USA > Wisconsin > An illustrated history of Wisconsin from prehistoric to present periods : the story of the state interspersed with realistic and romantic events > Part 41
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DISASTERS.
On July 4th, 1873, eleven persons were drowned on Green Lake. The drowning was occasioned by the hurricane which passed through Green Lake county, devastating considerable property.
On September 14, 1873, the lake steamer Ironsides was wrecked between Milwaukee and Grand Haven and twenty-eight persons were lost.
POLITICAL.
On the 27th day of August, 1873, the Republican Union convention, which convened at Madison, nominated the following ticket : For governor, Honorable C. C. Washburn ; lieutenant-governor, Robert H. Baker ; secretary of state, E. W. Young; treasurer, Ole C. Johnson ; attorney-general, L. F. Frisby ; superintendent of public instruction, Robert Graham ; commissioner of emigration, G. P. Lindman.
The Liberal Democratic convention met at Milwaukee on the 25th of Sep- tember, and made the following nominations: For governor, William R.
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HISTORY OF WISCONSIN.
Taylor ; lieutenant-governor, C. D. Parker ; state treasurer, Ferdinand Kuehn ; secretary of state, Peter Doyle ; attorney-general, A. Scott Sloan; superin- tendent of public instruction, Edward Searing; state prison commissioner, M. J. Argard.
At the November election, William R. Taylor received 81,599 votes, while C. C. Washburn received 66,224 votes. The whole Liberal Democratic ticket was elected, by majorities ranging from thirteen to fourteen thousand.
CHAPTER LVIII. ADMINISTRATION OF GOVERNOR TAYLOR.
1874-1876.
Biography of Governor Taylor .- His Able Message .- Passage of the Potter Railway Law .- The Chicago, Milwaukee and St. Paul Railway Company and the Chicago and North- Western Railway Company Defy the Law Until it is Sustained by the Supreme Court .- Pass Bribery .- Defeat of Honorable Matt. H. Carpenter for the United States Senate .- Oshkosh Burned .- Political.
WILLIAM ROBERT TAYLOR is of Scotch parentage, and was born in Con- necticut, July 10, 1820. When but three weeks old his mother died. His father was an ocean captain, and was lost at sea when the boy was but five years of age ; thus, at the early age of five, he was left an orphan. He was now placed under severe guardianship in Jef- ferson county, New York, and there remained alternately studying and work- ing until he had secured a certificate of admission to the third term of the sopho- more year of Union college, at Schenec- tady, New York. Not being able to pay his way in college, he went into a sugar-bush and made maple sugar and molasses with which to pay the tuition already due.
He then taught a private school and afterwards an academy. In 1840 he entered a class at Elyria, Ohio, prepar- ing to become a teacher. At this time the La Porte authorities were offering a large salary to the teacher that could manage their school, which was well known as being the most rough and ungovernable in that part of the country. Young Taylor undertook the task, and before the end of his third term it became the premium school of the section.
He next undertook the management of a grist mill, saw mill and a cupola furnace, but was obliged to give it up because of his impaired health. He then studied medicine, and in the winter of 1845-46 attended a course of lectures at the medical college at Cleveland, Ohio.
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HISTORY OF WISCONSIN.
In 1848 he removed to Wisconsin and settled in Dane county. Soon he became officially known, and for forty years thereafter was almost continuously in some position of public trust. He was chairman of his town; superintend- ent of public schools ; three times chairinan of the county board of supervisors ; was county superintendent of poor for seventeen years ; was trustee, vice-presi- dent and member of the executive board of the state hospital for insane from its re-organization in 1860 until he became governor in 1874; has been elected to both branches of the legislature ; was seven years president of the Dane county Agricultural society ; and two years president of the Wisconsin State Agricul- tural association, and in the civil war was the first man in Dane county to offer a bounty for volunteers.
In 1873 he was nominated by acclamation for governor by a convention of "Democrats, Liberal Republicans, and other electors friendly to genuine reform through equal and impartial legislation, honesty in office and rigid economy in the administration of public affairs."
The most important measure of Governor Taylor's administration was the enactment of the "Potter Law," which aimed to place railways completely under the state's control, limiting charges for transportation, classifying freight and regulating the price for its transportation.
