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c H A p T E R o N E THE ORIGINS OF A YOUNG REFORMER " ... the only lawyer I know who was successfulfrom the beginning ofhis career."] THE CIVIL WAR AND ITS AFTERMATH, strong regional feelings, adjustments to the new economic conditions, and outright racism would all create heated political debate in nearly every political election until well into the twentieth century. One of these debates involved the creation of West Virginia. The rending of Virginia on June 20, 1863, was a momentous event for western Virginians. People like Congressman Jacob Beeson Blair of Parkersburg worked diligently to persuade President Abraham Lincoln that it was constitutionally, legally, and morally right to force the Mother State of Virginia to give birth to the new state of West Virginia.2 Depending upon the opinions of western Virginians, this action generated intense debates and arguments for decades to come. In this setting, a future governor of West Virginia was born, the third chief executive elected to lead the newly created state in the dawn of the twentieth century. William Ellsworth Glasscock, thirteenth governor of West Virginia, was born on December 13, 1862, on a small farm in Monongalia County (then Virginia), about thirteen miles from the city of Morgantown. Glasscock and his generation, the sons and daughters of Union and Confederate families, born during violence and despair, came of age during a period of great social, economic, and political turmoil. "Rebuild, reform, and change" appeared to be the motto for the newer generation, who were mindful of the past but had their eyes fixed on the future. Jack O. Henson to Glasscock, 4 December 1908, Glasscock Papers, West Virginia University Library. Hereafter cited as Glasscock Papers, unless location is different. 2 Dictionary of Virginia Biography, s.y. "Jacob Beeson Blair;' by Gary J. Tucker (Richmond, Virginia: The Library of Virginia, 1998), 1:539. CHAPTER ONE This generation spawned such state and national heroes as Theodore Roosevelt, an urbane sophisticate who was very comfortable in the company ofthe new and old rich, big city financier or western cowboy. Robert M. La Follette, governor ofWisconsin who espoused many Progressive ideas in the hallways of the Wisconsin legislature and the governor's mansion, and ultimately influenced other state and city leaders was another leading light. William Jennings Bryan was the "hayseed" editor from Nebraska who first captured the Democratic nomination for president in 1896. He also promoted ideas with roots going back to the Liberal Republicans, the Greenbackers, the Mugwumps, the Populists, and ultimately to progressive Democrats and Republicans, north and south of the Mason-Dixon Line. From their own points of view and unique circumstances, journalists, politicians, educators, farmers, and workers all shared a vision of an America unfettered by large concentrations of power, where the individual could still achieve his goals. Bringing their ideas, hopes, and dreams with them into their positions ofpower, these influential leaders sprinkled their pronouncements with such terms as progressive, new, forwardlooking , and modern. Those influenced by them also peppered their conversations with these terms when describing their personal and public goals for the future. They even succeeded in encouraging conservatives, hesitant to change, to test the political winds and embrace different ideas in a careful way. The young reformers entered the new century searching for a fairer and more equitable way ofsharing the wealth created by the new concentrated forms of industry. For many of the middle class, reform was necessary in order to regain social status seemingly lost to the "captains of industrY:'3 Others joined the ranks of the reformers because they felt they had lost control to the machine politicians, rather than out of a genuine concern for the people. More importantly, reformers desired to make sense of a rapidly changing society in which many individuals felt a sense of loss and lacked direction because of overwhelming forces in their lives. The new generation knew that the old way of permitting passive governments to forfeit decision-making powers to leaders of industry must change. Establishing active governments with strong executive leadership, presenting programs to lawmaking bodies, and creating channels for orderly change, continuity, and stability, appeared to be a workable road map for the reformers. 3 Richard Hofstadter, The Age ofReform (New York: Vintage Books, 1955), 131-48, 166. See also Michael McGerr, A Fierce Discontent: The Rise and Fall ofthe Progressive Movement in America, 1870-1920 (New York: Free Press, 2003), 68-69; and Wiebe, The Search For Order, 111-32. 2 [3.140...

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