Warren T. McCray: signing off

Image from in.gov

Before he entered state government, Warren Terry McCray was known by a royal nickname: the "Hereford Cattle King." A Standard History of Jasper and Newton Counties, Indiana deemed him "the greatest breeder of Hereford cattle in the world." In 1919, news of his exploits made it as far as New Zealand, where the Poverty Bay Herald said that the sale of a five-pound bull raised by McCray earned him the equivalent of 10,000 pounds. It shattered the previous world record for the highest bull sale, which formerly stood at 6,200 pounds. Even after he was elected to office, McCray continued to breed cattle on his 1,600-acre farm in Newton County and win prizes for them. The animals sometimes sold for up to $10,000 apiece.

The farm, coupled with other ventures, made McCray a very successful man. Born in Kentland, Indiana in February of 1865, he finished school at age 15. He went into business for himself after spending some time as a clerk in the Discount and Deposit Bank, which was run by his father. He expanded his interests to include grocery stores and grain elevators, and began community pursuits as well. He joined the board of trustees for the Northern Indiana Hospital for the Insane in 1904 and stayed there until 1912. In that year, he joined the Indiana Board of Agriculture and stayed there for four years. During World War I, he chaired the Food Conservation Committee of Indiana and for two years he served as a trustee of Purdue University.

In 1920, McCray won the Republican nomination for governor. He went on to win the general election, and was sworn into office in January of 1921. According to his National Governor's Association profile, 87 public buildings were launched during his term, along with a budget law affecting state and local finances, a reformatory at Pendleton, a budget law affecting state and local governments, and a two-cent gasoline tax to benefit road maintenance and highway construction.

Early in his term, McCray took an action that may well have placated the labor unions in the state. In October of 1921, he refused a requisition by Republican Governor Ephriam Franklin Morgan of West Virginia to send David Robb of Terre Haute to the state. Robb, an organizer for the United Mine Workers came to Indiana after he and several other union men were given the choice of leaving the state or going to jail due to their violation of Morgan's martial law proclamation. He was also indicted in West Virginia's Mingo County for conspiracy to commit a felonious assault in relation to the murder of a man that May. McCray refused the request on the basis of "disturbed conditions" in West Virginia and his belief that Robb wouldn't get a fair trial there; the United Mine Workers agreed, saying Robb's safety would be in jeopardy.

His reluctance to send a union man into hostile territory did not extend to support from the miners, however. He condemned United Mine Workers leader John L. Lewis as "disloyal," and denounced Socialist head Eugene V. Debs as traitor several times. In July of 1922, he publicly supported the idea of a government takeover of Indiana mines to break a strike and produce enough coal to meet the state's needs. After he followed through on the threat to declare martial law to guard the mines, 4,000 striking miners called a public meeting to demand his impeachment.

McCray's real woes began in 1923. In August, the Discount and Deposit State Bank threw him out as president of the institution. A month later, he admitted at a meeting of creditors that he owed them $2,652,000. They agreed to put his property into trust until he could meet his obligations, and took over holdings valued at $3,323,417.90. Former Republican Governor James P. Goodrich, who contested McCray in 1920, tried to help minimize the meltdown to mitigate any embarrassment to the party. He grew quite upset when McCray's chief political adviser, John Moorman, suggested that Goodrich and Republican President Calvin Coolidge were conspiring to ruin McCray."I spent nearly three months in trying to untangle the governor's affairs and finally raised $350,000 to save him and some of his associates from the most serious personal consequences as a result of his own acts," said Goodrich, "and I deeply resent the efforts of Mr. Moorman or the governor, or anyone else, to reflect upon the good faith of the men responsible for the conduct of the affairs of the party in this state." McCray said the matter was less serious than it seemed. "Boiled down to one fact, you find a farmer, a landowner, who is caught after three disastrous years in the farming business. I could not collect my bills and found myself unable to meet some of my obligations," he said. "I happen to be governor of Indiana, but this is a private matter that has happened to other farmers. The state has not suffered. I do not see that the public should be greatly interested."

In October, the bank collapsed after he was unable to take up $290,000 in notes with his signature. That same month, a grand jury began a probe into his financial transactions at the request of the First National Bank of Marion, which held $22,000 in McCray's notes and was one of 200 creditors backing him up. Three Fort Wayne banks initiated a bankruptcy hearing against him, and in November he admitted that some of the notes he pledged as collateral to the state board of agriculture had no value besides his endorsement. McCray had taken out the notes on the misguided belief that his signature would make the notes good enough for distribution. In the midst of these financial difficulties, the Republican State Committee indicated that he should resign, but he refused. Impeachment was also impossible, since the state legislature was not scheduled to meet again until January of 1925. By that time, McCray would be out of office, and he alone could call an emergency session of the legislature.

