Governor Steunenberg's Desk or Desks?

Governor Steunenberg’s desks? To the left  is an old article from my mother's photo album showing the governor’s desk in the ISHS Museum. It is not dated but I assume the article appeared in the Idaho Statesman in the 1950's. At some point the desk was moved around and ended up in the capitol building where apparently a second desk existed that is almost identical.

Prior to the recent capitol restoration project, one of the desks was in the Lieutenant Governor's office and the other in the Attorney Generals office. With the help of Attorney General Wasden (picture courtesy of the Idaho Statesman), I was able to closely examine the desk in his adjoining conference room during our visit in 2005. You will notice Governor Steunenberg's portrait on the wall over the Attorney Generals right shoulder. That desk was empty so I was able to freely remove drawers and examine it in some detail.

The other desk was in the Lieutenant Governor’s back office and there was no receptionist or other staff to be found at the time. I went over to the governor’s office and did get someone to let me in. The desk, being in actual use by the Lieutenant Governor, contained various contents and a watchful eye discouraged my desire to pilfer through it and empty the drawers to examine the underside where some markings/initials had allegedly been made. I will return another day. 

Which of the desks was actually the governors is apparently unknown. Since both are identical and date to the same period, perhaps each were used at one time or another by Governor Steunenberg. The same design can be seen in old photos showing the governor at the desk in his office at the old territorial capitol building. Click on any of the photos to enlarge.

And since the governor had a two office suite, there were likely two identical desks anyway, one being his main desk in his back office and the other his secretary's in the front.

Ready for Anti-Corporate Politics?

Below is an interesting essay regarding the class issues discussed in Big Trouble and that mentions the transition of Ed Boyce from fiery labor leader, founder of the WFM and supporter of Big Bill Haywood to his apparent abandonment of union activism. He went on to become a wealthy capitalist through his investing in a luxury hotel, in other real estate and by his marriage to Eleanor Day of the Day family/Hercules Mine. The American dilemma of race and class runs along a continuum on which many individuals find themselves (i.e. working class miners looking for the glory hole, union printer Frank Steunenberg and labor leader Ed Boyce among many others) in a desire to better their lives, make money and/or strike it rich. Even Harry Orchard owned a stake in the Tiger-Poorman mine before it hit big and was but one bad decision away from becoming a wealthy capitalist himself. What history might that have changed? Monetary gain often transforms one from wage earner to capitalist owner. Are the two mutually exclusive? Just as in the late 1800’s, the question remains in 2008 as we see the differences of class and race sneaking into our political elections, a still widening gap of rich and poor and a now shrinking and squeezed middle class. Today such dilemmas are on an even larger scale with a global and internet based economy where instant millionaires come and go and the investors/owners of what we think is an “American” company may not even be in America. Sometimes who and where those so called capitalist owners reside can be very surprising. Perhaps we are ready for the "anti-corporate politics” that Kazin mentions at the end of the following discussion.

John T. Richards Jr.

The Other American Dilemma by Michael Kazin. November 30, 2002

WORK DISCUSSED IN THIS ESSAY
J. Anthony Lukas, Big Trouble: A Murder in a Small Western Town Sets Off a Struggle for the Soul of America (Simon & Schuster, 1997).

A couple of hundred pages into the rich and sprawling narrative of Big Trouble, Anthony Lukas quotes an Irish-born union president named Ed Boyce who, one day in 1902, was moved to lay down the facts of life for his members: "There are only two classes of people in the world," Boyce told a convention of the Western Federation of Miners (WFM), "One is composed of the men and women who produce all; the other is composed of men and women who produce nothing, but live in luxury upon the wealth produced by others."

That statement evokes much of the meaning and drama Lukas wants to convey. The "big trouble" of his title stemmed from a history of class violence in the silver mines and mining towns of the intermountain West. The drama began in Caldwell, Idaho, on a snowy evening in late December 1905. Frank Steunenberg, a former governor, opened his garden gate and was blown apart by a bomb attached to the gatepost. Almost immediately, his family and business associates suspected the miners union. While in office in 1899, Steunenberg had requested troops to battle the WFM's sway in the silver and lead mines of the Coeur D'Alenes, a rugged region of northern Idaho; hundreds of union workers were incarcerated in several boxcars and a barn. Forced to subsist on bread and water and without blankets to protect them against the mountain cold, several miners perished. "We have an account to settle with you," the union paper warned the governor at the time.

