C- /X '"•»!• ^""^ ■•-^- /% '^^' .•'^'^ 0^ >-_^J^% ^<^o ^-i.^ V ^ %^ • ^^<^ f: .:b'^'^^.> ^""-^^ v^^' % ^>v^^^ -^^^ ^^^IK^ ^^ "^y'i^^.* '^^ ^ ^% ^ • -J' ^^o'^ •<"^ O. '* ., o' .0-' \,^^^ ;^r-. X/ .*^f/>^^o ^^..^^ Z^^^'- THE MEN OF '05 SOME PEN PICTURES, AND A FEW OTHER THINGS. CONCERNING ONE HUNDRED OR MORE GENTLEMEN CONNECTED WITH THE FIRST ALL-REPUBLICAN GOVERN^IENT OF MICHIGAN HARRY M. NIMMO Legislative correspondent for The Detroit Tribune in the sessions of 1(503 and 1905 Coi'VRiGHT, 1905, BY Harry M. Ximmo -Detroit, Mich. LIBRARY of CONGRESS Two Copies Received DEC 3 !906 Ceoyright Entry - / 0. 'fo^ 'C4ASS A X)&., No COPY B. •w „ «4 GOV. FRED M. WARNER INDEX. Page Adams, R. N 1 1 Alward, D. E 12 Ashley, N 13 Atwood, T. W 14 Baillie, T. G 15 Baird, J 16 Beal, J. E 17 Benton, C. R 18 Bird, A. C 19 Bird, J. E 20 Bland, J. E 21 Bradley, J. B 22 Brockway, J. E 23 Brown, W. E 24 Bunting, A. F 26 Bvrns, C. J 27 Canfield, I. S 28 Chapman, C. H 29 Chase, H. E 30 Chilson, E. V 31 Cook, A. B 32 Cropsev, T- R 33 Curtis, W. L 34 Decker, F. L 35 Dickinson, L. D 36 Diekema, G. J 37 Dohertv, A. T 3^ Double; T. E 39 Duncan, G. W 4° Earle, H. S 41 Eichhorn, P 42 Ellis, G. E 43 Ely, T. A 44 Farr, A. W 45 Fvfe, A 46 Galbraith, W.J 47 Gardner, E. N 48 Glasgow, C. L : 4') Gordon, J. R 5° Greusel, J 52 Hanlon, M 53 Harris, M 54 Havden, J. G 55 Heald, H. T 56 Heine, A. 5 7 Herkimer, H. H 5^ Higgins, T. T 59 Holmes, J- W 60 Hudson, G. M 61 Ivory, W. E 62 Jerome, J- D 63 Kane, H.J 64 Page Kelley, P. H ' ^c Kellev, L. L A Kelley, S.H 67 Knignt, J. B : : ; ; ; ;■;;;; \ ^^ Knight, W. A ■ 60 LiUie, C. C '..'.'.'.'.'.'.'.'.'.'.'.'..'.'. 70 Loomis, A. P , j Lord, G ' Lovell, N. V L Maitland, A ..................'. 74 Manzelniann, C yr Martindale, F. C ,5 Master, S. F 'g Mills, W. N ,Q Ming, F. R ;.:::;::::::::::':■:■;■; so Moffatt, O. C ; ; 81 Monroe, J. S ' ' ' 82 Moore, G. W 8^ Moore, J. B 84 Moriarty, M. H 85 Morrice, J. L 86 McCarthy, J.J 8-7 McKay, "^W. . . .' 88 McLeod, M. J So Nank, W. F 00 Neal, F. S '..'..'.'.'.'.'.'.'.'.'.'.'.'.'.'.'.'.'. 91 Nottingham, D. M 02 Oviatt, D. B g. Peek, A. J ;;:;;::;:;:;:';':':::: li Pettit, A. D 55 Pierce, C. S q6 Prosser, H. H gj Read, J. H g8 Rumer, J. F g^ Russell, H 100 vSayre, I. T loi Scidmore, A. W 102 Scott, G. G 104 Seeley, T. D 105 Sheldon, S. A iot> Shook, A. N 107 Shumway, F. W 108 Simpson, N. F 109 Smith, C 110 Snell, L. W '..'.'.'.'.'.'.'.'.'.'.'.'.'.'.'.'.'. m Stannard, W. L 112 Stockdale, D uj Stone, A. G 114 Traver, S. C 115 Turner, J. E 116 Van Akin, S 117 Van Keuren, C 118 Ward, C. E iig Warner, F. M 120 Waters, A.J 121 Watt, T- c :;;;;;;; 122 Whelan, N. T 12? Whitbeck, W. H '..'.'.'.'.'.'.'.'.'.'.'.'.'. 124 Woodman, J 121; Adams, F. J ' 126 Illustrations bj- Nash 2s, qi, 77, 105 ©1|^ a^p0rt^r*0 Point of Vum ^/T was with fear and trembling that the scribe of this vol- mI ume undertook its pubHcation. A pohtical reporter ^iJ for a completely independent journal is not usually the auspicious person to compile a souvenir for any po- litical party. Indeed, had it not been for the suggestion of Mr. George E. Miller, until recently editor-in-chief of The De- troit Tribune, and his sympathetic encouragement, such a pub- lication would not have been conceived nor hazarded. The kindly reception of a few "First Impressions of Michigan's Lawmakers" published in The Tribune during the sessions of 1903 and 1905 first inspired the idea that our readers might appreciate them enough to assist in their compilation. A cas- ual canvass among some of the more prominent men in the capitol assured me that the idea was warranted. No attempt has been made to bring together a complete rec- ord of all the members of both houses, or of all departments of the state government. It was originally intended to com- pose only one hundred pen pictures of republican statesmen and officers in the public eye. The number has exceeded that limit — there are 112 in all — and it is only the late date at which the work was undertaken that prevented the sketching of all men holding important places in this year of grace. Here a word may be said of the relation of the reporter to the man of affairs and the reading public. It is a regrettable fact that there is a general impression regarding the personalitv and work of the reporter most uncomplimentary to the pro- fession of journalism. And it all arises from this— that a higher degree of excellence is demanded from the men operating the public press than is demanded from the men of any other voca- tion. The banker, the doctor, the statesman, the'lawyer, even the preacher, are allowed the human privilege of making mis- takes in the daily practice of their respective profession's with wide moral impunity. The very nature of their work protects them from much of the censure that follows like the Furies in the wake of a "break" in a big daily newspaper. Let but the pencil of the overwrought reporter or writer slip on the initials of one hitherto unknown individual, and that journal has in- curred the ill will of an irate citizen who may or may not be molHfied. The reporter who is paid to gather the news as fast as it is ripe, and perhaps to help it ripen, hurries a dispatch to his paper, essentially correct, but unintentionally twisted in one minor detail. The weeping victim assails him with charges ranging from unfairness to lying, partisanship and even corrup- tion. In nine cases in every ten that same victim was offered the opportunity in abundant time of corroborating or correct- ing or amending the dispatch before it was filed, and probably replied with an injured air, "I have nothing to say." A re- porter can't hit the bull's eye with his hands tied. Neither is the average newspaper man a liar. Nothing he loves more than to get all the facts; not the theories, but the facts. That's what the public want; what he's hired to get. He has no ax to grind. He is meddlesome and wants to know. When he knows he is satisfied; not until then. If a reporter for an independent journal runs across a fact that is apt to prove detrimental to the republican party, or the democratic party, or any other party, he gloats with the same joy that would course through him if it were otherwise. As the railroad attor- ney will spend days and nights to win his client's case, as the republican politician will spend days and nights to secure his party's victory, the loyal reporter will spend days and nights to support his paper and its policy. To say that the fall of one re- porter is the corruption of the whole press is to say that one grafter makes a whole government criminal. To ask a re- porter to allow friendship to come between him and his paper is corruption. To sa}^ that a reporter or a journal shall make no mistakes is to remove the making and editing of newspapers from the sphere of humanity to elysium and look to the angels for circulation. Facts! Facts! Let us have the facts! More than once during the session just closed have prominent republican leaders warned the all republican government against themselves and offered secret thanks for the existence of a vigorous independent press. In addressing the represent- atives both Congressman Townsend and Thomas E. Bark- worth, formerly chairman of the democratic state central com- mittee, bluntly declared that it was not well to have no oppo- sition on the floor. It seems there is to be but little opposition to republican policies and enterprises on the floor of the house for the next few years at least. The republican party will be in the balance. Party government ceases to be party govern- ment when it becomes an unchallenged monopoly. The wel- fare of the state as well as the welfare of the party itself de- mands criticism — bold, unhesitating, fair criticism. Top-heavi- ness and internal dissension are as potent enemies as external hostility and organized warfare. The government of Michigan in 1905 ranks quite as high as those that have gone before with some of the old inherent weak- nesses and with some marked improvements. And yet the leaders of the legislature itself did not assume as large propor- tions as lasting combat in debate would have given them. Fighters can train only with fighters. The legislature should be the cradle of national statesmen. Of the more important achievements of the administration of 1905 the enactment of a general primary election law ranks first. This government will also be remembered for the creation of a state highway department, for the initial step toward the treat- ment of tuberculosis in a state institution, for the calling of an election for the submission of the question of calling a consti- tutional convention, for granting the right of eminent domain to electric railways and for another experiment in Michigan's pioneer movement in the taxation of corporate property. Railroad legislation moves slowly and conservatively in all states. The taxation of sleeping cars and the failure of the railroad lobbyists to prevent the enactment of other legislation may be taken as a salutary sign in the evolution of Michigan's laws. The aggression of private wealth is not a new thing nor should it frighten Americans. Gov. Warner has also succeeded in holding down the amount of money to be raised by taxation for the next two years — a task that looks easier than it really is, both because of the generosity of former legislatures with state institutions and the deep rooted feeling that these institutions are to be well cared for. The leaders of the party themselves are satisfied that a clean, enviable record has been made by the present gov- ernment that will clear the way for another sweeping victory in 1906. When it comes to the personnel of the government in all its branches a triumph of democracy is revealed. A glance at the facts in the lives of the men who preside over the highest tri- bunal in the state and who make and execute our laws, shows that they are not hereditary statesmen, nor men of wealth and exceptional education and equipment. A very large percent- age have worked in the fields, in the woods, and in the primary schools of the state in their early days. They are the direct representatives of the average intelligence and worth of their people. They bring to the legislature a knowledge of human nature and the state's needs and condition gleaned from hard work in the everv dav world of bread winning. In some cases they have risen to the seats of the mighty. In all cases they know the seats of the mighty are open to those who will strive and who have the capacity to attain. The reader will observe, before entertaining himself very much with the following pages, that dyspeptic severity and seriousness has frequently given way to levity and mirth in the presentment of a history, a trait of character, an incident, achievement or the appearance of any subject. Trusting to the spirit of good fellowship that marked the life of the legislators under the dome of the capitol, and aware of the keen apprecia- tion of the sublime and the ridiculous on the part of legislative newspaper readers, the writer has presumed to be intimate for the sake of truth and fun. In some instances, possibly, it may appear that he has presumed too much on good nature or on tolerance of party criticism. But "truth is mighty and will prevail." Nothing has been omitted that would throw any light on the career of the legislature of 1905 through the me- dium of the personality and activity of the members herein por- trayed. Nothing has been included that would achieve other results. The writer has attempted to speak boldly, honestly, sympathetically, "with charity toward all," and with the hope that on some far off evening when prosperity has cheered, or even adversity cast down, the subscriber to this souvenir, he may sit apart for a moment and refresh the pleasant memories or enjoy the nonsense, of his old associates in the government of 1905. If the writer succeeds in that he succeeds in all he hopes to do. "I have written the tale of our life For' a sheltered people's mirth, In jesting guise — but ye are wise, And ye know what the jest is worth." — Rudyard Kipling. 10 ROBERT N, ADAMS (representative.) His shaggy hair and blunt speech would alarm you if you didn't know the man. For he looks as fierce as they make 'em. After due acquaintance you find he is just like the rest of us, — another phase and shade of human na- ture. To those native Yankees who are fond of thinking there is a real type of American apart from all other breeds of the English speaking race he is a distinct disappointment. This Adam's son was born in Ontario, right in a hotbed of United Empire Loyal- ists who thought as truly that kings should govern as that they themselves should live. But it is a quarter of a century since the gentle- man from Chippewa left them. He has been an ardent republi- can in politics and government ever since. As an upper peninsvila man Adams has distinguished himself by his hankering for primary reform and his desire to prevent the promiscuous spread of booze among men who love it with an unfaltering love. But the glowing attributes of the gentle- man from Chippewa as a legislator are self reliance and inde- pendence. He will join the majority any time the republican administration wants his vote very badly, provided alwavs he is satisfied that nothing of paramount importance as a principle to which he is opposed is at stake. He made but little noise the last two sessions of the legislature but whenever a pet measure was before the house — and somebody has a pet measure about every hour, — he had to be reckoned with; not "seen" as we understand it in the craft, but simply reckoned with. The difficulty in getting Adams's vote is the fact that he does not look at law and life through the glasses that fit the vision of the majority of the grand dukes from the upper peninsula. The corporation is no more natural a companion for him than for Eugene V. Debs or Theodore Roosevelt or for Fred A. Hunt of Detroit. Adams has the air of a man who would give not an inch nor a dollar more to him who had than to him who had not. Sometimes he appears even as quixotic on the floor of the house as some of his fellow-countrvmen whom I have named. From a farm in Chippewa county he has sent two sons to fight the eagle's battles in Cuba and has been one of the thousand myriad forces in the development of the real estate, mines and finances of his community. Confidentially, he is well-heeled. What more do vou ask? DENNIS E, ALWARD (secretary of the state central committee.) Reading clerk in the national house of representatives by reason of the same faithful attention to dutv and honest loyalty to friends and party that started him in political work in Michi- gan and demands his labors for the party at home. He was secretary of' the state central committee from 1894 to "1898 and has held the same position since he was re-elected in 1900. Like his col- league, Chairman Diekema, he is sin- cerity and integrity in the first in- stance, and responsible to the same extent for the all republican govern- ment of 1905. A glance at Alward's career shows he is one of the numerous substantial citizens of Michigan who started to climb from the lowest rung. He was born in Niles in 1859. When a student at the state university he stopped his course to teach school. In 1878 he founded the Battle Creek Moon and set it on its way to prosperity. In 1880 he bought the Clare Press and then drifted into politics. He was clerk of the senate railroad committee in 1887, assistant secretary of the senate in 1SS9, and secretary of the senate in 1893 and 1895. Alward is somewhat of a speaker himself. In a rough and tumble go-as-you-please row in convention or on the stump he is vigorous and convincing, and in splendid control of his grey matter. As a man among men, he is a graceful "mixer" and an affable companion. His even temper is one of his great assets. Nobody ever catches him with the fur flying. It was not many weeks ago that Alward and the scribe sat chatting in a Lansing hotel when a sober stranger who knew neither scribe nor secre- tarv "butted in" on the conversation and asked for the iden- tification of a prominent republican leader. Shown the man Mr. Stranger immediately launched forth on a philippic of profanity and abuse that would have done credit to a 320 degree drunk, sparing neither the party nor any of the officers thereof. Alward flushed once or twice. Then smiled; and as the stranger retired remarked with the utmost composure, "I wonder if the gentle- man enjoyed himself." There has been no intimation from any quarter that he is to be superseded as either reading clerk or secretary. NOBLE ASHLEY (senator.) Such are the chances of war! If Gov. Warner had not vetoed the Detroit civil service bill Senator Ashley would have been THE Detroit legis- lator of 1905. Now his enemies will wink an eye and the spoilsmen will endeavor to prevent his appearance in the senate chamber again. The passage of the bill through both houses was the culmination of a careful, quiet, arduous campaign against the opposition of Moriarty, who finally gave way; and of Doherty, who declared the enactment of the bill as against "good republican politics." In the session of 1903 Ashley, as representative, with the aid of Senator Simons, was successful in the passage of a law placing the sheriff of Wayne on an $8, 000 salarv and cutting off his fees. He is an adept in the still hunt. His quiet work as an organizer of the Modern Maccabees has been generally endorsed by that order and all his legislative achievements have been executed in the same style. He is a native of Lincolnshire and learned the printing trade in Sarnia, Ontario. He has been a Detroiter since 1S80. Senator Ashley has been vigorously criticised for his apparent indifference as to the progress of the Scott bill attaching a referendum to all franchises granted by municipal councils in Wayne county outside of Detroit. The bill passed the house and went to Ashley's committee in the senate. There were several objections to the measure both from corporations and from farmers wdio feared it would interfere with electric railway construction. The committee itself was hostile. If Ashley did sacrifice it, he did so to secure votes for the passage of another measure that would please his constituents quite as much, and now the governor has sent that measure to limbo. How ephemeral are the glories of today and the defeats of yesterday! How small the plans of mice and men! Ashley gave and the governor has taken away, blessed be the name of, — which? The people of Detroit want civil service. The people of Detroit will have civil service. The veto of the Ashley measure but fires the desire of the voter for something he wants and has not got. The veto of 1905 will be a little thing in 1907 and the big thing wall be the passage of a sound bill. It is the little things that make up government as well as life. "Little drops of w^ater, little grains of sand, ]\Iake the mighty ocean, and the beauteous land." Sing, brethren, sing! 13 THERON W. ATWOOD (RAILROAD COMMISSIONER.) And what of Theron W. Atwood, railroad commissioner, strategist, boss, affectionately known among "the boys" of the republican machine as "Tip;" — "affectionately" known, first, because his ingenious brain has helped them out of many dilemmas; second, because he never reminds them that he is the boss ? Mr. Atwood is modest. Nothing he shuns more than publicity, unless it be the breaking of a political promise. When Atwoodism became a burning issue in the last campaign Atwood quietly left the state. Until the smoke had cleared away he was visible to none except the moose of north Ontario. By Atwoodism is meant the spirit of the present epoch of boss rule in Michigan: which boss rule the people of Michigan have declared they liked even as the people of New York have liked it under Piatt, and under other bosses in other states where bosses make the party win. Like Piatt, Atwood hails from a little country burg — Caro, Tuscola county. Atwood's political methods belong to a profession that is altogether par- tisan. Yet those methods win — methods righteously condemned by men who quickly use them when the battle grows hot. Apart from his friendliness for railroads and corporate in- terests Atwood has suffered much from the blind hate of the people that has fallen on amassed wealth in these latter days. He is not a megalomaniac. Power he exercises for what it accomplishes; not for the love of wielding it. That power lies largely in his ability to read human nature. "You've got to give the other fellow his own way just as far as possible" was a chance remark of his recently. Speaking of a prominent legislator with aspirations to be a leader, he said: "A man must have a good balance wheel. When he gets warm under the collar he's gone." Shorn of his royal halo, with the air of mvstery that surrounds a silent, quiet man dispelled, Atwood is for all the world like other bipeds that use clothes. And he does not wear horns. He is generally smiling, always has a good cigar, is credited among politicians and reporters with telling the truth when he tells anything. He is charged with distributing large quan- tities of campaign funds, but even his enemies do not call him a grafter. He is still adviser-in-chief to the state senate, though not always victor there. In short, he believes in a strong party machine, with a judi- cious distribution of patronage, and if his friends insist on his being the chief engineer — well, he supposes he ought to consent to be the victim. 14 THOMAS G. BAILLIE (RR PRESENT ATI VE.) "Tarn" Baillie likes pig. Some of us watched "Tarn" discussing a dead, young pig one night, — it was late, d'ye mind, — until we couldn't tell which was "Tam" and which was the pig except for the grunt; and we knew the pig was dead. Next to devouring dead pig "Tam" likes to laugh — and play a little game. It's none of an^^body's business how much game or what. "Tam" will stand for it anyhow. Besides "Tain's" the babe of the legislature — 24 years old — and has some rights. But to be serious, an apologia must be written for "Tam." He was one of the "immortal thirteen" of the house who voted for a certain railroad bill when a lot of folks were shouting "wolf." Please remember, ye critics, that "Tam" came from a district that furnishes to the state of Michigan an indescribable mixture of governors and railroad presi- dents, not to speak of a state-known senator who doesn't "Care-a-d — " for any governor, nor who made him. Take note, too, that it was the Pere Marquette who gave "Tam" a little lift along the highway of progress when he got a job in the general traffic manager's department not many years ago and then ask him to bite the hand that fed him. If your dog did it, heaven help the dog. Remember, too, that "Tam" has the nerve to tell 'em to hike to the place of perpetual thirst if he sees fit. It must be admitted that Rep. Baillie, for a graduate of the University of Michigan, showed rather a strong disposition to follow the leader. But Baillie graduated in law. And if the law wasn't made to show there are two sides to any question and that the gazabo with the longest head gets the justice, then let's eliminate the faculty of law from these expensive institutions of learning. You might just as well ask a full house to turn over the pot to a pair of deuces. If the victim of this sketch does not understand the difference between a full house and a pair of deuces, it's time he joined the Y. M. C. A. "Haa-a-a" "Haa-a" "Ha-a." That's Baillie again. Except when "Tam" was addressing the house we never saw anything but a smile on his face and a chuckle behind it. As a speech maker he looks literally fierce. The day he was hornswoggled into backing a bill for an open Sunday he looked fiercer. But that's a tale out of school. " Tam " wont be hornswoggled again. He squared himself for that and resumed his smile. "Tam" Baillie is voung, vigorous, appetizing, clean, and moderately clever. 15 JOHN BAIRD (senator.) Too modest, notwithstanding all the fame he has earned, to wear a middle name! Just plain John, or familiarly "Johnny," or legislatively "Don't-Care- a-D ," because he doesn't. The whole story in brief is this, — he pla3'S politics like a professional game in which the amateur exists to be fleeced, and does with religious severity and enthusiasm what he says he will do. His accurate knowledge of parliamentary procedure makes his legislative game a tough problem for unsuspecting hrst-termers. Born amid the frowning guns of old Quebec barracks where his father was paid to fire shot and shell for her majestv. Queen Victoria; a pupil in the public schools of Seaforth, Ontario, a star long distance runner who was doped in a matched race in which he staked his last penny and lost, a laborer in eastern Michigan whither he had come to hide his disappointment, a salt packer in the Saginaw valley since that time, — that is the life of John Baird. His Falstaff figure does not betray the runner now, but the senator moves quite fast enough in other directions to show he has some speed left. Baird has been senator for three terms and representative for one. He conceived the notion last fall that he could not be reelected and forthwith notified his friends that he would not accept a renomination. The}' insisted that he make another fight. He did and won. Some more of his friends came down to Lansing during the session to tell John just how they wanted the new Saginaw charter fixed. The}' wanted a large police commission. John decided Saginaw was to have a smaller police commission. "But" urged his friends "but — ." John placidly replied "Well, we're going to have it this way or we ain't giong to have it at all." It was passed John's way. "I'm against executive sessions" said John one day. "The reporter always gets the news anyway. I'm going to vote against executive sessions all the time now." He did. A senator one day was complaining that his views had been misrepresented in one of the papers. He was in a huff. Baird laughed as usual. Baird always laughs no matter what happens. "I don't care a d — what the papers say about me" he gurgled. "They can say anything they like and have a good time. It doesn't phase me." His sentiment on the passage of his own primary election bill will live, It is not worth a damn. jrUNIUS E, BEAL (representative.) Not many of our three dollar a dav legislators have seen the old world and the best of the new. Even the prover- bial pass won't take them far from their own sod. But this man Beal from Washtenaw will see all there is worth seeing as long as the money holds out. He has seen the Russia we are all watch- ing. He is living for all he is worth, — not in the way of Micawber, a little overdue all the time, but for all there is in life. Perhaps it is Beabs early training as an editor in Ann Arbor, perhaps it is his natural newspaper instinct to know what is going forward in the world and know it intimately ; but whatever it is he likes to be on the spot when anything is doing. He was just as enthusiastic this session in fighting for the repeal of the low water alarm law as he was to go to Madison, Wis., and hear the stars of that state's university and the students of the U. of M. fight the battle of primary elections in open debate. Where two or three are gathered together there is Beal in the midst of them. (This refers to the boys onlv.) His sense of humor should have kept him in newspaper work for what is more amusing, as well as inspiring, as a close range studv of human nature? This breadth of interest is sure to make a man valuable as a lawmaker and statesman. Half the discrediting criticism that is heaped on the pate of the legislator is due to the re- quirement that he shall overcome by patient investigation his inevitable lack of intimacy with the thousand and one matters he is called upon to regulate, and his failure to meet the require- ment. Men of the Beal type have the natural bent for such investigation. Their conclusions may be onesided, but their activity at least begets activity on the other side; and out of all of this some good must come. Mr. Beal is at a ripe age for service, — 45. He performed no greater service this session than by his assistance to place on the stattite books a law re- stricting the promiscuous sale to their thousands of victims of crushing, damning, demoralizing drugs. As a convivial Mr. Beal can be recommended; he knows the limit. As a humorist he helps us all to live. As a politican he knows nothing better than republicanism. ^ 17 CASSIUS R. BENTON (representative.) "Said the ant to the elephant, 'who are you pushing?' There's one more river to cross." When the state tax commission put its sinuous trunk around the howhng member from Northville and ducked him in the legislative swamp, Cass re- minded them his day was coming. It came. The heart of old Cass Benton is too full of "the milk o' human kind- ness" to harbor one dram of animosity against one wayworn soul on the much bedraggled tax commission. But Cass was convinced that the tax commission was not right. Then the elephant came up behind hhn and Cass had to move on hurriedly. In the final collision the ant had all the honors and, waving a spare leg on high, spat on the elephant's trunk and marched off to North- ville triumphant. Cass will leave a soft fried egg, a charcoal tablet, or even a sermon any time you want to sic him on the tax commission. Put Cass and a dog-eating Filipino on scratch; put Amariah and a new pup at the finish line; and Cass will beat that Filipino to it for monev. Benton and the Filipino have still something to learn about taxation. But Benton has his advantage, — the folks believe his mistakes are honest mistakes and they're willing to leave it all to him. And his name is not Gas. The records show that he was the only working legislator who didn't introduce a single bill. Rep. Benton is a fair type of the wholesome lawmaker, — a man who has risen from the ranks, who has made himself with the assistance of a limited academic education, who has shown himself a thorough citizen, who is a property owner, who has served his neighbors privately and politically in humble and preferred positions alike well, who represents honestly and fearlessly the average intelligence of his constituents. Whether or not his experience as a supervisor has warped or enlarged his view of state taxation remains to be seen in the experiments that are now to be tried. But with his openness to unbiassed advice from recognized and unprejudiced leaders the state would be safe in the hands of such representatives as he. It is all summed up in this, — Cass Benton is no man's man. 10 18 ARTHUR C. BIRD (state dairy and food commissioner.) A long time ago Commissioner Bird had established his reputation as an or- ganizer — long before he had loomed up strong in politics. All his life he has been interested in the development of Michigan's farming lands and has rep- resented several rich eastern coinpanies in the promotion of agriculture in Mich- igan. It was his genius for organiza- tion that conceived and brought into existence the State Association of Farm- ers' Clubs. His talent and his enthusi- asm in the study of scientific agriculture were recognized by the Michigan Agri- cultural College, which bestowed on him the exceptional degree of Master of Agriculture. Since his advent into active state politics he has again demon- strated his ability as an organizer. He was in charge of the state census of 1904 and was appointed to his present position shortly after Gov. Warner took office. There are various ways of performing the duties of dairy and food commissioner as there are various ways of performing the duties of any office. In this instance one method is to go about the state with a brass band notifying the general public — firstly, that you have a state job; secondly, that you want to hold that job ; and thirdly, that if you don't hold it you are going to make enough noise to assure the people you are a hustler and should hold it. There is another and more effective way — and that is to quietlv and thoroughlv inspect all the marketed foods as far as possible, to the end that the bad product may be taken off the market without injuring any innocent producer, and with the support of the manufacturers of wholesome goods in the prosecution of the fakir and the mountabank. Mr. Bird has chosen the latter method. Several large shipments of coffee and other foods have been withdrawn from the Michigan market, without any publicity, on the personal assurance of the seller that a mistake had been made, and that it wouldn't occur again. In politics Mr. Bird has shown proportions that have been the envy of many of the men who like to be close to the throne. He has generallv been regarded as one of Gov. Warner's closest counselors. He is just 41 years of age and never loses a minute. j& 19 JOHN E, BIRD (attorney general.) When Charles A. Blair withdrew his name from the ticket for attorney gen- eral in 1904 and was elevated to the su- preme court bench several corporation attaches enjoyed a deep feeling of relief. When the state central committee placed the name of John E. Bird of Adrian on the ticket for attorney general the at- taches smugly rubbed their hands and said Mr. Bird was "a new man; hardly as bitter as Mr. Blair and more consid- erate." But the first time the attaches tried to back Mr. Bird into a corner he showed his war paint and has been on the warpath ever since. The railroad lobby, which is usually found manoeuvering on the outskirts of a legislature, is directly responsible for the bloodthirstiness of the attorney general. On two or three occasions the attorney general found himself handi- capped by the manipulations and influence of these gentlemen. Then he camped on their trail. Most notable was his victory in the passage of the bill allowing him to examine the books of the Michigan Central, in order to determine whether the state has a good case in the suit brought against that road for the re- covery of $4,400,000 in back taxes alleged to have been fraud- ulently withheld in years long gone by. Behind the closed door of the attorney general's office in the presence of a stenographer and a witness the state lawyer "interviewed" several wavering members of the house as to their views on the value of the bill. They didn't like the stenographer. The bill passed. There was a struggle, of course; but it speaks highly to the credit of the leg- islature of 1905 that no influence could swerve it from the cause of the attorney general in this memorable instance. Mr. Bird will be found in war paint any time the whistle blows. The attorney general is a placid individual, with bloodless lips, pallid face, steel-cold eye, calloused nerve, and a taste for the grimmest humor. Occasionally he laughs a laugh that startles you and shocks 3^ou for a loud, muscular smile is not compatible with that motionless visage. Occasionally some- body tries to bluff him with political bluffs or contradictions of his idea of the law. Then the bluff is called, — as some well- known capitalistic gentlemen not a thousand miles from the heart of the metropolis can testify. Bluffing is all right if the other fellow doesn't hold the cards. j& J. EDWARD BLAND (representative.) When Rep. Bland of Detroit was selected as chariman of the house committee on gaming interests some sportsmen smiled. The enactments of the session proved that it is not neces- sary for sportsmen to make the best laws for sportsmen, nor for railroad men to make the best laws for railroads, — that is, speaking in the broad sense of the greatest good for the greatest number. Acting on his own statement — "I am not an expert on game but I take the pleasure of the average man in seeing the game and knowing that it exists," Bland has assisted in giving Michigan what has been characterized as the best protective game law written by any legislature in this state. Being a lawyer, Bland can see both sides of a case. Born in Canada and educated in the United States he can indulge in broad views of government. Having hiked through Arizona and California, having seen the direful da}" of being dead broke, having served as a volunteer marine in the Spanish American war, he can almost feel himself a citizen of the world. Having been enthusiastically spanked by the two heavy weights of the house on the last day of the session he has shown he can take what is coming to him and take it gracefully, — if a 200- pounder slid bottom end up on a thirty foot rail and belabored can be graceful. In the ever-going war between wealth and government, there are men who establish themselves as popular idols by the practice of railroad-baiting, by demagoguery, by jingoistic fighting in the name of the people. Bland is not one of these. He has refused more than one substantial favor rather than allow a corporation to put him under obligations. Persistent, not loud- mouthed, he has been found on the side of the commons where the commons needed him. Without flinching before hostile committees and a hostile majority he has pressed his demand for the regulation of electric railway fares, conscious that the fight must begin now to terminate a decade hence. Bland's great fault is his bachelorhood. Never has the humble scribe of this unassuming volume been honored with the story of a lost love or a broken heart. Mayhap there are shattered hopes that lie deep in the heart of this British American. But we have generally believed his singleness was the concomi- tant of pure cussedness and would recommend that Detroit keep him at home until he subscribes to true Rooseveltian doctrine, — and gets busy. 21 JAMES B. BRADLEY (auditor general.) The auditor general is a new figure in state politics but a very lively one. He is one of the men who have been mentioned early and often for the gov- ernorship in 1908, — a long wav off but #iM|^^^^H not so long in politics. His only public . ^^^BRsl^'^I life prior to 1904 was lived in the mayoralty of Eaton Rapids and as a Mystic Shriner, Pythian and Maccabee. His best chance for the governorship would seem to lie in direct nominations for he has incurred the lasting wrath of many of the prominent organizers by quietly advising the passage of a direct nomination bill. To date he is not reckoned among the eligibles by the men who have in times past been closely in touch with the list. The recount of the votes cast for circuit judge in Wayne county served to bring Bradley into state prominence during the session. Some of the recount committee, it will be re- membered, wanted an unitemized per diem allowance for their work in Detroit. The proposed allowance was rather high. Bradley promptly refused to O. K. the bills and itemized bills were rendered. Some of them contained some remarkable expense claims but were legitimate and the auditor general at least allowed the whole matter to have a good airing and lowered the temperature and the wants of some of the com- mittee to normal. "Are you going to vote for direct nominations for state officers?" a well-known senator on the committee was asked during the wrangle. "Yes, I believe in direct nominations for candidates for auditor general" was the reply. Bradley is an active, nervous man, powerfully built, and of swarthy complexion. He was born on a farm in Shiawassee county in '58 and graduated from Rush Medical College, Chicago in '86. He has practised his profession in Eaton Rapids since then, besides operating a farm and attending to other business interests. He is a student of world history and of modern affairs in the broad sense, with some gift of diplomacy and manipulative ability, and a strong taste for cigars and good company. JAMES E. BROCKWAY (representative.) It is so common as to 1 e almost tiresome, — this story of the greybeard and his struggle for existence and for the upward move, that we can always lend a keen ear to the man of tenderer years who has a story to tell. Here is a man slightly past 30 who has tal- lied lumber in the summer and trudged off to school in the winter until he was al)le to pay his way through college. Then he studied law and is now a mem- ber of a very live firm in Bay City. In the middle of it all he found time to serve in the Santiago campaign. His latest stunt was to defeat one of the democratic representatives of 1903. Any exclusive grand army man who thinks he saved the whole pro- cess of nature, the rotation of the earth, and the solar sys- tem will please note that here is a fair sample of a man who fought the forest in his boyhood, fought his country's ene- mies when his country needed him, and licked a democratic in 1904. And this man did not see the light until 1872. All honor where honor is due, but let us not forget that there is more than one class of men to be honored today. There is one incident which has never been told, but which places Rep. Brockway in the roll of honor if nothing else does, — his vote on the direct nominations bill when the republican platform proposition was defeated in the house. The party managers needed votes very badly. They needed Brockway's, but didn't get it. Brockway could have had most anything he wanted to vote for the platform bill. He stood pat and was one of the 53 that gave the state direct nominations for governor and lieutenant governor. Having assured the subscribers to this edition that the truth and nothing but the truth would be told, it behooves the scribe to remark at this stage of what is rapidly becoming an encomium that Brockway must have had some glaring faults, but that he succeeded in hiding them better than any of his colleagues. Some exception, to be sure, must be taken to his face, though he couldn't help that. He is not the best looking man in the legislature but altogether too good looking to be in politics. His expression imposes an unusual burden of integrity on his character. You instinctively believe him. His manner is so youngishly pleasant that it scouts scepticism. Sincerity and truth are apparently his watchwords. J^ 23 WILLIAM E. BROWN (senator.) Hadley township again! Anybody who doesn't know that Hadley town- ship is in Lapeer county had better feel himself to see if he is awake. Hadley has been breeding stalwart republicans for a very long time. It gave birth to the chairman of the senate judiciary committee, — the quick firing gun of the upper house, and the student of affairs. Brown is a lawyer, tall, well built, of the athletic type, solid, and an abhorrer of narcotics. When he opens fire on any bill before the senate he electrifies the chamber. He has the gift against which the ancient philosopher com- plained, of making the weaker argument appear the better, though he generally takes hold of the stronger side of the case in the beginning. Many a bill has been benefited by his perusal and by his keen and thorough knowledge of the fundamental law of the state. The bill for the inspection of private banks, ultimately defeated, would undoubtedly have passed the house without a referendum clause had it not been for Brown. The senator studied law in the olfice of Chief Justice Joseph B. Moore when that gentleman was practicing at Lapeer. He did some school teaching when young and graduated in law from the state university in 'S-j opening an office in Imlay City. He was elected prosecuting attorney in 1892 and moved to Lapeer. As public prosecutor he served two terms. Senator Brown succeeded Railroad Commissioner Atwood in the upper house representing the counties of Lapeer and Tuscola. From that district the state has learned to look for conserva- tives, for stift' backed partisans, and for stand patters. Brown fills the bill. He instinctively sits back on his haunches when a radical driver gets up behind him. He hates direct nomina- tions more than he dispises populism. He is sharp on the trigger. "We lost many votes last fall" said one senator in the debate on the primary bill. "And we still had 60,000 more loyal republicans than all the democrats, populists, free silverites, and bolters combined" shouted the senator from Lapeer, his voice trembling with anger. "We are not here to legislate for deserters." All aboard for congress! ^ 24 FLAGGED! Before the railroad company could get away with its state tax records Michigan's goat coughed up the red shirt. 25 ARCHIBALD F. BUNTING (representative.) The man who makes a bluff worth while is the man who is always prepared to have his bluff called. Leelanau's contribution to the merriment of 1905 never went wrong on his bluff, — on the floor of the house at least. Most of us came to regard Bunting just as a plain Indian. All coons looked alike to him. If it occurred to him at any time the fitting moment to kick up a rumpus there was a rumpus. No one could tell just wdien a rumpus was to be pulled off, for Bunting was always canny enough to keep his extra cards well up his sleeve until the showdown came. His course on the primary election bills was one of absolute independence. His course on the Hudson local option bill was something more, — absolute hostilit}'. No ward option or precinct option for Bunting. Individual option is enough for any man who feels the need of an option. Might as well ask a man to vote as to whether he should give himself the privilege of eating or smoking or playing a little game of draw. Personal liberty is the strength of the republic. Bread's the staff of life. And then there's "life" itself. What would we shut that out of the market for? Think of all the germs that might infest one's anatomy and rule the physiological roost with no other germs to hold them in check. Think of the cut in the preacher's pay with the devil deprived of half his capital and the further shortage of preachers and the depreciation of church property! Think of anything! But don't think of going up against Bunting's logic! It's too full of realism. Bunt- ing is a good lawyer. Besides he likes a drink himself. He makes up his mind to win one side of a case and if one argument won't suit his point of view another will. Right there we have another reason for the existence of law schools. And we find ourselves running around in a circle again, just as all our laws do and our other institutions when placed under the microscope. And Bunting sees all that and has a lot of fun out of the situa- tion generallv. A fight is a fight no matter what side of the question vou're on; and a fight is not to be sneezed at; if you've got enough red blood to enjoy it. Rep. Bunting is foxy, shrewd, contentious, strong, fearless, with a big, bold, bald, head and a hawk eye that shows you he'll be right there the next day when you come back. He is a reformed school teacher 34 years of age and squirts water out of a toy pistol. 26 CHARLES J. BYRNS (REPRESENTATIVE.) Politicians are sometimes born, not made. There is the poHtician who is an accident in a small community and who gets to Lansing for a term or two; the politician who is now and then sent here by virtue of a special interest to serve with lots of money behind him; the politician who comes as often as he likes, because his substantial char- acter and general solidarity recom- mends him to his people, even when he is wrong; and the politician Vvdio is elected to office because his constit- uents never thought of him as anvthing else. That last qualification seems to fit Charles J. Byrns of Ishpeming very well. Byrns is now serving his third term in the house and is an aspirant for the senate. The conclusion is that he will come to the senate as soon as there is a vacancy in his district. He may want to be lieutenant governor. When he runs place all your money on him for he won't enter until he has the game right. He is now a national director in the Modern Woodmen of America, and it seems he is to hold that place as long as he can say he wants it. As chairman of the state affairs committee of the house, Byrns has to deal with much important legislation and gets through with it without much friction. Popularity comes easily and naturally to him and sits on him gracefully. He carries that indefinable atmosphere that makes friends and calms enemies. To the first he is always kind; to the second he never truckles. He knows everybody's business almost as well as he knows his own, and without the appearance of in- trusion. His ready understanding of human nature puts him in touch with the public pulse so closely that even the Duluth, South Shore & Atlantic couldn't hold him. His independence of spirit is apparent to the casual observer; his warm heart is evident not to Irishmen alone; his cleanliness is know^n to all. The man who will take a position on any question and hold it is worth something, if for nothing more than that he can be found in the same place twice. IRVIN S. CANFIELD (represextative.) One joke that never before has gone into print was sprung by a member of the house who could scarcely muster enough strength to carry a motion for a routine recess. It was on this wise, "It's a wonder Canfield and Van Keuren can't see the}" are talking too much." The man who was guilty of that obser- vation was himself the victim of self enchantment. And yet a greater percentage of the public utterances of the three men in- volved was true and to the point than were the utterances of the critics. Now the reason Canfield talked too much was this, — When any man refuses to train with the little cliques that naturally develop in any body of men, above all when he refuses to train with the big clique, commonly called the "push," he is a marked man. You will observe, gentlemen, in this specimen another beautiful picture of human nature. Apostasy is the mother of hate. No man is so eager to discipline, to crush, the man who makes his personality stand out alone as he who has never succeeded in standing alone or who has never dared. Yet even the apostate may be appeased with a sop of surrender now and then. But on every proposition Canfield was for Canfield and for what Canfield thought about it. His compromise came only as the alternative for defeat. He spoke often, — and spoke well. He voted often, — and voted well. But he couldn't often make the opposition vote or speak with him. Canfield's pet measure, — beyond the Alpena primary election bill which he passed — was the handling of land deeds and tax certificates in such shape that the tax title sharks could not seek exclusive information from the auditor general's office to hold up innocent purchasers for a quick rake off. Even the auditor general himself could have no objection to the bill. Everybody knew it was meritorious. But it did not pass. And it was defeated on its last chance because Canfield knew too much about the land tax and transfer system and his col- leagues did not know enough and would not admit it. Canfield is another lawyer who made himself and took hard bumps in the making. His predecessor gave the habitues of legislative halls much to expect from Alpena. Canfield has not disappointed them. He will come back. In his second term the rough lines of new acquaintance will be gone and he will be heard from with effect. 28 CHARLES H. CHAPMAN (state game axd fish warden.) When Chapman was appointed game and fish warden by Gov. BHss two years ago there were frightful doings at Lansing. One or two of the fellow townsmen of the new warden didn't like him and had a bad attack of heaves on the announcement of the news. Mr. Chapman's neck was gracefully deco- rated with a mill-stone at that time by the appointment of one, Brewster, as chief deputy. Brewster's expense ac- counts made a nasty nosegay for an in- vestigating committee of the legislature not many years since and Chapman has always refused to discuss the circum- stances of his appointment as second in command. But one fine day Brewster went down and out. Chapman issued his dismissal without ever cracking a smile and wnthout any public discussion. By that act he relieved the department of the greatest burden it had to bear and did so w4th very little pvrotechnics other than those exploded by the irate Brewster himself./ He has laid before the legislature a report that shows the expenditure of every dollar in connection with his depart- ment and that shows the actual work attempted and accom- plished for the last two years. The report, moreover, indicates economv and care and serious effort. And that is all novelty. Chapman has been struggling along on a pittance endeavoring to perform work that would require thousands of dollars more than are placed at his disposal. Besides money he needs equipment if the fish and game laws are to mean anything. Perhaps when the legislature washes that dark brown taste out of its mouth after the doses adminis- tered by the game department until comparatively recently, it will be willing to appropriate more monev for the warden's w^ork. The fish industry, and the fishing sport as an attraction for the tourist's money, are not inconsiderable in Michigan. Warden Chapman has been faithfully trying to place his department in a position to give the state the greatest benefits from both. He has tried to be warden all the time and is getting results. He is a Soo man ; ran a paper there for some time ; then gave it over to an enterprising young man who knows how to make money out of it. He went to the Soo for his health many years ago, ac- quired a crimson complexion, and refuses to leave. He is quiet, cautious, of long memorv, and busy. J^ 29 HENRY E. CHASE (deputy attorney general.) "Constitutional Chase," a term in pol- itics, which originated in the early part of the twentieth century in the state of Michigan, usually applied to a deputy state officer who has held his position so long and so tenaciously as to be re- garded as a part of a constitutional gov- ernment. That's the way our children's chil- dren will read it when some observing foreigner compiles a dictionary defining the political slang and phrases of the great republic. Chase has been in office over ID years. State officers taking charge of a de- partment for the first time respect the salutary custom of retaining in office a well-informed and in- dustrious deputy to keep the engines going and see that the inachinery is all in good repair. Chase has earned his place in the constitution of Michigan by diligent application to duty, by studious care in the consideration of the state laws, and by loyal championship of his department. When Chase first struck the capitol, for instance, the contracts for the heating and lighting and general care of the state building were lax enough in some cases to allow a team of horses to drive through and take a good load of state treasury funds behind them. About the first thing Chase set about doing was to fix the contracts so that the state would be the gainer and not the loser when any dispute arose. Chase is a fat, red-faced man with a large, speaking eye, an aldermanic front, a faculty of impressing his views everlastingly on the man he is endeavoring to impress, a pointed way of making an argument, and a laugh that makes you feel better for the rest of the day. He is as kind in handling the victims of dementia and hallucination who infest the state departments with alleged grievances and proposed legislation as he is in con- soling a depositor of the City Savings Bank of Detroit. He loves a good legal fight and a chief who loves to fight, has little use for the professional politician who carries his profession too far, and is politic enough never to get into print backwards. 30 ELBERT V. CHILSON (secretary of the senate.) "Mister Ashley, Mister Baird, Mista Brown, MisCook,nisCropseymsCurtismsD hert-y— s-y-fy-s-hay spresidentcho rumsenatespresent. ' ' That was not the steam escaping from the boiler, merely Chilson calling the roll. Chilson could break any talking machine he ever went up against. Sen- ators who were inclined to take a short nap after lunch found it very incon- venient for answering a roll call at the right time was as nifty work as beating the pistol on a hundred yards' dash. "Chils" always struck the same gait on the reading of a bill or any docu- ment before the senate. He had been a newspaper man. He knew how easy it was to read a column of matter four lines at a time and he didn't like to waste his breath going at a one line pace. His secretarial work was al- ways cleaned up with the same precision and dispatch. He furthermore acted as the parliamentary mentor of the presiding officer on finer points because he had been through the mill before. The only objection to Chilson as a secretary was the unmaking of a good politician. Of course he had an opportunity as secre- tary to interpose his political opinion now and then, but he had not the same freedom he could have enjoyed as a senator him- self. His foxiness is valuable. If there is anything he likes it is a political situation and the fun of getting out of it with a whole hide. "I've had my heart broken a dozen times," he says, "because I couldn't get my own way. But that is all part of the game." Up at the Soo, Chilson's old bailiwick, his political enemies know he can fight and fight fast. But like all political fighting it grows irksome after a time. Chilson's temper is a beauty under fire. It flames and flashes without regard to the furniture or the paper on the wall. He resents a slight or an injustice with the full force of his whole being, and laughs uproariously at a good joke with the same intensity and abandon. He is a bundle of nervous en- ergv with little spare meat, natty clothes, dandy ties, and a readv smile on davs when rheuinatism is leaving him alone. 31 ALBERT B, COOK (senator.) He walks timidly brambles. He runs open places for the him. He will not drooping blossom, serpent lies coiled, beautv of the bud to among the thick speedily past the sirens are calling pluck yon sweet for beneath the preying on the draw its victims. Nimbly he skirts the pitfalls and the thickets, tenderl}" tapping the ground in front before trusting it with his weight; and avoiding the wild beasts that sleep concealed in the underbrush. And at last the dav comes, and the session is over, and Parsifal returns to his own, — pure, spotless, undefiled Parsifal, safe from the claws that tried to snatch him from the path of rectitude or swipe his vote if for a moment the weary head drowsed. The robust young farmer from Shiawassee has seen many tricks turned and has vowed not to be entrapped. "Better move slowly than regret your haste," is his maxim. He does not fear himself, nor the temptation of joining the majority in return for bills receivable. Upright, manly, whole-souled, he sets out on his way when the session opens determined to com.e back conscience-clear, and ready for any inquisition his con- stituents may wish to inaugurate. His anxiety is the possi- bility of being fooled. The problem of his Lansing life is "Where am I at ? " Senator Cook has shown himself as fair a man as ever graced a legislative chamber. He was not satisfied with the republican platform of 1904 as far as primary elections were concerned and flatly told his people so. He made the best apologies he could for standing by the platform that held so great a flaw from his point of view, but from that same point of view he was ready to fight for his party when it was unjustly attacked. His primary reform opponents were loud in his praise for his contradiction of the statement made before the associated farmers' clubs that the legislature of 1903 had been exceptionally extravagant. He was one of the minority stalwarts of 1903 and in defending the legislature he defended the senate majority that had tread on his neck on more than one occasion. As a trickster he is absolutely no good. But how he does love a fast prize fight or a rabbit hunt! ^ 32 JESSE R. CROPSEY (senator.) He's a pooh bah in Vicksburg, is Cropsey. Some ambitious repubhcans climbed into each others' wool over in Kalamazoo and kept all their friends awake o' nights telling their own county and Calhoun wh}^ they should be sent to the state senate. Just to pacify the aspirants, Cropsey was yanked off the ticket as presidential elector and nomi- nated for the senate, — another lawyer if you please, village attorney for 13 years, president of the board of educa- tion, former circuit court commissioner. He'll tell you the rest if you really want to know. The senator didn't get nervous pros- tration this session from attending to business, but he attended to all they asked him to attend to. He was the undertaker. There was an advantage in sending bills to his federal relations committee, because such a motion took precedence over a motion to "indefinitely postpone" and accomplished the same object. The morgue was located in "Room A. — opening from the senate chamber, east" and an obliging committee clerk was always ready to exhibit the corpses whenever Chairman Cropsey was not on hand. Senator Moriarty, chairman of the railroad committee, and Senator MacKay of Detroit formed the majority of the directors of the morgue. It was there the Van Keuren resolution endorsing President Roosevelt's policy on railroad rebates reposed until congress had adjourned. Cropsey himself was never under very good control. He had a way of kicking over the traces whenever it pleased his fancy, much to the annoyance of some of the managers who had under- stood he was a stand patter. He assisted very considerably in bringing the two houses together on a direct nominations bill, which was quite as much as was expected from the home county of Senator Burrows and a Dingley. Cropsey's mind was not made to order. Above all things he was even tempered, good natured and cordial ; and even at times convivial. 33 WILLIAM L. CURTIS (senator.) In the life of Senator Curtis of Petoskey there is a verg good tip for prosperous old gentlemen with a bank account and worthy sons. Many pros- perous seigniors have an idea that the boy should get out and hustle for his money the way they did in the good old days. Now Curtis was not rated as the wealthiest man in Michigan b}^ a large wad, but as fast as his boys qualified for business he set them up for all he could afford without crippling himself, and told them that was all there was coming to them. If they are capable of taking care of the money that would come to them on the demise of their sire, the}^ are capable of taking care of it now; and now is the time they need it when they have youth and vigor to cooperate with it. That was Curtis's process of reasoning. He is very well satisfied with the experiment and proud of his family. Senator Curtis is the patriarch of the senate, born in '42, and from January to October older than Senator Van Akin. He looks to be the tallest man in the senate. He has a ready laugh and an old country complexion, with a rotundity and general bearing that would undoubtedly entitle him to a pair of spats and a monocle in Old Lunnon. Two years ago it was discovered that Curtis had cattle out in the Dakotas. That information did not become general property until he was missing when the final vote came on the primary election bill and the cause of reform was tarred and feathered. This session he began to get anxious about his cattle and was about to hike again, when a letter from one of his boys told him to let the cattle go to the devil so long as Michigan got primary reform. Senator Curtis left his cattle to bellow about his inattention and stayed by his guns until, as he put it, "the tail stopped wagging the dog" and the vote was taken. Senator Curtis has filled two terms in the senate and one in the house. He made some of the money he gave his bo^^s by 19 years' of hard farm management in Kalamazoo county. With one son he now owns the First National Bank of Petoskey. He has been mavor of Petoskev with the endorsement of both parties. 