USA > Wisconsin > A political history of Wisconsin > Part 23
Note: The text from this book was generated using artificial intelligence so there may be some errors. The full pages can be found on Archive.org (link on the Part 1 page).
Part 1 | Part 2 | Part 3 | Part 4 | Part 5 | Part 6 | Part 7 | Part 8 | Part 9 | Part 10 | Part 11 | Part 12 | Part 13 | Part 14 | Part 15 | Part 16 | Part 17 | Part 18 | Part 19 | Part 20 | Part 21 | Part 22 | Part 23 | Part 24 | Part 25 | Part 26 | Part 27 | Part 28 | Part 29 | Part 30 | Part 31 | Part 32 | Part 33 | Part 34 | Part 35 | Part 36 | Part 37 | Part 38 | Part 39
He got along with the Legislature as well as could be expected, and its work was quite as creditable as that of any of the preced- ing Legislatures. The chief question which came up, and one which was made use of in opposition to Upham, was the Legisla- ture's action in releasing the ex-State Treasurers. Upham believed in the justice of the measure. releasing the Treasurers from extortionate interest. though he did not believe that it was good politics to bring the subject up at that time. That he signed the bills when he did not believe in the political wisdom of intro- ducing them, shows one of the man's characteristics. He did not care so much for political effect as he did for the kindly thought of men with whom he was associated. He felt that while it was against his judgment that the bills were intro.luced, they having been introduced and passed after mature deliberation, with the
.
262
A POLITICAL HISTORY OF WISCONSIN.
consent of both parties, he was not justified in setting up his judg- ment in opposition to the judgment of a large majority of the mem- bers of both branches of the Legislature. Probably no act of his administration brought down upon his head more criticism than the signing of these bills-a criticism which was the only important political one made. It must not be forgotten that the opposition. which seemed to be so widespread, was personal as distinguished from political. That is to say, there was a widespread criticism, not of his administrative acts, but of his personal dealings with men.
Many reasons have been given for Governor Upham's with- drawal from the field and refusal to be a candidate for renomina- tion. A majority of these reasons. however, as is well known by the Governor's intimate friends, fall short of or override the truth. The fact is, that with an enormous business on his hands and the financial conditions of the country very unfavorable in every way, he had a burden to carry which few men in the State of Wisconsin had to carry, and it came to be a question with him whether he should let his business go or get out of political life, and he chose the latter.
In all the storm of criticism which surrounded Upham's admin- istration there never was a question of the man's personal integrity nor was ever a wrong motive imputed to him. The worst charge that can be brought against Upham is that he was not a politician. and, therefore, did not have the tact and wisdom to deal with poli- ticians in handling the peculiar conditions and circumstances which surrounded his inauguration into office. . There stands to the credit of the administration the establishment of the Home for the Feeble Minded, which was for years, even before he was. Governor, a pet scheme of Upham's. Another monument to his administra- tion is the great library building erected on the lower campus of the University. Perhaps no Governor that the State has ever had was so successful in having the important recommendations made in his first message so generally carried out. Out of less than twenty recommendations fourteen were carried out by the Legislature in the form of laws.
During the spring of 1896 a rumor gained currency through-
263
A POLITIC.IL HISTORY OF WISCONSIN.
out the State that Governor Upham would not be a candidate for reelection, and the name of ex-Senator Sawyer was brought promi- nently forward in the Republican press as that of a man whose nomination would strengthen the party. But the veteran Senator had retired from politics, and, in his Soth year, was desirous of crowning a life of labor with an age of ease. Mr. Sawyer was at the National Convention at St. Louis as one of the :lelegates-at- large from Wisconsin. Governor Upham was also there, and in conference with his friends formally announced his determination not to run again. Before the members of the Wisconsin delega- tion started on their homeward journey, it was pretty definitely set- tled that Maj. Edward Scofield of Oconto, who had had strong backing for the nomination in 1804. would be the coming man. Friends of R. M. La Follette set an active canvass for that gentle- man in motion, and when the State Convention met at Milwaukee in August there was an even half-dozen of candidates, including Eugene S. Elliott and Lieutenant-Governor Baensch, with Scofieldl and LaFollette in the lead. The convention was the largest politi- cal gathering which had ever assembled in the State. It met at the Exposition building, and its deliberations attracted a con- course of enthusiastic spectators from all parts of Wisconsin. At the outset LaFollette was ahead. The number of votes necessary for a choice was 341, and on the opening ballot La Follette received 2613, Scofield 2491. Emil Baensch 83. Eugene S. Elliott 483, Ira Bradford 31, and C. E. Estabrook 6. There was a spirited scramble for delegates on the part of the three leading candidates. Scofield steadily gaining as the voting progressed. On the fifth ballot Scofield received 3233 votes. LaFollette 23S and Baensch 1083, while Elliott. Estabrook and Bradford had respectively fallen off to 5. 3 and 2. While the sixtil ballot was in progress, after the vote of the Second district was announced, H. C. Adams interrupted the roll-call by moving, on behalf of Mr. LaFollette's friends, that the nomination of Major Scofield be made unanimous, and the motion was carried amid great enthusiasm, the ticket being completed by the renomination of the incumbents of the remaining State offices. The canvass that followed will be long remembered, as 1896 was the year of the
.
