History of Milwaukee from its first settlement to the year 1895, Part 88

Author: Conard, Howard Louis, ed. cn
Publication date: 1895
Publisher: Chicago and New York, American Biographical Publishing Co
Number of Pages: 840

USA > Wisconsin > Milwaukee County > Milwaukee > History of Milwaukee from its first settlement to the year 1895 > Part 88

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He was a prominent and active member of the National Liberal League and was a member for Wisconsin of the National Executive Committee of the league. The platform of the National Liberal League adopted at Rochester, N. Y., October 26, 1877, declares in favor of "the total separation of church and state" of "national pro-

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tection for national citizens," and of "universal education as the basis of universal suffrage in this secular republic."

At the Centennial Congress of the Liberals, held in Philadelphia, July 4, 1876, which resolved itself into the National Liberal League, this resolution was unanimously adopted:

Resolved, That the National Liberal League convened at Philadelphia from July 1 to July 4, 1876, respectfully peti- tions the Senate and House of Representatives, in Congress assembled, to recommend to the several states for adoption such a "Religious Freedom Amendment" of the United States Corstitution as shall effect the total separation of church and state in all branches and departments of the gov- ernment-national, state and municipal-and protect all American citizens in the enjoyment of their equal religious support of this petition, and, if possible, a million signatures to the same be obtained; and that the Board of Directors of the National Liberal League are hereby instructed to carry this resolution into effect.

We, therefore, the undersigned, citizens of the United States, respectfully pray your honorable bodies to grant the petition of the National Liberal League above set forth; and we submit the following form of amendment proposed as a substitute for the present first amendment of the United States Constitution, as one which, in our judgment, contains nothing which is not essential and necessary in order to effect the total separation of church and state.

ARTICLE I.

SECTION 1 .- Neither Congress nor any state shall make any law respecting an establishment of religion, or favoring any particular form of religion or prohibiting the free exer- cise thereof, or permitting in any degree a union of Church and state, or granting any special privileges, immunity or advantage to any sect or religious body, or to any number of sects or religious bodies; or taxing the people of any state, either directly or indirectly, for the support of any sect or religious body, or of any number of sects or religious bodies ; or abridging the freedom of speech or of the press, or the right of the people peaceably to assemble and to petition the government for a redress of grievances.

SECTION 2 .- No religious test shall ever be required as a condition of suffrage or as a qualification to any office or public trust in any state. No person shall ever be deprived of any of his or her rights, privileges or capacities, or dis- qualified for the performance of any public or private duty, or rendered incompetent to give evidence in any court of law or equity in consequence of any opinions he or she may hold on the subject of religion. No person shall ever be required by law to contribute directly or indirectly to the support of any religious society or body, of which he or she is not a voluntary member.

SECTION 3 .- Neither the United States, nor any State, Territory, municipality, or any civil division of any State or Territory, shall levy any tax, or make any gift, grant or ap- propriation, for the support, or in aid, of any church, relig- ious sect, or denomination, or any school, seminary or institution of learning, in which the faith or doctrine of any religious rites or practices shall be observed ; or for the sup- port, or in aid, of any religious charity or purpose of any sect, order or denomination whatsoever.

SECTION 4 .- Congress shall have power to enforce the various provisions of this Article by appropriate legislation.

The foregoing petition with fifty thousand sig- natures was presented in the United States Senate by Hon. Charles Sumner. In Wisconsin Mr. Spencer, as representative in this state of the Na- tional Liberal League and as a member of the National Executive Committee, was instrumental in getting Rev. C. E. Gordon, pastor of the Church of the Redeemer, Milwaukee, to deliver an address on "What is the Relation of the State to Religion" in the assembly chamber at Madison, February, 1878, in advocacy of the first plank in the platform of the National Liberal Leagne for the "Total Separation of Church and State." A large edition of this address was printed and circulated in pamphlet form, and was quite extensively and favorably noticed by the press.

In the several State Normal Schools of Wis- consin religious exercises were daily held to which more or less objection was made by students and by parents of different religious opinions. Com- plaint having been made to Mr. Spencer of these practices, he memorialized the State Board of Normal Regents on this subject, setting forth that these practices were in violation of the religious liberties of the people, provided for and protected by the Bill of Rights in the State Constitution. He appeared before the Board of Regents and made an argument in support of the petition. The rules of the board were accordingly amended with regard to this matter, but the construction of the rule was left to the individual presidents of the Normal schools.