34 FREEMAN L. DECKER (representative.) When a man can hold down a seat on a board of supervisors for 24 con- secutive years and wind up as chairman and general high cockalorum, it's time to take off your hat to him. For the supervisor looks after the tax rolls and the tax man has rarely been popular since the days of Pharaoh. But Representative Freeman L. Decker, of the township of Forest, Missaukee county, has done all that. It is related how some democrats and some high strung republicans in Decker's county put up a little job to give him a bad jolt in the popular estimation a few months ago, and how Decker knew he was right, turned the attorney general's opinions on the enemy, and just remembered himself in time not to put his fingers to his nose. How does he win? Well, the successful politician always figures on two contingencies — first, Am I right? and second. Can I make a majority of the voters believe it? Decker seems to have enough natural sagacity to solve the first problem with- out much difficulty ; and they sa}^ up in his country he has enough pigs to solve the second even more easily. Decker, you know, has a snug little sum buried under the old oak tree or laid away in the corner in an old sock — just how much and where the tax assessor will have to find out for him- self. There are some things a reporter should not give away. And if Squire Decker in the enjoyment of his abundance, the fullness of his heart and the aspirations of his political soul chooses to present his neighbor with a juicy, toothsome porker now and then, whose business is it? They say, too, up in his country, that Decker has a way of getting delegations in a pinch that makes the poor pig blush. But he gets them. Ask Decker's political opponents about the Mesick-Darragh fight for congress a few years ago. It is to be noticed that Darragh won. Decker's ideas of politics and statesmanship are as good as his constituents want. He has stood pat for direct nominations under heavv pressure from the administration. He has im- portant work to do on the taxation committees of the house — and does it. He generally votes as though he didn't care who knew it. He "takes" with the boys, swears by the republican partv, and gabbles incessantly about Missaukee and Kalkaska. There are LL. B.'s in economics and philosophy who would give half their learning for Decker's warm hand and soft smile. 35 LUREN D. DICKINSON, (representative.) Here is a man who has lived a very earnest life, — too earnest. He admits that. His confession to the scribe is this: "For 25 years I did two men's work every day." The result of all this abuse of his God-given faculties is a reputation as stock and fruit raiser, an interest in a creamery association, an in- terest in a bank, a trusteeship in a Methodist church, a membership in the Knights of Pythias, a captaincy in the reform wing of his party, and a drooping of the chin between the fetlocks on rainy days that startles his friends and makes him sorry for himself. The rest of the confession is "I've quit that now. I have got to;" this last with the air of a deeply grieved man. And Dickinson is only 46. It will be noticed that the great apostle of the strenuous life is equipped with about as strenuous, husky, machinery as can well be attached to a human frame ; and yet President Roosevelt attends to his rough riding and outing as religiously as he does to his affairs of state. It doesn't pay to run a steam launch with an ocean going engine. "I've quit that now." With Dickinson it's the old story again of the fight for the top, — the toil, toil, toil until the habit of toiling has conquered every other instinct and the green fields look darkish brown, and the sun blisters and the stars hide and the whole world is a burning furnace, and there is no escape until the end of the chapter. The man from Eaton taught school in the winter and studied at night in the summer after the other man's work was done. He ate the bread of slavery until he got on his feet. But his self-slavery could not stop then. He must go on and on. Until one day the fields did look brown and the stubborn, indomitable spirit was made to halt here or move direct to the hereafter. With the exercise of ordinary common sense he should be with us for another 46 years. All the sincerity, the intensity, the perseverance, that made him the prosperous citizen, has made him the insistent, business- like legislator, mellowed by hardship and shattered health, but with the single purpose of wrenching from his conservative, unyielding party the direct nominations his people demanded, without disruption but with success. 36 GERRIT J. DIEKEMA (chairman of the state central committee.) While Chairman Diekema is not con- stitutionally connected with the all re- publican government of Michigan, he properly ranks as a part of it in the sense that he is partially responsible for it. He has been a crafty commander-in- chief. He has fought against dissen- sion in his own ranks and against a su- perior brand of gunpowder. His has been the delicate task of defending a platform on which he had honest doubts and against which he had practically declared himself. His has been the part of the peacemaker in Michigan in the name of the party of the republic. How skilfully he performed his duty, how well he planned his battles, the statistics show. His friends say it is time he fought some battles for himself, and his candidacy for the governorship in 1908 would be the logical development of a political career which many people anticipate. Diekema's political career runs far back. Beginning in 1884 he was elected representative for four successive terms from his old Dutch home of Holland. In 1889 he was speaker of the house at 30 years of age. In 1893 he ran ahead of his ticket but was defeated for attorney general. In 1894 he was one of the commission to make recommendations on the incorporation of fourth class cities and villages. In 1895 he was mayor of Holland. For over five years he has been chairman of the state central committee. His dominant characteristic is sincerity. He wants his party to win, because he believes in his party. He also wants it to be sincere, because he believes in sincerity. He wants party har- mony and party integrity and republican government and gov- ernment by republicans, and above all clean government. He is a native American with sturdy Holland parentage — no room for frivolity or flippancy or duplicity in that blood. He likes to make a speech before a convention — likes nothing better. He always brings the delegates together with an eye-opener of republican glorification and democratic damnation that sends the mercury up the tube a few degrees and gives the boys a chance to loosen up their larynx for the main performance of the day. Wait for the big cake walk in 1908. 37 ALFRED J. DOHERTY (senator.) space is limited. Much must be left unsaid. And there is so much to say! Doherty of Clare was first elected to the senate of 1901 when he behaved himself with becoming modesty and party loyalty. In 1903 he took the position of administration whip, vacated by Railroad Commissioner Atwood, and succeeded in securing the action desired by "the boys." In 1905 he assumed the same position, but he was compelled to listen to the advice of the governor as well as that of Mr. Atwood. A slight symptom of revolt against his leader- ship on the floor was manifested during the early part of the session, but was quickly suppressed by Doherty 's apparent self-abnegation on some minor matters, while he kept a watchful eye on develop- ments, and finished the session in presumably good standing with all the factions that had begun pulling at cross purposes. Doherty does not assume the attitude of the boss, nor even of the leader. It is his pleasure to act as the general agent on legislation in the upper house and come out of each in- significant scrap a victor. He has been chairman of the com- mittee on railroads in the past, in which capacity he has assisted in preventing the enactment of any marked reforms for the regulation of corporations. Personally, he has never stood for any overpowering opinion of his own, and has always found it as comfortable on one side of a question as the other provided he can't induce the boys to follow in the direction indicated in the first instance. No bill goes through the upper house until he has seen what there is in it. While he is licking one finger he is putting another one in to a fresh pie. Nothing is too small to receive his attention. Dohertv is a good hearted Irishman. He is a native of New York, and plumes himself on his American citizenship, but some of his ancestors were careless enough to accumulate a family name in old Erin. He is more sensitive than would be supposed from his mode of operations, more attentive to what the public prints say of him than he pretends to be, yet always ready to take the gaff with a smile when the truth is told. Senator Doherty's admirers have mentioned him in connec- tion with the governorship. He scouts the idea himself. He has not decided whether or not he will return to the senate. 38 THOMAS E, DOUBLE (represextative.) Chairman of the Montmorency board of supervisors, elected to the legislature on an anti-primary election platform and copartner in the great Double-Ivory bill, — these are the claims to distinction of Rep. Double. He is one of the quietest men in the house ; never makes any noise, but just watches the game as he would were there heavy money on the board. Between farming and lumbering, by the way, he seems to have enough cash. Double is one of us Dutch. Though he claims nativity in Ohio his parents offered sacrifices to a transatlantic taste for limburger and sauerkraut. So when the aged Holmes was one day protesting with vehemence in a private chat that "my people want direct nominations for governor," Mr. Double placidly and smilingly replied "my people don't." Mr. Double thereupon laughed heartily. That indicated that it was a joke, the point being that the Dutch blood had told the gentleman from Gratiot there were other constituents and other representatives to be considered in the settling of the great issue of 1905. Double's unassuming manner would never tell you he had been township clerk, school examiner of his county and county clerk, and a general political hustler ever since he put foot in Montmorency in 1884. His training as supervisor, too, fitted him most admirably for the work of representative. While he never appeared on the floor during a debate his counsel in the committee room and in the free and easy discussion outside the regular sessions of the house showed that he had paid attention to the affairs of the day and had formed intelligent views on all of them. "If there is one ofhcer who is nearer to the people than an- other" declared Attoreny Fred A. Baker of Royal Oak in a recent address to the house "it is the supervisor. He is closely in touch with every need of his constituents, he knows them all personally or else they all know him, and he represents more nearly than any other elective ofiEicer, I believe, the average intelligence of his communitv. " That is why men of the Double type are valuable under our form of government. He is never very far removed from his constituents and he lives their life. .S9 GEORGE W, DUNCAN (representative.) Labor's lack of wise, patriotic, sane leaders may yet wipe smears of blood over the pages of this country's history. The walking delegate who must be "seen," the union that pays for thugging and slugging, the adviser who counsels strike and war where peace and vic- tory can be assured, — all these are driv- ing their brethren into the lion's mouth. The mention of these modern condi- tions is germane to the subject of this sketch, for it defines Rep. Duncan quite clearly in a negative way. Next to the Brotherhood of Locomotive Engineers, the typographical unions have borne the palm for conservatism, sanity, achievement. For much of his life Duncan has been earning his living as a typographer. He has been president of the De- troit Trades' Council and of Typographical Union No. i8 and was the first secretary and treasurer of the Michigan Federa- tion of Labor. In all his work he has sustained the confidence of his coworkers and commanded the respect of employers. As a lawmaker Duncan has now served two terms. This session he has been acting as secretary of the Wayne Delega- tion and has assisted in several instances in inducing that hydra headed creation to pull itself together and act as one body. He has shown none of the petty jealousy and envy and intrigue that characterizes several representatives from Wayne in every delegation she sends to the capitol. He has devoted his brain to the performance of its natural functions and probed every matter of importance on which he has been asked to vote. His political game has been played in the sight of all. He has been a republican even to the extent of supporting the Detroit municipal administration all through the piece and has declined to be rewarded at this time for his loyalty with a job. For the sake of labor itself, if not for the community, Duncan should be returned. From him everybody is sure of fair treat- ment. 40 HORATIO S. EARLE (state highway commissioner.) The new state highway commissioner is no stranger among us. In the stren- uous days of the original Colby primary election bill Earle was a senator from Detroit, and had the delightful task of steering between an energetic number of radicals on one side and a threatening crowd of conservatives on the other. He was sure to expose a wide expanse of neck whichever way he turned. He did. The following campaign he was forced into the ranks of the conserva- tives, was taken up as their candidate, and defeated for the nomination by James E. Scripps, the candidate of the reformers. That was a bitter fight, fought by many of the conservatives past the nomination and into the election. The fact that Mr. Scripps has recently been credited with endorsing the appointment of Mr. Earle as high- way commissioner speaks as highly for Earle's qualifications for that position as for the public-spiritedness and liberality that in- spired the endorsement. Mr. Earle has been making inventions for himself and acting the good Samaritan to Michigan's bad roads for several years. He has had experience and enthusiasm — has them yet — and that is more than half the battle. Now with $go,ooo of good state money behind him for the next two years he ought to be able to demonstrate. He will. He was the only man mentioned for the position at any time within recent years, but never made himself a candidate. "I'm not going to ask you to appoint me highway commissioner," he told Gov. Warner. "I'm going to leave that to you. You know a highway commissioner when you see one. I believe you will appoint the best man you can find for the place." Earle has not changed his belief. Ever see him in action? He is the fastest talker in Michigan. When he can't make his auditors come his way with ordinary, sane logic, he loosens his buckles and puts the victims to the bad in a whirlwind of words, hoots, and jokes. He acquired that whirlwind stunt when he was young. He used to box — with the open hand, always with the open hand; but don't think he can't use a stiff fist punch when he wants to. He's a little fellow with a springy step and stands ready to try out any man his age — 50 years — and weight, at a quarter mile, high jump, boxing, wrestling or 100 yards. Think he'll do? J& 41 PHILIP EICHHORN (representative.) Some people go to the legislature be- cause they love political distinction ; some go because they have legislation to secure ; some go because they think it is "nice;" others couldn't tell why they go nor could anyone else. " Phil " Eichhorn goes primarily because he likes to be a good fellow. Unless it be Higgins of Cass, it would be difficult to name any legislator who has more real fun out of a session at Lansing than has the Port Huron hotel man. Every few days he is carrying some lonely lawmaker off to his hostelry and filling his stomach over Sunday. Anyone who eats in Lansing for more than a day or two at a time knows how popular that is bound to make any man. Then he comes back, pla3^s a game of pedro with the boys, and passes a little bill giving electric railways the right of eminent domain. Eichhorn can have more fun out of that than a baby elephant with a new velocipede. And when Eichhorn laughs, hold your breath; hold your breath I say, or you'll find yourself trying to pass it over to him to help him out. He chuckles, explodes, strains his chest, takes a fit, gets very red and then squares away with a convulsive jump that reminds you you have lost your wind watching him. Then sit down a few moments and you will hear from the speaker, — "The gentlemen from St. Clair Mr. Eichhorn." You can start for home now, for that's Eichhorn's motion to adjourn. When Eichhorn was absent from any session the house used to go on doing business until the sun went down and the owls caine out to help it look wise for nobody else pre- sumed to offer Eichhorn's motion. Eichhorn had the distinction of being one of half a dozen men in the lower peninsula who kept the grand dukes from be- yond the straits looking to their honors as friends of the corpor- ation. No machine man ever trod the halls of the capitol who was so absolutely indifferent to consequences or threats as this man when he set out to vote. Direct. nominations are to him bete noir and railroad correction an unnecessary waste of time. And yet Eichhorn was the author of the sane stiggestion of fixed salaries for legislators, which suggestion was done away with in the other end of the capitol. Eichhorn held federal offices for years and there is something about a federal office that makes a man charmingly careless of provincial criticism. 42 GEORGE E. ELLIS (representative.) It was advertised all through Mich- igan last fall that the renowned "Dea- con" Ellis of Grand Rapids had broken into politics. News soon came from the Kent district that hell was out for noon. The "better element" in in the second city, it seems, took Ellis's candidacy for the legislature as a piece of effrontery. Like the "better element" in our own lovely metropolis, they were quite accus- tomed to being taken into camp but they refused to be led by a profes- sional. For the "Deacon" has the reputation of being a very successful speculator and card shark. But the "Deacon" called their bluff. "I've made my pile" was his sage observation "so I won't be looking for another one if I go down to Lansing. You fellows want a square deal and I never handed out anything else." The "Deacon's" plurality was nearly 6,000. Then we all hiked off to Lansing full of expectancy to see the new freak in politics in much the same frame of mind in which we would rubber concentratedly at the prize joker in a minstrel show. It would have surprised no one if the "Dea- con" had broken into Gov. Warner's office and offered to stake him a primary election bill against a cheese factory on "horses." What happened? The desperate "Deacon" turned out to be a college bred man, of clean appearance, honest, frank speech, who neither drank, smoked, swore, nor "rounded," who never even showed any proclivities of the professional gamester, who inspired trust in his colleagues, and who left Lansing one of the honored men of the house. Not one roll call found Rep. Ellis deserting the people's side of the issue or dodging. It is the frill-less ingenuousness of his tone of voice articu- lating the best unconscious humor that makes Ellis's sincerity so entertaining. No inflection ever varies the absolute pla- cidity, no excitement ever alters the calm pitch of his drawl, when he arises on the floor of the house to say, — "The hy- draulic company said they didn't want me to do anything with this bill until they had seen me. I thought it would be a pretty good scheme to pass the bill and let them see me after- ward;" or this, "I hope you people aren't going to get excited over the moral side of this Sunday closing bill. It ain't a question of morals at all, just a matter of common sense." 4.3 TOWNSEND A, ELY (senator.) Senator Ely claims that his father was the first man to settle on the north side of Pine River in Gratiot county. His family went there from Indiana in 1854. The senator is still operating the farm, and not at a loss by any means. There is a little private family episode about the old farm, which episode, with apologies to an outraged confidence, will be related in about twenty words right here. For it points a moral. Senator Ely is the father of one of those farm bred boys who decided that he could not let his light shine in such a limited sphere of activity. Farm life looked like drudgery and the distant fields of the unknown far greener than his own. So he went to college. Then he began to practice a profession in Detroit. And then he got sick of it all. And gradually he woke up. Now he is getting next to nature again 'way down in New Mexico and is making money instead of spending the old man's. The scribe has outraged the senator's confidence on that story because it may perchance reach the ears of some young noodlekins who feels that genius has made his carcass its abode and who can't see a good thing when he has it. Budding youth sometimes exuberates until the old man looks like an old foci. But he isn't. In the Ely case the old man is still at home on the farm, one of the most prosperous, best groomed, and com- fortable citizens of a comfortable state, quite satisfied that he has done something in this world in that he has made use of the instruments placed within his reach. He won a second lieutenancy with the Michigan troops after entering the ranks as a private at the opening of the war. He went back to the farm, has been president of the village of Alma for three terms, and was postmaster under both Hayes and Harrison. He is now 62 years of age, bronzed and hearty. Senator Ely will be recorded in the anuals of '05 as the father of the bill creating Michigan's highway department, and as one of the men who gave Michigan her first general primary election law. His only collar is of the ordinary linen variety. 44 L««iJ ^ AUGUSTINE W. FARR (SEXATOR.) Still the handsomest man in the legislature! Mr. Farr bore that honor in 1903 and must be accorded it once more. To be sure Senator Traver of Wayne is in the running, and in strong, but on general principles Wayne is not entitled to any prize that can be just as well held by somebody up state. Therefore Onekama is the happy town. Senator Farr is a very mild mannered man, with silver grey hair, rosy com- plexion and kindly blue eye. He is anything but strenuous. Yet his supply of calm reserve and perseverance has carried him through some experiences that would give all the scope for strenu- ousness more strenuous men could wish. In his younger days, while in charge of a large lumber camp along the Lake Michigan shore, he led his men against a raging forest fire that gutted the whole of the western part of the state and wiped out towns and villages and other camps owned by the same concern, Farr's being the only property preserved to his employer. He did that as a matter of course, as he does everything. Most of his interests today lie in real estate and farming. Besides holding several local offices, he was a member of the legislature of '77. He has just completed his third term in the senate. For the past two sessions Farr has been chairman of the committee on cities and villages and has tried to be as liberal with the petitioners who came before him as the majority of that committee would allow him to be. He has been sorely tried by men who do not see as he does in the enactment of local legislation, but has never retaliated by trickery, skuldug- gery, or invective. He is firm, honored and honorable, altruistic as the golden rule, loyal always to his party and to himself, courteous to his friends, considerate of such enemies as he may have, and think- ing often, speaking sometimes, and tenderly of his home and familv. 45 ANDREW FYFE (SEXATOR.) Born in Glasgow, trained in the public schools of Ontario, a furniture worker and reporter in Grand Rapids, a poli- tician who gets about anything he wants. That's "Andy" Fyfe. Anybody who has seen him enjoy a first class row in the senate knows how he got there. He did some more things, too. Once upon a time he was appointed to a clerkship in the superior court in the second city. There he studied law and was admitted to the bar. President Cleveland appointed him surveyor of the port in '93. Then he dipped into insurance work and can see a victira a very long way off. In '96 he jumped the democratic party and went on the stump to fight Bryan and free silver. Now he is a republican senator and has been in the race for the collectorship of Grand Rapids. He is 42 years old, looks 10 years younger, and acts less. Fyfe is a song bird and story teller. He has a new story for every time the man makes change and insists on singing when he feels like it or any old time the other fellows feel like it. As this volume has to go through the mails his repertoire of good varns will be reserved for another edition. Fyfe was the reform leader in all the important fights on the floor; firstly, as stated above, because he enjoys a first class row; and secondly, because nobody felt inclined to go to it with the vim of the Scotchman. "The senator from the sixteenth does not understand the English language" roared Moriarty in a hot debate one day. "I thought I could read English pretty well" retorted Fyfe "but I will admit I'm a little shy on the Irish." "That isn't the way it reads at all" said Doherty the day after in another mix-up with Fyfe. "The meaning is as plain as the English language can put it." "Yesterday it was the Moriarty 's who couldn't understand English, and today it's the Doherty's" was the quick rejoinder. Fyfe with the help of Baird, made the losing fight against the $10,000 grant for the state fair at Detroit. There are some good lawyers who think he won. In that clash he showed the same knowledge of and sympathy with human nature, the same acumen in debate, and the same clearness of vision that characterized his arguments in nearly all the parts he played. 46 WILLIAM J. GALBRAITH. (REPRESENTATIVE.) "The commander of thought and expression." Such was the compH- ment paid to the gentleman from Houghton by Higgins of Cass, which offers still further proof of the keen- ness of Higgins's perception. Galbraith is essentially a student both of theories and affairs. Having made a specialty of the English lan- guage as instructor he naturally knows how to most forcibly place his views before his brethren. It is this ability to think and speak that has ranked him among the first leaders of the house for two sessions. As the spokes- man of the ultra-conservative wing of the legislature he has been given extraordinary opportunity to display his forensic powers. As one of few men in any legislature who can probe and solve such abstruse questions as details of taxation and corporation management his oppor- tunity has been further enlarged. His exposition of the evils of direct nominations were quite as entertaining as his defense of his bill giving the tax commission powers of equalization was logical, forceful, compelling. Allowances must be made for the natural disputatiousness of the lawyer, but on larger matters Galbraith was always a haven of rest to the pencil stricken reporter. He was chairman of the committee on taxation. He must come back and go higher up. Personally, he is just a trifle flinty as a vote getter. They have a different way of doing things in the upper peninsula. In the capitol the gentleman from beyond the straits must contend for votes against gg other men who can rank as leaders in their respective communities, who must be very close to their constituents, and who easily and naturally solicit votes as favors rather than demand them. It is the common handi- cap of all the northern men. Galbraith is loaded with Scotch and Irish blood. For fighting purposes there is none better though it sometimes runs shy on molly coddle. He leaves too much to his logic, forgetful of the fact that logic was not made for legislators nor politicians. Integrity, worth, impatient intellect are his, and a clean soul. "I thank God" was his diatribe one day in reply to an insinuation "that the milk o' human kindness has not turned to gall in me, that every man to me is not guilty until proven innocent." A William Galbraith, now and then. Is relished bv the dullest men. 47 EDWIN N, GARDNER (SERGEANT-AT-ARMS OF THE SENATE.) In the days of Moses Parshelsk}- and glorious neckwear and fair women and diamond rings and nabob raiment and luscious locks, the proud bearing and stately figure of the sergeant was wont to prey on the minds of the senators. They themselves wondered if they ever could attain to such, or if ever "Moz" should retire from the scene of activity whether the pillars of the state house could maintain their accustomed maj- esty, whether all dignity would hie hence to follow its genius to other courts, or to leave in sorrow the halls its master knew no more. "That will be about enough," as Moz would say. The federal government now keeps him in good health and fancy vests for alleged work and the state has se- cured the services of a senate sergeant who leaves the dignity to the appearance of the august chamber in which the state's parliamentarians can always agree, — at least, on who shall pay for the drinks. There is never any split in the party on that question. On all others Sergeant Gardner has been ever ready to dip into the discussion and clear the floor at a moment's no- tice. For there have been times when it seemed his broad shoulders and his chunky arm would be far more effective than the president's gavel. Now and then a visitor in a creased coat and new socks strolled into the senate chamber with a blazing cigar between his fingers and a look of determined importance on his visage. As he jerked one lapel of his coat to call attention to himself the stout sergeant generally had the other lapel transfixed with a deathlike grip and the visitor threw out his cigar or went out with it. It wasn't Gardner's necktie nor his luscious locks that did the business. It was the formidable swing of his under jaw. That jaw was just built for trouble. And the tall man with the front and the disposition to get "sassy" did not need more than a glance at the short stocky figure and the steel blue eyes to realize that he was apt to capsize in the next squall unless he took in a reef. The discipline of the senate employes and habitues was never better. Gardner is not so much on parade, but 48 CASSIUS L, GLASGOW (SEXATOR.) President pro tempore by virtue of his own personal force, and the repre- sentative of Eaton and Barry counties in the upper house! The men who make the program in the upper house would have preferred some one a little less liberal. But there were several men in the upper house who are not in the habit of making programs and yet who thought that Glasgow would be about right for assistant presiding officer. In 1903 Glasgow showed that he had individuality. He decided that a limited amount of primary reform would do. He couldn't get support from either the radical primary reformers or the antis to carry his point. Nevertheless he budged not. On the final vote for or against the Colby bill he went with the antis and voted "no" after an able denunciation of what he regarded as a revolutionary measure. He was the logical moderator and the man to whom all factions looked as a central figure. He had antagonized no one, while his very sturdiness of character had attracted all. It was more because they feared he would snatch the honor away than from any hope of securing an ally in the chair that the antis trotted him out for the presi- dency in 1905. He had no opposition. In the frequent absence of Lieut. Gov. Maitland, Glasgow spent much of his time this session in the chair. His decisions were clean cut, to the point, and fair at all times and under all pressure. If he stumbled on a delicate point in parliamentary practice he was willing to admit his mistake and gracefully recede from his position. If he believed his ruling was right he was ready to stand or fall with it. Important general bills he watched closely. He never hesitated to call a colleague to the chair in order to participate in a fight on the floor. He patiently drafted a primary election bill that reached from Lansing to Nashville and back again, but did not sulk when sentiment crystallized on another measure. Again he was the moderator and handled negotiations in the senate by which the compromise primary bill was passed. The same fairness that made him president pro tem., the same spirit of conservative progress, the same hard fighting for a principle, the same powerful and persuasive oratory, — these are the germs of his tacit candidacy for lieutenant governor. ^ 49 JOHN R, GORDON, AND OTHERS (representatives.) This souvenir volume was not origi- nated for the dissemination of scandals nor for the suppression of truth. Un- complimentary details of character may be omitted without any injustice to the purpose of the book, but matters of important history as far as the personnel of the legislature is con- cerned must find some slight mention here. It is for that reason that the existence of John R. Gordon of Mar- quette and some others must be noted. To most legislators Gordon proved himself a good fellow. He made a splendid fight for the appropriations for the Marquette normal school, and won because he had a good case. But early in the session he called public attention to himself and his immediate friends by entering a sphere of operations wherein activity has not re- dounded to the glory of representatives in times past. Gordon introduced bills to prevent the traffic in cigarettes, to prohibit the manufacture of slot machines, to stop the sale of renovated butter, and interested himself mightily in that sort of legislation. Under fire from the press he succeeded in passing the slot machine bill in the house as a matter of self protection, leaving its death to the senate. The senate, of course, killed it. Rep. Walker of Bay introduced a bill to tax sleeping cars, which he afterwards admitted was Gordon's bill. Rep. J. S. Monroe of Gogebic spent the early part of the session blocking Detroit's chances for municipal ownership of street railways. He was ably assisted by the attitude of Rep. Robinson of Detroit. Monroe later inaugurated a campaign for the purification of baking powder. Rep. Thomas of Huron said there were "no theaters to amount to anything" in his county, but he introduced a bill to close Sunday theaters and stop Sunday amusements. He claims this was his own production. Still another measure turned up to compel manufacturers of patent medicine to expose on the labels the ingredients of their nostrums and ruin their business. These bills and their first brothers are introduced every session and are seldom pushed. They are always aimed at wealthy and prosperous institutions. j^ 50 CAUGHT! The gentleman from receives a call from his wife. JOSEPH GREUSEL (represextative.) How can one criticise a brother? For year after year the retired rep- resentative of the Detroit Free Press occupied the same desk in the house of representatives that is now held 1)y the scribe of this volume. The same enthusiasm, the same disgust, the same honor, the same defeat, the same grind of work have been ours through legislative sessions begun be- fore the one was old enough to push a pen and closing when the other be- gan to feel himself too old. Rep. Greusel has been very severely criticised for becoming an opponent of direct nominations. But he at least has the credit of apprising his constituents in due season of his change of heart and of winning his last election on an open, honorable platform. At no time has there been room for the intimation that Greusel deserted his flag or proved, as did some of his colleagues by their votes, that he had sailed under false colors. The great thing Greusel did for his constituents was to cinch for them $5,000 toward a statue of Gen. Macomb to be erected in front of the majestic county building of Wayne. His deep love for the history of Michigan and her great men burst forth in a quarter of an hour of splendid eloquence and appeal and the house cast but one vote against an appropriation which a ways and means committee had labored months in bringing forth, and then with no recommendation for passage. That was a great thing because it heralds an appreciation and cul- tivation of greatness. In the defeat of his resolution looking to municipal owner- ship of street railways, Mr. Greusel succumbed to the lobbyists of a powerful corporation and the cool-blooded support of the municipal administration of Detroit. In that defeat he showed his weakness as a legislator in his inaptitude for playing the game as it is played, — by the trading of votes, the support of disagreeable minor measures, and the turning of the many little quirks that go farther than logic in secur- ing help. His execution of humor was a feature of the session, — a lumbering, original style of humor that laughs comfortably as it waddles along, and gives a most pleasing effect. Public- spiritedness is his saving grace as it should be in all journalists. 