Days after Steunenberg's murder, Caldwell authorities arrested a drifter named Harry Orchard for the crime. They were immensely pleased when he fingered the WFM's top leaders for suggesting and bankrolling the murder. To make the case stick, Idaho's governor turned to the Pinkerton Detective Agency, the premier union-busting force of its day. Crack Pinkerton agents captured a trio of union officials—Charles Moyer, William "Big Bill" Haywood, and George Pettibone—near their Denver headquarters and spirited them across the Idaho border in a closed train. After the U.S. Supreme Court found the "extradition" constitutionally acceptable, the first trial—of the charismatic Haywood (who was also leader of the radical Industrial Workers of the World, remembered as the "Wobblies")—began in Boise, the state capital. Clarence Darrow was chief counsel for the defense.

So began a judicial drama that captivated the nation. "The Haywood case," writes Lukas, "may have been the first trial in American history in which the real target wasn't so much the jurors in the box as the larger jury of public opinion." President Theodore Roosevelt publicly branded the WFM trio "undesirable citizens" and rooted for Haywood's conviction. His epithet brought tens of thousands of workers into the streets of New York and other cities to protest. If even a "progressive" chief executive was calling for labor's blood, Ed Boyce's polarized worldview seemed indisputably accurate.

But Boyce himself was not among the demonstrators. His fiery remarks in 1902 were given during a farewell address to his union. By the time of Haywood's trial five years later, Boyce had tiptoed across the great divide. He was managing an exclusive hotel in Portland, Oregon, and, as befit the post, wore tailored suits and dined in the best restaurants. As far as one can tell, he never looked back.

Introducing his book, Lukas writes, "I hope that in telling this big story I've helped illuminate the class question at a time when the gap between our richest and poorest citizens grows ever wider." But the little story of Ed Boyce suggests one reason why through most of U.S. history class inequality has been, to paraphrase Gunnar Myrdal, the other American dilemma.

Since Tocqueville deemed it our ineradicable national curse, race has haunted Americans by its permanence. Our very skin reminds us of slavery's legacy. But class changes. If an immigrant worker like Boyce could vault the social ladder, seemingly throwing aside both his grievances and his poverty, why couldn't others do the same? Millions of wage earners in Boyce's day lived close to destitution, but they knew the story of Andrew Carnegie, the foreign-born son of an unemployed handloom weaver, who saw his chance to rise and seized it. Few Americans, then or now, embraced a tradition of loyalty to the working class. Without such a tradition, historical narratives about class allegiance and conflict have a difficult time gaining a large audience.

This reality should give pause to contemporary intellectuals and activists who want to place class in the center of the story that liberal activists and politicians tell ordinary Americans. Academics and activists like Jeff Faux, Joel Rogers, and Michael Tomasky have argued that progressives can revitalize American politics by setting aside race and gender and concentrating on class issues. Over the last two decades, Tomasky argues, "the country has been engaged in class warfare. But it hasn't been working people against the owning class— instead, it's been the other way around."

It is true that, notwithstanding the sunny state of the macroeconomy since the mid-1990s, class awareness has increased of late. Fear about the damage that globalization does to American workers helped to sink fast-track authorization for trade agreements. Last spring, a majority of Americans supported UPS strikers who were demanding the kind of secure, full-time jobs that fewer and fewer corporations now provide. Almost 90 years after the Triangle Shirtwaist fire, abusive sweatshops are again in the news, this time with greedy employers paying famous black athletes to push products churned out in Ho Chi Minh City. And last fall the New Yorker, aspiring voice of the hip and well-heeled, ran a lengthy defense of Marx's theories about capitalism in a special issue dedicated to future trends.

But class must compete in a cultural environment filled with words and images about the primary American dilemma of race. Countless talk shows and films, memoirs and novels testify to the importance of racial identity. In contrast, class rings oddly impersonal, left to the business section (where a pro-labor view is seldom found) rather than the Oprah show. During O. J. Simpson's murder trial, there was little discussion of the millionaire's capacity to hire the legal "dream team" that won his release. The main argument was whether the trial was about racial prejudice or wife abuse; class seldom got mentioned. After all, Simpson had earned his money, performing in front of cameras, on and off the gridiron. Whether or not they believed his story, most Americans felt O. J. should be able to hire the best help he could afford.

America's ongoing fascination with race bespeaks a view of the world at odds with traditional notions of class consciousness. With whites cast as the largely contented majority and blacks as the perpetually abused minority, the guilt of one race and the rage of the other serve as the primary motivations of social change. Other divisions that betray the American dream remain in the shadow of that essential divide.

