# The autobiography of a Pennsylvanian/13 Governor, 1906

CHAPTER XIII
Governor, 1906
THE approach of the new year led many newspapers to request the expression of some thought upon its advent. I complied with one such request in this way:
“Let us arise upon new year's morning with the determination that throughout the year we will do more to develop our own latent virtues and less in the way of criticism of the defects of other people. Let us resolve to do honest work, to proclaim it seldom, and to see as much good in others as possible.”
These suggestions were not altogether satisfactory because of the sting in the tail, and they led to the writing of more editorials.
One of the really able men in the state was David T. Watson, a Democratic lawyer in Pittsburgh. He was a man of fine literary skill and attainment and, like Hensel of Lancaster, was an illustration of my theory, opposed to that generally inculcated among lawyers, that a lawyer is strong professionally in proportion to the width of the field he covers. In other words, the power to think accurately is of more importance than technical information. It is what is digested and not what is taken into the mind and stomach that nourishes. Serious mental effort in various directions strengthens the faculty and makes a lawyer the better able to grasp legal problems. Watson came to see me concerning that part of my call for an extra session which related to Greater Pittsburgh and suggested a broadening of the language so as to have it include intervening territory. We lunched together at the executive mansion and talked the matter over. I had concluded to add civil service reform ​to the call as I had made it, and, acting on the principle of firing shot instead of a single ball, I accepted his suggestion. On the 9th of January I issued a supplemental call, and it may be added that upon contest the method adopted met the approval of the Supreme Court. This call included these subjects:
First.—To revise the laws relative to primary elections in such a way as to provide for the holding of the primary elections of all political parties within the commonwealth on the same day, at the same time, under the supervision of properly constituted officers, and to make such change in or additions to these laws as may seem advisable.
Second.—To establish a civil service system by means of which the routine offices and employments of the commonwealth may be filled by appointments made after ascertainment of qualifications and fitness, and the incumbents of such offices may retain them during good behavior.
Third.—To designate the uses to which moneys may be applied by candidates, political managers and committees in political campaigns, both for nominations and elections, and to require the managing committees and managers of all political parties to file with some designated official, at the close of each campaign, a detailed statement in writing accompanied by affidavit of the amounts collected and the purposes for which they were expended.
Fourth.—To enable cities that are now or may hereafter be contiguous or in close proximity, including any intervening land, to be united in one municipality in order that the people may avoid the unnecessary burdens of maintaining separate municipal governments. This fourth subject is a modification of the first subject in the original call and is added in order that legislation may be enabled under either of them as may be deemed wise.
The third subject, a Corrupt Practices Act, was included at the suggestion of Judge Sulzberger, who wrote to me calling attention to the provisions of the English act.
​For a week or two the personal comment was quite delightful for the reason that these improvements in public life might lessen the power of the political opponents of the critics, and the approval lasted until I undertook to correct some wrong in the continuance of which they were interested. A poet wrote in the Pittsburgh Leader:
* Now blessings on
* The man who so
* Thinks up reforms
* And makes them go;
* He has his faults,
* And who will say
* That these his merits
* Should outweigh?
* Not so. At heart
* The man is white.
* Hail! Pennypacker!
* You're all right!"
On the 3d of January I participated in the memorial meeting of the bar held in the Court of Common Pleas No. 2 and presided over by Chief Justice Mitchell, upon the death of Judge J. I. Clark Hare. Chief Justice Mitchell, John Samuel, Samuel Dickson, Judge Mayer Sulzberger, Richard L. Ashhurst, George Tucker Bispham, William Righter Fisher, Henry R. Hatfield, William H. Staake and I made addresses. Ashhurst, a stout man, a gentleman of refinement and culture, who had had a military record at Gettysburg, who had been counsel for great railroad corporations, and later was postmaster in Philadelphia, leaving his cane behind him, upon an ocean pier at Atlantic City, disappeared in the ocean January 30, 1911, and was heard of no more.
In the message to the legislature I said:
With respect to apportionment, I presented to the legislature this view:
I submitted to the legislature a plan working out fair results by dividing one of the counties, as a tentative suggestion. Again the western poet broke into verse:
* A message from the Schwenksville sage,
* Give ear, the groundlings all, give ear,
* While from the broad typewritten page
* The clerk, in accents loud and clear,
* Declaims the sentiments profound
* That Pennypacker passes round.
* No ordinary screed is this
* But one that cannot fail to strike
* The mind with awe. Say, who would miss
* That verbiage so statesmanlike,
* That flow of golden rhetoric
* Whereof P. P. well knows the trick.
* Of course 'tis not, like Holy Writ,
* All true. For instance, there's the claim
* That those who make our laws are fit
* And never play a crooked game.
* The legislature. Penny vows,
* Is honest. Here—nix komm herause.
* He says that when the boys last sat
* In legislative conclave, they
* Ne'er dreamed of graft and pickings fat.
* Nor gave the people's rights away.
* This thing let's take not as pretense
* But in a mere Pickwickian sense.
* And having said that all is straight,
* Behold in stentor tones he calls
* Upon the boys to renovate
* Their record. Thus he overhauls
* Reprovingly the self-same crowd
* Whereof he swears that he is proud.
* But plain it is that Penny knows
* What bitter ire the people feel
* Against the authors of its woes,
* The wreckers of the commonweal.
* Hence, while he pats them on the back
* He bids them take another tack.
* Reforms upon reforms he piles.
* “All these,” quoth he, “ye must provide
* If ye would win the people's smiles.
* And from the dread toboggan slide
* Your party save, which else no doubt
* Will wither up and peter out.”
* Thus runs the message, curious hash
* Of reason and of rabid rant,
* It may ward off the threatened crash
* And will, if what the voters want
* Is granted. Meanwhile, anyhow,
* To Schwenksville's sage we all must bow.
During this month a man named Michael Carrazola, a wealthy Italian, was murdered and, the crime being attributed to a “Black Hand” anarchistic organization in Washington County, the police made search and found a lot of correspondence showing a plot to remove a number of prominent people over the country, including myself. One of the New York magazines published an article upon the subject. One of the annoyances to which men in conspicuous station are subjected, especially when newspapers are interested in creating antagonisms, is the great number of cranks of one kind or other who continually pursue them. James Auter, the colored barber who had long been doorkeeper in the executive department, was always on the watch for these people. Through my term there was scarcely a week in which threatening letters were not received. Every once in a while came a suspicious package which James dumped into a bucket of water and then took apart. Among them were many curious devices.
