Minnesota

CHAPTER XVIII

FAIR WEATHER

Whether Governor Pillsbury could have been nominated for a fourth term may be questioned, but when he publicly declined a fortnight before the Republican convention, it was evident that among the aspirants to the succession the favorite was the gallant colonel of the Fifth Minnesota, General Lucius F. Hubbard. The nomination was his on the first ballot. He brought to the office a ripe experience in legislation and public affairs and a worthy ambition to promote the public welfare. He was easily accorded a reëlection in 1882, and, by reason of a change made in the official year of the state, remained in office a fifth year. It was a period of marked prosperity, not greatly diminished by the commercial depression of 1883-84. The population of the state rose from 780,773 in 1880 to 1,117,798 in 1885, an increase of forty-three per cent. The urban communities had an excessive increase of nearly eighty per cent.; Minneapolis increased from 46,887 to 129,200. Twelve hundred and sixty-nine miles of railroad were added.

Governor Hubbard’s interest in organizations and institutions for promoting the public health, improving the administration of the penal and charitable institutions, and the relief of superannuated soldiers was deep and continuous. With his hearty approval the legislature of 1883 enlarged the powers of the state board of health, which had been in existence for ten years with powers and resources much too limited. The executive secretary of the board for nearly the first quarter century was Dr. Charles N. Hewitt, whose conception of the state’s interest and duty in preserving the health and increasing the physical efficiency of its members was in advance of his time.

It had been the policy of the state to intrust the care of her penal and charitable institutions to separate boards of citizens serving without pay. To secure uniformity of administration and to enable these separate bodies to profit from one another’s experiences, a state board of charities and corrections was authorized by law in 1883. To the working secretary of this board for fourteen years, Mr. Henry H. Hart, must be accorded high praise for such unstinted and intelligent devotion to his duties that Minnesota’s institutions of charities and corrections were accorded a place in the front rank. The state lost one of her most valuable servants by his deserved promotion beyond her borders.

Following Governor Hubbard’s earnest advice, the legislature of 1885 established “The State Public School” for neglected children, which under wise management by different officials has rescued from lives of crime or dependence many hundreds of homeless waifs. The reformatory for youthful delinquents and the Soldiers’ Home, commended by him to the legislature, were established under the succeeding administration. His repeated recommendation that all moneys coming into county treasuries should be “covered in” through the county auditor’s office fell on deaf ears, and that needed reform in our public accounting still remains to be wrought.

The sanction of the granger laws by the Supreme Court of the United States had established the principle that states have the constitutional right to regulate railroads; but Minnesota had not exercised the right in any vigorous or comprehensive way, partly because the companies had of their own motion moderated charges, improved their administration, and shown a disposition to treat the public with some respect. Still, complaints of extortion, unjust discrimination, and insolence were frequent, and by many believed to be well founded. Governor Hubbard in his first two messages urged the legislatures to take up these complaints and endeavor to frame a comprehensive statute which should secure to the companies their just rights and immunities, and at the same time protect the people in theirs. The result was the railroad law of 1885, chapter 188 of the session laws of that year. This act, judiciously drawn, met the purpose of its framers so fully that amendment has been necessary only in points of detail. The historian at some far-off day will marvel that in the closing years of the nineteenth century it was necessary to compel common carriers by law not merely to serve the public at just and equal charges published in advance, but to provide common decencies and accommodations in the way of platforms, waiting-rooms, fire-extinguishers, and toilet-rooms.

Another measure successfully pressed upon the legislature by Governor Hubbard was that of public state grain inspection. The precarious and conflicting grades fixed by individual and associated buyers were the source of incessant dissatisfaction and complaint. Chapter 144 of the General Laws of Minnesota, 1885, established that system of inspection and grading since known and approved on both sides of the Atlantic. A warehouse receipt for a certain quantity of grain of a certain Minnesota grade became a definite asset. Because grain inspection necessarily involved the regulation and control of elevators, which in turn were closely related to railroads, the law placed the control of the system in the hands of the Board of Railroad Commissioners. The title of the board was changed to Board of Railroad and Warehouse Commissioners, and its powers were much extended and fortified.

