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COTTAGE GROVE SENTINEL | WEDNESDAY, JULY 3, 2019 | 11A Offbeat Oregon: The ‘Hold-up Session’ of 1896-97 By Finn J.D. John for The Sentinel A t the time of this writing, the Ore- gon Legislature was stuck, unable to do any- thing; a group of lawmakers has gone off to Idaho for the express purpose of denying the legislature’s leaders a quorum. This is not the first time this tactic has been used in Oregon — nor is it the most dramatic. Things will have to get even more lively before the current sit- uation will be able to hold a candle to the legendary Hold-Up Session of 1896- 97. The Hold-Up Session in- volved several dozen state House members, a large assortment of alcoholic beverages, and — if the sto- ries of those unfortunate enough to not be invited can be believed — an even larger assortment of danc- ing girls and prostitutes. It had its roots in political cor- ruption, of course; this was, after all, the 1890s. In this particular elec- tion, Jonathan Bourne Jr., the man who was the closest Portland ever got to a Boss Tweed, had made his big play to carry his political ca- reer to the next level. With the help of some of his more morally flexible associates in Portland, he got himself elected to the state House of Representatives. The plan now was that his friend and political ally John H. Mitchell would help him pull the necessary strings to get elected Speaker of the House, and from that posi- tion Bourne would help get Mitchell re-appointed to his seat in the U.S. Senate. This was, of course, back before Senators were di- rectly elected by the peo- ple. In 1896, they were still appointed by state Legis- latures. That meant that a wealthy person or compa- ny could almost literally purchase a Senator’s seat for him by simply bribing a couple dozen people; and that’s exactly what Mitchell’s friends and former employ- ers at the Southern Pacific Railroad had done in 1896. They had given Bourne $225,000 in cash with which to do the job for them. Accordingly, he’d trot- ted around from colleague to colleague, handing over stacks of cash and receiving in return signed pledges to support Mitchell. N ow, the main reason Bourne was inject- ing himself so deeply into state politics was to help the free-silver movement. This debate — whether to stick with the gold standard for U.S. currency, or add silver to it in order to expand the money supply — was one of the hottest political topics of the day and had split the Oregon Republican Party in half. The conservative party establishment was commit- ted to gold; the insurgent populist wing of the party was just as dogmatic about adding in silver. Bourne had extensive in- vestments in silver mines in eastern Oregon and Idaho, so he had both economic and political reasons to be a silver man. He was so com- mitted to the cause that he broke party ranks and sup- ported William Jennings Bryan, the Democratic Par- ty’s Presidential candidate in 1896. Bourne’s play for power was going right on sched- ule, until he started hearing whispers that there was a little Benedict Arnold ac- tion going on inside his leadership team. Specifically, the rumor was that Mitchell, as soon as he was safely re-appoint- ed with the help of Bourne and his cronies, planned to renounce the movement and throw his lot in with the “gold crowd.” Bourne was not the kind of fellow to sit on his hands and hope for the best when that kind of thing was in the air. He went straight to Mitchell and asked him about it. This is how he described the ensuing con- versation to friend and col- league Walter Pierce: “I said to him, ‘Senator, the report here in Portland is … that when you are re-elected Senator in this upcoming legislature, you expect to go back to Wash- ington, join Mark Hanna and the gold crowd, going completely back on your silver friends. I don’t believe a word of it. You won’t go back on me?’ He hesitated. I said, ‘Out with it. Tell me the fact.’” One can picture Mitch- ell thinking this through. Bourne would learn the truth eventually anyway, he must have thought; and the fix was in — Bourne had secured enough signed pledges to guarantee Mitch- ell’s reappointment. There would be nothing Bourne could do but make the best of it. Plus, he was still going to be Speaker of the House; maybe that would mollify him a bit. So, “the senator said, ‘That is what I am going to do, Jonathan.’” Elder-statesman Mitchell must have been a little taken aback by Bourne’s response to this. “I looked him straight in the face and I said, ‘You are not going to be elect- ed by this Legislative body that meets next January,’” Bourne recalled. “The sen- ator replied, ‘Jonathan, you can’t (stop me). You took the pledges from the men who were candidates when you gave them the mon- ey … and you took those pledges to the Southern Pa- cific Railroad which put up the $225,000 that you dis- tributed among candidates for the Legislature. Those pledges have been signed. They are locked up in the Southern Pacific Railroad safe. … You can’t help it. I will be elected.’ “‘I don’t know how it is going to be prevented, but you are not going to be elected,’ I said.” W ell, that was easy to say. But it wasn’t at all clear how Bourne would be able to follow through on this threat. Odd as it sounds to the modern ear, the poli- ticians whom he’d bribed on Mitchell’s behalf considered the pledges they’d signed in exchange for the cash to be their word of honor as gentlemen. They wouldn’t go back on them even after learning they’d been dou- ble-crossed. Well, OK then; what if the subject never came up? When the legislature con- vened, could it be prevented from bringing Mitchell’s ap- pointment to a vote? As Bourne knew, if the state legislature never ac- tually voted one way or the other on Mitchell’s ap- pointment, the nomination would fall to the governor. And the governor, William P. Lord, was one of Bourne’s friends…. A few days later, a some- what curious article appeared in the Oregonian — which, like everyone else in the state, thought the Bourne-Mitchell alliance was still rock-solid. “MR. BOURNE’S FIGHT,” the top headline shouted; followed by two sub-headlines: “Senator Mitchell Will Help Him to Be Speaker” and “Being As- sured of Desired Support, He Renews His Campaign with Great Energy.” “SALEM — The en- gagement by Mr. Jonathan Bourne of 19 rooms in the Eldridge Block, Salem, as well as the lease of the hand- some Keller House, on State Street, has created uncom- mon interest in political cir- cles in this city,” the article begins. “It would appear that he is entering upon the fight with a degree of osten- tation unusual in speaker- ship contests, and it is not easy to see on the surface why quarters so extensive should have been engaged. The real reason probably is that the Eldridge Block will be used during the season as supplementary Mitchell headquarters.” One imagines Mitchell reading this article with mounting anxiety. What, he must have wondered, could that rascally Jonathan Bourne be scheming at? Meanwhile, Bourne was putting a few other pieces in place. The president of the Senate, Joseph Simon, was a solid silver man and could be depended on. But he needed a good ally in the House. So, Bourne reached across the aisle and con- nected with an earnest Pop- ulist Party reformer named William U’Ren — who must have been very surprised to hear from him; although both favored silver, the two of them had not been allies prior to this. U’Ren was happy to help defeat “Benedict Arnold” Mitchell, and the two of them made some plans for U’Ren to implement some parliamentary delaying tac- tics while Bourne deployed the main thrust of his auda- cious plan — a plan to liter- ally get the 1897 Legislative session canceled. Remember those myste- rious 19 rooms in the El- dridge Block? They were about to become the scene of probably the most mag- nificent and longest-lasting house party in the history of the state of Oregon. “I hired the best chef in the state of Oregon,” Bourne recalled; “sent him to Salem to fix up apartments in the Eldridge Block; things to eat and drink and enter- tainment. I said to the chef: ‘I pay all expenses. I want to take care of all my friends in the lower House who signed pledges with me, the friends of Silver.” The whole undertaking cost Bourne $80,000. It last- ed for 40 days, in an ironic and presumably uninten- tional echo of the account of Jesus’s time of tempta- tion in the wilderness. And by the time it was over, the Eldridge Block had some colorful new nicknames: “Bourne’s Harem” was one, and “The Den of Prostitu- tion and Evil” was another — apparently when Bourne mentioned “entertainment” he wasn’t just talking about checkers and Scrabble. When, a day or so later, the state House of Represen- tatives tried to convene for the opening day of the ses- sion, all Bourne’s “Friends of Silver” were several blocks away, gulping down Scotch and enjoying the company of dancing girls and other friendly ladies. As Bourne had planned, there were not enough legislators left to form a quorum. Mitchell’s supporters formed a “rump session” and tried to elect him; U’Ren got on the record pointing out that their vote had no legal weight. The Oregonian’s editorial writ- ers roared with baffled fury. Inauguration Day ap- proached, and still nothing was coming out of the state house — on Mitchell’s ap- pointment or on any oth- er topic. Finally, the state senate announced it was giving up and canceling the session; and Governor Lord announced he was ap- pointing Henry Corbett to Mitchell’s Senate seat. Bourne had won. Corbett was delighted; he’d been a Senator before — it was he who Mitchell had defeated way back in 1873 when he first got ap- pointed as Senator — and had long cherished hopes of getting back. But when he arrived in D.C., South- ern Pacific pulled some strings and the Senate re- fused to seat him. For the next two years, Oregon had just one U.S. Senator. As for Mitchell, he had to sit the whole dance out. He was returned to the Senate, again with the Southern Pacific’s help, in 1900. He was still in office when he died of a dental abscess in 1905. As a side note, Bourne and U’Ren must have liked working together, because a few years later the two of them became the found- ing fathers of the Oregon Initiative and Referendum system. Bourne himself, in 1906, was the first Oregon Senator elected by popular vote. (Sources: Oregon Cattle- man/Governor/Congress- man, a book by Walter Pierce, published in 1989 by OHS Press; Wicked Portland, a book by Finn J.D. John, pub- lished in 2012 by The History Press; Portland Oregonian ar- chives, Jan.-Feb. 1897) Public Notices The Lowest Rates in Lane County PUBLIC MEETINGS, TRUSTEE NOTICES, PROBATE, AUCTION & FORECLOSURE NOTICES, AND MORE. Published weekly in the Cottage Grove Sentinel and online at cgsentinel.com Highest in customer satisfaction with retail banking in the Northwest.* *For J.D. Power 2019 award information, visit jdpower.com/awards S entinel C ottage G rove bannerbank.com Contact: Meg Fringer 541-942-3325 x1200 mfringer@cgsentinel.com
