USA > Wisconsin > A political history of Wisconsin > Part 35
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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
JOHN L. MITCHELL.
John Lendrum Mitchell began his career of public service when at the age of nineteen he enlisted in the Volunteer Army which supported the Federal Government during the Civil War. He went to the front as Second Lieutenant of Company I. Twen- ty-fourth Wisconsin Volunteer Infantry, and was promoted to be First Lieutenant January 17, 1863, and transferred to Company E of the same regiment. In June, 1863, he was detailed for service on the brigade staff of Gen. Rousseau, participating in. the battles and engagements. including Perryville, Murfreesboro, Hoover's Gap and the campaign about Chattanooga. Then. threatened with loss of eyesight, he sent in a surgeon's certificate . . of disability accompanied by his resignation of his commission. which was accepted. In 1872 he was elected on the Democratic ticket as a member of the upper house of the Wisconsin Legis- lature, being reelected in 1875. In 1884 and 1885 he was Presi-
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dent of the Milwaukee School Board. In 1886. by joint resolution of Congress, he was appointed a member of the Board of Mana- gers of the National Home for Disabled Volunteer Soldiers, which position he held by reappointment until the present year, when he resigned to join his family in a European tour. During several years he served as Vice-President of the Board. In 1890 he was elected Representative in Congress from the Fourth Wisconsin District, and in 1892 he was reelected. While serving his first term in the House of Representatives he was chosen Chairman of the Democratic Congressional Committee, which conducted the successful campaign of 1892. He was the Wisconsin member of the National Democratic Committee for four years, and Treas- urer of the Democratic State Central Committee of Wisconsin. In 1893 he was elected to the Senate of the United States, suc- ceeding Philetus Sawyer, and resigned his seat in the House of Representatives to enter upon his duties in the Senate. Mr. Mitchell is the son of Alexander Mitchell, a leading figure in the history of the material development of the Northwest, whose life is sketched elsewhere in this work. Of Scotch descent on his father's side, and of Vermont Yankee descent on the side of his mother, Martha (Reed) Mitchell, it was natural that he should inherit distinguished qualities. He was born in Milwaukee, October 19, 1842, and educated in the public schools of his native city, in a military school at Hampton, Connecticut, and at Dres- den, Munich and Genoa. He has spent much of his life on one of the finest farms in the State, located near Milwaukee. He is an ardent lover of rural life, and an authority on all matters pertaining to the raising of crops and the rearing of stock. He reads several languages, and possesses a large library of good books. He is a connoisseur of art, and possesses some of the most valuable paintings owned in Wisconsin. He has done much to promote the cause of popular education. For many years all the children attending the Milwaukee public schools whose par- ents were too poor to buy text-books were supplied with what they needed at Mr. Mitchell's expense. To develop an interest in scientific agriculture, he established a Short Course in Agri- culture at the State University, and offered twenty scholarships
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therein to poor boys, an act of practical benevolence which has borne fruit of incalculable value to the commumiy. He has hell the offices of President of the Wisconsin Agricultural Society and President of the Wisconsin Trotting Horse Breeders' Association. trustee of the Layton Art Gallery, and of Milwaukee College and Milwaukee Hospital. He is a member of the Grand Army of the Republic and of Wisconsin Commandery of the Loyal Legion. and of the Society of the Army of the Cumberland. Mr. Mitchell has been twice married. His first wife died many years ago. By his second wife, Harriet Danforth Becker, to whom he was married in 1878, a lady of rare intellectual attainments and a prominent member of the National Society of the Daughters of the American Revolution, he " has seven children-William. Martha, Janet, Harriet, Ruth, Catherine and Jolin L., Jr. One other child, born abroad, died in infancy and is buried in Florence.
