USA > Wisconsin > Milwaukee County > Milwaukee > History of Milwaukee from its first settlement to the year 1895 > Part 14
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1865 John J. Tallmadge 1866 John J. Tallmadge 1867 Edward O'Neill. 1868 Edward O'Neill.
1869 Edward O'Neill.
1870 Joseph Phillips.
1871 Harrison Luding- ton.
ton.
1874 Harrison Luding- ton.
1875 Harrison Luding- ton.
1876 A. R. R. Butler. 1877 A. R. R. Butler.
1856 James B. Cross. 1857 James B. Cross. 1858 Wm. A. Prentiss. 1859 Herman L. Page. 1860 Wm. Pitt Lynde. 1861 James S. Brown.
1862 Horace Chase. 1863 Edward O'Neill. 1864 Abner Kirby.
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HISTORY OF MILWAUKEE.
The three natural divisions of the city continue to be known as the east, west and south sides, respectively, and are recognized in laws like those constituting each of the divisions a special sewer- age district, and requiring a member of the board of public works to be appointed from each divis- ion. Politically the city is divided into eighteen wards; the Third, First, Seventh and Eighteenth on the East side, in order from south to north, each extending from the river to the lake; on the West side, going north from the Menomonee, are the Fourth, Second, Sixth and Thirteenth, all bounded on the east by the Milwaukee river, and west of them in the same order, the Sixteenth, Fifteenth, Ninth and Tenth; on the South side, going south from the Milwaukee river and bounded by the lake are the Fifth, Twelfth and Seventeenth; and west of them, in the same order, are the Eighth, Eleventh and Fourteenth. The Seventeenth ward was formerly the village of Bay View and be- came a part of the city as a ward by itself in 1887, the same year in which the Fifteenth, Sixteenth and Eighteenth wards were erected, partly from new and partly from old territory. Additions to the original number of five wards were made in the following years, each addition representing an increase both in population and territory. In 1856 the Sixth ward was separated from the Second, and the Seventh from the First. In 1857 the Eighth ward was separated from the Fifth and the Ninth from the Sixth. In 1872 the Tenth was taken from the Ninth; in 1873 the Eleventh and Twelfth were taken from the Eighth and Fifth, respectively. The Thirteenth was added by the charter of 1874. The Fourteenth ward was set off from the Eleventh in 1885. The outer limits of the outer wards are changing from time to time with the extension of the city's boundaries and the addition of new ter- ritory.
Milwaukee's population is of a cosmopolitan char- acter, embracing native and foreign born citizens, men whose ancestors came over in the Mayflower, and men who are themselves the first representa- tives of their families in the new world. England, Ireland, Germany, Poland, Russia, Hungary, Den- mark, Sweden, Norway, Ilolland, Italy, have all contributed to the city's population and wealth. Occasional antagonism has at distant intervals exhibited itself between members of different races; but this has happened but rarely and has never resulted in permanent estrangement.
Friendly and harmonious relations between all its members have been the general experience of our peaceful city. Occasionally a fanatical lecturer has done something to disturb the peace of the community-but not since 1851 has there been anything like such a disturbance as recently occurred in a southern city-Savannah-in con- nection with a lecture against the Catholic church. There was the so-called " bank riot" in 1861, and in 1850 a disturbance broke out on account of the passage of a law making the sellers of liquor responsible for damages done by persons under the influence of intoxicants. These all created excite- ment at the time when they occurred, but are too remote to have much interest for the present day. They are but incidents in the life of a growing city ; and while they give evidence of the existence of a spirit of restlessness and to some degree of turbulence, yet are not indicative of the character of the community as a whole, or of any large por- tion of it.
The severest attack upon law and order in Mil- waukee occurred in the spring of 1886, when general and wide spread restlessness prevailed throughout the country and the demands of organ- ized labor for better wages and shorter hours were attended with scenes of violence and collis- ions with the civil and military authorities in many states. This was the period of strikes and boycotts. The entire Gould system of railway lines was affected in the southwest and freight traffic on all lines was at a standstill in Chicago. It could not be expected that a city like Milwaukee, with its many important indus- tries and many thousands of laborers, both skilled and unskilled, should escape. The West Mil- waukee car shops, the Allis works, the rolling mills, the great breweries and hosts of other con- cerns became involved in disputes with their men. In some cases the employers yielded, often under practical duress ; in others they refused the con- cessions demanded by their employes. Stimu- lated by successes, and irritated by rebuffs, the organizations of the Knights of Labor and of the Trade Unions increased in numbers and in im- portance. Men who were satisfied with their re- lations with their employers were not permitted to remain in peace, and strikes were ordered by officers of one organization or the other in fac- tories where there was no disagreement between employers and employed. The tendency to
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DEPARTMENTS OF THE CITY GOVERNMENT.