Mr. Spencer was appointed by State School Superintendent Graham a member of the Visiting Committee of the Oshkosh Normal School. He was present in his official capacity at the opening morning exercises of this school at which the president read passages from the Bible, engaged in prayer and religious hymns were sung. At the close of these exercises the president invited Mr. ·Spencer to address the school, which he did, mak- ing use of the occasion to express his views regard- ing the religious exercises to which he had just listened, as being in violation of the plain pro- visions of the constitution of the state and an in- fringement of the religions rights and liberties of every student in the school and every citizen of the state. This bold expression of adverse opinion and criticism, entirely unexpected by the presi-

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dent, the faculty and a large body of students, naturally created a sensation that spread through- out the community and was reported and com- mented upon by the press of the state, and gen- erally approved as being correct from a constitu- tional and ethical point of view. A few years later suit was brought by a citizen of Stoughton to restrain the public school authorities from per- mitting the reading of the Bible in the public schools of that place. The Supreme Court of the State, in passing upon this case, affirmed the posi- tion which Mr. Spencer had taken in his memorial to the Board of Normal School Regents, and maintained the principle that the public schools and educational institutions sustained by the state are entirely secular in their objects, and that all religious instructions, rites and exercises must be excluded therefrom.

In 1881 a committee of three was appointed by the National Association for the complete secular- ization of the state, to prepare an address on that subject to the American people. That committee consisted of B. F. Underwood, Thorndike, Massa- chusetts; R. C. Spencer, Milwaukee, Wisconsin, and Van Buren Denslow, Chicago, Illinois. This address on the subject of church and state, advo- cated their absolute divorcement as favored by eminent statesmen and divines; the exclusion of the Bible from the common schools, the taxation of church property, the repeal of religious tests, oaths, appropriations, Sunday laws and the aboli- tion of chaplaincies and religious proclamations. The address starts out with a quotation from the ·memorial speech of U. S. Grant at Des Moines, 1875, "Keep the church and the state forever separate." The credit of this address belongs mainly to Prof. Van Buren Denslow, who, how- ever, spent several days in Milwaukee with Mr. Spencer in its preparation, many of the authori- ties quoted therein being furnished by Mr. Spencer, and his judgment and opinions being consulted regarding the features of the address. This document, published by the National Asso- ciation, for the complete secularization of the state, is considered the most concise and unan- swerable argument on that subject that has ever been put forth.

Jealous as Mr. Spencer is of the religious rights and liberties of the people, and bold and courageous as he is in advocacy of the complete secularization of the state and of absolute religious

freedom, he is appreciative of and reverent toward all religious truth and institutions, but tolerates no infringement of the religious rights and liber- ties, even of the youngest child, holding firmly and consistently to the principle that no human being can be religiously free in the true sense of the term, whose right to form his own opinion upon religious subjects is not scrupulously re- garded to the extent that not even the parent shall attempt to bias the religious opinions of the child; that he should be left free to investigate for himself; and when he arrives at that age of intellectual maturity when he is able to investi- gate and judge for himself, he shall be unbiased in his religious sentiments by parental or other influences, and entirely free to accept for himself and exercise as he may deem best, such religious opinions and rites as to his conscience may seem to be the nearest truth and the best adapted to his individual needs.

Politically, Mr. Spencer has always been a Re- publican with liberal tendencies, and has been more or less active in politics to the extent, at least, of discharging his political duties as a citi- zen. He has never, however, sought or held any elective public office. In 1890 Mr. Spencer was the Republican nominee for representative in Congress for the Milwaukee district. That, how- ever, was the year of general disaster to the Re- publican party, in which the state of Wisconsin went over to the Democratic party by a plurality of some thirty thousand, mainly on the com- pulsory education issue arising out of the passage of the so-called Bennett Law by the legislature of the previous year. Mr. Spencer's opponent in this campaign was Hon. John L. Mitchell.

He has taken a special interest in the subject of political education in its broad and non-partisan sense as being an essential part of the equipment of every American citizen. Working in this direction, civil government has been made for many years a part of the curriculum of the Spen- cerian Business College, Milwaukee. As president of the International Business College Association, and subsequently of its successor, the Business Educators' Association of America, Mr. Spencer has strongly and steadily urged the claims of this branch of education.