R. J. McGEEHAN.
Robert J. McGechan, of Depere, is the member of the Demo- cratic State Central Committee for the Eighth Congressional District, and has been conspicuous in the politics of his section of the State during the greater part of the past twenty years. Mr. McGeehan is a native of Canada, where he was born August 26. 1854. He received a common school education. At the age of sixteen he came to the United States, and since 1870 has been a resident of Depere, where he has been successfully engaged in business as a dealer in agricultural implements for many years. Mr. McGechan's first political office was that of a member of the Board of Aldermen of the city of Depere, to which he was elected in ISS3. He was twice reelected, and from 1887 to ISgo inclusive was a member of the Brown County Board of Supervisors, serving also for five years as a trustee of the Chronic Insane Asylum of the county. In ISSo he was elected as member of the State . Assembly for the Second District of Brown county, being reelected in ISgo. In 1892 he was the Democratic candidate for the State Senate in the Second District, consisting of Brown and Oconto counties, his Republican competitor being Edward Scofield. Rob-
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ert Henderson was also a candidate, running on the Prohibition ticket. Mr. Henderson received 14 votes, and Maj. Scofield 4.449. Mr. MeGechan received 5.049 votes, and was elected. Mr. McGechan naturally takes a deep interest in matters con- nected with agriculture. He was President of the Brown County Agricultural and Mechanical Association for four years. ending in 1806. He has represented his Congressional District on the Democratic State Central Committee for the past five years. Mr. McGeelian is at present Mayor of the city of Depere.
JAMES O. DAVIDSON.
James O. Davidson, State Treasurer of Wisconsin, has been an active member of the Republican party for many years, and has been selected by the people for numerous positions of honor and trust, in which he has acquitted himself with credit. He is a native of Norway, and was born February 10, 1854. After receiving lis education in the common schools of his . native country, he came to the United States in 1872, residing first at Madison, later at Boscobel. In 1877 he located at Soldiers' Grove, which has since been his home. For twenty-two years he has been engaged in the mercantile business. He was Presi- dent of the village of Soldiers' Grove in 1888 and 1889. Village Treasurer in 1892 and 1893. and again in 1807 and IS98. In 1892 he was elected a member of the State Assembly, and was reelected in 1894 and 1896. For several years he was Chairman of the Republican Committee of the Third Congressional District. In 1898 he was nominated by the Republicans of Wisconsin for State Treasurer, and elected by a plurality of 55.750 votes, his defeated competitors being C. J. M. Malek, Democrat: Jolin Powers, People's; William Larson, Prohibitionist; August Mohr, Social Democrat of America, and Christian Emmerich, Socialist Labor.
J. M. RUSK.
Jeremiah MeLain Rusk was born in a log cabin on a farm in . the town of Deerfield. Morgan county, Ohio, June 17, 1830. He died at his home in Vernon county, Wisconsin, November 21,
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1893. Between those two dates was crowded a life of energy, high aims and large achievements, full of honor to him who lived it, and rich in usefulness to his fellow men. He grew up on the farm, the entire management of which, owing to his father's death, fell upon him at the age of sixteen. He became noted for his strength and his skill in the operations of agriculture. As a horseman he was celebrated for miles around. When occasion offered, he added to the income from his acres by making barrels and by working as foreman of a gang of laborers engaged in railroad construction. April 5. 1849, he married Mary Martin, a daughter of one of the most respected residents of that section of Ohio. In 1853. with his wife and two infant children, in a covered wagon, Mr. Rusk came to Wisconsin, settling near Viro- qua, in what was then known as Bad Axe county, now Vernon. Here he kept a tavern and acquired the proprietorship of a stage- line, driving one of the stages himself. He secured the contract for carrying the mails. In less than two years after his settlement in Bad Axe county he was elected Sheriff, not because he sought the office, but because his neighbors desired him to take it, on account of his superior qualifications for the performance of its duties. This was the beginning of an illustrious public career. Ir. 1857 he was elected Coroner. In 186; he was elected on the Republican ticket as member of the Assembly. It was during his term that, on the petition of residents, the name of Bad Axe county was changed to Vernon. On the adjournment of the Legislature Mr. Rusk recruited a volunteer regiment of infantry, the Twenty-fifth Wisconsin, of which he was commissioned . Major, having declined the Coloneley. He and his men per- formed gallant service during the war, and he came out of the service a Brevet Brigadier-General. Here is his subsequent record: Elected State Bank Comptroller in 1865 and reelected in 1867; elected Representative in Congress from the Sixth Dis- trict of Wisconsin, in 1870. 1872 and 1874: delegate to the Repub- lican National Convention at Chicago, 183; nominated by Presi- dent Garfield as Minister to Uruguay and Paraguay, and unani- mously confirmed by the United State- Senate, in ISSI [this appointment was declined; he was afterward tendered the appoint-
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ment as Minister to Denmark and as Chief of the Bureau of Engraving and Printing, both of which he declined !; elected Governor of Wisconsin in 1881, 1884 and 1886; appointed Secre- tary of Agriculture in the cabinet of President Harrison March 4. 1884), and served throughout his administration. In the Repub- lican National Convention at Chicago in ISSS Senator John C. Spooner, acting as spokesman of the Wisconsin delegation, nonii- nated Gen. Rusk for the Presidency, and he received a compli- mentary vote including that of the solid delegation of his home State. Justice Harlow S. Orton, speaking of Gov. Rusk's wonder- ful intuitive knowledge of every subject on which he was called upon to exercise official responsibility, said: "He will smell an unconstitutional or illegal provision in a bill that might escape the notice of the sharpest lawyer in the State." President Harrison, a man not given to fulsome laudation, wrote a glowing eulogy of Secretary Rusk, concluding with these words: "Like Lincoln, he multiplied small chances, and on a hard and barren youth "builded a great life. Men of other characters and of other attain- ments are needed in American public life, but the type of Jeremiah M. Rusk can not be spared."
