HISTORY OF MARYLAND FROM
1865 TO 1909.
Political Condition at
Close of War.
The state of Maryland is
essentially conservative, although the conservatism is not of that
hide-bound type which resists all improvement. The large number of first
things which are attributed to the state show the progressiveness which
characterizes the people, yet this progressiveness carries with it no
feverish search for novelties; a careful testing, either by the
Marylanders or by other peoples, is demanded before new measures are
adopted. Thus it was thoroughly characteristic of the state that the worst
taunt which could be flung at a political party was the term radical, and
that the Democratic party dominated Maryland for many years, while it
placed at the head of its tickets its name with the adjective,
conservative, but lost the state on national issues to the Republican
party, when it had lost the right to the use of this adjective.
In 1805 the state of
Maryland found itself emerging from the great war of the past four years
which was just closing. During that combat she had taken the side of the
Union, though her sons had fought bravely in the armies on both sides of
the struggle. She had suffered comparatively little devastation from the
campaigns of the war, although the Confederate armies had thrice crossed
her frontiers on important movements and two, noteworthy battles had been
fought within her borders. In 1864 a constitutional convention had
prepared fundamental laws for the state, which Augustus AV. Bradford, the
governor, had just declared to have been adopted by popular vote. This
constitution was redolent of loyalty to the Union, prescribed severe test
oaths as to loyalty to be taken by individuals before they could exercise
political rights, gave Baltimore increased representation in the
legislature, abolished slavery and provided for the establishment of a
state system of public schools.
The election of November,
1864, had resulted in the choice of Thomas Swann as governor and of Dr. C.
C. Cox as lieutenant-governor, both of Baltimore City. Both men were
candidates on the Union ticket and were opposed by Democrats, who
supported the national platform on which McClellan sought the presidency.
In national politics the state was represented in the Senate by Reverdy
Johnson, an astute and genial lawyer, who was one of the leaders of the
Federal bar, and by Thomas Holliday Hicks, who had been governor at the
outbreak of the war. At Governor Hicks's death in 1865, his place was
filled by the election of J. A. J. Creswell, of Cecil county, who was
later appointed postmaster-general by President Grant, and who served as
one of the United States counsel in the Alabama claims before the Geneva
tribunal. Johnson, the other senator, was eminently serviceable to the
country as a conservative, endeavoring to harmonize the diverse interests
during the early reconstruction period, and was remarkably influential,
owing to his knowledge of constitutional law and his personal popularity
with the members regardless of their party affiliation. He retired from
the Senate in 1868 to become Minister to Great Britain. He was cordially
received there, and after a year's service returned to the practice of law
in Baltimore, closing a long life of public service with a sudden death in
1876. From the House of Representatives, the eloquent and able Henry
Winter Davis was just about to retire and to finish a brilliant career by
an untimely death in December, 1865. Congress paid him the unprecedented
tribute of having him publicly eulogized, though he was not a member at
the time of his death. Among the representatives elected from the state to
the Thirty-ninth Congress the most noteworthy were- Francis Thomas, an
erratic but forceful man, a former governor of the state, who represented
the Western Maryland district and the extreme Union men, and the gallant
soldier, Gen. Charles E. Phelps, just returning from command of a Maryland
regiment in the Union army. After a brief career in Congress General
Phelps followed President Johnson into the Democratic party, and returning
to the practice of law won high reputation as a judge of the Baltimore
courts for nearly thirty years, while the literary labors of his leisure
hours made him widely known as a Shakespearean scholar. Montgomery Blair,
who had served in Lincoln's cabinet, was now residing in the state and
threw himself into the conservative movement.
There had been no Republican party in Maryland
during the war, but the dominant party had been the Union one, composed of
Old Line Whigs, Know-Nothings and Democrats, banded together because of
the predominance of one issue-the preservation of the Union. They had
stayed together until the close of the war, but now a wide cleavage came
among them, and in the days of the reconstruction of the Southern states
those Union men, who were not willing to follow the course of the majority
in Congress, aligned themselves with the Democratic party in the state,
while the remnant of the Union party reorganized itself as the Republican
party. The division may be seen clearly in the course of the two men
chosen to executive office in 1864, for Governor Swann became a Democrat,
while Lieutenant-Governor Cox became a Republican. The result of the
readjustment of voters was that the vast majority of citizens became
Democrats for the time, and the ranks of the Republicans, though much
increased by the negro voters, who were added to the electorate by the
Fifteenth amendment to the Federal constitution in 1870, were so much in
the minority that, from 1866 to 1895, Maryland suffered the disadvantages
of being a one-party state.