The two principal railway corporations in the state, the Chicago and North- Western Railway company and the Chicago, Milwaukee and St. Paul Rail- way Company, served formal notice upon the governor that they would not respect the provisions of the Potter law. The governor immediately answered this notice by a proclamation, saying, "The law of the land must be respected and obeyed. While none are so weak as to be without its protection, none are so strong as to be above its restraints."
The railway corporations then appealed to the courts, and the governor was forced to confront the best legal talent in the land. Upon the result of this litigation depended not only Wisconsin's constitutional rights, but the consti- tutional right of all other states to enact similar laws. The contention was car- ried both to the state supreme court and the supreme court of the United States, the main question being the constitutional power of the state over cor- porations of its own creation.
The complete and absolute power of the state was finally established. In this manner, by Governor Taylor and his administration, was settled an issue between the people and the corporations which affected materially all the commercial and agricultural interests of the state.
During his administration $800,000 was obtained from the general gov- ernment for the improvement of the Fox and Wisconsin rivers; the Wisconsin Central Railroad company was compelled, before the governor would sign the
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certificates of its land grant, to give substantial assurance that the projected line from Stevens Point to Portage should be constructed.
While William R. Taylor was governor, appropriations were cut down, taxation diminished, department employes lessened, government expenses cur- tailed, and the total amounts for state purposes were reduced more than a hundred thousand dollars below what they had been in many years.
Governor Taylor devoted his undivided attention to the office in his trust. He attended personally to the many labors of his office, and among all our governors none discharged their duties in a more upright and honorable man- ner than did William Robert Taylor, our "Farmer Governor."
EVENTS OF 1874.
The Reform party of the state of Wisconsin commenced its administra- tion on the 5th day of January, 1874. The newly-elected officers commenced taking their oaths of offices on the same day at half-past eleven in the fore- noon, the oath of office being administered by L. S. Dixon, chief justice of the supreme court.
The state legislature convened on the 14th day of January, 1874. Hon. Charles D. Parker, the lieutenant-governor, took his seat as president of the senate. J. W. Waggoner was elected chief clerk, and O. U. Aken sergeant- at-arms. Gabriel Bouck was elected speaker of the assembly, George W. Peck chief clerk, and Joseph Deuster sergeant-at-arms.
On January 15th Governor Taylor attended the joint convention of the two houses and delivered his first annual message. His message was a bold, clear and able document. He referred to the financial disturbances of the country, and said that accompanying them had come an imperative demand from the people for a purer political morality, a more equitable apportionment of the burdens and blessings of government, and a more rigid economy in the administration of public affairs. The previous suggestion of ex-Secretary Breese, on the subject of taxing railway companies, he commended and thought also that foreign insurance companies should be made to pay more taxes to the state, and recommended that all fees received by the state officers should go into the treasury.
The governor, in a concise and comprehensive manner, presented to the legislature the different features of the railroad traffic question. He laid down certain propositions to guide the legislature in their investigation upon this subject. He also suggested that farmers have rights that legislators are bound to respect, and said that the time had come when some relief should be afforded against the greed and extortion of monoplists. He thought the evils com- plained of by the people against the great monopolies could better be remedied by state than by federal legislation.
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HISTORY OF WISCONSIN.
The Madison Democrat, in referring to the acts of this session of the leg- islature, said :
" It has curtailed the current expenses, and has furnished the people some protection against the extortion of grand monopolies. The new party has inaugurated an era of retrenchment and reform hitherto unknown in the history of Wisconsin. An enumeration of some of the important bills that passed the Reform assembly, to meet with defeat in the Republican senate, are given. The first Reform measure that was killed by the senate was the registry law, that probably would have saved the state at least $25,000. The warehouse bill, that would have saved the farmers of the state one cent a bushel on all the grain they sold, went through the house to meet its fate in the senate. The bill to tax insurance companies, that would have brought $400,000 into the state treasury and relieved the people of that amount of burdensome taxes, was killed in the senate, after passing the assembly by a large majority. The best and most restrictive railroad bill of the session was adopted by the Reform assembly, as embodying the legislation required on this subject, and was amended in the senate by the adoption of a substitute very mild in its provis- ions, and more acceptable to railroad monopolies. The assembly passed a bill increasing the license fee of railroads to five per cent., but the senate reduced the amount to four per cent. The house also proposed a bill abolishing unjust discriminations by railroad companies ; but it was either defeated by the senate, or so modified as to destroy its force. And, to close its labors, the senate re- fused to concur in the bill passed by the assembly to straighten the line of the Central Wisconsin railroad between Portage City and Stevens Point."