THADDEUS C. POUND.
For years one of the most conspicuous figures in the politics of Wisconsin was Thaddeus C. Pound. He was a member of the Legislative Assembly of the State in 1864. 1866, 1867 and 1869, serving the last year as Speaker. In 1870 and 1871 he was Lieutenant-Governor. In 1872 he was a delegate to the Republican National Convention at Philadelphia. In 1876 he was nominated by the Republicans of his district for Representa- tive in Congress, and was elected, receiving 14,830 votes, against 13.860 for his Democratic opponent, George W. Cate. Renomi- nated in 1878, he defeated August R. Barrows, Greenback-Demo- crat, who received only 11.421 votes, against 12.795 for Mr. Pound. Two years later he was once more the choice of his party in the district. his Democratic opponent being W. C. Sil- verthorn. This time Mr. Pound's majority was swelled to nearly
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5.000, the vote standing 14.590 for Silverthorn and 19,256 for Pound. Mr. Pound was an energetic and efficient member of the national legislature, putting in his work there as everywhere a spirit and dash which made him conspicuous. He was born at Elk, Warren county, Pennsylvania, December 6. 1833, and came to this State at the age of fifteen, living in Rock county from 1848 to 1856. He received his academic education at Milton Academy, Wisconsin, and Rushford, Alleghany county, New York. In 1856 he removed to Chippewa county, where he engaged in the manufacture of lumber and in mercantile business. For years he was President of the Union Lumbering Company and of the Chippewa Falls & Western Railway. It would be impossible to write the history of the industrial development of that section of the State without giving a large space to the achievements of Thaddeus C. Pound.
GEORGE SPRATT.
George Spratt of Sheboygan Falls served for fourteen months in the Forty-eighth Wisconsin Regiment of Volunteer Infantry during the Civil War, with the rank of Sergeant. He has for several years held the office of Commander of Richardson Post. G. A. R., of Sheboygan Falls. He was on the staffs of Generals A. G. Weissert, Russell A. Alger and John B. Adams when they were Commanders-in-Chief of the Grand Army He has been a member of the Village Board, and was Clerk of the School Board for twelve years. In 1886 he was a member of the Legis- lative Assembly of Wisconsin, serving as Chairman of the Com- mittee on Enrolled Bills and as a member of the Reapportionment Committee. He was one of the only two Republicans elected in that year from his Congressional District, but when pressed to accept renomination, he declined. In 18)4 many of the Repub- licans of the Fifth Congressional District desired him to be the nominee for Congress and made a strong fight for him in the con - vention, but the honor was conferred upon S. S. Barney. Mr. Spratt was born in Boston, England, January 30, 1844, and came to this country with his parents in 1851, where the family
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settled upon a farm on Onion river. The subject of this sketch was educated in the common schools of Sheboygan county, prin- cipally during the winter months of his boyhood. He worked at the carpenter's trade as a contractor and builder for several years. In 1872 he began the manufacture of hay rakes and hand farming tools at Sheboygan Falls, following this business until 1884. when he removed to Sheboygan and built a factory in which he successfully continued the same business. In 1892 he began the manufacture of chairs, in which he is now engaged on a large scale. He is a member of St. John's Lodge. F. & A. M .. and of Harmony Chapter, Royal Arch Masons of Sheboygan. He is also an Odd Fellow, a Knight of Pythias, and a member of the Royal Arcanum, the Ancient Order of Workingmen and the G. A. R. He attends the Methodist church. In 1888 he was married to Mary J. Nichols. They have had five children, only one of whom. Sara Laura Spratt, is living. Mr. Spratt's English ancestry was distinguished, but the high position which he occupies in the community in which he lives has been achieved by his own integrity, ability and public spirit.