52 MARTIN HANLON (representative.) "Father" Hanlon is Irish. He may deny that but nobody will believe him if he does. He was born in New York state, but old Erin couldn't have been very faraway. His face is too rotund, — his eye too roguish, — his smile too open. They call him father here because he in appearance at least, resembles so closely that jovial, self-sacrificing class of churchmen who never have children of their own — who make the whole world their children and their brethren and their own. Hanlon is that wa}" too. Some people have said he was English. Out at the capitol we would as readily believe him a dago. Nothing to it but Irish. Over in Williamston where Hanlon runs a drug store they tell some startling tales of energy and stick-to-it-ive-ness and heavy uphill fighting of this same goodnatured Irishman. His people were exceptionally poor. Hanlon laid hold of a hammer and a bellows and shod horses until he was 23. But the light was breaking, — had already broken. He left the blacksmith shop and plunged into the boy's work of acquiring a primary education. If his heart was as gay under that strain on strong manhood as it is today he didn't suffer much. Then he began to do those things that only strong, energetic men can do. And now he flaunts his independence before the memory of his vouthful poverty — and thanks himself and providence for what he has accomplished. He brings a very considerable supply of independence to the house of representatives. One day he presided in commit- tee of the whole. The boys decided to have some fun. They didn't have half as much as father did and they fooled away 45 minutes of precious time in the bargain. A motion was made to reconsider a vote. "How did the mover vote" was demanded from an angry debater, eager to score against his adversary. "The chair doesn't know and the chair isn't going to inquire" was the reply. "I think we have been joking long enough" said another member. "let us quit our monkeying and get down to business." "And the chair is with the gentleman from Tuscola on that suggestion" came again from the presiding officer. The house quieted. "Father" Hanlon proceeded with the business almost unconscious of any attempt by the wags of the house to ruf- fle him. And "Father" Hanlon will be unruffled when a lot of people are dving of nervous prostration and disappointment. A good fighter with a good temper beats the devil in the first clinch. MICHAEL HARRIS (representative.) Michael Harris, a great, big, burly, bubbling, Irishman with Uncle Sam's certificate of citizenship was one of the men who wiped off the map in 1904 the political countenance of Gid- eon T. Werline, the Alger-democrat of Menominee, the man who wouldn't ride on a pass and made himself a pest to those who did by his preach- ments of danger to the state. The friends of the railroads didn't gain much in defeating him. Harris looks altogether too good natured to make one believe he would refuse any good thing he didn't have to steal, but he came to the capitol with a campaign in his pocket for cheaper railroad fares in the upper penin- sula. Of course the same old thing happened to the cam- paign. Somebody cut a hole in the pocket and it leaked out. What became of it nobody knows. But the Irishman has demonstrated that he will play good ball once he learns how to pitch curves; and a man doesn't learn all the shoots in one session. The demonstra- tion was this: "Merciful Mike" Moriarty thought the circuit court stenographer in Harris's district ought to have more money. He accordingly rushed a bill through the senate boosting the salary. Harris believed the stenographer was getting enough at the old rate and said so. Knight of Dick- inson, Gordon of Marquette, and almost the entire upper peninsula delegation swooped down on Harris and Mike sat on the side line and cussed. It was no use. Harris insisted the increase was a needless expenditure of the taxpayer's money and said so very bluntly. It was no silken speech. But it routed the whole opposition. Perhaps some day Harris will work the same game on the railroad rate proposition. Harris did not loom up very large in the initiation of general legislation. In that way he did as little harm as possible and probably as much good as his compeers. He gave his con- stituents as nearly as he could what he thought they wanted and carried himself with a very communistic air generally for a man from the land of corporations and dividends. He went the whole length on primary election and seemed to be satis- fied with results. Since Michael left the ould sod a boy of 14 in '66 he has been mining, lumbering, farming, politicking, running a store and raising a family. He ought to know about what's wanted, and he stands well enough with the boys to get it. JAMES G. HAYDEN (senator.) Thirty years ago Jim Hayden and Jim Rumer were farm laborers and pals. In the natural course of events they drifted away from each other, — Rumer to enter the medical profession and Hayden to fight his way to the top hand over hand. Last November Rumer sat back in his surgery to read about his own election to the senate. Then he noticed that Jim Hayden had been elected to the same senate. He laid his paper on his knee and sat back to think. "Jim Hayden? Sure, that must be my Jim." He was right. And the two old pals met for the first time in 30 years in the senate chamber at Lansing. Hayden has been spinning the wheel of fortune since early childhood. He has labored on the railroad track and as a section hand as well as on the farm, until at last he has built up a real estate and insurance business and claimed success as his own. He has been treasurer of Cass, his native county. He is an active fraternity man and politician. He is quiet, re- tiring, reserved, with a kindly disposition, and an earnest interest in his legislative work. Somebody somewhere has told the storv of the three men who set out on life's journey together. One would be a poet and philosopher. He would win fame and have a career. His name would be on every lip. He died with half his verses unread. The second would be a great scientist. He, too, would win fame. He would solve the problem of creation, mayhap. He would delve and delve into the mysteries of the laboratory until at least his discoveries would be the envy of the learned and his name writ large among the great men of the world. He lived to see disappointment and lost hope grinning in on his helplessness; himself unheard of. The third went about the work that lay before him every day. And then he saw a woman. He loved her and married her. And soon he went about each day working to fill his basket with bread for the mother and her little ones. And each night he returned to them and each day set off again on his search. And once in the evening homeward bound, he came upon a beautiful temple, silent, white and wide, all of marble, and he wandered through it and among its columns, drinking its beauty and forgetting the weary toil of earning bread all day. He was welcomed by one in white robes. i\nd of him the wanderer asked what place it was. "This" was the answer "is the hall of fame. So few find it." HENRY T. HEALD (represextative.) Except when he received an urgent note summoning him to the galleries nobody loved a fight quite so well as Rep. Heald. Heald is a lawyer and there is a fight in Grand Rapids be- tween lawyers at every pause in the conversation. This young man never attained that enviable, unruffled de- meanor under fire without cultivation. And the fight seldom appealed to him as worth while unless it was too hope- less for others to lead it. Heald 's first exhibition of nerve was his forlorn attempt to delay, single- handed, action in the house on the bill ousting Secretary Baker from the state board of health. For a whole afternoon he kept the house in check assaulting every motion with renewed vigor, though aware that the jury had already decided the case. So logical and clear was his protest against the bill that he made his opponents listen and applaud. He quit only on the last roll call confident that nobody voted without knowing why and contented in that he had kept the administration very busy. "You won't get very far in the game at that rate" remarked a wise old owl who had been riding in the bandwagon until he had grown corns. "I don't care a damn whether I do or not" was the ready response with a smile attached. Heald's next performance was to lead the fight for the at- torney general against the Michigan Central lobby on the bill giving the state the right of investigating the company's books. When it looked as if the railroad was going to win that was the time Heald put on fresh steam. There were doings every day, Heald smiled a little more than usual, and the railroad lost. Then he took the first opportunity to smash the proposition giving the tax commission equalizing powers. He failed, left a motion to reconsider the vote by which the bill passed, and went home. There being no other fights in sight he stayed there. Heald is a bachelor of philosophy of the University of Mich- igan of 1898, and 29 years of age. When the session closed he was a bachelor de facto. But there were rumors. ^ 56 ALBERT OSCAR HEINE (senator.) There was no other primary reformer in the whole legislature just like him. He wanted all the primary reform there was on earth or he wanted nothing. No half way measures for him. Nomi- nate the president of the United States by direct vote? Hell, yes. Nominate 'em all by direct vote. You can't nominate too many that way for me. If I'm going out of business I'M like to see some other suckers come with me. I always did hate to be alone. Why don't you want to nominate all the state ticket by direct vote, Cook, and the judges? I thought you were a primary reform man. Those people aren't a damn bit better than we are. Let 'em all come under the same law. Makes me sick to hear a lot of four flushers sit around and say they're for primary reform and then flunk. Now it's just like this with me. By , I'll be primarv elections • , reform all the way Hell!!!^ Heine was a member of the senate elections committee and felt just about that way. He handed poor, lonesome Senator Cook a few sentiments of that kind during one committee meet- ing in which Cook was vainly trying to secure a favorable report on the compromise bill passed by the house. Heine could probably have made Cook take him seriously, if Chairman Baird had not interspersed several ejaculatory tehees and well nigh burst a blood vessel at the fun of it all. Baird and Heine were chums. Heine moved that the com- mittee arise on the ground that Cook wouldn't agree to report- ing out a good broad bill. "There ain't goin' to be no motion to adjourn right now" said Baird. "Mr. Chairman" insisted Heine, without gaining recognition. "You're a hell of a chairman." Whereupon both Baird and Heine laughed loud and long. All legislation of this kind was a very good joke to Heine. He had six months' enjoyment at the capitol. But there were two occasions when the joke went too far for him. One occasion was the passage by the house of the Ming bill abolishing trading stamps. The other was an attack of small pox that overtook him about the time he was sympathizing with the health officer of his own district in the latter's revolt against the small pox inspection work ordered by Secretary Baker of the state board of health. However, Heine lived to see the health officer win. Heine is a Hamburger, rare-done. 57 HENRY H. HERKIMER (representative.) If there is one thing the civil war of the sixties taught the world, it is the lesson that the units of one of the greatest armies ever mobilized under- stood in peace the value of the blood they had shed. Never in the memory of man did a host of such proportions so quietly disperse and return in all sincerity to the earning of a liveli- hood. The men of the brown button by that greatest of all achievements fired the republic with new life and set it going steadily to its destinv. It is as one of these that Rep. Her- kimer will be best appreciated. He has done nothing as a statesman that will attract especial notice. His days have been lived for the most part in pleasant places. He was born and bred in a good home amid the inspiration of the deeds of his honored pro- genitor, General Herkimer. When the trumpet sounded in '62 he entered Co. K, Fifth Michigan Cavalry and served until peace was assured. Then he returned to old Monroe county, where his father had taken up government land as early as 1834, took to himself a wife, and since then has tilled the soil, — and been happy. He is nearly 63 now and carries his age as a citizen soldier should. As chairman of the committee on drainage he has this ses- sion succeeded in giving many counties the popular right of electing their drain commissioners and adjusted several mat- ters of important local interest in different parts of the state. His work has always appeared to be eminently satisfactory, though some of the water drinkers complain that he doesn't hate the saloon hatefully enough. After all that's Herki- mer's business. A good soldier, a good home maker, and a good citizen is a safe man to trust with public business. 58 THOMAS T. HIGGINS (representative.) Higgins is the dove. It was a flabby punster who ridiculed that appellation and averred that the full title of the gentleman from Cass was The Honor- able Tom Tit Higgins. That was be- cause the flabby person did not appre- ciate the significance of the situation. Higgins is the dove because he walked into Gov. Warner's office one day with a primary election bill in one hand, an olive branch in the other, and a mouthful of speech. They were strenuous days for the governor. His excellency was working for a platform primary bill. Higgins was working for the Higgins bill. And there are those who believe the Higgins bill was quite as good as the law that was ultimately enacted. The whole incident refutes the impression of some statesmen that Higgins was too funny to be taken seriously. Higgins was funny. He was also serious. He said so. No man con- nected with the state government of 1905 took himself more seriously. In old Bill Shakespeare's day they would dress Higgins in a cap and bells, put him in a king's court and give him a monopoly on jests. Then Higgins would say all the mean things he liked, and everybody would laugh except the fellow who was hit, and every time Higgins made a hit his reputation as a joke maker would grow and bloom. There is no kingly court in these days to start the Higginses on the high road to fame, but there is a legislature with a free- for-all entry. Now and then the legislature produces a Hig- gins, — a man who is unconsciously funnv, who utters wisdcm in syllables of metaphor, who pours forth indiscriminate sense and nonsense with a gesture and a pose that draws ecstatic attention. Never has the gentleman from Cass declined to entertain the house with his views on an}' subject that came before the representatives. How well will be remembered the calm recognition of McKav of Tuscola as "the gentleman from Michigan" after Uncle William had been baiting Higgins as chairman of the committee of the whole! And then there is that undying ebullition in the throes of a fight on a Michi- gan Central bill — "The railroads have done as much for me as the state has." And you, the initiated, knew him as a hero of "30 years' service." J^ 59 IV^SHI ■ ^■V'.^p H 1 JOHN W, HOLMES (represextative.) Gratiot county has the honor of having sent to the house of representatives for his third term one of the very best men that Michigan can boast, legis- latively speaking. Send him again, Gratiot; you're not likelv to improve on him. John W. Holmes is no genius. He doesn't look at all like biblical de- scriptions of the cherubim. He pre- fers side whiskers to wings for a few years at least. But he is honest, fearless, fair and square, with a rustic variety of common sense, with a reason- able amount of healthy grey matter for it to filter through, and with sufhcient energy to use it. Given all this with enough general information and reading to stock the cerebral plant, and what more can the state get for $3 a day and mileage? Holmes is best known this session as the author of the auto- mobile bill. On this measure his strength of purpose proved almost as fanatical as it does when he sees a chance to smash a saloon. He refused to concede any point of importance during the debate and, as a result, lost out on several clauses. He sincerely believes he is fulfilling a great mission on earth by soaking the man with the automobile. He has long since become accustomed to the trolley car and the steam engine. If Holmes had his way he would convert every saloon into a house of prayer and thanksgiving and give the drink mixer the job of chief psalmist. If the mixer refused to psalm, he would frazzle him, fry him "turned over," spice him up with a little brimstone and tobasco and offer him to the first Methodist, preacher as a fit and fulsome sacrifice. Not being able to get all his own way, Holmes is willing to make such laws as will gradually wipe the saloon man out of existence or convert him before the last great day. And it is benign charity that inspires all this. Holmes must not be taken for a crank. He is a man of quiet insistence and sane judgment as a rule and has the faculty of getting the votes and voting his own way even if he doesn't. He believes the people want direct nominations and will work for them, but he is willing to stick to his party whether it gives the people what they want or not. As a sober economist he is very valuable in a legislature where extravagance is apt to run riot. He is an oldish man now — 65 years. He hails from Alma. 60 GRANT M. HUDSON (representative.) Farmer's boy, student, Baptist min- ister, merchant, farmer, politician and anti-saloonist, — that is the Hfe of Rep. Hudson of Kalamazoo for 37 years. It is not the first time a man has left the pulpit for the forum, nor is it the first time the preacher has been truh' successful in politics, — successful in la}'- ing down a policy and fighting for it with majorities or against majorities. Any minister of the gospel who has in- tellect and energy and can hold his own against a modern christian congregation is qualified to tackle any proposition from Nero's bulls to Michigan politics. At the capitol in this year of grace Mr. Hudson has kept the hotel men, beer men, whisky men and free drinkers extremely busy. He can devise more methods for embarrassing the traffickers in strong drink than anybody who has challenged them for some sessions. He introduced some half-dozen bills for regulating and restricting the booze business from as many different angles and forced some fight- ing on near!}" all of them. Most important, of course, and most troublesome, was the measure extending the principle of local option to voting precincts, wards, townships, and municipalities. That was the cause of more than one excur- sion to Lansing by parties interested on both sides, the one armed with hymnals and the other with corkscrews. Hudson lost and lost well. He fought to the finish and didn't get bilious when he was turned down. Judging by the make up of the man he'll keep a lot of people busy again in 1907. You've heard of the puppy and the root. Hudson does not campaign like a prohibitionist, although the whisky men have been willing to vote him all kinds of names. Your prohibitionist would precipitate a revolution to carry his point. Hudson's is the much more effective policy of benevolent elimination. It was a matter of wonderment to the boys who sipped a highball after a hard day's session that Hudson should be such a good fellow and such a "crank." He "mixed" well without the assistance of the highball, he made friends, he spoke sanely and fearlessly, and classed as one of the real orators of the legislature. If the newspaper men had their way he wovild come back. Something would be doing all the time. ^ 61 WILLIAM E, IVORY (representative.) Hadley township, Lapeer county, is rock ribbed, unchangeable, immovable, susceptible to nothing but ancient re- publicanism. It has been claimed that Hadley was the headquarters and the bulwark of the republican "machine" of Lapeer county, and it is known that the democrats had some hope of help from Lapeer county in 1904. But Hadley elected its man to the legislature. There was something an- cient and rock ribbed about Rep. Ivory's attitude on primary reform; otherwise he was as liberal minded and as free with his vote as the inde- pendent free lances of Wayne. It was Ivory who was Double's partner in the introduction of the platform primary bill. But he lost the honor of recognition as a primary reform legislator when the senate wiped his name off the bill rather than couple it with that of Dickinson, who had deserted Israel and led the Philistines to victory. So bitter was the defeat of the leader's anointed that it was even intimated the jaw bone of an ass had figured in the fray. Ivory himself was not guilty of such an insinuation. He rubbed off the bumps and joined hands with the administra- tion in arranging a compromise to suit the majority. Loyal to his leaders, he denies that he was disloyal to his people. The record interrogations of the grange he answered in such a way as to leave him a free hand in primary election matters. If there was a misunderstanding he lays it up to the grange. On other important bills he did not show himself a tool. The Hadley blue is a fair sample of Michigan's prosperous yeomanry. He comes of a generation of farmers and tills the land his grandfather cleared in '39. He has played his part in the public affairs of his locality, served for years as a super- visor, is a member of several fraternal orders and one of the stand patters of the Lapeer republican committee. In his geniality he is almost boyish, in his view of life healthy and cheerful. "Long may thy hardy sons of rustic toil "Be blest with health, and peace, and sweet content!" 62 JAMES D, JEROME (representative.) Sensitivity should have no place in politics. The man who hesitates from fear of criticism is lost. It does not follow that callousness will always win. But elections and horse races being alike uncertain there would seem to lie but one maxim worth while for the man in the public eye, — " Be sure you're right; then go ahead." These generalizations are permissible in discussing the work and personality of Rep. Jerome of Detroit. He has always tried to be right. He has gen- erally tried to go ahead, but always fearful lest something may happen to place him in a wrong light. Misunder- standing and misconstruction of motive constitute part of the chances of the game. The scribe would respectfully recom- mend to him to take a look at a leaf of Senator Baird's book and "don' care a d ." Merely a look will be sufficient. Mr. Jerome, being small of stature, objects to the famil- iarity of "Jimmy" as a form of address. He should make that cognomen an asset. Senator Depew declared in Chicago last summer that Congressman Cannon should allow his name to go on the national ballot for vice president because the mere name "Uncle Joe" would be worth 10,000 votes in New York state. When a reporter hands a trained politician a familiar nickname or an oblique compliment the politician "buys" for the reporter. Imagine "Tony" Weiler of Detroit trying to carry an aldermanic election as Mr. Anthony Weiler! With a few of these minor amendments Mr. Jerome should be able to remain in politics for some time. His reputation has not been besmirched. Neither has the smell of fire passed on him. He worked like a little tiger for the Macomb mon- ument appropriation for Detroit and got it. He challenged the noodle clauses in the compromise primary election bill as it came from the senate and tried to knock the noodles out. He succeeded in the enactment of a law preventing the promiscuous sale of "dope" to unfortunate drug fiends. He stood stalwartly by the popular measures demanded by his metropolitan constituents. He did not spend his time try- ing to enact laws for the protection of frogs or fish worms. He has a charmingly intimate manner, is young and enthusi- astic and is as safe a representative as Detroit can trust with her interests against private aggression. 