IV
A Good Shoemaker Becomes Detroit’s Best Mayor and Michigan’s Greatest Governor.
AN interview with Hon. Hazen S. Pingree, Governor of Michigan, was not an easy thing to obtain. “Approachable?” Very. He was a great favorite with newspaper men, but the most-sought-after man in Michigan. When he arrived at the simply furnished room that served as his official headquarters in Detroit, it was to find it bordered with a human wainscoting, each anxious member of which was waiting patiently, or otherwise, to ask some favor of the chief executive. As he entered the room suddenly became quiet; for there was something about the Governor’s powerful personality that compelled attention. But soon each want, no matter how small, was attended to in his kindly but straight-forward way.
An interesting medley of petitioners was present on the day of my interview. The first was a widowed mother requesting a favor for her son—a wreck of the Spanish-American war.
“I’ll do the best I can for you,” said the governor heartily as she left the room—and everyone knew what that meant.
Next came a gayly-dressed young woman, with a bill from the mint of her own imagination, which she asked the Governor to please push through the legislature. She was patiently referred to the representative from her district. Then a soldier stood before him with a transportation snarl to untangle; a book agent; a broadcloth-coated dandy, and a street laborer, each seeking help; and then a gaunt, ill-clad old woman, who in broken English, with harrowing tears and gestures of despair, laid her humble burdens in supplication before him. It was a touching picture.
Hers was not a case to lay before the Governor of the State, but she will never know it, poor woman, for the generous hand of the great-hearted man slid quickly down to the nest of the golden eagle that sent her gratefully away.
“You are not a native of the State you govern,” said I, as the Governor leisurely seated himself for the interview.
“No; I was born in Denmark, Maine. My father owned a forty-acre farm, and I was brought up there until I was about seventeen years old.”
“And you did——”
“Just what any one would do on a small farm; worked in summer and went to school in the winter. Then I started out to make my own way in the world, and the first work I found was in a cotton mill at Saco, Maine. In 1860, I went to Hopkinton, Massachusetts, and learned the trade of a cutter in a shoe factory. Soon after that the war broke out.”
“And you enlisted?”
“Yes, I have two honorable discharges as a private. I value them more than my position as governor.”
“How long were you in the war?”
“From 1862 until its close. I first enlisted in Company F, First Massachusetts Heavy Artillery, and, with that regiment, took part in the battles of Bull Run, Fredericksburg Road, Harris Farm, Cold Harbor, Spottsylvania Court House, North Anna and South Anna.”
“Then you know something of the horrors of war from your own experience?”
“Yes; that is the reason I am an advocate of the universal peace project.”
“You believe in that?”
“Decidedly; and, moreover, I believe that ten years from now every man who calls himself a Christian will be ready to stand by the side of the Emperor of Russia in his plea for peace.”
“Let us return to your experience in the war. Were you ever a prisoner?”
“Several others and myself were captured on May 25, 1864, by a squad of Mosby’s men. We were confined five months at Andersonville; and from there were taken to Salisbury prison in North Carolina, then to Millen, Georgia, where we were exchanged in November, 1864. I rejoined my regiment in front of Petersburg, and was in the expedition to Weldon Railroad, the battles of Boynton Road, Petersburg, Sailors’ Creek, Farmsville, and Appomattox.”
“And after the war?”
“I came to Detroit and obtained employment in a shoe factory. Soon after that my partner and myself started one of our own. He had a little less than a thousand dollars, and I had $460—left from my army pay.”
“That seemed a large sum, I suppose?”
“Yes, and I thought if I could ever get to making fifty pairs of shoes a day I would be perfectly happy.”
The number is amusingly small, when it is remembered that this factory, the embryo of which he spoke, grew up under the Governor’s personal supervision, until it is now one of the largest in the United States.
“But tell me, Governor, when you were starting out in life, did you ever look forward to the career you have carved out for yourself?”
“No,” said he, with the promptness that characterizes all of his speech; “I never had anything mapped out in my life. I did whatever there happened to be for me to do, and let the result take care of itself.”
“Is it the same with your political success, or is that the outgrowth of youthful ambition?”
HOW HE BECAME MAYOR OF DETROIT.
“No, I was pushed into that by accident. I had never been in the common council chamber before I was elected Mayor of Detroit. The thing that caught me was that my friends began to say I was afraid of the position, so, of course, I had to accept the nomination to prove that I wasn’t.”
This was clever of his friends. The fact is that, at that time, the city needed the Governor’s brains to manage its affairs. He was elected Mayor of Detroit four consecutive terms and was in his eighth year as mayor when he resigned. Even his most earnest political opponents admit that he was the best mayor the city ever had.
“But, during the formative years of your career, did you ever worry over the possibility of failure?”
“No,” said the Governor serenely, “I never did, and don’t now. I was never given to worrying.”
In this as in other ways, Mr. Pingree was remarkable. During the stormiest of his political times he was never in the least disturbed when he reached home, and he would sleep as peacefully as a child.
“What would you suggest, Governor, as the best route by which the young man of to-day may obtain success?”
“He can do one of two things: go to work for somebody else; or, if he cannot stand that, he can buy a small farm.”
“Then you think there is not the chance in the United States now that there was thirty years ago?”
“There isn’t a doubt about it. The young men of to-day are to be pitied—there isn’t anything for them to do. The subject is a serious one,” said the Governor, speaking rapidly. “Why, if I had nothing, I wouldn’t know how to advise my own son to start. I don’t claim to know much, but I do understand a little about the shoe business, and I can tell you honestly that, with the knowledge I have gained in many years of experience, and with the influence of my friends, I could not start in the shoe business to-day with the chance of success that I had then.”
“And the causes of this?”
“Are trusts and monopolies.”
“And the result?”