated. But he was nominated as a delegate at large to the Constitutional convention. Governor Geary, while the convention was in session, vetoed the Congressional Apportionment bill. This made it necessary for the convention to nomi- nate three candidates for Congressman at large, and without his knowledge or desire Harry White was nominated as one of these candidates for Congress. The convention

would not nominate him for governor, but piled other honors on him by making him a delegate to the Constitutional convention and also a Congressman ; while at the same time he was a member of the Senate in the middle of his term. It is a trite saying, "Some people are born great, some achieve greatness, some have greatness thrust upon them." Certainly these honors were thrust upon Gen. Harry White, but he relieved himself from the situa- tion by declining the nomination for Con- gressman at large, and accepted the nomina- tion as a delegate for the Constitutional con- vention.

Of course he was elected in the State at large to the Constitutional convention, and having been the author of the bill which called it into existence, as was expected took a lead- ing and prominent part in the convention. That great lawyer, William M. Meredith, of Philadelphia, was unanimously elected presi- dent of the convention. He was given the power to appoint all the committees of the body. He appointed General White chairman of the committee on legislation and gave him the power to select his associates on the com- mittee. This, indeed, was the most important committee of the convention, as it was in- tended to pass on measures that affected the powers of Legislature. It was the legislative abuses which had created a necessity for and made the people demand some constitutional limitations on the legislative power.

Article III of the constitution is on legisla- tive powers and contained, at the time of its adoption, the most radical limitations on legis- lative power of any constitution of any State. Its purpose was to prevent mere class, special and local legislation ; also to prevent unneces- sary haste in proceedings and extravagance in expenditures and appropriations. While some of its remedial provisions have been thwarted by judicial misconstruction, yet it is conceived that this third article of the consti- tution has practically reformed some former legislative abuses. To refer in detail to its many sections would make a commentary too extended for the purpose of this publication.

The sessions of the convention. beginning in November. 1872, continued with some re- cesses until December, 1873. During the winter of 1873 Gen. Harry White was also a member of the Senate of Pennsylvania, and chairman there of some of its most important committees. It was, indeed, most exhaustive labor to attend the sittings of both the Con- stitutional convention and the Senate of Pennsylvania, but by unceasing exertions he

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attended the important business sessions of both bodies. While his salary as a senator was $1,000 his salary as a member of the Consti- tutional convention was $2,500. This latter salary he never lifted, but turned it into the State treasury, where it remains.

The constitution having been adopted at a popular election, Dec. 16, 1873, went into effect Jan. 1, 1874. Upon the Legislature of 1874 fell the duty of enacting many general laws to put the provisions of the new consti- tution into practical effect. General White, still being a member of the Senate, prepared and had passed during the session of 1874 many of the measures required to be enacted to put the constitution into practical effect.

In 1876 General White was elected to Con- gress from the district composed of the coun- ties of Armstrong, Clarion, Forest, Indiana and Jefferson, that being the year of the close election between Hayes and Tilden, for the presidency of the United States. General White was appointed as one of the so-called visiting statesmen to Louisiana, to discover which of the two candidates was rightfully entitled to the electoral vote of that State, and has always insisted that while on the face of the returns, as originally published, Tilden apparently had the majority, after investiga- tion and elimination of the electoral frauds and fraudulent returns in New Orleans and different parishes Hayes ultimately right- fully received the electoral vote of Louisiana. He made various speeches, which have been published, vindicating the electoral commis- sion of 1877 in giving Hayes the vote of Louisiana.

Entering the Forty-fifth Congress, which began with the extra session called for Octo- ber, 1877, as a Republican, his party was largely in the minority, yet having had large legislative experience he at once took an active and effective part in that somewhat important and eventful Congress. Having been educated in the Henry Clay school of politics, which taught that liberal construction of the consti- tution of the United States that authorized the aid of the general government in "internal public improvements," he early sought the improvement, with a view of making them navigable, of the various important rivers of his district. Following this policy, he secured in 1877 the first Congressional appropriation that was ever made for the improvement of the upper Allegheny river. That important river, he argued, if completely slackwatered to be navigable all seasons of the year, would he

a large tributary to the commerce of western Pennsylvania.

Having been a soldier. General White was appointed in his first Congress one of the seven that made what was called "The Burnside Military Commission," which sought to reorganize the army. Although the House had a majority adverse to his party, yet he advocated and had passed through Congress a report of that commission, which is, prac- tically, the basis of the organization of the present army of the United States. General White also framed and supported, with an address, an amendment to the United States Constitution to make United States senators elective by the people. This proposition. how- ever. slept a death-sleep in the Judiciary com- mittee. Many of his friends in Congress sneered at his efforts in this behalf. But, now, after thirty years, this change has come. As a member of the Senate of Pennsylvania he had participated in six elections of United States senators, and educated by observation and experience by such elections he believed the time had come to allow the people of the States to elect senators by popular vote as they did members of the House of Representatives. While ever a loyal Republican, he was always of the progressive kind before that term had become the designation of an organization in opposition to the old-time Republican party.