On April 27, 1874, after the passage of the so-called Potter law, Alexander Mitchell, the president of the Chicago, Milwaukee and St. Paul Railway com- pany, and Albert Keep, the president of the Chicago and North-Western Rail- way company, notified Governor Taylor by letter that their several corpora- tions would disregard that part of the railroad law of Wisconsin pertaining to prices and so forth.
On May 16, 1874, A. Scott Sloan, the attorney-general, filed petitions in the supreme court charging the above railway corporations with violations of the railroad laws and asked leave to bring suits for the forfeiture of their charters.
Upon the reading and filing of the petition of the state's attorney, the court granted the right to the attorney-general to bring an action in the nature of a quo warranto, in the supreme court, in the name of the state of Wiscon- ยท sin, against the Chicago, Milwaukee and St. Paul Railway company, and against the Chicago and North-Western Railway company, for the purpose of vacating their charters and annuling the existence of the respective corporations.
The Chicago, Milwaukee and St. Paul Railway company, on June Ist commenced proceedings to enjoint the state by action in the federal courts.
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WISCONSIN'S STATE GOVERNORS.
The railway corporations, through their creditors, served notice upon the attorney-general that application would be applied for in the United States district court, for the western district of Wisconsin, to restrain the state from nstituting fixed rates for freight and passenger traffic. Under the new law the railway companies in the intermediate adhered to their former rates without regard to the law of 1874.
On the 4th day of June the case came up for argument in the United States district court before Judges Drummond and Hopkins. C. B. Lawrence appeared in behalf of the Chicago & North-Western Railway company, and Attorney-General Sloan on the part of the state. After some discussion the matter was deferred until the Ist of July. In the intermediate Chief Justice Dixon was retained as associate counsel for the state, he having retired from the supreme bench on the 15th day of June, and his place filled by the appoint- ment of E. G. Ryan, the celebrated jurist.
On July Ist this noted case was brought up for argument in the United States district court, Judges Davis, Drummond and Hopkins presiding. The case on the part of the bondholders for the Chicago and North-Western Railway company was presented by B. C. Cook, of Chicago, C. B. Lawrence and Judge Stoughton, of New York ; and on the part of the state by the attorney-general, A. Scott Sloan, assisted by L. S. Dixon and I. C. Sloan, all of whom were legal luminaries. The court, on June 6th, rendered its decision, sustaining the validity of the law, and held that the legislature had absolute authority of the question of rates for freight and passenger traffic from point to point within Wisconsin. As a legal question was involved regulating the commerce between states, the court desired to hear further arguments on that point.
On July 8th Messrs. Sloan and Dixon, in behalf of the state, filed in the supreme court a bill in equity, complaining of the persistent violation of the state law regulating railroads by the Chicago, Milwaukee and St. Paul Rail- way company, and the Chicago and North-Western Railway company, and prayed that these companies be enjoined and restrained from disobeying said law, so far as it was held valid by the decision of the United States district court.
On the 4th day of August the supreme court met to hear the application in behalf of the state to enjoin the two railway corporations and compel them to obey the laws regulating railroad traffic. The state was represented by Attorney-General A. Scott Sloan, Judge L. S. Dixon, Judge Harlow S. Orton and I. C. Sloan. The Chicago and North-Western Railway company was repre- sented by Judge C. B. Lawrence, B. C. Cook, of Chicago, and George B. Smith, of Madison. The Chicago, Milwaukee and St. Paul Railway company was represented by John W. Cary, Judge F. L. Spooner, with J. C. Gregory
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and F. J. Lamb, of Madison, and Colonel J. C. Spooner, attorney for the West Wisconsin Railway company, of Hudson.
The decision in this celebrated case was rendered on the 15th day of September, by Chief Justice Ryan. The opinion fully sustained the law passed by the legislature of 1874, and the right of the state to control corpora- tions. The opinion concluded by announcing that the motions of the attor- ney-general would be granted and that the order issue as to all the roads of the Chicago and North-Western Railway company, and all the roads of the Chi- cago, Milwaukee and St. Paul Railway company, except the railroad from Milwaukee to Prairie du Chien, built under the territorial charter of 1848.