H. H. GRACE.
Harry. Holder Grace is a leading lawyer and man of affairs in Superior, Wisconsin. His father was Robert H. Grace, a dealer in lumber and produce, who also kept a hotel, and was made a Master Mason by the present Grand Lecturer, Melvin I .. Youngs, nearly forty years ago, while Mr. Yaungs was on a visit to Grand Rapids. Wisconsin. His mother's maiden name was Catherine L. Hicks. The elder Grace was a descendant of the Protestant English branch of the Grace family. The family located early in the Eighteenth century in New York. Mrs. Catherine (Hicks) Grace is a descendant of the old immigrant Van Benschoten. who located on the Hudson in 1671. The subject of the present sketch was born at Little Lake. Adams county, Wisconsin. He attended the common schools of Grand Rapids. Wisconsin. and was graduated from the High School. Hon. J. Q. Emery was Principal of the High School, and Mr. .
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Grace was one of the several hundred young men in this State indebted to him for the encouragement and influence that caused them to continue in school work. After leaving the High School Mr. Grace attended the University of Wisconsin for about three years. Then began his business and professional training. He studied law in Gen. Kellogg's office in Wausau and in the office of Benton & Benton of Minneapolis. He was admitted to the bar in Minneapolis in March, 1878, after which he practiced law six months at Beaver Falls, Minnesota; nine years at Wausau. Wisconsin; since that time at Superior, Wisconsin, with distin- guished success. The two most important cases in which he has been recently successful are the "Hennessey Case," in which the Supreme Court sustained all the street. sewer and sidewalk taxes in Superior, and "the Duluth, South Shore & Atlantic Rail- way Company Case," in which the Supreme Court reversed two or three other cases and held that lands not occupied by railroad companies could be taxed locally. The decision in the latter case increased the local taxes in Superior about $20,000 per year and affected railroad lands all over the State. Mr. Grace was a Republican until prior to the election of Garfield. He voted for Hancock, and since that time has affiliated with the Demo- cratic party. He ran for District Attorney on the Democratic ticket in Marathon county in 1886; member of Assembly in Douglas county in 188S; for Attorney-General in 1898. In 1887 he was Chairman of the committee to organize the village of Superior, and as attorney conducted the proceedings to secure the village charter. He was nominated by all parties as the first Village President, but declined the nomination. He was elected first Village Attorney and drafted the ordinances since adopted by the city. He assisted in making the draft of the city charter. and with Col. Hiram Hayes drafted the present school charter. which contains two features of public interest. The first of these provides for a levy of the school tax by the School Board, and has enabled the city of Superior to provide ample facilities for a rapidly increasing population. No other city in the State has a similar provision, and in Superior every child has a place to go to school. Under the second of the unique provisions referred
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to, free text-books are furnished to all. As a consequence, all scholars are on an equal footing, and the well-to-do and childless help to educate the children of the poor. Mr. Grace was Presi- dent of the School Board of Superior for five years. During that time he originated the present school system in Superior, and against strong opposition raised $240,000 and secured the build- ing of seven well-equipped school buildings in the city. He was Chairman of the committee to secure the seventh State Normal School for Superior, selected his own assistants, and after fighting over two and a half years before the Board of Regents and in the Legislature, against the opposition of all other cities com- peting for the school, helped in securing it for the city of Superior, and delivered the address at the dedication of the school. Mr. Grace has been on the Democratic State Central Committee, and was Chairman of the Committee on Resolutions in ISOS. Mr. Grace has an interesting Masonic record. He has held about all the offices in the Blue Lodge, Chapter and Commandery. In the Grand Chapter he was the author of the rule requiring proficiency in preceding degrees before being advanced to sub- sequent ones. He is a member of the American Bar Association, the Wisconsin Bar Association, and the Douglas County Bar Association. He also belongs to the Superior Commercial Club . and other local clubs, and is a member of the Congregational church. September 24, IS78, he married Elizabeth A. MeCros- sen, daughter of James MeCrossen, of Wausau, Wisconsin. They have four children-Zoa A. Grace, 20 years of age; Robert J. Grace, 18 years of age; Clarence Grace. 17 years of age, and Harry H. Grace, Jr .. 14 years of age. Robert J. Grace was a member of Company I, Third Wisconsin Volunteers, and was in the Porto Rican campaign in the Spanish War.