From the inception and organization of the American Institute of Civics, Mr. Spencer has been identified with that movement in conjunction

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with the leading educators, statesmen and jurists of the country. He is a member of the Board of Counsellors of the institute, and through his in- fluence the Business Educators' Association of America, representing the business colleges and commercial schools of the United States, has entered into auxiliary relations with the institute, with a view of promoting the study of civics among the more than seventy thousand students in attendance upon such schools. A business school department has been organized for the purpose of bringing the institute into helpful relations with the educators belonging to this association, and this department has been placed under the direction of Mr. Spencer.

Another of the educational movements with which Mr. Spencer is identified is The People's Institute, Milwaukee. Immediately following the labor riots in Milwaukee, a working people's club was formed and incorporated, with reading rooms and a lecture and amusement hall and conversa- tion rooms centrally located, which for a time re- ceived quite liberal support. Being a class movement, somewhat narrow in its scope, the in- terest in it declined.

The friends of the club asked Mr. Spencer to ac- cept the presidency, with a view to reviving and strengthening it. At that time little remained of the club but its rooms, poor furniture, a few books, a meagre supply of stale literature and a few daily visitors. Under these conditions Mr. Spencer ac- cepted the presidency, and proceeded to reorganize under the title of "The People's Institute," on a large and original plan, a most popular educa- tional movement, intended to provide for the edn- cational wants of all classes of people who have passed beyond the schools. The prospectus of The l'eople's Institute set forth and outlined in at- tractive form its varied and comprehensive plans. The main purpose of the Institute is to bring to- gether the masses for their general improvement by raising the standard of living, thinking, char- acter and citizenship throughout the community. It seeks to bring into intelligent co-operation, through education and progression, not merely a class, but the whole people, without distinction as to persons, occupation or wealth. The plan of the Institute provides for a thorough organization throughout the city, which, however, has been but partially carried out. When Prof. Richard T. Ely of Johns Hopkins University, Baltimore, Maryland,

was called to the University of Wisconsin,to organ- ize a department of economics and social science,his attention was called to the plans of The People's Institute of Milwaukee, with which he was much impressed. On his recommendation the Institute appointed as superintendent Fred W. Speirs of Johns Hopkins University in 1892, who devoted his time to developing and carrying out the plans of the Institute under President Spencer's direc- tion.

Much was accomplished by Mr. Spiers during the year, at the end of which the financial crisis and general depression seemed to render it im- practicable to attempt to raise the necessary funds to continue the work, which has, therefore, been temporarily suspended.

The Wisconsin Phonological Institute is an or- ganization of citizens to promote the teaching of speech to the deaf, of which Mr. Spencer has for several years past been president and the most act- ive promoter. The pamphlet of thirty-six pages, is- sued in 1893 and bound up in three large volumes of the History of Deaf Mute Education in Amer- ica, contains a historical sketch of the Wisconsin System of Public Day Schools for Deaf Mutes, established under the provisions of law, the enact- ment of which was secured through Mr. Spencer's efforts as president of the Wisconsin Phonological Institute, with the support and assistance of Prof. Alexander Graham Bell, the Milwaukee School Board and Governors William E. Smith and Jere- miah M. Rusk, Miss Daisy H. Way and her mother and other influential philanthropic people. The enactment of this law has placed Wisconsin in ad- vance of all other states in the education of deaf mutes, and under it are established public day schools at Milwaukee, La Crosse, Wausau and Manitowoc, and others will sooner or later be opened in the larger towns and cities of the state.

As the eldest of the five Spencer brothers, sons of Platt R. Spencer originator and author of the Spencerian System of Penmanship, R. C. Spencer has long been influential in raising the standard of education in penmanship through the Spencerian publications for the use of schools, through the Spencerian Business Colleges and in other ways. In 1885 Mr. Spencer was instru- mental in organizing the Milwaukee Manual Train. ing Association, which exerted considerable influence in favor of a movement for the introduc- tion of manual training into the public school.