disorder began gradually to manifest itself and came to a head suddenly before the full extent of the danger was realized. The beginning of May marked the culmination of the trouble. Striking laborers forced those who were industrious to quit their work. Large bodies of men, excited and misled by mischievous leaders, went from shop to shop stirring up dissatisfaction, and attacks by mobs upon persons and property oc- curred in a number of instances. On the 3rd of May a thousand strikers raided the West Mil- waukee car shops of the St. Paul Railway, and partly by persuasion and partly by show of force, induced the fourteen hundred men at work there to lay down their tools and walk out. A large portion of the same mob found their way down the railway tracks to the Allis works, where their riot- ous demonstrations were met by employes who turned the hose on their assailants and routed them for the time being. The civil authorities were unprepared for such violence, and it was deemed wise by the Allis management to shut down their shops at once and remain closed until they could be assured of efficient protection. That same night Governor Rusk, Adjutant General Chapman, Mayor Wallber, Sheriff Paschen and Chief of Police Ries held a consultation at the Plankinton House, and it was settled that every- thing necessary should be done to protect the rights of property and of labor, although it was still hoped that order could be preserved without resort to military force. The next day twenty- five hundred men gathered at the Rolling Mills, many armed with clubs, and all filled with the spirit of mischief which had actuated the mob at the car shops the day before. They met with some resistance and were at first refused admis- sion into the grounds. Irritated at this, they virtually made a prisoner of the superintendent and extorted permission to confer with the men who were at work. This disturbance resulted in summoning the militia, and four companies of the Milwaukee battalion were hurried to the scene. Others from outside of the city were later added to this force. The part taken by the Na- tional Guard will be told elsewhere. Their work was not mere show. Bullets were fired before the trouble was ended; and wounds and death had to be inflicted before the mobs were cowed. The Rolling Mills were shut down for the time, it not being deemed advisable to
keep them in operation in the face of such difficul- ties. That night the Haymarket riot occurred in Chicago, where dynamite was used with such fearful results. Milwaukee was more fortunate than her neighbor at the head of the lake. The spirit of disorder was checked in time to prevent such dreadful casualties ; and the worst conse- quences of their madness fell upon the disorderly elements themselves. The strikes were not gener- ally successful either in Milwaukee or elsewhere; and even where they had seemed to succeed, the advantages gained were only temporary. The men who had struck were in the end glad to get work wherever they could find it, and many suf- fered great deprivations before they could again secure steady employment.
This trouble ended with a. special session of the grand jury and a large number of indictments were brought in against the principal leaders and promoters of the disturbance. Many of these were simply agitators; some were anarchists with no other purpose in life than to involve all exist .- ing institutions in confusion. One of the most notable trials was that of Paul Grottkau, editor of the Arbeiter Zeitung, who was indicted and convicted of riot, he having taken part in dis- orderly meetings of striking workmen which had ended in riotous attacks on factories whose employes were still at work. There were many other indictments and many other convictions, and more than one of these cases reached the Supreme Court of the state before they were finally disposed of. Grottkau's case is perhaps as curious an illustration as can be found in Wisconsin, of the uncertainties of criminal prosecutions and of suc- cessful resistance on technical grounds to the punishment imposed by law for criminal acts. On the first trial of this case the jury disagreed. The second trial took place in April, 1887, and resulted in a conviction, and on the 7th of May, in that year Grottkau was sentenced to confine- ment in the house of correction at hard labor for the term of one full year. The agitator took the case to the Supreme Court on the ground of alleged errors in the proceedings, and while it was pending in that court gave the security required by law and was released from custody after one week's imprisonment. The Supreme Court affirmed the sentence of the lower court and remanded the case to the Municipal Court to cause the sentence to be executed. The record was sent down March
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HISTORY OF MILWAUKEE.