WILLIAM E. CRAMER.
The political speaker addresses the public at intervals during the heat of campaigns. The political editor addresses the public daily through the columns of his newspaper. He has the larger audience of the two, and he is in touch with it every working day
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in the year. The influence which the editors wield is the most powerful influence exerted by any class of men in our modern civilization. William E. Cramer, the editor-in-chief of the Mil- waukee Evening Wisconsin, has been for fifty-two years at the head of the most widely circulated journal in the State, controlling and directing its policy. During all that time he has discussed with absolute fearlessness and independence every political issue which has interested the people. Not one line of his editorial columns has ever been bought or ever been for sale. The biography of such a man is certainly deserving of a place in the political history of Wisconsin. Originally Mr. Cramer was a Democrat. He was born at Waterford, New York, October 29. 1817, a son of John Cramer, who was long a political leader in that State, who was Presidential elector in 1804. casting his vote for Thomas Jefferson, and who represented the Saratoga district in Congress for two terms, 1833 to 1837. Graduated from Union College in 1838, Mr. Cramer read law and was admitted to the bar, but his tastes led him to prefer the vocation of journalism, and from 1843 to 1846 he was one of the editorial `writers of the Albany Argus, which was then managed by Edwin Croswell, and was the chief organ of the Democracy in the State. Among the daily associates of the young journalist were John Van Buren, Silas Wright. John A. Dix, Governor Marcy. Horatio Seymour, Samuel J. Tilden, ex-President Van Buren, and other men who made the Democratic party at that time the exponent oi great principles which have become embodied in the fiber of the republic. He came to Milwaukee in May. 1847. at the request of a number of prominent Democrats who thought their party needed able journalistic support. In partnership with Joseph Curtis, a Rochester newspaper man, he purchased the Milwaukee Courier, a weekly: and, changing its name to the Daily Wiscon- sin, he soon made it one of the leading newspapers of the North- west-a position it has now held for more than half a century, dur- ing the whole of which time he has been its active head. Very few issues have gone to press without one or more articles from his pen. No one who reads his graphic descriptions of places, people and things, and who is unacquainted with the author, would (35)
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suppose that they are the work of one bereft of the senses vi sight and hearing; yet from 1860 Mr. Cramer has been nearly blind, and able to hear only with the aid of a speaking tube. But his intense energy and industry, quick perception, and marvelous powers of memory and judgment have practically enabled him to overcome his physical disadvantage. Mr. Cramer's sympathies were strongly opposed to the institution of slavery, and he swung his paper to the support of the Republican party soon after its organization. He worked for the election of Fremont, the first Presidential candidate of the party, and has championed the cause of every Republican Presidential candidate since. While he has stood for every cardinal principle in the Republican creed, his especial hobby, if so it may be called, is sound currency, and he has fought with all his strength every scheme for the dilution of the dollar which has shown its head during the six and fifty years of his editorial career. Greenbackism, free silverism, and every form of currency inflation and repudiation that charlatanist and demagoguery have devised to delude the people have had auring more than half a century no more alert and stalwart foe than William Edward Cramer, who has riddled them fore and ait with the shot and shell of argument and invective fired from the battery of the Evening Wisconsin. For personal politics, Mr. Cramer has never had any taste. His motto is, "Principles, not men," and his policy has been to advance the cause of the men showing themselves most faithful and efficient in the main- tenance of the principles which he holds to be essential to the public weal. He has steadfastly held aloof from the allurements of office, and the only occasion on which he permitted his name to be placed upon a political ticket was in 1872, when he was one of the Wisconsin electors-at-large for President Grant. Only once has he gone to Madison to exert personal influence upon members of the Legislature-in 1869. in behalf of the candidacy of Matt HI. Carpenter for the United States Senate. There were but two newspapers in the State which supported Mr. Carpenter's candidacy from the beginning to the end of that successful fight, and the Evening Wisconsin was one of them. It was a coinci- dence that on the same day when a marble bust of Senator Car-
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