by Patti Dahlberg

Today the name “Colorado” runs continuously with the mighty river that originates in Colorado’s Rocky Mountains and runs south and west for 1,450 miles through Utah and Arizona and along the Nevada and California borders before heading into the Gulf of California in northwestern Mexico. But this was not the case before 1921.

For many years, various explorers wandered through the West naming landmarks as they went along. The river beginning at the Continental Divide in northwest Colorado and flowing south and west out of the state was called the Grand River. The river’s name then changed from “Grand” to “Colorado” where the Green River met it in southeastern Utah continuing on through the Grand Canyon and out to sea. Prior to being called the Grand River around 1836, portions of the river had also been known as the Rio San Rafael River, the Bunkara River, the North Fork of the Grand River, and the Blue River. The “Colorado” in the river’s name is Spanish for the “color red,” referring to the river’s muddy color flowing through the canyons in Arizona and Utah, but “Colorado” was just the final name in the long line of labels for this amazing river over the years. In the 16th century, Spanish explorers called the river Rio del Tizon, which translated to River of Embers or Firebrand River. Later, some portions of the river may have been Rio de Buena Guia, Rio Colorado de los Martyrs, Rio Grande de Buena Esperanza, Rio Grande de los Cosninos, and the El Rio de Cosminas de Rafael as explorers discovered those portions. But by the time John Wesley Powell navigated and mapped the Grand Canyon in 1869, “Colorado” was the accepted name of the river flowing through the canyon.

The Colorado River is known for its dramatic canyons and whitewater rapids, however, the river is not one single channel running from the Continental Divide, slicing through the Grand Canyon, and on to the sea. The river consists of many major tributaries merging together to form the Colorado River Basin. The Basin’s 246,000-square-mile drainage area includes parts of seven states—Wyoming, Colorado, Utah, New Mexico, Arizona, Nevada, and California and forms 17 miles of the international boundary between the United States and Mexico. The river supplies water to more than 40 million people and 90% of the nation’s winter vegetable production and is justifiably considered by many to be the “Lifeline of the Southwest.” Today a system of dams, reservoirs, and aqueducts control much of the Colorado and its tributaries, diverting most of its flow for agricultural irrigation and domestic water supply. The Colorado’s large flow and steep gradient is used for generating hydroelectric power, and dams regulate the water flow to meet power demands in much of the western states. Unfortunately, high water consumption has dried up the lower 100 miles (160 km) of the river, which has rarely reached the sea since the 1960s.

But for roughly six million years before the dams, the unfettered and free-flowing Colorado River cut deep gorges in the land, and not just through the Grand Canyon. Along the waterways joining the Colorado —the Virgin, Kanab, Paria, Escalante, Dirty Devil, and Green rivers from the west, and the Little Colorado, San Juan, Dolores, and Gunnison from the east — many narrow, winding, deep canyons  were also carved, such as Colorado’s stunning Black Canyon of the Gunnison River. Canyons cut by the rivers in Arizona and Utah include Marble Canyon, Glen Canyon, and Cataract Canyon, with the longest of these unbroken trunk canyons being the spectacular and much loved Grand Canyon. It shouldn’t be surprising that the Colorado and its tributaries flow through or near many national parks, monuments, and recreational areas.[i]

The Name Change

In 1921, U.S. Representative Edward T. Taylor of Colorado petitioned Congress to rename the Grand River as the Colorado River. The Glenwood Springs resident and former Colorado State Senator could not accept that the Colorado River name started in Utah and not in his beloved state. “It is absurd for one part of any stream to be given one name and the rest of the stream another name.” Congressman Taylor loved Colorado and already had a reputation for getting up on the House floor to make five to ten minute speeches about his beautiful state. He took the renaming of the Grand portion of the river as a personal mission. It was Taylor’s strong sense of state pride and historic knowledge that helped persuade Congress to change the river’s name . . . and maybe a decade of speeches and tenacity helped too.

On February 18, 1921, Congressman Taylor appeared before the Congressional Committee on Interstate and Foreign Commerce regarding House Joint Resolution 460 “Renaming of the Grand River, Colo.” (See hearing report/transcript, H.J.R. 460 starts on page 14.) Based on his opening statement and answers to committee questions, Congressman Taylor came prepared to argue why the Colorado River name should flow continuously with the river that originates in Colorado and continues west to the sea. He provided national and regional history, local context, precedent, testimonials, statistics and measurements, and even threw in an international treaty for good measure. In his opening statement, he described the Colorado River as “the Nile of America,” and said it “is by far the most picturesque, scenic, unique, marvelous, and famous river in the world.” As for the state of Colorado, Taylor said, “… for the past 60 years, “Colorado” has meant the heart of the Golden West, the actual top of the world, the land of sunshine, good health, and gorgeous scenery, the summer playground of the Nation, the Switzerland of America, the bright jewel set in the crest of this continent, where it shines as the Kohinoor of all the gems of this Union; the sublime Centennial State.”