13, 1888, and Grottkau was committed to the house of correction on the 5th of April, having been at liberty on bail up to that time. On the 8th of May-a year and a day from the date of his sentence-he applied to the Circuit Court com- missioner for a writ of habeas corpus and asked to be released from confinement on the ground that his term of sentence had expired. This raised a question which was not exactly new and yet had not before been decided in Wisconsin, and which was involved in considerable difficulty in view of the provisions of the criminal code of the state. The commissioner denied the application, and decided that the prisoner must serve out his full year in the house of correction. The Circuit Court, to which the question was immediately car- ried, took the opposite view, reversed the commis- sioner's ruling and ordered Grottkau's release from custody, and he was accordingly set at liberty. The attorney general of the state, dissatisfied with this decision, took the case to the Supreme Court. The Supreme Court upheld the ruling of the court commissioner and settled the main question by deciding that the term of sentence did not run while the person sentenced was out on bail, pend- ing a review of the sentence in the Supreme Court,
and the order of the Circuit Court was reversed. Subsequently, on an application for a rehearing, it was contended in behalf of Grottkau that, whether the order of the Circuit Court was right or wrong, he had been lawfully set at liberty and could not, by a review and reversal of that order, be returned to imprisonment in view of the constitutional provision that "no person for the same offense shall be twice put in jeopardy of punishment." This contention was sustained by the Supreme Court, and its order, reversing the order of the Circuit Court, was vacated and the proceed- ings in the Supreme Court were dismissed. The result of all this was that the period of Grott- kau's actual confinement under his sentence was something less than two months, instead of a full year as contemplated by the Municipal Court. This seems like a miscarriage of jus- tice; and yet the Supreme Court undoubtedly decided wisely in upholding a great constitu- tional provision, cherished originally as one of the fundamental guarantees of personal liberty at the common law, and asserted in probably every state constitution within the United States, as well as in the constitution of the United States itself.
HoSuomyton
CHAPTER XV.
EARLY POLITICAL HISTORY.
BY JOHN G. GREGORY.
T is proposed to begin this chapter on the po- litical history of Milwaukee at about the period of white settlement. No doubt, how- ever, the place had a political history during Indian times-an interesting one, if it could be recalled. One version of the name "Milwaukee" derives it from "Man-a-wah-kie," meaning "great council place." Pere Membre, the French Recollect mis- sionary, found the nation of the Mascoutins and Outagamies dwelling here in 1678. Pontiac was in council here in the summer of 1763. But what- ever ethnological and archæological interest a record of Milwaukee's aborigines might possess, it is proposed here to treat the wars and the con- ferences of the red men as of no more consequence than "the scuffling of kites and crows," and to begin the drama with the second act.
The principal of the three rivers upon the banks of which Wisconsin's chief city is located, was known as the Milwaukee ("Milleoki," Membre spells it), as far back as there is any existing record; but the name was apparently first used to describe a political division in 1834. On Septem- ber 6th of that year, the Michigan legislature passed "an act to establish the counties of Brown and Iowa, and to lay off the county of Milwaukie." The new county of Milwaukee created by the act extended from the northern boundary of Illinois to about the present north line of Washington county, and west to a line that would include what are now known as Madison and Portage City. Though thus given boundaries and a name, Milwaukee county remained attached to Brown county, and did not acquire an independent polit- ical organization until 1835. In that year Albert Fowler received the appointment of county clerk from the governor of Michigan territory. The governor also commissioned for the county of Milwaukee a chief justice and two associates, a judge of probate, seven justices of the peace, and a sheriff, the recipient of the last named commis- sion being Benoni W. Finch. Milwaukee was the
county seat, and the county clerk was ex-officio register of deeds. St. Patrick's Day has an es pecial title to remembrance by patriotic Milwau- keeans, for on March 17, 1835, the Michigan Legis- lature passed an act erecting the township of Milwaukee. It was in this same year, 1835, that the final treaty of cession was ratified which vested in the United States government the title to the lands upon which the city now stands, that had formerly belonged to the Menomonees and Pottawatomies. The preliminaries of the transfer had been effected in 1831 and 1833.
The first election ever held in Milwaukee county took place in September, 1835. Fifty years later, when the event was formally celebrated by the inhabitants of a metropolis of one hundred and fifty-nine thousand people, which looked back to that election as a grown man looks back to the day of his birth, the original records of the elec- tion were exhibited by Mr. Winfield Smith, the orator of the day.
