USA > Pennsylvania > Progressive Pennsylvania; a record of the remarkable industrial development of the Keystone state, with some account of its early and its later transportation systems, its early settlers, and its prominent men > Part 31
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Judge Henry M. Brackenridge practiced law in Som- erset for a short time between 1808 and 1810, but the young lawyer emigrated to the West within a year. The distinguished Judge Moses Hampton was at one time a member of the Somerset bar and was prothonotary of Somerset county when Joseph Ritner was Governor, a po- sition which he resigned in 1838 to remove to Pittsburgh.
During the Administration of Martin Van Buren Jo- seph Williams, a native of Westmoreland county, who had practiced law in Somerset, was appointed a United States Judge for the Territory of Iowa, and at the same time William B. Conway, then editing The Mountaineer, at Ebensburg, in the adjoining county of Cambria, was ap- pointed Secretary of the Territory-illustrating the point already made that the hill towns of Pennsylvania have produced many men of wide reputation. Williams was appointed in 1838, reappointed in 1842, and again in 1846. He died at Fort Scott, Kansas, in 1871. In 1830 he was appointed register of wills and recorder of deeds for Somerset county. Conway died at Davenport, Iowa, while in office, in December, 1839.
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PROGRESSIVE PENNSYLVANIA.
CHAPTER XXXIII.
A CHAMPION OF PROTECTION.
UNITED STATES SENATOR QUAY died at his home in Beaver, Pennsylvania, on Saturday, May 28, 1904, and was buried on Tuesday, May 31, in the Beaver Cemetery. In a nearby cemetery, in the neighboring town of Roch- ester, there rest the remains of another citizen of Beaver county, General Abner Lacock, who was a United States Senator from 1813 to 1819 and had previously been a member of the General Assembly of Pennsylvania and a Representative in Congress from 1811 to 1813. This chapter relates almost entirely to Senator Quay's inesti- mable services in behalf of the industries of our country.
Matthew Stanley Quay was born at Dillsburg, York county, Pennsylvania, on September 30, 1833. At the time of his death he was not 71 years old. A pathetic interest attaches to some remarks which he made a little more than three years before his death, in which he seems to have contemplated the early termination of his earthly career. On May 14, 1901, after his third election to the Senate, his political friends honored him with a banquet at Phila- delphia, at which he delivered an address. He said : "At three score years and ten the world grows lonely. Through wildernesses almost desolate the stream of life glides darkly toward the eternal gulf. The associations of early existence are gone. Its objects are gained or lost or fad- ed in importance, and there is a disconnection with ideas once clamped about the reason and dissolution of feelings once melting the heart. Occasions like the present stand in pleasant relief-green patches on the sandy delta-and are especially attractive and welcome. My political race is run. It is not to be understood that God's sword is drawn immediately against my life, nor that my seat in the Senate is to be prematurely vacated, but that, with the subscription of my official oath on the 18th of Janu- ary, my connection with the serious labors and responsi-
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A CHAMPION OF PROTECTION.
. bilities of active politics ceased. I have many friends to remember; I have no enemies to punish. In this regard I put aside the past." Senator Quay had "no enemies to punish," although his political power was then very great. Another United States Senator once exhibited the same spirit of Christian charity. Benton and Calhoun were bitter enemies, but when Calhoun died Benton refused to criti- cise anything that his great rival had done. He said : " When God puts his hand on a man I take mine off."
Senator Quay did not live to serve out the term for which he had been elected, dying at three score years and ten. In the spirit of the address from which we have just quoted almost the last request he made before his death was that the inscription, Implora Pacem, (pray for peace,) should be placed on his tombstone. This has been done.
To the above brief account of the deceased Senator's personal history we add his impressive record while a United States Senator, and also as chairman of the Re- publican National Committee, in advocating and defend- ing the policy of protection for our home industries. We ask attention to this record. As it is a part of our in- dustrial history the people of Pennsylvania should know it and remember it, although Senator Quay's tariff work was for the benefit of the people of all the States.
In December, 1887, a crisis in the industrial history of the country was precipitated by the annual message of President Cleveland, in which he advocated a revision of the tariff on lines favorable to the policy of free trade ; in other words, he recommended at great length a reduction of duties. In the following month of January Mr. Mills introduced in the House a bill embodying Mr. Cleve- land's recommendations, and in July of that year, 1888, this bill passed the House by a vote of 162 yeas to 149 nays, the Democrats having control of that body. The Senate, being Republican, declined to consider the Mills bill, and subsequently, on January 22, 1889, passed a sub- stitute for it by a vote of 32 yeas to 30 nays-a close vote. The House never considered the substitute. In June, 1888, a few weeks before the passage of the Mills bill through the House, Mr. Cleveland was nominated at
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St. Louis for re-election upon a platform specifically in- dorsing the Mills bill, and in the same month General Harrison was nominated for the Presidency by the Re- publicans at Chicago upon a platform in which the Mills bill was denounced by name. The issue between protec- tion and free trade was thus fairly drawn.
