I See by the Papers...

A poignant reminder that rights are hard won, and history is never a sequence of inevitable events. Suffragists had been trying to gain rights in the U.S. for over a quarter century, yet had scored wins in only four states by 1904. Miss Elaine Davis, who thought the sight of women voting so novel, would have to wait eight more years before she could cast her own vote for a president in California; women in most other states would wait 16 years until the Nineteenth Amendment was finally passed in 1920.

SAW THE WOMEN CAST THEIR VOTES

MISS ELAINE DAVIS WITNESSED SPECTACLE THAT WAS A DECIDED NOVELTY TO HER
Was in Boise City on Election Day And Heard Members of the Fair Sex Discuss Politics

Miss Elaine Davis of this city, who is on her way east for an extended tour, happened in Boise, Idaho, on election day and was the guest of a friend of the Davis family, who is vice president of the Republican State Central Committee. She saw women go to the polls and vote with as much interest as the men. It was a novel sight for Miss Davis, and she was amused to hear women debating political issues among themselves. Everything passed off quietly and orderly at the polls, and the lady voters were accorded the respect due their sex.

[...]

- Press Democrat, November 15, 1904

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

In the 1904 election coverage, editors of the Santa Rosa Republican and Press Democrat booed the other side's presidential candidate -- but the long knives came out over the contest for the House of Representatives. This post and the following one explain some of the backstory, and why the fight became so vicious.

The Democratic party candidate was 32 year-old Theodore Bell, then completing his first term in the House. Before his term in Congress, Bell had been District Attorney in Napa County. The opposition charged that he'd done little in Washington except claim partial credit for legislation authored by other Congressmen.

Assistant U.S. District Attorney Duncan McKinlay was the Republican challenger. Although he maintained a home on Cherry Street in Santa Rosa, the Democrats said he was technically a resident of San Francisco, where he worked and lived most of the time.

BELL'S GOOD INTENTIONS

Bell's commendable efforts in Congress were limited to good intentions. He accomplished nothing. It was Perkins who secured the building of the collier at Mare Island Navy Yard after Bell had lost the proposition in the House. Bell had no more to do with the apportionment of funds of the Sacramento and Napa Rivers than did the man in the moon. They were apportioned on the recommendation of the engineers, the work being done in the War Department. All that Bell can be credited with in any manner affecting the welfare of this state or district in any way is "good intentions," with which a very hot place is supposed to be paved.

- Santa Rosa Republican, November 5, 1904

It is a noteworthy fact that the only argument Duncan McKinlay's supporters can advance in favor of his election to Congress is the fact that he belongs to the Republican party.

They cannot say that he is a better man for the place than Theodore Bell, for that is not true.

They cannot urge his superior ability, for he does not possess it.

They cannot claim that either personally, professionally, mentally, or morally Duncan McKinlay is better entitled to the support of the people than Theodore Bell, for they know better.

All they can say is that McKinlay belongs to the Republican party.

He certainly does.

- Press Democrat, October 7, 1904

Pity the candidate of a rural district in 1904 -- it took three (four?) days for candidate Bell to canvas the larger towns in Sonoma County alone, and this district stretches all the way to Oregon (and at the time, it also apparently included more counties in the upper Central Valley). Party leaders and political celebrities were more involved in stumping for local candidates than today; no one thought it odd that vice presidential candidate Fairbanks was speechifying for an hour down in Stockton to reelect a Congressman.

Republican McKinlay had no less than the governor of the state campaigning for him: George Pardee, who, in fifteen too-short months after that election, would be the only major elected official to be roundly praised for his actions following the Great Earthquake of 1906. Most of the upset from the Press Democrat was aimed at the governor for having the effrontery to take sides in an election.

Democrat Bell's champion was Thomas J. Geary, called "Sonoma county's Democratic boss" by Lemmon's newspaper. Geary was no inconsequential backwoods Baby Tweed; he earned a prominent place in this county's hall of shame for pushing through the infamous Geary Act of 1892 when he was a member of the House. This law not only extended the Chinese Exclusion Act for another decade, but also made it more discriminatory. Chinese residents were now denied bail if arrested and prevented from testifying in court. It also forced all Chinese residents to carry a special ID issued by the federal government; caught without papers, unfortunates had to produce "at least one credible white witness" to swear that they were in the United States prior to 1892, else they'd be deported or spend a year at hard labor.