Annual sessions of the legislature had ceased with that of 1879, but elections continued to be held annually till 1886, from which year all United States, state, and county officers have been elected in the even-numbered years. All state and county terms of office begin on January 1; the fiscal year begins August 1.

Governor Hubbard called to the important office of state superintendent of public instruction David L. Kiehle, who, like his predecessor, had received a clerical education and had had slight experience in school work, but like that predecessor was able to throw himself unreservedly into the public school cause. During the seven terms (1881-93) he remained in office he labored with great fidelity and success to improve the schools of all grades. Institutes and summer training schools were promoted and a state tax of one mill was established to increase the efficiency of the common schools. By an act of 1885 school attendance was made compulsory for twelve weeks in each year.

In September, 1884, Cyrus Northrop, resigning his professorship in Yale College, assumed the presidency of the state university, bringing to the office large knowledge, a ripe experience in education and public affairs, and a remarkable gift for gaining effective support for reasonable measures. The president of the university and the state superintendent of schools being the two working members of the high school board, such effective operation was given to the “act for the encouragement of higher education” that high schools in large numbers heartily took up the desired duty and presently began feeding the university with students fitted for college work. The university was thus enabled in 1890 to drop the last of its preparatory classes.

Whatever may have been whispered in political circles, it was general public expectation that when the legislature of 1883 should come to the election of a United States senator it would do nothing else than reëlect William Windom. He had resigned from the Senate in 1881 to accept a seat in Garfield’s cabinet, but had been reappointed by the governor after the death of that President. Mr. Windom felt so confident of his reëlection that he remained at his post of duty in Washington and did not come to St. Paul until after the discovery by his friends of an indifference, not to say an opposition, needing his personal attention. The Republican caucus gave him a unanimous nomination, but the absence of fifty members was ominous. The election went to the joint convention of the two houses. After sixteen days of balloting the choice went to another. The causes of this defeat of the best man of Minnesota for the place were various. An old political quarrel in the first congressional district was a cause of no little disaffection; that Mr. Windom had built a costly house in Washington, impliedly asserting a permanent hold on the senatorship, furnished excuse to some; the fact that he had been unwisely praised by admiring supporters alienated others. Intemperate censure of opponents by a leading newspaper favoring his reëlection doubtless compacted the opposition. Mr. Windom was himself convinced that a liberal use of money was the effective means of his defeat.

President Harrison called Mr. Windom into his cabinet as secretary of the treasury, for whose duties his industry, his large training in public affairs and matured judgment fitted him. His life was suddenly ended on January 29, 1890, by a paralytic stroke coming at the close of a speech at a banquet in New York city.

On the evening of November 7, 1884, citizens of St. Paul gave a banquet in honor of General Henry Hastings Sibley, first state governor, celebrating his arrival at Mendota fifty years before. For the long series of honors and compliments bestowed on this first citizen of Minnesota the reader must resort to his biographer. In 1888 the trustees of Princeton College conferred upon him the honorary degree of Doctor of Laws, in consideration of “high personal character, scholarly attainments, and eminent public service, civil, military, and educational.” General Sibley’s death did not occur until February 18, 1891.

CHAPTER XIX

A CHRONICLE OF RECENT EVENTS

With the close of Governor Hubbard’s administration, now twenty-one years ago, the connected story of Minnesota may properly end. Only after some lapse of years may the historian presume to view affairs with discrimination, selecting those of permanent significance from the trifling and transitory. He may, however, as a mere annalist, record such facts and events as seem to have more than momentary importance.

The governors of the state have been: —

Mr. Nelson was elected to the United States Senate in the first month of his second term as governor. Mr. Clough, lieutenant-governor, succeeded him, and was elected governor for a second term. Mr. Lind was the first Democratic governor after Governor Sibley, the first state executive. Both he and Mr. Johnson were elected in spite of the fact that Minnesota was and is overwhelmingly Republican.