​The main reason for objection to the special session on the part of the Republican politicians was the fear that the Democrats would make use of the occasion to secure political capital. Their anticipations proved to be entirely correct. Resolutions were offered requesting the governor to add to his call all sorts of subjects, some of them quite absurd and all of them artful. Among them was one permitting trolley roads to carry freight, and another fixing a maximum of two cents a mile as a charge for the transportation of passengers.
The Republicans did not dare to vote against any of these resolutions for the reason that, if they had done so, it would have been proclaimed that the party was opposed to the policy. They were, therefore, all passed and sent to me to be managed. A joint committee of the senate and house came over to the executive department to ascertain the result and received this answer:
“When the wagon is full of corn it is better to unload into the crib before taking on any more. Come to me with suggestions as to further legislation during the special session, after there has been a disposition made of those now before the legislature. For the present it does not appear to me to be wise to add to them, even though important matters may have been omitted.”
The chairman of the committee reported that he had “one of the quaintest documents that ever originated in a coordinate branch of the government.” They all understood the situation perfectly and when he read it there was a shout. That wagon load of corn traveled all over the state in editorial and cartoon, and there was no further trouble. Under no possible circumstances would I have favored either trolley freight or the fixing arbitrarily of a two-cents-a-mile fare. Nothing illustrates more forcibly the heedlessness and thoughtlessness of the masses than giving to trolley companies the right to carry freight as was done a short time thereafter. The railroads bought their rights of ​way and soon found it more profitable to carry freight than passengers. Then trolleys were given, free of expense, the right to use the highways in order that men, women and children might be transported. When they begin to carry freight the same old situation will return except that they occupy the highways. For twenty-five years, at enormous expense, we have been endeavoring to escape from grade crossings and in this way we create anew ten times as many as we eliminate. A fixing of fares ought only to be attempted after the most careful investigation.
Practically all of my recommendations were accepted and enacted, including Greater Pittsburgh, reapportionment and the corrupt practices act. For only trying to bring about some of this legislation in New York, Charles E. Hughes was made a justice of the Supreme Court of the United States, which shows how sometimes exploitation is more effective than achievement. I have already quoted Roosevelt's reply to Knox when the latter advised that professional man of courage to appoint me to the Supreme Bench. About the special session he, however, said: “It is surely not too much to say that this body of substantive legislation marks an epoch in the history of the practical betterment of political conditions, not merely for your state but for all our states.”
The legislature itself passed this resolution, the signed original of which now hangs in my library:
In the Senate,
February 14, 1906.
Resolved (if the House of Representatives concur), That the thanks and congratulations of the legislature be extended to Samuel W. Pennypacker, Governor of Pennsylvania, for his patriotic action in calling the legislature together in extraordinary session for the purpose of enacting important and necessary legislation. The wisdom of his course is best evidenced in the unanimity of the sentiment of the citizens of the commonwealth generally so expressed by the favorable action of their representatives ​in both branches of the legislature in the passage of substantially all the bills indicated in his proclamations.
                      Frank A. Judd,
                         Chief Clerk of the Senate.
The foregoing resolution concurred in February 15, 1906.
                      Thomas H. Garvin,
Chief Clerk of the House of Representatives.
The lark of the west, Burgoyne of Pittsburgh, sang a song of jubilee:
* Greater Pittsburgh
* (From the Pittsburgh Leader, February 8, 1906.)
* Sing out, ye mighty bands of brass.
* Let drums and trumpets blithely sound
* A strain of praise! Let glass with glass
* Be clinked! Aye, and for miles around
* Let all true men like joy display!
* The Greater Town comes now to stay.
* Yes, after all the weary years
* Of battling; after all the jars
* Sustained by gallant pioneers
* Of progress, they've let down the bars
* At last and given us a show
* All rival cities to outgrow.
* Old Allegheny, which is sunk
* In torpor, now must needs awake.
* No more can she hang back and flunk
* And odious ease and leisure take.
* She's part of us henceforth and must
* Play ball and raise her share of dust.
* Our mayor will henceforth exercise
* A broad and mighty rulership.
* A giant town he'll supervise;
* A town that's destined to outstrip
* Its peers whenever he controls
* A solid half a million souls.
* And we shall spread. No pow'r can stop
* The movement that is under way
* To land old Pittsburgh right on top.
* No pow'r on earth can e'er gainsay
* Our fitness thus to rise and shine
* And 'mid the first hang out our sign.
* For we have riches, we have force,
* And brains and enterprise and grit.
* And once there's naught to block our course
* We'll surely make a bigger hit
* Than here or on a foreign shore
* A town has ever made before.
* Your hand, Sam. Pennypacker, you
* Have been to us a friend in need.
* Our plans seemed destined to fall through
* When to the front you came to plead
* Our cause. The legislature heard,
* And to its inmost heart was stirr'd.
* Hence comes that great, that priceless boon.
* The famous Greater Pittsburgh bill,
* Which means our exaltation soon.
* Which means that we shall soon fulfil
* Our destiny in royal style,
* And be the topmost of the pile.
* Sing out, then, ye brazen bands!
* Ye drums and trumpets rend the air!
* The message send throughout all lands
* That Greater Pittsburgh is all there.
* And will be yet—so please the fates—
* King bee in these United States.
* Whoop!
Even John H. Fow, a member of the house, could not resist the impulse to write some verse. Fow was a character quite unusual. The son of a German butcher, born in Kensington, and much in the rough, he read law. Because of his huge voice he held the soubriquet of “Fog Horn” Fow. ​Short and fat, when he spoke he shook all over. When he argued he began in the middle of the proposition and worked both ways at once with the most intense energy. Yet, worthy and assiduous, he won respect and, what is more remarkable, reputation as a constitutional lawyer.
The Pittsburgh Gazette said, editorially, February 16th:
“Pennsylvania has had no better governor,” and the next day the Philadelphia Inquirer followed suit with:
“The biggest man in Pennsylvania today is Samuel W. Pennypacker, Governor,” and “Pennypacker's name will go into history as one of the greatest of governors.”