So can liberals craft a compelling story about class? Lukas tests this question on fertile historical terrain. Beginning in the late 1870s, "the labor question" jostled to the front of the American agenda and stayed there through World War I. Massive industrial strikes regularly punctuated the growing but inegalitarian economy, and even prosperous unionized building tradesmen called for "the emancipation of the working class by and for themselves from the thralldom of competitive ex ploitation." Populists and Socialists won hundreds of local elections and threw a scare into both big business and the major parties.

It was the golden age of class narrative. In the late nineteenth century, best-selling books by Edward Bellamy and Henry George boosted popular support for socialism and radical tax reform, respectively. In the early twentieth century, radical muckrakers like Upton Sinclair and Lincoln Steffens exposed the venality of corporate rule and spurred reform movements to curb it. John Dewey, the nation's most influential philosopher, openly hoped that liberalism could give way peacefully to socialism. And Charlie Chaplin persuaded audiences to root for a tramp in his endless struggles with the selfish and the pompous.

The Haywood trial highlights the era's polarization. Local mine owners secretly, and illegally, paid the prosecutors' salaries. Idaho prison authorities invited the press corps to interview Harry Orchard in his cell but excluded reporters from left-wing papers. And Haywood would not have been on trial at all if the elected officials of two states, and the justices of the Supreme Court, hadn't approved his virtual kidnapping.

Only the defendant's surprising acquittal mitigates the grimness of the tale. And the result would likely have been different if the Boise judge had failed to instruct the jury that, under Idaho law, a person could not be convicted on the word of a single (alleged) accomplice. The Pinkertons had alternately bullied and cajoled some of Orchard's erstwhile associates in the WFM. But, in the end, none agreed to corroborate Orchard's elaborate story—which, ironically, Lukas suspects (on ambiguous evidence) was true.

Lukas, who committed suicide after completing the book, was a brilliant, indefatigable reporter. Big Trouble demonstrates his talents to the full. Besides untangling a complex drama, Lukas offers lingering portraits of many characters, famous and obscure, whose lives coincided with the courtroom theatrics. Providing relief from the class war, the author lavishes 14 pages on the baseball immortal Walter Johnson, who was then starting his career in a hamlet near Boise. Throughout, Lukas is scrupulously fair to actors from both sides. As in Common Ground, his widely read book about the Boston busing crisis of the 1970s, he does not allow his sympathies to cloud his judgments.

In particular, Lukas unflinchingly addresses the racial animosities of turn-of-the-century Idaho. The soldiers sent to the Coeur D'Alenes in 1899 were mostly black. Both their commanders and Governor Steunenberg knew that African Americans would be unlikely to view their adversaries as fellow workers, while white servicemen of the day often fraternized with strikers. Years later, this blatant reversal of the racial order still burned in the hearts of WFM activists. In 1912, Haywood claimed that, while union miners were suffering in makeshift prisons, "black soldiers were at home insulting, outraging, ravishing their wives, mothers, sisters and sweethearts." The period of most intense class feeling in U.S. history was also the era when a lynching took place, on average, every four days. Class struggle was supposed to be a war fought exclusively between two groups of white men.

This began to change in the 1930s, when economic conflict became prominent again. The industrial unions of the CIO welcomed workers of every race. The new movement also encouraged the flowering of a multiracial, pro-labor culture. Writers and artists as different as John Dos Passos, Edmund Wilson, Richard Wright, Orson Welles, and Billie Holiday spun stories about haves and have-littles and lent their considerable talents to the CIO left.

But the Depression-era upsurge, unlike the one that forms the background of Big Trouble, would likely have failed without the support of powerful outsiders—New Deal officials and liberal intellectuals alarmed by the rise of fascism. This gave the period's activism a patriotic quality that merged easily into a nationalist consensus behind World War II, even though wartime governments supported labor only intermittently. The consensus continued after the war and through labor's support of the Vietnam War and Ronald Reagan.

Even a powerful writer like Lukas cannot make labor history seem relevant to mainstream audiences by simply detailing it. More than intellectual dedication is required to make class a big story again. Most people are drawn to grand narratives that echo and synthesize experiences and reflections they have already had. Because of its prominence in the public imagination, race lends this advantage to its narratives. Common Ground compellingly described three families in a cauldron of racial strife (although Lukas did not scant their class differences). It was a best-seller, won numerous literary prizes, and became a TV docudrama. Big Trouble has received lengthy and laudatory reviews in all the right places, but its hardcover sales are quite modest. Sadly, it will probably not gain the author much posthumous honor.

Lacking the cachet of race, class does not set its tales aflame. Liberal academics and activists have talked cogently about wage gaps, corporate irresponsibility, and the unmet needs of working families for some time now. But their ideas will catch fire only in tandem with a social movement that sparks the imagination of working Americans of different races, convincing them to take risks in the service of a better future.

As Lukas shows, this kind of movement was once sustained by a rich working-class culture that, however, seldom crossed the racial barrier. Writers and artists could nudge it along only after the culture had already emerged from a thicket of neighborhood, ethnic, and workplace groups that gave shape to wage earners' lives.

In the Coeur D'Alenes a century ago, a cavalry officer named R. V. Walsh glimpsed the binding power he and his troops were ordered to demolish. Unionism, Walsh wrote, "pervaded the entire population, everybody was subject to it. . . . [T]he burning question was not wages. It was 'The Union.' This was everything to them, wages, politics, religion. The subject had been discussed and brooded over so long that they were fanatics on the subject."

It isn't easy to recreate such zeal in an age of computerized capitalism, when a variety of pleasures and, more importantly, cultural identities, are available to even the ardent unionist. The WFM's militant faith now sounds hopelessly outdated, in part due to the victories that it and later unions won. What is more, given the violence and intolerance that attended the early labor movement, it is probably a good thing that we cannot relive the past.

Yet it is difficult to imagine organized labor regaining the influence it enjoyed 50 years ago without stirring an analogous depth of commitment in twenty-first-century Americans. To do so, labor and its intellectual supporters must learn to integrate the story they want to tell with ones ordinary people already tell each other—about both racial justice and the shared ordeals of their working-class ancestors.

This would mean reviving the memory of Martin Luther King, Jr., as a fierce foe of both economic injustice and of racial inequality. It would mean recovering the decisive role of organized workers in winning the five-day week, the eight-hour day, and the minimum wage—not to speak of Medicare and the 1964 Civil Rights Act. It would mean talking about the right of all workers, not just the well-educated professional minority, to a measure of control over the jobs that shape much of their lives. The multicultural realities of today's working world should enhance the appeal of such stories.

In the past, unions and their allies grabbed the public's attention when they put forth a moral vision, and suffered when they seemed to be merely competing with other "interests." In the 1930s, unions marched under the rallying cry of "industrial democracy" and tripled their numbers. A generation later, Dr. King helped bring workers into the black insurgency by criticizing a system of "selfish ambition inspiring men to be more concerned about making a living than making a life."

That legacy needs to be recaptured. Many Americans may be ready for an anticorporate politics that acknowledges race and gender but transcends them—"a politics centered on the struggle to prevent the rich from ripping off the rest of the country," as Richard Rorty so bluntly puts it. But most people are understandably cynical about another round of politics as high-finance electioneering and spin-doctoring, in which "class" is just another barbed projectile in the campaign consultant's quiver. There is really no short cut to building a movement that practices the same democratic vision it preaches. As in every reform era since the 1890s, the chance for a liberal revival hinges on the participation of ordinary Americans who care little about government policy but care a great deal about improving their own lives.

Now Over 102 Years Later...Assassination

I wrote this article for 12/30/2005 publication to commemorate Governor Steunenberg on the 100th anniversary of his murder. The Idaho Press Tribune kindly published it then and now over 102 years after the assassination I thought it was a good one for sharing again through this website. Click on the image to enlarge for reading.

Julian Steunenberg at the Haywood Trial

Left: Julian Steunenberg maybe about three years old?

Right: Julian Steunenberg and John Richards c 1954. I was about three years old too. Hmm...I seem to have come full circle and need to get some of those cool suspenders again to hold up my pants.

Following are a couple of brief excerpts regarding my grandpa Julian Steunenberg as a young man at the trial of William Haywood.

(From my 1907 newspaper collection documenting the Haywood trial).

The Sun

St. John, New Brunswick, Tuesday, May 14, 1907

SLOW PROGRESS MADE IN THE HAYWOOD MURDER TRIAL

Boise Idaho, May 13…To the court this afternoon came Julian Steunenberg, son of the murdered former governor, a tall, sturdy youth strikingly like his father in face and figure. For two hours he sat with the members of the Boise Bar, ten feet from the chair of the prisoner, William D. Haywood. He spoke to no one and remained a quiet unobtrusive spectator. He is her under subpoena as a witness and it is expected that he will be among the first called.

The Daily Telegraph

St. John, New Brunswick, Wednesday June 5, 1907

TERRIBLE CHARGES AGAINST HAYWOOD

State’s Attorney Declares He Conspired To Murder Many People

Boise Idaho, June 4…The witnesses today were all from Caldwell…Julian Steunenberg, son of the dead governor, was called to tell how Orchard had, three days before the murder, inquired of him about his father’s movements. Steunenberg took the stand bravely, but when Senator Borah began to question him, a cloud of pain passed over his face and he evidently tried to keep back the tears.