Geary campaigned hard for Bell, even traveling outside the county to the nether corners of the district. He may have viewed the contest as a surrogate battle against Governor Pardee; two years earlier, Geary was a serious contender to be the Democratic nominee for governor, stepping aside for another man, who lost to Pardee.

Endorsements also had greater weight in that era, particularly since Bell and McKinlay had roughly equivalent credentials, and it seems that neither was particularly well known in the district. Twice the Press Democrat offered editorials praising Bell for his connections to the late Morris Estee, an early California politician who had died the year earlier. Bell's support from Geary and then posthumously from Estee, however, suggests much about the sort of person he really was.

Morris M. Estee is worth a quick digression here. Although he was affiliated with the Republican party, he could be a case study as a typical Jim Crow legislator from the Deep South. He staked out deeply racist positions that affirmed non-whites had lesser rights, but at the same time didn't suffer such outrageous discrimination that it would draw the ire of Washington D.C. Some lowlights from his career:
.

As the 1863 California legislature was trying to overturn the 1850 law that "no black, mullato person, or Indian should be permitted to give evidence in any court of the state in an action in which a white person was a party," Estee offered a compromise that testimony could be accepted -- but only as long as it was corroborated by a white

Estee wrote about the Chinese in 1876: "They have not any large intelligence; they have not any literature that amounts to anything; they have a little knowledge of the sciences, and some knowledge of the arts; they have no notion of music or poetry, or very few of the exalted ideas which distinguish between barbarian and civilized men, except honesty"

At the 1878-79 California Constitutional Convention, Estee, who insisted that he was as "anxious to get rid of the Chinese as any man in the State of California" argued they had a right to live in houses and should be allowed to catch fish. To "deprive them of the means of procuring the necessaries of life" would be wrong, and "would turn all civilized people against us everywhere," he warned, particularly "public sentiment in the East [Coast of the U.S.]"

An excerpt from one of the Press Democrat's two Estee-Bell editorials is below (the other assured readers that Estee knew Bell "personally and intimately"). As Bell became the Napa County DA in 1895, the party described would have taken place some time before he was 22. Following that item is an astonishingly direct editorial attack on Geary from the Republican.

...It was at the residence of the late Morris M. Estee near Napa that the writer first had the pleasure of meeting Theodore Bell. He was then a young man with his life work all before him. Mr. Bell was one of a number of young people who spent an evening at the hospitable Estee home. After the guests had departed, or it may have been the next morning, the writer asked who Mr. Bell was. "Theodore Bell?" replied the venerable jurist. "He is a young man who lives here in Napa. He is teaching school and studying law. He is a very fine young man. You will hear from him some day. If given the opportunity he should and I believe will become one of the country's big men." ...

- Press Democrat, November 5, 1904

And now there is weeping and wailing and gnashing of teeth because the newspaper having the "longest leased line" [an expensive private telegraph connection] declines to admit to its columns the name of Sonoma county's Democratic boss. Of course the management of the paper is real mean to pursue this policy, but it is not the only mean thing in the world. That paper undertook to give our local Democratic boss prominence a few years ago. It showed him many favors. Through its influence he was pushed forward as the head of the last anti-Chinese movement and the Democratic nomination for the governorship seemed about to be conferred upon him. But he was discovered to be treacherous, even too treacherous to be considered by the Democratic party as a candidate for that or anyother [sic] place, and then he turned against the man and the paper that had tried to build him up after his political fall. Hence the present trouble. Let the good work go on.

- Santa Rosa Republican, October 11, 1904

Rival newspapers are famous for feuds, fights, and even wars -- but it's ugliest when editors attack each other personally in an out-and-out flapdoodle.

For weeks, Press Democrat editor Finley and Republican editor Lemmon had been taking potshots at the other party's candidate for Congress, but the conflict had been mostly polite. It turned nasty and personal after the big Santa Rosa rally for Rep. Theodore Bell on November 3rd, where Bell "cried with vehemence" [PD description] in his speech that it was unfair for governor to campaign for his rival. What appeared next in the papers surely was the talk to the town over the next few days.

