politics

NO, WE MEANT THE OTHER KIND OF “PROGRESSIVE”

Jeff Elliott Leave a comment

“Sonoma County Progressive Association Formed,” read the March 10,1905 Press Democrat front page headline. Surprising news, even more so because of the newspaper’s approval. Editor Ernest L. Finley’s politics were the opposite of progressive — a few days afterward, he would slam President Teddy Roosevelt for appointing an African-American to a position where he would have some authority over “white people.”

Words evolve, and “progressive” had more than one meaning circa 1905. Historians now label the late 19th-early 20th century decades as a progressive era, which saw the emergence of various liberal movements that were, among other things, pro-labor, pro-suffrage, anti-trust, and anti-child labor (good general article here, if you’re unfamiliar with this history). By the time Teddy Roosevelt famously created the national “Bull Moose” Progressive Party in 1912, the definition of “progressive” was locked into its current useage.

But in the earlier part of the century, “progressive” also meant something more like, “pro-civic improvement.” A progressive citizen demanded sewers and paved streets and new schools and hospitals – and was willing to vote for bonds to pay for the improvements. Municipal bonds were usually enthusiastically promoted by the papers, and when there were no local votes pending, the newspapers praised the merits of bonds passed in neighboring communities. In 1904, the LA Herald congratulated Pasadena and Long Beach on showing progressive spirit for passing bonds that paid for new water works and fire engines; the San Francisco Call possibly beat the drums for the Oakland muni bond campaign more than Oakland’s own Tribune.

The Press Democrat was late to play the “progressive” card to win passage of a bond, but when they came to the table, they played to win at all costs. The banner headline above was not just strident, but threatening, and the accompanying article leaned hard on fear. Without a better water system a “menace to health” was possible, not to mention “more parched lawns.” The sewer system was inadequate and a lawsuit was threatened against the city over lack of capacity (Santa Rosa was already under injunction for dumping sewage into the creek, foreshadowing modern-era legal actions against the city for treated wastewater in the Russian River).

Voters turned out in large numbers to approve the bond, with 1,094 casting ballots – sizable because although Santa Rosa had a population just over 10,000 and women were not allowed to vote, of course. The Press Democrat reported, “The landslide, however, exceeded the expectations of even the most sanguine of the prophets…carriages were dashing here and there [yet] one would hardly have known that an election of such moment to Santa Rosa’s progress was taking place.”

That $200,000 bond had passed just months after a failed Dec. 1904 try to win approval for a $75,000 school-only bond because classrooms so overcrowded that chairs were not even available. The new bond set aside $35k for schools — which seemed generous, until close examination showed that $5 thousand went just to buy two (apparently overpriced) parcels and build modest schoolhouses south of Santa Rosa Creek and in Roseland. Children, I think our word for the day is, “unprogressive.”

But promoting local bonds wasn’t really the main stated objective of the Sonoma County Progressive Association, although it was formed just a few weeks before the bond vote. Its main goal was to “work to advance our Imperial Sonoma” at the upcoming Lewis & Clark Centennial Exposition in Portland, Oregon that summer. This might be the only example where the meaning of “progressive” was stretched to embrace advertising local commerce or tourism.

Civic leaders from all Sonoma County towns met for a banquet at the Hotel St. Rose that Wednesday night, and listened to speakers urge that the County develop plans for a big presence at the Portland Exposition. Judge Seawell remarked that Sonoma County had allowed its candle to remain too long under the bushel. “‘Unity’ was the slogan sent out from the assemblage,” reported the PD, and as usual at these occasions, poor, put-upon Luther Burbank stood and said a very few words to great acclaim.

But aside from that swell dinner in Railroad Square and passage of Santa Rosa’s muni bonds, there was no more mention in the 1905 newspapers of the Sonoma County Progressive Association, or for that matter, participation in the Portland Exposition. Although the fair was considered a great success for the West Coast, Sonoma County just couldn’t get its act together, as Press Democrat editor Finley tsk-tsks in the editorial that follows.