Four United States senators only have been elected, all Republican. Cushman K. Davis, who in 1875 had balked Mr. Ramsey of a third term, but failed to secure his own election, went into retirement, devoting himself to his law practice, to literature, and to preparation for a public career to come in good time. He so commended himself to Republicans by his professional ability, his fine public addresses, and the moderation of his demands for advancement, that when the time came, in January, 1887, to fill the vacancy of Senator McMillan, about to occur, there was but one opposing vote against him in the Republican caucus. Ignatius Donnelly, who had temporarily returned to the fold, made a rousing speech of approval. The election followed as of course. In 1893 Mr. Davis was elected for a second term, but by a close vote. In 1899 he was accorded a third term with almost no opposition. He had made a brilliant record as senator and chairman of the committee on foreign relations. He served as one of the commissioners to negotiate the treaty of peace at the close of the Spanish war of 1898. Mr. Davis died in office suddenly, November 27, 1900.

William D. Washburn, who had retired from the House of Representatives, did not reach his expected promotion to the Senate till 1889. At the close of his term be gave way to Governor Nelson, who has since been twice reëlected. Moses E. Clapp was elected in 1901 to fill the vacancy caused by the death of Senator Davis.

The Australian ballot system, established in 1889 for cities of 10,000 inhabitants or more, extended to operate throughout the state in 1891, was recodified in 1893.

The legislature of 1899 passed a law providing for “primary elections” to replace nominations by party caucuses and conventions. The act is not operative in towns, villages, and small cities, and does not apply to state officers. The primary election takes place on the first of the registration days for the usual election, and is conducted by the same judges and clerks. Any person eligible to an office may, by payment of a prescribed fee and making a qualifying oath, have his name printed on the primary ballot of his party. Every qualified voter may, after registration, receive and mark the ballot of the party he “generally supported at the last election and intends to support at the next ensuing.” The general election laws apply, and the usual penalties attach to misconduct. The experiment is still too brief to warrant a final judgment. It has certainly weakened the machine, and stimulated aspiration to office in persons whose qualifications are more apparent to themselves than to others. That candidates for judicial positions are obliged to make a personal canvass is perhaps the feature most to be regretted.

When the capitol building was burned in 1881 the legislature, upon Governor Pillsbury’s recommendation, immediately appropriated $75,000 for rebuilding, on the assumption that the walls were sufficiently sound. This assumption was found mistaken, and additional sums were voted till more than four times the original amount was expended. But ten years had not passed before it was apparent that ampler accommodations were imperative for multiplying functionaries and expanding business. The legislature of 1893 accordingly authorized the appointment of a commission to plan, build, and furnish a new and appropriate structure. The local influence was sufficiently effective to keep the location in the heart of St. Paul, on an elevated site of small area, rather than permit erection on a larger area in the “midway district,” still in that city, but near Minneapolis. The corner-stone was laid on July 27, 1898, by Alexander Ramsey. Senator C. K. Davis delivered the principal address. The legislature of 1905 was the first to convene in the completed building. The traditional plan of a central body flanked by wings and surmounted by a dome was followed, with the variation that the house of representatives is housed in a rear extension, leaving the wings to accommodate the senate and the supreme court. The exterior is of Georgia marble. The interior corridors are faced with polished Minnesota magnesian limestones of charming tints, relieved by panels of foreign marbles. The interior of the dome, the senate chamber, the supreme court room, and the governor’s office are splendidly decorated with mural paintings by leading American artists. Over the façade of the central structure rests a quadriga in bronze, typifying the progress of Minnesota. The total cost was $4,428,539.72; and in this age the honorable commissioners need not resent as superfluous the record that there was absolutely no “graft” in the whole construction and furnishing. The architect, Mr. Cass Gilbert, a native of Minnesota, will be fortunate if he shall in his future career surpass the taste, skill, and nobility of conception displayed in this work. It is a splendid object lesson in civic architecture, not only to Minnesota but to neighboring commonwealths.