It did not concern Taylor that traditionally the longest tributary is regarded to be a river’s headwater or origin and the Green River—originating in Wyoming—was actually twice as long as and had a larger drainage basin than the Grand River.. Taylor backed up his claim for Colorado state superiority with volume statistics showing that the shorter Grand River (350 miles long) contributed more water to the mighty Colorado. According to information from the Colorado Historical and Natural History Society contained in the hearing report, the Grand River provided 40% of the Colorado River’s water flow, and when combined with water flow from the San Juan, Yampa, White, and other Colorado rivers, water from the state of Colorado provided closer to 60% of the river’s flow. The Natural History Society report also noted that the Green River receives more than a third of its water flow from Colorado’s Yampa and White rivers.

But Taylor may have found his most persuasive argument in the record of the U.S. Senate’s proceedings from 1861 when the Senate named the Colorado Territory. As introduced and passed by the House, the name in the bill for the proposed new territory was the “Territory of Idaho”, other names reportedly considered were Jefferson and Arcadia. In the Senate, however, the name “Idaho” was stricken and “Colorado” inserted “for the reason that the Colorado River arose in its mountains, hence there was a peculiar fitness in the name.”

Colorado’s 23rd General Assembly sent its support for renaming the Grand to the Colorado in Senate Bill 79 (later approved on March 24, 1921), the reengrossed version was included, along with various letters of endorsement, in the official Congressional Committee hearing report. After receiving support from governors and state assemblies in Colorado and Utah for the renaming of the Grand, Congress officially renamed the interstate waterway. The Committee on Interstate and Foreign Commerce ended its report to the House of Representatives with this statement: “There being no apparent reason sufficient in the judgment of your committee to counteract the expressed desire of the people of the State of Colorado to have this change made, your committee unanimously recommends the approval of this resolution.” On July 25, 1921, the 66^th Congress passed the resolution renaming the Grand River, in spite of some lingering objections from some Wyoming and Utah representatives.

No worries, Colorado does still have its share of Grand – you only have to look around to see that. But more specifically there’s also the Grand Ditch, which pulls water from the Colorado River to the eastern slope; Grand Junction, at the confluence of the Gunnison and the then “Grand” Rivers; and, of course, Grand County.

The Colorado River Story Continues

The Colorado River may be one of the most litigated rivers in the world and, as the demand for Colorado River water continues to rise, the level of development and control of the river continues to generate controversy.

In 1922, the Colorado River Compact divided the river into the lower compact states—Arizona, California, and Nevada—and the upper compact states—Colorado, New Mexico, Utah, and Wyoming. It was the first time more than three states negotiated an agreement among themselves to allocate the waters of a river. At that time the total annual flow of the Colorado River was estimated to be close to 16.5 million acre-feet ( an “acre foot” is the amount of water required to cover one acre to a depth of one foot) at Lees Ferry, AZ., of which 15 million acre-feet were divided between the lower and the upper compact states. A treaty in 1944 allocated 1.5 million acre-feet of water per year to Mexico. It was later realized that the initial estimate of Colorado River water volume in the 1922 compact was based upon an abnormally wet period and that substantially less water was available than the amounts specified in the agreements. In 2019, after several years of negotiations and in response to ongoing drought conditions and the increased potential for water supply issues, the upper and lower basins began implementing drought contingency plans to manage water demand.

Sources:

• https://www.britannica.com/place/Colorado-River-United-States-Mexico
• https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Colorado_River
• https://www.nationalgeographic.com/americannile/
• https://www.kpbs.org/news/2018/mar/27/how-colorado-river-got-its-name/
• https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Edward_T._Taylor
• https://www.watereducation.org/aquapedia-background/colorado-river-compact
• https://www.americanrivers.org/river/colorado-river/
• https://www.watereducationcolorado.org/fresh-water-news/as-2020-kicks-in-historic-colorado-river-drought-plan-gets-first-tests/
• https://crsreports.congress.gov/product/pdf/R/R45546

 

[i] National monuments, parks, and recreation areas located in the Colorado River Basin:

• Arches National Park
• Black Canyon of the Gunnison National Park
• Bryce Canyon National Park
• Curecanti National Recreational Area
• Canyonlands National Park
• Dinosaur National Monument
• Glen Canyon National Recreation Area
• Grand Canyon National Park
• Lake Mead National Recreational Area
• Natural Bridges National Monument
• Rocky Mountain National Park
• Zion National Park

 

by Patti Dahlberg

If we went back fifty regular legislative sessions and one hundred years, what would we find?

In Colorado, as a result of the November 1920 election (the first national election in which women were able to vote), Republicans retained control of the Colorado House of Representatives with 58 Republicans to seven Democrats, and Democrats lost control of the Colorado Senate with 24 Republicans to 11 Democrats.