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HE’S NOT OUR PRESIDENT

Jeff Elliott Leave a comment

Hurrah for Teddy Roosevelt! In the 1904 elections, he came close to bringing the nation together for the first time since the Civil War — even in the “Solid South” outpost that was Santa Rosa, Teddy won every precinct by comfortable margins, despite the Press Democrat’s race baiting and hysteric attacks on Republican candidates (including an over-the-top editorial cartoon showing a “Rooseveltism” bayonet through the U.S. Constitution). But it was time to end the snarky attacks once it was clear that the community — and presumably the paper’s readership — overwhelmingly backed a new direction for the country. Right?

Well, no. The PD complained that the “useless and uncalled for” inauguration ceremony had killed dear old Senator Bate, a former Confederate general. Worse yet, an African-American had been appointed to a position of authority!

AN UNNECESSARY AFFRONT

Just what reason President Roosevelt has for appointing a negro to the position of collector of the Port of New York is not plain, unless it is his desire to humiliate as much as possible the white people compelled to do business with that branch of the revenue department. It cannot even be urged in extenuation that such “recognition” is justified by the fact that a large number of the persons brought into contact with the official in charge there are colored, as might possibly be said of some of the southern ports. Not one man in a thousand having business with the collector of the New York port is a negro. The office is the most important of its kind in the United States, and should most certainly go to a white man rather than a negro. The President’s determination to name a colored man to the place is an unnecessary and uncalled-for affront, not only to the people of New York but of the entire nation.

— Press Democrat, March 14, 1905

USELESS AND UNCALLED FOR

The pomp and pageantry attending presidential inaugurations in this country has become so conspicuous as to occasion wide-spread criticism all of which appears to be justified. Why should a citizen of the United States, just because he has been temporarily elevated to the position of chief executive of the nation, seek to outdo the princes and potentates of Europe in their display of the material attributes of mere temporal power? A well-known Washington correspondent in discussing the matter says:

[“]All the fuss and feathers, fanfarronade [sic], fiddlesticks and the cheap and tawdry blare of trumpets attendant upon the inauguration of a President of these United States are passed and gone, the crowds have melted away, and there is not a man in the city not the direct beneficiary of all this noise and beating of tomtoms who is sorry that it is over.

[“]Some day maybe the people of the nation will have the good sense to elect a man President who will eschew all this tommyrot and who will refuse to have anything to do with it. He will be unpopular with the saloon and the hotel men, but he will have the thanks of all the quiet and orderly people of the city and the country.

[“]If they are to continue this idiocy, then why in the name of common sense do they not change the date of holding this inauguration to the 30th day of April? You can be assured of the nastiest weather on record on the 4th of March each year in this city of any time during the year. And each year, or at least each inauguration, sees its harvest of death from colds contracted from exposure under inclement skies while the President is delivering his inaugural address.

[“]This time the victim was dear old Senator Bate of Tennessee. He took cold and lived only four days after sitting fifteen minutes in the cold March wind that was blowing while on the reviewing stand. There is no telling how many more that we will never hear of, and thus it is at each recurring inauguration. This parade of nonsense and noise is becoming greater each time. Either the American people are getting closer to the ideas of the effete monarchies of the old world, and long to have a king to install on his throne, or else are going crazy. It is the opinion of all right-thinking people here that the thing ought to be stopped.[“]

The pompous display of wealth and power on state occasions is a survival of the days of barbarism, when the heads of government considered it necessary — and rightfully so — to impress the people with the exalted station and claims of superiority…do these conditions exist in this enlightened land? If so, well and good; if not, such tomfoolry [sic], as was carried on in Washington a couple of weeks ago should be abandoned forever as useless and uncalled for.

— Press Democrat, March 22, 1905

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THE 1904 ELECTIONS

Jeff Elliott Leave a comment

All that you need to know about the 1904 presidential election: Teddy Roosevelt beat the knickers off someone you’ve never heard of.

