Passing on to the presidential year of 1908, we find a total vote in the county of 1,003, and a majority for the republican electors of 177. Miles Poindexter, republican for Congress in this district (the state having been districted since the previous election), carried the field, and S. G. Cosgrove had an overwhelming majority for governor. This eminent and well loved citizen of Garfield County realized in that year his worthy and long cherished ambition to be the chief executive of the state, and went from a sick bed to be duly inaugurated. But his activities were ended and within a few weeks he passed on, to the profound sorrow of the entire state and particularly his friends and neighbors in the home county where he had been known and deeply respected so many years.
In 1910 W. L. La Follette of Whitman County received a majority in the county, as in the district, for congressman, and M. F. Gose was called to the supreme bench of the state, a choice almost unanimous in the county, and one recognized in the state as eminently worthy.
The presidential year of 1912 gave a reversal, and the County of Garfield joined the rest of the Union in a majority for Woodrow Wilson for President, and also joined the rest of the state in selection of a democrat, Eugene Lister, for governor.
1914 saw the re-election of W. L. La Follette, republican for Congress, and W. L. Jones for senator. In the same year occurred the most peculiar apparent turn in the opinion of Garfield County on the prohibition issue. For that was the great year of the struggle over the state-wide prohibition law. It might be regarded as an east-of-the-mountain proposition, for the East Side reached the crest of the Cascades with about 28,000 majority, enough to overcome the heavy adverse vote of Seattle, and have thousands to spare. But, strange to say, Garfield County, one of the very earliest to adopt local option, and one of the most pronounced in temperance sentiment, went against the amendment, and was the only East Side county to do so. The reason simply was that having tried local option with satisfactory results, the deliberate judgment was that local option was correct in theory and practice and should be sustained. It is stated now by those familiar with conditions that since the adoption and operation of the prohibition law it has the hearty support of the county, as shown by the fact that efforts to nullify it in 1916 were overwhelmingly defeated in the county, as in the state.
VIEW OF A PORTION OF THE IRRIGATED DISTRICT OF CLARKSTON, ASOTIN COUNTY
VINE COVERED COTTAGE, CLARKSTON
Showing beautiful effect which can be produced with vines, trees and flowers
In 1916, a more momentous election even than that of 1912, Garfield did not line up with the state and nation, but gave her vote to Hughes. She was with the majority on Poindexter for senator and La Follette for Congress, but gave Lister for governor a slight majority over his republican competitor, McBride.