On the last day of November, the court walloped McCray with an indictment charging embezzlement, grand larceny, forgery, obtaining money under false pretenses, and issuing false checks. The charges accused him of involving $155,000 of misappropriated state funds in his own financial shortcomings. He refused to resign. "I feel sure that if I had been permitted to appear and present the facts I could have helped the jurors reach a just and correct conclusion," he said. "I ask the public to suspend judgment until I have been given an opportunity to tell my side of the story." A Marion County jury couldn't agree on a conviction in a trial in April of 1924, but two months before he had been federally indicted on 28 counts of mail fraud and violation of banking laws. He tried without success to get an abatement because women were not permitted to serve on the grand jury.

McCray's trial lasted for seven days. The prosecution showed that the governor passed some some $1 million in worthless notes on the banks in Indiana and other nearby states in an attempt to regain his standing. McCray denied any intent to defraud the government, but also testified that he used his political standing to get money from the state board of agriculture and designate banks as state depositories to get loans. It took the jury only 13 minutes to return a guilty verdict on 13 counts of mail fraud. McCray resigned from office on April 29, and Lieutenant Governor Emmett F. Branch took over. The judge told him that McCray was guilty of more felonies than anyone he'd seen in his experience on the bench, saying, "The circumstances are enormously bad and wicked. He has shown an utter disregard for the right. It is my duty to show this man that, no matter if he is governor of Indiana and no matter if he has broad acres, he cannot escape the penalty that is customarily given to every criminal of low estate in this court."

Twenty minutes after leaving office, McCray was sentenced to 10 years in prison and a $10,000 fine. He opted not to appeal, and began his time behind bars in an Atlanta penitentiary. Friends of the disgraced governor began looking for a pardon soon after, basing their effort on McCray's poor health, but they did not meet much support. President Coolidge said he would abide by the rule requiring a prisoner to serve at least a third of their sentence before they were eligible for commutation; the prosecutor and judge had to sign off on such a deal as well. In one curious offer, McCray's friend and former Republican Governor Chase Osborn of Michigan said in January of 1926 that he would be willing to serve the remainder of McCray's sentence in his stead. He offered his skills as a plate printer and remarked, "I have no dependents and I am used to more hardships than a prisoner entails."

McCray left prison in August of 1927 after meeting the one-third mark, having served three years in prison. The release didn't come with a pardon. His friends came to his aid once more, financing the repurchase of his Orchard Lake Farm, which he'd lost after his bankruptcy. He devoted his time to re-establishing his reputation as a famous Hereford breeder.

At about the same time he was freed, the state was conducting another probe due to the accusations of D.C. Stephenson. The Grand Dragon of the state's Ku Klux Klan had been sentenced to life in prison for the murder of a woman, and chose to take down as much of the Indiana government as he could with revelations of just how deep the state's politicians were in the Klan's pockets. The largest target was Republican Governor Ed Jackson, who succeeded Branch and served as secretary of state under McCray. Stephenson charged that Jackson offered McCray $10,000 while he was in office to appoint James E. McDonald, a Klansman, as Marion County prosecutor. When McCray came under investigation for his own malfeasance, Jackson said he could sweeten the deal by offering him immunity from prosecution. McCray refused, instead appointing William H. Remy. "The whole affair teems with the vilest corruption that has come to light in years and will remain forever as a blot on the history of Indiana" the Sanford Herald opined in an editorial.

It wasn't the first time McCray had clashed with the Klan. The mine unions sought to ban participation in the Klan, but several members were still interested. After the Klan started up a membership drive, McCray wrote a letter to the editor of the organization's paper condemning their efforts to control the union. The Klan was unfazed, and Stephenson even made personal appearances at the mines to denounce "new immigrants" as inferior workers and call for immigration restriction.

McCray told reporters that he wanted to simply go back to his family and stay as far away from the Jackson scandal as possible. "I am out of politics for good and all," he declared. By that point, McCray's testimony wasn't really needed since the grand jury had concluded that portion of their proceedings. In September of 1927, Jackson and two associates (former law partner Robert I. Marsh and Marion County Republican boss George V. Coffin) were indicted on charges of bribery conspiracy. At trial, Stephenson confirmed the plot and said that he'd put aside $10,000 from one of his strongboxes if McCray agreed to the bribe. McCray was the star witness, testifying that Jackson had told him he would leave the money in the governor's office desk. As McCray had it, he replied, "Ed, I am amazed that you should make that kind of an offer to me. You evidently don't know me. It begins to look like I've lost my fortune that I've striven for for 35 years. My office is threatened, it looks as if they are threatening my liberty, but I'm not going to lose my self-respect."