Coloradans passed four ballot measures:

• “Appropriating $350,000 from the state fund for the establishment of the Psychopathic Hospital and Laboratory,” to allow the University of Colorado to build and equip a hospital “for the study and treatment of the curable insane”. The initiative passed 75% to 25%.
• “Providing an additional one-mill tax levy for state education institutions,” so that “in the discretion of the General Assembly an additional levy of not to exceed one mill on each dollar of valuation may from time to time be authorized for the erection of additional buildings”. The initiative passed 75% to 25%.
• “Fixing hours of employment for city fire departments,” limiting the amount of time fire department employees could work to 12 hours a day. The initiative passed 58% to 42%.
• “Providing a $5 million dollar bond issue for the construction of public highways.” The referendum passed 59% to 41%.

Six ballot measures failed:

• Four initiatives: “Practice of chiropractic and providing for the regulation and licensing thereof”, “Creating the County of Limon”, “Creating the County of Flagler”, and “Providing for the construction of the Moffat, Monarch, and San Juan tunnels and a bond issue therefor”; and
• Two referred measures: “Increasing the salaries of the Governor, the Secretary to the Governor, Justices of the Supreme Court, and judges of the district courts” and “Increasing the number of county judges”.

So what was the economic, political, and social climate in America leading up to the 1921 legislative session?

In September of 1920, America suffered the worst terrorist attack in its history (at least until the 1995 Oklahoma City Bombing) when a large explosive on a horse-drawn carriage was detonated on a busy Wall Street corner. The explosion killed 38 people and injured hundreds of others. In Colorado, the Denver Tramway Strike of 1920 left seven people dead and 50 injured. The Ku Klux Klan, founded during Civil War Reconstruction and known for violence against Blacks, reemerged in the 1920s and started targeting immigrants and certain religious organizations. The Klan tied their messages to the issues of prohibition and clean living. Finding a more mainstream audience as a result, they became involved in local and state politics in many states. Several race riots took place across the country, most notably the Tulsa race massacre where mobs of white residents destroyed 35 square blocks of a predominantly Black business district, leaving at least 35 people dead, and more than 800 people hospitalized. Historians now believe that up to 300 people may have died due to the violence.

On a brighter note, women won the right to vote when the 19^th Amendment was ratified by two-thirds of the states on August 18, 1920, (Colorado ratified the 19^th Amendment on December 15, 1919, during a special legislative session) and in the November election, Colorado elected three women to serve in the Colorado House of Representatives. Colorado actually initiated female representation in its House of Representatives in 1895 when the citizens elected Clara Cressingham, Carrie Holly, and Frances Klock. The electronic news media was born when a Pennsylvania radio station began airing regular news broadcasts.

The economic prosperity and freewheeling social spirit associated with the Roaring Twenties started with a struggling economy. The Spanish flu pandemic killed around 675,000 Americans (50 million people worldwide) before it was all over. A great number of the flu deaths were among working-age adults, and economists have suggested that the flu was responsible for a six to eight percent decline in worldwide gross domestic product. In addition, the adjustment from a wartime to peacetime economy proved to be a shock to the U.S. economy. Factories had to shut down completely or shut down until retooled to produce other products. Another factor that may have contributed to the economic downturn was a surge in the civilian labor force created when the troops returned from the war, adding to unemployment numbers and wage stagnation. In 1918, the Armed Forces employed 2.9 million people, which fell to 380,000 by 1920. As Europe recovered from war devastation, its agricultural output increased, causing a decline in American agricultural commodity prices. The Dow Jones hit a peak of 119.6 on November 3, 1919, only to spiral downward for the next 20 months, finally bottoming out at 63.9 (a 47% decline) on August 24, 1921. 1920 was a terrible year for businesses; those that did not fail saw huge declines in profits. All these factors combined to cause a deflationary recession, later known as the Depression of 1920-1921, lasting from January 1920 to July 1921.

In Colorado, probably few people anticipated the economic impact the end of the war would have on our state. After all, the farming and mining industries, which had ramped up production to meet wartime demand, enjoyed an initially strong post-war market demand. But as Europe recovered and Europeans became less dependent on America for food and other products, prices fell and food producers found themselves hard pressed, especially on the plains of northeast Colorado. They had borrowed heavily to expand and cash in on the wartime bonanza. As returns diminished, debts were more difficult to service, and Coloradans were hurting.

In the second part of our look back at 1921 and the Colorado Legislature, we’ll take a closer look at the start of the 23^rd General Assembly and how it met the challenges of its time.

Sources:

http://www.strongsisters.org/the-elected-women/

http://www.leg.state.co.us/lcs/ballothistory.nsf/

https://www.britannica.com/event/Wall-Street-bombing-of-1920

https://coloradoencyclopedia.org/article/denver-tramway-strike-1920

https://www.pbs.org/wgbh/americanexperience/features/flood-klan/

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Depression_of_1920%E2%80%931921

1921 Tulsa Race Massacre

 

 

by Ashley Athey

If you take a drive up I-70 and visit Breckenridge, just off the main street you’ll see a little yellow Victorian house surrounded by modern restaurants and art museums. Step inside and you’ll be transported back in time to when Barney Ford was alive. But who was he? And why was he so important to our state’s history?

Barney Ford was born into slavery in Virginia in 1822. His mother, Phoebe, prayed for her son to escape, and at the age of 17 Barney escaped his enslavement via the Underground Railroad and made it to Chicago.

