Ohio History Journal

A Toledo Trade Union and

The Arizona Constitution of 1910

 

By PAUL G. HUBBARD*

 

 

 

THE PERSISTENT DEMAND FOR REFORM in American government

was running strong in 1911. On the local level many cities were

experimenting with the commission form of government, which was

supposed to eliminate some of the weaknesses of the mayor-council

system and to thwart the "bosses." Following the lead of South

Dakota in 1898 several states adopted the initiative and referendum

to afford the people "direct" legislation. Oregon in 1908 adopted

another popular device for controlling the "interests," the recall,

and other states fell in line. For the reformers, the national govern-

ment inspired no especial awe. To them it seemed some of its

controls were too far removed from the people's hands. The senate,

particularly, was assailed as the stronghold of "privilege," and the

remedy proposed was to elect the senators by direct popular vote

instead of through the state legislatures. Government could be

made truly democratic by nominating candidates by the direct

primary and by permitting women to vote.

Reform, then, was aggressive. Both major political parties had

their "insurgents" looking toward the election of 1912. Among the

Democrats the name of Woodrow Wilson was stirring speculation,

and certain Republicans had met at Senator Robert M. La Follette's

Washington home on January 21, 1911, and organized the National

Progressive Republican League, whose object was "the promotion

of popular government and progressive legislation." Popular gov-

ernment had been thwarted and progressive legislation strangled,

they said, by "the special interests."1

 

* Paul G. Hubbard is associate professor of history at Arizona State College at

Tempe.

1 Henry Steele Commager, ed., Documents of American History (New York, 1949),

II, 239.

• 1
 

110    THE OHIO HISTORICAL QUARTERLY

 

The eyes of the progressives peered into every corner of the land

for foes to smite, and in the far Southwest they saw democracy

chained and they found a cause. Territorial government, they

pointed out, denied the people the power to govern themselves,

because the governors, other executive officials, and judges were

appointed in Washington. The cause of statehood for Arizona and

New Mexico was not new in the Taft administration--the agitation

had been going on for years and getting nowhere--but these were

the last two territories attached to the other forty-six states and

they no longer could be denied. Both major parties favored state-

hood in their platforms in 1908,2 and on June 16, 1910, congress

passed an act to enable Arizona and New Mexico to form constitu-

tions and state governments.³

Constitutional conventions met in the fall of 1910 in the two

territories and drew up organic instruments of government. The

New Mexico convention was conservative, and so was the docu-

ment it wrote. But in Arizona the friends of "direct" government

controlled the writing of the constitution. The president of the

Arizona convention was George W. P. Hunt, leader of the pro-labor

faction of the Democratic party in Arizona, and this dominant group

produced a constitution which was highly "progressive" and favor-

able to labor. Of course it contained the initiative, referendum, and

recall; and the latter particularly caused complications. President

Taft had strong feelings about the independence of the judiciary,

and there was good reason to believe he would take a dim view of

any recall provisions which included recall of judges. Despite

the threat of presidential disapproval, the people of Arizona never-

theless voted overwhelmingly on February 9, 1911, to accept the

constitution as it was written.⁴

Now the battle returned to congress, where the question of state-

hood for Arizona and New Mexico became one of the big issues

of the special, or first, session of the sixty-second congress. The

chief bone of contention was the recall of elected officers. The

conservatives were ready to accept the Arizona document provided

the recall features did not extend to judges, and the president

2 Rufus Kay Wyllys, Arizona: The History of a Frontier State (Phoenix, 1950), 303.

3 Congressional Record, 61 cong., 2 sess., 8237.

4 Wyllys, Arizona, 309.

• 2
 

A TOLEDO TRADE UNION           111

 

seemed to be in their camp. The progressives, the announced friends

of the working man, made the initiative, referendum, and recall

their symbols of democracy and took up the cudgels for them. They

saw no reason why judges should not be subject to recall like any

other elected officer.

The stage was now set for the organization of the Arizona Con-

stitutional Petition League of Typographical Union No. 63, Toledo,

Ohio.

Ohio by 1910 was a state where labor could speak with a strong

voice and expect to be heard, because progressives believed in

unionism and progressives were vigorous there. A new spirit in gov-

ernment showed up in the municipal reform movement in the 1890's

and 1900's. Leaders were Tom L. Johnson, Newton D. Baker,

Frederic C. Howe, and Peter Witt in Cleveland; and in Toledo

Samuel M. "Golden Rule" Jones and Brand Whitlock.⁵ While these

men did not enjoy unlimited success, they did have great influence

on state and municipal government. They saw an age bright with

promise, a new Enlightenment based on "direct" government, and

they operated in a stimulating intellectual climate.

Beginning in 1908 the forces of progressivism won real victories

on the state-wide level in Ohio. Judson Harmon, a Democrat with a

reform program, was elected governor in 1908 in the face of Repub-

lican William Howard Taft's 50,000-vote margin in the popular

vote for president. Although the Republicans won all other state

offices except the state treasurer, it was nevertheless a significant

Democratic triumph. In 1910 Harmon won reelection with a decisive

100,000-vote majority over Warren G. Harding. Under Harmon's

leadership such progressive measures as the following were enacted:

ratification of the sixteenth amendment, direct nomination of United

States senators, the initiative and referendum for city government,

creation of a tax commission, corrupt practices legislation, and a

workmen's compensation law.⁶

 

5 For an excellent short study of Jones's influence, see James H. Rodabaugh,

"Samuel M. Jones--Evangel of Equality," Historical Society of Northwestern Ohio,

Quarterly Bulletin, XV (1943), 17-46. For Whitlock, see his autobiographical Forty

Years of It (New York, 1916) and Allan Nevins, ed., The Letters and Journals of

Brand Whitlock (New York, 1936).

