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Chapter 8: The Political Years - Dane Starbuck, The Goodriches: An American Family [2001]

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The Goodriches: An American Family (Indianapolis: Liberty Fund, 2001).

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Liberty Fund, Inc. is a private, educational foundation established to encourage the study of the ideal of a society of free and responsible individuals.


Chapter 8

The Political Years

I might say without egotism here that from that time [1901] on down until 1921, the general policy of the [Indiana] Republican party so far as the organization was concerned was directed by me.

james p. goodrich, “Autobiography”

It was the most exciting day in Randolph County’s history. It was bigger than the day the Civil War Monument was dedicated in July 1892 or the day that the former president Benjamin Harrison addressed thousands from the courthouse lawn in 1888. It would be even more important than Republican presidential candidate William Howard Taft’s tour of Winchester in 1908 or former President Herbert Hoover’s visit to the Goodriches in 1939. The crowd was enormous—at least ten thousand people clustered around the train depot. Bands stirred up the people for two hours. Campaign posters and handbills were tacked to anything that did not move and some things that did. Boys were perched in trees and on telephone poles along the train tracks, straining their eyes to be the first to glimpse the smoke pouring from the Special. It was a political rally, but not just any political rally. It was October 11, 1900, the day Teddy Roosevelt came to town.1

It seemed that every Republican within a hundred miles was present, including United States Senator Charles W. Fairbanks, United States Congressman George W. Cromer, and the Republican candidate for governor, Winfield T. Durbin. The welcoming committee, composed of the Indiana Supreme Court justice Leander Monks (from Winchester), John W. Macy, Sr., and others, waited patiently. Then the Special was sighted, and within no more than a minute, the train stopped at the platform and the great man himself appeared. “As big as life,” one of the committee men said later, “and twice as natural!” The welcoming committee, gaining composure, suddenly sang out: “Welcome to our city, Governor Roosevelt.”2

“De-e-eelighted!” roared Teddy, and Randolph County’s greatest day had officially begun.

The governor of New York, who would become the nation’s twenty-sixth president within the year by virtue of a combination of talent and fate, was escorted to the courthouse square. After several enthusiastic introductions of dignitaries, the irrepressible Teddy Roosevelt rose from the platform to address the multitude. The governor first thanked the county for its devoted support of the Union cause in the Civil War. He then made reference to a matter of more topical importance—the 1900 national election. With only three weeks left until voting day, Teddy blasted the opposition for thirty minutes, deprecating the claims and accusations of the Democratic presidential candidate, William Jennings Bryan. It was said that Teddy became so enraged that he “beat to pieces” his new Stetson hat on the platform railing as he delivered his oration.3

Although Governor Roosevelt departed shortly after his vitriolic speech, the day’s events had barely begun: There was a parade lasting more than two hours in which military regiments and others marched before the speakers’ stand; Rafe Murray and George Bright led their “Deerfield Rough Riders” up “San Juan Hill” (actually, in pancake-flat Winchester, it was a small incline known as Kettle Hill); bands that had come from as far as fifty miles away played patriotic music; glee clubs sang; and spectacular floats, representing patriotic, temperance, and labor union themes, were pulled by horses throughout the town. The largest delegation, from nearby Portland, Indiana, had brought twelve hundred marchers. The day’s celebratory events ended when a Randolph County native, Congressman James Watson, delivered an eloquent speech to a packed house. At midnight, the “Old 44” cannon on the courthouse square was fired and the Artillery Company bugler sounded “taps.”4

As was typical, James P. Goodrich, now the Republican chairman of the Eighth Congressional District, was so busy organizing the whole affair that he took little part in the official activities of the day. Staying in the background was a habit of his. Nonetheless, his work for the Republican Party did not go unnoticed by such men as Senator Fairbanks and even the great Teddy Roosevelt himself. James Goodrich’s rise in the party had begun about four years earlier, when William W. Canada, a Winchester attorney, resigned his position as Randolph County Republican chairman to accept a position in Washington, D.C. Immediately John Macy put James Goodrich’s name forward as Canada’s successor. Despite objections by local senior Republicans that James Goodrich was too young, Goodrich was elected chairman by a unanimous vote of the committee in 1897. He was only thirty-three years old.5