In 1865, while the unconditional Union men
controlled the state, Maryland had its first law for the registration of
voters. Disloyal persons were rigidly to be excluded from the lists, and
the registrars were given power to refuse to permit suspected persons to
register, even though they took the oath of allegiance. The courts upheld
the constitutionality of the act, but it produced a widespread
dissatisfaction and only a comparatively small number of voters
registered. Governor Swann at first supported the law, but just before the
November election of 1866 he changed his position, removed the police
commissioners of Baltimore City, who had been extremely zealous in
rigorously enforcing the law, and appointed others more conservative.
These latter were thrown into jail on a warrant, but were released on writ
of habeas corpus shortly after the election. In spite of their arrest and
the limited electorate, Baltimore City cast a majority for the Democratic
ticket, and the majority for that party's legislative nominees throughout
the state was very considerable. This legislature, convening in January,
1867, repealed the registration law, and enacted one requiring merely an
oath of future loyalty, while it also provided for a vote in April on the
question of holding a new constitutional convention. During the session
Governor Swann was elected to the United States Senate, a law requiring
one senator to come from the Eastern Shore being repealed for that
purpose. Fearing, however, that Dr. Cox, as governor, would follow a
different policy, Governor Swann changed his mind at the last minute and
declined the honor. The legislature thereupon elected as senator Philip
Francis Thomas, an Eastern Shoreman, who had been in Buchanan's cabinet in
1860. In spite of Reverdy Johnson's efforts, the Senate, in February,
1868, refused to receive Thomas on the ground of a doubt as to his past
loyalty, and the legislature then elected George Vickers, of Kent county,
as senator. Governor Swann sat in the House of Representatives as a
Democrat from 1869 to 1879. When Johnson r tired from the Senate in 1868,
the governor a pointed, at his request, William Pinkney Whyte succeed him.
Whyte was a man of wonderful physical force and energy, who entered
politics about 1850 and closed his long and distinguished career 1908,
while again a member of the national Senate.
Constitution of 1867.
A large majority of the electorate favored the
constitutional convention, and it assembled at Annapolis on May 8, 1867.
Its sessions lasted until August 17, and its acts were ratified by a
two-thirds majority of the voters at the election held on September 18.
The constitution went into effect on October 15, and is still in force,
but slightly amended. It provides that the question of a constitutional
convention be submitted to the people every twenty years; but, both in
1887 and in 1907, the people voted against holding such a convention,
fearing the uncertain result of its deliberations.
In some ways the constitution of 1867 was a
reactionary one from that of 1864. It abolished the office of
lieutenant-governor and changed the oath of allegiance to the state so as
to omit all mention of the United States: but it preserved many of the
important feature, of the previous condition. A governor to serve for four
years was provided and a legislature of two houses: the upper house or
Senate, a continuous body elected for four years to consist of one member
from each county, or legislative district of Baltimore City (of which
there mere then three, now increased to four), and a lower house or House
of Delegates, elected for two years, composed of from two to six members
from each county, according to population as ascertained by state or
Federal census. Each legislative district in the city is represented by
the same number of delegates as the largest county. Although Baltimore
City has nearly half the population and pays considerably over half the
taxes of the state, it is seen that her representation is not
proportionate to her importance, and a seeming jealousy between the city
and the counties makes it doubly difficult, at times, for the former to
obtain her desires. The legislature holds biennial sessions limited to
ninety days. The state is divided for judicial purposes into eight
circuits, each of which elects one member of the Court of Appeals.
Baltimore City constitutes one circuit, with ten judges, in addition to
the member of the Court of Appeals who does not sit in the courts below.
Each of the other seven circuits contains from two to four counties and
elects two judges, who are associated in holding court with the member of
the Court of Appeals from the circuit, who sits also as chief judge of the
circuit courts. The high reputation of the Maryland judiciary has been
still further enhanced by the work of such chief judges of the state Court
of Appeals as R. J. Bowie, R. H. Alvey, J. M. Robinson, James McSherry and
A. Hunter Boyd. By
the constitution, Wicomico county was established on the Eastern Shore
with Salisbury as its county seat. In 1872 the extreme western portion of
the state was erected into Garrett county, with Oakland as its county
seat, and the number of twenty-three counties thus attained has not since
been changed. The
Republican party in Maryland struggled to check the march of events, but
the Maryland courts decided against their contentions and Congress refused
to listen to their complaints. The first election under the new
constitution was held in Baltimore on Oct. 23, 1867, and resulted in the
election of the Democratic candidate by a vote of 18,420 to 4,896. Two
weeks later the state chose as governor Oden Bowie, the Democratic
nominee, by a vote of 63,694 to 22,050, and associated with him an
unanimously Democratic legislature.
Noteworthy Events, 1868-1908.