The legislature of 1905 adopted a new codification of the general laws of the state, which had been prepared by a commission of which Daniel Fish, Esq., was the working member. It has been published in a single volume of 1380 pages.

The penal and charitable institutions of Minnesota under the supervision of the board of charities and corrections had attained to the first rank for economy of administration and beneficial results. Two neighboring states made the experiment of disbanding the separate boards of trustees or managers and placing all such institutions in the hands of a single “board of control.” To be in the fashion the legislature of Minnesota in 1901 created a board of control of state institutions, and went so far as to include the university and normal schools in all their financial concerns. These, however, were in a later year exempted from the operation of the act and restored to their independence. It may be conceded that in point of finance the single board has justified the change, in spite of the fact that its members have been appointed on political considerations. Persuaded that there was danger of neglect in a board so composed and fully occupied with the business management of the institutions, the legislature of 1907 provided for a board of visitors to exercise a humanitarian supervision over the patients and inmates.

The people of Minnesota have not yet desired a revision of their constitution, content to live under the original statute of 1857 and to amend it casually from time to time. In the period now in view no fewer than seventeen amendments have been adopted, some of them of far-reaching importance. They may be enumerated: —

What place the tornado, the hailstorm, the locust, and such like destroyers have in the mundane economy; whether they are providential dispositions for the punishment of particular communities, or freaks of sheer diabolism, or resultants of powers imparted to nature playing under determining conditions, is a question which must be left to casuists, reverend and other. Minnesota can claim no exemption from such visitations. On April 14, 1886, a furious tornado struck the city of St. Cloud and its suburb, Sauk Rapids, cutting a swath of desolation and destroying some seventy persons. In 1891, on June 15, a series of tornadoes traversed the counties of Martin, Faribault, Freeborn, Mower, and Fillmore, on a line nearly parallel with the Southern Minnesota division of the Milwaukee and St. Paul Railroad. Many farm buildings were wrecked and about fifty people killed. In previous years disastrous tornadoes had wrought havoc in New Ulm and Rochester.

In the fall of 1886 there was a descent of what were supposed to be ordinary grasshoppers in Otter Tail County. When in the following spring “hoppers” were appearing dangerously numerous, Governor McGill sent out the state entomologist, Dr. Otto Lugger of the university agricultural college, to investigate. He saw at once that the genuine Rocky Mountain locust was to be dealt with, and proceeded to organize the farmers for warfare on them. So effective was the campaign that thirty-five thousand bushels of the insects were caught and destroyed, and half the crops on about one hundred square miles saved.

On September 1, 1894, a fire broke out in the cut-over pine woods near Hinckley, in Pine County. A high wind prevailing, it spread and raged for many days. Eight villages, including Hinckley and Sandstone, and scores of farmsteads were completely destroyed. Not less than three hundred and fifty square miles were devastated. Four hundred and eighteen persons lost their lives, and more than two thousand were left homeless. The property loss was not less than a million dollars. Governor Nelson appointed a relief committee of citizens, with Charles A. Pillsbury at its head. The estimated amount of relief furnished through this and the local committees was $185,000. In the same year the chinch bug did much damage to growing crops in several southwestern counties.

At the outbreak of the war with Spain in April, 1898, Minnesota was first of the states to respond to the call of the President for volunteers, as she had been in the Civil War. Before the close of the month three regiments, – Twelfth, Thirteenth, and Fourteenth, – mostly recruited from the national guard, were assembled at St. Paul. They were mustered into the United States service May 7 and 8. The Thirteenth Regiment, commanded by Colonel Charles McCormick Reeve, was dispatched to the Philippine Islands and participated in the capture of Manila, August 13, 1898. It performed provost guard duty in that city till the spring of 1899, and formed part of Lawton’s expedition to the interior. The regiment was mustered out in San Francisco in September, but was transported home in trains furnished by Minnesota cities, and on arrival in Minneapolis, October 12, 1899, was reviewed by President McKinley.