Goodrich was reelected in 1898. Soon afterward, he headed the statewide campaign of Union B. Hunt, a Winchester lawyer who sought the position of Indiana’s secretary of state. Hunt was nominated by the Republican Party and was elected in November. Political debutant Goodrich quickly learned the game of patronage and was consulted regarding numerous unfilled federal and state positions. In early 1898, Goodrich was encouraged by United States Congressman George Cromer to seek the chairmanship of the Eighth Congressional District. Despite a plot to derail his bid, Goodrich prevailed by traveling throughout the district to meet with nearly every voting delegate. He received more than 90 percent of the delegate vote and assumed the chairmanship of Indiana’s Eighth Congressional District at the age of thirty-six.6

After James Goodrich’s election as Eighth District chairman in 1898, his political work increased substantially. John Macy agreed to take over much of James’s law practice so that the loss of income would not be substantial. As Eighth District chairman, Goodrich became intimately involved with state politics; he was wooed by the state’s two powerful Republican United States senators—Charles W. Fairbanks, who would become vice-president to Theodore Roosevelt in 1905, and Albert J. Beveridge, Goodrich’s former classmate at DePauw University. Fairbanks and Beveridge courted his support because their own political futures depended largely on the ability of the state, district, and county chairmen to deliver a Republican legislature: Until 1912, when Article XVII of the Constitution was ratified, United States senators were not elected directly by popular vote, but were selected by the state’s legislature. Goodrich worked tirelessly in the campaign of 1900 to obtain a Republican victory in the Eighth District. The hard work paid off. A Republican landslide occurred: William McKinley was elected president over William Jennings Bryan (only to be assassinated in September 1901 and succeeded by Theodore Roosevelt); Winfield T. Durbin was elected governor, and a Republican majority was maintained in the state’s General Assembly.7

In late July 1901, Fairbanks approached Goodrich with the idea that Goodrich should seek the chairmanship of the Republican state committee. Fairbanks was a political power not only within Indiana, but nationally as well. He had been offered the vice-presidential nomination by McKinley in 1900 and had refused it, but he accepted it when Roosevelt offered it to him again in the 1904 election. Goodrich returned to Winchester and consulted with Macy about Fairbanks’s desire to see him as state party chairman. Macy encouraged his nephew to accept the post. To show his support, Macy offered to divide the earnings of their law practice while James was working on party activities.8 Goodrich met with Fairbanks the following day. He agreed to take the position on condition that no contributions would be accepted by the party from corporations that had direct dealings with the state. Fairbanks acceded to the request. On the following day, August 1, a meeting was held in Indianapolis with the state committee members and Goodrich was elected unanimously.9

In his autobiography, James Goodrich appraised his political responsibilities in Indiana over the next twenty years: “I might say without egotism here that from that time on down until 1921, the general policy of the Republican party so far as the organization was concerned was directed by me.”10 Within thirty days of his election as the state’s Republican Party chief, Goodrich was offered a retainer of five thousand dollars a year to represent the J. P. Morgan interests in Indiana. The true intent of the company, Goodrich realized, was “to employ the Chairman of the State Committee and not a country lawyer from over at Winchester.” The new party chief declined the offer, thwarting the first of many corporate intents to use his new powerful position.11

In 1902, Goodrich was again elected state chairman by the Republican Party. Almost all higher state officeholders went Republican: Daniel E. Storms of Stockwell won election as secretary of state, Charles W. Miller of Goshen was elected attorney general, and David E. Sherrick of Noblesville was elected auditor.