264
A POLITICAL HISTORY OF WISCONSIN.
greatest political landslide in the history of the State. Major Sco- field's campaign speeches increased the number of his friends, and . he was elected over W. C. Silverthorn, his Democratic competitor, by a plurality of 95.724 in a poil of 414. 107 votes.
A conspicuous feature of the history of the political campaign of 1896 in Wisconsin, as well as in the nation at large, was the so-called Gold Democratic bolt. Many prominent Democrats refused to accept the platform of the National Convention of the Democratic party at Chicago, which nominated William Jennings Bryan for the presidency. They objected not only to the plank declaring in favor of unlimited free coinage of silver at the ratio of 16 to I, when that ratio was no longer the commercial ratio between gold and silver in the markets of the world. They objected, also, to the plank which, in effect, arraigned the administration of Presi- dent Cleveland for committing "a crime against free institutions" when he used the federal power to put down violence in Illinois at the time of the Debs strike. They regarded the language of the Chicago platform as an assault upon the constitutional power of the courts. A State Convention of Democrats who refused to sanction the Chicago platform assembled at Milwaukee on the 26th of August, 1896, and adopted a platform in which they declared their adherence to "the time-honored principles of Jefferson, Jack- son, Van Buren, Tilden and Cleveland," and their refusal to aban -. don or be driven from those principles by the action of "the Chi- cago Convention of July, 1896." They denounced the action of the Chicago Convention "as being in open violation of the princi- ples of the Democratic party," and invited all good citizens to co-operate with them in "putting the stamp of condemnation upon the populistic and anarchical heresies promulgated at Chicago and endorsed [in the National Convention of the Populists] at St. Louis." They re-enunciated the National Democratic platform of 1892 on the money question, holding that the dollar unit of coinage in both silver and gold must be of equal intrinsic value. They added: "To create and maintain the integrity of that dollar we adopt the words of the Democratic party of Wisconsin, assembled in convention in June, 1896, in favor of goldl. the highest monetary standard of the world, as the true measure of unfluctuating value."
.
A. Rthey.
.
265
A POLITICAL. HISTORY OF WISCONSIN.
The National Democrats held a National Convention at Indian- apolis and put a separate presidential ticket in the field, but when election day came many of them voted for MeKinley. The Wis- consin men who took part in the bolt included a large number of the most prominent Democrats in the State. Some of them, like Ellis B. Usher, of La Crosse, once chairman of the Democratic State Committee, have since identified themselves with the Repub- lican party. They did not nominate a State ticket. The vote for Palmer in Wisconsin was not large-only 4.584, but it is a sig- nificant fact, in connection with the Gold Democratic bolt, that while Scofield, the popular Republican candidate for Governor, had a plurality of 95.724, MeKinley's plurality in Wisconsin was 102.612.
The Hon. W. C. Silverthorn of Wausan, who was Governor Scofield's Democratic opponent in the gubernatorial contest of 1896, is a well-known politician and an active member of his politi- cal party. He has served several terms in the State Legislature, is a leading lawyer, a gentleman of unimpeachable integrity, and is now a circuit judge. Although he was overwhelmingly defeated in the race for the office of chief executive of the State. he has the satisfaction of knowing he polled the largest vote ever cast in the State for a Democratic candidate for Governor-another evidence. if one were wanting, of the confidence and respect which the mem- bers of his party entertain for him. Judge Silverthorn made a thorough canvass of the State in his own behalf, and spoke in all the principal cities of Wisconsin, impressing people with a confi- dence in his sincerity and good faith. He adhered strictly in his public addresses to the free silver dogma adopted by his party in its last national utterance at Chicago on the currency question. and heartily adopted William J. Bryan's theory as to the 16 to 1 coinage of the silver dollar.