6 Eugene H. Roseboom and Francis P. Weisenburger, A History of Ohio (Colum-

bus, 1956), 321-323; Harlow Lindley, ed., Ohio in the Twentieth Century, 1900-1938

(Carl Wittke, ed., The History of the State of Ohio, VI, Columbus, 1942), 9-10.

• 3
 

112     THE OHIO HISTORICAL QUARTERLY

 

The enactment of these laws was accompanied by a demand for

reform of the state constitution. This demand came at the right time,

because the constitution of 1851 contained a provision that at

twenty-year intervals the people should vote on whether they desired

to have a constitutional convention or not. The vote in 1871 resulted

in the calling of a convention in 1873 which drew up a new organic

law. The proposed document was defeated by over two to one when

put to the voters, partly because it was presented in its entirety

rather than in separate proposals. The vote in 1891 on the question

of calling a convention was negative.

Now with the progressive era approaching its zenith, another

vote on the question of holding a convention was scheduled for

1911. But because of the need for tax reform, the vote was taken

in 1910 instead of in the regularly designated year. The vote was

positive. A convention would be elected in the fall of 1911 to meet

early in 1912.

The sentiment for a new constitution, says Professor Francis

R. Aumann, "was encouraged by various pressure groups.^"7 One

of these pressure groups was the Arizona Constitutional Petition

League of Typographical Union No. 63. This organization was

the brain child of Henry R. Wollerman,⁸ business agent for that

printers' local and one of the vice presidents of the Toledo Central

Labor Union.⁹ He was the chairman, while the other members of

the committee-in-charge were Maurice H. Cole, H. George Diebold,

Harry E. Marker, Clarence E. Benedict, and George Kuemmerle,

business agent of the Central Labor Union. The so-called advisory

 

7 Lindley, Ohio in the Twentieth Century, 13.

8 Henry R. Wollerman was born July 19, 1884, in Cleveland, Ohio, and at the

age of thirteen began his apprenticeship in the printing trade. In 1910 he moved to

Toledo, where he soon became active in Typographical Union No. 63. Four years

later he began a lifelong association with the Hines Printing Company of Toledo,

and at this writing he holds the position of secretary-treasurer in that firm. Wollerman

to the author, December 11, 1957.

9 Arizona Republic (Phoenix), March 21, 1954. Clipping in a scrapbook in the

Arizona State Department of Library and Archives containing letters, newspaper

clippings, petitions, etc., documenting the activities of the Arizona Constitutional

Petition League personally presented to Mulford Winsor, director of the library and

archives, by Wollerman on March 17, 1954. This collection will hereafter be cited

as Wollerman Scrapbook. The late Mulford Winsor was a member of the Arizona

constitutional convention and a leading authority on Arizona history. The Toledo

Central Labor Union was organized in 1882, and in 1911 had "about 65 local unions"

and approximately 5,000 members. Toledo Blade, February 18, 1911.

• 4
 

A TOLEDO TRADE UNION         113

 

committee included such distinguished men as Brand Whitlock;

Isaac R. Sherwood, a member of congress; Harry T. Batch, a council-

man-at-large; R. T. Gosline, a judge of the city court; W. H.

DeWitt, president of Typographical Union No. 63; and James P.

Egan, president of the Central Labor Union.¹⁰

Under the interrogative headline "Arizona to Lead Ohioans to

New Constitution?" the Toledo News-Bee explained what the

league was doing. Its primary object, the News-Bee said, was to

circulate petitions asking the United States Senate to indorse

the constitution of Arizona in order to enlighten the voters of

Ohio in the principles of progressive government "with a view of

creating interest in the Ohio constitutional convention to be held in

January."¹¹ More immediately, its purpose was to bring about the

passage of House Joint Resolution 14 approving the constitutions

formed by the constitutional conventions of the territories of New

Mexico and Arizona.

When President Taft called the sixty-second congress into special

session on April 4, 1911, one of the measures introduced that same

day was House Joint Resolution 14. It was sent to the house com-

mittee on territories and was to become known as the Flood Resolu-

tion after the name of the representative who submitted it, Henry

D. Flood, Democrat from Virginia and chairman of the committee.12

This measure was to be one of the major issues of the special

session.

As congress reassembled, the Toledo Blade could not resist a sly

editorial dig when it remarked, "It may take congress several days

to get in shape to do any harm."13 Yet, more seriously, it saw that

the new congress, elected in 1910, had considerable progressive

strength. The vote on the Arizona organic instrument would spot-

light the division between reactionaries and progressives, and

party lines would disappear.¹⁴ Papers in Arizona, with much more

at stake, viewed the impending session cautiously or confidently,

depending on their editorial policy.