It was in Chicago that Barney met and married Julia Lyon (or Lyoni), who helped him pick out his middle and last names—as an enslaved person, he didn’t have them—and he chose Lancelot Ford. He worked as a barber and helped support the Underground Railroad and abolitionist efforts. But he dreamed of going west to California, and in 1851 the Fords set out together, traveling via ship from New York because traveling across the country as a former enslaved man was unsafe. When their ship stopped in Nicaragua, Barney and Julia went ashore and they fell in love with the area. Together they built a successful hotel and restaurant and stayed there for many years until a local civil war destroyed their businesses. The Fords left Nicaragua and, in 1860, moved to Colorado.

Barney Ford was one of the first people to find and put a claim on the gold deposits in the land above Breckenridge, but Colorado law forbade a Black man from owning mining claims or homesteads. After being chased away and threatened in the middle of the night, Ford opened up a barbershop on Blake Street in Denver. Barney Ford was a savvy and intelligent businessman, and he ran many other successful businesses in Denver, including the People’s Restaurant and the Inter-Ocean Hotel. He even opened a second Inter-Ocean Hotel in Wyoming.

In 1880, Ford returned to Breckenridge and opened Ford’s Chop House, making him the first Black business owner in the town. He built a five-room house in Breckenridge for his family, and he built it without a key room – a kitchen! Instead, his family ate food from the restaurant.

In Denver, Ford was active in politics and fighting for the rights of Black men and women. He fought for their right to vote, their right to receive an education, and their civil rights. He helped other formerly enslaved individuals receive an education. And, in 1864, he was part of a contingent of Black pioneers who fought against statehood for Colorado because the amendment for statehood excluded voting rights for Black men. Ford taught evening classes to the community about the principles of democracy, and along with Henry O. Wagoner, his brother-in-law and a well-known Black abolitionist and journalist from Chicago, opened up a school for African American children.

Barney Lancelot Ford died in 1902 in Denver at the age of 80. Ford was inducted into the Colorado Business Hall of Fame and the Colorado Black Hall of Fame, and he was honored with a stained glass portrait in the House Chamber of the Colorado State Capitol building. While many of the buildings he once owned have been torn down, both the original site of the People’s Restaurant at 1514 Blake Street in Denver and his Victorian cottage on Washington Street in Breckenridge still stand. The little yellow Victorian cottage is now the Barney Ford Museum, which visitors can tour daily.

 

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For more information on Barney Ford and his contributions to Colorado’s history, visit:

https://www.coloradovirtuallibrary.org/digital-colorado/colorado-histories/beginnings/barney-ford-from-slavery-to-success/

https://coloradoencyclopedia.org/article/barney-ford

https://www.historycolorado.org/story/collections-library/2017/02/08/barney-ford-african-american-pioneer

by Patti Dahlberg

The 1920 Summer Olympics, the first held after the end of the World War I, was awarded to Antwerp, Belgium in the hopes of bringing a spirit of renewal to a country left devastated by World War I (WWI). The games lasted from April 20 to September 12 (almost five months) and the themes centered on reconciliation between nations and remembering the victims. Although the countries defeated in WWI were not forbidden to attend the games, they were also not invited. Awarded the games in 1919, Belgium had only a short time to clear war rubble and construct new facilities and did an amazing job amidst the physical and economic chaos of post-war Europe. Granted, when the games started the athletic stadium was not yet completed and athletes were housed in crowded rooms furnished with folding cots, but that did not deter the more than 2,600 athletes representing 29 countries from participating. Unfortunately, spectator attendance was low as money was still scarce for most people, and in the final days of the games, organizers filled the stands with schoolchildren.

The 1920 Olympics were the first games in which the now well-known Olympic flag with the symbol of five interlocking rings representing world unity and universality appeared. It was also the first time that one athlete took the Olympic oath on behalf of all the athletes and that doves, symbolizing world peace, were released during the opening ceremony. For those medal counters out there – the United States, Sweden, and Great Britain walked away from the games with the highest total medal counts overall, with 95, 64, and 43 respectively. (The 1916 Olympics, originally scheduled to be held in Berlin, Germany were canceled due to WWI [July 28, 1914 – Nov. 11, 1918]).

Women achieved the right to vote. The United States women’s suffrage movement could be traced back to 1638, when Margaret Brent, a successful business woman in Virginia demanded the right to vote in the state’s House of Burgesses. By 1920, a mere 282 years later, nearly every state west of the Mississippi River allowed women to vote. Colorado gave women the right to vote in 1893. Finally, on August 18, 1920, the Tennessee House of Representatives voted 50-49 in favor of the 19^th Amendment, which prohibited the denial of the right to vote based on sex. It was the last “yes” vote needed for ratification.

By the way, the first woman to hold federal office was Jeannette Pickering Rankin, elected to the U.S. House Of Representatives from Montana in 1916. While in Congress, she introduced the legislation that eventually became the 19^th Amendment to the Constitution.