An act had been passed at the session of 1905 providing for a commission of three lawyers to codify the divorce laws of the state, and authorizing the governor “to communicate in the name of the commonwealth with the governors of the several states comprising the Federal Union, requesting them to co-operate in the assembling of a congress of delegates from such of the states as take favorable action upon the suggestion; said congress to meet at Washington in the District of Columbia, at such a time in the near future as shall be agreeable for the purpose of examining, considering and discussing the laws and decisions of the several states upon the subject of divorce, with a view to the adoption of a draft for the proposed general law which shall be reported to the governors of all the states for submission to the legislatures thereof, with the object of securing, as nearly as may be possible, uniform statutes upon the matter of divorce throughout the nation.” Ten thousand dollars were appropriated with which to pay the expenses. It was the first and only serious effort, up to this time made, to correct one of the greatest and growing evils of our modern life. The commissioners appointed were: C. La Rue Munson, of Williamsport, an eminent lawyer, later suggested for the governorship; William H. Staake, of Philadelphia, whom I appointed a judge of the court of common pleas, and Walter George Smith, of Philadelphia, ​who was one of the trustees of the University of Pennsylvania. The movement attracted the widest attention and met with universal commendation. The convention met in Washington, February 19th, and every state in the Union was fully represented except South Carolina, whose laws permit no divorce. She, too, was heard upon the floor in the proceedings. The sessions were opened with prayers by Edward Everett Hale of Massachusetts and Bishop William C. Doane of New York. The convention elected me its president. Among the delegates were some of the most distinguished men in professional life in the United States. Among the clergy were Archbishop John J. Glennon of St. Louis, Bishop T. F. Gailor of Tennessee, Bishop Doane of New York, Dr. Charles A. Dickey of the Presbyterian Church, Bishop John Shanley and Dr. Washington Gladden. Among the statesmen were United States Senators Smoot and Sutherland of Utah and Clark of Arkansas and Oscar E. Underwood of Alabama, later a national figure and Democratic leader of the house. Among the lawyers were Charles W. Miller, attorney general of Indiana; I. F. Ailshie of the Superior Court of Idaho; Judge Charles Monroe of Los Angeles, California; Robert H. Richards, attorney general of Delaware, and the vice-chancellor, John K. Emory, of New Jersey, an exceedingly clear-headed, able man. Governor Lea of Delaware took part and there were three or four women delegates. It was in every sense a truly representative American assemblage. The questions arising were discussed with learning and gravity and the result of the deliberations was the agreement upon a carefully drawn statute to be presented to all of the legislatures of the states with a recommendation that it be adopted in lieu of existing legislation. It was enacted by New Jersey, Delaware and some of the other states, but unfortunately it could not be presented to the legislature of Pennsylvania until after the force which had been behind the measure had disappeared from Harrisburg. M. Hampton Todd, the ​attorney general of my successor, was opposed to the passage of the act, declared that there was no such thing as a divorce evil, and nothing further was done in the state where the movement originated. Others lost heart and thus Pennsylvania lost the opportunity of leading to success a great moral and material advance in social conditions. Nevertheless the discussions of the congress had a good effect and were not without result.
On the 14th of March, after a dinner with Penrose and Olmsted at the Willard Hotel, the Pennsylvania Club of Washington held a reception in my honor, intended to be a significant affair, attended by a great throng which included the Vice President, the Speaker of the House, Cannon, and a number of senators, and members of the cabinet. Two days later followed an entertainment at the Zembie Temple in Harrisburg by the Imperial Potentates of the Mystic Shrine, generally called, in order to escape the prolonged magnificence, “Shriners.” I made an address to them and the event made an impression on me for two reasons: Among those participating was Admiral W. S. Schley, who attained too much distinction and was the subject of much controversy in the Spanish-American War. Upon a number of occasions I had met also Admiral Sampson. Unfortunately for the latter, he had taken himself and his battleship away at the time the Spanish fleet came out of the harbor, and Schley was left to conduct the fight. No amount of arguing can escape the consequences of these underlying facts. The great misfortunes which come to men in life, and surely this was woeful, can generally be traced to some failure of conduct due to temperamental defects. Sampson did not need to take away his battleship. Schley, beside whom I sat at dinner and with whom I had the opportunity to chat, appeared to be a plain and substantial person. The other fact that made an impression was to see Bishop Darlington of the Episcopal Church, at the head of the Diocese of Harrisburg, ​crowned with a red fez and taking an active part in the solemn flummery.
On the 20th, accompanied by my staff, by Mrs. Pennypacker and my sister-in-law, Mrs. James L. Pennypacker, I started for Vicksburg, Mississippi, to dedicate the monument erected to commemorate the services of the Pennsylvania soldiers who took part in that campaign. It is a fact of which Pennsylvanians ought to be proud, and which has a significance, that this state was represented not only in all of the battles of the East, but likewise in those of the West. No other eastern state of the North had any part in Shiloh. We reached Vicksburg on the morning of the 23d and were received with a salute of seventeen guns. General Stephen D. Lee, who had been a lieutenant general in the rebel army, a sensible, kindly and agreeable gentleman, had charge of the local arrangements and gave us much attention. We rode through the National Park and were taken in steamboats upon the Mississippi River to Grant's “Cut-Off,” where it was attempted to divert the channel of the river as a war measure. The black alluvial soil along the river is seventy or eighty feet in depth and suggests agricultural richness. Nobody appeared to be at work, however, except the negroes and the mules, and it looked to me like a country which would perish were it not for them. In the evening there were a reception and a dance at the Carroll Hotel, where my colonels and the pretty Southern girls had a good time. The ceremonies occurred on the following day. General James A. Beaver, a soldier who lost his leg, later a governor and judge of the Superior Court, delivered the address. Vardaman, a long-haired, black-eyed, noisy swashbuckler, was then the governor of Mississippi. He made a speech which sounded like a repetition of some Fourth of July oration he had at some time committed to memory. Later he was sent to the United States Senate. I accepted the monument and gave it into the custody of the nation. In the evening the veterans of the Union and Rebel armies ​assembled in the Vicksburg Opera House and Lee and I made addresses. Among those who were on the programme was Jack Crawford, the Texas scout, a glib man with some oratorical and literary ability, whose hair hung down on his shoulders, and who has become a stock figure in soldier demonstrations throughout the country. He haunted the steps of Mrs. James L. Pennypacker and wrote a poem in her honor which he sent to her. We returned home by way of Chattanooga.