.
Governor Scofield was born in Clearfield county, Pennsylvania. March 28. 1842. He received a common school education, broadening his knowledge in a printing office-"the poor boy's college." He enlisted in a Pennsylvania regiment in 1861, rising from the ranks to a captaincy, and at the bat- tle of the Wilderness was taken prisoner. During the ten (23,
-
266
A POLITICAL HISTORY OF WISCONSIN.
months following the 5th of May, 1864, he saw the inside of twelve different Southern prisons. On his release, he was brevetted Major. He came to Wisconsin in ISOS, and after sev- eral years of service in a railway engineer corps embarked in the lumbering business, in which he is still interested. He represented his district in the State Senate for four years beginning in 1887. As Governor he has conducted the affairs of the State on business principles. At the outset of his career he began to tighten the reins and demand of the employees of the State at Madison, on behalf of the people, the same faithful service which. on his own behalf, he requires from the employees in his planing mill. None but a brave man could have taken the stand of Governor Scofield on the subject of State finances: "When I see a balance sheet," he said, "I want to know that it represents a real balance, and is not merely a confusing mass of figures." Despite the fears of politicians, he determined to do away with the unwholesome prac- tice of clandestine borrowing to make good a deficit in the State funds. This practice had been in vogue for years, under Demo- cratic and Republican administrations alike. but Governor Sco- field determined to do away with it, even at the risk of becoming unpopular, and to insist on the levy of a State tax, adequate to place the commonwealth of Wisconsin squarely on its feet. In his attitude toward the Legislature, Governor Scofield has from the first been courteous and dignified, never descending to bulldozing tactics, but carefully studying every bill when it came to him and fearelessly vetoing every measure which, after investigation, seemed to him unconstitutional or of doubtful expedieney. If he can not understand a bill. he calls upon those interested to explain it. He has never signed a bill which he could not understand, and in spite of strong backing, several railroad bills failed in the spring of 187. because they could not pass the ordeal of the executive chamber. The Governor has been equally conscientious in making appointments. His administration has been one which commands the respect of citizens, irrespective of party.
There was a tremendous effort to defeat him for re-nomination in IS98 and confer the mantle of leadership upon the brilliant and energetic ex-Congressman R. M. La Follette. La Follette's
267
A POLITICAL HISTORY OF WISCONSIN.
friends organized long before the convention, and went into that gathering a solid column with strong manifestations of confidence. The first business transacted was the construction of a platform, in which the wishes of the La Follette men were consulted and respected; but when the vote on Governor was taken it showed that Scofield was the choice of the large majority of the delegates. The number of ballots cast for Scofield was 62016: for La Follette. 43612; for Emil Baensch, 2 and for ex-Attorney General Esta- brook, 6. The friends of La Follette received full recognition in the make-up of the balance of the ticket, which included Jesse Stone for Lieutenant-Governor, W. H. Froehlich for Secretary of State, J. O. Davidson for Treasurer, E. R. Hicks for Attorney- General, Grahamı L. Rice for Railroad Commissioner, Lorenzo D. Harvey for State Superintendent of Public Instruction, and Emil Giljohann for Insurance Commissioner. The convention adjourned with all the elements of the party united and enthusi- astic. The Democratic Convention placed at the head of its ticket Judge Hiram W. Sawyer, of Hartford, who had been a member of the Legislature during the administration of Governor Taylor, and a county judge for many years, and was highly respected by mem- bers of both parties. For Lieutenant-Governor it nominated a well-known Gold Democrat, ex-Congressman P. V. Deuster. The platform endorsed the Chicago platform of 1896, but did not emphasize the free silver issue. Some of the Democrats who had bolted in 1896 returned to the fold. but most of them either refrained from voting or voted the Republican ticket. Governor Scofield was re-elected with a plurality of 37.784. while the . remainder of the Republican ticket was elected with pluralities in the neighborhood oi 55.000.