Ratification of the 19^th Amendment made the 1920 election the first in which women had the right to vote in all 48 states, and women showed up at the polls to let their voices finally be heard. The total popular vote increased dramatically from 18.5 million in 1916 to 26.8 million in 1920. It was also the first election in which both the Republican and Democratic parties, anxious to attract women’s votes, sought prominent women to speak in support of their candidates. Among them was Corinne Roosevelt Robinson, sister of Theodore Roosevelt.

The League of Women Voters (LWV), founded in 1920, about six months before the 19^th Amendment was ratified, was created to educate women on election processes and help them exercise their new responsibilities as voters. The LWV, officially a nonpartisan entity, was also formed to lobby for favorable legislation on women’s issues. Originally, only women could join the league, but in 1973, the charter was modified to include men.

A guy named Ponzi came up with a sales idea. In the early 1900s, countries around the world created an “international reply coupon” to simplify mailing items across national borders. These coupons could be bought in one country and then traded for postage stamps in another. Charles Ponzi, an Italian immigrant to the U.S. found a loophole in the system. Due to economic ruin in much of Europe after WWI, Ponzi realized that he could buy coupons in various countries at a reduced cost and redeem them in the U.S. for a return on investment. Because he wanted large returns, he needed large investments. He set up a business, hired agents to bring in new investors, promising large commissions for the money brought in. Word spread and investors brought in new investors who brought in new investors. Ponzi soon realized that profit was no longer a necessary ingredient for the company to operate as investors were essentially funding each other’s commissions. The system, of course, eventually collapsed, and Charles Ponzi was arrested on August 12, 1920, and charged with 86 counts of mail fraud.

The birth of mass media? On election night, November 2, 1920, the first commercially licensed radio station to produce a news program, KDKA in Pittsburgh, PA, began broadcasting live results of the presidential election.  The radio station, broadcasting from the rooftop of a Westinghouse Electric building, timed the news launch to allow listeners to learn the results of the election closer to “real time” instead of waiting to read about it in newspapers the next day. The election-night coverage began at 6 p.m. and was broadcasted to an estimated 1,000 people. The four men on staff at the radio station that night read telegraph ticker election results over the air as the results came in. The newscast was a hit, changing the way people received information. News began to have a greater sense of immediacy; radio could share stories with the public as the stories unfolded.

As word spread of this transmission of “breaking news” the “talking box” exploded in popularity. Within two years, Americans had bought 100,000 radios. By 1923, they bought 500,000, and by 1926, there were more than 700 commercial radio stations. According to Eric Burns, in his book “1920: The Year That Made the Decade Roar”, no other event of 1920 would have a greater effect on the future than the birth of radio and mass media.

More Urban than Rural. The United States Census reported for the first time that more Americans lived in urban areas than in rural areas. At that time, “urban” was defined as any town with more than 2,500 people. The 1920 census also reported that the U.S. population was more than 100 million people for the first time – 106,021,537 people to be more exact. It was also the first census in which a state, New York, recorded a population of more than 10 million people. Overall, the U.S. population increased by 15%. Colorado’s population rose from 799,024 in the 1910 census to 939,629 in 1920, up almost 18%.

The U.S. Constitution requires that seats in the House of Representatives be reapportioned according to state populations every ten years, based on the results of the decennial census. The census of 1920 was the first-ever exception to this redistribution of representation when members of Congress failed to agree on a reapportionment plan. The distribution of seats from the 1910 census remained in effect until 1933. In 1929, Congress passed the Permanent Apportionment Act of 1929  to provide a permanent method of reapportionment and fixed the total number of representatives at 435.

Resources:

• https://www.britannica.com/event/Antwerp-1920-Olympic-Games
• https://www.olympic.org/antwerp-1920
• https://www.crf-usa.org/bill-of-rights-in-action/bria-20-2-a-how-women-won-the-right-to-vote
• https://dp.la/exhibitions/radio-golden-age/radio-broadcast-news
• https://www.census.gov/history/www/through_the_decades/overview/1920.html

By Patti Dahlberg

America had a woman president? Many think so.
Late in September of 1919, while in Pueblo, Colorado on a cross-country public speaking tour in support of ratifying the Treaty of Versailles with its formation of a League of Nations, President Woodrow Wilson suffered a “mini-stroke.” The remainder of his train stop tour was immediately canceled, and he was rushed back to Washington, D.C. for tests and recuperation. A few days later, on October 2, the President suffered a severe stroke, which left him paralyzed on his left side, unable to speak, blind in his left eye, and only partial vision in his right eye. He was confined to bed for the next few weeks and kept away from everyone except his wife and doctor. Edith Bolling Galt Wilson, President Wilson’s second wife, stepped in to “help him” run the government from his bedside. In the process of “protecting” her husband from unwanted stress and malicious gossip, she also excluded his staff, his Cabinet, and the Congress. Although surrounded by a “shroud of secrecy,” reports of the President’s stroke began to appear in the press in February of 1920. The extent of the President’s disability and his wife’s management of presidential affairs, however, was not fully known by the press nor shared with the nation. Several months later, the President, confined to a wheelchair, began to make public appearances again, giving an outward appearance of normalcy. Wilson did eventually walk again with the use of a cane, but many of those close to him felt he was only a shadow of his former presidential self.