POLITICAL FLAPDOODLE

About the silliest political remark that has been made in this city in recent times was Congressman Bell's criticism of Governor Pardee for advocating Republican doctrine and the election of Republican candidates for office. He must have presumed on his hearers being liberally endowed with shallow pates, and his local organ gets to the front and advertises that it is the exponent of like cheap demogogy and flapdoodle. A great proposition, isn't it, that the governor of the state or any other citizen cannot go with good taste to any part of this or any other commonwealth and advocate any doctrine in which he believes, or the elector or defeat of any candidate in office. What a wonderful discovery that this poor puke from Napa has unearthed. And he came over to Santa Rosa and tried this discovery on an audience of his peers and we are assured that they applauded. Funny, isn't it?

- Santa Rosa Republican, November 4, 1904

LEMMON AND HIS BELATED AND PRETENDED SUPPORT OF DUNCAN E. McKINLAY, FOR WHOM HE HAS NO USE

...Allen Bosley Lemmon so far stultifies himself and his newspaper as to refer to Mr. Bell, who is generally regarded by even his political opponents as one of the finest young men the state has ever produced, as "that poor puke!"

What Allen Bosley Lemmon says of Theodore A. Bell can of course do the latter gentleman no harm, for most of those who will be reached by his remarks know both men and can judge of the matter for themselves. But for the edification of others it may be well to here give publicity to certain facts in connection with this campaign that have not heretofore been mentioned. As showing the insincerity of Editor Lemmon's belated support of Duncan McKinlay through the editorial columns of his paper, they become of more than passing interest.

It will be remembered that early in the campaign, when the question of whether Duncan McKinlay was a resident of this or another district was up for discussion, Mr. Lemmon editorially said: "We have Mr. McKinlay's positive assurance that he never registered or voted outside of this city or county." Mr. McKinlay did give Mr. Lemmon this assurance, and upon the strength of it the latter publically and before a gathering of men pledged himself that the facts were as McKinlay had stated. Later he was confronted with positive proof that Mr. McKinlay had deliberately and purposely lied to him in the matter. The friendship between the two has never been overly deep. McKinlay having on many occasions made remarks of a slighting nature about Mr. Lemmon, most of which are said to have reached him in due time, and when confronted with this absolute proff of McKinlay's duplicity, his indignation knew no bounds. Later Mr. McKinlay attempted to "explain," but Mr. Lemmon would have none of it. "You purposely decieved me, and I know what kind of a man you are anyway!" cried the newspaper man indignantly. "Don't talk to me!" he added, as McKinlay again attempted to smooth the matter over, "because no political party on earth is big enough to make me swallow a white-livered [cowardly] -------------- like you!"

And this is Allen B. Lemmon's real opinion of the man to whom, as the result of strong political pressure, he has at last been forced to extend a perfunctory support through the editorial columns of his paper during the closing days of the long campaign now about ended.

[..]

- Press Democrat, November 5, 1904

ARE BADLY SCARED

Mr. Bell and his supporters are badly frightened. They are so frightened that they have become thoroughly rattled. If this were not the case Bell would not have made his bad break the other night here in his reference to Governor Pardee participating in the political campaign of the state. If the editor of the Press Democrat had not considered his candidate in the last ditch and about to go down to defeat, it is scarcely conceivable that he would have put into the columns of his paper the scurrilous falsehood uttered Saturday morning -- the sentence that eve he, the unspeakable, can make use of only by employing a dash. If he had had his head and were possessed of any decency whatever he would not have sent that sentence into the families that receive his paper on any terms or for any purpose. We scarcely need say that the sentence in question is a falsehood. Either the editor of the Press Democrat must have drawn on his imagination for the scurrilous remark or have received it from some drunken or irresponsible person. Wherever the falsehood came from, we repeat that the editor of the Press Democrat should have been decent enough to prevent its appearance in his columns.

- Santa Rosa Republican, November 5, 1904

NAPA'S BAWLING CALF

"And they even invade the administrative chambers at Sacramento and drag out Governor Pardee -- my governor and the governor of all the people -- to help defeat me."

The above appears in the Press Democrat and Sacramento Bee as an utterance of Theodore A. Bell when he spoke in Santa Rosa, hence its authenticity cannot be questioned.