The Twelfth and Fourteenth regiments were sent to the grand rendezvous at Camp Thomas, Chickamauga Park, Georgia, detained thereabout through the summer, sent home late in September, furloughed for thirty days, and mustered out November 18.

The Fifteenth, recruited from the state at large, was mustered in July 18, detained at Fort Snelling till September 15, and then sent to Camp Meade, Pennsylvania. A month later it was ordered to Camp Mackenzie, Georgia, where it remained till mustered out March 27, 1899.

The Thirteenth alone suffered losses in action. Its roll of honor shows officers and men killed, 5; died of disease or accident, 37; wounded, 44.

A detachment of the Fourteenth Minnesota saw some service, happily bloodless, in its own state. The Pillager band of Chippeway Indians on Leech Lake had long been complaining of injustice done them in the matter of the pine on their reservation, which they had been persuaded to sell. The prices paid them were ridiculously low, and the charges for appraisal and inspection as ridiculously high. Parties holding permits to cut “dead and down timber,” cut live trees standing convenient. Repeated protests to the government had brought no redress. The deputy United States marshal, Sheehan (he of Fort Ridgely), undertook to arrest a chief who had given show of misbehavior. He resisted arrest, and a number of his braves rallied and stood off the marshal’s posse. A company of sixty United States infantry was sent from Fort Snelling, which was later reinforced by two hundred men commanded by Major M. C. Wilkinson and supervised by General Bacon. On October 5 the troops were landed on the peninsula known as Sugar Point, and a sharp little conflict followed which cost the lives of Major Wilkinson, Sergeant William Butler, and two privates. Two companies of the Fourteenth were recalled from furlough and distributed to stations of the railroad running north of Leech Lake. After repeated councils, at which the United States commissioner of Indian affairs was present, eight chiefs surrendered to the marshal, and the war ended. Governor Clough, in his message to the legislature of 1899, charged the United States government with a “series of acts and neglects most wrongful to the Indians” and with a “blunder more criminal in its results than those neglects and acts,” the performance being the “climax of a long course of folly and wrong.”

All branches of the public school system have been enlarged and improved. The common school endowment from the lands granted by Congress has increased to more than $11,000,000. Sales of pine timber ($3,500,000) and other items have swelled the fund to more than $20,000,000. The state still holds millions of acres unsold. The excellent work of the normal schools, supplemented by that of the high schools, has greatly added to the number of qualified teachers. Opposition to the normal schools, now five in number, has long since ceased.

Beginning with the year 1889, and the first graduations from the professional schools, the development of the university has surpassed all expectations. The total attendance in that year was 791, the number of degrees conferred, 52. In 1900 those numbers were increased to 2866 and 449 respectively. In 1907 they were 3955 and 507. It has been difficult to keep the buildings and equipment abreast of the needs of these developments, especially as the original “main” building has been once extensively damaged and later destroyed by fire. Despite inadequate compensation, the professorships have been filled with able and earnest men and women, but no small number of teachers whom the state and the institution could ill afford to lose have been drawn away. The student body have secured high places in intercollegiate athletics, oratorical and forensic contests, adding much to the repute of the university, already holding an honorable rank for scholarship and culture. While the state university is the largest and best-equipped in the state, it possesses no monopoly of the superior education. There are at least fifteen other degree-conferring institutions. More than half of the number are Lutheran colleges or seminaries, in which excellent instruction is given in the classical languages, history, and philosophy. The Roman Catholic colleges, also strong in the humanities, are St. John’s University and the College of St. Thomas. The leading Protestant institutions which have passed out of the experimental stage are Carleton College at Northfield, and Macalester College and Hamline University, both within the limits of St. Paul. All are open to women, maintain excellent preparatory departments, and do well the work they undertake to do.