In July, 1868, a noteworthy flood occurred on
the Patapsco River and in Baltimore. In autumn of that year the electoral
vote of the state for president was cast for Seymour, the Democratic
candidate, and in 1869 another unanimously Democratic legislature was
chosen. In 1870 the Republicans carried several counties by small
majorities in the congressional election, but elected no congressmen. A
year later, largely through the efforts of Dr. Lewis H. Steiner, they
carried Frederick county, and under his fearless and persistent leadership
for twelve years in the legislature the party became an important factor
in the state. At the election of 1871, William Pinkney Whyte was elected
governor by a majority of 15,000, and the Democratic party continued under
his leadership for several years. In 1874 he was chosen United States
senator and, accepting the position, was succeeded by James Black Groome,
of Cecil county, for the remainder of the gubernatorial term. The
legislature of 1872 had, as Speaker of its House of Delegates, Arthur P.
Gorman, of Howard county, a man of remarkable astuteness and shrewdness.
During the years which followed, as president of the Chesapeake and Ohio
Canal, which was controlled by the state in virtue of large investments
therein, he built up a remarkable following in the Democratic party, and
in 1880 he was chosen by the legislature to succeed Governor Whyte in the
United States Senate. From that time to his death in 1906, the control of
the Democratic organization in Maryland was in the hands of Senator Gorman
and his friends, and, except for four years from 1899 to 1903, he was
continuously in the Senate.
In July, 1872, the National Democratic
Convention met in Baltimore and nominated Horace Greeley for the
presidency. In November the state chose electors favorable to him by a
majority of less than a thousand, so distasteful was his nomination to the
conservative wing of the Democrats, while two of the Republican candidates
for Congress were elected.
In July, 1873, a destructive fire raged in
Baltimore. In the same year the Baltimore & Potomac Railroad was opened
and gave a second route from. the North to Washington, and the city was
traversed by a tunnel which permitted trains to run through it from east
to west. In the endeavor to gain southern trade, Baltimore made an
investment of a million dollars in the Valley Railroad of Virginia, from
which she has had but little return. Some ten years later the Pennsylvania
Railroad bought the line from Baltimore to Philadelphia, and the Baltimore
& Ohio followed this purchase by building a parallel line to obtain an
outlet for its trade.
The one-party state is apt to be one into
which abuses creep, and such was claimed to be the condition in Maryland.
Objecting to the control of Governor Whyte and his associates, a number of
Reform Democrats broke away from their party in 1875, refused to accept
the nomination of John Lee Carroll, of Howard county, for governor, and,
fusing with the Republicans, nominated a reform ticket, headed by J.
Morrison Harris and containing the name of S. Teackle Wallis, a leader of
the Baltimore bar, as candidate for attorney-general. A reform ticket was
also nominated for the mayoralty election
in Baltimore and was defeated by a small
majority. In the gubernatorial election Harris carried the counties, but a
large majority returned for the Democratic ticket in Baltimore City was
sufficient to elect Carroll. Great frauds were proved, but the face of the
returns was accepted as the basis of choice and Carroll was inaugurated.
Now began an age-long conflict, which has no parallel in American history.
Organizing an association, under the name of the Baltimore Reform League,
Wallis and his associates waged a never-ending struggle with the state and
City Democratic organizations. Gradually, a large number of independent
voters came to hold the balance of power in Baltimore. No independent
ticket was nominated and fusion occurred very seldom, but, from time to
time, Republican candidates received the support of the Reform League, and
that support, frequently, has led to an election. This, in turn, led the
Democratic party to nominate men of higher character, and has much
improved political conditions.
In 1876 the state swung far over into the Democratic column, electing six
Democratic congressmen and casting a majority of nearly 20,000 for the
Tilden electors. The Centennial Exposition in that year aroused much
interest in the state. July, 1877, saw the most terrible strike of
laboring men which Maryland has known. A reduction in the waves of the
employees of the Baltimore & Ohio Railroad Company led to rioting and such
disturbances that the National Guard. were called out and the assistance
of Federal troops was asked.
The efforts of the reform element led to the
nomination by the Democratic party of William T. Hamilton of Washington
county, for the governorship in 1879, and he was elected by the large
majority of 22,000. During his administration a number of important
measures were adopted by the legislature, although that body failed to
follow many of Governor Hamilton's recommendations looking towards good
government. In 1880 the state's electors voted for Hancock, the Democratic
nominee for president. In 1882 the reform element had its first victory in
Baltimore City, electing "new judges" by coalition with the Republicans
over the old judges renominated by the regular Democrats.