President Wilson’s health condition and probable inability to act as chief executive officer of the nation was considered by many as one of the greatest cover-ups in the history of the American presidency. During his recuperation, the First Lady would regularly review pending legislation and executive documents – becoming to some historians, the “de facto” acting president. She selected those matters that would get her husband’s personal attention and delegated the rest, without consulting him, to the members of his Cabinet to handle. Many considered her a sudden upstart, but she had been working at her husband’s side since America’s entry into World War I in April of 1917. She and the President worked together from a private, upstairs office where he gave her access to his classified document drawer and secret wartime codes. Wilson had her screen his mail and insisted she sit in on his meetings. She regularly provided him with assessments of political figures and foreign representatives and denied his advisors access to him if she determined he should not be disturbed. She was by his side in Europe as he helped negotiate the Treaty of Versailles and presented his vision of a League of Nations to prevent future world wars.

Nevertheless, the First Lady did mislead the nation by releasing carefully worded press releases that only acknowledged that the President needed rest and was working from his bedroom suite. Meanwhile, anyone wishing to confer with the President was stopped at the door by the First Lady. It was months before more than a handful of people could even testify to the President’s physical existence. Rumors flourished, questions went unanswered, and the President’s staff and cabinet were disgruntled and worried. If cabinet members or staff had papers for review, Mrs. Wilson would review the material, and only if she deemed the matter pressing would she take the paperwork to her husband for his review. Officials cooled their heels waiting in the West Sitting Room hallway until she returned with their paperwork with margin notes said to be from the President.

Edith Wilson steadfastly insisted that her husband performed all of his presidential duties after his stroke, stating in her 1938 autobiography, “My Memoir:”

Historians, however, believe that Mrs. Wilson acted as more than “steward.” They believe she was, essentially, the nation’s chief executive until her husband’s second term concluded in March of 1921.

Part of the issue preventing Congress or the Vice President from stepping in at the time was that clear constitutional guidelines did not yet exist regarding the transfer of presidential power when severe illness strikes the chief executive. Article II, Section I, Clause 6 of the U.S. Constitution regarding presidential succession states:

President Wilson was not dead nor willing to resign because of his health. Vice President Thomas Marshall refused to assume the presidency unless Congress were to declare the President incapacitated and then only if Mrs. Wilson and Dr. Grayson went along. That never happened. It would take ratification of the 25^th Amendment to the Constitution in 1967 before a more specific process for the transfer of power in the event of a presidential disability became law. Some believe, because of modern medicine, that even the 25^th Amendment is not clear enough regarding presidential succession and needs additional revision.

What? Did you say SIX past, present, or future presidents took part in the 1920 election?
Privately looking for an unprecedented third term, President Wilson (28^th President, 1913-1921) hoped to be his party’s nominee, but party leaders were unwilling to re-nominate the ailing president still recovering from his severe stroke. Former President Theodore Roosevelt (26^th President, 1901-1909), looking to be president again, was an early front-runner for his party’s nomination, but he died in 1919. With both Wilson and Roosevelt out of the running and leaving no obvious “heir apparent” for their respective parties, the Democrats and Republicans looked to lesser-known candidates.

Warren G. Harding (29^th President, 1921-1923), a U.S Senator and newspaper editor from Ohio and considered a compromise candidate, won the Republican Party nomination on the tenth ballot at its national convention. Massachusetts Governor Calvin Coolidge was chosen to be the vice-presidential candidate. When President Harding died in 1923, Calvin Coolidge succeeded to the presidency and won re-election in 1924 (30^th President, 1923-1929).

James M. Cox, Governor of Ohio, won the Democrat Party’s nomination on the 44^th ballot at its national convention. Future President Franklin D. Roosevelt (32^nd President, 1933-1945) and Wilson supporter, was chosen to be the vice-presidential candidate.

Future President Herbert Hoover (31^st President, 1929-1933) initially sought to avoid committing to any party during the 1920 election, hoping that either major party would draft him for president in their respective national convention. In March of 1920, however, he changed his strategy and declared himself to be a Republican, but it was to no avail.

Not to be left out – one presidential candidate runs his campaign from prison.
Warren G. Harding was elected to the presidency by a landslide on November 2, 1920, with 60% of the popular vote and 75% of the electoral vote. However, in that same election, socialist, political activist, labor union organizer, and former Indiana State Senator Eugene V. Debs managed to collect more than 919,000 votes for the Socialist Party ticket, despite campaigning from the Atlanta, Georgia prison where he was serving a ten-year sentence for violating the wartime Espionage Act in 1918 by giving an antiwar speech.