Soon after the nomination of General Harrison for the Presidency in June, 1888, Senator Quay, who had entered the Senate in March, 1887, and whose reputation as a wise political manager had preceded him, was made chair- man of the Republican National Committee. The task set for him was the election of General Harrison and a Re- publican House of Representatives. He accomplished both these objects. The country rang with his praises. Every- body conceded that without his wise leadership the bat- tle for protection would have been lost, for New York, the pivotal State, was carried for Harrison by only 13,- 000 plurality. If Mr. Cleveland and a Democratic House had been elected the Mills bill would have been indorsed and tariff agitation on free trade lines would have con- tinued. Mr. Cleveland had already practically destroyed the protectionist sentiment in his own party, and Samuel J. Randall, the leader of the small band of Protectionist Democrats in the House, was on his deathbed. But Har- rison's election, made possible by Quay's generalship, put an end for four years to all free trade hopes. As a logical sequence of the Republican success in 1888 the House of Representatives, when it met in December, 1889, under- took the revision of the tariff of 1883 on the lines of the Senate substitute for the Mills bill. This revision became a law on October 1, 1890, and is known as the Mckinley tariff. This tariff was mainly a reproduction of the Sen- ate bill of January 22, 1889.
An important service was rendered by Senator Quay in connection with the enactment of the Mckinley tariff bill. The bill was jeopardized in the Senate by the Fed- eral Elections bill, the so-called "Force bill," which many Republican Senators were determined to pass and which Democratic Senators, who were in the minority, were de- termined to defeat by obstructive tactics, or, in other
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A CHAMPION OF PROTECTION.
words, by talking the bill to death. If this scheme of the Democrats had been carried out they would not only have succeeded in defeating the "Force bill" but they would also have prevented the passage of the Mckinley tariff bill through the Senate, as the time consumed in killing the "Force bill" would have prevented the consideration of the Mckinley bill. Senator Quay had the skill and address to rescue the McKinley bill from this serious di- lemma by securing the adoption of an order of business which gave it the right of way over the "Force bill." Thenceforward the Mckinley bill had plain sailing.
Senator Quay's part in securing the defeat of the original Wilson tariff bill in 1894 and the substitution of higher rates of duty for hundreds of its practically free trade provisions can not be overlooked by the impartial historian. It was of inestimable value to the country. Both branches of Congress were now Democratic. The Senator did not need to convince Senator Gorman, Sena- tor Brice, and four or five other Democratic Senators of the destructive character of the Wilson bill, but it was vi- tally necessary that about thirty other Democratic Sena- tors should be convinced that, if they did not vote to give at least partial protection to the industries which had been so seriously threatened by the Wilson bill, the bill could never become a law; with the assistance of other Republicans he would deal with it as the Democrats had proposed to deal with the "Force bill." This threat, which was carried out by the delivery of the Senator's obstructive speech, occupying twelve days in April, May, and June, 1894, had the effect that was desired. The tar- iff bill, which became a law on August 28, 1894, was not the original Wilson bill at all. Many of its worst fea- tures had been eliminated, and for this result Senator Quay received at the time the highest praise from his Senatorial colleagues.
In the Bulletin of the American Iron and Steel Asso- ciation for August 1, 1897, we thus referred to Senator Quay's part in the passage of the Dingley tariff bill of that year, the third important tariff measure with which he was prominently identified while a member of the Sen-
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ate : "It only remains for us to express the thanks of our iron and steel manufacturers to the Republican members of the House Ways and Means Committee and the Sen- ate Committee on Finance for the patient consideration they have given to the tariff interests of our iron and steel industries. Nor do we forget the valuable aid which was freely and intelligently given by Senator Quay, of Pennsylvania, first, in counseling a wise policy of modera- tion by our iron and steel manufacturers, and, second, in carefully guarding every needed iron and steel provision while the bill was under consideration in the Senate. In this latest service Senator Quay has fitly crowned his great achievement when the Wilson tariff bill was shorn of many of its worst features through his efforts."
With this record before us of unflinching devotion to the best interests of his country it will be seen at a glance how great is the debt of gratitude that all our people owe to the memory of the distinguished Pennsylvania Senator whose remains now rest in Beaver Cemetery.