In Baltimore a new city hall had been erected
and dedicated in 1875. Some ten years later a Federal building was
constructed, and after another decade a splendid municipal courthouse was
placed on the square still further to the west. The courthouse was opened
in 1900, and, like the city hall, it was built within the original
appropriation. A new custom house, somewhat to the south of the city hall,
was completed in 1907, and thus the city has a rather unusually excellent
civic centre. In October, 1880, the Baltimoreans celebrated, with
elaborate festivities, the sesqui-centennial of the city's foundation.
At the conclusion of Governor Hamilton's
administration, he was succeeded by Robert M. McLane, of Baltimore. In
1884 Maryland's persistence in voting for Democratic candidates for the
presidency was rewarded by the election of Cleveland. He appointed
Governor McLane United States Minister to France, and the remainder of the
gubernatorial term was filled by Henry Lloyd, of Dorchester county.
Maryland's congressional delegation during this decade numbered such
eloquent and able men as J. V. L. Findlay, Isidor Rayner and Henry
Stockbridge.
In 1887 the Baltimore & Ohio Railroad, which
had been thought a remarkably prosperous corporation, ceased to pay
dividends, and many citizens who were stockholders suffered severe losses.
In 1896 the road went into the hands of receivers : John K. Cowen and
Oscar G. Murray. Cowen was an able lawyer and a man of great power, and by
the daring issue of receivers' certificates and extensive reconstruction
of the road he was able, after little more than three years, to return it
to its stockholders under the original charter. He became the first
president of the reorganized road, and during his direction of its affairs
a tunnel was dug under the city so that there, might be direct connection
between the lines on the east and west sides of Baltimore.
In 1885 the first electric railway in the
United States was opened in Baltimore. It did not prove a success,
however, and was soon abandoned. A cable road was opened in 1889 and a
trolley line in 1892, and the various lines were thereafter speedily
electrified, so that within a decade all street car transportation in
Baltimore was by electricity.
The financial interests of the state suffered
a shock in 1890, when the defalcation of the state treasurer became known.
He had been universally trusted and yet had managed to misappropriate
considerably over $100,000 of the state's funds. The loss to his bondsmen
was heavy and the incident gave an especial incentive to the founding of
bonding companies in Baltimore.
The "belt" of suburban territory to the north
and west of Baltimore was annexed to the city in 1888. The spring of the
next year saw disastrous floods in western Maryland, which so damaged the
Chesapeake & Ohio Canal that it was never afterwards successfully
operated, although it was not sold to the Western Maryland Railroad until
over fifteen years later.
The Democratic candidate for governor, Elihu
E. Jackson, of Wicomico county, was elected in 1887, and in the next year
the state's electoral vote was again cast for Cleveland.
There had long been complaint of intimidation
and fraud at elections, especially in Baltimore City, and to prevent the
recurrence of such acts an Australian Ballot Law was adopted in 1890. It
resulted in much bettered conditions, but being only a partial measure
needed considerable improvement.
Frank Brown, of Carroll county, was elected
governor on the Democratic ticket in 1891, and in 1892 the electoral vote
was cast for Cleveland for the third time. Governor Brown was obliged to
call out the militia on account of a strike of coal miners in Frostburg in
1894. The congressional elections, in the fall of that year, showed for
the first time a popular Republican majority in the state. This fact gave
the party new courage, and in 1895 it nominated one of its best men, Lloyd
Lowndes, of Allegany county. The Reform League and many Democrats, such as
Governor Whyte, who had become dissatisfied with conditions in their party
and in the state, supported Lown des, and especial efforts were exerted to
prevent fraud or intimidation at the polls in Baltimore. The election
resulted in the choice of Lowndes as governor by a majority of 18,000. The
legislature was Republican on joint ballot, and chose George L.
Wellington, of Allegany county, as United States senator, disregarding the
Eastern Shore law and recognizing Western Maryland the strongest
Republican portion of the state. The most important measures of the
session were the passage of an excellent ballot law prepared by the Reform
League (which did away with all intimidation and riot at the polls), and
the establishment of the State Geological Survey, whose achievements have
been very extensive and of a remarkably high character.
The nomination of William J. Bryan for the
presidency by the Democratic party in 1896 was not favorably received in
Maryland, where the sentiment in favor of a gold standard was very strong.
The Prohibitionists nominated Joshua Levering, of Baltimore City, for
president, but his vote was small, and the Republican ticket, headed by
McKinley, carried the state by 32,000 plurality, while every Republican
nominee for Congress was elected. President McKinley called to his
cabinet, as postmaster-general, dames A. Gary, who is a prominent
manufacturer of Baltimore and who had long been prominent in state
politics. In 1897 a legislature was chosen with Republican majorities in
both houses, the only time such an event has occurred, and at the Session
of 1898, Hon. Louis E. McComas, a jurist of experience, was chosen United
States senator, while a new and greatly improved city charter was adopted
for Baltimore, coordinating the various departments and vesting large
powers over appropriations in a board of estimates.