63 HARRY J, KANE (senator.) When Kane came down from Isabella the prediction had preceded him that he would play a faithful game of follow the leader. That prediction was made on the presumption that his political associates in Mt. Pleasant and the rest of his district were such as to keep him in the beaten path. If there was any truth in the prediction Kane succeeded in disguising it by a marked disposition to follow Gov. Warner as much as any other "leader" and by quietly prepar- ing to turn to the right or the left as he saw fit. The senator is a big, heavy, man, somewhat phlegmatic, but with a weather eye open all the time. He is of Irish extraction, has the Irish warmth and generous wile, and somehow is always found floating round on top. He was born in Canada in '60, cam3 to Michigan when 20 years old with a Canadian public school education and a strong arm, farmed for 10 years, and then broke into politics as the successful democratic candidate for sheriff. He held that office for two terms. Then he opened a store in Mt. Pleasant, joined the republican ranks, and again floated to the top. Kane had a goodly share of places on important committees, including the saline committee which made a state trip to Chicago to see whether Michigan salt was the victim of spurious imitations. He was by no means a noisy legislator, — never found it necessary to make any oratorical effort on the floor. He preferred to carry a roll call in his pocket and watch how the tally was going. With all his prosperity Kane is a bachelor, — a man who lives on the products produced by producers produced by others. It was a wise Indiana mayor who made himself famous in his own land by recommending an embargo on bachelors as far as public office is concerned and a special tax to offset the benefits they derive from society without returning the same in kind. Kane is onlv 45 vears old and very well preserved. He has promised to try. Sentence w411 be suspended for another fou'" vears. PATRICK HENRY KELLEY (SUPERIXTEXDEXT OF PUBLIC INSTRUCTION.) Keep your eye on this Irishman. He broke into politics as an interim ap- pointee on the state board of education in 1 90 1, was elected to the same position in 1902, captured the state superin- tendency of public instruction in 1904 in a walk, and is Rep. Simpson's candi- date for lieutenant governor for the campaign of 1906. His progress has been so easy to date that he has not yet announced himself as a candidate for the second place on the ticket. The idea of a lieutenant governor coming from Detroit may be a shock at first, but since the crippling of Russia and the taming of the steel trust on Panama prices, we can expect most anything in this young and forward century. "Pat" Kelley is a schoolmaster by trade, a lawyer by pro- fession and a politician by nature. At 22 years of age he held a life certificate from the state board of education after a course in the Indiana and Michigan normal schools. He was principal at Galien and Hartford. Being a Cass county boy he naturally fluttered around his own corner of the state before trusting his wings. Then he went to Mt. Pleasant and in '99 had finished five years there as superintendent of schools. In just one year he graduated from the University of Michigan as a lawyer and began to practice in Detroit. Then he found his calling as related above in the spring of 1901. Kellev's tirades against the democratic party and its candidate, tirades always clean, good-humored and legitimate, were one of the features of the last state campaign. A pretty good entertainer himself he enjoyed to the full the entertainment furnished by Woodbridge N. Ferris and never missed a chance to hear that strenuous gentleman ridicule the method and the system of the republican party. In a back bench in the gallery of a Cadillac auditorium one beautiful fall morning in 1904 "Pat" laughed until the tears started from his eyes and remained attentive until Ferris had fired the last shot. When the cam- paign closed he accorded to the chieftain of the defeated oppo- sition the same liberal treatment he would have expected under similar conditions. "Pat" Kellev is a good war crv. There is much in a name. i^ 65 LOUIS L, KELLEY (representative.) For earnest application and perform- ance of duty Rep. Kelley of Clare ranks with one hundred per cent in the good conduct table of the ses- sion. Kelley seems to have conceived the idea that he was paid by the state to do certain work and that it was up to him to do it to the best of his ability. While some other representatives sat out on the state capitol grass under the shade of a luxuriant state tree and grumbled about the bum wages they were paid, Kelley went to his desk and sawed wood. He knew he didn't have to take the job at three dollars "per" unless he wanted it and that he didn't have to keep it unless he wanted it. Being the oldest graduate of Michigan in the house it may be his modernity was o'er cast with some antiquated ideas on this point. It was for his bill prohibiting treating in alcoholic beverages, introduced and prosecuted in good faith and with the sincerest intent, that Mr. Kelley leaped into prominence. Had he dropped in to see the boys "along the route" he would not have introduced the bill. It's truly remarkable, — the number of men who campaign against the liquor behind a pair of green doors. Did the bill pass? A frivolous committee clerk stood gaping at Kelley's beard. The clerk was a female. "Ticklish?" mused an impudent reporter. "It's a wonder somebody wouldn't throw a few pebbles in there and scare out some meadow larks," the lady observed ignoring the first question. Mr. Kelley had the finest beard in the capitol, — one foot, ten inches, from tip to snout and no rail around it. Anybody could go in and see it. A few of the younger spawn who went down among some of those state-board-of-barbers-license-shops wish they could have grown one as long and kept it. Mr. Kelley has nothing against barbers but doesn't need them in his business. The Clare man is a graduate in medicine of 1875 and has served as a member of his board of supervisors for 15 years, having been chairman for several terms. Besides this he has had time to practice his profession continuously in Farwell and has been president of that village. He has ideas of his own and can tell vou whv. That alone is a recommendation. u^ 66 SAMUEL HARLAN KELLEY (representative.) The belligerent gentleman from Ber- rien has been in Michigan but little past a decade. And he's "from Missouri," that being his state by adoption and Indiana the state of his nativity. Surely political fighting must be tame here after enduring the martyrdom of republican- ism there. Kelley has also experi- enced the thrills of conducting a repub- lican newspaper in Scott City, Kansas, where he also practised law. He has been in touch with law and politics all his life. He attended the Missouri state university from 1878 to 1880; was a clerk in the railway mail service in 1881, at 20 years of age; ad- judicator of claims in the United States treasury at Washing- ton in 1882; and chief clerk of the United States land office at AVakeeney, Kansas, in 1885. While in Washington he gradu- ated from the Columbian University Law School. To start with he was full of Scotch and Irish blood. With these antecedents Kelley's aggressive activity in the legislature of 1905 will be best appreciated. He is a choleric sort of man, oftener seen thinking intently or watching proceed- ings, hawk-like, than loitering in a card room or laughing at somebody's story. He was in earnest all the time, well- versed in the law and generally able to find something in it to his pur- pose. The judiciary committee had need of his collaboration on several occasions. He was one of the antis on the house elections committee, brought active support to the limited re- form bill endorsed by that committee, and assisted materially in planning the campaign for the hoped-for passage of that measure in the lower branch. His disappointment at defeat was most apparent, though he accepted the decision of the ma- jority with the best of grace. Kelley simply fought for the platform on which he stood in the campaign and lost. He had no whine to make, and didn't make it. Kelley's loyalty to party verges on the bitterest partisanship. Where southern blood runs high and where the republican mi- nority fights every day for existence they give and ask no quar- ter. The easy style of the comfortably safe republican in an all republican state does not appeal to him. He was born and reared in the shadow of other battlefields. He is always in his fighting clothes and sleeps less soundly from a day of enervating peace. 67 JAMES B. KNIGHT (representative.) "My wife tells me rm half Indian; I guess she's right." The gentleman from Dickinson has spent 55 years of a 5 5 -year life in northern Wisconsin and northern Mich- igan. It was northern Michigan that gave him his primary education and his livelihood nearly half a century ago. It is not recorded that upper Michi- gan took any resort business from Newport or the Atlantic watering places in those days, and if Mr. Knight con- sorted with Indians as far as would be natural, it is quite likely Mrs. Knight is right. "Whenever anything goes wrong and I go home out of sorts she sends me off to the woods" he told the scribe in one of those little non professional chats that men have now and then. "And I go." Right! Too bad a lot more of us cannot take to "the tall" on occasion. But then Knight always returns with his spleen shifted back into work- ing order. Such chances on protracted absences would be very risky for some women. After all God's out of doors is a pretty fair place to com- mune with oneself and overhaul the psychological and physi- ological machinery. There isn't much wrong with the man who can sniff the pungent fragrance of the northern forest, rest his eye on a flower by the trail, open his heart to the great blue dome beyond the tree tops, and contrast the immensity of his grand environment with the pettiness of his own wor- ries and troubles and disappointments. He is getting next to nature, which in the truest sense is getting next to God; and there is comfort. You don't expect anything small from such a man as that from spending his own money to spending the people's money. You expect him to stick to his friends and to play the game according to Ho3de. You will find his friends among the plutocrats and Coxey's army and you're never surprised which way he votes. Rep. Knight has been inspector of mines and commissioner of mineral statistics. He has finished his second term in the legislature and is a newspaper man, — one of the craft. And the craft can do no wrong. WILLARD A, KNIGHT (representative.) One of the refreshing incidents of legislative Hfe is a speech now and then by a man who says what he has to say and then stops. About the first thing the cub reporter is taught is to write "30" as soon as he has told his story. Consequently when one listens to prolixity, prosiness or profes- sional buncombe from men who are old enough to know better, he hails with joy the advent of a man who states his case and resumes his seat. One of the most effective speeches of the session was delivered by Willard A. Knight on the bill giving Battle Creek part of the sessions of the Cal- houn circuit court. It was about the only speech of moment that Knight delivered during the entire session and was a masterpiece in the way of vote getting. The secret of it all was that he said his piece and sat down. Willard A. Knight is one of the colts. He is still under 30, a graduate in law of the U. of M., an active practitioner, a father, and a republican. That's a very good start; in fact good enough for more. His first term has been a profitable experiment for both him and his county. Of course he will learn more. Either his charity, or his party loyalty, prevents him from recognizing danger in the manoeuvers of some of his colleagues and checking it. He was told one day of a little piece of bad dealing on the part of a fellow republican, — something that looked like a snug rake off and was susceptible of proof. "Now do you really think so?" he asked of the man who suggested crooked work. (Then answering himself) "I don't know. I'd hate to think that." And straightwav he would not allow himself to think it. Very good gospel indeed; but very bum politics! It's up to the legislator to keep himself posted or he never will know the men w^ho are trying to throw banana peel under his own feet. Knight's own reputation was beyond suspicion. He was not very active or aggressive on the floor but he exercised intelligence, coupled with loyalty to his administration, and ■could get as far on his popularity as any man in the house. ^ 69 COLON C, LILLIE (deputy dairy and food commissioner.) Gov. Warner's appointment of Colon C. Lillie as deputy state dairy and food commissioner was a bright refuta- tion of the theory that nobody but poH- ticians need apply for positions under the state government even for the per- formance of technical work. The dep- uty is a specialist in the branch of the department over which he has full au- thority. Already the inspection of dairies and milk stations, the scoring tests of creamery products and the edu- cational work done by the department's men, have resulted in a marked advance in the dairy industry in some localities of the state. Several members of the house objected most vehemently to the passage of the bill broadening the scope of the department's operations and mak- ing room for the talent of a man of Lillie's special skill and train- ing. Already the improvement of general conditions has paci- fied, to a great extent, the kickers. That Lillie is no politician is proven by the rage that laid hold on him when it was intimated he was lobbying for the passage of the measure in order to give himself a more remunerative and comfortable berth than that of agent for a fertilizer concern. Needless to say, nobody made that statement to Lillie direct, for he has sharp dark eyes that snap ominously; and a square, heavy jaw; and a determined mouth; and a bulky shoulder and arm that look very good in the distance. Moreover, there was no possibility of his starving over on the Lake Michigan shore if Michigan never employed him. Lillie really can't enthuse until he hears the magic word "but- ter." "Cheese" will make him go some, but "butter" is the keynote of his whole being. He has special equipment in all kinds of agricultural lore, and has joined with Gov. Warner in one great, unanimous effort to bring Michigan somewhere nearer the place she should occupy in the manufacture of dairy products. "Every time we can show a man how to get one ounce more butter out of the same quantity of milk than he has been getting before," quoth Lillie, "we are doing something for him and something for Michigan. I believe we can demonstrate the value of this department as it is now organized by improved products and bv improved prices to the farmer and manufac- turer. Time will tell." Meantime Lillie is willing to do his wisest and let time tell. 70 remarked ARTHUR P. LOOMIS (governor's secretary.) "Anything doing, Mage?" "Not a thing. Governor's away." "Going to be?" "I don't know." "You're an old har. You just got a telegram this minute." Then the major sneaked the com- munication out of his hidden hand while he eyed the reporter with an eye full of interrogation marks and strategy. The reporter was on the trail. "Mage" knew it. The moment of silence that followed the colloquy was occupied by the revolutions of "Mage's" grey matter in an attempt to stall off publicity until his chief gave the word to make an announcement. Meantime he was still eveing the reporter and calling him vile names internally. "I understand that so-and-so is going to happen' the reporter knowingly. "That so?" remarked Mage. The balloon jib topsail of his left ear moved nervously. "Where did you hear that?" he asked interestedly. "Oh, I just heard it" replied the reporter nonchalantly as he puffed his cigar and started out of the room. "Well, say," put in the major significantly. The reporter halted. "Going to say anything about it?" "Sure" said the enterprising scribe. "I wouldn't if I were vou." "Why?" "Might be wrong." The reporter smiled conceitedly and moved on again. "Wait a minute" sang out the major. Landed! The reporter has him landed. The major tells the truth of the situation and drives the best bargain he can with regard to time of publication. The reporter smiles. Gov. Warner can trust his private secretary with anything on earth. This scene has been enacted time and again, fre- quentlv to the benefit of the administration. Major Loomis has had the training of two terms with Gov. Rich and handles numerous delicate affairs of state with the same shrewdness with which he dickers with reporters. He is respected by the men who have business in the executive ofifice and liked by them. He is not "long" on posing at pink teas in a uniform. He doesn't think he is handsome enough for that. And he isn't, is he? 71 GEORGE LORD (representative.) The house's speciaHst on banking and corporation technique and Rep. Eichhorn's entry for secretary of state in 1908! Lord holds about the same relative position among the lawmakers as a star in pure mathematics among scientists. His mates cooperate but have no desire to compete. Lord's name is attached to more bills regu- lating banks and corporations than would probably cover legislation en- acted on the same subjects by all the other members of the legislature put together. While the big show was in progress he was foxy enough to rig up a little side performance by which he didn't do the financial institution he is connected with in De- troit any harm. He's a poor politician who would refuse to help others for fear he would help himself. Lord's claim on the public service is the organization of the building and loan division of the department of state some 10 years ago and his work as chief of that division and later as deputy secretary of state under Warner. No man in Mich- igan, it can be safely said, is better fitted by training and natural taste for the office of secretary, — but then he comes from Detroit and fitness is not the main requisite for attain- ing to any state office. As a politician Lord has his craftiness. He is a warm friend of Gov. Warner and stood by the administration in every corner, but always stopped before he ran counter to his under- standing with his Detroit constituents. His candidacy for the speakership last fall served nicely to stall off an}^ disturb- ance of the slate by the rise of a Wayne aspirant to fight Master of Kalamazoo for the chair. He deftly discerns the psycho- logical moment to let go or to take a fresh hold. His manip- ulation of the liquor situation did much to bring about no results. He is adroit. It is a fad among Americans, indeed among all white people who can talk United States-English, to push along the man who has "made himself" just for the pleasure of seeing how far he can get. Besides being a fad it is a form of expression of the genius of the nation. Mr. Lord was born in England 40 years ago. The first 20 years of his life were not as bright as the last 20 which have been spent in Michigan, and which . he more directly controlled himself. Verbum sap. 72 NATHAN V. LOVELL (representative.) "What excuse has the gentleman to offer for being absent without leave?" "I was fighting the battles of 40 years over again, and I hadn't qviite finished, Sir." "The gentleman is excused." There was a tear in the gentleman's eye. The participants in that touching little dialogue were Speaker Master and Rep. Lovell. The boys of the in- dustrial school at Lansing were giving a military review on the capitol grounds and the strains of the regimental music were floating through the windows. The other old soldiers applauded loudly at the summary action of the speaker who had not yet seen the light of day when these veterans were firing the guns. Lovell can feel as intensely now on local issues as he could on that great issue. Like most legislators he can feel — and act — more intensely in his second term than in his first. In the session of 1905 he was a primary election man of no hesi- tating tone. He was a tax commission reform man for the most reform he could get. He was against Gov. Warner on his bill for the state inspection of private banks and a gen- eral Indian scalper on every bill to which he was opposed. Early in the session Lovell and his colleague from Berrien, S. H. Kelley, furnished several days of vaudeville on the ap- pointment of a subordinate in the legislative postoffice. Kelley claimed the right and privilege of distinguishing republicans from democrats down his way by showing who voted for him and who didn't. Lovell even averred that a man might be a republican and still not vote for Kelley. The two gentlemen worked about as well together as two noses on one face. But Lovell wore the brown button. It's a tough job making a prohibitionist out of a man who has been glorified for shedding blood and playing the heartless game of war. Mr. Lovell in his advancing years enjoys a little whisky and water before dinner. With a face beaming pleasure and jo\- and satisfaction he re-referred to committee the Hudson precinct option bill, where that measure stayed. In pedro, politics and even pugilism Nate is still one of the bovs. !l/> 73 ALEXANDER MAITLAND (lieutexaxt-governor.) From Scotland, ye ken! Another moral of the wealth of poverty in this man's life! In 1904 he was in charge of the Cam- bria and Lillie mines, general manager of the mining department of the Re- publican Iron & Steel Co., and inter- ested in four national banks. In 1864 he was a plodding rodman in the survey of the Mineral branch of the Chicago & Northwestern. In 1844 he was born across the ocean and educated in Ayrshire. He came direct to Negaunee and has been there ever since. Those are the plain bald facts, stripped of all the color of romance and bared of the details of the struggle for place and wealth. Who shall attempt to describe the feelings of the voung Scotchman when first he assumed the chief magis- tracy of his adopted town, or the exultation that must have welled up over the loss of his old native land when he found himself climbing, climbing, to the head of his firm, to the state senate, and then to the second position in the state government? When Lieutenant Governor Maitland presides over the sen- ate during deliberations that are to none of his fancy he reveals some of the individuality that helped him win his single-handed fight for success in the stranger's land. He will not give in. His bitterness over the passage of the bill providing for direct nominations for governor and lieutenant governor burst forth in some caustic criticism of Gov. Warner for not standing pat against such a proposition. He had no patience with a com- promise which he considered a surrender. Besides, he was not having his own way. And then there was that other incident of the adjournment of the senate at a critical moment when the opponents of his cause were getting the upper hand. Maitland was not unfair in that case. He simply saw what he believed to be a majority of votes for adjournment. Likewise it is related of Admiral Nelson, when the British fleet was suffering in the historic assault on Copenhagen, and when one of his officers told him the flagship was signaling a withdrawal, the indomitable Nelson at once called the officer's attention to the fact that he was blind in the eye nearest the flagship. The salient feature of Maitland's character was there — indom- itability. His brand of humor is distinctly of the proverbial Scotch type, his brand of politics distinctly American. 74 CHARLES MANZELMANN (REPRESENTATIVE.) "It was the Dutch." While we are busy excluding orientals from the Amer- ican labor market we might congratu- late ourselves that we did not exclude all nationalities that might compete with our own labor. Here is a man, born in Stralzund, Germany, 44 years ago, came to Detroit when 11 years old, apprenticed as a broom maker and stuck to it, became a manufacturer of brooms when 20 3'ears old and built up one of the largest concerns of the kind in Michigan. And he is a labor union- ist. In fact he only broke into politics as a labor unionist and was a recog- nized representative of labor unionism in the session of 1905. He failed to pass his greatest labor union bill. And thereby hangs a tale. Manzelmann's proposition was the old union proposition of keeping state convicts out of the manufacture, as far as possible, of goods that would compete with union-made goods in the open markets, and of utilizing prison labor exclusively for the purpose of supplying the state and its political subdivisions with such goods as they need in the conduct of governmental business. The bill was opposed by the wardens of the prisons and the majority of the boards of control, also by the administration. Then came the fight for the direct nomination of governor and lieutenant governor as opposed to the bill restricting pri- mary elections to subdivisions of the state according to the platform of 1904. The administration saw itself going down to defeat. Manzelmann's vote was needed. But he came from Detroit. Something desperate must be done. Manzel- mann was informed that if he voted "right," that is for the administration bill, his convict labor proposition would prob- ably pass. Manzelmann voted wrong. In other words he refused the bait and let slip the opportunity of accomplishing the principal object of his election. There were times when it looked as if some foxy lobbyist had steered him awry, but he was gen- erally willing to fall in with the wishes of the majority of the Wayne delegation and register the will of his people. "It was the Dutch." t^ 75 FREDERICK C. MARTINDALE (senator.) "Sane and safe" must be any bill that passes muster with the senator from the first district of Wayne. Martindale enjoys a family connection and a poli- tical environment in Detroit that keeps him very closely in touch with the political pulse of the metropolis, and the wants and hopes of the local party leaders as well as the wants and hopes of his more remote constituents. There must be no hurry if his vote is to be secured. He must give each bill careful, prolonged consideration before pledg- ing his support for it. He was the recipient of some voluntary abuse be- cause he refused to cast a haphazard vote for the central counting board bill for Detroit. Develop- ments showed that the passage of the bill in the shape in which Martindale was asked to support it would have been a grievous mistake. Senator Martindale has the bearing and the manner and the style of a shrewd politician. He has the science of protecting his friends without leaving himself open to the charge of selfish- ness or favoritism. He has left undone some of those things which he might have done but he has done none of those things which he ought not to have done. And there is no kick for it. Where the demand of the people for a measure has been heard beyond the peradventure of a doubt Martindale was ready to give the people what they want. He is too con- servative to aid and abet expensive experiments in government and is willing to wait until the people speak emphatically. He has been acused of amending the civil service bill to the invalidation thereof. It is generally understood that if the civil service bill had been destined to become a law the Martin- dale amendment would not have nullified it. The committee assignments which were given to Senator Martindale indicate that he was not mistrusted by the folks who made up the committee lists. His normal conservatism satisfied them. He was, indeed, deserted by those same folks on several important measures, and took the desertion as a matter of course — not a whimper. His general policy he has expressed in these words, — "Friendship will get more than wrangling." He is a lawver and a naturalized Canadian. ^/y 76 LAMENTED! Dr. Baker's retirement from the secretaryship of the state board of health brought grief to the many friends he had made in the office. 77 SHERIDAN F, MASTER (speaker.) This is about Speaker Master. His initials are Sheridan F., and some of the men who like to think thev know- people really well affect "Sherrv." But that has nothing to do with the honorable gentleman's thirst. A little plain "red eye" when he has a cold, and perhaps a little essence of hops for beverage is about as far as the speaker gets in Lansing. One thing everybody does know, — he likes to have his own way. He likes to have it even better than Former Speaker Carton of immortal, municipal losership memory. Carton always knew when to quit. Master does his cussedest and keeps right on doing it. Carton voted for the Colby primary election bill last session, not because he liked it, but because he saw the house going with it. Master openly lobbied against the Stone bill, this session's duplication of the' Colby bill, regardless of whether he was backing up against the sentiment of the house or not. It is for that unyielding method of operating that he has not a hold on as many members as Carton had. Personally he is admired by the representa- tives to the extent of a $230 diamond ring at least, but they do not look on him as their legislative papa. Master is intensely an "organization" man in taste, environ- ment, affihations. If he is ever elected circuit judge of Kala- mazoo he will take with him to the bench a supply of conserva- tism that would do credit to "Calumet & Hecla" Smith himself . He is an admirable fighter, and is faithful to his trust. Dis- cipline is the cardinal principle of all good machine politicians. "Get in line, vou pinhead, or we'll fill your seat so full of tacks you'll think you were born in a hardware factory." And so when "Deacon" Ellis appeared before the speaker at the opening of the session to talk about his committee assignments the Speaker has been reported as saying: "How do you expect to get any good committee appointments with those views?" Ellis was made forthwith a member of the committee on feeble minded. With due assumption of dignity as the presiding officer of a branch of the legislature of a great state, the speaker asserts indifference to press criticism. He reads the papers. He doesn't squeal very loudlv when he is hit, but he is quite as susceptible to flattery as most other humans. Self sufficiency is closely akin to moral courage. 78 WILLIS N. MILLS (senator.) One of the heavenly twins! The other was Mike. A more dignified comparison might say that he played Damon to Moriarty's Pythias. Brothers in affliction, brothers in politics and legislation, brothers in deviltry; except that Mike could not play billiards. Mills is a first termer. Before he came to Lansing he knew nothing of the game as it is played at the capitol. He soon sat in. One of his first moves was to help trim Doherty's comb. It seems the old managers decided that the Muskegon-Oceana primary election bill for that judicial circuit should not pass. Mills was not in the habit of climbing on the house tops to declare his love for direct nomina- tions, but he didn't like the idea of voting as one of a herd or of refusing a locality the legislation its representatives and senators asked. He voted for the bill. It passed. Next time Mill's vote was needed he was consulted. When Mills went after "Divine Right" Fuller in 1904 for the nomination from the thirtieth district, Fuller's friends thought there must be something wrong in Menominee and its associated counties. When Mills won out it was the general impression among the old senate leaders that a hideous outsider had broken into the ranks. Fuller had fought to the bitter end. The honor was something Mills could well forego. He went to Fuller. He offered him his support and his withdrawal from the race after he was sure the fight for the nomination was won, and Fuller had given up. Fuller never was the man to make himself an object of pity and manfully declined. Mills came to Lansing, proved himself as game as his predecessor, and in short "made good." He displayed the same conservatism and the same respect for property with the same fearlessness and the same challenge to man or devil to frighten him out of his course. On the railroad pass question Mills has an idea. It is this, — "No man is expected to come to Lansing for three day's work each week and allow his own business to go to pot. Living as far awav as I do it would take up more than my whole per diem to pay my railroad fare alone." Mills says he is ready to make a fight for the long agitated reduction of upper penin- sula fares as soon as he gets a favorable opportunity. News Item. — En route from Lansing to Menominee after adjournment Senator Mills received a telegram apprising him of the arrival of a brand new member of his family. 79 FRED R, MING (representative.) Mr. Ming eschews cigarettes and worships horse radish. He would make hazing a crime but enjoys mauHng a colleague like a college freshman. He doesn't smoke, but loves to fight. These are little compensations nature has made for a man who is as muscular as an ox and who regards himself as a corrective agent for social evils sus- ceptible to the laws of manhood. He was born at Rochester, N. Y., 40 years ago, is of German extraction, was educated in Toronto and Belleville, Ont., and has lived in Michigan for 25 years. He has been a veterinary student, and a school teacher, chief of police of Cheboygan for three years, assisted in organizing the fire department there and has been sheriff of Cheboygan county for six years, which bailiwick he now represents in the lower house for the first time. It was Ming who introduced, and almost induced the house to pass, the bill to punish wife beaters with the lash. It was the old prejudice against corporal punishment in Michigan, rather than the demerits of the bill, that defeated it. The tale will bear repeating, — and it is vouched for, — of an habitual drunkard up in Cheboygan, who was in the habit of pummel- ling his old woman until she was about ready for the morgue. There seemed to be no way of stopping the performance as the spouse would not prosecute. Finally Ming served notice on the culprit that the next time he licked the lady there would be an overflow meeting. Sure enough the next jag meant another thrashing for the one in skirts. Ming called when the jag had worn off and induced the jagger to strike him. That woman has not been thrashed since. Going home by train one day from Lansing a common tough was making life unbearable for a lady passenger. Ming ad- vised the tough to "cut it out." The tough wanted to see "the sucker" that could make him. When Ming got through the tough was a sight. Ming's hazing bill went the way of his wife-beater's bill, but his measure prohibiting traffic in cigarettes in Michigan was lost in the senate only after some manipulations that Ming characterizes as worse than questionable. He did, how- ever, twist the tail of the trading stamp industry, and make a fight for the poorer fishermen that is sure to net them better consideration and concessions in the future. 