Autobiography of Charles Clinton Nourse / Prepared for use of Members of the Family

by Charles Clinton Nourse

Governor Stone also solicited me to act as special prosecutor in prosecuting the indictments against the secretary for forgery, but in consideration of the fact that the secretary had failed to obtain my services in his defense because of his poverty, I declined to take any retainer or part in the prosecutions.

I only recite these matters here because the secretary for his own purposes saw proper to make a number of virulent attacks upon me in various scurrilous articles that he published. As he was a man of no reputation and soon after left the state and died in obscurity and poverty, it is not necessary here to notice them.

The indictments against the secretary were never tried, I think, for the reason that the trial would necessarily have exposed the fact of the Governor's carelessness and inattention to the detail of his official duties. The Governor was otherwise not to blame for these unfortunate results and was himself free from any taint of dishonesty or corruption.

Notwithstanding my determination to retire from politics and devote myself entirely to the practice of law, the republican state convention, in the fall of 1867, without any procurement or solicitation upon my part, selected me as chairman of the state central committee. I conducted the canvass that resulted in the election of Colonel Samuel Merrill. The entire cost of this canvass, including the employment of a secretary to the committee, was only the sum of $800, one-fourth of which the candidate for Governor contributed. I make note of this, for the reason that in later years, and at the time of the present writing, these central committees of the states and of the nation, are expending thousands and hundreds of thousands of dollars upon the election of the candidate of their party.

I also at the time I was chairman of the state central committee, furnished a team to Messrs. Thomas F. Withrow and F. W. Palmer, the latter then editor of the Register, to make a political canvass through the western half of the state. The very next year, 1868, Mr. Palmer became a candidate for congress in this district, Mr. Kasson being again a candidate for a seat in congress and again defeated in the nomination. I attended the congressional convention which was held at Council Bluffs that year, and was well satisfied with the result.

In the summer of 1869 Judge George G. Wright, before that time one of the judges of the supreme court of the state of Iowa, and who had removed from Keosauqua and become a permanent citizen of Des Moines, called upon me to confer with me upon the subject of his election to the United States Senate. He was fearful that Mr. John A. Kasson, who had been a member of the house of representatives of the state the last previous session, would be a candidate for the state senate. He expressed himself as having no confidence whatever in Mr. Kasson's friendship toward him, and he desired me to be a candidate and seek the nomination for the position of state senator. I peremptorily declined, for the reason that I did not want to engage in any political fight or difference with Mr. Kasson, and I could not afford at that time to leave my practice for a place in the state senate. Judge Wright insisted that he must have a friend in the senate from Polk county upon whom he could rely, and urged me to name some one who could be nominated and elected. After canvassing the names of several gentlemen, I suggested the name of B. F. Allen, then the leading banker in western Iowa, giving as my reason for urging Mr. Allen's name that the friends of Mr. Kasson would not present Mr. Kasson's name in opposition to Mr. Allen at that time, and the further reason that the people of Des Moines would at the then coming session of the general assembly ask for an appropriation to commence the building of a permanent capitol, and that Mr. Allen by virtue of his influence through the western part of the state especially could probably do more than any other man to secure such an appropriation. Judge Wright replied that the name of Mr. Allen had been suggested, but that he was satisfied that that gentleman would not accept of the nomination because his business required his undivided attention. I suggested to Judge Wright that I thought I was better acquainted with Mr. Allen than himself, and that if a number of our friends would call upon Mr. Allen, one at a time, suggesting and urging him to be a candidate for the senate, in less than ten days he would not only be willing but anxious to receive the nomination. We accordingly pursued that course, and my prediction was verified. Mr. Allen became a candidate and received the nomination, but this did not prevent Mr. Kasson from again being a candidate for the nomination to the lower house.

At the ensuing session of the legislature the desired appropriation for a permanent capitol at Des Moines was secured and Judge Wright was elected to the United States Senate, defeating William B. Allison who was then, for the first time, a candidate for that position.

Mr. Kasson worked diligently to secure the appropriation for the capitol, as did also Mr. Allen in the senate and George W. Jones, Mr. Kasson's colleague, in the house.

The citizens of Des Moines were very deeply interested in this appropriation for the permanent capitol, and every one, including the ladies, brought to bear all proper influence upon the members to secure their votes for it. The great event of the winter socially was a grand party given by Mr. Allen in the splendid mansion which he had just finished, situated on Terrace Hill, now the property of Mr. F. M. Hubbell. The ladies of the town also gave an old fashioned concert at Moore's Hall, and an amateur theatrical performance at its close, of which I had the honor to be the author. The play was a farce illustrating the absurd features of a general assembly of the state of Iowa whose members were one-half ladies and the other half gentlemen. The play represented a session of the general assembly of the state of Iowa in the year 1900. The old capitol building, then occupied by the legislature, was supposed to have fallen down and to have killed a number of the members of the sitting general assembly, and one of the bills discussed by the mock legislature was a proposed appropriation for the benefit of the surviving families of the members who had lost their lives in the destruction of the old capitol. The great discussion arose upon a motion to strike out the sum of sixty-two and one-half cents, and many of the speeches that had been made against the appropriation for the new capitol upon the question of economy were largely quoted from, by those opposed to the sixty-two and one-half cents.

Another point made in the play was that upon the question of woman's rights. Dubuque county was supposed to be represented by a lady weighing over two hundred pounds, and her husband, a dwarf, then residing in the city, who weighed about seventy pounds. Whenever a vote was taken upon any question respecting the rights of their sex the legislature divided, the men voting on the one side and the women always on the other. The lady who was supposed to be the wife of the dwarf, whenever a rising vote was taken upon a question of this nature, seized her supposed husband by the coat collar and tried to compel him to stand up and be counted on the side with the ladies. The frantic efforts of the little fellow to desist and to vote with those of his own sex created uproarious applause and amusement for the audience, as did also the following part of the play: