Page:The History of Oregon Bancroft 1888.djvu/688

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670
POLITICAL, INDUSTRIAL, AND INSTITUTIONAL.

was shown by the presidential vote in the following November, which gave a democratic majority of only 160 for presidential electors out of 22,000 votes cast by the state.

In 1870 L. F. Grover, who ever since 1864 had been president of the democratic organization of the state, was elected governor of Oregon, with S. F. Chadwick as secretary.[1]

The legislature of 1870, following the example of its immediate predecessor, rejected the fifteenth amendment to the constitution of the United States, which extended the elective franchise to negroes. The manner of the rejection was similar to that of the rescinding resolutions of 1868, and like them, a mere impotent expression of the rebellious sentiments of the ultra-democratic party in Oregon.[2] It had no effect to prevent negroes in Oregon from voting, of whom there were at this time less than 350. It also, in obedience to party government, provided for the appointment of three commissioners to investigate the official conduct of the state officers of the previous administration, succeeding in discovering a defalcation by Secretary May of several thousand dollars,[3]


    City, Owen Wade (Henry Warren, receiver); supt Ind. aff., J. W. P. Huntington; chief clerk Ind. dept, C. S. Woodworth; assessor int. rev., Thomas Frazar; collector int. rev., Medorum Crawford; deputy assessor, William Grooms; deputy col., Edwin Backenstos.

    The district judges of the supreme court of Oregon at this time, beginning with the northern districts, were: 4th dist, W. W. Upton; 5th dist, J. G. Wilson (east of the Cascade mts); 3d dist, R. P. Boise; 2d dist, A. A. Skinner; 1st dist, P. P. Prim; The dist attys in the same order were M. F. Mulkey, James H. Slater, P. C. Sullivan, J. F. Watson, J. B. Neil. McCormick's Portland Dir., 1808, 109; Camp's Year-Book, 1869, 434.

  1. L. Fleischner was elected treasurer, K. P. Boise was reflected judge, and A. J. Thayer and L. L. McArthur to succeed Skinner and Wilson. Id., app. 11.
  2. Or. Laws, 1870, 190–1; Sen. Misc. Docs, 56, 41st cong. 3d sess.; Gov. Message, in Or. Legis. Docs, 1870, doc. 11, p. 9.
  3. The investigation lasted a year, at $5 per day each to the commissioners for the time necessarily employed in making the investigation. They brought in a report against May, and also some absurd charges that the governor had made more visits to the penitentiary than his duty required, at the expense of the state, with other insignificant matters. They discovered that C. A. Reed, the adjutant-general of the militia organization, had purchased two gold pens, not needed, his office being abolished by the same body which commissioned them, at an expense of 15 a day, to discover these two pens.

    Legislative assembly of 1870 Senate; Baker county, A. H. Brown;