Just think of it! A man who has been elected to Congress once and is trying to be elected again standing before an audience in the intelligent and progressive city of Santa Rosa and uttering a statement like the above. Imagine the scene. Bell, with tears in his eyes and sorrow in his heart and in despair declaring, "And they even invade the administrative chambers at Sacramento," Boo, hoo, hoo, "and drag out Governor Pardee." Boo, hoo, hoo, hoo, "my governor," boo, hoo, hoo, hoo, hoo, hoo, "and the governor of all the people, and a flood of tears course down the cheeks of the sad son of Napa, as he wailed, and wailed, and wailed his grief, "to help defeat me." Boo, hoo, hoo, hoo, hoo, hoo, hoo, hoo, hoo. It was indeed a distressing occasion. The Napa calf simply bawled and bawled in his grief. And this is the fellow the Democrats have named as their candidate for Congress! They should put a bell on him -- a calf bell -- or it may not be possible to find him after next Tuesday.

- Santa Rosa Republican, November 5, 1904

The mano a mano combat eased up after that skirmish, but both editors were still flushed for battle. Opposing political parties were labeled a "machine" or "gang," and Republican editor Lemmon was ready to name names: Besides Geary (described above), others he condemned as part of a Democratic party cabal were Press Democrat editor Finley and Charles O. Dunbar, a state assemblyman running for re-election. Dunbar -- who would later become mayor of Santa Rosa -- was also a one of Finley's partners in the Press Democrat, and was the only other person on the masthead (as "business manager").

Finley seemed to have a wee too much invested emotionally in the election's outcome. His editorials became increasingly shrill, even using long stretches of capitalization for inarticulate emphasis (SEE BELOW). Nearly every edition in the month before the election predicted a cakewalk for Alton Parker and/or Bell; the day before the vote, the PD reported Parker was relaxing on his farmhouse porch reviewing letters from office-seekers. Freudians can also draw their own conclusions as to Finley's repeated references to Bell being the more manly candidate. The attacks on Republicans became hysteric. If Bell was "a brave, energetic, clean and brainy young man," McKinlay was an indolent sloth, "lolling about in the luxuriant quarters of the Union League Club" in his tuxedo. Republican victory was a national threat; the over-the-top editorial cartoon showing a "Rooseveltism" bayonet through the U.S. Constitution gave no quarter.

Then suddenly it was over, and it was a rout; Roosevelt swept the nation, even breaking the coalition of the "Solid South" for the first time since the Civil War by winning Missouri. Teddy also won the Missouri-settled county here, including every precinct in Santa Rosa by comfortable margins.

Theodore Bell lost in a close race, as did Dunbar.

Probably exhausted by it all, editor Finley headed east for a vacation at the World's Fair. A couple of weeks later, the Press Democrat reported he'd shipped his dad some persimmons picked from a tree on the Midwest family homestead, a far distance from the flapdoodles.

GOOD MORALS GANG

Geary, Dunbar, and Finley are the self constituted committee on good morals in this city. We are not informed as to when they reformed. What do the moral people of this community think of that gang in the character they have assumed? They are the principle ones making Bell's fight in this county and the ones who will have most influence with him if he should be elected.

- Santa Rosa Republican, November 5, 1904

WHY SHOULD IT REQUIRE SO MUCH EFFORT TO DEFEAT A DEMOCRAT IN A STRONG REPUBLICAN DISTRICT LIKE THIS?

The Republican "machine," as most everybody knows, is making the fight of the state in this district in the hope of being able to overcome Congressman Bell's strength before the people, and defeat him.

The men and the influence back of Duncan McKinlay's campaign are doing their very best to force him upon the people of this district, although they know the people do not want him.

In support of that policy these men, most of whom reside outside the district, have determined to have a big meeting her Monday night when Duncan McKinlay speaks, if it takes "the last dollar in the sack."

It is announced that special trains are to be run form [sic] all directions, that the Governor of this great state is to be requisitioned and brought here from his home in Alameda county to make a speech in McKinlay's behalf, and that a big "marching club" is to be imported from Oakland -- which is also outside of the district -- in a monster, stupendous and Herculean effort to get up a demonstration and to prevent that meeting from being a "frost."

[..]

IF THESE THINGS ARE TRUE, WHY SHOULD THE "MACHINE" FIND IT NECESSARY TO WORK SO HARD TO DEFEAT THE DEMOCRATIC CANDIDATE?

IN A "REPUBLICAN YEAR, AND IN A DISTRICT 3,000 REPUBLICAN TO START IN WITH, WHY IS IT APPARENT TO ALL OBSERVANT PEOPLE THAT THE REPUBLICAN CANDIDATE IS DOOMED TO DEFEAT?