In 1904, James Watson chaired the Republican State Convention. James Goodrich was again elected state Republican chairman, despite an attempt by Albert Beveridge to defeat him. During most of their political lives, Goodrich and Beveridge had a guarded relationship. Beveridge, a man of great abilities, served in the United States Senate from 1889 to 1911. He is still considered one of the greatest orators in the history of the Senate, in the company of Daniel Webster of New Hampshire and John C. Calhoun of South Carolina. He was also a writer of some repute, especially in the area of biography, having written the life histories of Abraham Lincoln and the former United States Supreme Court justice John Marshall. For his biography of Marshall, Beveridge received the Pulitzer Prize in 1920. Goodrich held Indiana’s young senator in some esteem:

I have had from the time I knew him in college a great admiration for Senator Beveridge. He was intellectually honest, he had firm convictions on public questions and followed through on them. He had courage and intelligence of a very high order. I know that he never accepted a dollar as contribution from anyone. I saw him return to George Perkins [senior partner of J. P. Morgan Company and national chairman of the Progressive Party], a personal check for $25,000.00, to aid in his election but he was a profound egotist, believed in his inherent greatness and he was not bound by the limitations that surround men of lesser ability.12

Goodrich had a difficult time stroking the egos of Fairbanks, Beveridge, and Watson while maintaining party unity. He wrote of the task: “There was a great deal of jealousy among the men prominent in Indiana politics during the period I was State Chairman. Fairbanks, Beveridge, [and] Watson all had their eyes on the presidency, each was jealous of the other and it was somewhat of a job for the organization to steer a course that would give the least possible offense to any one of the three and yet be fair to all.”13

It was shortly after the 1904 election that an embarrassing situation occurred for the Indiana Republican Party. A number of state Republican officeholders, most notably Daniel Storms, who was secretary of state after Hunt, and David Sherrick, state auditor, were accused of embezzling state funds. While neither Goodrich nor the Republican governor, Harold Hanley, was implicated in the misappropriations, it was during their watch that Storms, Sherrick, and the others were elected. The result of the fiasco was mixed: Storms and Sherrick were forced to resign, but a depository law was passed by the legislature that required the state to adopt modern auditing practices.14

In December 1905, James Watson was elected majority whip in Congress under the powerful Speaker of the House Joseph Cannon.15 Despite his rise in Congress, Watson still dreamed of running for governor of Indiana. James Goodrich was again elected state party chairman in 1906 and 1908. At that time, Indiana law limited a governor to one term. In 1907, toward the end of Governor Hanley’s term, Hanley became very interested in anointing a successor. Goodrich recalled that Hanley sought him out to run for governor for two reasons: first, Hanley believed that the Winchester lawyer and businessman was qualified, and, second, and perhaps more important, Hanley knew that if Goodrich ran, James Watson would not. When Goodrich refused to be a candidate, the expected happened: Watson threw his hat into the political ring, seeking the top state post as a stepping-stone to the presidency. Watson received the Republican nomination on April 2, 1908.16 Goodrich, who had persuaded Watson not to run for governor in 1904, again strongly discouraged his close friend from running in 1908. Goodrich’s reason was that Watson had shot himself in the foot by flip-flopping on the all-important issue of temperance. Goodrich recalled that Watson was not committed to either position and played each against the other. “The trouble was that while [Watson] would whoop it up for the dry cause when with the Epworth Leaguers [members of a temperance society] and Anti-Saloon League, when he got with the boys at Terre Haute, Evansville, Lake County and other places he would put in his time drinking beer with the boys and assuring them he would be all right in case he was elected. The result was that neither side trusted him.”17

Watson’s equivocation on the temperance issue was his downfall. In the November 1908 election, he lost to the Democratic candidate, attorney Thomas Marshall of Columbia City, by a meager eight thousand votes. Marshall, who would become vice-president in 1913 under Woodrow Wilson, was essentially handed the governor’s seat by Watson’s blunder. Interestingly, the 1908 governor’s race caused Goodrich and his wife Cora to start thinking about their own political future. After the 1908 state Republican convention, James Goodrich recorded in his diary that Cora was quite smitten by the political maneuvering she had witnessed. “What caused me to record this I do not remember,” he wrote to Pierre. “[I]n fact, I was astonished when I found it there [in my diary], at the conclusion of the record of the day’s [Convention] fight: ‘From the expression upon her face, I believe that Mrs. Goodrich wants to be “Mrs. Governor” some day.’”18