Prosecutors also charged that McCray rebuffed a second attempt at a bribe, and that Jackson and Stephenson threatened to obstruct his parole if he gave them away. Jackson claimed that he had made the offer, but without bribery or coercion. In the end, judge Charles M. McCabe determined that since the state did not prove willful concealment of the bribe, there was no way to nullify the statute of limitations which expired two years before the indictment. McCabe was clearly disappointed that the case couldn't proceed, as he dismissed the matter by blasting the "slime and disgrace" of the KKK. Noting that the Klan used their power to threaten McCray in 1923, he said, "There is no more regrettable bit of history in Indiana than the organization and participation in politics of the Ku Klux Klan." Jackson refused widespread calls for his resignation, saying he wouldn't let the "malicious propaganda" affect his administration. He left office in disgrace in January of 1929.

The revelations significantly increased the sympathy for McCray. By appointing Remy, he had put a man in office who would take him to court on the embezzlement charges. Remy would also take on Jackson when those charges came up. In May of 1930, an odd case arose when McCray's former partner, grain broker William Simons, was found dead of a gunshot wound just below the heart and two more to the back of the head. The coroner ruled it a suicide, but family members demanded an investigation into the possibility of a homicide. Later in the year, just shy of Christmas, Republican President Herbert Hoover granted McCray a pardon.

In December of 1938, after about a year of poor health, McCray died of a heart attack at his Kentland home.

Sources: The National Governors Association, "Price For Bull Sets World Record" in the Poverty Bay Herald on May 3 1919, "Refuses Requisition For Mingo Mine Leader" in the New York Times on Oct. 6 1921, "Grand Prize To Missouri-Bred Hereford Bull" in the Nevada Daily Mail on Nov. 16 1921, "Indiana Threatens To Operate Mines" in the New York Times on Jul. 27 1922, "Unions Demand Impeachment Of Gov. McCray For Guarding Indiana Mine With Troops" in the New York Times on Aug. 10 1922, "McCray Estimates Debts At $2,652,000" in the New York Times on Sep. 1 1923, "Political Notes" in Time on Sep. 10 1923, "McCray's Creditors Accept Trust Plan" in the New York Times on Oct. 8 1923,"McCray Probe Still Secret" in the Southeast Missourian on Oct. 12 1923, "McCray Bank Shuts; Asserts Solvency" in the New York Times on Oct. 14 1923, "McCray's Name His Security To State, He Admits" in the Chicago Tribune on Nov. 21 1923, "Governor McCray Will Not Quit Office" in the Nevada Daily Mail on Dec. 1 1923, "Gov. McCray Is To Stay On The Job" in the Southeast Missourian on Dec. 1 1923, "Governor McCray Files Plea" in the Wall Street Journal on Feb. 6 1924, "U.S. Grand Jury Indicts McCray on 28 Counts" in the Chicago Tribune on Feb. 26 1924, "McCray Must Face Other Indictments" in the Christian Science Monitor on Apr. 12 1924, "Governor Of Indiana Put Behind Bars" in the Southeast Missourian on Apr. 29 1924, "10 Years For McCray" in the New York Times on May 1 1924, "McCray Pardon Movement Not Meeting Favor" in the Crawfordsville Review on Feb. 24 1925, "Offers To Serve Friend's Sentence" in the Times Daily on Jan. 5 1926, "McCray To Be Paroled From Penitentiary" in the Sarasota Herald on Aug. 31 1927, "McCray Out of Political Life" in the Sarasota Herald on Sep. 2 1927, "Political Notes: McCray Out" in Time on Sep. 12 1927, "Indiana Ex-Governor Permitted To Testify" in the Pittsburgh Press on Sep. 16 1927, "Problem Of Cleaning Politics" in the Miami News on Sep. 19 1927, "National Affairs: Indiana Scandals" in Time on Sep. 19 1927, "Trial Date Set" in the Pittsburgh Post-Gazette on Dec. 6 1927, "Jackson Trial Planned Feb. 7" in the Miami News on Dec. 6 1927, "Stevenson On Witness Stand" in the Southeast Missourian on Feb. 15 1928, "McCray Says $10,000 Was Jackson's Bait" in the New York Times on Feb. 16 1928, "Governor Jackson Acquitted" in the Sarasota Herald on Feb. 17 1928, "Corruption: In Indiana" in Time on Feb. 28 1928, "Ex-Governor Staging Comeback" in the Berkeley Daily Gazette on May 7 1929, "Gun Death Is Puzzle To Police" in the Times Daily on May 20 1930, "President Grants Pardon To McCray" in the Owosso Argus-Press on Dec. 24 1930, "Dies" in the St. Petersburg Times on Dec. 20 1938, Fragile Alliances: Labor and Politics in Evansville Indiana 1919-1955 by Samuel William White, James P. Goodrich: Indiana's "Governor Strangelove" by Benjamin D. Rhodes, A Standard History of Jasper and Newton Counties Indiana by Lewis H. Hamilton and William Darroch