It is a lamentable fact, and one reflecting seriously upon our law-makers, that, since the administration of Governor Taylor, the great railrway corpora- tions within the state, through pass bribery, have controlled every legislature so far as legislation affecting their interests are concerned; although the last legislature, it is said, passed an act prohibiting future legislators from accepting passes from railway corporations. A law should be passed making it a penal offense for members of the legislature, county, circuit and supreme court judges to accept or use railroad passes.
The Republican conventions of the respective congressional districts placed in nomination for members of congress, C. G. Williams, L. B. Caswell, H. S. Magoon, H. Ludington, Hiram Barber, A. M. Kimball, J. M. Rusk and A. S. McDill.
The Liberal Reform and Democratic conventions placed in nomination N. D. Fratt, A. G. Cook, C. F. Thompson, W. P. Lynde, Sam D. Burchard, Gabriel Bouck, D. C. Fulton and George W. Cate.
At the November election the following congressmen were elected : C. G. Williams, Republican; L. B. Caswell, Republican; H. S. Magoon, Republi- can ; W. P. Lynde, Reform; S. D. Burchard, Reform ; A. M. Kimball, Re- publican ; J. M. Rusk, Republican, and G. W. Cate, Liberal.
This election created and changed the political complexion of the next legislature so that it consisted of seventeen Republicans and fifteen Liberal senators, and one Independent, while the assembly consisted of sixty-four Re- publican members, thirty-five Reformers and one Independent. Both houses of our legislature were again in the hands of the Republican party.
EVENTS OF 1875.
The twenty-eighth annual session of the state legislature convened at Madison, on January 13, 1875. Lieutenant-Governor C. D. Parker, took his seat as president of the senate. After the senators-elect had subscribed and taken the oath of office, that body proceeded to the election of its officers, which was as follows : F. A. Bennett, chief clerk ; A. U. Aken, sergeant-at-arms.
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WISCONSIN'S STATE GOVERNORS.
In the assembly, A. Scott Sloan, the attorney-general, administered the oath of office, and after having subscribed to the same, the assembly proceeded to elect its officers, consisting of Frederick W. Horn, speaker ; Colonel R. M. Strong, chief clerk, and J. W. Bracket, sergeant-at-arms.
On the 14th day of January, the governor met the legislature in joint con- vention, and delivered his second annual message. He again referred to the needed reforms in laws pertaining to closing the polls; to the corrupt use of money in elections; and to the canvassing of votes. He recommended the encouragement of independent military companies, and called the attention of the legislature to the propriety of passing some law for the protection of railroad employes. The public institutions, educational, charitable and penal, were well considered in this message.
The most important and exciting feature at this session of the legislature was the election of United States senator to fill the place of Honorable Matt Carpenter, whose term of office would expire March 4, 1876. On January 26th, both branches of the legislature proceeded to take a vote for senator. In the senate, Matt H. Carpenter, received thirteen votes ; John Black, sixteen votes ; Orsamus Cole, three votes, and L. S. Dixon, one vote ; in the assembly Matt H. Carpenter, received forty-six votes ; E. S. Bragg, thirty-five votes ; C. C. Washburn, seven votes; Orsamus Cole, three votes, and L. S. Dixon, four votes ; James T. Lewis, two votes ; Horace Rublee and H. S. Orton, one vote each. On the 27th the two houses met in joint convention, and, upon the reading of the minutes by the chief clerk, Lieutenant-Governor Parker declared that the balloting had not resulted in the election of any of the candidates. The two houses met daily and balloted for United States senator until the 3d day of January, when the twelfth ballot was taken, which resulted in Angus Cameron receiving sixty-eight votes, Matt H. Carpenter fifty-nine votes, and four scattering, whereupon the lieutenant-governor announced the election of Honorable Angus Cameron, as United States senator, for six years from March 4, 1875.