At the 1908 Republican National Convention, held in Chicago from June 16 to June 19, Goodrich was a delegate from Indiana serving on the Committee on Credentials.19 William Howard Taft of Ohio was nominated for president by the Republicans, and he easily defeated the Democratic nominee, William Jennings Bryan, in the November general election. In anticipation of the 1910 presidential election off year, Goodrich begged to be relieved of his duties as state Republican chairman to return full time to his legal practice and business interests. Fairbanks, Watson, and even Beveridge asked him to continue, but he declined. Deferring to his wishes, the three politicians in January 1910 honored Goodrich at a farewell dinner at the Claypool Hotel in Indianapolis.20

During the next several years, Goodrich had to bail Watson out of one scrape after another. In 1908, Watson had given up his seat in Congress to run for governor and had lost. Once William Howard Taft took office as president, he offered the defeated gubernatorial candidate the position of either ambassador to Cuba or governor of Puerto Rico.21 Watson wanted to return to politics, however, and he hoped to make some quick money by working as a lobbyist in Washington, D.C., before seeking political office again in Indiana. Watson turned down Taft’s offers, which paid only ten thousand dollars a year, in favor of the more lucrative prospect of lobbying his former colleagues in Congress.22

No sooner had Watson returned to Washington as a lobbyist in 1909 than he became embroiled in a scam for which he was nearly prosecuted. Two states—California and Louisiana—were fighting for the right to host the Panama Exposition (promoting the construction of the Panama Canal). Watson had taken five thousand dollars as a retainer from a California delegation to promote the exhibition’s being held there. Soon afterward, the California delegation learned that Watson had also taken ten thousand dollars from a New Orleans delegation that believed that he was promoting their city as the site. Goodrich received a telegram from the former United States senator James A. Hemenway of Indiana, who had opened a law office with Watson, begging Goodrich to come to Washington to the aid of their mutual friend. Once there, Goodrich relates, it “took everything that [Vice-President] Fairbanks, Joe Cannon [Speaker of the House of Representatives], Hemenway, McKinley of Illinois and myself could do to prevent publicity and prosecution.” According to Goodrich, “Watson finally refunded the money to California and the matter was quieted down.”23

In an equally serious controversy in 1913, Watson was alleged to have received during his 1908 run for governor personal funds that were purportedly raised for his campaign by a lobbyist for the National Association of Manufacturers. The investigation of the Mulhall Affair, named for the lobbyist, resulted in weeks of hearings before both the United States Senate and the House.24 Again, Goodrich had to make statements in defense of his friend, given that he was state Republican chairman when the alleged “slush fund” money had been raised. Time and again, Goodrich came to Watson’s defense, especially in financial matters.25 Watson was simply too caught up in politics to take the time necessary to make money without involving himself in scandals.26

It is clear that Goodrich’s involvement in Republican politics did not extinguish his business desires. Although he would not allow himself to be employed as a paid lobbyist while he was state chairman, he apparently saw nothing wrong with taking on other business that came to him as a result of his political position. In 1908, Albert Barnes Anderson, federal judge of the Southern District of Indiana, appointed Goodrich receiver of the Chicago, Cincinnati and Louisville Railroad (CC&L). Goodrich was still serving as state Republican Party chief at the time. Many of the New England bondholders of the railroad were none too impressed that the chairman of the state Republican Party, who had no experience running a railroad, had been appointed to such an important position. It was well known that appointments to receiverships were political plums generally reserved for the party in power.