When Senator Quay died numerous eulogies upon his life and public services were pronounced in the Senate and House by leading men of both branches. The list of Senators who spoke in praise of their deceased colleague is a particularly notable one. The tributes of affection and appreciation from Senator John W. Daniel, of Vir- ginia, and Senator John T. Morgan, of Alabama, both of whom were politically opposed to Senator Quay, are worthy of more than a passing thought.
Senator Daniel said : "He was a strong man, of many fine faculties and traits of character. He had the capacity for engaging and attaching to himself disinter- ested friends-a quality which bespeaks the fiber of the man more than words. He hated shams. Hypocrisy he despised. His opinions as a rule were boldly declared. His positions were resolutely maintained. His enemies he defied ; his friends he cherished. He was without ostentation and of little vanity, but he had great pride and great courage. His ambition was to do things rather than to say things, but whatever he said he said well. Concentrative in his purposes and constructive in his
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A CHAMPION OF PROTECTION.
plans he paid great attention to the great questions that came to this body for consideration, and he engaged but little in minor controversies. He focused his energies on decisive points. He was a fighter when a fight was on, but he was not disputatious, intermeddlesome, or pug- nacious. Whenever he spoke he showed comprehensive grasp of his subject in all of its relations. He was a thoroughly informed and well-read man, but without lit- erary pretensions or affectations. He exerted large influ- ence as a Senator, not only upon his party but as well upon his colleagues without regard to political affiliation. This influence was due to his genial disposition, to his manly character, to his common sense, and to the clear- ness and wide range of his vision."
Senator Morgan said : "In speaking of Matthew Stan- ley Quay if I was moved by the affection of long and intimate friendship I could not give him higher praise than to say that he performed the duty of an American Senator during a long service with faithful devotion and with such ability as has left on the records of the Sen- ate most valuable proofs of efficient service to the coun- try. It may be truthfully said that no important matter escaped his attention and his careful examination, and no public danger was presented that could escape his alert detection or drive him from his post of duty. I do not recall an instance in which he was not an impor- tant party to the settlement of contentions that con- cerned the welfare of the country, and I never knew him to attempt anything except the honorable reconciliation of those who were rash, angry, or obstinate in their con- tentions. I have in mind some notable instances when his courage and forbearance and his genius for reconcili- ation saved measures and men from disastrous conse- quences. In his character of Senator and friend he was true and blameless, and has won for himself a fame that will grow greater and better as time advances."
Senator Daniel followed his tribute to the personal qualities and public services of Senator Quay with a re- markable eulogy of Pennsylvania, Senator Quay's native State, of which he himself once said in a public address :
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"I am proud that there is not a drop of blood in my veins that is not Pennsylvania blood two centuries old." Senator Daniel said of Quay and Pennsylvania :
" His genius was typical of that of his people. His public career reflects the characteristics of the great middle State of Pennsylvania. It is a State where agri- culture, mining, manufacturing, commerce, learning, and science have advanced as nearly abreast of each other as in any place upon the earth's surface. The commu- nity is thrifty, prosperous, and progressive through the combination of diversified resources, abounding energies, and steadfast purpose. The evenness of its development in multitudinous departments of enterprise has imparted to the massive structure stamina and proportion. The people of Pennsylvania present a rare picture of indus- trial activity and of domestic peace and reposeful power. At the base of their history is the stirring and sturdy blood of the colonial pioneers, toned, as it were, with the peaceful mood of Penn and the practical wisdom of Franklin. Through all the gradations of their progress the American spirit has pervaded their atmosphere. Schools of fanaticism and hotbeds of anarchy find no congenial resort in such communities."
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OTHER NOTED WESTERN PENNSYLVANIANS.
CHAPTER XXXIV.
OTHER NOTED WESTERN PENNSYLVANIANS.