Debs ran as the Socialist candidate for president five times – 1900, 1904, 1908, 1912, and 1920. President Harding, taking Debs’ deteriorating health into account, commuted his sentence in 1921. After a brief stop at the White House, Debs returned home to Terre Haute, Indiana, where he was met by band music and a crowd of 50,000. In 1924, he was nominated for the Nobel Peace Prize for his work for peace during World War I. He tried to recover his health, but died from heart failure on October 26, 1926, at the age of 70.

Resources:

https://www.pbs.org/newshour/health/woodrow-wilson-stroke

https://www.biography.com/news/edith-wilson-first-president-biography-facts

https://www.historynet.com/big-lie-woodrow-wilsons-sham-presidency.htm

https://www.loc.gov/collections/world-war-i-and-1920-election-recordings/articles-and-essays/from-war-to-normalcy/presidential-election-of-1920/

https://www.britannica.com/event/United-States-presidential-election-of-1920

by Darren Thornberry

On January 2, 1895, the Colorado General Assembly met in its new statehouse for the first time. Outgoing governor Davis Waite had moved into the building two months earlier, but work on the Capitol would not be complete for 13 more years. Imagine the deafening din of hammers and trowels while trying to debate on the chamber floors. Just getting here from far flung Trinidad, Leadville, or Ouray would have been a feat.

According to the Senate journal of that day, Lt. Gov. David H. Nichols and Asst. Secretary of the Ninth General Assembly, Stanley Stokes, called the Senate to order (exact time unknown) and Rev. Thomas Uzzell gave the invocation. Chief Justice of the Colorado Supreme Court, Charles Hayt, administered the oath to 16 newly elected Senators.

The House of Representatives convened at noon and was called to order by Chief Clerk of the Ninth General Assembly John R. Wallingford followed by a prayer by Prof. T.N. Haskell. Among the day’s business was nominating a clerk pro tempore, and the body unanimously voted for Wallingford. Mr. A. Humphrey of El Paso County received a majority of votes to become Speaker of the House.

Truth be told, much about the process of offering, debating, and voting on legislation remains the same as it did 125 years ago. Here are three notable bills passed by the 10th General Assembly that reflect Colorado citizens’ interests and concerns of the day.

S.B. 294 – World’s Fair (Senator Reuter)
This bill, designed to elevate Colorado to the world stage, provided for the appointment of three commissioners of the state of Colorado to the World’s Fair, which was to be held in Paris, France, in 1900. The duty of the commissioners would be to make suggestions for the proper presentation of the interests of the state at the World’s Fair. The commissioners would of course receive no compensation for services rendered or expenses incurred in the exercise of their duties unless specially provided for by law.

H.B. 218 – Train Wrecking (Rep. Humphrey)
The bill provided for the punishment of train wrecking and train robbing. Any person or persons who willfully and maliciously threw out a switch, removed or in any manner loosened a rail, or placed any obstruction on any railroad or tramway track operated in the state of Colorado, with the intention of derailing any passenger, freight, or other train, or who willfully boarded any passenger, freight, or other train with the intention of robbing the same, or who willfully placed any dynamite or other explosive material on the track of any railroad in the state of Colorado, with the intention of blowing up or derailing any passenger, freight, or other train, or who willfully set fire to any railroad bridge or trestle over which any passenger, freight, or other train, upon conviction, would be adjudged guilty of a felony and punished by imprisonment in the state penitentiary for a term of not less than 10 years. And that term could be extended to life imprisonment!

H.B. 19 – Mayhem (Rep. Morris)
In this somewhat terrifying bill, mayhem was defined as unlawfully depriving a human being of a member of his or her body or disfiguring or rendering it useless. The bill stated that any person who unlawfully cut out or disabled the tongue, put out an eye, slit the nose, ear, or lip, or disabled any limb or member of another, or voluntarily and of purpose put out an eye or eyes, was guilty of mayhem, and on conviction would be punished by confinement in the penitentiary for a term not less than one year nor more than 20 years. Naturally, there’s an exception: No person would be found guilty of mayhem if it occurred during a consensual fight, nor unless it appeared that the person accused was the assailant, or that the party maimed had in good faith endeavored to decline further combat.

Much history has been made at the Colorado Capitol over these 125 years. The will of the people, through their elected representatives, is imposed here today just as it was on Jan. 2, 1895. Let us be grateful for and humbled by this legacy of democracy in action.

 

All photos courtesy of the Denver Public Library.

by Patti Dahlberg

The “Red Summer” of 1919 refers to violent race riots that took place in more than 30 cities throughout the country between May and October. The most well-known confrontations were in Chicago, Washington, D.C., and outside of Elaine, Arkansas. The riots in the North marked the culmination of steadily growing tensions surrounding the migration of an estimated half million African Americans from the rural South to the cities of the North to work in the factories, warehouses, and mills experiencing severe labor shortages due to military enlistments. When thousands of soldiers returned home from the war, they found few available jobs. Growing financial insecurity caused racial and ethnic prejudices to rage to the surface. At the same time, African-American veterans who had fought and sacrificed for freedom and democracy overseas in WWI found themselves back home and denied basic rights such as adequate housing and equality under the law.