Despite the criticisms, Goodrich pressed ahead. The position required him to spend considerable time in Chicago, where he had an office from 1908 to 1912. “I never worked harder in my life than I did in the four years when I was actively running the railroad,” Goodrich recalled.27 Over the next four years, Goodrich was able to turn the operations of the railroad around to the point that it was handling traffic at 90 percent of the gross income for operating expenses. Soon afterward, he opened negotiations to sell the CC&L to the Chesapeake and Ohio Railroad (C&O). The merger was finally consummated in 1912, with the bondholders of the C&O taking on the debts of the CC&L. When the bonds of the CC&L were finally sold, the first bondholders (now the C&O bondholders) received the payment of par value for their stock plus interest while the second bondholders received eighty cents on the dollar.28

The bondholders of the Chesapeake and Ohio Railroad were so pleased with the early results of Goodrich’s work that they offered him another opportunity to expand his family’s interests in public utilities. These bondholders also owned the Jeffersonville Water Company and the Washington Water and Gas Company in Indiana. In 1908, both companies were in receivership. Goodrich could purchase the Washington Water and Gas Company if he would pay the price of the receivership certificates. He was also offered the opportunity to purchase the Jeffersonville Water Company if he would pay fifty cents on the dollar for the bonds. Goodrich accepted both offers. Goodrich purchased the Washington Water and Gas Company and filed a certificate of incorporation with the secretary of state’s office on June 30, 1908. The new company was named the Washington Water, Light and Power Company. Goodrich remained president of the company until 1919, when he stepped down and Jesse “Jett” Moorman, a business associate from Winchester, became head of the utility. At that same time, Pierre took his father’s position on the board. In 1913, the Washington Water, Light and Power Company purchased the Citizens Light and Fuel Company, thus expanding its area of service in Daviess County, Indiana.29

In January 1910, after resigning as state Republican chairman, Goodrich entered into a law partnership in Indianapolis with John Robbins and Henry Starr, both of whom were from Richmond, Indiana. In January 1913, Leander J. Monks resigned from the Indiana Supreme Court after serving for eighteen years and joined the firm, which came to be called Monks, Robbins, Starr and Goodrich. Its offices were located on the ninth floor of the Pythian Building in Indianapolis. Goodrich served as general counsel for the insurance department of the Knights of Pythias and performed other legal work. Goodrich practiced with the three attorneys until 1914, when he quit the practice of law to devote himself full time to his extensive business interests: banking, farming, mining, oil refining, railroads, public utilities, grain elevators, and bond houses.30

In 1912, as a result of his success in operating the Chicago, Cincinnati and Louisville Railroad while it was in receivership, Goodrich was appointed by a federal judge Renster, a Democrat, receiver of the Noelke-Richards Iron Works. Noelke-Richards had plants in both Indianapolis and Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania. The company had contracts to provide structural steel extending from Portland, Maine, to Seattle, Washington. Many of the creditors wanted to see Noelke-Richards go into bankruptcy. One of the company’s largest creditors was Bethlehem Steel Corporation of Pennsylvania. Goodrich met with the president of Bethlehem Steel, Charles Schwab. Schwab wanted bankruptcy, not an operating receivership. When Goodrich told Schwab that he thought that Noelke-Richards could pay fifty cents on the dollar if it were allowed to operate under a receivership arrangement, Schwab told Goodrich that the company would be fortunate to pay half that much. This prompted Goodrich to negotiate a deal with Schwab to accept twenty-five cents on the dollar. Only a year later, at the end of 1913, Goodrich disposed of all the assets of the company, paying creditors 87.5 cents on the dollar. Goodrich recalled, “Judge Renster did me the honor when the matter was closed up by stating publicly in open court that it was the most satisfactory trust that he had ever experienced either as a lawyer or judge.”31

Although James Goodrich had resigned from the chairmanship of the Indiana Republican Party in 1910, his political involvement continued. At the 1912 Republican National Convention in Chicago, he became a key player in an attempt to select a presidential nominee who could defeat the Democratic presidential candidate, Woodrow Wilson. In 1912, Goodrich had been appointed to the Republican National Committee as the Indiana delegate, succeeding Harry S. New of Indianapolis. New would become a United States senator in 1916 and postmaster general for President Warren G. Harding in 1923. Beginning in 1912, Goodrich was also selected to serve on the Republican National Executive Committee.