One day, on going to the hotel in Vicksburg, I was told that a couple of ladies had been waiting for several hours to see me. This was their story: They had been informed that I was a friend of Senator Quay and therefore they had come from an inland town in Mississippi to shake my hand only to show their appreciation of him. When he was a penniless young man he had drifted to the South and their father had shown him some favor and rendered him some assistance. Years rolled by and their father went into the rebel army and was killed and the family were left in distress. They appealed to Quay. After the election of Mr. McKinley Quay went to him and said:
“Mr. President, there is one thing I would like to have.”
“What is it?” said the President.
“I want to name the postmaster in the town of Meridian, in Mississippi.”
“You shall have it,” said the President, glad to get off with a favor of so little consequence. But trouble arose, the politicians in that state had made another disposition of the office, and the President sent for Quay and said to him:
“I am sorry, but the situation is such that I can not give you that postoffice at Meridian.”
“Very well,” said Quay quietly, “but be good enough to remember how many votes Pennsylvania has in the next national convention, and how few has Mississippi.”
The widow of the old rebel soldier was appointed ​postmistress of Meridian and held the office as long as Quay lived. The women were tearful and we had a long talk.
Then came the inevitable coal strike, of which Roosevelt told me that he had information and which as he indicated he had planned to come into Pennsylvania and manage as he had done during the administration of Governor Stone. At once, without consultation with him or anybody else, I wrote this letter to George F. Baer, the president of the Philadelphia and Reading Railway Company, and to John Mitchell of Indianapolis, the head of the labor organization which had control of the strike:
March 31, 1906.
Dear Sir:
The Commonwealth of Pennsylvania expects that every reasonable effort will be made by the parties interested to accommodate the differences between coal operators and coal miners and to avert the strike which is now threatened.
             Yours very truly,
                      Samuel W. Pennypacker.
This was simply intended as notice to both of them that the interests of the commonwealth were to be considered and that she did not propose to sit idly by and permit them to involve her in difficulty. They were holding conferences, each side resolute, and in the meantime the anthracite region lay idle. Coal is a public necessity, and to deprive the people of it was to inflict great suffering. The New York Sun read the letter correctly. In an editorial, April 6th, it said: “Between the lines of this timely message we think an intimation can be read that the present governor of Pennsylvania will be prepared to employ the last resource of his authority to keep the peace and preserve to all men their rights.”
On the 12th I sent forth this announcement:
I announce to the people of Pennsylvania that the deposit of $1,030,000 in the Enterprise National Bank, a national bank which failed on the 18th day of October, 1905, together with ​interest, $14,343.15, has been paid into the treasury of the commonwealth, and in your behalf I thank the state treasurer (Mathues) for the care with which this deposit, when made, was safeguarded and for the promptness with which it has been collected.
It is a psychological phenomenon. For the purposes of a political campaign, by suggestion that possibly the money might be lost, the people could be worked up into a frenzy and persuaded to put an incapable like Berry in charge of their finances. The proof that it was safe in the treasury was treated with absolute indifference. The fact that moneys due for a century had been finally collected attracted no attention whatever and no journal thought it worth its while to say a word of appreciation. Still trying to make the most of the situation, the Record said: “Political pull secured for the Enterprise Bank heavy deposits of state money which served to give it the appearance of stability and lured the credulous people of Allegheny to intrust it with their private savings.”
On the 17th began in Philadelphia the celebration by the American Philosophical Society, the oldest scientific organization in the United States, and the University of Pennsylvania, of the two hundredth anniversary of the birth of Benjamin Franklin. Many men of distinction in science and others conspicuous in the various walks of life, came from over the world to attend. Among them were Hugo de Vries of Amsterdam; Sir George H. Darwin, son of Charles Darwin; Alois Brandl of Berlin; Guglielmo Marconi, the inventor of wireless telegraphy; and Andrew Carnegie, There was a dinner at the Bellevue-Stratford at which I made a speech. On my left sat Henry Cabot Lodge, of ​Massachusetts, cultivated and sincere, and next to him Elihu Root of New York, stronger, but less reliable.
Dr. I. Minis Hays, the energetic secretary of the American Philosophical Society, was most responsible for the success of the demonstration.
The affairs of the coal strike grew more heated, and May 2d I issued this proclamation:
Whereas industrial disturbances have recently arisen in various parts of the commonwealth, accompanied by manifestations of violence and disorder, now, therefore, I, Samuel Whitaker Pennypacker, Governor of Pennsylvania, do issue this my proclamation and call upon all citizens by their conduct, example and utterances, whether printed or verbal, to assist in the maintenance of the law. Times of commotion furnish the test of the capacity of the people for self-government. Every man is entitled to labor and get for his labor the highest compensation he can lawfully secure. There is no law to compel him to labor unless he so chooses, and he may cease to labor whenever he considers it to be to his interest so to cease. The laboring man, out of whose efforts wealth arises, has the sympathy of all disinterested people in his lawful struggles to secure a larger proportion of the profit which results from his labor. What he earns belongs to him, and if he invests his earnings the law protects his property just as the rights of property of all men must be protected. He has no right to interfere with another man who may want to labor. Violence has no place among us and will not be tolerated.
Let all men in quiet and soberness keep the peace and attend to their affairs with the knowledge that it is the purpose of the commonwealth to see that the principles herein outlined are enforced.
This proclamation drew the lines exactly where they ought to be placed and expressed with precision the purpose which it was intended should be carried into effect. There had been an impression entertained even by many good lawyers, and widely entertained, that the governor could not interfere until called upon by the sheriff of the county. This theory would overthrow completely the constitutional power of the governor to see that the laws are enforced ​and would make the sheriff master of the situation. I let it be known that, while I recognized the propriety of consulting with the sheriff and letting him maintain the peace if he could, I would not listen for a moment to the claim of want of power in the governor and, if the occasion required such action, would wait for no sheriff.