THE limits of this volume preclude even brief sum- maries of the careers of other eminent Western Pennsyl- vanians than those already mentioned. The list of all these who are worthy of extended biographical notice is a very long one. It includes United States Senators James Ross, Abner Lacock, Walter Lowrie, William Wil- kins, (also Secretary of War under President Tyler,) James G. Blaine, one of the greatest of all native-born Pennsylvanians, and Edgar Cowan; Judges Henry Bald- win, Walter Forward, (also Secretary of the Treasury under President Tyler,) Charles Shaler, Moses Hampton, Wilson McCandless, Walter H. Lowrie, Cyrus L. Pershing, Daniel Agnew, and many others ; John Moore, the first president judge of Westmoreland county ; Henry D. Foster, the eminent lawyer ; Andrew Stewart, the earnest and unyielding champion of a protective tariff ; John Co- vode, the able and popular Westmoreland Congressman ; Governor John W. Geary ; the astronomer, John A. Brash- ear; Ida M. Tarbell, Lucy Forney Bittinger, Margaretta Wade Deland, Jane Grey Swisshelm, T. J. Chapman, James Veech, Neville B. Craig, Isaac Craig, Wm. M. Darlington, Wm. G. Johnston, and other literary men and women, including Judges Hugh H. Brackenridge and his son, Henry M. Brackenridge ; the philanthropists, Rev. William A. Passavant, D. D., and Felix R. Brunot ; Stephen C. Foster, the composer, whose "Old Folks at Home" and other folk songs can never be forgotten; the mathema- tician, Joseph Stockton, whose Western Calculator the boys of seventy years ago will well remember; and many others, including eminent divines and educators, editors, artists, and great engineers. Edwin M. Stanton practiced law in Pittsburgh in 1847 and for about ten years after- wards. Three generations of Ewings have furnished the courts of Fayette county with president judges-father,
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son, and grandson. The Lowrie family has produced at least eight men of distinction in the law, statesmanship, and theology. "There were giants in those days." Ap- preciative mention of all these leading Western Pennsyl- vanians-what they have done and wherein they have honored their State and the generations to which they have respectively belonged-we are compelled to leave to others who may some day think it worth while to compile a second volume descriptive of Progressive Pennsylvania.
The reader will notice in the above list of promi- nent Western Pennsylvanians that about one-half of the persons mentioned have not had middle names. It was a common custom of our forefathers to give their sons only one name, a custom which is now generally ignored.
Our first five Presidents were plain George Washing- ton, John Adams, Thomas Jefferson, James Madison, and James Monroe. Of the succeeding Presidents thirteen have had no middle name. They were Andrew Jackson, Martin Van Buren, John Tyler, Zachary Taylor, Millard Fillmore, Franklin Pierce, James Buchanan, Abraham Lin- coln, Andrew Johnson, Grover Cleveland, Benjamin Har- rison, William McKinley, and Theodore Roosevelt. We have had twenty-five Presidents and eighteen of these have had no middle name. Other great men of the Re- public have had no middle name-Patrick Henry, Benja- min Franklin, James Otis, Samuel Adams, John Hancock, Alexander Hamilton, Aaron Burr, Elbridge Gerry, Robert Morris, John Jay, John Marshall, Peyton Randolph, Timo- thy Pickering, George Clinton, Anthony Wayne, Horatio Gates, Nathanael Greene, Albert Gallatin, Horace Binney, William Wirt, Silas Wright, Henry Clay, Daniel Webster, Lewis Cass, John Bell, Edward Everett, Thomas Corwin, Thomas Ewing, George Bancroft, Caleb Cushing, Horace Greeley, Schuyler Colfax, Charles Sumner, Simon Came- ron, John Sherman, Hannibal Hamlin, and many others.
Most of the early Governors of Pennsylvania had no middle name-Thomas Mifflin, Thomas McKean, Simon Snyder, William Findlay, Joseph Hiester, George Wolf, Joseph Ritner, William Bigler, and James Pollock.
Much has been said in praise of the enterprise,
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OTHER NOTED WESTERN PENNSYLVANIANS.
courage, intelligence, and aggressive leadership of the Scotch-Irish element in the population of Western Penn- sylvania. The Scotch-Irish are a masterful race, wher- ever found. But, while largely dominating and giving tone and character to the early settlement and subse- quent history of Western Pennsylvania, they are not en- titled to all the credit they have received. The people of that part of Pennsylvania have been from the first a really composite people. Virginia and Maryland fur- nished to that section nearly all its first settlers; the French established no permanent settlements. Next came the Scotch-Irish in considerable numbers, with an occa- sional family direct from Scotland, and a few English, Celtic Irish, Welsh, and Huguenots, and then came many Pennsylvania Germans and other Germans. Afterwards came men from New York and New England, espe- cially to the northwestern section. All these strains of blood were represented in the settlement of Western Pennsylvania in its first hundred years, and to these have since been added very many latter-day Germans and representatives of other nationalities. So that, while it is true that the Scotch-Irish element has been and still is the dominating element in that section of Penn- sylvania, it has been greatly strengthened by the admix- ture of the other elements that have been mentioned. A curious illustration of the correctness of this state- ment is found in the fact that three of the noted judges and public men of Pittsburgh in the early part of the last century, namely, Henry Baldwin, Walter Forward, and Charles Shaler, were all natives of Connecticut.