THERE ARE JUST TWO REASONS: THEODORE BELL IS ALL THAT HE SHOULD BE, BOTH AS AN OFFICIAL AND AS A MAN AND DUNCAN McKINLAY IS NOT.

And that's why "There's nothin' to it!["]

- Press Democrat, November 6, 1904

DEMOCRACY KNOCKED OUT

There was little Democracy in the so-called Democratic meeting in this city the other night. As far as possible there was avoidance of reference to the national party or the principles, practices or candidates of the same. Parker's name was mentioned once, but it was greeted with slight applause. As far as possible it was an effort to use the livery of Republicanism in the service of Democracy. Geary presided, presumably in the interest of decency and morality. Poor old Democratic party...

- Santa Rosa Republican, November 5, 1904

Like the boy in the graveyard, the Republican press is whistling hard to keep its courage up, but it is a hard task. The local members of that party know their Congressional fight is lost, and many of them are privately admitting the fact on the streets.

- Press Democrat, November 6, 1904

Duncan McKinlay in his Tuxedo suit and lolling about in the luxuriant quarters of the Union League Club has undoubtedly been cutting considerable a swath around the Palace Hotel and certain other places that might be mentioned, since shaking the dust of this city and country from his feet, but he has been doing nothing calculated to add to his loyalty as a representative of this district if he should be elected to that position. Few will be apt to deny that the interests of the district would be far safer in the hands of a man like Theodore Bell, whose interest and hopes are all centered here in the district to which he has ever proved loyal, than to any man of whom the same things can not be said.

- Press Democrat, November 6, 1904

A vote for Theodore Bell for Congress today will be a vote to help a brave, energetic, clean and brainy young man along -- one who during his ten years of public life has never yet given his friends and supporters any cause to regret having assisted him.

- Press Democrat, November 8, 1904

The first big 1904 winter storm hit a few days after Christmas, and Santa Rosans were crestfallen to find themselves without electrical power for nearly two straight days. The reliability of the service was just as bad as it had been at the beginning of the year, and maybe worse. Architect Jones and client Oates equipped this house with both gas and electric lights out of necessity, not for luxury's sake.

"Colgate" was the Colgate hydroelectric power station, then five years old and over 130 miles away, in the Sierra Mountains foothills near Dobbins, California. This power plant supplied the "juice" for the upper Sacramento Valley, North Bay and East Bay Counties, and in 1901 held the record for the longest distance power transmission anywhere. The success of Colgate was the foundation of the California Gas and Electric Corporation, which would become PG&E. Too bad they cared more about expanding their empire than providing reliable service to existing customers.

AUXILIARY POWER

The breakdowns in the electrical power and lighting service last night and Thursday night do not offer a very encouraging outlook for Santa Rosa during the stormy weather certain to come later in the winter.. Efforts have been made by the big corporation supplying Santa Rosa, Petaluma, San Rafael and Napa with electricity between here and Napa so that the fury of the heaviest weather would not interfere with the wires and cut off the current. And it has not yet been demonstrated that the work is not a success.

However the breakdown on Thursday night was due to a landslide at Colgate, where the big power house is located. Such accidents are liable to occur at any time and are of a character that cannot easily be foreseen and provided against. Then again, as happened last winter, accidents to the main line from Colgate south are possible in stress of weather and in no wise reflect upon the careful management of the great enterprise which supplies so many of the communities in the central part of California with light and power.

But in some localities provision has been made locally to guard against throwing an entire city into darkness in case of a mishap to the main power line. Such provision can be accomplished in one of two ways, either by an auxiliary plant capable of generating power, or by a storage battery such as the new electric line has built [sic] for itself at Sebastopol.

Either plant costs money to install, equip and maintain, but they have not been so expensive that it has not been considered wise to have them in other places. It is very probable that an investment of a plant of such a character to supply the needs of Santa Rosa and vicinity might not be considered for a moment on the reasonable ground that the profile from this field could not justify the expense.

It is probably not impossible, though for the company to establish in Santa Rosa an auxillary plant which could take care not only of the residents of this city in an emergency, but also those of Napa, Petaluma, San Rafael and other such towns as may be connected with the branch line upon which they are located. An arrangement of this kind could be handled from Santa Rosa by telephone and would, if established, add immeasurably to the venience [sic] of patrons, to say nothing of enabling manufacturing plants, dependent upon electrical power to operate machinery uninterruptedly.

- Santa Rosa Republican, December 31, 1904