80 ORLANDO C. MOFFATT (senator.) What peace was there, my country- men! What everlasting peace and com- posure and infinite digestion and comfort and good cigars! What a joy in smiHng, not too broadly nor too loudly, but oh! so placidly, so gently, like the easy bending of the limpid brook or the bowing of the swaying willow kissed by the evening breeze. Time? Time for all things. Time to burn. There is no hurry under the sun. There is no excitement. Only peace and com- posure and infinite digestion. In good faith it might have been in- digestion, but that would hardly have produced such a satisfied demeanor. Truly Orlando C. Moffatt is an abstract man. It is his business to abstract. It has become a habit. Forty years ago Moffatt was born in Lyons, later going to Northport with his people and subsequently to Traverse City. He cut his school course short to learn banking and was on the staff of the Old National Bank in Grand Rapids. Later he purchased the abstract books of Traverse county and removed to Traverse City. He has been registrar of deeds and has held other local offices. This is his second term in the state senate. For all his apparent indifference and quietude. Senator Moffatt interests himself deeply in the work that is assigned him. As chairman of the committee on fisheries he is partially responsible for the condition of Michigan's valuable hatcheries for the next two years. While assisting in carrying out the policy of the administration for moderate expenditures of money he has not been parsimonious and has endeavored, probably succeeded, in coming as near to satisfying the fish enthusiasts as any enthusiast can be satisfied without getting everything he asks. One of his thankless tasks was to assist in pruning other appropriations asked by three state institu- tions without any more rioting than was inevitable, — namely the grants for the agricultural college, the home for the feeble minded, and for the horticultural interests. He was also chair- man of the entertaining committee on public claims and accounts. In general legislation Senator Moffatt tried to please his constituents and to earn his per diem by faithful attention to business. (B:^^ 81 JAMES S, MONROE (representative.) This is "Stonev." Nuffsed. "To me the meanest flower that blows can give Thoughts that do often He too deep for tears." ■ — Wordsworth on Immortahty r 82 GEORGE W, MOORE (state banking commissioner.) The shadow of Atwood — and yet More; a man of rare insight, of dehcate strategy, of cautious advance, quiet, good-natured, thoughtful and always on guard; a former state senator of wide renown. It is not very many weeks since the banking commissioner frankly stated to the scribe of this sketch that he rather preferred direct nominations for gover- nor and lieutenant-governor to any other form or st3de of primary elections. Why? First of all, to preserve the lo- cal county and city organizations which might be weakened by direct nomina- tions in local affairs and the full value of which Mr. Moore keenly appreciates. Secondly, to enact some law that would mollify the radicals rather than irritate them and at the same time conserve the in- terests of the conservatives. There was political wisdom in his premises and his conclusion, though the banking commissioner was not over-strenuous in his support of this program. He got together with Atwood and talked it over. For they twain work with one accord — "one faith, one hope, one baptism." Having had considerable experience in private life as a banker Mr. Moore has been able to bring the training of an expert to the management of the state banking department. The sensitivity of the institutions under his direction has been carefully ob- served, while the state has been enabled to insist on the execu- tion of the law with a minimum of damaging publicity or profit- killing scandals. He was one of the prime movers in the legis- lative campaign to place private banks under the supervision of the state and afford the same guarantees to the depositors in private fiduciary institutions that safeguard the depositor in the state bank. This time he lost. When the banking commissioner rests the weight of his body on one foot, rams two hands to the elbows into two front pants pockets, and deliberately says "Now is it?" he is figuring very closely. Figuring is part of his business, from the balances of a bank to the logical appointment for the next vacancy in St. Clair county. The interests of the republican party in Michigan demand that the republican club in each county shall include all the members of that party in so far as is compatible with standing pat, and that the plums shall be a blessing and a com- fort, not a curse in the pursuit of party happiness. J& 83 JOSEPH B, MOORE (chief justice.) When one first meets Chief Justice Moore of the supreme court of Michigan he shakes hands with a kindly, gentle old man, picturesquely grey. The sec- ond meeting inspires a deeper interest — a desire to know something about the machinery concealed by the gentle, attractive exterior. Mature acquaint- ance brings into view other shades, other lights, intensifies the interest. It is still the gentle, kindly man one sees; but glowing now in all the fulness of dignity, learning and wisdom. The path by which Justice Moore has come to his high place is the path which only men can tread. He has attained this full citizenship by toil, by hardship, by intellectual labor, by taking his part in the affairs of his fellows — and not flinching. For the greater part of five years his hands were hacked in his father's saw mill. His rest at night was in the labyrinth of Blackstone, borrowed from a friendly neighbor. His reward has been what his stubborn efforts earned. Once upon a time Justice Moore was a politician — and a very good one too. In the early '70's he was prosecuting attorney of Lapeer county, and during that period also held the office of mayor of Lapeer city. In the face of dangerous petty prejudice and jealousy he was able to hold the confidence of his constituents and go still higher up until he presided for two terms as circuit judge of Oakland and Lapeer. There, at close range, he learned the motives that make up human nature and opened the eternal book that schooled him in the needs and wants and rights of his race. His academic education was received at Hillsdale after a tedious experience in teaching in the local schools. He drew cuts with his two brothers for enlistment in the civil war and won but was rejected by the army surgeons. Up to the time that he was elected to the supreme bench Moore had not missed a state convention in 20 years and made the nominating speeches for Gov. Rich. He still studies politics closely, but that study is now more one of ethics than of practice. Next January he begins his second term on the supreme court bench. The chief justice is lacking in freakishness or eccentricities. His one hobby is flowers. He never tires of them. He loves them all from the earliest spring blossom to the fall chrysan- themum. His home is the sweetest and the simplest, where his life's partner, daughter of Jasper Bentley, formerly of Lapeer, still lives. They have no children. 84 MICHAEL H, MORIARTY (senator.) "Merciful Mike," apologist for con- victs, friend of the friendless, candidate for lieutenant governor! To him the board of pardons dwells in a sacred edifice, a monument to strict justice as well as mercy, a means of grace to men more unfortunate than criminal. The great hearted Moriarty would prove all men innocent and jails a public extrav- agance. Incarceration he regards as a social as well as an economic waste. He would work a Tolstoic change in men's hearts. He would have no need of man hunts by men. He would spend millions, if he had them, to make the state prisons havens of rest and comfort. He would do anything except what is done. But fate has limited his operations to the securing of paroles and pardons wherever possible. More than one noted convict can testifiy to his charity. As a former member of the boards of control of the Marquette and Detroit penal institutions, as a former prosecuting attorney, and as a lawyer, he declared in the senate — "Mr. President, half the men who are serving out sentences in our state prisons today are not guilty of the crime for which they have been convicted." Moriarty is one of the men who do things in the legislature. He is chairman of the railroad committee, — see? He is a mem- ber of the cities and villages committee. (He would be a good man for Detroit to know.) He is one of the directors of the senate morgue, Cropsey chairman, and has a voice in the im- portant councils at which things are "lined up." Any time you want a little side trip in a hurry go to "Mike" and he will fix you up. What is more, he won't care who knows it. He has made enemies as well as friends through the performance of these little favors. He realizes that and is ready to accept the consequences, good, bad, or indifferent. "I am going to do it this way" is his method. And he does it that way. Moriarty is a bachelor with long, heavy, greyish hair. His active days have been spent in Crystal Falls, Iron county, though he is a native of Hudson, Mich., and even claims to be of Irish parentage. A bird and a bottle have cheered him on his way but not satisfied him. "Better than all the political honor and experience at the capitol are the friendships we make," is his idea of legislative life. And then there is this oft repeated regret of his, — "I do wish I had a little home. But it's too late." 85 JAMES L, MORRICE (representative.) In every legislature there is a more or less strained relation between the farmer element in the house and the men from the urban districts. In large measure that is true of the house of 1905. This condition is due primarily to one party's misunderstanding of the motives of the other. The farmers resent the amendment or correction of their bills by men from the cities vv^ho have no direct interest in them, and the men from the cities date a fresh grouch from every hour the farmers fail to give them just what they want in the way of local legislation. It is for these reasons that James L. Morrice of Emmet, than whom no modester man lives, looms up as one among his own farmer class of lawmakers as the acme of self possession, restraint and cool headedness under trying circumstances. Morrice votes as he darn pleases. He was the only member of the house to vote against the Double- Ivory-Dickinson bill as it originally passed the house, with 02 voting against him. He didn't believe the bill was just what it should be and said that the house could improve it by holding it for further consideration. His judgment was later proven correct. His record and reputation as a friend of direct nomi- nations is unimpeachable. Perhaps it is Morrice's judgment, perhaps it is his common sense, perhaps it is his modesty, but he is not noted for the number of bills he has introduced. What his constituents want they can get from Morrice. What they don't want don't worry hini. He is not a schemer nor a strategist. He is too ingenuous, too straight to get himself around a big curve in a hurry. There- fore Morrice will never be a great leader. He has none of the elements of great leadership, — less fitted for that sort of thing than the average legislator. He is burdened by an old fashioned idea of doing the duty that lies before him, and doing it quietly and well. Under a thriving plutocracy he is not the man who will ever reach the United States senate or be governor or hardly even a congressman. Plain living, thrift and simple working will never make a man a hero in this generation, for this is the age of dress parades. But Michigan can't get the services of too many public men with the Morrice brand of conscience and economy. The waters of Little Traverse bay and the skies and hills of old Emmet must produce some more Morrices if this one is to be kept at home. JOHN J. McCarthy (REPRESENTATIVE.) It is just 20 years since Rep. Mc- Carthy of Arenac broke into politics and he hkes it so well he has been spoken of as Doherty's successor in the senate, as candidate for circuit judge at the first opening, and as ready for another whirl at the legis- lature to succeed Master as speaker in case the gentleman from Kalamazoo does not come back. McCarthy has spent his 47 years in Michigan. He started in Gratiot county and, after admission to the bar in 1SS4, per- ambulated in this way — Circuit court commissioner, Gratiot county, 1885-86; prosecuting attorney, Oscoda county, 1889-92; prosecuting attorney, Arenac county, 1899-00; State representative, Arenac, Ogemaw, Iosco, Alcona 1903-06. Mr. McCarthy is nothing, if not vigorous. It makes no dif- ference whether McCarthy is asking for the change of the name of John Do to John Done or for something new in the system of taxation, he works and talks with the same zeal. For the chairman of the judiciary committee, who must be on his feet so much, this lack of proportion is not altogether an advantage. The vigor is apt to become common. But thus far McCarthy has been able to have as good a percentage of his own way as his colleagues. He's a big burly man with a sloping anterior and a clear eye, lots of vim, and a pretty good following in the house. It is understood that he is to have the support of the organi- zation that made Master speaker, in case the Kalamazoo man feels he has had enough. There has been no complaint against his attitude in politics or legislation. While regarded as a stand-patter he has steered a pretty fair middle-of-the-road course. Perhaps some day he may be able to secure the ex- emption of credits or mortgages from taxation. He was one of the fathers of the measure passed by the house this session exempting the latter and left to die in the senate. McCarthy is always in prime shape for a fight. 87 WILLIAM McKAY (representative.) Riding in a train, Lansing-bound, one day, "Uncle William" told this story — "Some years ago I went home. I tramped through old Ayrshire looking up a friend's friend. It was a bright summer afternoon. In the distance I saw the same old house I knew as a boy; and beside it the same old tree; and under the tree some boys playing the same old game of marbles we played on the same spot 50 years ago. Of course I stopped and dreamed for a moment. Then I heard in a cry — 'Haud a wee, Geordie. Come awa' back an' knuckle doon.' The tears began to come and I moved on. How often I have shouted that at my own playmates!" Then "Uncle William" looked out of the window and saw it all again. And again the tears began to show. The heart that beats warm and fast at 65 for the memories of home and childhood is not the heart of an unmanly man. "I've gone through life making the best of things and trying to be square and I'm not going to learn anything else now" is one of his observations. "Uncle William's" constituents seem to know that. They have sent him to the legislature in '89, '99, '01, and '05. He'll undoubtedly come again if he wants to come. There has been no contributor to the general joy and hilarity of 1905 to compare with him. His spontaneous witticisms, his canny Scotch methods, have made him the entertainer of the legislature par excellence. There was always silence when "Uncle William" rose to speak, as he did in mod- eration, for he either had a red hot hand-out for some victim on the other side or a straight point to make that meant some- thing. His function was largely that of the balance wheel in debate. It was at Almont, Lapeer county, where he first brushed the dust of the old sod off his feet at the age of 14, climbed into an ox cart, and became a Yankee. In '76 he moved to Tuscola county, which he now represents. He has been farmer,, supervisor, and sheriff when he was not at the legislature and is now watching some snug little interests in local banks. Aye, that's the thrift for ye; an' an oonce of whusky afore bed is a vera guid thing, — but tak' it in twa oonces o' water. "Uncle William" McKay is the grand old man of 1905. 88 MALCOLM ]. McLEOD (state labor commissioner.) Everybody remembers what a time McLeod had getting the appointment. He had been a faithful deputy under Commissioner Griswold and came for- ward with the rather novel proposition that he was entitled to be commissioner as a reward and a promotion for duty performed and services well rendered. The proposition was novel because no political organization can afford to scat- ter its prizes among men whom it be- lieves have limited political capacity — that is, who cannot deliver the goods. Then an avalanche of labor union peti- tions assured the administration that McLeod had political capacity to be reckoned with, and he got the appointment. It might have been feared that a labor union appointee would have irritated the employing interests in his advocacy of the union cause. Nothing of the kind has happened. McLeod has been working to keep all classes employed and quiet, and to that end.' succeeded in securing the location of two free employment bureaus in Grand Rapids and Detroit by a special act of the legislature. Where men are employed and decently remuner- ated there is a minimum of unrest. If the commissioner's in- tentions are an earnest of success the state has to thank him to some extent at least for stability in the labor market, and for a rigid inspection of factories that will assure the unions of the enforcement of the law and forestall trouble for the employers. Ambition has driven McLeod into a political position. He is a native of Canada, and like so many men from the dominion, has taken an active part in American politics as far as he could from the day he first landed at the ferry dock. McLeod has been a candidate for the nomination to the mayoralty of Detroit and for auditor general of Michigan. He has taken what he has been able to capture and may possibly be hoping for more, though it is doubtful whether he will chase the fairy butterflv further. He is blessed with a patient, long-suffering temper, an equanimity that apparently nothing disturbs, and a personality that inspires confidence. Being in touch with the needs of all classes his administration should be beneficial to Michigan at large. &/> 89 WILLIAM F. NANK (representative.) The Hercules of the house was born in Schoenhousen, Germany, just about 38 years before the day he sits down to read himself here as others see him. He stands something under eight feet and weighs about 800 pounds in slaps on the back. There was no more inspiring sight in i-epresentative hall than Nank of Mt. Clemens and Ming of Cheboygan, bumping the posteriors of some of the alleged heavyweights against the bar of the house on the last day of the session, or to watch the German giant doing an Indian club exercise with a handful of middle weights who had set out to get revenge. And what a row there was when Rep. Hudson proposed to take away from the cross roads grocery the right of retailing liquid hops across the counter! The gleam in his eye said plainly that we Germans were being deprived of our rights. The bill did not pass. Now Nank is one of the new police commissioners of Mt. Clemens and can see that his vicinity does not furnish material for another campaign of the kind from the anti-saloon men. In politics Nank has won the distinction of being the first republican sherifif of Macomb county between the years 1880 and 1894, the year in which he was elected to that ofhce. He was reelected in 1896. He had previously turned over the democratic township of Sterling on the township clerkship. It was as a farm hand and brickyard workman that he got the start that has helped him to an interest in one of the local banks and a livery business. On the ways and means committee during the session he did much to steer the legislature toward a moderate expenditure of money, even subjecting himself to some hard names because of his opposition to the appropriation for a Macomb monument in Detroit. But the daughters of 18 12 in Macomb county called him off and Detroit has long since forgiven him. Rep. Nank is rock bottom. 90 FRANK S. NEAL (legislative clerk.) Long, lean, angular; admiring his chief almost to hero-worship ; prefering friendliness to hate; taking pleasure in acts of kindness ; sure that there is noth- ing better on earth than the republican party and the North ville Record. When Neal is not digging through tangled acts of the legislature to digest them for his chief and prevent the signing of anv measure that would make the legisla- ture or the party ridiculous, he is mak- ing change over the counter of the Rec- ord. He makes "the help" do the work and makes the paper pay him. He was chairman of the ways and means com- mittee of the house in 1903 and was particularly well-posted on state expenditures. In that ca- pacitv he saved the state a substantial sum of money annually bv instituting some simple changes in the methods of handling appropriations. In 1905, as the governor's special legislative clerk, he has saved Michigan much trouble and perhaps some money by his keen inspection of every measure that came before the governor for his signature. His reward has been an ap- pointment to the state board of mediation and arbitration — an institution which has been so much of a joke in the past as to admit of improvement by a man who knows how. Neal belongs to that conclave of rural editors who did so much toward saving the party ticket in 1904 — men with a small, com- pact, limited constituency, but with a faculty of knowing how to work it and an intimacy with their readers that prevented the metropolitan journals from throwing victory to the other side. He is a mild mannered man, disliking collisions, fond of pros- perity, and getting it. He is always on the inside and the aider and abettor of Major Loomis in the art of fooling the reporters until a trick is turned. He plays that part of the game very gently and nicely, however. He knows when to lie to the news- paper man and when the newspaper man is going to know he is lying — "lying," of course, being merely a reporter's definition of executive diplomacy or refusal to affirm or confirm. Neal en- joyed it and the reporter didn't mind. Anything for peace in the familv. 91 DAVID M, NOTTINGHAM (representative.) Dr. Nottingham is the man who thought there was a chance of Master's not being elected speaker. The doctor Hves in Lansing, where, says the old gossip, there are so many discharged and disgruntled department clerks that the independents look dangerous every little while. Not being on the inside of the organization's program the doc- tor didn't see the handwriting on the wall, much less read it. It is unfair to charge the genial gentleman from Ingham with calling that de hixe con- ference before the session opened for the purpose of boosting himself for speaker. He heard so many people kicking about having things all fixed for them that he sup- posed they meant it. However, the cards were stacked as the doctor learned shortly afterward. The point is that the doctor didn't sulk; but just sat down and made the best of it; and proved himself a good fellow for the rest of the session. When Nottingham is not fixing up the medical law he is issu- ing general invitations to members of the house to make them- selves at home in Lansing and see what a good town it is. An odd little incident, never related in public at least, must be narrated here. An important bill was before the house. Nottingham was against it, but not enthusiastically so. A familiar lobbyist got at Nottingham through a mutual friend and the friend assured the lobbyist Nottingham was alright. It later occurred to Nottingham to inquire how his friend wanted him to vote. "Vote for the bill, of course," replied the friend. Nottingham did so. Then the lobbyist wanted to know what was the matter with Nottingham. "Didn't he vote for the bill.'"' asked the friend. "Certainly he voted for the bill" replied the lobbyist. "That's what I'm kicking about? If you had let him alone he would have voted right without any coaxing." The doctor's hands were clean, and he felt quite pleased with himself for having done something for friendship. Dr. Nottingham is another farmer's boy, an Indiana product with some French blood in his veins. He taught school and made harnesses before studying medicine in Chicago. He set up in Bronson, Branch county, and later went into Lansing, where he has been laboring on battered anatomies for over 20 years. He always keeps in touch with public affairs, and has served his municipality in various capacities. He is a mem- ber of the board of control of the State Homeopathic Medical Society. 92 DANIEL B. OVIATT (representative.) This is the culprit who lay back and snored viciously the day Gov. Bliss unloaded his exaugural message. Mr. Oviatt later declared that he had never enjoyed one of Mr. Bliss's efforts so much. Fact is, Oviatt has earned a few extra naps. He has gyrated from the min- istry, to village assessor, to supervisor, to editor and publisher of the Alden Wave, to justice of the peace and to representative. They weren't handing out any soft things in the days when Oviatt started after an education, or if they were they didn't come his way. He's a New Yorker, born at Wells- ville, and so fond of his native state that he didn't stav long among us when he came to Michigan in '77. But he came back in '87 and here he is, with snow white hair and nearlv 60 years behind him. Oviatt showed a marked improvement as a primarv reformer since the session of 1903. The storm had broken in the mean- time. He didn't want too much reform but he wanted the best that could be got as far as it went. It was the Antrim man who perpetrated the bill for the protection of fish worms and laughed for three days and 42 minutes at the fun of it. A chat with Oviatt was always refreshing. No man in the legislature worried so little or looked so comfortable at all times. He wasn't an aggressive joker, but if there was one thing he desired at all times and places it was a chance to laugh with a snooze thrown in. The debating he left to others to do until the protection of deer in his county came under fire. Then the dignity and importance of the subject brought him to his feet. He didn't fancy secrecy, was willing to show his hand, and was as ready to discuss his position on primary reform with the reporters as he was with the more timid mem- bers of the elections committee behind closed doors. "To sleep; to sleep; ay, perchance to dream." 93 ARCHIBALD J. PEEK (senator.) "Archie Peek is a good old soul Yes he is . ' ' The rest of the song was lost amid a clatter and a whoop and boisterous laughter. Senator Peek is one of those big, rollicking fat men, with a large voice and a large eye and a large ap- preciation of good fellows. He looks big enough to squash anyone who might annoy him and good natured enough to mollify anyone who had set out to. When the democrats of Washtenaw and Jackson had made up their minds that 1904 was an auspicious year and brought out one of their fastest goers, the re- publicans turned to "Archie" Peek, and told him it was up to him. He managed to come out of a hot campaign with a little majority of nearly 3,000. This was his second appearance in the legislature, his first having been in '97. Peek was an alleged stand patter, but added several times to the list of surprises when he was expected to vote the way some of the older "boys" had reckoned for him. He is a friend of Congressman Townsend and carried the air of independent initiative that has surrounded the congressman in state and national affairs. If there is anything distasteful to him it is the shadow of imperiousness that sometimes gets the best of the habitual leader. One of his newspaper friends was bally- ragging him one day about his boss. "I want to tell you some- thing" announced Peek in a sonorous voice. "I don't care a d what he does nor what you print. You want to get that idea down pat right away." Peek is a New Yorker of Scotch extraction and just 51 years of age. His education he received in the high school at Jackson. And then he took to the farrrl with his parents. After he began to operate a farm of his own he went into politics with both feet and emerged with the shrievalty of Jackson county for two terms. Now he is running a bustling hack business in Jackson city and drives the political bandwagon himself. "Archie" is a large per cent of the party's rolling stock in his district. 94 ALVIN D, PETTIT (REPRESENTATIVE.) "A thorn in the flesh! Gall and wormwoodJ He is not one of us!" That is simply a paraphrase of the expression of a prominent office holder from Houghton county who said "I wish to heavens Pettit would go back to the lower peninsula where he came from. He's no good to us," — an in- verted compliment and an odd con- fession. In other words Mr. Pettit, insists on working alone. Then there is the tacit distinction between the upper and lower peninsula. Such distinction can not be in human nature itself or in else than geography and the natural variation in climatic condi- tions and atmospheric pressure. Mr. Pettit was not accus- tomed to the same pressure on this side of the straits, possibly, and did not readily adjust himself to his new environment. The chief interest in Mr. Pettit's career lies in the fact that he has followed so closely the liberal policies of the reform element of his party in the lower peninsula. It is as natural for a prosperous upper peninsula American to be a conserva- tive corporationist as it is for the socialist to shout for gov- ernment ownership. But coming from Hancock, right in the heart of the mining headquarters of Houghton county, he has voted for the largest measure of direct nominations, for rigid regulation of corporations, for everything in a general way that Rep. Galbraith and his contemporaries did not want. The logical inference is that some large and potent percentage of his constituents approve his course. The ante-election row in Houghton county last fall demonstrated that some people in that county wanted something they were not getting. Per- haps Pettit thinks it was primary elections. At the age of ten, nearly 40 years ago, Pettit was left an orphan in Emerson township, Gratiot county. A mere child, he at once became a farm laborer, learning what he could at school in the winter. When 15 he began work as a printer and has followed that occupation ever since. From iSgi-'gs he was postmaster at Ithaca. The future movements of Pettit and his supporters in Houghton county politics will be watched with the keenest interest by lower peninsula legislators. 95 CHARLES S, PIERCE (clerk of the house.) A friend till death — or an enemy! Charley Pierce never trusts a man until he has been tried in the fire. Then he will stick to him for life. If the man in whom he has reposed confidence and whom he has honored as a comrade proves false or counterfeit in the test- ing Pierce is against him and his until the end. His confidence is gained slowly and inspired very slowly. He has been secretary of the senate, sen- ator in 1893, deputy secretary of state, and has played politics in various ca- pacities. He has the dope, as the friends say; that is, he can't let it alone. Pierce showed how dearly he loved a fight when Warner was making his campaign for governor. Pierce was the private manager of the governor's campaign though the state central committee was the controlling organi- zation. Every detail was his business. Every trouble of the republican candidate was his trouble. He made it his duty to hate reporters and papers who said hostile things about his can- didate. Warner's battle was his battle. Once Pierce wandered into a saloon after a republican rally in a little town up-state. Two men stood chatting at the far end of the bar. They had heard of Pierce and his activity in the cam- paign. They wanted to unload some political sentiment and some whisky fumes. "Who de hell is dis Pierce?" asked one. "Why he's de guy what helps Tip Atwood run de state. He's de fellah dat carries de mon' for Warner. I tink he's de crookedest guy in de bunch." No. I then tried to outdo No. 2 in applying black names to Pierce. In a few minutes Pierce stepped forward and asked them to have a drink. "Sure." Then they told the stranger who they were and the stranger replied "My name's Pierce, Charley Pierce, I'm traveling with Warner in this campaign." "Well, I'll be " was the spontaneous outburst. "You don't look so bad at all." Everybody into whose hands this volume may fall will prob- ably know Pierce personally. They will know that his fairness as clerk of the house and his loyalty to the administration needs no public endorsement. They will know that his popularity with his own staff and his considerate treatment of "Lew" Miller, former clerk of the house whom he defeated when the latter turned against Gov. Bliss, will testify to the gener- ous character of the man. He was born in Redford township, Wayne county, was principal of schools at Au Sable, and has practised law in Oscoda. 