Great Plains Studies, Center for
Date of this Version
Fall 1985
Citation
Great Plains Quarterly Vol. 5, No. 4, Fall 1985, pp. 249-58.
Abstract
In a speech in Pocatello, Idaho, in 1891, President Benjamin Harrison expressed his admiration for the pioneers of the American West:
My sympathy and interest have always gone out to those who, leaving the settled and populous parts of our country, have pushed the frontiers of civilization farther and farther to the westward until they have met the Pacific Ocean and the setting sun. Pioneers have always been enterprising people. If they had not been they would have remained at home; they endured great hardships and perils in opening these great mines . . . and in bringing into subjection these wild plains and making them blossom like gardens.1
Harrison had always been fascinated by the West. To a college chum he spoke of settling in either San Francisco or Chicago, and in 1854 he chose Indianapolis as his home town. By the time he had served six years as a U.S. senator and was nominated for president in 1888, he was described as a westerner. His only son, Russell, lived in territorial Montana for several years. President Harrison's stance on the issue of Chinese immigration gives further evidence of his close contact with western attitudes.
Harrison had widespread support for the Republican nomination for president at Chicago in 1888. He had served in the Senate from 1881 to 1887, and most western senators in the convention gave him their vote. Harrison received much of the support that would have gone to James O. Blaine, had he been candidate. Blaine took himself out of the race and Stephen Benton Elkins, a financier from New York City and West Virginia with important connections in New Mexico, helped engineer Harrison's nomination on the eighth ballot. By that time, the votes of delegates from the West, as well as from certain populous eastern states, pushed his total above the majority mark. Westerners regarded Harrison as a candidate from their area who would understand the special problems of the West.
Many of the domestic issues facing the Harrison administration (1889-1893) were of immediate concern to western interests: statehood for western territories, appointments to public office, national policy for natural resources, the monetary issue of silver, and the role of the federal government in local affairs. Tariff policy, a dominant issue elsewhere in the country, was relatively less vital to most of the American West at this time.
NEW STATES IN THE WEST
In his inaugural address President Harrison said, "It is a subject of congratulations that there is a near prospect of the admission into the Union of the Dakotas and Montana and W ashington Territories. This act of justice has been unreasonably delayed."2 So the time was ripe for new states; none had been admitted since Colorado in 1876. Most territorial residents saw statehood as an opportunity for greater self-government, and the 1888 election of a Republican majority in both houses of Congress raised their hopes for such a change. Over the course of nine days in November 1889, four new states were admitted-North and South Dakota, Montana, and W ashington. Eight months later, in early July 1980, Idaho and Wyoming were given statehood.
The population of Dakota Territory had long been sufficient for statehood. While in the Senate, Harrison had sponsored a Dakota statehood bill that passed early in 1886. A Democratic-controlled House committee considered the possibility of New Mexico as a state to "match" Dakota, but ultimately refused to submit the Harrison bill. Dominant groups in Dakota Territory favored admission as two states, and their goal was obtainable when Harrison was elected. At the end of the Cleveland administration, the lame-duck Congress of 1888-89 passed the enabling legislation, knowing that their action provided an immediate political liability to the Democratic party.3
Comments
Copyright 1985 by the Center for Great Plains Studies, University of Nebraska-Lincoln