The cause of Mr. Carpenter's defeat is attributable to the fact that eigh- teen Republican members of the assembly were pledged to vote against the election of Mr. Carpenter, and refused to meet the Republican members in caucus to nominate. This disaffection and hostility to his re-election was based upon the action of Mr. Carpenter in the United States senate, and his vote on the measures known as the Credit Mobiler and Back Pay bills. Mr. Carpenter had received the nomination in the Republican caucus. The Democrats and Liberal Republicans not having the power to elect their own candidates, and being desirous of defeating Mr. Carpenter, they united with the dissatisfied Republicans and elected Mr. Cameron. Angus Cameron received the solid Democratic vote, together with the votes of sixteen Repub-
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lican bolters. The Republican bolters were marshaled by C. C. Washburn, while James R. Doolittle was present, aiding and abetting the Angus Cameron election.
The year previous Mr. Carpenter, in a speech delivered at Ripon, on the " Power of Legislatures to Control Corporations of Their Own Creation," in his forcible and characteristic manner, sustained the constitutionality, necessity and sound public policy upon which the Potter railway law was based.
Mr. Carpenter had dared openly to oppose the aggressions of corporate monopolies, and favored legislative control of railways, and must therefore be "turned down." Angus Cameron was at this time an attorney for the Chi- cago, Milwaukee and St. Paul Railway company. He practiced law at La Crosse and was an ardent Republican. It was the president of the Chicago, Mil- waukee and St. Paul Railway company that suggested the propriety of Mr. Cameron's election as a suitable successor of Mr. Carpenter.
About the time of Mr. Carpenter's defeat by the coalition, Zack Chan- dler, in Michigan, and Alexander Ramsey, in Minnesota, were defeated in a similar manner, and for like reasons, while Honorable Charles A. Eldredge, " the great objector," from the fifth congressional district of Wisconsin, failed to be nominated.
The unwise and injudiciousness of these mutinies were well established when General Ramsey became secretary of war, Zack Chandler elected to the United States senate, with increased confidence, and Matt H. Carpenter re- elected at the first opportunity, and, by the votes of some of the former bolters.
On April 28, 1875, the business portion of the prosperous city of Oshkosh was almost totally obliterated by fire.
At the November election in 1875, the following state officers were elected : Harrison Ludington, governor; Charles D. Parker, lieutenant-governor ; Peter Doyle, secretary of state; Ferdinand Keuhn, state treasurer; A. Scott Sloan, attorney-general, and Edward Searing; state superintendent of public in- struction.
Children's Corner.
Both Sides of Life.
-
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By e. S. matteson.
CHAPTER I.
IT was the first week in June, when Elsie and Ted, after a short delibera- tion, concluded to abandon their adopted home, under the great water tank, in the rear of the old Bowery in New York, and seek their fortune in the country.
Elsie and Ted were street urchins of the higher class. Elsie dressed in a suit of boy's clothes and peddled newspapers, while Ted acted in the double capacity of bootblack and newsboy. The two urchins were rarely separated from morning until night. Their lives had indeed been sad of late, but with brave hearts and a determination that boded success, they made a noble fight for existence.
Elsie was a tall, slim, eleven-year old child, with curly golden locks, dark- brown eyes, shaded by long, heavy lashes, and a face like an Italian sunset. Her brother, Ted, was a nine-year old, full-faced, jovial lad, with light, curly hair, and a face so full of sunshine that even hunger and privations could not change. As young as Ted was, he always looked upon the bright side of every- thing. Circumstances had molded him into quite a little man for one so young.
The determination to leave their quarters at this time was caused by the imaginary mind of Elsie, who, early that morning, saw a beautiful, but diminu- tive little fairy, walking on one of the strands of a cobweb that hung over her head. The fairy finally seated herself on one of Elsie's well-worn shoes, and, in a musical voice, said : " Elsie, you ought to leave this terrible place. Take your brother out into the country among the flowers, into the sunshine and pure air." Then the fairy, who was not much larger than a humming bird,
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vanished. Elsie then dreamed that Ted and she traveled out into the country, and, at last, arrived, tired and hungry, at a grand old house, back from the highway, near a beautiful river, and among fragrant flowers and foliage. She was now abruptly awakened by Ted, saying : " Come, Elsie, old boy, let's be on the move. Say, Elsie, I'll bet you a dozen marbles that I'll sell as many papers as you this morning." The two waifs brushed the dust from their well-worn clothes, and went out upon the streets to work with a will. That morning Ted was thinking only of the number of pennies that he would have at night, while little Elsie was maturing the plan which changed the whole course of their lives.
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