10 Letterhead on league stationery in Wollerman Scrapbook.

11 Toledo News-Bee, June 8, 1911.

12 Congressional Record, 62 cong., 1 sess., 28.

13 Toledo Blade, April 6, 1911.

14 Ibid., April 7, 1911.

• 5
 

114    THE OHIO HISTORICAL QUARTERLY

The Arizona Republican pointed out that President Taft was a

good deal more interested in a bill establishing tariff reciprocity

with Canada than he was in Arizona statehood, and that while the

house probably would accept the Arizona and New Mexico consti-

tutions, the real fate of statehood for Arizona would be decided in

the senate, and the senate was Republican by a majority of eight.¹⁵

The Arizona Gazette, a progressive paper, exuded confidence as the

special session opened: "So many members of both lower and upper

house in the new Congress have expressed their friendliness to

Arizona . . . that the indications now are that they [the constitu-

tions] will go through both houses like unto the proverbial 'streak

of greased lightning.'"16

As it turned out, "greased lightning" hardly described the way

the legislation went through. Senate passage of the statehood

resolution did not come until August and then was delayed several

days by Taft's veto and the necessity of giving the president his

way on the matter of the recall.

House Joint Resolution 14 made easy progress through the lower

chamber of the congress and was passed by a voice vote on May

23.17 Two days later it came to the senate and was referred to the

committee on territories.¹⁸ The Arizona Republican was right; the

issue of statehood was to be decided in the upper house. In the

summer months of 1911 the battle was joined, and the partisans

of progressive politics in Ohio rallied round.

Although it was not directly concerned with statehood for Ari-

zona, there was another Ohio organization which was fighting the

same battle as the Toledo typographers' Arizona Constitutional

Petition League. Early in June an organizational meeting was held

in Columbus sponsored by the Ohio Federation of Labor, the Ohio

State Grange, and the Ohio Direct Legislation League at which

the Progressive Constitutional League of Ohio was formed. Brand

Whitlock, Toledo's reform mayor, was honored with the presidency,

 

15 Arizona Republican (Phoenix), April 5, 1911.

16 Arizona Gazette (Phoenix), April 5, 1911.

17 Congressional Record, 62 cong., 1 sess., 1528-1529.

18 Ibid., 1561.

• 6
 

A TOLEDO TRADE UNION              115

 

and among the Toledo delegates present was James P. Egan, head

of the Central Labor Union. The purpose of the league was to

work for the initiative, referendum, and recall in the Ohio constitu-

tion by educating the voters to elect delegates to the coming consti-

tutional convention who would seek those reforms. Plans laid at the

initial meeting expressed its determination to establish a branch

in every Ohio county.¹⁹ The Lucas County branch was formed in

late July with Toledo organized labor playing a conspicuous role.

At a meeting Friday evening, July 28, Henry W. Ashley was

chosen president. James P. Egan was elected first vice president,

after being nominated by Brand Whitlock. Henry R. Wollerman

spoke to this meeting about the work of his Arizona Constitutional

Petition League, and the Arizona instrument was held up as a

good example to follow.²⁰

Mayor Whitlock's views on the new Arizona document were

featured in a News-Bee story in which he was quoted as saying:

 

I favor the Arizona constitution for two reasons; first, because it was

adopted by the people of Arizona themselves and no doubt expresses their

wishes, and secondly because it seems to be a fundamentally democratic

constitution in that it provides for the initiative, the referendum and the

recall, and because it has excellent articles in the interests of the laboring

classes, providing for the eight-hour day, the regulation of the employment

of children and women and deals effectively with the subject of the safety

of employees in hazardous occupations, employers' liability, convict labor, etc.

These things should commend it to all those who believe in fundamental

democracy, that is to all those who believe with Lincoln, that labor is

superior to capital and that people are of more importance than property.²1

 

In the meantime, the typographers' Arizona Constitutional Peti-

tion League, with Wollerman directing its activities, was busy circu-

lating and sending petitions, corresponding with statehood leaders

in Arizona and senators in Washington, and seeking publicity.

19 Toledo Blade, June 5, 1911; Toledo News-Bee, June 5, 1911. The News-Bee,

under the direction of its editor, Negley D. Cochran, was strong for reform. See

James H. Rodabaugh, "The Reform Movement in Ohio at the Turn of the Century,"

Ohio State Archaeological and Historical Quarterly, LIV (1945), 51.

20 Toledo Blade, July 29, 1911.

21 Toledo News-Bee, July 1, 1911.

• 7
 

116     THE OHIO HISTORICAL QUARTERLY

 

The petitions were addressed to the two Ohio senators, Theodore

E. Burton and Atlee Pomerene,²² and read as follows:

We, the undersigned, citizens of the United States and duly qualified

electors of the City of Toledo, County of Lucas, and State of Ohio, in accord-

ance with a resolution adopted by Toledo Typographical Union No. 63, on

the 10th day of May, 1911, and endorsed by Central Labor Council May

25th, 1911, hereby petition you as our representatives in the Senate of the

United States, to use your influence and votes to secure the approval and

adoption of the constitution recently adopted by Congress in the Territory

of Arizona for the State of Arizona.²³

Mayor Whitlock must have been one of the first signers of the

petition because only eight days after the union decided on their

campaign he wrote to Wollerman, "I have today written                 Mr.