On the 4th the New York Sun had a long leading editorial entitled: “No Presidential Intervention this Time,” saying that the union leaders were “trying to dragoon the most exalted personage in the nation into a wrangle with which he has no official connection whatever,” that there was a definite report throughout the anthracite region that the President “has determined to take part today or tomorrow,” but that Northeastern Pennsylvania was quiet; “thanks to Governor Pennypacker's unyielding insistence, that law and order must be maintained.” Knowing what the President had said to me at an earlier date, I have no doubt that this statement was correct and that he was waiting to jump in at the first opportunity. There was rioting at Mount Carmel and the mob took possession of the town. The constabulary were sent there and the mob defied them. Then they rode through the town. The mob assailed them and they shot about eighty men, establishing a reputation which has gone all over the country and has been retained in many trying occasions since, with the result that the labor difficulties in the anthracite coal region entirely disappeared. It was in every way a most wholesome lesson. The rights of labor and the general sympathy for the man who produces the wealth of the world had been asserted, the authority of the state had been maintained and violent opposition to the law overcome, and the aggression of the national government, dangerous to both state and nation, had been successfully resisted. There was almost universal commendation over the country.
Reading Terminal, Philadelphia,
7th May, 1906.
My dear Governor Pennypacker:
When I was pressed by the New York interests to urge the Governor of Pennsylvania to take a decided stand for law and order, I told them that I knew the Governor of Pennsylvania; that he would perform his duty without suggestions from any one; that no person in the commonwealth better understood what was his duty; and that he had the character and the courage to perform it. I have received a number of telegrams congratulating the commonwealth on the stand taken by you; and I only want to say to you now that your action was a most potential factor in bringing about a solution of the problem.
             Yours very truly,
                      Geo. F. Baer.
May 9, 1906.
Hon. Samuel W. Pennypacker,
Executive Chamber,
Harrisburg, Penna.
Dear Governor:
I have yours of the 8th instant and extend to you my sincere congratulations on the firm way in which you handled the strike proposition. The effect of your proclamation was excellent and it was most timely. The result, of course, has a most important bearing on the election.
             Yours sincerely,
                      Boies Penrose.
To the general approval there was some exception. I am quite sure the result and the manner in which it was accomplished were not pleasing to Roosevelt. Collier's Weekly, a sheet published in New York, took advantage of the opportunity, May 19th, to produce a poem. It had recently taken to its editorial bosom the young Irishman, Mark Sullivan, who, claiming to be a Pennsylvanian, had a few years before written the anonymous and slanderous article on the state for the Atlantic Monthly. Perhaps the poem had a like inspiration.
* Who's Zoo in America
* Governor Samuel Whangdoodle Pennypacker
* Like Noah Webster, he reclines
* Within his easy chair,
* A-tapping wisdom's sacred mines
* And calling here and there,
* Yet all he finds of perfect minds
* Up to the present day
* Are Moses, Plato, Socrates,
* Himself and Matthew Quay.
* He's written over fifty books
* And some are nearly good—
* On railroad jobs, successful snobs
* And human brotherhood;
* And he can speak in French and Greek
* On topics of the day,
* Like Moses, Plato, Socrates,
* Himself and Matthew Quay
* Oh! Philadelphia's Sabbath calm
* Sits on his holiness
* Until by chance his eyeballs glance
* Across the daily press—
* Then pale before his grumblous roar
* Reporters flee away,
* Who took in vain by words profane
* The name of him and Quay.
* Yet soft he roareth since the hour
* When good Saint Graft was hurled
* By anger quick upon the kick
* That echoed round the world
* And cautiously he goes by night,
* And cautiously by day,
* For fear some ripe tomato might
* Be aimed at him or Quay.
* But when again the Heavens smile
* And public wrath is spent.
* When Philadelphia sleeps awhile,
* Corrupted but content; ​
* Then sadly Pennypacker comes
* Forth to the graveyard gray,
* And lays a grateful wreath of plums
* Upon the tomb of Quay.
* "O Master," 'twixt his sobs he saith,
* "When all cartoonists die,
* When editors, all gagged to death,
* 'Neath broken presses lie.
* Four noble statues I'll erect
* With public funds to pay;
* The Gilded Hog, the Yellow Dog,
* Myself and Matthew Quay."
A picture equal in merit to the poem accompanied it.
For the 29th of May, a prize fight, under the guise of a boxing bout, between “Bob” Fitzsimmons, the champion, and “Tommy” Burns, had been scheduled at a sporting club at North Essington in Delaware County. The fisticuff fraternity in New York, who feared to run the risk of prosecution under the laws of that state, had arranged to have the bout in the Quaker County of Delaware, just outside of Philadelphia, where, as they convinced themselves, it would be within easy reach and safe. They had the support of the sporting editors of the Philadelphia journals, and the scheme was lauded rather than opposed. A special train was engaged to bring over the New York “fancy” and tickets were so much in demand that they sold as high as fifty dollars each. McDade, the conscientious young district attorney of Delaware County, did what he could to prevent the occurrence, but he found that the sheriff was in league with the rounders and the forces were too strong for him. Then he came to Harrisburg to see me. I tried in every way to get into communication with the sheriff, but he, too, had the impression that I was helpless to act, except through his intervention, and he went into hiding and escaped all directions. Then I called Groome to the department and said to him:
​“Groome, send some of your constabulary down to Essington and stop that prize fight.”
He replied: “Governor, I am rather personally in favor of the fight, but if you order me to stop it, I will see that it is done.”
The order was “stop it.”
Groome sent some of his men down there and while there was a great commotion and much swearing, the fight did not occur. As was to be expected, the local paper, having an interest in common with the violators of the law, called me a czar and said that never before had any governor assumed to override the sheriff of the county.