John W. Hunter: giving the lie

Image from National Magazine

The first scandal to put John Ward Hunter's name down in newsprint involved a much more serious charge than the blemish his brief congressional career would later receive. In 1864, he was charged with forging checks during his duties at the United States Custom House in New York City, where he had been employed for over 30 years. Upon looking through a bundle of checks received by the Custom House, an assistant auditor had caught a couple of suspicious ones, one for $4,200 and another for $5,600. Both checks had been presented to assistant treasurer John J. Cisco but not paid over; the checks also bore the signature of Hunter, then serving as assistant auditor.

The case went to trial in April. Cisco was the star witness for the prosecution, saying the handwriting on the checks was a perfect match for Hunter; he testified that the assistant auditor wrote with certain peculiarities that he had not seen replicated anywhere else. Hunter's bank accounts had also shown a recent increase through large cash deposits. "The defense might bring all the world here with speaking trumpets to swear that Hunter was an angel, but it would all turn finally upon the question of his signature," the New York Times summarized in an account of a cross-examination where Cisco was essentially asked if Hunter was a decent person. "It was agreed that the prosecution should concede that Mr. Hunter had always borne a good character."

The defense lawyer proved masterful enough that Hunter's character was not his primary argument in the case. Instead, he focused on Cisco's steadfast testimony that the signatures on the checks belonged to Hunter. A stockbroker and photography analyst both testified that the signatures themselves were forged. The latter witness was especially compelling, as he compared prints of a genuine signature and the ones on the checks. Under magnification, the characteristics on the check suggested that the signature had been constructed from multiple pen strokes rather than a natural flow. A bookkeeper in the Custom House was also able to forge an impressive copy of Cisco's signature; the imitation put the assistant treasurer's recognition skills into question, as he was forced to admit that the forgery looked identical to his own.

The prosecution's case crumbled under further arguments by the defense. The defense explained the cash deposits as a result of many years of savings on his wife's part, combined with Hunter's duties as the executor of an estate. They also questioned why investigators had not taken a serious look at other men in the Customs House who would have had access to Hunter's signature. Cisco was accused of putting pressure on District Attorney E.D. Smith to issue a warrant of arrest for Hunter, and Smith took the stand himself to confirm that he acted on urgent requests from Cisco. Hunter himself testified very briefly. When asked if he wrote the two signatures, he replied, "I never did, nor did I ever see them before the day of the discovery." He answered only one other question, saying he did not know who wrote the signatures.

Immediately after Hunter's testimony, Smith asked for Hunter to be found innocent. He asked for reparations to be paid to him "for the wrong that has been done to him." Cisco also softened in his opinion on the matter. Three months after the trial, he wrote an apology to Hunter and included a check covering the assistant auditor's legal expenses. "Not a doubt rests on my mind of your entire innocence, and I deeply regret the erroneous theory on which I acted," said Cisco. "It was a serious mistake, which I regret should have been made."

Hunter was born in Bedford (now part of Brooklyn) in New York in October of 1807. After his school days, he began working as a clerk in a wholesale grocery store in 1824. From there, he made the switch to banking work and his long career with the U.S. Custom House. He started out as a clerk in 1831, and five years later he was appointed assistant auditor. He only stayed on for about a year after his success in the trial, then resigned to take a position as treasurer of the Dime Savings Bank in Brooklyn.

By some accounts, Hunter first entered the House of Representatives in 1864. However, these seem to be mistaken, as contemporary newspapers fail to mention such an election result. More likely, he first came to Congress following the death of Republican Representative James Humphrey in June of 1866. Successfully running as a Democrat to fill the vacancy, Hunter did not try to keep the seat in that year's regular election. He only served for a matter of months, from December of 1866 to March of 1867.