Hunt²⁴ telling him that I had signed your petition . . . and that

I am   anxious to do anything I can to help the adoption of this

fundamental law     for the new   state."²⁵ Out in Arizona, Hunt was

doing what he could to help Wollerman and was grateful for the

aid the Toledo group was extending to the cause of statehood.

In a long letter to Wollerman, Hunt spoke well of Brand

Whitlock, saying, "Your good mayor . . . has I believe a national

repetation [sic] and I have for several years noted with interest

his work in behalf of the uplift of humanity." He also declared

that he was mailing to Wollerman "several copies of the New

Declaration of Independence" and thanked him for his support.²⁶

22 Burton was a Republican from Cleveland, who had been elected to the senate

in January 1909. He was a Taft man, having placed Taft's name in nomination at

the Chicago convention in 1908. Pomerene, the junior senator, came from Canton

and served as a Democrat. He had been elected lieutenant governor of Ohio on the

ticket with Judson Harmon in 1910, and was just beginning the first of two terms

in the senate.

23 Petition bearing four signatures in Wollerman Scrapbook. Beginning June 30

the Toledo Union Leader carried the petition in a box on its front Page with the

question "Have You Signed This?" The Union Leader was a weekly edited by James

P. Egan, president of the Toledo Central Union, and was the official organ of the

C. L. U.

24 Wollerman credits Hunt with first stimulating his interest in the Arizona con-

stitution. He says that he had read an article in the Cincinnati Enquirer by Hunt which

impressed him so much with the writer's sincerity that he wrote Hunt requesting

several copies. Wollerman to the author, December 11, 1957.

25 Whitlock to Wollerman, May 18, 1911, in Wollerman Scrapbook. All letters

and telegrams cited hereafter are in this scrapbook.

26 Hunt to Wollerman, May 21, 1911. The "New Declaration of Independence"

was a phrase invented by its strong partisans to mean the Arizona constitution.

Wollerman used the term in an article in a Phoenix paper in which he urged

Arizona's citizens to elect progessive officers. Arizona Gazette, December 6, 1911.

• 8
 

A TOLEDO TRADE UNION              117

 

A folded leaflet carrying the heading "The Noblest Work is for

the Public Good" was printed and circulated by Typographical

Union No. 63. It cited some of Lincoln's remarks on labor and

boosted the Arizona constitution as a model to be followed by

Ohioans when they made their new constitution in 1912 and urged

its adoption by petition. On the inner leaf there were several

extracts from the Arizona document.²⁷ The printers were preparing

the public mind, and on May 29 the drive for signatures on the

petitions began.

A small item in the Toledo News-Bee carried the information

that Wollerman had placed placards in the city's store windows

bearing the heading "Arizona Constitution Petition: Sign Here for

Good Government."²⁸ All the union halls throughout the city had

been covered, according to the Toledo Union Leader, and mention

was made of the good "hand" Wollerman received when he talked

before the typographical union on May 25 in favor of his petition

movement.²⁹ The Daily Globe of Globe, Arizona, ran an editorial

about the petitions, describing the movement started by the Toledo

typographers and saying they were motivated by a wish to promote

a more progressive constitution in Ohio. It stated that those circulat-

ing the petition thought they would get five to eight thousand sig-

natures.³⁰ As the campaign developed momentum, the estimates on

the number of signers went up.

Workers for Wollerman's movement enjoyed considerable success.

They expected to have over ten thousand names on the lists when

they sent them to Washington. According to Wollerman their plan

was to forward the petition on June 17.31 By the time the News-Bee

reported that the lists of advocates of the Arizona constitution had

 

27 Leaflet in Wollerman Scrapbook. The Toledo Union Leader of June 30, 1911,

referred to 5,000 pamphlets having been printed but did not describe them. Since

only one folder appears in the Wollerman Scrapbook, it is reasonably safe to assume

that the 5,000 pamphlets were the same as the folder mentioned above. The some-

what inaccurate Lincoln quotation used was from his annual message to congress of

December 3, 1861, in which Lincoln talked of labor preceding and being superior

to capital and meriting "higher consideration." Roy P. Basler, ed., The Collected

Works of Abraham Lincoln (New Brunswick, N. J., 1953), V, 52.

28 Toledo News-Bee, May 29, 1911.

29 Toledo Union Leader, June 2, 1911.

30 Daily Globe (Globe, Arizona), June 5, 1911. Clipping in Wollerman Scrap-

book with name and date of issue in pencil.

31 Toledo News-Bee, June 3, 1911.

• 9
 

118    THE OHIO HISTORICAL QUARTERLY

 

been shipped off, the number of signers had swelled to four times

that number.³² Although the figures cited in the papers cannot be

accepted as having much historical reliability, the fact that the

petition was given to the senate in June is a matter of record. The

Congressional Record for June 28, 1911, shows that "Mr. Burton

presented a petition of sundry citizens, of Typographical Union No.

63, and of the Central Labor Union, of Toledo, Ohio, praying for

the adoption of the proposed constitution of the Territory of

Arizona, which was referred to the Committee on Territories."³³

This was only the first batch of signatures; the work went on.