What the Heck is an Emu-Z-Um Anyway? Silver City/Delamar, Idaho, Big Bill Haywood & "Are They Going to Hang My Papa."

Gary Eller (aka Pickle Butte) was looking for the long ago published labor ballad “Are They Going to Hang My Papa” written by Owen Spendthrift. Well low and behold he found a copy of the original music with a picture on the front of Henrietta Haywood--Bill Haywood’s young daughter. This is a very interesting old ballad which carried a political and labor message and appealed to one’s heartstrings by using the image of little Henrietta pleading for her father’s life. Whether it was truth or propaganda depends upon your view. You might remember that during the trial Clarence Darrow did a masterful job of using the whole Haywood family by having them attend every day with the sweet young daughter and invalid appearing wife "Nevada Jane" in full view of the jury. William Borah wanted to counter with a similar staging of the Steunenberg's but the widowed Belle Steunenberg would have nothing of it. She attended only part of one day and the children were nowhere to be seen. Julian, the governor's eldest son and my grandfather, appeared very briefly when called to testify regarding Harry Orchard's presence in Caldwell. The ballad was released not long after Haywood’s arrest (aka kidnapping) and distributed during the Haywood trial. At least that is my understanding and maybe others have more information. I have only seen one other original piece of this music before selling at a rather high price to a collector. Attached are some pictures courtesy of Gary. You can click on the pic to enlarge it.
 

So where did Gary uncover this gem..the ISHS, COI, BSU or UI Archives? Nope…this piece of history comes to us courtesy of the Emu-Z-Um. Now I thought “E” meant I was going to Google search and find a museum website with everything neatly scanned and available for my perusing. Well I had to use the phone instead and had a delightful conversation with Jack and Belva Lawson, the Emu-Z-Um owners. Jack and Belva don’t have no fancy electronics, scanners, computers or the like around their place although they had a little help getting a website going for advertising purposes. No email or surfing the web themselves. In fact, I imagine the only thing not old that gets into the Emu-Z-Um is a youthful paying customer. I picked up vibes of a confused look on some faces when I started talking about putting them up on my blog--but they graciously went along.

Another couple of nice items in Jack and Belva'a collection are two miner’s union ribbons from Silver City and Delamar that date to the Steunenberg/Haywood era and are in remarkable condition. These are highly sought after items that are rarely seen in this condition. Wonderful!

As often happens during these excursions, I also found out that they have a framed certificate or proclamation signed by Governor Steunenberg. Jack did not know the particulars but would welcome anyone to come in, take a look and get a few pictures. If someone does then I sure would be appreciative of a copy and maybe more specifics in terms of what exactly this document relates to. They also have a newspaper article published at the time of Governor Steunenberg’s assassination. 

I have a hunch that you just never know what you might find at the Emu-Z-Um and it will on the top of my “got to visit” list during the next Idaho excursion. Jack and Belva are delightful folks and gave me permission to use the attached photos that Gary took during his visit and to give out some information regarding this most interesting of places. Gary, thank you for your great sleuthing.

For more information go to the Emu-Z-Um where you can find directions and also read an article written by Tim Woodward from the Idaho Statesman.

First verse from “Are They Going to Hang My Papa”

“Comrades can you tell me what flag it is that waves,”

The speaker thus addressed a motley crowd,

“Where law protects the millionaire to be obeyed by slaves?”

Rose a murmur then in chorus long and loud.

The meeting was assembled, the miners all were there.

Many protest resolutions had been read,

Through that tempest of confusion came a child with golden hair,

And sobbing, thus so pleadingly she said:

Chorus:

“Are they going to hang my papa? He is innocent, I know.

He never could do any wrong, he is so good and true.

It surely will kill dear mamma, and break by heart in two.

Are they going to kill my papa?” plead this babe with eyes of blue.”

I think I got that right.

Thank you to Jack and Belva at the Emu-Z-Um.

We hope Gary Eller and John Larsen might soon be doing a recording of "Are They Going to Hang My Papa."

Help On the Way Great Grandfather. Frank to get a Cleaning...we hope.

This is a follow-up to my Tuesday, January 1, 2008 post "Frank Watching Over the Capitol Restoration...he could use a little help too!"

I contacted the Capitol Restoration Commission and a Becky Henke, Communications Assistant, kindly responded. I am happy to report that the governor should be getting a cleaning in March or April of this year as well as repairs to the surrounding sidewalk.