As boring and predictable as the race was nationally, it was political mortal combat in the trenches of the highly-partisan Santa Rosa newspapers. The battle began quietly enough, with each editor sniping at the presidential nominee on the opposing side. Then salvos were fired against the other party’s candidate for Congress, first raising questions about the man’s capabilities, then attacking his character and even manhood. And finally it became take-no-prisoners warfare against everyone on the opposing side, especially the editor of the other paper. By early November, it wouldn’t have been surprising to come across Press Democrat editor Finley and Republican editor Lemmon slugging away on Fourth street.

Nothing needs to be said here about Teddy Roosevelt, except that Mr. Fairbanks, named in some of the posts below, was his veep. Heading the Democratic ticket was the forgettable and dolorous duo of Judge Alton B. Parker and 80 year-old Henry G. Davis. Parker was the 3rd (or 4th) pick for a compromise candidate, nominated only because party superstar William Jennings Bryan didn’t want to make a third consecutive run, and because conservative Democrats loathed candidate William Randolph Hearst, who they viewed as a playboy with populist leanings. Octogenarian Davis was given the nod because everyone thought the wealthy industrialist would gratefully pay for the campaign (he didn’t). In the end, the Parker/Davis ticket was a 19th century throwback in a year when Americans were focused upon the promise of twentieth century progress. They ended up carrying only the 17 states of the old Confederacy, save Missouri.

The surprise in reading the local election year news was that racial discrimination was so often an underlying theme, starting with the Press Democrat’s editorial shock over an African-American child appearing onstage at the Republican Convention, warning it was a portent of dreaded racial equality. But officially, race was a non-issue for Democrats in 1904. The national party platform didn’t mention race at all, except to condemn Republican “race agitation” as a threat that could reopen wounds “now happily healed.” As such, it wasn’t a plank as much as it was a talking point to bash Republicans. (The Republican National Committee would produce a historically valuable “campaign textbook” in 1908 to counter such attacks.)

One reason that Democrats stayed clear of race issues that year was probably Bryan’s decision not to run. In each previous election campaign he had courted African-American support, arguing that Republicans had only given them “janitorships” in exchange for their vote. What Democrats offered was only Jim Crow discrimination, of course, and Bryan didn’t seem to understand that Blacks disliked being second-class citizens. Of course, that wasn’t the only thing Bryan didn’t understand.

The election of 1904 continues in four parts.

THE RACE ISSUE

The South is enthusiastic for Judge Parker and would be so if there were but one issue in the campaign. To them the all-absorbing and overpowering issue is the negro question and they are anxious for the defeat of Roosevelt on account of that issue, if for no other reason. A recent communication to the Washington Post by a negro named Henry B. Baker serves to accentuate the negro issue more than anything that has lately appeared. In that communication, he calls attention to the difference between the Republican and the Democratic National Conventions. He says that at the Republican Convention the colored man was treated as a companion, friend, and brother, that there he was made to feel as though he were not only a political but social equal; that the delegates followed the advice and example of President Roosevelt, who teaches that the colored man deserves to be treated as a social equal. He says that to emphasize this fact, he had the courage to have at his table, Prof. Booker T. Washington, and that, if Roosevelt is elected, it will so encourage the negro men that they will demand that Booker Washington shall be the Republican candidate for Vice-President in 1908. He calls attention to the scene in the Republican Convention, when a beautiful white girl was placed upon the stage and by her side a negro boy, and that they led the cheering, thus making an example of President Roosevelt’s idea of the equality of the races. He then points out that the Democratic Convention was a white man’s convention, of a white man’s party, and that in it, there was not a single negro man. Talk like that will do more to make the race question one of the leading issues of this campaign than anything else that could be suggested. There are many doubtful states in the North that will give to the Democrats sufficient Republican votes upon the negro question alone to send them into the Democratic column.

– Press Democrat, August 10, 1904

MORE on the election of 1904
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