GENERAL INDEX.
Not including the names of individuals or firms or names mentioned in the Chrono- logical Chapter, but including the names of companies.
A. Page
Page
Agriculture in Pennsylvania. . 182, 183
Allegheny Bessemer Steel Company. .. 213
Allegheny bridge at Pittsburgh .. 252, 253
Allegheny City laid out in 1787. .... 263
Allegheny County organized in 1788 .. 262
Allegheny County, population of .. 265, 266
Allegheny Portage Railroad ..... 140-146 Allegheny river, early navigation of 122, 123 Aluminum, manufacture of, in Pa. . 245-247
Amity, the first Pennsylvania ship ... 21
Appalachian System ... 81-83 Apprenticeship system, colonial ..... 52, 53
Armor plate, manufacture of, in Pa .. 241
B.
Baldwin Locomotive Works. 182 Baltimore and Ohio Railroad .. 124, 161-164
Bedford Company ... 188
Bessemer process for making steel 209, 210
Bessemer Steel Company, Limited. . .. 215
Bessemer steel, first basic, in Pa. 233
Bessemer steel, manufacture of ... 232, 233
Bethlehem Iron Company. 231, 241
Bethlehem, Moravian settlement at ... 32
Boatbuilding at Pittsburgh. 123
Boundaries of Pennsylvania.
15, 16, 75
Braddock's defeat.
257
Braddock's Road ..
106
Brady's Bend Iron Company. 205
Bridge, chain, first,. in England. 249
Bridge, chain, first, in U.S .. 248-250, 254 Bridges, early, in Pennsylvania ... 102, 103 Bridges, wire suspension, in U. S. 250-254
Bridle paths in Pennsylvania .. 102, 103, 107
Brownsville, early shipping port ... 119-121 Buffaloes in Pennsylvania. 96-101
Bushy Run, battle of. 1, 260, 307
C.
Cambria Iron Co .. 146, 195, 206, 208, 232 Cambria Iron Works, when built ..... 195 Cambria Steel Co ...... 195, 207, 214, 226 Camden and Amboy Railroad ... 163, 164 Canal boats built of iron in 1836 .... 128 Canal, first, in the United States. . 131, 134 Canal transportation in the U. S. . 130-138 Canal tunnel, first, in the U. S .. 147 Canals in Pennsylvania. 130-138 Carbondale and Honesdale Railroad .. 166 Carnegie Steel Company 214, 241 Carondelet Canal, building of. 135 Charcoal iron industry of Pa. 201 Charleston and Hamburg Railroad ... 163 Chemicals, manufacture of, in Pa. . 180, 181
Cleveland Iron Mining Company. . 221, 223
Coal, anthracite .
.224, 225, 227, 228
Coal, bituminous, in Pa ... 120, 121, 224-228 Coal, raw bituminous, use of ...... 230, 231 Coal trade of Pittsburgh, beginning of 263 Coke industry, beginning of, in Pa ... 229 Coke, production of, in Pennsylvania .. 227 Columbia Railroad, building of ... 140, 143 Conestoga Lock and Dam Nav. Co ... 135 Conestoga wagons described. 105
Conewago Canal, building of. 135
Connellsville coke, manufacture of. 227
117
Connellsville, early shipping port. . . . Copper, first mill at Pittsburgh .. 243, 244 Copper, Lake Superior, development of 243 Cornwall iron ore hills. 216-219
Cotton goods, manufacture of, in Pa .. 177 Crefeld settlers of Germantown .... 27-30 Crucible steel, manufacture of, in Pa. 231 Cuban iron ores. 223
Cuban Steel Ore Company.
223
Cumberland Road, building of 109, 110, 313
D.
Delaware and Hudson Canal. . 163, 166, 252 Delaware and Schuylkill Nav. Co ..... 136 Delaware Division Canal Company ... 148 Delaware Indians ... .. 13, 14, 70-74 Delaware river and bay, when named 12 Despatch Transportation Company ... 150 Drovers in Pennsylvania. 112, 113
Dunkards in Pennsylvania ..
... 31, 32, 42
Duquesne Steel Works, when built ... 213
Durham boats in Pennsylvania ..
114
Dutch East India Company.
12
Dutch settlers in Pa .. . 11-14, 37, 38, 40, 41
E.
Edgar Thomson Steel Co., Lim .. 210, 214
Edgar Thomson Steel Works built in
1873-1875.
210
Edgar Thomson Steel Works, remark-
able rail record of .
214
English settlers in Pa ..
.. 18, 37, 351
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