AN UNJUST LEGACY: A CRITICAL STUDY OF THE POLITICAL CAMPAIGNS OF WILLIAM ANDREWS CLARK, 1888-1901 Stanley Thomas Pitts, B.S. Thesis Prepared for the Degree of MASTER OF SCIENCE UNIVERSITY OF NORTH TEXAS May 2006 APPROVED: F. Todd Smith, Major Professor Richard G. Lowe, Committee Member Randolph B. Campbell, Committee Member Adrian Lewis, Chair of the Department of History Sandra L. Terrell, Dean of the Robert B. Toulouse School of Graduate Studies Pitts, Stanley Thomas. An unjust legacy: A critical study of the political campaigns of William Andrews Clark, 1888-1901. Master of Science (History), May 2006, 201 pp., references, 125 titles. In a time of laissez-faire government, monopolistic businesses and political debauchery, William Andrews Clark played a significant role in the developing West, achieving financial success rivaling Jay Gould, George Hearst, Andrew Carnegie, and J. P. Morgan. Clark built railroads, ranches, factories, utilities, and developed timber and water resources, and was internationally known as a capitalist, philanthropist and art collector. Nonetheless, Clark is unjustly remembered for his bitter twelve-year political battle with copper baron Marcus Daly that culminated in a scandalous senatorial election in January 1899. The subsequent investigation was a judicial travesty based on personal hatred and illicit tactics. Clark’s political career had national implications and lasting consequences. His enemies shaped his legacy, and for one hundred years historians have unquestioningly accepted it. Copyright 2006 by Stanley Thomas Pitts ii TABLE OF CONTENTS Page Chapters 1. INTRODUCTION………………………………………………………………………...1 2. BEGINNINGS…………………………………………………………………….........18 3. THE ELECTION OF 1888……………………………………………………………..28 4. STATEHOOD AND THE ELECTION OF 1889…………………………..…………45 5. THE ELECTION OF 1893, CAPITAL FIGHT, AND ELECTION OF 1896…….....55 6. THE SENATORIAL ELECTION OF 1899…………………………………….……..78 7. THE SENATE INVESTIGATION…………………………………………………....123 8. THE SENATE REPORT AND AFTERMATH………………………………….......157 9. THE ELECTION OF 1900……………………………………………………...........174 10. EPILOGUE……………………………………………………………………….......184 SELECTED BIBLIOGRAPHY……………………………………………………………….190 iii CHAPTER 1 INTRODUCTION During the last quarter of the nineteenth century, America experienced an unparalleled transformation. Staggering from a long and bloody Civil War, the country underwent enormous changes. The eastern seaboard remained the seat of financial power, the South’s melancholy beauty was in ruins, and the western territories were sparsely populated and had little political power. In 1889 Mark Sullivan, the editor of Collier’s magazine, said the story of the United States from the Allegheny Mountains to the Pacific coast was one of “a country still frontier and of a people still in flux.”1 America’s laissez-faire philosophy, ostensibly rooted in Jeffersonian liberalism and pioneering individuality, became firmly entrenched in the American psyche. President Grover Cleveland was not being cruel in early 1887 when he vetoed the Texas Seed Bill, stating that “the lesson should be constantly reinforced that though the people support the Government, the Government should not support the people.” The fundamental belief that government was the problem, not the solution, was an underlying principle of the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries.2 Coupled with rapidly emerging technology, these circumstances allowed a handful of men to acquire an inordinate share of the world’s wealth. Their names and empires are legendary: J. P. Morgan, banker and railroad baron; Andrew Carnegie, 1 Harold Evans, introduction to The American Century (London: Jonathan Cape, 1998), xx. 2 Cong. Record, 49th cong., 2nd sess., 1875. Cleveland’s veto prohibited the Commissioner of Agriculture from purchasing $10,000 dollars of seed grain for distribution to Texas farmers suffering from a drought. 1 steel king; John D. Rockefeller, the oil tycoon who perfected the monopoly; and George Hearst, mining magnate, became not only symbols of the greatness of American industry and ingenuity, but represented the unlimited potential and promise of the United States. These men considered the country’s raw materials, abundant cheap labor, and hands-off government an invitation to amass fortunes and achieve power. Equally talented men escaped lasting notoriety. William Andrews Clark was one of the hundred richest men in America, and internationally influential in business and the arts during the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries. When Clark died in New York City on 2 March 1925 at the age of eighty-six, his obituary was in every major newspaper. The New York Times noted he owned mines, railroads, real estate, newspapers, factories, quarries, utilities, and