The Republican State Convention met June 7th and nominated Edwin S. Stuart for governor and Robert K. Murphy, an orator with much power of utterance, for lieutenant governor. Among the resolutions adopted was:
We commend the well-balanced administration of Governor Samuel W. Pennypacker as capable, upright and business-like; exact in his attention to administration duties; punctual in the fulfilment of its duties; vigilant in vetoing pernicious legislation; fearless in its protection of the poor man's home against railway greed; wise in safeguarding the water supplies of the state; far-seeing in its improvement of the public highways; firm in the maintenance of peace and order; successful in the accomplishment of important, far-reaching and substantial reforms; watchful in the care of the interests of all the people of the commonwealth; patriotic, impartial, just and ruggedly honest.
It happened just at this juncture that I again ran athwart the purposes of the Republican organization. A vacancy had occurred in the position of the harbor master in Philadelphia, caused by the resignation of Samuel G. Maloney, who had held it for years. Penrose asked me to appoint Oscar E. Noll, but having some information concerning the career of Noll which was not of a favorable character, I declined. Then he recommended to me a very reputable wool merchant. I was just about to give him the ​appointment when I learned that he had made an agreement not to perform the duties in person but by deputies, among whom the salary was to be divided—one of whom was Noll. I did not propose to be played with after that fashion, and, sending for James Pollock, asked him to take the place. He accepted and made an excellent official, attending to his duties in a business-like manner. Pollock was a friend of mine, but he had a caustic tongue which he did not endeavor to restrain, but rather indulged, and he had said many things which had made him obnoxious to Penrose, McNichol and Durham. Possibly no selection could have been more unsatisfactory to them, and after the end of my term they disposed of him by having an act passed to abolish the office.
On the 8th of June I made an address at Bellefonte, at the dedication of the monument to Andrew G. Curtin; and on the 17th presided over the jubilee in Musical Fund Hall in Philadelphia, where, fifty years before, the Republican party held its first convention to nominate a candidate for the presidency. A number of men who voted for Fremont and Dayton were present, and Alexander K. McClure made a reminiscent address. J. Hampton Moore, a small, slim, intelligent and alert man, who had worked on a newspaper and graduated to a seat in congress, later introduced me as “our good governor.” I said:
We are met together to-day to celebrate the fiftieth anniversary of the organization of the Republican party, and we hold ourselves fortunate in having the presence of the survivors of those who participated in its earliest convention and of so many of its representatives who are honored by and lend honor to high official station. Fittingly we meet within the limits of that commonwealth in which the party had its origin and which, while receiving the least proportionate reward, has ever given to it the most continuous and effective support. Since the election of Abraham Lincoln in 1860, Pennsylvania has never cast an electoral vote against a candidate of the Republican party for the Presidency of the United States. The largest majority ever received by a ​presidential candidate in any state in America was given in Pennsylvania to a Republican. No other political organization in the history of the world achieved such important and varied results as has the Republican party in the last half century. Neither Guelph nor Ghibelline, Girondist nor Sans Culotte, Royalist nor Roundhead, Whig nor Tory exerted so powerful an influence upon human affairs. It has broken the yokes from the necks of three millions of slaves. It has fought with equal success domestic insurrection and foreign aggression. It has so extended our possessions that the sun rises over the Philippines and sets beyond the Mississippi, still shining upon American soil. It has gathered into our embrace the fairest islands of the South Sea. But, more than all, it has brought forth men. Its first President ranks in diction with Jeremiah and Shakespeare, and in statecraft stands beside Alfred the Great and William of Orange, on a plane with the most exalted characters of all time. Its last President,though it be too soon to form an adequate estimate of his acccomplishment, has made an impression beyond that of any other living statesman. Compare the presidents of the United States during the last fifty years with the emperors of Rome, or the kings of England or France throughout a like period of time, or if it be not ungracious, compare them with the presidents elected between 1800 and 1860, and see what a tale of excellence is unfolded.
The past is secure, the present follows rapidly in its pathway, but what of the future? Every age has its own problems and upon their successful solution depends the fate of nations. To be swept away by the fitful currents of life which trouble every sea and cast up “mire and dirt” is for the nation, as for the individual, to perish. Go forward like Christian in the Pilgrim's Progress and the burdens of sin fall into the sloughs. Have faith and be of good cheer. Let us not forget that the province of the Republican party, the outcome of the highest wisdom has been to construct and to upbuild. Cleanliness and decency are among the latest of human acquisitions and American life has not yet reached its farthest stage of development. Many a gallant knight has fought behind a rusty shield and still has overcome his foe. If the Normans had been destroyed as marauders, what would have been the effect upon English civilization?
Correct the evils which may have arisen in transportation, but do not forget that the system, as established, has created Chicago and St. Louis and has peopled the West. Cleanse wherever necessary, but preserve. Improve our products, but ​send them further around the world. See to it that labor secures a larger share of the profit, but recall that the annual inpour of people of every race and clime proves this to be the most attractive and remunerative of all lands. If there be an occasional individual among us who is too rich, the policy of the Republican party which has given him his opportunity has likewise given solace and comfort to millions of prosperous people. Therefore, be ye steadfast, unmovable, and the golden jubilees of this great organization will grow in number as the centuries roll along, bringing in their course blessings and increase to the nation.
Among those who were present and spoke were Robert K. Murphy and William Barnes, the latter of whom became so potent a factor in the politics of New York. I have no personal acquaintance with Mr. Barnes, but there are two Americans who have given their lives in the main to political activities whose utterances always give indications of the ability to think with accuracy and clearness. They are Barnes of Albany and Lane of Philadelphia.
About this time I became associated with Alton B. Parker, who ran against Roosevelt for the presidency; Richard Olney, Mr. Cleveland's attorney general; Nicholas Longworth, Roosevelt's son-in-law; Frederick B. Niedringhaus of St. Louis; General Benjamin F. Tracy; Thomas B. Wanamaker; George Gray of Delaware; and others, in an effort to change the management of the New York Life Insurance Company and the New York Mutual Life Insurance Company. Samuel Untermyer of New York was the underlying influence of the movement, and there were a number of meetings in his office. Like many such efforts, it did not succeed, and also, like many of them, it produced results.
On the 26th of June I made an address at Fredericksburg, Virginia, at the dedication in the park there of the monument to the One Hundred and Twenty-seventh Pennsylvania Regiment, which was commanded in that battle by my old colonel, William W. Jennings, and as it happened, it was the forty-third anniversary of our engagement at Gettysburg. ​Mrs. Jennings was among those present. I then had the opportunity to go over the battlefields of Fredericksburg and Chancellorsville.