The same year saw the outbreak of the
Spanish-American war. The patriotism of the state manifested itself in the
enlistment of two regiments of volunteer soldiers and a battalion of naval
militia; but the short duration of the struggle prevented them from
engaging in active campaigning. Two of the popular heroes of the war in
the regular forces, however, Admiral W. S. Schley and Gen. H. G. Otis,
were born in or near Frederick City.
The new charter of Baltimore City went into
effect in 1899 with the Democratic party in power, and the same party won
the gubernatorial election in the autumn, owing, in large part, to party
dissensions, Governor Lowndes being defeated for reelection, by John
Walter Smith, of Worcester county. Four years after Governor Smith's
retirement from the governorship he was elected to the United States
Senate. In 1900 the
state cast its electoral vote for McKinley for the second time by nearly
14,000 majority. In 1901 Governor Smith called an extra session of the
legislature to amend the ballot law and to provide for a state census,
since certain frauds, which were afterwards corrected, had been found in
the Federal census of 1900. The election law adopted at this session
abolished the party columns and emblems from the ballot and marked the
beginning of a continuous policy on the part of the Democratic party
organization for the suppression of the negro vote. The election of 1901
turned upon the question of approving, or condemning, this election law
and certain so-called trick ballots in some of the counties, and resulted
in the choice of a Democratic legislature, but in the election of a
Republican Clerk of the Court of Appeals and a Democratic comptroller by
very small majorities. In recent years the state has shown a tendency to
cast its vote for Republican candidates on national issues and for
Democratic ones on state issues; thus, in 1902, the Republicans carried
Maryland on the Congressional vote; but in 1903 Edwin Warfield, of Howard
county, was selected as governor by a majority of 12,000 over Stevenson A.
Williams, of Harford county, a strong candidate named by the Republicans.
The period since Governor Smith's election has
been one of remarkable construction of public buildings at Annapolis. The
United States government has erected a new Federal building there and has
reconstructed the Naval Academy at the cost of several millions of
dollars. A building for the Court of Appeals and the State Library was
erected near the State House, and a very large annex was added to the
State House itself in Governor Warfield's administration, while the
interior of that fine colonial structure was remodeled so to restore its
original appearance as far as possible.
An important event was the great fire of Feb.
7, 1904, in Baltimore, which burnt over about 160 acres of ground and
destroyed nearly $100,000,000 worth of property. Fortunately, the public
officials acted with promptness and decision, and so effectively that no
lives were lost and there was no robbery. Fortunately also, the
legislature was in session and passed a number of remedial measures,
establishing a Burnt District Commission to deal with the difficult
problems arising from the fire. The city had recently sold its controlling
interest in the Western Maryland Railroad and still had in its treasury
the sum received from that sale. This money was used for widening streets
and for other improvements, and the spirit of progress urged the city on
to the construction of an adequate sewerage system, the development of the
public parks and the building of modern municipal wharves to take the
place of those which had burned.
In the autumn of 1906 a month's canvass of the
city produced subscriptions sufficient to enable the Young Men's Christian
Association to erect a new building at a cost of over six hundred thousand
dollars. The
legislature of 1904 proposed to the voters a constitutional amendment
relating to the suffrage. This amendment is usually known by the name of
John P. Poe, Esq., a leading lawyer who framed it, included a so-called
"grandfather's clause," and gave considerable discretionary power to the
officers of registration. It was opposed by Governor Warfield, the
Democratic attorney-general, and many other prominent members of that
party, as well as by the united body of Republicans, and was defeated in
the election of 1905 by a majority of 34,000, although a legislature with
a Democratic majority was then elected. The legislature of 1904 elected
Isidor Rayner as United States senator, and also passed a law known as the
Shoemaker Law, designed to promote good roads by lending state aid to
their improvement. This movement towards improved roads received a great
impetus in 1908, when the legislature voted to issue bonds to the amount
of $5,000,000 for that purpose. At the presidential election of 1904, the
vote of the state was very close and, by small pluralities, seven
Democratic electors and one Republican elector were chosen. Shortly after
President Roosevelt's inauguration he called to his cabinet, as secretary
of the navy, and later as attorney-general, Charles J. Bonaparte, of
Baltimore City, who had long been prominent in reform movements.
The most important measures of the legislature
of 1906 were the passage of the so-called Haman Law for oyster culture in
the waters of the state, and the sale of the state's holdings in the stock
of the Baltimore & Ohio Railroad, by which sale the state's debt was
virtually extinguished. A general local option law was introduced, but
failed of passage. In
1907 the Republicans nominated George R. Gaither, of Baltimore City, for
governor, and he was defeated by Austin L. Crothers, the Democratic
candidate of Cecil county, by about 7,000 majority.