While he was a member of Congress that serious industrial disturbance in the fall of 1877 known as the "Pittsburgh Riots" took place. General White was then, by commis- sion of Governor Hartranft, major general of the 9th Division of the National Guard of Pennsylvania. As the guard was then or- ganized, the divisions were. really. small brigades. That. indeed, was a crucial time of western Pennsylvania, threatening a large and serious conflict between industrial forces.

When the riots came General White was promptly with his division on the scene with headquarters at Torrens Station. near Pitts- burgh. and did much to restore normal condi- tions. His division started the first train on the Pennsylvania railroad after the hostile interruption of regular trains which had lasted for about ten days.

The Forty-sixth Congress, to which he was elected in the fall of 1878. was a most im- portant one, as its discussions, reviving old- time war questions, solidified the Republican party, and in 1880 carried General Garfield to the White House. General White that vear, against his wishes, was again nominated for Congress. The Greenback craze, and the

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cry of "Greenbacks for Bonds," was rampant in the district, and the fusion with the Demo- crats retired him from Congress, although in that election he polled more votes than Gen- eral Garfield did for president.

In 1884. although urged to return to Con- gress, when he surely would have been elected, he yielded to the request of many friends and was elected president judge of his Judicial dis- trict, and reclected in 1894. This later Judi- cial campaign was a most eventful one. After his first election to the bench, in 1884. the liquor license question, over which the court had jurisdiction, was a most absorbing one. While in the Senate, in 1867, he had written the law under which license applications were heard and decided. When he came upon the bench, and in his decisions, as a judge, he sought to be consistent with his utterances as a senator. Hence he felt it his duty to decide every application on the petitions for and against the necessity for each particular license applied for. The large preponderance of the petitions in each case being against the necessity for the license, he refused them all, thus following the provisions of the law he had written while a senator. Indiana county was thus left without a hotel licensed to sell liquor for ten years.

No further applications for those ten years were ever made after the first refusals. This situation organized the liquor interest against Judge White's reelection in 1804, and he was elected by less than one hundred majority. This election, however, was contested under a law, by a coincidence, which he had written himself while in the Senate in 1874. This created a court to be composed of three judges of nearest adjoining districts. In this case two of these judges were Democrats and one a Republican. yet his election was con- firmed and his majority considerably in- creased. During this second term on the bench, however, licenses were granted in various parts of this district, as the sentiment on the question had materially changed through the large increase of population be- cause of the active coal mining interests.

While, indeed. Indiana county was Judge White's judicial district. yet from time to time he presided in the courts of sixteen Judi- cial districts of the State. As a judge he gave most careful and painstaking attention in the trial of all cases, and was seldom reversed by the Appellate courts. His opinions were gen- erally elaborate and written or expressed in pure, good English. Since he left the bench

in 1905 he has been active at the bar, having all the practice he desires.

Born on the property he now owns in In- diana, much of his life has been spent there, and he has done much for his native county. That prosperous educational institution, the State Normal School at Indiana, owes its crea- tion to him, for while a senator he wrote and had passed into law its charter, securing for it also a State appropriation of $20,000 to start on, and he is yet the largest original stock- holder in the school. While General White lives in the township of White, which bears the family name, being called for his honored father, yet his office, library and interests are largely in the town of Indiana, where he was born.

In 1860, then an ardent young man, he married Anna Lena Sutton. She came of a family largely associated with the history of Indiana county. No woman could have been better suited to be the wife of this ambitious, energetic man. Anna Lena White was in all things the type of highest, purest womanhood. Possessed of a mind of high order, with it she had largeness of soul, a fine tact, a most gentle, gracious manner. In short, she was a lovely person. It may most truly be said of this wonderful woman, "Her children rise up and called her blessed, her husband also, and he praiseth her."

Of this marriage four children were born. two daughters and two sons, at this writing all living : The eldest daughter. Virginia. now married to John N. Speel. pay director United States Navy; Thomas White, civil engineer ; Harry White, Jr., a banker; and Helen, the fourth and youngest, now the wife of Charles Edmund Beeson, of Pittsburgh. General White's family circle had been unbroken until Feb. 27, 1912, when death claimed his beloved wife.

Though General White has had a long life, with a long list of achievements, he is still occupied with various activities. He is en- gaged in banking, being president of the In- diana County Deposit Bank, and is the largest individual land owner in the county. Neither heat nor cold nor storm deters him in the pur- suit of his business or causes him to violate an engagement. Though advanced in years his unerring memory is as wonderful as ever. and he retains his physical and mental strength without a perceptible waning faculty. A fine horseman, he has a soldierly bearing in the saddle. and mounts and dismounts with the ease and dexterity of long practice, for he has always loved this recreation. Ile is

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Jefferson County, Pennsylvania : her pioneers and people, 1800-1915, Volume II, Part 75

Author: McKnight, W. J. (William James), 1836-1918 Publication date: 1917 Publisher: Chicago : J.H. Beers Number of Pages: 972

Author: McKnight, W. J. (William James), 1836-1918
Publication date: 1917
Publisher: Chicago : J.H. Beers
Number of Pages: 972