The Legislature was overwhelmingly Republican. In the Senate there were only two Democrats and thirty-one Repub- licans. In the Assembly the Democrats numbered nineteen and the Republicans eighty-one. There was a United States Senator- ship to be disposed of, and five candidates had enthusiastic sup- porters. All the candidates were men of ability, standing well in the party. The campaign began early, some of the candidates opening headquarters in Milwaukee long before the Legislature
26S -
A POLITICAL HISTORY OF WISCONSIN.
convened. At Madison it was a battle royal until the night of the caucus. No business was done in either house, and the members spent their time in the headquarters of the several candidates. The cancus was held on the evening of Wednesday, January 18. 1809. On the first ballot J. V. Quarles, of Milwaukee, received 37 votes: Isaac Stephenson, of Marinette, 30; Congressman J. W. Babcock, of Necedalı, 19; S. A. Cook, of Neenah, 15, and Judge Charles M. Webb, of Grand Rapids, 10. As there were 112 Republican votes in the two houses, 56 were necessary to a choice. After three ballots, with but slight change, an adjournment was taken. which was followed by caucus after caucus, with very little change in the vote. The deadlock lasted until the evening of Monday, January 30. On the day before, a conference had been held in Milwaukee at which a last unsuccessful attempt had been made to effect a combination against J. V. Quarles, the leading candidate. At the opening of the caucus on Monday evening, Mr. Stephen- son's name was withdrawn and the others quickly followed. Mr. Quarles was unanimously nominated. and on the succeeding day he was elected in joint session. receiving 110 votes, against 18 cast by the Democratic members for Timothy E. Ryan, of Wau- kesha, who had received the complimentary vote at all the joint sessions.
....
P.D. Oton 2
:
CHAPTER XXIII.
WISCONSIN'S REPRESENTATIVES IN CONGRESS.
The first delegation in Congress from the State of Wisconsin consisted of William Pitt Lynde, of Milwaukee, and Dr. Mason C. Darling, of Fond du Lac. Both of them were Democrats. Mr. Lynde was graduated from Yale College in 1838, and later he studied law in the Harvard. Law School. He was an excellent scholar, a good linguist and an orator of fine natural and acquired accomplishments. He came to Milwaukee in 1841, and formed a law co-partnership with the late Asahel Finch, which soon was recognized as one of the strongest in the State. Mr. Lynde was Attorney-General of the territory of Wisconsin and United States District Attorney. He served in both branches of the State Legislature and one term as mayor of Milwaukee. He was first elected to Congress in 1848. again in 1874 and again in 1876. As a lawyer he ranked high in the estimation of his contemporaries, and in Congress he always took a leading part. He was one of the prosecutors in the impeachment trial of Secretary of War Belknap. and he took great interest in the Electoral Commission in 1876 which was to determine the presidential contest between Rutherford B. Hayes and Samuel J. Tilden. It was thought by many discreet men who were in Washington at the time that the findng of that Electoral Commission averted another civil war. Mr. Lynde was warmly in favor of raising that commission, but he vigorously opposed its final decision.
Mr. Lynde became a candidate for Congress in 1874. twenty- six years after his first service, under somewhat peculiar cir- cumstances. . The Democratic Congressional Convention for the Milwaukee district had been packed by Sam Rindskopi, who had manipulated the caucuses and secured the delegates for himself. Up to that date Mr. Kind-kopi was a sort of local Democratic boss,
260
270
A POLITICAL. HISTORY OF WISCONSIN.
and he had everything his own way. He was a man of great energy, liberal with his money, very popular with his associates, and of a fine personal appearance-so much so that he was called "Prince Sam" by his enthusiastic admirers. But after the con- vention a question was raised as to Rindskopf's eligibility. This frightened him, and on October 21. nearly a month after the con- vention, he wrote to the Congressional Committee. withdrawing from the canvass and suggesting that Mr. Lynde be made the nominee, which was done. Mr. Rindskopf, with many others. Republicans and Democrats, was indicted by the grand jury for defrauding the government in connection with the Whisky Ring. He was found guilty and punished.
Mr. Lynde's colleague in the Thirtieth Congress was Dr. Mason C. Darling, an early settler and popular physician of Fond du Lac. who had been prominent in territorial politics, and an active mem- ber of the Democratic party. He was Speaker of the House of Representatives in 1846, and it was thought he had a successful public career before him, especially after his election to Congress, : but for some reason he was relegated to a back seat in the shuffle of the next apportionment when Wisconsin was allowed three members of Congress.
Asahel Finch, who was Mr. Lynde's law partner, and his . opponent in the race for Congress in 1848, was a highly respected and influential citizen of Milwaukee for many years. He was a gentleman of stern integrity, unimpeachable morals, great public spirit, and a promoter of religion and education. He was a lead- ing Whig until the dissolution of that party in 1852, and then he helped to organize and make victorious the Republican party. Being a Christian man, he was naturally an anti-slavery man. He came of good old Puritan stock, and he illustrated in his life and conduct many of the virtues and noble traits of that historic race. The State Historical Society was presented with a sketch of this good man's career a few years ago when he died, in which . the writer said: "If Diogenes had been going about Milwaukee with his lantern some dark night, in search of an honest lawyer. he would have put out his light and gone home satisfied when he met Asahel Finch!" He was one of the founders of the Milwau- kee Public Library, and a fine picture of him can be seen there.