In 1908, the electoral vote of Maryland was
again divided, two Republicans and six Democrats being chosen.
Industrial Growth.
Maryland began her career as an agricultural
state and her chief city gained her first prominence as a commercial
emporium. Agriculture and commerce are still the 'chief occupations of the
citizens of the state, but mining for coal in the Alleghany mountains,
quarrying for building stone throughout western and northern Maryland, and
manufacturing of various sorts now diversify the industry of the people.
Tobacco is still raised in southern Maryland, grains of various sorts are
produced successfully, especially in Frederick, Washington, Carroll and
Queen Anne's counties. The neighborhood of large cities has greatly
increased the trucking industry in the light soils of the Chesapeake Bay
counties and dairy farming in western and northern Maryland. Sufficient
areas of woodland still stand so as to make lumbering profitable, and the
cultivation of fruit trees furnishes an important occupation. The Bay
affords supply of fish, crabs, clams and oysters. The time of many men is
occupied not only by the growth, but also by the canning and preservation
of fruit and oysters. Baltimore is the chief manufacturing centre of the
state and has many establishments engaged in the manufacture of copper and
iron, in the weaving f cotton duck, in the making of fertilizers and in
the sewing of ready-made clothing, while the ship-building industry at
Sparrow's Point on the Patapsco is of considerable importance.
As the Bay afforded means of transportation to
ocean-going sailing vessels and to the smaller bug-eye or canoe, from the
time of the first settlement, so it and its estuaries have now provided
routes for many steamboat lines which have made access easy for passengers
and freight from various parts of Maryland, Delaware and Virginia to
Baltimore. Two railway lines cross the Eastern Shore, connecting with
steamboat lines for Baltimore, and, along the centre of that shore runs
the railroad from Cape Charles to Philadelphia, a line which is fed by
branches touching all the important towns, and which accentuates the
age-long struggle for trade between the emporium on the Chesapeake and
that on the Delaware. Across the state, from east to west, runs the line
of the Baltimore & Ohio Railroad, the oldest such corporation in America,
connecting the state with the south and west. Parallel with it, from
Delaware to the District of Columbia, is the course of the lines of its
former great rival, the Pennsylvania Railroad. The same road controls the
Northern Central Railroad, which gives access from Baltimore, through
Harrisburg, to the West and to the Great Lakes. Trolley lines now connect
Baltimore, Annapolis and Washington, and a short railroad runs from
Baltimore through Harford county into Pennsylvania, while Frederick has
connection with York, and Hagerstown has connection with the Shenandoah
Valley and with the Cumberland Valley. The most important other road is
the Western Maryland. This railroad connected Baltimore and Hagerstown for
many years, and recent extensions have led it through Cumberland into West
Virginia. The limestone turnpikes of western Maryland have long been
famous, and the recent good roads movement, elsewhere referred to, makes
the outlook most hopeful for improved transportation throughout the state.
Progress in Education, Etc.
During the period, which is now under
discussion, must be assigned Maryland's most conspicuous progress in
education. Joseph M. Cushing, of Baltimore City, secured the insertion of
a clause in the constitution of 1864, providing for the establishment of a
state system of education, and he also secured the appointment of Rev.
Libertus van Bokkelen as the first state superintendent. A State Normal
School was opened in 1866 and county superintendents speedily were at
work, organizing the work of instruction throughout Maryland. Henry
Barnard's year's service at St. John's College as president, before he was
appointed the first national superintendent of education, was too short a
time for him to leave much mark, but the long and efficient career of the
genial Irishman, M. A. Newell, as principal of the State Normal School,
was important for the state. The constitution of 1867 continued the state
system, and, after a generation of beginnings, the years in which Cushing
was president of the State Board of Education from 1896 to 1903 were
characterized by decided advance. A second normal school at Frostburg, a
normal department at Washington College in Chestertown, the
systematization and strengthening of teachers' institutes, the rise of
high schools, the distribution of free school books to pupils, the
separation of the superintendency of education from the principalship of
the Normal School, and the appointment to the former office of the tactful
man, M. Bates Stephens - these are some of the educational achievements of
that period. The larger part of the direct tax of the state is levied for
schools, and is supplemented by large contributions from counties and
city. The system of education in Baltimore City is about forty years older
than the state system, is independent of state control and has been
greatly improved, in the last few years, under an able, unpartisan school
board. In 1870 the
state made its first appropriation for the education of negroes, and in
1908 it established a colored normal school, taking over as its nucleus an
institution founded by Cushing and his associates immediately upon the
emancipation of the slaves and long in receipt of a subsidy from the
state. This policy of subsidizing private educational and beneficent
institutions is so characteristic of Maryland that it is worthy of
mention. The building of the Maryland School for the Blind at Baltimore
was dedicated in 1868, and other and special features of the state's
educational system have been founded since 1865: such as the excellent
school for the deaf at Frederick in 1867, the school for colored deaf and
blind at Baltimore in 1872, and the work for adult blind in 1908. In 1902
the Mary] and State Library Commission began its useful work of aiding
municipal libraries and distributing traveling libraries. This period is
also filled with new educational enterprises under private management. The
McDonough School for the training of poor boys, and Rock Hill College, a
Roman Catholic institution at Ellicott City, were opened in 1865. In 1866
the Peabody Institute, the gift of George Peabody to Baltimore City, where
its founder once reside-1, began its important career as a' great
reference library, a seat of public lectures, a hall of art and a
conservatory of music. In 1867 the Jesuits opened their theological
seminary at Woodstock and the Redemptorists theirs at Ilchester, while the
Methodists began a training school for colored men in Baltimore, which
later developed into Morgan College. In 1868 the Methodist Protestant
Church opened its successful Western Maryland College at Westminster,
beside which college e church placed its theological seminary in 1882.