It is the Facilities Manager, Ric Johnson, not the Capitol Restoration Commission, that is responsible for the statue area. If I was in Idaho, and attending the Commission meetings, I might be arguing otherwise. However, we have quite enough happening with State government in California right now to keep my attention thank you. In addition to Frank, I have to also keep an eye on our governor. Sometimes I would like to see Arnold with a few bird droppings on his head too!

Mr. Johnson is "seeking out a company to clean the statue" and I hope finds one to do a little more then just a power washing and will instead restore but not damage the patina. Maybe someone in Boise can watch out for a shinier version of the governor in a couple of months and snap a close-up picture for me. Hopefully Frank will have a new sparkle in his eyes that might even cause me to restore Arnold to his old self.

Now that they promise to fix the crumbling sidewalk, I will quit my grumbling side talk and try to keep the spelling straight too. John

….and a final thought sent to Becky as I look for another excuse for a future trip to Idaho:

Sent: Friday, January 18, 2008 5:57 PM
To: 'Becky Henke'
Cc: 'Gary Daniel'
Subject: RE: Idaho State Capitol Commission Feedback [http://capitolcommission.idaho.gov/restoration/grounds.html]

Becky:

Maybe in the planning process for the reopening, the Commission would like a Steunenberg great grandson to be available as a docent of sorts near the statue to talk about the governor, the original territorial Capitol, the assassination and the Haywood trial. Perhaps we can also bring the Steunenberg desk(s) and the trial evidence into it if any of those items find there way back to Attorney General Wasden’s office or another location in the Capitol building. Just a idea that I know may not be of any interest to anyone or seem of significance but thought I would mention it.

I will post information on my Steunenberg blog website about the upcoming cleaning of the statue.

Regards,

John T. Richards

Song's Performed by Bona Fide with John Larsen at the Premeire of Assassination: Idaho's Trial of the Century.

Above is the Bona Fide Program from the premiere of Assassination: Idaho's Trial of the Century. I vaguely remember belting out a few bars (or maybe that was in a few bars) of "Cigarettes, Whiskey and Wild Wild Women"...maybe something similar to that last tune on the list..."While Away From Whiskey, Wild Women & Beer"? Long, long ago. Interesting that the Warden was able to make it a misdemeanor to sing that song. A lot of guilty folks after the sing along at the premiere. Click image to enlarge.


That's my Lyda checking out Lyda's place at the Idaho Pen. Actually daughter Caley (kay-lee), June 2005. We know Lyda and Harry Orchard were friends at the pen. Check in the right hand column under "Historical Music" for more info and a couple of playable tracks.

Pinback Button

Pictured is a Whitehead & Hoag Pinback Button dated 1894/1896 on the reverse side. A few of you may have seen me wearing it on my lapel during the stage play back in March 2007 at the Boise Little Theater and at the the premiere in November 2007 at the Egyptian Theater. It was also pictured in The Advocate, December 2006 edition, that was sponsored by the Idaho Legal History Society. That complete edition was dedicated to a discussion of Frank Steunenberg's assassination, the Haywood trial and related events.

This pin may be very small (7/8") but it is a very prized possession. From what I understand, this was one of a series produced of all the state and territorial governors around 1894-1898. I have this one and would sure like to find a couple more for the family collection. I know a fellow Idaho collector that has one and the two are all that I have ever seen. I would like to pry that one away but appreciate the historical interest and can't blame him for not wanting to part with it. So apparently these are quite rare and I am happy to have one in the family. I would love to hear from any pin collectors out there that might have more information.

Read more about the Whitehead & Hoag Company at:
http://www.virtualnewarknj.com/busind/misc/whitehead.htm

Woman Suffrage in Idaho by Governor Frank Steunenberg

I will perhaps comment more later but I just found this excellent article written by Governor Steunenberg on the status of women's suffrage in Idaho during his administration. I had not seen it before. It was nice to find a formal paper written by the governor that I think provides quite a bit of insight into his views of the suffrage movement and the progressive changes that took place in Idaho now well over 100 years ago.

I have converted to text from a jpeg document. Sometimes a few errors occur in the conversion process but I believe I caught all or most of them. The text was otherwise left just as written by Governor Steunenberg. (I subsequently obtained and original of this magazine too).

Harper's Bazaar. 33: 220-1. May 26, 1900.

Woman Suffrage in Idaho. Frank Steunenberg.

"I have been asked to give some practical observations on the system in Idaho by which women vote and hold office, and I comply willingly, feeling that it may serve to overcome to some extent misapprehensions which have arisen as to the results of woman's participation in public affairs. In doing this there is no purpose to discuss the theory or justice of woman suffrage, but to present the practical aspect of the subject because of actual experience with the system in Idaho.