The election was held in the house of Solo- mon Juneau, at the southeast corner of East Water and Michigan streets, where Mitchell's Bank now stands. At the same place, on the fifth day of the following month, there was an election for choosing a delegate to Con- gress and five members of the legislative coun- cil. At this election one hundred and nineteen votes were cast. For delegate to Congress, James D. Doty had fifty-eight votes, and Mor- gan L. Martin, fifty-one. Colonel George W. Jones, who had comparatively few supporters against Martin and Doty in Milwaukee and Brown counties, carried all the western counties, most of them by large majorities, and was elected delegate by a majority in the territory of about eight hun- dred votes. The division between the supporters of the three candidates was due to personal and local considerations. Party lines were not drawn at that early day. The federal administration at that time was Democratic. The territorial
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HISTORY OF MILWAUKEE.
administration was appointive. Whiggery, conse- quently, was at a discount. Each of the three candidates claimed that he was an orthodox Demo- crat and considered that the gravest charge he could bring against his competitors was that they were Whigs in disguise. The contending aspir- ants for membership in the Territorial council seem to have been in the interest of the respective candidates for Congress, and, according to their preferences, were spoken of as "Dodge" or " Martin " men.
Wisconsin territory was organized in 1836, and on the second of August in the same year, in com- pliance with a petition of the citizens, Governor Dodge gave Milwaukee county an organization by appointing Nathaniel F. Hyer, judge of probate, Henry M. Hubbard sheriff, Joshua Hathaway sur- veyor, and Daniel Wells, Jr., John A. Messenger, S. W. Dunbar, Barzillai Douglass and Elisha Smith, justices of the peace. During the summer of this year occurred the first enumeration of the inhabitants to serve as a basis for the apportion- ment of members of the Wisconsin territorial leg- islature. The population was found to be two thousand eight hundred and ninety-three; of whom one thousand three hundred and twenty-eight were returned as living within four miles of the mouth of the Milwaukee river. At that time the preponderance of population was decidedly in the southwestern part of the territory, nearly one-half of all the people in what then constituted Wis- consin living west of the Mississippi river, and more than two-thirds in the counties of Des- Moines, Dubuque and Iowa. Brown county and Milwaukee county together contained only five thousand five hundred and ninety-nine people, while Iowa county alone had five thousand two hundred and thirty-four. The first election under the new apportionment was held on the second Monday in October, 1836. There were seven polling places in the county, only one of which was within its present limits. Milwaukee county was entitled to two members of the Legis- lative council, the whole membership of which was thirteen, and to three members of the Terri- torial house of representatives, a body of twenty- six members. There were seven hundred and eighty-one votes cast in the county, four hundred and forty-nine of which were polled in the Mil- waukee precinct. Alanson Sweet of Milwaukee, and Gilbert Knapp of Racine, were elected mem-
bers of the council, while William B. Sheldon and Madison B. Cornwall of Milwaukee, and Charles Durkee of Pike River, were chosen to serve in the house. Moses Meeker of Iowa county, who in that county ran ahead of George W. Jones for congress, received in Milwaukee county only a single vote. Jones was elected by a majority of nearly three thousand in the territory. He was generally popular, having worked faithfully to secure the passage of the act conferring upon Wis- consin independent territorial organization. The opposition to him in Iowa county was due to the circulation of a report relative to his preference for the location of the capital. The issue on which legislative candidates were selected at this elec- tion were the location of the state capital, the division of counties and the location of county seats, and- last, but by no means least, so far as Milwaukee was concerned-the question of local improvements, including the projected Milwaukee and Rock river canal.
On December 7, 1836, Milwaukee county was shorn of a large portion of the imperial domain which had been conferred upon it by the Michigan legislature. The counties of Racine, Walworth, Rock and Jefferson were organized on the date named, entirely out of territory which had pre- viously belonged to Milwaukee, and another slice of Milwaukee territory was used, with additions, in making the counties of Dane, Washington, Dodge and Portage. The Milwaukee Advertiser, which had been established in the preceding month of July, and which was published in the interest of Byron Kilbourn, the prime mover in the canal project, printed insinuations that at least one or two of the Milwaukee members of the legislature had in voting for the division of the county, betrayed the trust reposed in them by the people. This insinuation was intended to bit particularly hard at Alanson Sweet, and was attributed by his supporters to the circumstance that he had been a strong opponent of the canal project.