Hunter did not make much of a lasting impression during this service, but he did manage to earn a rebuke during a heated debate. On January 26 of 1867, Republican Representative Thaddeus Stevens of Pennsylvania said that he intended to press his Reconstruction bill to a vote on the 28th. By the New York Times account, Stevens didn't sound so enthusiastic about it, since he didn't think the proposition was ready and didn't expect to get much done; he also said only five minutes would be allowed for each congressman to speak on the matter. Other Republican congressmen also suggested that the bill was somewhat unsound, but that they would get behind it. Roscoe Conkling of New York criticized Stevens, claiming he was responsible for delays on the vote because the committee on Reconstruction that Stevens chaired had failed to assemble in time to be productive. James Mitchell Ashley of Ohio supported a final vote on the measure, but admitted that the GOP had not arrived at a conclusive policy. Ashley chaired the Committee on the Territories, and had previously backed a substitute plan they were working on as advocated by the Southern Republican Association; however, he said he figured recommitting the bill to committee would kill it. Stevens added that his measure had passed muster with his committee on Reconstruction, and that the House could vote it down if they so desired.

The discussion on the issue ended up devolving into a racially-charged war of words over the Civil War and the proposed reform measures for the South. Elijah Hise, a Kentucky Democrat, suggested that the Republican Party was in favor of disenfranchising the majority and only favored suffrage for those they deemed loyal, including "Negros and interlopers in the Southern states." John Winthrop Chanler, a Democrat from New York, asked Ashley whether he would recognize a state government if it were based solely on the black vote. After a back-and-forth exchange, in which Chanler suggested that Ashley was reluctant to answer, the Ohio congressman finally proclaimed, "If there is a single state of the American Union in which there is not a loyal man except black men, I would clothe them with the right of franchise and every other right under this government."

Under these provocations, Ashley launched an attack on the more conservative elements of the Republican Party as well as the Democrats in general. He raised the question of whether deposed Confederate president Jefferson Davis and other such rebels would be worthy of sitting in Congress, and accused Republican President Andrew Johnson of being a leader of a negative campaign that was just as injurious as the war. "The assumption, the brazen-faced assumption, of men here, who, during the entire war, were in secret alliance with the rebels, coming here now and joining hands with the apostate at the other end of the avenue [Johnson], who is their leader, the recognized leader of a counter-revolution or negative rebellion, as I said awhile ago, passes comprehension."

Charles Winfield, an outgoing Democratic representative from New York, demanded an explanation for the remark. Ashley clarified that it was something of a blanket denunciation, encompassing draft dodgers, conspirators against the North, and people who had been opposed to further funding or manpower for the war. When further pressed by Winfield, Ashley admitted that he could not indict specific members of the House with these accusations, but supposed by their votes that such people might be sitting in the chamber. "I do not propose to be tried on general reputation," Winfield shot back. "I desire to say for myself, and so far as I know for my associates on this floor of my own school of politics, that the insinuation that we are or ever have been in alliance with the rebels is utterly untrue, and if intended to apply to us it is a base and unfounded slander."

At that point, Hunter chimed in, "And I say that, so far as I am concerned, it is a base lie."

Schuyler Colfax, an Indiana Republican and Speaker of the House, chided Hunter for speaking out of order. Hunter was backed up by Samuel Jackson Randall, a Democrat from Pennsylvania, who also spoke out of turn to say that Hunter's statement was truthful even if it didn't abide by the House rules. Ralph Hill, an outgoing Indiana Republican, took a different opinion. He immediately made a motion to censure Hunter because he "transgressed the order of this body."

Most of the representatives didn't care about the squabble. A vote to table Hill's resolution failed with 75 opposed and 32 in favor, but 84 congressmen didn't even participate. The discussion on the censure resolution dissolved into another scene of bedlam. Francis Celeste Le Blond, an Ohio Democrat, suggested that Ashley's statements were far worse than Hunter's passing remark. "When you come down to the debate today in which my colleague participated, using the language which has been just read from the Speaker's desk, I ask the gentlemen what more offensive language could be used to any man who was an American citizen and willing to abide by the laws and the Constitution of his government," Le Blond concluded. The argument brought applause from the galleries, and Schuyler promptly scolded the spectators. When William Elias Niblack, an Indiana Democrat, muttered that the applause was on the Democratic side, Schuyler took offense. Apparently thinking that Niblack was hinting that he only tried to quell the applause supporting the Democrats, Schuyler said he had always asked the galleries to be decorous and threatened to have the spectators removed if they did not quiet down. Niblack apologized, saying the remark was meant to be private and that he did not mean to offend.

In response to Le Blond's suggestion, Hill said the House had allowed similar language to slide in recent debates and that he was getting tired of it. "I thought they had gone far enough; that when we had reached such a point that every day or two we must hear the epithets 'lie' and 'liar' bandied in this House it was time someone should interpose," he said. When Niblack asked if being labeled a traitor was also an example of offensive language, Hill replied that the term could be seen as a compliment depending on the circumstances. Being called a liar, by contrast, was offensive under any circumstances and he wanted the House to make an example to prevent further incidents.