The state of Idaho adopted woman suffrage in 1896, by means of a constitutional amendment, first passed in the Legislature in 1895, and then submitted to the people (male electors) for final determination. The origin of the movement in the Legislature was spontaneous, and was not, so far as I am aware, the result of any particular or prolonged outside propaganda by persons eager to spread the doctrine and practice of suffrage for women. In a community of liberal and progressive ideas the time seemed ripe for giving to women an equal share with men in the conduct of public affairs; without special effort, and with practically no opposition, the Legislature adopted the Joint Resolution submitting the question to the people. Once this had been done, the women throughout the state were stimulated to exertion; systematic organization was perfected in the state and counties, and an active campaign inaugurated. Attention was first directed to the various party conventions, and one after another the Democratic, Republican, Populist, Silver-Republican, and Prohibition party conventions endorsed the suffrage amendment. With all parties united and endorsing, there was no organized opposition, and the opponents of the measure confined their activities to voting against it. The vote occurred in November, 1896, at the same time that presidential electors were chosen, and the result was overwhelmingly favorable to the suffrage amendment. About 30,000 votes were polled at that election, the amendment vote being somewhat below that on other issues; the ratio of votes on the amendment was approximately two to one in its favor.

This placed in our constitution and in our statute-books a suffrage law of the most absolute and sweeping character. It placed both sexes on an exact equality, not only so far as voting is concerned, but also in holding office. There is no limitation of the suffrage to school and certain other public functions in which women are specially concerned, as is the case in some states, but the right to vote is universal, for municipal and county officers, state officers, senators and representatives in Congress, state legislators, and for presidential electors. The same equal privilege is open to hold office under the state, county, or municipality government.

The first general election to come after the adoption of the amendment was held in 1898. and at that time one woman, Miss Permeal French, was elected on the Democratic ticket to the office of State Superintendent of Public Instruction, and three women, a Democrat, a Populist, and a Republican, were elected to the Legislature. Miss French is a woman of superior ability and intelligence, and it is conceded by all that she is the best officer in that capacity the state .has ever had. The place she occupies is one of unusual importance with us, as the state superintendent of instruction prepares the course of study for all the schools of the state. administers the liberal and advanced system by which every school in the state has the same course of study and the same text-books, furnished free by the state, directs the general execution of the compulsory school law, under which every child of school age-between five and eighteen years-must attend school at least six months in every year; and, in addition to these educational duties, has general charge of the education of the deaf, dumb, and blind children. To carry on these various branches of public work, Miss French has an office at the state capitol, with a staff of assistants, and the business is performed in the most systematic and satisfactory manner. Of the three women in the Legislature it may also be said that they made most acceptable public officers, serving with ability and success.

In every case the women were regularly nominated at conventions of the several parties to which they belonged. A number of others were nominated and elected to county offices. In some cases the women placed in nomination were defeated at the polls, showing that they took the same chances of success or failure as the men. The fact that a candidate was a woman made no difference for or against her, the support being given with regard to the fitness of candidates rather than on any sentimental or emotional grounds. In theory it had been asserted that the gallantry of men would lead them to vote for women candidates, just as they would yield to women the seats of a crowded car, but in practice it was found that there was no such departure from the usual healthy rivalry between candidates. The only vital questions at the polls were those of merit and party.

Our experience has been similarly satisfactory in the orderly conduct at polling-booths, and the entire absence of those unseemly scenes and incidents which it had been feared might attend the presence of women at the voting-places. The women not only go to the polls to deposit their ballots, but they are there to electioneer, just as are men ; they work in behalf of candidates they consider best fitted for the public service, run carriages to bring in the voters, men and women, exactly like citizens older in suffrage rights. All this, however, is carried on in a most orderly and proper manner, and excites no more comment in the case of the women than it does in that of the men. We are fortunate in having the Australian ballot law, and this, together with a law closing all saloons on election day, insures an orderly procedure, without crowding about the booths, and with very little drunkenness.

The suggestion may be made that this activity of women in public affairs has operated to draw them away from their homes and from the usual domestic avocations, a suggestion that our experience amply disproves. In Idaho women are to-day the same loving wives, kind mothers, and capable home-managers that they have always been. Nor has there been the least belittling of the sex in the eyes of the men, nor any falling off in that tenderness and respect which men universally accord to women. There is not the slightest interruption of family ties. Husband and wife may vote the same way, or the husband may vote one way and the wife another. Whether they vote together or oppositely excites no interest and no animosity, although naturally families have the same party affiliations. As the system has not operated to take women from their homes, so too it has not tended to make them in any way masculine.