At the court house, on the 17th of March, 1837, was held the great meeting at which an organiza- tion was effected for the protection of squatters' rights. That hatred of speculative land claimants and wild-cat money were among the uppermost sentiments in the minds of the people at this time was indicated in the call for a meeting to nomi- nate candidates for town and county officers, which was issued a few days later by "Many
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EARLY POLITICAL HISTORY.
Voters," and which was addressed "To the Demo- cratic Anti-Bank and Settlers' Rights Party." Another caucus was called by the " Democratic- Republicans." Each of these caucuses placed a ticket in the field.
Under the territorial law, the only county offi- cers whom the people were permitted to elect were supervisors, commissioners, treasurer, register of deeds and coroner. The other county officers were appointed by the governor with the consent of the council. All became elective in 1848, as soon as the state government was organized.
Soon after the assembling of the legislature in the winter of 1836, Governor Dodge had named the appointive county officers, who were approved by the territorial council. They were: William Campbell, master in chancery and judge of pro- bate ; William N. Gardner, district attorney; Owen Aldrich, sheriff ; John P. Hilton, Supreme Court commissioner. There were also five justices of the peace, a district surveyor, a colonel, a lieutenant-colonel and a major of militia. The elective county officers remained to be filled by popular vote on the first Monday in April, 1837, and it was in preparation for the election on that day that the caucuses above referred to were held. The Democratic Republican candidates were in nearly every instance defeated. The Democratic Anti-Bank and Settlers' Rights candidates for the county offices, who were all elected, were George D. Dousman, treasurer; Albert Fowler, register of deeds; Henry M. Hubbard, coroner and S. D. Cowles, William Brown and William Shew, mem- bers of the board of supervisors. William A.
Prentiss was elected town clerk. It is recorded that factional feeling at this election ran very high. Strenuous efforts were made to influence voters, and the use of liquor for this purpose was so open and persistent as to constitute a scandal. One of the candidates sent out men with barrels of liquor on hand-carts, with instructions to in- vite voters to help themselves. Groceries were also freely distributed, with the view of buying the support of needy voters.
It was in this year that the Sentinel was started, in the interest of Juneau and the East side, the Advertiser, having been established on the West side in the interest of Kilbourn. The Advertiser was stoutly Democratic. The Sentinel began as a Democratic paper, but before long passed out of Juneau's ownership and became the organ of the
faction which when the time grew propitious to the avowal of their real principles declared them- selves upon the side of the Whigs.
The East side election of trustees in 1838 resulted in the choice of Solomon Juneau, Daniel Wells, Jr., William A. Prentiss, George D. Dousman and William Brown. Mr. Prentiss was president. The West side trustees were Byron Kilbourn, W. H. Hubbard, P. G. Leland, F. A. Wingfield and D. H. Richards. Antipathy to Judge Frazier is said to have had an influence in deciding the election on the east side. But the personal popularity of Juneau and the other candidates with him on the anti-Frazier ticket was so great that it seems of itself sufficient to account for their average major- ity of ninety in a poll of one hundred and seventy votes.
At the county election held in March, 1838, connty commissioners were elected for the first time. County business had been transacted in Milwaukee by a board of supervisors elected from the several townships, but a legislative act passed in December, 1837, provided for the substitution of a board of three commissioners elected by the county at large. The county commissioner system was forced upon the territory by the people of the lead region, who were in the majority. It was a southern institution, and these people were mostly from the south. While it lasted it was a source of constant annoyance to the people of Milwaukee and the other eastern counties, who were mostly from New England and New York, where the township system, with different modifications, prevailed. A demand for the restoration of the supervisor system was made upon the Legislative assembly by the citizens of the eastern counties, while the lead regions sent remonstrances against a change. The objection to the commissioner sys- tem was that instead of permitting each town to be represented in the interest of its inhabitants, it provided for a remote and in a measure irrespon- sible body, which caused heavy taxes and unequal and improper assessments. The Legislative assem- bly passed a law providing that the people of each county might vote "for" or "against " county government. The vote was taken at the general election in 1841, and resulted in large majorities in Milwaukee and other eastern counties against county government, while Green, Crawford and Iowa counties voted for the commissioner system. Milwaukee and several of the other eastern coun-
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