The senatorial campaign opened in June, and largely governed the elections for the ensuing Wisconsin legislature. By December the situation had become acute, and all parties were lined up for the contest. The preferences of every legislator-elect were canvassed and recanvassed; and each candidate presented his claims and qualifications to the prominent members of the coming legislature in personal letters. The State Historical Society has recently received a gift of a few letters relating to this campaign addressed to the Honorable Andrew Jackson Turner, of Portage, then an influential figure in Wisconsin politics. Three of these letters, written in the early winter of 1868-69, are from Carpenter, who bespeaks Turner’s support at the coming legislative session. Turner, however, had given his pledge to Horace Rublee, and had been by him chosen manager of his campaign. December 9, 1868, Carpenter wrote to Turner from Washington: “I recd your favor just as I was leaving home, postponing me in your affections to Mr. Rublee. But I think this will make no difference. I am sure the conflict will be between Mr. Washburn and myself & that he will be elected, if I am not. You say that you shall support me next to Rublee, and I desire to thank you for this.”
The most interesting letter of the lot is that of Rublee himself, written November 23, 1868. In it he canvasses the entire legislative personnel, telling of the predilections of each member and concluding: “In my judgement Carpenter cannot be elected, & I certainly think he ought not to be elected.”
As all the world knows, Rublee was wrong. During the legislative session, Carpenter’s manager arranged a public meeting in which all the candidates were to set forth their views on the questions of the day. This meeting was contemptuously dubbed by Rublee “A Spelling-down”; none the less, neither he nor any other of the candidates dared refuse the invitation to speak. Carpenter’s great powers as an orator stood him in good stead, and at the Republican caucus held soon after the speech-making contest, he was triumphantly nominated, and elected, in due course, by the Republican majority in the state legislature.
The intimate picture these old letters afford of the log-rolling days before the direct election of the senators by the people, gives them historical value for students of political methods, and lays bare the reasons that induced the modern revolt against “machine-made” representatives in the upper house of Congress.
Louise P. Kellogg.
“KOSHKONONG” AND “MAN EATER”
Lake Koshkonong is one of the most beautiful sheets of water in Wisconsin. In primitive times the region adjacent to it must have constituted a perfect paradise for the red man. Even yet, notwithstanding its settlement by whites for nearly three generations, this is one of the favorite resorts of Wisconsin sportsmen. The Indian name “Koshkonong” has usually been explained as meaning “the lake we live on.”[132] The letter which follows, recently presented to the State Historical Society by H. L. Skavlem, of Janesville, offers both a new rendering of the Indian name and a new interpretation of it. No less interesting to those who care for Wisconsin’s primitive history is the new rendition offered of the name of Man Eater, the Rock River chief who dwelt on the shore of Lake Koshkonong a century ago. Mrs. Kinzie, the author of Wau Bun, saw Man Eater or “Mee-chee-tai” on at least two occasions. Over against the sad picture which Peter Vieau paints should be set her
description of him as “a most noble Indian in appearance and character.”
Portage, Sept. 2, 1900.
Mr. Buckley, Attorney, Beloit, Wis.