plantations, and praised him as “the last of that picturesque group of men…who wrested a fortune from the subsoil of Montana when copper was first discovered in that state.”3 He built a spectacular recreational area, Columbia Gardens, near Butte, and in 1905 built a rest stop—Las Vegas—to service the desert route of his Los Angeles to Salt Lake Railroad. His notable art collection, valued at over $1.5 million in the 1920s, is housed in the Corcoran Gallery of Art in Washington, D.C. Yet despite Clark’s monumental accomplishments, he is hardly remembered outside of Montana, and if so, it is as the man who bought a seat in the United States Senate.4 This thesis is a critical study of the political campaigns of William Andrews Clark, who was a Democratic senatorial candidate in Montana in all but one legislative session 3 New York Times, 3 March 1925; New York Herald, 4 March 1925; Montana Standard, 6 August 1978. 4 Katie Haughey and Gordon McConnell, ed., introduction to The William A. Clark Collection: Treasures of a Copper King (Billings, Montana: Yellowstone Art Center, 1989), iii. Adjusted for inflation, the collection was worth over sixteen million in today’s dollars. 2 between 1888 and 1901. Clark was not elected until 1899, primarily because Marcus Daly, the powerful owner of the Anaconda Copper Company, successfully opposed him for personal, political, and economic reasons. When it appeared that Clark might finally succeed during the Sixth Montana legislative session in January 1899, rumors of impending bribery appeared in the Daly-controlled press, and Clark’s papers countered with accusations of a massive conspiracy. Clark’s election in January 1899 and the subsequent events created a maelstrom on the national political scene, and played a prominent role in the ratification of the Seventeenth Amendment to the Constitution in 1913, mandating the direct election of U.S. Senators.5 An objective analysis of the historical record demonstrates how and why a group of powerful men deliberately blocked Clark’s election and conspired to ruin his reputation after the Election of 1899. He was the focus of one of the most intense personal and political attacks in history, and it created a national scandal. Ironically, Clark’s enemies blamed him for the negative publicity caused by their persecution. Understanding the economic and political climate of the western United States is critical when studying Montana’s bizarre politics of the 1880s and 1890s. After 1890, the frontier officially existed only as a state of mind. Social and governmental institutions were practical and flexible, adapting rapidly to enormous changes. Unlike stable and refined eastern cities, most western towns were rough and tumble, populated 6 with restless, rootless individuals with little sense of permanence, particularly in politics. 5 Butte Miner, 1 January-28 January 1899; Anaconda Standard, 1 January-28 January 1899. 6 Clyde A. Milner, Carol A. O’Connor and Martha Sandweiss, ed., Clyde A. Milner, “Introduction,” in The Oxford History of the American West (New York: Oxford University Press, 1994), 2-3; Clyde A. Milner, Anne M. Butler and David Rich Lewis, ed., Patricia Limerick, “The Legacy of Conquest” in Major Problems in the History of the American West (New York: Houghton Mifflin Company, 1997), 8-9. 3 The tumultuous 1890s was a turning point in the nation’s life. Western politics had evolved into struggles based on location, economic interests and personal ambition. Six states—Idaho, Montana, North and South Dakota, Washington and Wyoming—entered the Union in 1889 and 1890. Many thought that the new states signaled the close of the frontier and the beginning of governmental maturity in the region, but it merely ended the politically motivated Congressional roadblocks inhibiting western statehood since Colorado’s admission in 1876.7 Small groups of men often started with nothing and built empires that dominated a territory. Laissez-faire economics and poorly organized labor convinced them that the government’s purpose was to facilitate profits and growth. Politics was a means to an end, an opportunity for power on a large scale. The men who made fortunes shared many characteristics. They took risks, were intelligent but often poorly educated, built impressive mansions, traveled to Europe, and coveted a U.S. Senatorship.8 Political contests were fueled by powerful personalities into what historian Kenneth Owens called “chaotic factionalism.” Power was a potent, addictive drug, and politics and power intertwined in a tapestry of opportunity, available to anyone with brains, ambition, determination, and money. Money was plentiful, and those who had it spent lavishly on everything, including politics. As in business, money was