The greatest stimulus to education came,
however, from the foundations established by Johns Hopkins, a Baltimore
banker, whose estate of about seven million dollars, after his death in
December, 1873, was equally divided between the university and hospital
which bear his name. The university was the first to open its doors,
inaugurating as its first president, that renowned educator„ Daniel C.
Gilman, in 1876. He remained at its head for twenty-five years and was
succeeded by the noted chemist, Ira Remsen, who had been a professor at
the university from its opening. President Gilman's policy was to
establish an institution which should lay its chief emphasis upon
systematic graduate instruction leading to the degree of doctor of
philosophy. He instituted a system of fellowships for the encouragement of
original research and caused the physical sciences to take a more
prominent place than they were wont to do in other American universities.
The professors were carefully selected and arrangements were early made
for the establishment of a university press, through which the results of
the research of professors and students might be made public. It was found
necessary to have an undergraduate department, but, as no dormitories were
provided for it, its students have been chiefly those residing in
Baltimore or its vicinity . The undergraduate institution was arranged in
a three-year curriculum, with the courses combined into several groups,
following in general the method which President Gilman had used while he
was director of the Sheffield Scientific School at Yale. The reputation of
the university spread with a perfectly astonishing rapidity. There was a
widespread demand in the United States for carefully arranged graduate
courses, and the Johns Hopkins both met and stimulated it. The Johns
Hopkins Hospital was opened in 1889 and arrangements were at once made to
add a medical school to the university. After careful thought and the
selection of eminent men to fill the several chairs, the school was opened
in 1893, and from the very first took a front rank among the medical
schools of the world. Its standards have been very high and it was the
first medical school in America to demand of every one entering its walls
a bachelor's degree from some college.
Professional education has flourished greatly
in Baltimore since the close of the war. The University of Maryland had
conducted a medical school since 1807 and continues to preserve its high
position. In 1882 it established a dental school, and in 1904 it annexed
the Maryland College of Pharmacy, while the faculty of law, reorganized in
1869, has conducted a highly successful practical school, at which the
instructors have been the leaders of the bench and bar of the city. Just
before celebrating its centennial in 1907, the university added St. John's
College at Annapolis, founded in 1784, as its department of arts and
sciences. Among the independent medical schools which have flourished in
Baltimore during our period have been the College of Physicians and
Surgeons, founded in 1872, and the Baltimore Medical College, founded in
1882, while the Baltimore University School of Law, founded in 1890, and
the Baltimore Law School, founded in 1900, have trained with care a
considerable number of legal practitioners. The establishment of state
examining boards in law and medicine has done a great deal to elevate the
standard of these professions. Although many educational institutions must
be omitted, reference is necessary to the great success of the Maryland
Institute Schools of Art and Design, under the presidency of Joseph M.
Cushing and the directorship of Otto Fuchs. Although its building was
destroyed by fire in 1904, and its two great supporters died about the
same time, it found other able leaders and friends, and now, reestablished
in two fine new edifices and subsidized by both city and state, it is able
to do a more efficient work than ever before.
In 1882 Enoch Pratt, a wealthy merchant and
financier of Baltimore, offered to give the city about eleven hundred
thousand dollars for the establishment of a public circulating library. He
intended that the whole city be served by the library, which should
comprise a system consisting of a central building and branches in
different localities, and asked that the institution bear his name and
that the city support it with an annuity of $50,000. The city accepted the
gift, the buildings were erected, Dr. Lewis H. Steiner was called from
Frederick to organize the library, and it was opened in January, 1886. In
the twenty years which followed, it clearly demonstrated its extensive
usefulness and justified the generosity of its founder.