The Indiana Republican Party was in disarray at this time, and it looked to Goodrich for leadership. In an unprecedented situation, a former president, Theodore Roosevelt, was challenging the incumbent president, William Howard Taft, for the Republican nomination. Both desperately wanted to capture Indiana’s delegates at the national convention. Goodrich told Roosevelt that he would support Taft, because Taft was the incumbent. Goodrich knew, however, that the state strongly favored Roosevelt. When the vote was tallied at Indiana’s Eighth Congressional District Convention, Roosevelt won by a mere two votes. Taft personally asked Goodrich to contest the election, but Goodrich refused; instead, he made a motion that the selection of the Roosevelt delegates be unanimous, and that motion was carried. At the Indiana state convention in March, however, the Taft forces came out on top with a majority of 105.32

The fight between Taft and Roosevelt continued at the national convention in Chicago in June. James Watson, Charles Fairbanks, and Harry New served there as delegates-at-large from Indiana. Goodrich was a delegate by virtue of being a national committeeman. At that time, state party primaries did not precede the national convention. Therefore, at the convention, the selection of the party’s nominee for president was the primary task of the delegates. At the 1912 convention, however, the Republican National Committee, made up almost entirely of loyal Taft supporters, allowed Roosevelt only 19 out of 254 contested seats. The anomaly was that Roosevelt, in the minds of the American public, was by far the more popular figure of the two. Roosevelt let it be known in advance that he would not be bound by the convention results. It soon became evident to Goodrich that the fight between Taft and Roosevelt had become so acrimonious that the bloodbath would greatly decrease the chances of the eventual nominee’s defeating the Democrat presidential nominee, Woodrow Wilson. On June 22, Goodrich met with Roosevelt in the Florentine Room of the Congress Hotel and confronted the former president. Goodrich knew that Roosevelt would never step aside to allow Taft to be the nominee, but he believed that Roosevelt might accept the Missouri governor Herbert S. Hadley, a close friend of Roosevelt’s, as a compromise candidate. Goodrich was willing to nominate Hadley if Roosevelt conceded to the dealmaking. After waiting for two hours for Roosevelt to discuss the proposal with his top advisers, Goodrich was summoned into the former president’s suite: “I went to Roosevelt’s room on his invitation. He was alone. He told me the result of the conference. He said, ‘There can be no question but that I am the choice of the Republican party today. If Taft steals this nomination from me, the fight has only begun.’”33

Roosevelt overestimated his support among the delegates, who were bound to Taft. Taft prevailed as the Republican nominee after Roosevelt and his throng ultimately walked out of the convention. The irrepressible “Teddy,” however, was true to his word. He proceeded to form the Progressive Party (better known as the Bull Moose Party, because Roosevelt said that he was as fit as a bull moose when questions about his health were raised), and he fought Taft till the end. Just as Goodrich and the political pundits had predicted, the resulting bitter campaign between Roosevelt and Taft split the traditional Republican vote. This resulted in Wilson’s winning by a large electoral margin in the November election. Taft came in a distant third.34

At that point, Goodrich turned his political attention to his home state, where the Democratic Party had also prevailed by electing two successive governors (Thomas P. Marshall in 1908 and Samuel M. Ralston in 1912) and two United States senators (Benjamin F. Shively and John W. Kern). In an attempt to restore the state Republican Party machinery to its previous dominance, Goodrich sought out a young, bright lawyer from Sullivan, Indiana, to serve as party chairman. His name was Will Hays. The two men had first become acquainted in 1902, when Hays had become Sullivan County Republican chairman. Goodrich was greatly impressed with Hays’s energy, his Presbyterian values, and his ability to “dramatize things.” He wrote years later that Hays was “the best publicity man that ever lived.”35

By 1906, Goodrich had appointed Hays head of the Republican Party State Speakers Bureau, responsible for organizing more than one hundred speakers in ninety-two counties and thirteen congressional districts.36 In 1912, Hays received the appointment of vice-chairman of the state Republican Central Committee. In 1914, he was finally elected, with Goodrich’s assistance, state Republican Party chairman. At age thirty-five, he was two years younger than Goodrich had been when Goodrich had assumed the position in 1901. Hays’s selection as state party chief was significant to Goodrich’s own personal political ambitions. It served as the first stepping-stone toward reuniting the Indiana Republican Party and paved the way for Goodrich’s run for the governor’s seat in 1916.