Little stories appeared in the Toledo Union Leader about the devo-

tion of the leaders of the movement. Under the "Typographical"

column Wollerman was mentioned as "kicking up such a fuss over

that Arizona petition and demanding that others do some work

that he is being dubbed 'the slave driver.'"³⁴ Other members of the

committee were active, too. Maurice H. Cole, called "Kid" Cole by

the men in the union, claimed he had personally secured almost

1,400 signatures; and George Diebold was getting to be quite an

"agitator," they said. The carpenters' section told how "Brother

Wallerman [sic] of the Typographical union spoke on the Arizona

constitution, and urged our members to sign the petition to Ohio

senators."³⁵ To many of the partisans of Arizona statehood, this

period, late June and early July, was a time of crisis in the struggle.

In Arizona one of the most vigorous voices of progressivism, the

Gazette in Phoenix, carried a story on June 29 that the Taft men

were trying to persuade the chairman of the senate committee on

territories, William Alden Smith of Michigan, to hold off reporting

on House Joint Resolution 14. Rumors were abroad that only twenty

percent of the voters in Arizona went to the polls in the ratification

vote. The paper urged all the people to send telegrams to Senator

Smith to show him the true sentiment for statehood.³⁶ The Gazette's

rival in Phoenix, the Republican, took a calmer view and one which

showed a clearer understanding of the true state of affairs.

 

32 Ibid., June 28, 1911.

33 Congressional Record, 62 cong., 1 sess., 2581.

34 Toledo Union Leader, June 30, 1911.

35 Ibid., July 7, 1911.

36 Arizona Gazette, June 29, 1911.

• 10
 

A TOLEDO TRADE UNION           119

 

The Gazette insisted all along that there was always the possi-

bility that Taft would not veto an Arizona constitution which

incorporated the recall of judges,³⁷ while the Republican was sure

he would. So while the latter journal was properly concerned about

the possibility of delay, it believed the delegate to congress from

Arizona, Ralph H. Cameron, a Republican, had his eye on the real

problem when he said the president would veto the Arizona consti-

tution with the recall.³⁸ As to the alleged plot to delay the report

of the resolution, the Republican gave space to the claims of Arizona

lobbyists in Washington that someone was sabotaging the resolution,

but went on to say that "the Flood resolution is menaced by neither

Arizonians nor the administration." While there perhaps was some

delay, it was not critical. The paper quoted Senator Smith as saying

that the only thing holding up the report was the necessity of getting

it written.39 This proved to be the true situation, because if there

was delay it was only for a few days.

The committee on territories submitted its report to the senate

on July 11. The chairman stated openly that the recall feature of

the Arizona constitution was going to be challenged in the senate

before it ever got to Taft. Senator Smith said he was personally in

favor of prompt statehood for Arizona and New Mexico but went

on to state that "it may be deemed expedient, in order to accomplish

that end at the present session, that certain amendments shall be

considered, and I desire to give notice of my intention to offer an

amendment later upon the question of the judicial recall respecting

the constitution of Arizona."

Speaking for the minority of the committee, Senator Knute Nelson

of Minnesota said they had no quarrel with New Mexico's constitu-

tion but were "utterly opposed to the admission of Arizona with

the constitution that they present to Congress."⁴⁰ So the fight would

go on. There was still work for the Arizona Constitutional Petition

League.

In addition to continuing the drive for signatures on petitions,

37 Ibid., July 3, 1911.

38 Arizona Republican, June 25, 1911.

39 Ibid., June 30, 1911.

40 Congressional Record, 62 cong., 1 sess., 2792.

• 11
 

120     THE OHIO HISTORICAL QUARTERLY

 

the league presented its position to the membership of the senate

through an editorial from the Toledo Blade and a letter. The edi-

torial appeared in the Blade on July 1, 1911. The tone of the piece

was that the Blade was by no means sold on the recall, feeling the

device would cause "an unstable Central American form of govern-

ment." Yet it would support Arizona's right to have the "constitu-

tion it thinks it desires and needs." No form of government was so

perfect that the Blade would endorse it unequivocally:

 

Political science, like chemical science, or mechanics, or education, pro-

ceeds through experiment. The people of Arizona have the bravery to

undertake an experiment which will be valuable to all the world. After its

adoption and after a season or so of practice, the country will know whether

an all-embracing system of recall works toward official efficiency and political

purity, whether it makes honesty in high places more certain and makes

the better men seek preferment, or whether it invites trickery and demagogy,

weakness and rule under mediocre office-holders. If Arizona loses, it is

for Arizona to pay. The territory has been settled by strong men. We believe

that these men, should their experiment prove a failure, will admit it

freely and take the proper steps to rectify it. Let Arizona have the consti-

tution it wishes.⁴¹

 

Copies of the editorial were sent to every senator, together with

a covering letter from Wollerman in the name of the league. He

called the senate's attention to the high rank the Blade held in the

nation "and particularly to its position as a steadfast and highly

esteemed advocate of Republican principles." Then he appealed to

the members as follows:

 

We are hopeful that you are already committed to the principle that the

people of Arizona, or indeed the people of any state, have the right, and

that they only have the right to decide upon a Constitution under which

they are to govern themselves, but on behalf of the principle to which this

League is devoted, we invite your study of this editorial, and we hope that

you will find the attitude it voices worthy of your support, and that you

will lend your vote to the adoption of the Constitution decided upon by

the people of Arizona, for the State of Arizona.⁴²

41 Toledo Blade, July 1, 1911.

42 Copy of form letter on Arizona Constitutional Petition League letterhead sta-

tionery, undated, in Wollerman Scrapbook.