Latest of all the important educational
institutions of Baltimore came the Woman's College, founded by the
Methodist Episcopal Church in 1884, and opened four years later. During
the most of its existence it has been under the able presidency of Rev.
Dr. J. F. Goucher, whose generous donations to it have been very
considerable, and it has attained a widespread reputation as giving a
well-balanced and thorough culture to women.
Jacob Tome, a wealthy citizen of Port Deposit,
in 1889 endowed the secondary school which bears the name of Tome
Institute and is situated at his residence. Owing to the fact that Mr.
Tome left it several million dollars, the institute has been able to
maintain, with great success, a boarding school for boys and day schools
for both sexes. About 1890, the Reformed Church in the United States took
possession of the old buildings of the Female Seminary at Frederick and
established therein a school of high order for girls. We have devoted thus
much space to educational matters because in no other way has the progress
of Maryland been more marked during the past forty years.
In the line of charities
and correction, great progress has also been made. At the very beginning
of our period was held the great Southern Relief Fair for the aid of the
former slaveholding states, and the whole period has been marked not only
by beneficent acts, but by systematic development of organized charity. In
Baltimore City the Charity Organization Society and the Association for
the Improvement of the Condition of the Poor, after a period of effective
separate work, have united themselves for greater effectiveness in the
Federated Charities. A house of correction for short-term prisoners was
opened at Jessups in 1877, and a long and wise wardenship of the
penitentiary has resulted in that institution returning a revenue to the
state, while the moral character of the convicts has been much benefited
by the treatment received while incarcerated and by the efforts of the
Prisoners Aid Society. The character of the county jails still leaves much
to be desired, however, and, to Maryland's disgrace, she still postpones
providing for all her insane and feebleminded in state institutions,
though excellent care is given to those who can be received in the
institutions already established. Training of the feebleminded was begun
in 1889, and an excellent institution is maintained at Owings Mills, but
is not able to accommodate all who need its care. A State Board of Aid and
Charities was established in 1900, but has not yet attained to the desired
stage of efficiency.
Religion.
In religious matters, the development has been
steady. The Roman Catholic Church, under the statesmanlike direction of
Archbishops Spaulding and Bayly and Cardinal Gibbons, and the Lutheran
churches have handled admirably the problems of assimilating immigrants.
The Methodist churches have been active and retain their numerical
predominance among Protestant denominations, while the work of the
Baptists and Presbyterians, and of the Protestant Episcopalians forcefully
led by Bishop Paret, has been noteworthy among the forces that make for
righteousness. A large Hebrew immigration from the east of Europe has
diversified considerably the population of Baltimore City.
In general, the history of Maryland since 1865
has been one filled with achievement and with such a spirit as to make one
hopeful as to the future and confident in the determination of the people
to make the state embrace its opportunities and advance to a high position
among American commonwealths.
BIBLIOGRAPHY. - Brackett, J. R.: Progress of the Colored People in
Maryland (1890); Forrester, A. E.: (comp.) City Hall of Baltimore (1877);
Gilman, D. C.: Launching of a University (1906); Gambrill, C. M.: School
History of Maryland (1903); Hollander, J. I3.: Guide to Baltimore (1893);
Hollander, J. H.: Financial History of Baltimore (1899); Howard, G. W.:
(ed.) Monumental City (1889); Maryland Geological Survey Reports
(1897-1908); Maryland Historical Society: Report on the Western Boundary
of the State; McSherry, James: History of Maryland, continued by B. B.
James (1904); Nelson, S. B. (comp.): History of Baltimore (1898); Passano,
L. M.. School History of Maryland (1900); Riley, E. S.: Ancient City
(Annapolis) (1887); Riley, E. S.: Legislative History of Maryland (1906);
Schultz, E. S.: History of Free Masonry in Maryland, 4 vols. (1884-88);
Seharf, T. J.: Western Maryland (1882); History of Maryland, Vol. III.
(1897), Baltimore City and County (1881), and Chronicles of Baltimore
(1874); Sioussat, St. G. L.: Baltimore (1900); Spencer, E. (ed.):
Baltimore's Anniversary, 1730-1880 (1881), Sterner, Bernard C.:
Citizenship and Suffrage in Maryland (1896, Life of Reverdy Johnson
(190R), History of Education in Maryland (1894), and Institutions and
Civil Government in Maryland (1899); Whealton, L. N.. Virginia Boundary of
Maryland (1906); Williams, T. J. C.: Washington County (2 vols., 1906).
BERNARD C. STEINER,
Librarian, The Enoch Pratt Free Library; Associate in History, Johns
Hopkins University. |