[1. ]“Randolph County’s Teddy Roosevelt Rally Day,” Randolph County History: 1818–1990, p. 48.

[2. ]Ibid.

[3. ]Ibid.

[4. ]Ibid., pp. 48–49.

[5. ]Goodrich, “Autobiography,” pp. 42–44. Those who opposed Goodrich’s selection for local party chairman were the former Randolph Circuit Court judges Leander J. Monks, who had recently been appointed to Indiana’s Supreme Court, and Albert O. Marsh. They both claimed that Goodrich was too young. Goodrich was convinced, however, that Marsh’s objection was a result of Goodrich’s support of his former law mentor, James S. Engle, for the local judgeship when Monks resigned.

[6. ]Ibid., pp. 45–48.

[7. ]See Clifton J. Phillips, Indiana in Transition: The Emergence of an Industrial Commonwealth, 1880–1920 (Indianapolis: Indiana Historical Bureau and Indiana Historical Society, 1968), pp. 50–84.

[8. ]Goodrich practiced law with a number of attorneys after Enos and James Watson. From 1895 to 1900, Goodrich practiced with Macy and John J. Cheney. Cheney, who had previously served as Randolph Circuit Court judge, retired in 1900 and was replaced in the firm by Alonzo L. Nichols. In January 1902, Macy was appointed Randolph Circuit Court judge, and Macy’s position in the firm was filled by Alonzo L. Bales. The firm’s name was changed to Nichols, Goodrich and Bales. In 1908, Macy resigned as judge and rejoined Goodrich in the firm of Macy, Nichols, Goodrich and Bales. After Macy’s death in 1912, his son, John W. Macy, Jr., left Columbia Law School and replaced his father in the firm. In 1910, Goodrich opened a law office in Indianapolis under the name Robbins, Starr and Goodrich. In 1913, Leander Monks, originally from Winchester, resigned from the supreme court of Indiana and joined the firm, which became Monks, Robbins, Starr and Goodrich. See John L. Smith and Lee L. Driver, “James P. Goodrich,” in Past and Present of Randolph County Indiana (Indianapolis: A. W. Bowen, 1914), pp. 1521–24; “Judge John Winchester Macy,” Past and Present of Randolph County Indiana, pp. 1048–51.

[9. ]See “New Republican Chairman: J. P. Goodrich Slated to Succeed Hernly,” Indianapolis News, July 26, 1901, p. 8, col. 2; “J. P. Goodrich Chosen to Succeed Hernly as Republican State Chairman,” Indianapolis Journal, August 8, 1901, p. 8, col. 2.

[10. ]Goodrich, “Autobiography,” pp. 53–54.

[11. ]Ibid., p. 55; see also Rhodes, James P. Goodrich, Indiana’s “Governor Strangelove,” pp. 21–22.

[12. ]Goodrich, “Autobiography,” p. 65. For a more extensive account of the life of Albert J. Beveridge, see Claude G. Bowers, Beveridge and the Progressive Era (Cambridge, Mass.: Houghton Mifflin, 1932).

[13. ]Goodrich, “Autobiography,” p. 65.

[14. ]Ibid., pp. 70–77.

[15. ]“Watson’s Duties as House Whip,” Indianapolis News, December 16, 1905, p. 7, col. 4.

[16. ]“Watson Nominated for Governor,” Indianapolis Star, April 3, 1908, p. 1, col. 3; “Rushville, Watson’s Home Town and That of Hall, Democrat, Will Hold a Jollification Night over Both Candidates, Regardless of Party,” Indianapolis News, April 4, 1908, p. 14, col. 1. In a letter from James Watson to James P. Goodrich dated January 25, 1901, Watson wrote: “Your advice on the Governorship question is timely and I shall abide by it. I am a candidate for renomination [to Congress] and shall say nothing about my ever-living ambition to be Governor of Indiana.” James P. Goodrich Papers, Herbert Hoover Presidential Library, West Branch, Iowa.