The censure carried 84-34, with 81 congressmen not voting. The tally took place after one representative tried unsuccessfully to be excused, reasoning that he could support neither Hunter's outburst nor Ashley's insinuations. Schuyler delivered the brief punishment: "No deliberative body can preserve its self-respect, or command the respect of its constituents, which tolerates the use of offensive language, condemned by gentlemen everywhere, as well as by parliamentary law. For having transgressed the rules of the House it is resolved that you shall be censured by the Speaker. Having thus declared the censure of the House, you will resume your seat."

Hunter gave a similarly brief address, explaining that he meant no disrespect to the House and spoke in a "moment of irritation at a false charge." Hill was satisfied enough with his contrition that he asked for the censure proceedings to be stricken from the record, but other representatives objected. One was Ashley, who got in the last word by essentially reiterating his earlier argument and delivering his own rebuke to Hunter. He said that men often speak on the spur of the moment in a heated debate, but that he had not been called to order himself during any of his eight years in the House; Ashley added that he had not meant any offense either, but in clarifying his list of Union enemies he gave the same categories, complete with the Congress-encompassing qualifier "here or elsewhere."

The New York Times reported that Republicans "generally voted for the resolution, yet Hunter had the sympathy of many of them who considered the language of Mr. Ashley totally uncalled for, and though, according to the ruling of the chair heretofore, not strictly out of order, yet as great a violation of the dignity and the decency of the debate as was Mr. Hunter's impulsive remark." The newspaper added that the debate "furnished an unusual amount of interest to the galleries, which were well filled in anticipation of a debate on the Reconstruction question."

After leaving Congress, Hunter made an unsuccessful bid for state assembly and served on the Board of Education. He was nominated for the postmaster's position in Brooklyn, but not confirmed by the Senate. Then in 1873, Hunter won the race for Brooklyn mayor, serving from 1874 to 1875. He apparently lost this job after crossing Democratic party boss Hugh McLaughlin by refusing to appoint a certain water commissioner. The Bankers' Magazine reported that he was instrumental in supporting the construction of the Brooklyn Bridge while in office, and he became a stockholder in the endeavor. In 1886, former commissioner of the Brooklyn public works Thomas W. Adams sued Hunter for $10,000, saying Hunter had publicly accused him while mayor of allowing fraud and corrupt contracts; the outcome of the suit was not reported.

Hunter left politics in favor of a return to his work as treasurer of the Dime Savings Bank. National Magazine claimed that it is "to his financial skill and his reputation for unswerving integrity, much of the success of that bank is due." He became the bank's director as well as the director of a trust company and two insurance firms. In his spare time, Hunter was active in the Old Brooklynites and the Tree Planting and Fountain Society. He suffered a series of personal tragedies in 1881. Three of his children died over the course of a four-month period, including a naval lieutenant who died of poor health and a commission merchant who killed himself in a park in Fall River, Massachusetts. When Hunter died in Brooklyn in April of 1900, he was survived by only one child (a daughter) as well as five granddaughters.

Sources: The Biographical Directory of the United States Congress, "The Custom-House Forgeries Cross-Examination of John J. Cisco" in the New York Times on Apr. 12 1864, "The Custom-House Forgeries" in the New York Times on Apr. 14 1864, "The Sub-Treasury Forgeries" in the New York Times on Apr. 21 1864, "Conclusion Of The Hunter Case" in the New York Times on Apr. 24 1864, "Close Of The Hunter Case" in the New York Times on Apr. 25 1864, "Vindication Of Assistant Auditor J.W. Hunter" in the New York Times on Sep. 24 1864, "Excitement In The House" in the New York Times on Jan. 27 1867, "Thirty-Ninth Congress, Second Session" in the New York Times on Jan. 27 1867, "Review Of The Week" in the Lewiston Evening Journal on Jan. 30 1867, "Brooklyn City Government For 1874" in the New York Timeson Jan. 1 1874, "Suicide Of Mr. W.A. Hunter" in the New York Times on Mar. 25 1881, "Death Of Lieut. Hunter, U.S.N." in the New York Times on Jul. 19 1881, "Thinks His Character Defamed" in the New York Times on Mar. 4 1886, "John W. Hunter Dead" in the New York Times on Apr. 18 1900, National Magazine: A Monthly Journal of American History Volume 19, Bankers' Magazine Volume 60, The Great Bridge: The Epic Story of the Building of the Brooklyn Bridge by David G. McCullough, Record of an Examination Under a Warrant by Kenneth G. White, Journal of the House of Representatives of the United States Being the Session of the Thirty-Ninth Congress, Record of an Examination Under a Warrant by Kenneth G. White, The Congressional Globe Volume 58 Part 2

John H. Mitchell: scandal smorgasbord

Image from bioguide.congress.gov

In the years following the Civil War, the United States began to fully capitalize on its resources and entered into a period of wealthy industrialists and excess. Humorist Mark Twain referred to the time, marked in large part by corrupt government officials, as "The Gilded Age." John Hipple Mitchell, a United States Senator throughout this period, is a good example of this age; it seems there was hardly any point during his career that wasn't touched by political turmoil and scandal.