• 12
 

A TOLEDO TRADE UNION          121

The appeal of this letter and editorial brought a response from

several senators. Wollerman reported he had twelve replies and that

a number of the legislators felt the Arizona constitution would be

approved. Of several senators quoted in a story in the Toledo Blade,

July 26, 1911, as having written to Wollerman, only one was hostile

to the recall. He was "Henry R. Burman" [Henry E. Burnham],⁴³

Republican of New Hampshire, who said that while he approved

the Arizona constitution generally, he could not favor the clause

which provided for recall of judges. Democratic Senator J. W. Kern

of Indiana could not resist a thrust at the political opposition when

he said, "I hold the view of the Democratic party in regard to the

right of the people to rule themselves and I am glad to find that a

Republican paper is willing to trust the people to rule themselves."

One of the senate's leading progressives, Moses E. Clapp of

Minnesota, stated that he had been in the fight for Arizona from

the start and thought the statehood resolution would pass. He said

he was pleased that "a strong paper like the Toledo Blade has

taken up the cause of the Arizona constitution, even though it be

upon the limited ground that the people of that territory have the

right to frame their own constitution." Other senators quoted in

the Blade were Robert M. La Follette of Wisconsin and Charles F.

Johnson, Democrat from Maine.⁴⁴ The Toledo group of course

was most interested in the attitude of Ohio's two senators.

Atlee Pomerene, the Democrat, was in the progressive ranks, but

Theodore E. Burton was of a more conservative stripe. The Toledo

Blade described him as a "senator who stands well with the con-

servative element and yet is friendly with the insurgents. He occupies

a sort of middle ground."⁴⁵ In a letter to Wollerman, George W. P.

Hunt said he thought Pomerene was "all right" as far as the state-

hood group was concerned, but he had reservations about Burton.

As Hunt put it, "The other senator [Burton] is as you say and it

will take a good deal to persuade one of his makeup to vote for the

 

43 There is no record of a Burman in the senate, but there was a Henry E.

Burnham of New Hampshire in the upper house in 1911. Biographical Directory of

the American Congress, 1774-1949 (Washington, 1950), 921.

44 Toledo Blade, July 26, 1911.

45 Ibid., May 12, 1911.

• 13
 

122    THE OHIO HISTORICAL QUARTERLY

 

liberal Constitution that Arizona is battling for."⁴⁶ Replies sent by

these two senators to the Arizona Statehood Committee bear these

judgments out.

On May 5, 1911, this committee sent a letter to every senator,

urging support for the new states. The responses of the Ohio law-

makers were quoted in the Arizona Gazette, and Pomerene was for

letting Arizona have its own way. He personally felt the principle

of the recall of judges was wrong but that it was a "question

wholly to be settled by the people of your territory, and I shall do

anything I can to aid in securing the admission of Arizona, whether

it is with or without the recall provision as applied to the judiciary."

Burton was more cautious in his letter to the statehood committee.

While he said he was inclined to favor admission of the new states,

he did not want to commit himself until he had viewed the question

from all angles.⁴⁷ The Ohio senators were busy answering the

entreaties of their constituents on behalf of Arizona, too.

The Toledo News-Bee carried a short story in the middle of June

which quoted a Pomerene letter to Mayor Whitlock in which the

legislator said, "You need pay no attention to me on this matter."

Then he went on to explain that anything the people of Arizona

wanted in the form of a constitution was all right with him. Burton,

however, wrote to the typographical union that he would "probably"

approve statehood if the Arizona voters would consent to a few

changes which congress might recommend.⁴⁸ Henry R. Wollerman,

as head of the Arizona Constitutional Petition League in Toledo,

was the recipient of several letters from Senator Burton during the

height of the statehood fight in the summer of 1911.

The lawmaker acknowledged a letter from Wollerman on July 5

and offered to send a copy of the senate report on the admission of

Arizona and New Mexico.⁴⁹ To this Wollerman replied that he

would be pleased to have a copy of the report and that he was

enclosing a clipping of the Blade editorial of July 1. Then he got

to the central question: "What position do you take on the Flood

Resolution? Are you opposed or in favor of the same. This voices

 

46 Hunt to Wollerman, May 21, 1911.

47 Arizona Gazette, May 24, 1911.

48 Toledo News-Bee, June 16, 1911.

49 Burton to Wollerman, July 5, 1911.

• 14
 

A TOLEDO TRADE UNION           123

 

the sentiment of thousands of citizens' [sic] in Ohio, with whom we

have come in contact."⁵⁰ The typographical union kept the pressure

on the senior senator with several letters and a telegram.

Finally, in a letter to Wollerman dated July 26, Burton defined

his position, saying that it was his intention to vote for the admission

of Arizona, "requiring them, however, to take a separate vote on

the question of the recall of judges."⁵¹ As it turned out, this was

substantially the form in which the Flood Resolution finally passed

the senate.