96 HALLEY H. PROSSER (representative.) Public office holding is a new phase in the life of the fat man from Flush- ing. He has been busy picking up dollars all the while. He likes to pick up dollars yet. At present he is in produce business with a Flushing firm, but he was a druggist for eight years and formed a matrimonial copartner- ship in the meantime. When there isn't a dollar in sight Prosser spends his spare time looking up news. He does some correspondence out of his own town and when he came down to the capitol the news habit had him so badly that he knew everybody's busi- ness better than his own inside of lo days. It would pay any metropolitan journal to employ Prosser as scout, if he could be induced to take the position, just to circulate among the boys and promise to "give up" what he got on his "beat." Talk about standing pat! Prosser was the one man from the lower peninsula who could give Eichhorn of Port Huron a run for upper peninsula honors. Eichhorn won out when Prosser flunked on the final vote backing the Michigan Central against the attorney general. Otherwise he was there with the goods any old time the boss wanted them. You've seen in the moonlight two tawny cats, with greening eyes, and bushy, upright tails. They swear at each other and stand sideways all cleared for action, until the bootjack arrives. Kindly give your attention this way, ladies and gentlemen. The next picture on the right represents "Cass" Benton, the fire eating man from Wayne; and "Hal" Prosser of Genesee, surnamed by Ira T. Sayre, his old college chum, "Bull-in- the-Woods." They were last seen together as seat mates in the house of representatives of 1905 discussing Sayre and the state tax commission. Le-e-e-emonade, five a glass. Don't crowd the elephant, lady; he has feet and so have you. The show on the natural history of Michigan is now over. Kindly pass right through to the big tent where Mr. Prosser is only 35 years of age and weighs, — well, that will be announced at the close of the guessing contest in 1907. 97 J. HERBERT READ (representative.) Read is the only representative of 1905 who has served four consecu- tive terms in the house. He is coming to be regarded as the hereditary chair- man of the committee on railroads. He is a plain, substantial, earnest man with a mild disposition and well controlled temper, simple in his habits, clean in his conduct. He has the repu- tation of being a sincere churchman but is not anaemically sanctimonious. He sees many pleasant things in this old world and speaks of farm life in Man- istee as of the only sure haven this side of the grave. His training for public work was obtained on the board of supervisors, where he served seven years, holding the chairman- ship for two terms. It has been Read's painful privilege to preside over committee discussions of bills to reduce railroad passenger rates in the upper peninsula on more than one occasion,- — also to hear pleas for state regulation of freight rates and for doing all sorts of things for and against railroads. Pressed by an interviewer for an explanation of the committee's failure to act on one bill which several people in both houses had been professing to want, Read replied — "If some of those senators want this bill so badly let them introduce it and pass it over there. Then we'll do business. We passed that bill once and it was killed in committee across the hall. There's no use wasting time on mere four-flushing." Right there Mr. Read explained a lot of things that had been worrying some of the railroad regulators. He himself had always appeared fair, though much inclined to follow the ultra-conservative leaders of both houses. He was very close to John J. Carton, speaker of 1901 and '03 and was a co-worker with Speaker Master this session. His argument that railroad regulation bills should originate in the senate and be passed there first has all the weight of history. Read's most prominent bill this year was the tonnage tax measure in which the steel trust fleet was pitted against the big Detroit passenger lines. The steel trust made a bitter fight on the bill, which was vetoed by Gov. AVarner on the ground that Michigan should stick to the ad valorem taxation policy. \^^ 98 JAMES FULTON RUMER (senator.) If Senator Rumer had secured the enactment of his pet measure there would be no advisory board in the matter of pardons in Michigan. But Gov. Warner wished to retain the board for self-protection and the board was willing to retain itself at $7 a da^^ Rumer had a theory that the pardon board was a menace to the execution of justice and the majesty of the law, and found some prominent circuit judges who averred that the board had practi- cally usurped the jurisdiction of the supreme court in part. But what a pleasant life the governor of Michigan would lead without a buffer on pardons and paroles! For the number of applications about equals the number of convicts and each application must be examined. Senator Rumer lost and under the peculiar custom of his district limiting each senator to one term his experience in handling this as well as other proposed legislation will be of no benefit to the thirteenth district or the state in 1907. Rumer is a thorough Rooseveltian. He is the father of five children, his eldest son being now associated with him in the practice of medicine with headquarters at Davison. The senator himself is one of a family of nine children, eight of whom are alive. He looks as if he would be about number eight to cash in. He is a graduate of the Kentucky School of Medicine, Louisville, of '89 ; ex-president of the Genesee County Medical Society and ex-president of his village, where he was also presi- dent of the school board for 12 years. He was born in Ohio in '52. Like all good medical men the doctor always has a good story, which he delivers in the proper time and place with the same gusto that embellishes his speeches. He is short and stout, with fair complexion, the deportment of a man who has been accustomed to attention, and the substantiality of a good feeder. He is very deferential and courteous, and not objection- ably aggressive. The next time the men of '05 meet, he will be called upon to repeat his Davison anecdote of the spring- feeder. LOFC 99 HUNTLEY RUSSELL (senator.) If Homer Warren of Detroit has the same good fortune with his "Sword of Bunker Hih" that has followed Senator Russell's tenor notes, he will be governor of Michigan some day. The senator is one of the song birds of Grand Rapids where they ask a man to "have some- thing" in all the flats and sharps, and then throw in variations of liquid melody. A politician who can neither sing nor drink in Grand Rapids will soon go back to the farm. Russell was elected by the largest vote ever given a candidate in his district, consisting of all the townships in Kent county and a fraction of the city. Connecticut men are very scarce in the personnel of the all- republican government. Russell is probably the only represent- ative of that state. He was born at New Britain and educated at Waterbury and at Trinity College, Hartford. He was a civil engineer on the New York and New England line running from Waterbury to Fishkill. When he came west to try his fortune he located on a Michigan farm and dipped into lumber- ing. He is still a farmer on the outskirts of Grand Rapids and abundantly prosperous. He is 47 years of age and the father of two sons. Kent county is in the habit of sending men to the Senate with strong convictions and strong instructions where there may be any doubt about the convictions. Russell was with the popular measures all the way, even fighting the $10,000 appropriation for the state fair at Detroit to show his people that if the western fair at Grand Rapids could not get any state money he would not give any to the Detroit performance. He came to Lansing with the notion that it was wrong to ride on the cars for nothing, but found himself most desperately lonesome. Whatever the price of his fare his course of action revealed not a symptom of outside influence. He was never caught straddling the fence or hesitating on a good bill. Turn on the music. You're about the IRA T. SAYRE (tax commissioner.) A story that will stand repeating is one related by Sayre himself and en- joyed by many of his friends. He was walking past the corner of a Lansing building one mild winter's day. Above his head hung large angles of ice and snow loosening with the thaw. Barricades had been erected on the side- walk to keep pedestrians at a safe dis- tance from the building. In his hurry Sayre climbed the barricades when a voice sang out from across the street: "Be careful there, Ira. I'd hate to see you get hurt." "What's that?" asked Ira to make sure of the words. "I say I'd hate to see you get hurt, Ira. only asset we've got now." The speaker was Lawton T. Hemans of Mason, leader of the last democratic minority. If his critics could see Sayre laugh at that story they would begin to appreciate his point of view. It's a laissez faire point of view that takes hard luck in politics as it took hard luck in his poor days as a young lawyer. Howbeit, in politics his luck has always been with him. He has never been defeated for any of the many offices for which he fought. As a friend of the late Gov. Pingree, Sayre has been charged with extraordinary leniency with the railroads as an assessing officer of those corporations under the very law which Pingree created. His sensation producer was the filing of an affidavit giving certain testimony in favor of the railroads in the ad valorem test case. In the first case the day of reckoning has not yet come. The tax commission and the ad valorem assessments are still ex- periments with the pioneer work mostly done and a new tax commission to begin clearing the atmosphere in the fall of the present year. When the day of reckoning does come, the super- visors who have taken advantage of the situation to cover their own iniquities will have quite as much reckoning to do as will Mr. Sayre. In the second case Sayre says this, and he didn't say it for publication, "I have been guilty of a political indiscretion in the filing of the affidavit, but of no more. I could have been hauled into court and made to say the same things I swore to there. But there is no use trying .'to explain it that way to the people and I have never tried to. I am willing to take the people's verdict and any medicine they think I should take." 101 ARTHUR W, SCIDMORE (representative.) By the sweat of his brow this man has risen to the ranks of the medical profession and been honored as the first citizen of Three Rivers. Born on a farm in Jackson, toihng under the burning sun for the few dollars that were to give him a modest high school training, clerking while he took his high school work and finally landing a medical degree from the state uni- versity, — that, in brief, is the struggle of the gentleman from St. Joe. Now at the age of 38 he retains still some of the earmarks of the early fight, — a robust physique, a sturdy figure and passably handsome face, with the quick step that made him get there. He still seems to be a bundle of nerves, — always on edge and always moving and roving. In lawmaking this session Dr. Scidmore played a silent, but effective part. He rarely addressed the chair, except on some local matter, but his silence was not the outcome of indiffer- ence and ignorance. He knew the talking would be done anyhow and placed his vote intelligently when called upon. Scidmore was not one of the men who had to read the morning papers to find out what they had been doing the day before. It was as a member of the public health committee and the committee on fish and fisheries that Scidmore did most of his work. He was one of the men who had to pass on the bill ousting Dr. Baker as secretary of the state board of health and was one of the men who went to Chicago to confer with representatives from other great lakes states on the possibility of enacting uniform laws. The conference recommendations were not accepted by the legislature, but they at least had an educational value in the process of securing at some future time some means of protecting the fish food supply. Another function that Scidmore performed, private but worth mentioning, was the collection of fees for the $230 diamond that made the speaker's heart glad and dazzled the eyes of the fair females in the galleries the night of adjournment. For the doctor's entertaining qualities you will have to see Roast- master Adams and the other celebrities of those little down town "game" dinners after hours. 4==^ 102 INSPIRED! To the elevator man one committee clerk was a joy forever. 103 GEORGE G, SCOTT (representative.) For the son of a clergyman Scott is a very tame, orderly young man, with a goodly endowment of what the politician calls "smoothness." Scott's "smoothness" does not border on du- plicity, but rather ranks as first class diplomacy. He seldom has shown ex- citement even in the most exciting situations. Poise is a valuable asset. It always meets the poiseless man off his guard, it accepts an insinuation with placidity and opposition with a smile. In Scott's struggle with one of his Wayne colleagues in the senate for a favorable report on his bill at- taching a referendum to all public utility franchises in Wayne county outside of Detroit, the expression of his face, the tone of his voice were always normal. That bill, it is well known, failed to pass for various reasons. But that other Scott bill, making possible an increase of over 16,000 in the population of Detroit and extending the city limits to include Delray, Woodmere and a part of Springwells, did pass, and largely on the initiative of Scott himself. His hold on the up-state representatives enabled him to overcome the opposition from a Detroit member. The significant thing about Scott's course on this bill is the fact that he himself is attorney for Delray and his brother is postmaster. The prob- able loss of the two jobs in his own family by annexation to Detroit did not deter him in the slightest. On other matters Scott was always ready to give Detroit and her suburbs any- thing they asked or wanted in reason. Like Rep. Bland, Scott is guilty of bachelorhood. Either Scott is to take a wife or President Roosevelt is not to be taken seriously. At the ripe age of 31 the gentleman from Delray has little to fear. He is a particularly safe man for the legis- lature, but without, probing into private family matters the scribe would respectfully recommend the same treatment for him as for his brother deserter from Detroit. 104 THADDEUS D. SEELEY (senator.) When Senator Seeley was a repre- sentative in 1 90 1 and 1903 he was regarded as a stand patter. That is, he was more inchned to do what a majority of the boys assembled at Lansing were disposed to do than to go too far in following the advice of the boys at home. He himself has de- scribed by anecdote the dilemma the average statesman must solve when it comes to using his better judgment, or the judgment of his friends, against the popular clamor of the voters. Before one of his elections he was "put on the pan" by some of the farmer's organiza- tions in Oakland county and closely in- terrogated as to his views and probable policies if he were elected. Those were the days of the "crying demand" for equal taxa- tion. One farmer wanted to know if Seeley would tax the railroads for all he was worth. Seeley replied — "I would tax the railroads and all other corporations to the same extent to which I would tax private individuals." After some more parleying he satisfied the inquisitor that he would do. During the session of 1905 when sleeping cars were to be put on the ad valorem list. Senator Seeley was interviewed by the same constituent. "You fellows aren't going to tax tele- phone companies are you, the same as railroads?" anxiously inquired the inquisitor. "That seems to be the intention" replied Seeley. Then the old gentleman unfolded a tale of investment in local telephone companies and how they would go out of business and how he would lose if they were put on the ad valorem list. "But I thought you wanted equal taxation" exclaimed Seelev. "Well, so I do, but . " Senator Seeley has tried to find the safe way out of the bush with fairness to both sides. Representing Gov. Warner's county he was very close to the administration and was in charge of the governor's end of the successful fight to tax sleeping cars and reduce the tax commission to three men in the fall of the present year. He is still under forty, robust and happy, and the proprietor of a rich live stock farm in the Pontiac district. His first nomination for the senate was received by acclamation. 105 SUEL ANDREWS SHELDON (senator.) There is a deal of the pioneer about Senator Sheldon, — the almost brutal frankness, the loud speech, the reck- lessness that grew out of his open, fresh air life when he worked in the woods of western Michigan with his father nearly 50 years ago. The other man's feelings are nothing to him as long as he makes his point. When he votes, he votes for all the world to hear and talks on the floor and off it in the same tone. "It's a rotten steal" was his declamation on one action taken by the senate. And a cross section of a speech on the expenses to be allowed the Wayne recount committee, sounded like this, — "Some of these senators like to tell their folks how economical they are. They can't take $10 a day for this job and then go back home and talk patriotism. Let 'em take what they're worth and fly the flag on the little red school house for the rest." Sheldon's motion didn't carry but he enjoyed himself. Climaxes are Sheldon's hobby, — the doing of something unusual. The effect of his surprises pleased him immensely. One day he was worrying the cigarette fiends with an anti- cigarette bill, and roasting the cigarette lobbyist as "the man with the golden palm." Next, he spread consternation through- out Ottawa county by passing in the senate a bill limiting the number of terms the local politicians could hold office. He generally halted before any damage was done. Behind his gruff, boisterous manner, lay the cunning of the fox. Ask him for his position on any question on which he did not care to put himself on record and quiz him as closely as might be, he would evade direct replies with all the art of the studied sophist. Perhaps he learned some of the art as a senator in '99. Sheldon's quick wit did not come from the academic training of schools of learning. It was a by-product of efifective self- reliance and a lifelong battle with nature, animate and in- animate. His school work was done in the winter and at home, but he finally ranked as a teacher himself. Since then he has plowed through other obstacles and has held important business positions for several different firms. He is an ex-president of the Ottawa and West Kent Agricultural Society, and now owns the farm in Wright township, Ottawa, which his father acquired some time after the birth of Suel A. and his arrival from Wis- consin. 106 ABRAM N. SHOOK (representative.) No man did more for the cause of direct nominations in the session of 1905 by calm, persistent insistence that his people wanted them than did Rep. Shook of Montcalm. No man did less in the session of 1903. A glance at the election returns of 1904 will undoubtedly explain the change in the gentleman's attitude. Montcalm gave Warner for governor a plurality of 1,193. With a reasonably clear understanding that Shook was a good primary election man he got a majority of 3,330. Besides, the democratic candidate for governor was rampaging very near Montcalm county for the very election reform that Shook so boldly supported this session. As has been frequently pointed out in the press of the state Gov. Warner's great personal popularity could not stop the reform stampede, and Rep. Shook got aboard. Shook was never known to make a speech. But in private discussions in which even more votes are made than by public utterances, he related to the first termers the experience of a man who had gone through his second campaign and who knew where he had been hit. The second termers had the spectacle of his complete conversion from indifference to active, aggressive work for the widest possible measure of reform. His position as secretary of the Montcalm county republican committee, and the fact that he was the man in Montcalm county closest to the situation gave his arguments weight. He even went so far as to begin the preparation of a bill giving his own county primary elections in case a general bill failed to pass. It was for the part he pla3'ed in this piece of legislation that Shook was best known. On other bills of general importance he followed a course of tolerable independence and intelligent fairness. Socially he was well and favorably known by nearly every man in the house of representatives. He is a native Montcalmer, 36 years of age, bright and active, married, and associated with his father in a general mercantile lousiness at Coral. 107 F. W. SHUMWAY (secretary of the state board of health.) It was a bad day for the bugs when Dr. Baker retired after a generation of pubUc service. In his time he had brought the state sanitary department to a high degree of efficiency. He was on intimate terms with every microbe of respectable parentage in the state. And they were on intimate terms with him. Whole generations of them had been watching him year after year un- til they knew his methods like the path- ology of their victims. They always had due notice of a raid from the health department before it came off, and the piles, mountains high, of ancient, speck- led documents on the doctor's desk in the health office afforded them a pleasant bed and shelter when they came to call. The first interview between the doctor and the scribe was con- ducted "by wireless" across the summit of these documents and amid tacked maps hung about the walls to indicate the state encampments of the bacilli. In the distance appeared the ven- erable cranium of the secretary with a quill waving in the di- rection of the enemy — that is to say, the senators, upstairs. All this is of interest as a scene that once was, but which has now passed into history. There is a cheerless cleanliness about the office since the entry of Dr. Shumway, and a businesslike atmosphere that speaks ill for any pathological loafer who re- fuses to get out and hustle for his tissue. The new doctor himself is personally clean and morally clean. When his appointment was announced one of the newspaper men started on a still hunt to see what trouble he could stir up for the next edition. He inspected the accounts of the new appointee as a member of the board of pardons and found them strictly o. k. In appearance and bearing the new secretary might be taken for a twin brother of the noted deraocrat, D. J. Campau of Detroit. Dr. Shumway is a Williamston man. He has begun a sys- tematic co-operation with the state educational department for guarding the public schools against epidemics by instructing both teachers and pupils in the rudiments of sanitary science. Being a practical man he is endeavoring to spend the appropri- ations at his disposal in adopting only the practical theories for the prevention of disease and the safety of the public health. 108 NATHAN. F. SIMPSON (representative.) "Isn't it a terror to see the railroad crowd in the legislature grow" remarked Rep. Simpson to the scribe one day. As a matter of fact the railroad crowd was not as big as it had been, but Simpson had just been defeated on his pet measure. That measure was drafted to make steam railroads in Michigan common carriers of live stock. Simpson pushed it through the house. He went before the railroad committees and stalled off the assaults of several prom- inent and influential railroad attor- neys. The senate railroad commit- tee refused to report the bill. Senator Woodman, Simpson's colleague, could not muster the votes to take it away from the committee. And Simpson has gone back to Van Buren nursing vengeance on the men that make such things possible. He has been credited with a desire to take the lieutenant governorship away from the upper peninsula and give the appointment of senate com- mittees to somebody more amenable to southern peninsula influence. "There's a man who will yet make things interesting" was Senator Woodman's judgment. "He is one of the men who likes trouble if anybody is looking for it. He'll stay on the trail of the railroad folks until he wins. For he never lays down." Coming from a man who knows Simpson politically and intimately that statement should be worth something. Taken in connection with Simpson's famous battle signal, when an attempt was made to amend the Michigan Central investigation bill and send it back to the upper house, the senator's judgment becomes more valuable. The signal was this, shouted from the middle of the floor "Everybody stand pat. The senate wants to kill this bill." Togo and Nelson flew signals like that before their great battles. Rep. Simpson was captain of Co. G, 35th Michigan Volunteers in the Spanish American war and captain and quartermaster of the 45th U. S. volunteers in the Philippines, and was a chief district quartermaster under Gen. Bell. He spent two years on the wild and woolly plains of western Nebraska in the '80s. Down in his corner of the state he is known as a horse tamer, and trainer as well as fruit grower and farmer since he left military service in June four years ago. And — "he likes trouble if anvbodv is looking for it." j& 109 CHARLES SMITH (senator.) Did it ever occur to those Wayne people who heap execrations on the head of the senator from the copper country that he is a native of their own county, the product of Livonia town- ship? This is his sixth term in the legislature, two in the house and four in the senate. He is hereditary chair- man of the committee on finance and appropriations and the mentor for the conservatives. Even as Bryan is the advocate of the free coinage of silver, so is Smith the friend of property. This patriarch can brook no conces- sion to populism; he has no patience for radical democracy; his veneration for political organization resembles a kaiserlike militarism. His hand is alwa3"s open to help a friend or closed to strike a blow at an enemy; if, perchance, his enemy prefers hostility to peace. The intensity of his bitterness when a majority of the senate voted for direct nominations for lieutenant governor blazed out in these words: — "We of the upper peninsula feel like the man in the bible who went down to Jericho and fell among thieves." It was little short of thievery to him for republicans to take any step looking to the possible weakening of the re- publican host beyond the straits. It is a strange thing the critics of Senator Smith would ask him to do, — enact general legislation inimical to the very vocation in which he has earned his daily bread. For 32 years he has been in the employ of copper companies, and is at present clerk of the smelting department of the Calumet & Hecla Mining Co. besides holding large interests in other commercial and financial institutions. It has been demanded of Senator Smith that he leave politics or leave the copper interests. The im- plication is that incorporated property should have no voice in the making of Michigan's laws, while labor and constructive socialism have. Senator Smith answers that he has been supervisor of his township in Houghton county for 17 consecutive years and was elected to the senate in 1904 by the largest majority in the state. no LAWRENCE W. SNELL (representative.) Squire Snell will never die friendless ; for should he go "broke" and daffy in his old age the thousand Detroit babies he is nov^^ feeding on pure, sweet formal- dehydeless milk, will rise up to bless the old man and care for him as for a phil- anthropist. We all pay for good milk, but may the good Lord of all be especially merciful to those who give it to us ! Squire Snell is a well rounded citizen — figuratively speaking of course. He is a Mason, a Maccabee, a milk and cattle dealer, formerly a dealer in real estate, a politician and legislator, and his intimacy with Detroit steamboat transportation leads to the belief that he knows something about marine affairs. Except that he would not allow the metropolis to have any of his district. Squire Snell was very good to Detroit. He voted for the annexation of the Delray district, provided the township of Greenfield was left intact. He bucked the annexa- tion of Fairview, in the which he may have been more kind than was his intent. He even voted for the Greusel joint resolution for municipal ownership though he and Greusel could never eat out of the same dish. But it was as the champion of the Michigan Agricultural Society in its efforts to make the state fair at Detroit a success that Snell showed his best. He even introduced and prosecuted a bill to enlarge his own village of Highland Park in order to force property owners to allow the laying of a double track to carry visitors to the new fair grounds. The property owners came to time. In one of the bitterest fights of the session, — and this fight dosen't seem to be over yet — he secured an appro- priation of $10,000 for two years' premiums for Michigan exhibits, besides an appropriation for the erection of the Michigan St. Louis Fair building on the new grounds. Mr. Snell was ex- cited during that fight. He never misses an opportunity of getting excited. But his grey matter is sound and wholesome and admits of excitement without temporary derangement. Ill WILLIAM L. STANNARD (representative.) This gentleman is the father of Theodore Warner Stannard, the son of Rep. Stannard, and the godson of President Roosevelt and Gov. Warner by the grace of the Michigan legislature. Theodore Warner is only one among many Stannards of the same genera- ation, but he will have the honor of perpetuating his father's political prowess as long as he shall live. We might remark in passing that Stannard won his election by a vote of 4,200 to i. Stannard's comrades from the upper peninsula say he is very well "fixed" and that he "fixed" himself in coppers. He resented the name of Croesus ap- plied to him by one correspondent during the session, though not denying that he has shut the wolf out of his last opening. He at least cannot refute the charge that he retired from a business partnership with his brother two years ago at the age of 32 and that he smokes cigars rich enough to feed a poor man's family. His partnership with his brother followed an experience as shipping clerk with a Marquette hardware firm and as clerk in his father's store. If he has half the money his moneyless colleagues reckon for him he is well "fixed" indeed. But whatever the facts, he makes no distasteful dis- play of his good fortune and is a friend of all good fellows. The hotter the game the better for Stannard. One night Stannard started ofif with a party of friends to see a circus. There was no circus, and the mud-bedaubed quintette piled into a hack for the return to the hotel. A very fresh cabby tried to empty the party somewhere in the outskirts of Ingham county. Stannard and the cabby exchanged un- printable remarks, but Stannard did not get out. Arrived at the hotel the cabby opened the door on the farther side of the street. "No, you don't" roared the obdurate one from Green- land, pulling back his legs. "We paid you to take us across the street." The cabby drove across the street in a very bad temper and emptied a mouthful of blasphemy and profanity with his passengers, adding "Wait a minute and I'll get you guineas a check for bed." "No thank you" replied the upper peninsula man "All we want is our money's worth." Stannard is just as willing to let the other fellow have his money's worth, and there's the jewel in the setting. 