NoGay

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At the twenty-sixth annual encampment De- partment of Wisconsin Grand Army of the Republic, held at Madison, 1892, Mr. Spencer introduced a resolution providing for the appoint- ment of a committee to report upon the subject of collecting and preserving the personal, war, civil and family history of the members of the Grand Army of the Republic and others who served in the war for the Union, with instructions to confer with the State Historical Society and kindred organizations, with the posts, state and national officials of the Grand Army of the Re- public, the Woman's Relief Corps, and Sons of Veterans, and to report at the next department encampment. The resolution was unanimously adopted. The committee consisted of Robert C. Spencer, chairman ; Lucius Fairchild and M. P. Walsh. At the twenty-seventh annual encampment, held at La Crosse, March 8 and 9, 1893, the report of the committee, drafted by Mr. Spencer, was presented and adopted. It contains a com- munication from the committee appointed by the State Historical Society, consisting of the presi- dent, John Johnston, Reuben G. Thwaites, secre- tary , Edwin E. Bryant, William W. Wight and John N. Davidson, favoring the plans of Mr. Spencer and his committee, and tendering the co-operation of the State Historical Society. The report and plans were submitted to the State Con- vention of the Woman's Relief Corps, and by them unanimously adopted, and a committee of co-operation appointed, of which Mrs. C. A. Chapin, of Milwaukee, is chairman. The report appears on pages 120 to 125 of the published pro- ceedings of the twenty-seventh annual encamp- ment Department of Wisconsin Grand Army of the Republic.

Mr. Spencer was one of the founders of the Wisconsin Humane Society. He drafted its con- stitution and by-laws, was its first secretary, sev- eral years member of the Board of Directors and chairman of the Committee on Humane Educa- tion. He has been for several years identified with the work of the associated charities, a member of the Board of Counselors and was actively identi- fied with the movement for an organization of friendly visitors for the benefit of the sick, poor and discouraged. He is vice-president of the His- torical Political Science Association of the Uni- versity of Wisconsin, of which Prof. T. Ely is president.

Mr. Spencer married, May 15, 1853, Sara Eliza- beth, second daughter of Susanna Roop and Wil- liam Beach, Cheektowaga, Erie county, N. Y., a gifted and amiable but fragile lady, who died of consumption, October, 1856, leaving an infant son.

June 22, 1863, Mr. Spencer married Mrs. Ellen Whiton King, widow of Chauncey P. King, of Janesville, Wisconsin, by whom he has six sons and one daughter. She is the daughter of Hon. Daniel G. Whiten and Annie Foot, natives of Lee, Berkshire county, Massachusetts. She was edn- cated at Mount Holyoke Seminary, Hadley, Mas- sachusetts, and is the niece of Edward V. Whiton, first chief justice of Wisconsin.

WILLIAM D. GRAY was born in Lander, one of the most ancient boroughs in Scotland, named after Lord Lauderdale, on a portion of the Lau- derdale estate, twenty-five miles distant from Edinburg, July 22, 1843. In 1854, at the age of eleven years, he emigrated with his parents to Stratford, Canada, where he engaged in farming, attending school-after the manner of farmers' boys in those days-during the winter. While in Stratford he also learned the carpenter's trade, and in 1865 crossed the line into the United States, came to Wisconsin and located in Fond du Lac. There he worked at his trade for a few months, but in July, 1865, went to Fort Snelling, Minne- sota. The Milwaukee & St. Paul Railroad was at that date building into Minneapolis and he was employed by the contractor then building a rail- road bridge across the Minnesota river at Fort Snelling. Later he was regularly employed by the Milwaukee & St. Paul Railroad Company to construct bridges, depots and elevators.

In 1867 he found employment in the Milwaukee & St. Paul Railway car shops at Minneapolis. Leaving these shops after a time he became an employe of Messrs. Pray & Webster, noted mill- ing engineers, who had charge of what was then known as the big Washburn mill. After the car- penter work was completed, he engaged in mill- wright work until the completion of the mill the following spring, and so satisfactory to his em- ployers was his work in this capacity that he was placed in charge of all the mill-wright work of the firm, and later of all the drafting of mill machinery and mill construction in Minne- apolis.