Senator Burton not only had to keep up his correspondence with

Ohio, he had more petitions to present to the senate in July. On

the twenty-fourth he wrote to Wollerman acknowledging the re-

ceipt of additional petitions and saying that he would "take pleasure

in presenting these petitions on the floor of the Senate.^"52 And he

did it the very day he wrote the letter.⁵³

August 1911 saw the long statehood battle end. The senate

opponents of the judicial recall had brought in an amendment in

the name of Knute Nelson of Minnesota, second ranking Republi-

can member of the senate committee on territories. The Nelson

amendment, simply stated, provided that before the people of

Arizona could achieve statehood they must consent to change their

constitution so that the recall provision would not apply to the

judiciary.⁵⁴ It was Tuesday, August 8, when the senate voted on

House Joint Resolution 14, the Flood resolution, and the progres-

sives carried the day.

The Nelson amendment was defeated forty-three nays to twenty-

six yeas, with twenty-one not voting. Senator Burton was paired

against the amendment with Senator Frank B. Brandegee of Con-

necticut and was absent when the vote was taken. Atlee Pomerene

was counted as voting against the amendment. On the vote on the

Flood resolution the yeas had fifty-three to eighteen nays and nine-

teen not voting. Pomerene was recorded as voting yea, while Moses

E. Clapp of Minnesota rose on behalf of Senator Burton to state

 

50 Wollerman to Burton, July 8, 1911.

51 Burton to Wollerman, July 26, 1911.

52 Burton to Wollerman, July 24, 1911.

53 Congressional Record, 62 cong., 1 sess., 3191.

54 For the full amendment, see Congressional Record, 62 cong., 1 sess., 3633.

• 15
 

124     THE OHIO HISTORICAL QUARTERLY

 

that he was unavoidably detained but that if he were present, he

would vote yea.⁵⁵ The next move was up to the president.

William Howard Taft had decidedly strong feelings about recall

of judges, and those who thought he would let the resolution be-

come law with that feature in it were whistling in the dark. The

whistlers were mostly in Arizona, with the Arizona Gazette insisting

to the last that he might not veto.⁵⁶ Even the Arizona Republican,

which all along had warned of a presidential veto if the recall

were retained in the constitution, expressed a hope the president

would sign and mentioned talk going around that he might allow

the resolution to become law without his signature.⁵⁷ In Ohio, the

Toledo Blade had no delusions. Its story the day after the resolution

passed the senate carried the blunt headline "Taft Will Veto State-

hood Bill."⁵⁸

House Joint Resolution 14 was presented to the president on

August 11, 1911, and his veto came back to the house on August 15.

Taft's position was strongly put:

 

This [recall] provision of the Arizona constitution, in its application to

county and State judges, seems to me so pernicious in its effect, so destruc-

tive of independence in the judiciary, so likely to subject the rights of the

individual to the possible tyranny of a popular majority, and, therefore,

to be so injurious to the cause of free government, that I must disapprove a

constitution containing it.59

 

But this was not the last word. There was still work for the

Arizona Constitutional Petition League of Typographical Union

No. 63. They once more circularized the senate with a form letter

on league letterhead stationery.

In a letter dated August 17 which Senator Burton addressed to

 

55 Congressional Record, 62 cong., 1 sess., 3741-3743. The joint resolution as

passed is printed in full on pp. 3742-3743. On the vote on the Nelson Amendment,

Brandegee only reported that he was paired with Burton, neither for nor against,

but Brandegee voted nay on the Flood Resolution.

56 Arizona Gazette, August 9, 1911.

57 Arizona Republican, August 9, 1911.

58 Toledo Blade, August 9, 1911.

59 Congressional Record, 62 cong., 1 sess., 3829, 3964. The veto was printed as

House Document No. 106, 62 cong., 1 sess., and also appears in the Congressional

Record, 62 cong., 1 sess., 3964-3966.

• 16
 

A TOLEDO TRADE UNION            125

 

Wollerman he said, "I do not think it best to vote for the passage

of the bill over the presidential veto, especially as the President

is from my own state." He went on to speak of a way around the

impasse--the one which was adopted. "I trust there will be some

solution so that Arizona and New Mexico can be admitted before

the adjournment of this session, and then either state can take up

any constitutional provision desired." 60

This was the pragmatic course to follow--let the president have

his way, let him save his principle, but let the people of Arizona

abandon theirs temporarily until they had statehood securely in

their hands. And of course it was only a matter of principle. Taft

knew as well as the next man that once Arizona was a state it

would put the recall back in its constitution. An editorial in the

Toledo Blade summed up the practical situation the day after the

veto:

 

Congress, having now forced the veto on the President, should cease

playing politics with this question and pass the resolution introduced in

the senate, admitting Arizona and New Mexico to statehood on condition

that the recall feature shall be eliminated from the constitution of Arizona

. . . . If Arizona is as desirous of having the recall as it is of becoming a

state it can achieve both ends by first complying with the President's wishes

and then amending its constitution with the recall or anything else it

wants to put into it.⁶¹

 

The Toledo News-Bee's comments on the veto brought out its

more progressive character. Its editorial on August 15 expressed

the hope that "the friends of progress" could marshal enough

votes to overide the veto. Whether they did or not, Taft's action

was "insult and outrage upon a young and growing common-

wealth . . . . It practically serves notice on the people of a sovereign

state that they are not qualified to make laws for themselves, and

that they do not know what is good for them."⁶² In an even more

indignant editorial the next day the News-Bee stated that the main

point was not the recall of judges: "The important thing is that

60 Burton to Wollerman, Washington, August 17, 1911. Italics are the author's.

61 Toledo Blade, August 16, 1911.

62 Toledo News-Bee, August 15, 1911.

• 17
 

126    THE OHIO HISTORICAL QUARTERLY

 

President Taft by his veto has 'recalled' the citizenship and right of

self-government." The piece charged the "interests" with seeking

to frustrate democracy every step of the way in the statehood fight.