·
.
.
271
A POLITICAL HISTORY OF WISCONSIN.
The Congressional apportionment made after the Federal census was taken in 1850. gave Wisconsin three Congressmen, and that number hell good for ten years, or until the apportionment was again made after the census of 1860, which gave Wisconsin six members instead of three.
During the decade when we had three representatives, ending in 1863, thirteen gentlemen were chosen to represent the State in the popular branch of Congress. These were Charles Durkee, of Kenosha, four years; Orsamus Cole, of Lafayette, two years; James Duane Doty, of Winnebago, two years: Benjamin C. East- man, of Grant, four years; John B. Macy, of Sheboygan, four years; Daniel Wells, Jr., of Milwaukee, four years; C. C. Wash- burn, of La Crosse. four years; Charles Billinghurst, of Dodge. four years: John F. Potter, of Walworth, six years; Charles H. Larrabee, of Dodge, two years; Luther Hanchett, of Portage, one year; Walter D. MeIndoe, of Marathon, one year. and A. Scott Sloan, of Dodge, two years. Of these Durkee, Cole, Wash- burn, Billinghurst, Potter. Hanchett, MeIndoe and Sloan were Republicans: Doty was a Doty man and Eastman, Macy. Wells and Larrabee were Democrats. All of them, except Enther Hanchett, who died during his first term and was succeeded by MeIndoe, were prominent afterwards in public life and in their political parties. Some of them won distinction along other than political lines. Wells, Washburn and MeIndee became very rich .in the lumbering business. Judge Potter was one of the few Northern men at that time who had the courage to resent Southern insolence by accepting a challenge to mortal combat.
He represented Milwaukee in Congress from 1857 to 1863. following Daniel Wells, Jr., and giving way to James S. Brown, when the State was redistricted and Wisconsin was given double the number of representatives that she had before. Judge Potter entered Congress at the most exciting and memorable epoch in our national history, just before the secession of eleven States and the breaking out of the Civil war. The slaveholders had resolved to invade the free territories of the North-west with their peculiar kind of property: Congress had already passed the Kansas- Nebraska bill and the Fugitive Slave Act, and the extreme nien
272
À POLITICAL HISTORY OF WISCONSIN.
of the South declared that the Constitution carried slavery wherever the national flag waved on American soil. This contention was stoutly denied by the people of the North, and the "irrepressible conflict" between freedom and slavery opened in earnest. The slaveholders in Congress were insolent and overbearing to the last degree. Senator Sumner had been cruelly beaten in the Senate chamber by one of them for making a speech describing "the barbarism of slavery," and the boast was openly made that one Southern man could easily whip three Yankees. Congress was full of "men of honor" from the South, and those who were not duelists were taunted with cowardice. Some of the Northern representatives got tired of these taunts, and determined to take them no longer, but to stand for Yankee pluck and courage when- ever the occasion demanded it. Anson Burlingame, of Massa- chusetts, was one of them, and John F. Potter, of Wisconsin, was another. When Burlingame was invited by a Southerner to fight a duel he promptly accepted, and being the challenged party he had the choice of weapons. He named rifles, with the use of which he was familiar, and not the regulation dueling pistol, with which his adversary was an expert. It is a matter of record that the duel with rifles did not come off. One night during a session of Congress a debate on the slavery question ended in a rough-and- tumble fight between E. B. Washburn, of Illinois, and his brother, C. C. Washburn, of Wisconsin, on one side, and Barksdale, of Mississippi, and other Southern men, on the other side. Potter took a hand in and knocked down a few of them. This gave him a reputation for courage, and it was not very long until Roger . A. Pryor challenged him to mortal combat. The challenge did not grow out of the midnight brawl, however. Potter promptly accepted the challenge. and named bowie knives as the weapons. Pryor had the reputation of being a crack shot with the dueling pistol, and Judge Potter determined to select a weapon with which he would have an even chance. Pryor declared the terms "bar- barous," and backed out. Talking with Judge Potter afterwards about the matter, he said: "If we had met. as I expected we would, I would have cut him in two the first pass I made at him!" "I think he would Have done so," said one who knew Judge Potter
Need help finding more records? Try our genealogical records directory which has more than 1 million sources to help you more easily locate the available records.