On the 21st of June Governor E. C. Stokes of New Jersey and I delivered addresses at the dedication of the monument at Red Bank. A dreadfully hot day, a long ride amid shouting throngs over dusty country roads, and a crowded platform, covered with canvas just above our heads which shut out the air, were the incidents which marked the occasion. Stokes is a small man with a pronounced moustache, keen and alert and canny enough to keep his head above water in New Jersey politics.
About this time I appointed the first board of registration commissioners to register voters in Philadelphia, and selected George G. Pierie, Clinton Rogers Woodruff, J. Henry Scattergood and John Cadwalader, Jr. Pierie and Scattergood were acceptable to Penrose and the party managers. Cadwalader I appointed against the earnest protest of the leaders of both the Republican and Democratic parties, because he was a gentleman who I knew would be fair, though narrow, and beyond influence, and partly because of my great regard for his father. I have found as a general thing that nice people have little sense of gratitude. They are apt to feel that they confer a favor by accepting what is given them. At the close of my administration Woodruff wrote a doubting sketch of me for the Yale Review. Some years later, over another matter, Cadwalader wrote a paper for the Public Ledger assailing my personal motives. I also saw a sketch of himself in print, evidently supervised by him, which said he had been retained in office by Governor Stuart and made no mention of the man who put him there having to override the political forces of both parties in order to do it. It was unmanly and disingenuous. He made a capable and useful official.
This year, July 25th, the National Guard had their encampment at Gettysburg, where I again inspected, on ​foot, every man and took the review from a barouche. There was little comment on the method.
In September came the effort to overthrow Penrose as the state leader, of which I had forewarned him and Durham two years before, and, much to my surprise, it came in the shape of an attack upon the capitol and the moneys expended in its erection and equipment, over which I had supposed everybody was happy. It is not my purpose here to do more than make a few general statements upon the subject. I made a thorough study of the whole matter in my Desecration and Profanation of the Pennsylvania State Capitol, published in 1911 and never answered, to which the reader is referred. Edwin S. Stuart had been nominated by the Republicans as their candidate for governor, and to comprehend the situation which resulted, it is absolutely necessary to have a measure of his characteristics. Forty years before, when he was an errand boy for Leary and I was a notary public, we had gone out into the country together to take the testimony of a witness, and we had known each other well ever since. Big, good-hearted, upright and kindly, his disposition was to be pleasing to everybody with whom he was brought into contact. His life-long training as a merchant was such as to lead him to give to everybody just what they wanted or thought they wanted. This disposition and this training united to make him entirely unfit for executive office, where the object ought always to be to advance the public welfare, with force, if need be, rather than to be agreeable to individuals, who often must be overruled. To expect him to resist public clamor would be to look for something of which he was utterly incapable. As governor, his main thought was to avoid responsibility and at the end of his term to escape unsinged. His administration was, therefore, altogether colorless, without a single achievement which made any impression on the state and, therefore, he left office with the approval of everybody except those who ​had to do business with him. Yet even the latter liked “Ned Stuart.”
The Democrats and Independents nominated Lewis R. Emery, a rich oil man and wavering dilettante politician, an independent Republican, from the western end of the state. Then the floods were let loose and the capitol was used as the weapon in a desperate political struggle. The Republicans had intended to use it as a campaign argument, pointing to its wonderful success, the promptness with which it was completed, and its comparative inexpensiveness. The other side, however, secured the claque with outcries over the moneys expended and, as usual, they had the support of the newspapers. With great ingenuity they added the cost of the furniture, metallic cases and general equipment to the cost of the building. The game would have been intensely interesting as a spectacle, had it not been fraught with tragedy to men who had given the best intelligence to the construction of the building and who deserved well of their fellows, and had it not been for the injury done to the repute of Pennsylvania for which the players cared not a whit. Still the assailants of the capitol did not play their game effectively. They made one great and fatal tactical blunder. Had they withheld the assault until within two or three weeks of the election Stuart would have been beaten and Penrose undone. By making it in September they gave time for correction and for the popular impression to become to some extent stale. The true policy of the Republican leaders would have been to have come manfully to the support of the capitol, but they were cowed by the clamor and they drifted in a rudderless boat. Stuart promised an investigation, and thus tacitly and feebly gave himself into the hands of his opponents.
Seeing that it was a situation which demanded that some one go out to the firing line and that the politicians were without resources, together with Snyder, the auditor general, I put out a statement showing in detail every cent ​expended in any way in connection with the capitol. This gave the people the exact and whole truth. We then invited Charles Emory Smith, editor of the Press; George W. Ochs, editor of the Ledger, and Charles H. Heustis, editor of the Inquirer, to come to Harrisburg and examine the building and the books. This was going into the camp of the enemy and showed courage and self-confidence. They declined, which displayed weakness and made an impression favorable to us. Then I made arrangements with the railroads for unusually low excursion rates over the state and invited the people to come and see for themselves. The newspapers tried ridicule, calling them “penny-a-milers,” but without result. Sixty thousand of the people came. On one Saturday I shook hands with three thousand people, which left my arm very sore. The next Saturday I shook hands with ten thousand and, strange to say, that did not affect me. They went home filled with enthusiasm and told their neighbors. There must have been a hundred men who said to me: “I don't care a d——n what it cost; it is worth the money,” and many of them were themselves mechanics who knew the difference between good and inferior work. Stuart was elected by a small majority and I have always believed it was our efforts which saved him. It gave me profound satisfaction to know that the main purpose of the scandal was thwarted. There are two substantial answers to the charges made, which can never be overcome—the one material and the other financial:
1. The capitol with its equipment, standing on the banks of the Susquehanna, where it may be seen of all men, expert and inexpert.
2. The reports of the state treasurer and Smull, which show that the moneys in the treasury during my administration were greater than ever before or since, and that while under my successor the investigation and trials were being pushed to an inconsequential conclusion, those moneys were being depleted at the rate of a million dollars a year.
​And now I bid farewell, I hope, forever, to that malodorous scandal which followed so closely upon the completion of a marvelous and commendable achievement and whose purveyors may be likened to those vile fish that swim in the wake of a good ship, her prow buffeting the seas and her flag flying proudly in the breezes of Heaven, but seek only to feast their appetites upon the offal which is cast overboard.