Then Taft vetoed and said the recall had to go despite its over-

whelming popular support. "That is the act of an autocratic czar,

rather than of the elected president of a free republic."⁶³ Once the

president's veto was on record, events moved swiftly in congress,

and in six days he had signed a statehood resolution requiring

Arizona to remove the recall from its constitution during the time

it was coming into the Union. The next day congress adjourned.⁶⁴

The Arizona Gazette referred to the news of the president's

signing as the "Message of Emancipation" and related the details

of the historic occasion. Taft, surrounded by congressmen and the

delegates from the two territories and several citizens of New

Mexico and Arizona, signed the document at 3:08 using "three

different pens in order that some relic hunters might be satisfied."

He was a careful man, the president: "When the resolution was

laid on his desk he looked at the crowd and asked, 'Has anybody

read this?' Nobody answered and to make certain of it, Taft read

the resolution. 'Well, gentlemen, it's done,' he said as he put the

last stroke on the parchment.' "65

With this "last stroke" of Taft's pen the reason to be of the

Arizona Constitutional Petition League of Toledo Typographical

Union No. 63 was gone. Henry Wollerman, writing in the Union

Leader August 25, expressed satisfaction with the petition campaign

which had just closed. "Never before has organized labor been so

successful in creating public sentiment as now," he wrote.⁶⁶

An epilogue to the story is seen in Wollerman's genuine interest

in Arizona politics and his continuing friendship for George W. P.

Hunt. Hunt was nominated for governor by the Democrats in the

Arizona primary for state and national offices on October 24, 1911.67

During the campaign preceding the election on December 12, 1911,

 

63 Ibid., August 16, 1911.

64 Congressional Record, 62 cong., 1 sess., 4381, 4382.

65 Arizona Gazette, August 21, 1911.

66 Toledo Union Leader, August 25, 1911.

67 Arizona Gazette, October 25, 1911.

• 18
 

A TOLEDO TRADE UNION         127

 

Hunt had some Toledo support from     Wollerman and Brand

Whitlock.

The Arizona Gazette carried a lengthy article with a Wollerman

by-line and included a cut of him looking not unlike young Herbert

Hoover in his high starched collar. The article sounded the tocsin

against the "interests" and urged the people of Arizona to elect

Hunt, "tried and true," champion of all the people, serving no

interest.68

Two days after Wollerman's article appeared in the Gazette that

paper printed a letter from Mayor Brand Whitlock on its front

page. The Toledo reformer also urged the election of George

W. P. Hunt as governor of the new state. Whitlock explained his

unusual conduct by saying, "It were presumption in me to intrude in

an election outside my own state, and my respect for democracy and

for home rule is such that, under no circumstances would I do such

a thing, but the election in Arizona seems to me to be more than

local, because there are involved in it principles . . . to which all the

friends of progress all over the United States are entirely devoted."

To those who saw in the Arizona constitution "a new hope for

humanity" it was imperative, he wrote, that "Mr. Hunt and his

associates be elected."⁶⁹

Mr. Hunt and his associates were elected, and just a little over

two months later, on February 14, 1912, Arizona became the forty-

eighth state. The story of the part played by the Arizona Constitu-

tional Petition League of Toledo Typographical Union No. 63 can

end with Henry R. Wollerman's congratulatory telegram to Hunt

on that occasion and Governor Hunt's gracious reply.

Wollerman's wire of February 15 said in part: "My heart goes

out to you and the people of Arizona[.] Best wishes and con-

gratulations[.] At last the bondage has been lifted and a truly repre-

sentative government established." 70 Hunt dispatched a telegram

in response the next day: "Your congratulatory message received.

I am particularly grateful to you for your remembrance and for

the efforts you exerted in bringing about the splendid results ob-

68 Ibid., December 6, 1911.

69 Ibid., December 8, 1911.

70 Wollerman to Hunt, February 15, 1912.

• 19
 

128     THE OHIO HISTORICAL QUARTERLY

 

tained. I shall endeavor to aid in justifying the faith you express in

Arizona people."⁷1

In the years that followed, despite the control of Arizona's affairs

by "Mr. Hunt and his associates,"⁷² the "interests" were not hand-

cuffed and politics was politics. Yet the progressive movement, of

which the Arizona constitution and the Arizona Constitutional

Petition League were a part, did enhance the form of democracy.

 

71 Hunt to Wollerman, February 16, 1912.

72 Hunt was elected governor seven times, serving in that office for fourteen years,

although not consecutively.

• 20