Mr. Gray remained with Mr. Pray ten years and during that time purchased and eagerly read

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every authority on milling he could secure. While other young men-his associates-were de- voting their evenings to pleasure, he was attend- ing evening schools, commercial college and burning midnight oil in exhaustive research. In the spring of 1876, at the solicitation of Mr. E. P. Allis, Mr. Gray accepted the position of milling engineer of the E. P. Allis Company of Milwau- kee, then a comparatively small concern doing a limited amount of mill building-and took charge of their flour mill trade.

The first contract secured in his new position was for the building of the Excelsior mill of Min- neapolis for D. Morrison, operated after comple- tion by C. A. Pillsbury & Company. Next followed the Standard mill of the same city, built for White & Morrison. Contracts for other mills large and small followed in quick succession and addition after addition was made to the original Allis establishment, together with a corresponding increase in the number of employes.

In the summer of 1878 Mr. Gray built the Schoelkopf & Mathews mill at Niagara Falls, New York, in which he adopted and put in practice many of his latest ideas, which were in advance of the art as known to the milling profession, resulting in the most perfect mill ever erected at that time. In this mill, and also in that of J. B. A. Kern of Milwaukee, he introduced his new device for crushing wheat, his famous belt roller mill. The value of a large percentage of middlings in making a high grade of flour had been made apparent by the new process buhr system, then in general use, and it was hoped to increase that percentage, by the use of corrugated chilled iron rolls for the gradual reduction of wheat. In the fall of 1878 Mr. Gray made plans for C. C. Wash- burn of Minneapolis and contracted with him for the erection of an experimental flour mill, using rollers exclusively for all the work in the mill. In January, 1879, while work was progressing on the mill, he accepted an invitation from his old friend, Oscar Oexle, to visit him in Europe for the two- fold object of needed rest and to examine repre- sentative mills. He returned in May, 1879, at the time of the completion of the Washburn experi- mental mill and had the satisfaction of beholding in successful operation the fundamental principles of his theories. To Mr. Gray belongs not only the credit of inventing the first belted roller mill with accurate adjustments, but also of building

the first gradual reduction roller process flouring mill in the United States.

Among the later important mills built by Mr. Gray are the Washburn-Crosby's new enlargement and the Columbia and Crown Roller and Zenith mills of Minneapolis; the Staten Island Roller Mill ; the Jones Company's Mill of New York city; the Mosely & Motley Mill of Rochester, New York ; the Thompson Mill of Lockport, New York ; the Model Mill of Nashville and the Mountain City Mill of Chattanooga, Tennessee ; the Imperial Roller Mill of Duluth, Minnesota ; and the Lake Superior Mill, Anchor Mill, and William Listman Mill, the former with a daily capacity of eight thousand barrels and the two latter of four thou- sand barrels, each, of Superior, Wisconsin ; the Noel Mill, Estill Springs, Tennessee, and the J. B. M. Kehlor Mill of Kansas City, Missouri. The five mills last named were constructed during 1892. As a direct result of the construction of these mills a group of four large grain ele- vators was constructed in Superior at the same time.

Mr. Gray is vice-president and a large stock- holder of the Daisy Roller Mill Company of Mil- waukee, and also owner of the Lake Superior Mills of Superior, Wisconsin. He is a director and stockholder of the Milwaukee Boiler Com- pany, and is vice-president and a large stockholder in the German-American Bank of Milwaukee. He has had the satisfaction of seeing the Allis establishment increased in growth-since he be- came connected with it-from a small shop em- ploying say fifty men, to its present mammoth dimensions, with six hundred employes and dis- tributing among them as wages the magnifi- cent sum of seventy-five thousand dollars monthly.

The methods of the milling industry of the entire world have been revolutionized during Mr. Gray's milling career, and there is no roller mill, large or small, in which the results of his creation may not be seen. Although they may not have been built by him, the primary informa- tion for their erection was derived from his early experiments, and he has been the largest and most conspicuous factor in their development. Ile was among the first to build mills in America using the new process. Ile also built the first belt roller mill in America, and is the inventor of what is known as the Gray Roller Mill, which has

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History of Milwaukee from its first settlement to the year 1895, Part 88

Author: Conard, Howard Louis, ed. cn Publication date: 1895 Publisher: Chicago and New York, American Biographical Publishing Co Number of Pages: 840

Author: Conard, Howard Louis, ed. cn
Publication date: 1895
Publisher: Chicago and New York, American Biographical Publishing Co
Number of Pages: 840