Mitchell was born John Mitchell Hipple in Washington County, Pennsylvania in 1835. After graduating from the Witherspoon Institute, he worked as a teacher before being admitted to the bar in 1857. Two years later, he departed for California, staying only briefly in that state before moving up the coast to Portland, Oregon. Once there, Mitchell started practicing law again, albeit under the name John Hipple Mitchell.

Mitchell's rapid change of fortunes continued. After only two years in Oregon, he was elected to the state senate as a Republican in 1862. He served until 1866, and was named the senate president in 1864. The state legislature was charged with making appointments to the U.S. Senate in those days, and Mitchell missed the 1866 nomination by one vote. When the nomination came around again in 1872, Mitchell was successful in getting it.

The first accusations of political corruption against Mitchell involved his association with Ben Holladay, a transportation magnate whose interests had evolved along with the industry to include stagecoaches, steamships, and railroads. Mitchell was a legal advisor to Holladay, and supposedly turned down a $15,000 offer from the man during the 1872 Senate race to allow Holladay to capture the spot. Despite this action, Mitchell's opponents charged that Holladay had paid off members of the legislature, and that Mitchell was so much in the pocket of Holladay that he had declared, "Whatever is Ben Holladay's politics is my politics, and whatever Ben Holladay wants I want."

Mitchell was further dogged by opponents when he went to the capital. One issue was the transposition of his middle and last names, which some trumped up to "living under a false name." The more serious charges involved his past. Mitchell was accused of abandoning his wife and two children in Pennsylvania when he went West with a mistress, abandoning her in California and taking another wife in Oregon before divorcing his first one. His trip across the country, opponents charged, had also been sweetened by $4,000 stolen from his former law office.

The Oregon Historical Project states that Mitchell repaid the $4,000. However, Mitchell firmly denied the theft allegations when they surfaced, even producing dispatches from his former law partners as proof. "No man in Pennsylvania ever lost a cent by you," former partner John M. Thompson said. On the charges of bigamy and desertion, Mitchell was vaguer. He admitted to "domestic troubles of painful character, resulting in separation and divorce," but denied any wrongdoing. He referred to his decision to change his name as a way of trying to leave his past behind, "an indiscreet, ill-advised, and injudicious act; a great blunder, a foolish mistake." He was satisfied enough with his new moniker to legally change his name in 1874, however.

A Senate committee decided not to investigate the charges against Mitchell. Ironically enough, Mitchell was at the forefront of a debate on whether or not to seat the other Senator from Oregon in 1876. In that matter, he advocated that Lafayette Grover not be seated based on charges that bribery and fraud had brought Grover to office, as well as the basis of Grover's actions in the controversial Presidential election between Republican candidate Rutherford B. Hayes and Democratic candidate Samuel Tilden. Grover, who had been Governor of Oregon before resigning to take the Senate appointment, had tried unsuccessfully to disqualify a Republican elector due to his employment as a postmaster and replace him with a Democratic substitute. Grover was able to overcome the opposition and serve one term in the Senate.

Mitchell served until 1879, unsuccessfully ran for re-appointment in 1882, and was again sent to the Senate in 1885. Holladay still had two more years to live, and may yet have had some influence over the legislature's decision. Specifically, Mitchell was charged with giving payoffs financed by the Southern Pacific Railroad Company to 17 Democratic legislators to gain their votes. The New York Times printed a brief, bitter response to the affair from the Portland Oregonian in 1887: "'No United States Senator could keep his seat a single day if it was found that he had used money to secure one vote.' Thus says a Washington dispatch. It sounds well, but it won't go down in Oregon so long as John H. Mitchell is a Senator." Mitchell was re-appointed in 1891, but dissatisfaction with him and the legislature's politics prompted the formation of a populist People's Party the next year.

Despite the accusations of complicity with a transportation baron, Mitchell nevertheless served on numerous committees while in the Senate, including several related specifically to the nation's infrastructure. These included the Committees on Railroads, Transportation Routes to the Seaboard, Claims, Privileges and Elections, Coast Defenses, and Interoceanic Canals. He secured federal funding for the construction of lighthouses and the Cascade Locks in Oregon, as well as navigational improvements on the state's rivers. In what may have been a prelude to the final scandal that befell him, Mitchell also advocated the withdrawal of federal treaties for the Coastal Indian Reservation to open the land up for settlement.