Concerning the extent to which women in Idaho exercise the rights given them by the law, it has been found to be very general. In 1898, with women voting, the total vote was about 40,000, and of this fully forty per cent, was cast by women. There is every reason to believe this percentage will increase, until, in my judgment, the percentage of women voting will be as large as that of men. As to the character of the vote. It does not appear to come from any particular classes or places; the cities and the country districts alike give their quota of women votes, although the tendency of women in the cities towards voting is rather greater than that of the country places.
 
In a general sense, there can be no doubt that the participation of women in our public affairs has had a most elevating influence. All parties see the necessity of nominating the best individuals of their parties. The natural aim of women is towards the best good of the community and to secure the highest social conditions. Instead of seeking extremes of reform, as had been predicted, they are interested in stable and conservative administration, for the benefit of the homes and the children, and they avoid radical and excessive reforms. In short, the objections which, in theory, have been urged against woman's participation in public affairs have been overcome by the actual application of the system in Idaho, and with this has come to us that elevating and ennobling influence which a woman always exerts upon the affairs in which she has a part."

"The Song of Harry Orchard”

Excerpt from American Murder Ballads by Olive Woolley Burt

During the time that she (Olive Woolley Burt) worked at the Deseret News as an editor, a man came in to sell a story. She decided against using it, but he replied that inasmuch as he had been a prospector, rancher, and sheepherder, he must know something that would be of interest to her. She asked about murder ballads. “My father was a great singer,” he replied. “Used to sing all the time around the campfire, even at real parties and such. Give me a day or two and I'm sure I can recollect some of his songs." Within a day or so, he brought in seven verses of "The Song of Harry Orchard.”

Harry Orchard is in prison,

The reason you all know;

He killed Frank Steunenberg

Right here in Idyho.

He set his bomb out carefully,

He did not hesitate;

It blew poor Frank to Kingdom Come

When he tried to shut the gate.

Harry says he has killed others,

For them my heart it bleeds;

He should pray for God’s forgiveness

For his terrible misdeeds.

Harry blamed the Wobblies,

And maybe he spoke true,

For no one on this earth can tell

What such a band will do.

The chiefs were brought from Denver,

The were shanghaied as you know;

Bill Haywood and George Pettibone

Were brought to Idyho.

Clarence Darrow stood to shield them;

The result it was so sure,

Bill Haywood and his comrades

Free men walked out the door.

Now listen all you young men;

The lesson it is plain,

Just be prepared to pay the cost

When you set a bomb for gain.

Tools of an Assassin

Items at the ISHS History Museum

In Memory of Ex-Governor Frank Steunenberg by James H. Hart, Paris, Idaho

This was given to me some time back by an Idaho collector. If anyone knows more about it or has information about this author then please respond using the comment link below. I am guessing it was written around the time of the trial or shortly thereafter. Might be a ballad in there somewhere for Bona Fide!

Click on the document to enlarge.

Read All About It! Ex-Governor Assassinated

Sorry Joe!
Or Joey Richards as he was known then (1994 in the 4th grade), a great great grandson of governor Steunenberg. Click on the picture to enlarge. Only an A- ? Lost a couple of points for no cover page. Joe probably figured who puts a cover page over the front page of a newspaper!

Frank Watching Over the Capitol Restoration...he could use a little help too!

Click on the above heading for the live cam shot of the Idaho capitol restoration project and click again on the picture to enlarge it. Check it out in the early morning with the sun just coming up, light snow on the ground and show capped mountains in the distance. Of course this is old stuff to the Boise crowd. I do hope the Capitol Restoration Committee will include Frank's statue as a part of the project when they complete work on the surrounding areas and grounds. Maybe someone has inside information on that already? I have mentioned it to a few folks but need to get a letter going to the committee. Feel free to do the same, You can contact the committee by email by going to the website at http://www.capitolcommission.idaho.gov/commission/ and click on the link at the bottom of the page "Contact the Commission." The patina of the statue is in bad shape and needs to be cleaned and restored, the walkways are crumbling and landscaping needs to be updated. Bruce and Pat didn't even want to film a close-up of Frank's face when we did my segment for the production this past March. Hopefully the statue gets a bit of attention but I won't hold my breath considering the budget issues that have delayed the whole project. I do look forward to roaming the capitol building again, seeing the governor's portrait back up on the wall (of course I mean Governor Steunenberg) at Attorney General Wasden's office (pictured at right July 2005) and taking another look at my great-grandfather's desk...or desks as it may be since there are two that are essentially identical. Hopefully Frank will get a new shine for what I anticipate will be a grand re-opening celebration.
John