The capitol was dedicated on the 4th of October. It was a cold, dismal, rainy day. Penrose, Knox, congressmen, the state officials, the National Guard and the state constabulary all participated. The streets of Harrisburg and the capitol grounds were crowded with people. I had been much concerned about the safety of the platform. We called for bids and one was so much lower than all the rest that it aroused suspicion. Upon investigation it was found that this contractor had planned to lessen the strength of some of the supports. Then the matter was handed over to Huston, the architect, with my threat to behead him if anything happened, and he gave to it every care. Roosevelt delivered a forceful oration. It was thaen that he said, alluding to the work of the special session: “It is surely not too much to say that this body of substantive legislation marks an epoch in the history of the practical betterment of political conditions not merely for your state but for all other states.” The notes of this address, used at the time and signed for me on the platform, I had bound for preservation. He has a stage habit of singling out some individual in the audience and giving to him special attention. On this occasion he picked out an old soldier, much to the delight of the veteran and his comrades. It had been widely proclaimed that the President would dedicate the building. Nothing would have been more inappropriate and I saw to it that this task was performed by the head of the commonwealth in an address which ran:
The capitol is much more than the building in which the legislature holds its sessions, the courts sit in judgment and the ​executive exercises his authority. It is a concrete manifestation of the importance and power of the state and an expression of its artistic development. Intelligent observers, who look upon the structure and examine the proportions, the arrangements and the ornamentation, are enabled to divine at what stage in the advance of civilization the people have arrived and to determine with sufficient accuracy what have been their achievements in the past and what are their aspirations for the future.
The commission charged with the duty of erecting this capitol and those who have had responsibility in connection with it have felt that in architecture and appointments the outcome ought to be worthy of the commonwealth. They have not forgotten the essential and unique relation which Pennsylvania has borne in the development of our national life; that in her first capitol the Government of the United States had its birth; that during ten years of the early and uncertain existence of that government she gave it a home; that since its origin what has ever been accepted as the “Pennsylvania idea” has been the dominant political principle of its administration; and that its present unparalleled material prosperity rests finally in large measure upon the outcome of her furnaces and mines. Nor have they forgotten that the thought of William Penn, enunciated over two centuries ago, and rewritten around the dome of this capitol, has become the fundamental principle of our National Constitution, acknowledged now by all men as axiomatic truth.
There is a sermon which the many Americans who hie hither in the future years to study chaste art, expressed in form, as today they go to the Parthenon and St. Peter's, to the cathedrals of Antwerp and Cologne, will be enabled to read in these stones of polished marble and hewn granite. When Moses set out to build “an altar under the hill and twelve pillars,” he, beforehand, “wrote all the words of the Lord.” Let us take comfort in the belief that in like manner this massive and beautiful building, which we have in our later time erected, will be for an example and inspiration to all of the people, encouraging them in pure thoughts and inciting them to worthy deeds. Let us bear in mind the injunction of the far-seeing founder of the province, which made it indeed, as he hoped, the seed of a nation — “that we may do the thing that is truly wise and just.”
On behalf of the commonwealth, as its chief executive, I accept this capitol and now, with pride, with faith and with hope, I dedicate it to the public use and to the purposes for which it was designed and constructed.
Governor Pennypacker in the Executive Chamber, Harrisburg
​Huston, the architect, who was a warm enthusiast and elate with the success of his production, caused to be made a gold key for the main door of the capitol, to be used as the symbol of the transfer, which he presented and inscribed to me. One of Roosevelt's attendants proposed to carry off this key as a memento for the President, but I interfered and prevented its accomplishment. It was before the dinner which I gave to Roosevelt at the executive mansion that Penrose came to me and asked me whether I would not send an invitation to Charles Emory Smith, explaining that they wanted to try to get him in line and evidently expecting me to object. I replied: “Certainly,” and sent the invitation. Smith, although he was daily printing falsehoods about me, promptly accepted. At the dinner Penrose came to Roosevelt, who sat on my right, and said:
“Now, Mr. President, won't you talk to Smith?”
“I will do what I can with him,” was the answer.
I escorted Smith up to the head of the table and they had a long conference.
On the 17th of September, accompanied by the adjutant general and the staff, I went to Antietam, Maryland, to accept the monuments of the Third, Fourth, Seventh and Eighth Pennsylvania Reserves. On one of my official visits to Antietam an unusual and rather poetic little incident occurred. From the midst of the marching troops a rabbit ran out and jumped up upon the rostrum. In my speech I contrasted it as a symbol of peace and safety where forty years before destruction raged.
And now we come to the end. The final message made some comments on conditions, but no suggestions, leaving those to my successor. The newspaper correspondents at Harrisburg, regardless of the policies of the journals they represented, had grown to be my friends, and this, despite of the fact that I had never granted any unusual favor. The time had come when attention could not be misunderstood, and on January 3, 1907, I invited them to a dinner at the ​mansion, where we had a sociable and enjoyable time and much warm-hearted expression of good feeling. John P. Dohoney, always staunch and reliable; George J. Brennan, bright as a new coin and effervescent as vichy water; the sensible Frank Bell, the able George Nox McCain, Peter Bolger, Harry S. Calvert, Peter J. Hoban, Robert W. Herbert and A. Boyd Hamilton, who need no emphasizing, and many more were there. I parted with them very, very happy over the pleasant and agreeable relations, accompanied with entire confidence we had all along sustained.
The staff gave me a dinner at the Bellevue-Stratford in Philadelphia, following one given to them at the executive mansion, and there presented me with an immense silver loving cup appropriately inscribed.
The day before the close, the heads of the departments called me into the governor's reception room and there, through Carson, presented me with a silver set of one hundred and sixty-three pieces, each engraved with the family coat of arms. The piéce de resistance was a huge and handsome salver. So far as I am aware, nothing so elaborate had occurred in the experience of any former governor and I was overwhelmed with this expression of sympathy and kindly feeling.
January 14th, Governor Stuart was inaugurated. That night my family spent at the Lochiel Hotel, and the next morning went down to Pennypacker's Mills.