Going against his own party, Mitchell was also a proponent of the free silver movement, which supported inflation and a withdrawal from the gold standard in favor of a less rigid monetary system. In a bizarre political move in his home state, a coalition of legislators opposed to the free silver movement refused to organize the state house in 1897. With no session to confirm him, Mitchell once again had to leave the capital.

The furor over the free silver movement had died down by 1901, when the legislature appointed Mitchell to a fourth term in the Senate. Three years later, investigators had discovered widespread land fraud in Oregon. Over the prior few years, such ignominious methods as false or forged affidavits and nonexistent persons had been used to lay claim to government-owned public lands, namely for timber uses. In December of 1904, a defendant by the name of S.A.D. Porter testified that he had paid Mitchell $2,000 to use his influence as a Senator to push the fraudulent claims through the United States General Land Office.

In January of 1905, Mitchell was indicted on charges of helping out Porter and others in the land fraud. Other government officials were also indicted, including a deputy sheriff of Multnomah County and Binger Hermann, who had been the Commissioner of the General Land Office when the fraud took place and had since become a Congressman. Other indictments came down against Mitchell, charging him with trying to fraudulently secure government lands, receiving $500 from Fred A. Kribs in 1902 and on six other dates to expedite timber claims on behalf of Kribs, complicity in an attempt to create a forest district in the Blue Mountains for the benefit of private individuals, and conspiracy in attempts to discredit the prosecutor, U.S. District Attorney Francis J. Heney. The New York Times reported that the state senate endorsed Mitchell for Senator in February 1905, despite the indictments (and despite the fact that Mitchell's term should have gone on until 1907).

Some of the most damning evidence against Mitchell came from his Oregon law partner, Judge Albert H. Tanner. A document provided to the grand jury showed that Mitchell had taken his return to government into account in 1901, and that the two men had altered their agreement to split the income to the firm and instead have it be paid solely to Tanner. However, investigators noticed that the document was a not-so-elaborate fake: it was printed on paper that had not been in production at the date of the purported document, had a different color of ink from that normally on the firm's correspondence in 1901, and had misspelled two words. With his son facing a possible perjury indictment for drawing up the document, Tanner crumbled and confessed that the document had been created when the accusations against Mitchell came out.

Mitchell was also not helped by a letter he wrote to Tanner in February, prior to one of his appearances before the grand jury. The letter strongly suggested to Tanner what the "facts" of the case were, including that Mitchell had no knowledge of the land fraud and did not benefit by any services. He conspicuously ended the letter with the instruction, "Burn this without fail."

Of the slew of accusations against Mitchell, it seems that only the ones related to Kribs' claims went forward. In July, Mitchell was found guilty of those charges; later in the month, he was sentenced to serve six months in prison and pay a $1,000 fine. Mitchell appealed the conviction. With a decision still pending in December, he died of complications following the extraction of four teeth. John M. Gearin, a Democrat, was appointed to replace him.

Sources: Biographical Directory of the United States Congress, The Oregon History Project, The Bethel Historical Society, "Oregon; The United States Senatorship" in the New York Times on Oct. 14 1872, "Oregon; The Weather and the Crops; A New United States Senator" in the New York Times on Jan. 3 1873, "Senator Mitchell; The Charges Against Him" in the New York Times on Jun. 14 1873, "Forty-Fifth Congress; Summary of the Day's Proceedings" in the New York Times on March 8 1877, "Not Believed in Oregon" in the New York Times on Jul. 12 1887, "Senator Mitchell Indicted for Fraud" in the New York Times on Jan. 1 1905, "Oregon Stands By Mitchell" in the New York Times on Feb. 8 1905, "Burn This Letter, Said Mr. Mitchell" in the New York Times on Feb. 13 1905, "Mitchell Indicted Again" in the New York Times on Feb. 14 1905, "Mitchell Guilty" in the New York Times on Jul. 4 1905, "Senator Mitchell Dead, With Appeal Pending" in the New York Times on Dec. 9 1905, "New Senator From Oregon" in the New York Times on Dec. 14 1905, The Green Bag: A Monthly Illustrated Magazine Covering the Higher and Lighter Literature of the Law, Volume XVII edited by Sidney R. Wrightington, Land of Giants: The Drive to the Pacific Northwest, 1750-1950 by David Lavender, Looters of the Public Domain by Stephen A. Douglas Puter and Horace Stevens, The Centennial History of Oregon, 1811-1912 by Joseph Gaston and George H. Himes, The Oxford Companion to United States History edited by Paul S. Boyer