112 DAVID STOCKDALE (representative.) To anyone who had heard even the bare facts of Rep. Stockdale's hfe, the at- tempt of some of his colleagues from the same congressional district to alter his course on the primary election bill was indeed laughable. Stockdale, of course, did as he pleased and voted with the minority of the elections committee in favor of the Dickinson bill applying direct nominations to the first two state offices. He later had the satisfaction of winning. But here is what the coercers went up against; — a man born in Lincoln- shire, England, in ';}8; apprenticed in a blacksmith shop at the age of 12; brought to Michigan with his parents four vears later and a blacksmith at Wayland from '58 to '65; independent farmer and law student until he was admitted to practice at the age of 46; justice of the peace for 24 years; supervisor for 10 years; president of Allegan village one year ; judge of probate of Allegan county for 12 years; now a representative, farmer on a large scale, and senior member of the firm of "David Stockdale & Son, attorneys." He has also been prominent in the party organiza- tion in his own district. It was not surprising that a man of this make and testing should have a sane, firm, opinion on public matters or that he should be ready to back his opinion. On every general bill that came up he had his own ideas, — possibly held to them a trifie obstinately and stubbornly; even as he had held to his purposeful view of life with obstinacy and stubbornness from the day he first made the anvil ring for his daily bread. At 67 a man may be forgiven some decay of virility and vigor. Rep. Stockdale asks no forgiveness. He has all the vigor his rugged work has built up and can use it forcefully even at the approach of three score and ten. In matters affecting probate court work particularly he put to rout some of the best debaters in the house and fought like a man half his age. A silver spoon looks prettier than a horse-shoe hammer but it doesn't weigh as much. 113 ALVAH G. STONE (representative.) He's a little fellow — good natured, affable, sincere, intense — chairman of the house elections committee — farmer, speechmaker — honest, but an aspirant for the state senate — above all, a re- publican. This is Stone of Lenawee. He's a little fellow through no fault of his; he's good natured and affable because he is endowed with a healthy liver; he's sincere because a man of his integrity could not be anything else; he's chairman of the elections committee because the administration had enough men to be placed on that committee to vote him down; he's a farmer and speechmaker by occupa- tion as well as choice; he's an aspirant for the state senate be- cause he knows the senate needs some fresh blood that has not been inoculated; he's a republican or he would not have accepted the senate's primary election bill, euphemistically called a "compromise" bill. Stone is one of those primary reformers who for six years past have brought forth anathemas from certain party leaders — "leaders" by divine right, and thoroughly convinced that leadership was their heritage and theirs alone. It need not be taken as an aspersion by any of these gentlemen who have been fighting the Stones in Michigan to recall the recent utterance of a plebeian in Philadelphia, nationally known as plain Charley Smith, that "piracy is not republicanism." For all this goes to show how earnest members of any party may wash their dirty linen together under the same roof. This little Lenawee farmer has been a source of much ex- ecration and mystification on the part of the gentlemen from beyond the straits of Mackinac particularly. "Why," said one of them, "if Stone had known his business he could have passed any old primary bill he wanted in the house." When informed that Stone had no desire to go any further than the whole legislature and the governor could be made to go, the gentleman looked sceptical, puzzled. It was his private opinion that Stone was at heart a democrat or anarchist, because he had fought unceasingly inside his own party for what he believed his people wanted and what he knew he wanted, and assumed to know no more. Pass the Stones again, please; they're pretty good legislative fodder. 114 SENECA CHAMBERLAIN TRAVER (senator.) If there is any claim to righteousness in primary elections in Wayne county, it is that they retired to private life the Hon. "Pop" Goodell, the cosmopolitan, metropolitan representative of the fourth senatorial district. Incidentally they gave us Traver. "Pop" was too merry an old scout to take serious state business seriously. His statesmanship consisted solely of foxiness, — the faculty of fooling the other fellow before he fooled you. Traver was too handsome a man to be kept behind the scenes. Ask any of the ogling dames and mesdames of all shades and shapes who visited the senate chamber to hear a debate, — and found themselves feasting their eyes on splendid, single manhood. For Senator Traver is tall, athletic, with bright brown eyes, and rosy cheeks, and legs that were made to fit the latest style of trousers, and a fancy vest. The ragged holes burned in the senate carpet by the red hot ashes of "Pop's" clay pipe have been worn smooth by the graceful tread of vici-kids and patent leathers. The senator from the fourth in the session of 1905 always wore a collar, clean linen, and a clean face. Soap and water had come into their own. A beau brummel had sprung out of a bean stalk. Spring duck shooting was the source of Traver's troubles this session. He might have done for Michigan what Alexander Hamilton did for the union and drafted a proposed constitution to meet every growing need of a modern state, but had he gone back to River Rouge with no spring duck shooting he would have gone back to stav. As chairman of the senate committee on gaming interests lie fought Baird of Saginaw until a spring season was provided for in the new protective law. Then he had time to do some work for primary elections and to shoot a hole or two in the bill for the state inspection of private banks. There is English and Dutch blood in Traver with the atmos- phere of Iowa, his native state, and of New York where he was taught and taught school. He is a brisk voung lawyer of the sparking age of 38. 'Id you hear that, loidies? 115 JEROME E. TURNER (representative.) Muskegon county has an aspirant for the speakership in 1907, — provided there is a free-for-all for that position. Rep. Turner has not announced his candidacy but it is well understood among his friends he would be mightilv pleased to take the honor. All of this is only a natural and laudable ambition on Mr. Turner's part, but he was very active in bringing about the discom- fiture of several very prominent per- sonages in his fight for the Dickinson vs. the Ivory-Double primary election bill. He is a lawyer of experience and knows that in politics the man a'ou beat does not want to have you on his side in the next row unless you change your mind on such important issues. But all this is speculation. It is interesting to note how Turner came to be a lawyer. He was a drug clerk and a bank clerk and a law clerk by the time he was old enough to vote. The law clerkship he went through in his father's office. He liked the game and in 1880 he entered the office of Maybury & Conely in Detroit, being admitted to the bar the next year. Fifteen years ago he went into partnership with his brother in Muskegon. He is now the city attorney for Muskegon Heights and was formally city attorney for Owosso for three years. It was in Owosso and Corunna that Turner received his primary education. He is a native of Howell, Mich., of '58, and one of the best looking men in the house. Turner always betrayed great surprise in debate when anybody exhibited a knowledge of something that was new to him. But he was ever strategic in conceiving retorts that scored in re- buttal though they did savor strongly of legalistic persiflage. He has ability and his just portion of crafts and wiles. He is never asleep at the switch. In fact he was one of the men who lay awake to see that the switch was opened for the Michigan Central investigation bill to run off the track, because he believed the attorney general was doing something that was against good public policy and against good law in asking for its passage, — against good law; yes, yes, that was it. He is a good fighter, — and that covers a multitude of sins. SIMEON VAN AKIN (senator.) To see the slow, almost languid manner and scattered white hair of the senator from Monroe and Lenawee, one would hardly conjecture that Van Akin at the age of 19 was one of the sharp- shooters of the famous Berdans, though his lithe figure and his nervous wav still tell of the man of action. He is a man of principle too. In 1903 he was anything but enthusiastic for the cause of primary elections though the county of Lenawee, at least, was seething with the agitation. In the campaign of 1904 Van Akin plainly told his neighbors in Monroe and his constituents in Lenawee if they didn't like his style of doing business at Lansing thev could go to pot. He was ready to stand, he said, on the record of the senate journal whether that showed him for or against primary re- form and he was ready to stand by what he had done anyhow irrespective of the journal records. "If you fellows want to send another man to the senate, send him." was the effect of his ultimatum. During the session of 1905 Van Akin received a letter from a grange in his district scoring him for what he had not done for primary elections and threatening him with political expugnance unless he did as they said and did it at once. The senator called a reporter into caucus with him. "Did you ever see such blasted impudence?" asked the senator. The reporter averred he had not. "What will I do with it? Give it to you and let you fix up an answer?" The reporter's fingers were growing itchy. It was a shame to take the money, besides he had been asked his honest opinion. He advised the senator to keep the letter private. The senator thought perhaps that was good advice and reluctantly said he might act on it. All of which goes to show that you can't make the senator believe he is wrong by kicking him from behind before you tell him why. Most of us like to sign a protocol before we begin to treat with the enemv, let alone make concessions. Senator Van Akin is a farmer among farmers and does not fancv bulldozing methods. He has held several local offices by the votes of his farmer friends. He has never been afraid of the cars, — rather likes 'em. j& 117 CHARLES VAN KEUREN (representative.) Anything to get there ! The will that "finds a way or makes it" is as much American as Roman; as much a pride and glory to the young man in the every day battle of life as it was to the young imperial Augustus at Phillippi and Actium. Historiographies are written around the incident of the youth born in the purple who deigns to soil his hands with manly toil under circum- stances that compel labor or disgrace or death. Youths of the twentieth century who stoop to menial things because by the stooping they climb one step higher do not relish the menial work any more than their brother born in the purple welcomes manual toil. For on this side of the foot stool we are all born in the purple. Waiting on table as a college student is not the thing a man does by choice but it sent Rep. Van Keuren one step higher. It made him ready for any emergency the battle of every day might offer. It gave him his university education. It made him the lawmaking representative of his native county at 27. As a traveling representative in America and France for some of the biggest publishing houses he has crowded a large ac- quaintance with human nature into his youth. He is now a publisher himself. It was quite evident in Van Keuren's case that the greybeards of the house resent reproach and criticism from men so young as he; not that the greybeards question a great many of the arguments of the youngsters but simply because it goes against the grain to hear it. Van Keuren had trouble in securing support for many of his motions, except on his Livingston county measures, but always took a very active part in the proceedings of the house. He was absolutely impervious to snubs from opponents or to "joshes" from friends. He stood by his guns to the finish in the fight for direct nominations for governor and lieutenant governor and was the one man in the lower house who made an open, effective, fearless attack on the railroad lobby from the floor. A man's value to his county or his state is not to be judged solely by his personal following among his colleagues. 118 CHARLES E, WARD (REPRESEXTATIVE.) Chairman of the ways and means com- mittee ; and about the smallest man in the house, physically speaking, — physi- cally speaking. Legislatively, person- ally, and socially, Ward is as big a man as there is among the men of '05. His coup d'etat was the humbling of the patricians in the upper house who wanted to spend more money, as usual, than did the house; and who were, unusually, defeated. It was not until the closing hours of the six months grind that Ward's com- mittee reported the measures on which there promised to be a fight. The senators interested in the institutions affected kicked. It was too late. It was impossible to change the hour of adjournment to a later date. Under Ward's ad- vice and coaching the house conference committees stood pat on the original reports of the ways and means committee, and in only one case did the house recede from its position. The Marquette normal school got an additional $8,000. Ward's game cannot be worked more than once in the same decade. Already some senators are laying plans to prevent such a reversal of prestige next session. But by successfully executing its policy Ward's committee saved the tax payers of '05 a good quarter of a million dollars. There are people in Shiawassee county who say that Ward did not represent the majority of his constituents in voting with Gov. Warner on the primary election bill. Rep. W^ard at least remained true to the governor whom Shiawassee helped to elect. There are also men in Shiawassee who vow that if Ward wants a third term they will give it to him. On the governor's measure for the state inspection of private banks Ward opposed his excellency. He is cashier of a Bancroft bank, spoke against the bill in the house, and helped to defeat it in the senate. His opposition, as far as the governor was personallv concerned, was a Gaston- Alphonse afifair in which the duelists ate cheese together before and after the mill. The subject's picture speaks for him. It is not wonderful that those Detroit ladies who were after a Macomb monument should fly into a temper w^hen they found such a pretty little man so mean with the money. He certainly sails under false colors. A lady naturally expects to get anything she wants from a face like that. She can within reason. For Ward is really as good as he looks, senators. 9S» 119 pi '\W ^^^y ^' HK/7 ^ /^|a FRED M. WARNER (governor.) Gov. Warner has evidently set out to give Michigan the best government he can. In that attempt he necessarily clashes with the v^ill and the wishes of other men who have served the re- publican party and who do not see eye to eye with him. In many instances these men are his warm personal friends and advisers. No man ever reached an elective office alone. Every candi- date has friends. The least he can do is to give them a respectful hearing and sometimes oblige them. In guiding his administration to conserve the general interests of the whole commonwealth without crippling the limited interests of his party and its leaders and organizers the chief executive must frequently steer a tortuous, sometimes dangerous, course. Whatever his shortcomings as a governor may be now or here- after his reputation as a man is safe for all time. Nobody has ever disputed the statement that Warner's personal popu- larity and integrity meant much for the republican cause in the strenuous state campaign of 1904. He is a large man of good height and comfortable girth. He looks you straight in the eye when he answers or asks a question, with no furtive glance at your feet or the middle button of your vest. His white teeth gleam from beneath a heavy mustache as he smiles or speaks; and he never misses an opportunit}^ of letting his smile break into a wholesome laugh. His thick greyish hair and his ruddy cheek and keen, blue eye mark the man's prime. His linen is always spotless, his clothes well made, his neck- wear generously and decorously colored. He shakes hands as if he meant it and treats as gentlemen all who approach him. Fred M. Warner was born in '65, and brought to America from Nottinghamshire, England, when an infant by his parents. On his mother's death he was adopted by Hon. P. D. Warner of Farmington. He was given a substantial education and became a clerk in his father's store, subsequently being placed in charge of the business. He soon developed the cheese habit and now operates eight factories with an annual output of 1,000,000 pounds. His one hobby is the development of the dairy interests of Michigan. Besides holding local offices he has been a senator for two terms and secretary of state for two, — the youngest secretary of state as he is now the youngest governor of the constitutional era. Gov. Warner does not pose as a genius. He has shown a disposition to give his people the best that is in him. No man can do more. 120 ARTHUR J, WATERS (representative.) "Waters got in wrong." That was the way his colleagues put it. And the expression when analyzed meant just this: — Here is a man who has more brains than we have. He knows it and we know it. He is a red hot reformer with varieties. He is very aggressive. He makes too much of his personal influence. Let us have some fun with him. And furthermore, when we all get fighting among ourselves and want to get together we will find Watcrs's neck a happy stamping ground. But Waters would not tame. He took the prods and roasts and bitter- ness of men who professed they did not like him personally, and smiled in return. Feigned indifference or invulnerability preserved unruffled his demeanor, until for very weariness of attack his tormentors sat back and listened. They heard frequently some voluble phrases of imagery, seme fly blown conjury of battle fields and flags. But they also heard sense and sound argument and powerful presentation of the case. The speech delivered by the gentleman from Washtenaw on the necessity of immediatelv reforming the state tax ccm- mission, was voted by his enemies in spite of themselves, one of the best orations of the whole session from nearly every point of criticism. Being a fellow townsman of Amariah the speaker seemed to be fired with special inspiration. Furthermore, Waters is a lawyer of no slight proportions. Waters won't be "in wrong" in 1907. His ability has been recognized. If the indefinable atmosphere that gives im- pressions gives them truly in this case, the representatives have gone home feeling a little ashamed of the life they gave Waters for most of the session and prepared to heed him more if the}^ come back. Waters has asked for nothing but a square deal. In many cases his vigorous methods did not assure him of anything but an affront. Yet he had faith in his own ideas and insisted on their consideration. The rejjly that was given him in reverses did not come as a rule through the medium of calm, well conducted, open debate, but from the bullying that strikes a blow where speech is lacking. Moral courage is one of the great things in human nature. Waters has asserted his superiority. J9 121 J, CLYDE WATT (represent ATI VE.) March i, 1905, the gentleman from Ionia married, — no matter whom, for her only name now is Watt. Next day the bride and groom called on the legis- lature. They were received in front of the speaker's desk, taken in, so to speak. "Uncle William" McKay and "Old Man" Holmes uncorked some sentiments half a century old, and said a lot of things for which they would have been soundly spanked in those days. The bride blushed, the groom smiled very gently that the bride might not see him, and then somebody handed the embarassed and happy couple a glittering bundle of costly emblems of good will from the boys. Tears started to the eyes of the groom, which showed that he had a heart and that it was working. Some of us have hearts ; some of us have cardiac machinery. Manly emotion and senti- ment got in its work on Watt when he wasn't looking and the whole inner man stood forth for one brief moment for us all to see. Representatives who had scarcely known Watt until then began to speak of him as Clyde. They were all his friends. "All the world loves a lover." Just to show that Watt cuts some pumpkins in his own land, it is fitting to mention that he has been president and secretary of the Gridley Club of Ionia county for two years. Ever attend a Gridley Club banquet? No? Take in the next one. You'll hear more republicanism in ten minutes than you will at a Grand Army reunion. And somebody will tell you a good story. And if you know enough to laugh at the right time, he'll show you where they keep "it." But don't get "soused," "plastered" or "wall-eyed." Placidity at any banquet is all that is necessary even in Ionia. But speaking of Watt, — he is not quite 30 3''ears old yet and he has been up against all that already. Besides he has been circuit court commissioner of Ionia for two terms and secretary of the republican county committee. He is a graduate of Ann Arbor of '96 in law, succeeded in having one arm blown oflf while hunting two vears before that, — which has its advantages with the reigning laundry prices, — and is handling a prosperous practice in his native village of Saranac. 122 NICHOLAS J. WHELAN (represextative.) This Irishman defeated a man named Van Den Berg in a town named Holland by just about three votes to one. Keep your orbs on this panorama for a minute, — saw mill, timber boom, rail- road tracks, basket factory, school teacher, justice of the peace, life saving crew, hotel manager, practice of law, newspaper, law maker. When you get your breath and rub your eyes you will remember that "Nick" figured in every picture as it flashed past. The scribe had almost forgotten to state that he was married over a year ago and that he has covered the entire distance since 1869. Two years ago "Nick" was an ardent direct nominations man. This session he worked like a hired man to keep the house closely in line with the platform of 1904. The story was at once circulated that Chairman Diekema of the state central committee, himself a Hollander, was backing "Nick" for the senate. "Nick" says he was simply standing by the party platform just as he was in 1903, and that the party cannot make platforms too fast to lose him. The senate story did not gain much credence for the reason that "Nick" does not strike the boys as the kind of chap who would like to climb that sort of a ladder. It was Whelan's Irish tongue that brought the two factions of the house together after the grand cataclysm in which he went down to defeat and which he afterward de- scribed in the Donnybrook style of "a beautiful fight." The blarney stone is not indigenous to the Dutch district where he has lived, but "Nick's" ancestors must have lived very close to it. It was in his persuasive, coaxing tone, when he pleaded for the passage of a bill ; it was in his voice and eye when he referred to the little cottager with his ambitious garden and plot of ground and asked for the exemption of mortgages from taxation; it was in his manner when he lobbyed before and after hours to "line up" the boys on any proposition. Whelan was the natural selection for speaker pro tem when the leaders were in doubt as to what to do early in the session. He took home a cut glass punch bowl to show his wife the bovs were satisfied. He will be the natural selection for something else before he is verv old. ^ 123 W, H, WHITBECK (SERGEANT-AT-ARMS OF THE HOUSE.) For two sessions now several curious persons have been yearning for a riot in the house of representatives or a dis- order of some kind that would give Ser- geant Whitbeck an opportunitv to show his form. He certainly looks the big policeman from his leisurely gait to his portly front and his quid. To be sure he is a trifle obese, but he has a good grip and biceps, and he ought to have a chance to demonstrate. His muscular duties have been limited to seizing a re- fractory messenger by the neck or meekly parading an "absentee without leave" before the speaker. This latter act he performs with be- coming modesty, but with an expression of sympathy and shame for the culprit that really detracts from his dignity and the aus- terity of the occasion. His expression plainlv savs to the man with the gavel: "Please, sir, be easy on him now. He didn't mean to do it. I know he didnt'. Besides, I wouldn't mind if I thought the gentlemen were taking it all seriously, but they're joshing us both, and I'm afraid they're joshing me as much as they are him — perhaps more." Then the sergeant returns to his post at the bar, feeling very glad it's all over and hoping he won't have to go on parade again very soon. If he were ordered to wear a uniform he'ld faint every time he started for the main aisle. He is altogether too good natured and too retiring to enjoy a serious situation or an exhi- bition of himself. Over in Fennville, Whitbeck's home, the sergeant is known as a fruit-dealer. When he is not sitting on a stool at the bar of the house counting the golden piastres as they waltz upstairs to him from the state treasury, he is on the hike to New Orleans and back making a snug rake-ofif every time he turns a deal and wadding his pocket as he marches north. He likes the southern people as most everybody from the north does, and dislikes their climate and way of life as most every robust northerner does. He likes his northern home so much better that he pre- fers a state job at the capitol for a change. And then, confi- dentiallv, it is so easv! 124 JASON WOODMAN (senator.) If you want to talk and don't know what to talk about go to Woodman. He'll talk until you will begin to think he was born talking and will be found talking when his last day conies, con- scious or unconscious. The salvation of it all is that he generally says some- thing. Whether the state grange is to blame for the condition of his submax- illary or whether he is to blame for the grange is a debatable question. He talked for the state grange as a lecturer for eight years. If he had not been in part to blame for the grange it is doubt- ful whether his services would have been retained. It may have been cause or effect in either premise. Let us have something about Woodman and primary elections, — for he talked and worried more on that issue than on any other. He didn't believe in the direct nomination system any more than he did in 1903. He wanted only a moderate measure of primary reform. But he voted for the direct nomination of governor to help Gov. Warner swing his compromise bill, and for the direct nomination of lieutenant governor for the same purpose, and also as a protest against the make-up of senate committees for the past few sessions. "Personally, I don't care much about it one way or the other" quoth Woodman "but a lot of us are getting tired of having all the important committees controlled by a few men and the work delayed when half of us have our hands empty. We could stand some changes, for instance, in our railroad committee." Woodman is a little man with red whiskers, a fiery tongue that rattles along like a mill race during a debate, a great desire for good company and good smokes, and a deep pride in old Van Buren county and his New England ancestors. He is a graduate of the Michigan Agricultural College of 1881 and an old college mate of "Link" Avery of Port Huron. Woodman says "Link" was a bright boy even in those days. Woodman does not follow the bent of his old pal in managing politics, mainly because there are no two opinions about republicanism in Van Buren countv. According to Woodman they vote THE TICKET in Van Buren and offer incense to the party platform whatever that may be. Their differences they fight out among themselves without loss of time. They all abhor democrats. Woodman has served his second term and will now drop back into private citizenship while a new man will come on to learn what he has now learned. Poor business! FRED J. ADAMS (CORRESPOXDEXT.) As the dean of the press corps and the captain of the convivials Fred Adams must be reckoned as a fraction of the state government of 1905. The accom- panying cut shows his normal expres- sion of countenance except when he is grinding out dispatches for the Grand Rapids Press, or springing a particu- larly good joke. Then he is as solemn as an owl. His methods are unique ; his humor of the practical kind that gets results. Pre- siding as roastmaster at the numerous little midnight dinners down town, given only to the elect, he was worth all the end men of a minstrel show and good for an all night performance. On one occasion he called on a stranger, a friend of a senator present, for a song or dance. The stranger was very timid. The senator introduced him as "Colonel ." The stranger was not accustomed to such performances and began to stammer a few words of greet- ing. "I'm really not a colonel," he began with a sickly smile. "Well, that will be enough for you. Sit down. We don't want any imitations worked off here." The stranger retired in confusion and finally joined in the roars of laughter that followed. One night an aged legislator was roused out of his sleep by the arrival of a couple of frisky senators simultaneously with a trunk that the porter said had arrived for him. The trunk was rolled into the room and the conversation presently turned on the hubbub that had been going on in the corridors for several hours. The man sitting on the side of the bed in a night shirt unloaded a few thinks about the devilment of "that man Ad- ams." About then the lid of the trunk slowly arose, and the nervous old host saw the head of his subject emerging from beneath the lid and asking him to "have something." Space prevents the rehearsal of more of the exploits of the fun maker. But there was the joke that failed and that threatened to startle the legislature and the state. Adams had planned that the day of President Roosevelt's arrival in Chicago telegrams should arrive for the speaker, the president pro tem, and the governor, apprising them of the president's intention to go east by way of Lansing on account of a change in the president's plans, Committees were to be appointed to meet the presi- dent's train and an adjournment taken to receive him on his way through. One little hitch spoiled the show after the pro- gram was all in working order. That was the one joke that failed. For the others that made good apply to Charlie Downey, Lansing, Mich. 126 THE FALL OF THE GAyEL We have met: and we have parted. Shall we meet again? Who knows? If we meet there will he langhter: If we dont meet,— well, " Here goes! " You the statesmen; we, reporters; But in both are hearts of men, Warming only pleasant memories Of the friendship that was t/jen. Soon we statesmen and reporters Will have passed the darkened portal. But tJje spirit of our friendship Can not pass,— it is immortal. —H. M. N. DEC 3 1906 3477-2^ Lot-L rv. '0 \^ .. -^ -^^0^ r o *- A^^"^^. ^.^nie^; <^y^s^^ °.WMw^ A.^'-^^ -.ai^*" ^.^""^^ \ V • » « ' j\0'' ,p. ^^-^^