The first acts of violence occurred in the South and then became more prevalent in northern cities. On July 19, 1919, in Washington, D.C., a group of white men started randomly beating African-American pedestrians and streetcar riders after hearing that an African-American man had been accused of rape. When the police refused to intervene, African-Americans fought back. After four days of rioting, six were dead and another 50 were seriously injured.

On July 27, an African-American teenager drowned in Lake Michigan after being stoned by a group of white youths for violating the unofficial segregation of Chicago’s beaches. His death, and the police’s refusal to arrest the white man whom eyewitnesses identified as causing it, sparked a week of rioting between gangs of African Americans and white Chicagoans. When the riots finally ended on August 3, 38 were dead and more than 500 injured. In addition, a thousand African-American families lost their homes to vandalism and fire.

On September 30 outside of Elaine, Arkansas, in a confrontation between white planters opposing the union organization efforts of African-American sharecroppers, a white man was killed. Rumors of an African-American revolt caused whites to gather en masse to “put down” what was being called a “black insurrection.” Men from other counties joined in and soon 500 to 1,000 armed men in mobs were attacking African Americans on sight. There was no exact account of the number of casualties but estimates put the number killed somewhere between 200 and 800. Colorado did not evidently experience the level of race violence that occurred in other states.

Anarchists and the Red Scare

In April of 1919, more than 30 bombs were mailed to prominent citizens, including John D. Rockefeller, Supreme Court Justice Oliver Wendell Holmes, U.S. Attorney General A. Mitchell Palmer, and America’s first Secretary of Labor, William Wilson. Most of the bombs did not detonate or were discovered in New York post offices before being delivered, so there was no loss of life although there was one reported serious injury. No one was prosecuted for the mail bombs, but history presumes that those responsible were anarchists, specifically followers of Italian anarchist Luigi Galleani. It was widely believed that “Galleanists” orchestrated the mail bombs and were also responsible for a coordinated attack on judges, politicians, law enforcement officials, and prominent businessmen in eight American cities on June 2. Large bombs, each fueled by 20 pounds of dynamite, exploded at residences in Boston, Cleveland, New York City, Philadelphia, Pittsburgh, and Washington, D.C. The blasts shook neighborhoods and destroyed homes. Debris and shrapnel injured several people. A night watchman in New York was killed and when the bomb at U.S. Attorney General Palmer’s residence in D.C. exploded prematurely, it killed the anarchist carrying it and narrowly missed a young Franklin and Eleanor Roosevelt who had passed by the house just moments before. None of the targeted individuals were killed. Bomb scares continued throughout the year and into 1920, when a large explosion in front of the Morgan Bank at 23 Wall Street killed more than 30 people and wounded hundreds more. To deflect the impending threat of anarchy and violence, Colorado legislators passed Senate Bill No. 30 “Red Flag – Display made a Felony” to prevent the display of the red flag, considered to be “the emblem of anarchy,” in public in the State of Colorado.

The air was heavy with the fear of the next “red terror” attack. U.S. Attorney General Palmer responded with a massive investigation by the decade-old Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI) led by a young Justice Department attorney named J. Edgar Hoover. Hoover and his team collected detailed information on suspected radicals and their activities. Attorney General Palmer used this information to initiate a series of raids, called “Palmer Raids,” to target radical organizations throughout the country. Not to be outdone, Governor Oliver H. Shoup called Colorado legislators into a Special Session to “curb and eradicate threats against our form of government.” The Colorado legislature passed House Bill No. 1 “Anarchy and Sedition – Suppression of Conspiracies against State” describing what constituted the felony of anarchy and sedition in Colorado and assigning a penalty of up to 20 years of prison time. The legislature also appropriated funds to pay for any expenses incurred in “suppressing threatened tumult and riot in the state, and in maintaining law and order therein by the use of the National Guard.”

During the Palmer Raids, approximately 10,000 people were arrested for allegedly violating the Espionage Act of 1917, the Sedition Act of 1918, or the Immigration Act of 1918.  Of those arrested, 3,500 were detained and 556 were eventually deported. After the coordinated raids in 33 cities on January 2, 1920, reports of brutality and detainee abuse became public. The constitutionality of the raids and law enforcement actions during the raids were openly questioned and publicly criticized. Growing distress regarding the abuse of the civil liberties of those arrested simply because they were immigrants turned public opinion against Palmer and his raids. During the January 2^nd federal raid in Denver, federal agents could find only eight radicals. After January 1920, the raids tapered off and the country’s fear of insurrection subsided.

 

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Sources:

http://www.encyclopediaofarkansas.net/encyclopedia/entry-detail.aspx?entryID=1102

https://www.smithsonianmag.com/history/death-hundreds-elaine-massacre-led-supreme-court-take-major-step-toward-equal-justice-african-americans-180969863/

https://www.fbi.gov/history/brief-history

https://www.fbi.gov/news/stories/early-fbi-terrorism-case-062819

https://www.history.com/topics/red-scare/palmer-raids

https://www.britannica.com/topic/Palmer-Raids