[17. ]Goodrich, “Autobiography,” p. 80. See also “Watson and Bingham Cry Saloon-Democracy Bond: Liquor Issue Put First by Watson,” Indianapolis Star, June 5, 1908, p. 1, col. 7; “Watson Defends County Unit Plan,” Indianapolis News, June 5, 1908, p. 1, col. 3; and “Watson Penetrates Enemy’s Territory: Nominee in Special Train Makes Option Stand in Southern Indiana,” Indianapolis Star, October 30, 1908, p. 1, col. 1.

[18. ]Goodrich, “Autobiography,” p. 79.

[19. ]“Indiana Will Storm Chicago,” Indianapolis News, p. 3, col. 1.

[20. ]Goodrich, “Autobiography,” p. 83.

[21. ]“Watson Offered Choice of Two Plums by Taft,” Indianapolis Star, July 22, 1913, p. 5, col. 2.

[22. ]Goodrich, “Autobiography,” p. 84.

[23. ]Ibid., p. 85.

[24. ]Louis Ludlow, “Raised $22,000 in Campaign to Elect Watson,” Indianapolis Star, July 16, 1913, p. 1, col. 1; Louis Ludlow, “Watson Pleads Vainly to Take Witness Stand,” Indianapolis Star, July 25, 1913, p. 1, col. 1; “Spurns Watson In Last Appeal,” Indianapolis Star, July 26, 1913, p. 2, col. 3; Louis Ludlow, “Where Did Fund Go? Is Mystery Up to Mulhall: Goodrich and Parry Join in Charge that Manufacturers’ Gift Went Astray,” Indianapolis Star, July 28, 1913, p. 1, col. 1.

[25. ]Letters from Goodrich to Watson, January 31, 1918, and February 20, 1918 (regarding Goodrich’s cosigning for an overdue loan by Watson from National City Bank of Indianapolis), James P. Goodrich Papers, box 28.

[26. ]The assistance was not always one way. There were a few times when Watson came to Goodrich’s aid. Once, Watson tried to protect Shields Edger, James Goodrich’s uncle and an ardent Democrat, from being fired from his position as Winchester’s postmaster in June 1918 because of drunkenness. See letter from Watson to Goodrich, June 11, 1918, James P. Goodrich Papers, box 28.

[27. ]Goodrich, “Autobiography,” pp. 86–87.

[28. ]Ibid., pp. 87–88.

[29. ]Ibid., pp. 88–89. See also “Washington Water, Light and Power Company,” AR 2601–3, Dissolved Corporations, State Archives, Indiana Commission on Public Records. Other officers of the company were Henry Starr, vice-president, Chicago; Carl R. Semans, secretary, who also served as general manager of the company, Washington, Indiana; and Edwin H. Cates, treasurer, Richmond, Indiana. We know from the company’s 1913 annual report, dated April 30, 1913, that Washington Water, Light and Power Company purchased the Citizens Light and Fuel Company. The corporate office headquarters of Washington Water, Light and Power Company was Goodrich’s law office, located at 931–939 Pythian Building, Indianapolis.

[30. ]See “Goodrich, James Putnam,” The National Cyclopaedia of American Biography (New York: J. T. White, 1926), p. 76.

[31. ]Goodrich, “Autobiography,” pp. 91–92.

[32. ]Ibid., pp. 93–94.

[33. ]Ibid., p. 95.

[34. ]Woodrow Wilson won the 1912 presidency by gaining 6,293,453 popular votes, while Roosevelt received 4,119,538 votes and Taft received 3,484,980 votes. Eugene V. Debs, the Socialist Party candidate, received 900,672 votes. Wilson, however, achieved a major electoral college victory—435 to Roosevelt’s 88. Taft received only 8 electoral votes, and Debs received none. An excellent summary of the 1912 split between Taft and Roosevelt is contained in Will H. Hays, The Memoirs of Will H. Hays (Garden City, N.Y.: Doubleday, 1955), pp. 79–81.

[35. ]Goodrich, “Autobiography,” p. 110.

[36. ]See Hays, The Memoirs of Will H. Hays, p. 70.