BIOGRAPHY: Charles Evans Hughes; New York State

Transcribed by W. David Samuelsen
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An Illustrated Legislative Manual
The New York Red Book
Containing the Portraits and Biographies of the U.S. Senators, Governor, State
Officers and Members of the Legislature; also with the Portraits of Judges and
Court Reporters, the New Constitution of the State, Election and Population
Statistics, and General Facts of Interest.
By Edgar L. Murlin
New Constitution Compiled by R. C. Cumming, O. L. Potter and F. B. Gilbert
Published, Albany, J. B. Lyon Company, Publishers, 1909

Copyright by J. B. Lyon Company, 1909

Governor Hughes

     Charles Evans Hughes, Governor of the State of New York, was born in
Glens Falls on April 11, 1862. His father the Reverend David Charles Hughes,
is of Welsh descent, and his mother before her marriage was Miss Catherine
Connelly. At the time of his birth his father was pastor of the Baptist church
in Glens Falls.

     Mr. Hughes began his education at a public school in Oswgo, where his
father was preaching, and continued his studies in Newark, N.J., and in New
York city. He was a pupil of Grammar School No. 35 in New York city when in
June 1875, at the age of thirteen, he delivered the saluatory address in the
Academy of Music. At the age of fourteen he entered Madison, now Colgate
University, in Hamilton, N. Y. After remaining there two years he entered
Brown University in the sophomore class. He was nominated as one of the Phi
Beta Kappa men of the junior year, and he won the Dunn Premiium for the
highest standing in English Literature. He also became a member of the
editorial staff of the "Brunonian." Mr. Hughes graduated from Brown when he
was nineteen years of age in the class of 1881, delivered the classical
oration by virtue of his standing third in the class. He also took one of the
two Carpenter Premiums which are assigned to the two members of the senior
class who "shall, in the judgement of the faculty unite in the high degree the
three most important elements of success in life - ability, character and
attainment." The other prize went to Charles C. Mumford now associate judge of
the Superior Court of Rhode Island.

     After his graduation Mr. Hughes taught Greek and Mathematics in the
Delaware Academy, at Delhi, N.Y., at the same time studying law in the office
of Judge Gleason. He left the Academy in 1882 to enter the Columbia Law
School. While he was in the law school he devoted a portion of his time for a
year to the study of law in the office of General Stewart L. Woodford, who was
then United States District Attorney, and during a part of his last year in
the University he acted as clerk in the law firm of Chamberlain, Carter &
Hornblower, which later became Carter, Hornblower & Byrne. He graduated from
the law school in 1884, and was admitted to the Bar in the same year. He held
a Prize Fellowship from 1884 to 1887. In the latter year he became a member of
the firm with which he had connected himself before his graduation. Mr.
Hornblower and Mr. Byrne had then withdrawn and the title of the firm became
Carter, Hughes & Cravath. Mr. Hughes continued in practice until 1891, when
his health being threatened he became a Professor of Law in Cornell University
at Ithaca, N.Y., from 1891 to 1893. In the latter year he became a special
lecturer of law at Cornell University, from 1893 to 1895, and in the Nw York
Law School from 1893 to 1900. He left Ithaca in 1893 to resume the practice of
law, rejoining his old firm which became Carter, Hughes & Dwight. The firm's
name remained unchanged until 1903, when Mr. Dwight died and was succeeded by
George W. Schurman, a brother of Jacob Gould Schurman, President of Cornell
University. Mr. Carter died in 1904, and Mr. Hughes became the head of the
firm, the name being again changed to Hughes, Rounds & Schurman.

     The New York Legislature in 1905 appointed a special joint committee
headed by Senator Frederick C. Stevens of Attica, N.Y., to investigate the gas
and electric lighting companies of New York city. The committee engaged Mr.
Hughes as its counsel.

     The Legislature of 1905 in special session appointed a joint committee
headed by Senator William W. Armstrong of Rochester, to investigate the
business of life insurance. Mr. Hughes as then in Switzerland, but the manner
in which he had conducted the lighting investigation suggested his name as
counsel for the insurance investigation committee. He was asked to serve in
this capacity and he accepted, cutting short his trip abroad to assume the
duties of the appointment.

     The disclosures brought out by the investigation attracted much
attention to Mr. Hughes' work as counsel for the committee, and in the fall of
1905, although the investigation was not then more than half completed, the
Republicans of New York city determined to nominate him as their candidate for
mayor against Mayor George B. McClellan, Democrat, and William R. Hearst, who
ran as an independent nominee. Although Mr. Hughes declined to permit the use
of his name and discouraged the demand for his nomination, the Republican City
Convention insisted upon making him its candidate.

     The committee of notification of the Republican City Convention notified
Mr. Hughes of his nomination on October 9, 1905. In declining to accept he
said:

     "You summon to what you believe to be a public duty, and I shall not
answer that summons by referring to considerations merely personal, however
important they might be if the question was one of personal preference.

     "You and the many others who have urged me to accept the nomination have
not rested the request upon the basis of partisan obligation, but upon the
more secure foundation of duty to the community.

     "I am not insensible to this appeal and I fully appreciate the
responsibility of the position in which, against my will, I have been placed.

     "In this dilemma I have simply to do my duty as I see it. In my
judgement I have no right to accept the nomination. A paramount public duty
forbids it. It is not necessary to enlarge upon the importance of the
insurance investigation. That is undisputed. It is dealing with questions
vital to the interests of millions of our fellow citizens throughout the land.
It presents an opportunity for public service second to none and involves a
correlative responsibility. I have devoted myself unservedly to this work. It
commands all my energies. It is imperative that I continue in it.

     "I do not believe that the man lives, and certainly I am not the man,
who, while a candidate for the mayoralty, could perform with proper efficiency
that part of the work which has been devolved upon me in the pending inquiry.
If I were to accept the nomination for the high office of mayor of this city I
should be complelled to curtain this work, and this I have no right to do.

     "For your expressions of confidence I thank you. The honor you would
confer upon me I most highly esteem. Your genuine approval and the unanimity
and enthusiasm with which the nomination was made I warmly appreciate. But I
have assumed obligations of the first importance which make it impossible for
me to meet your wishes. I must, therefore, respectfully decline the
nomination."

     The insurance investigation entailed an immense amount of labor. The
report of the committee with a series of bills embodying their recommendations
was presented to the Legislature of 1906, and the legislation proposed was
enacted without change.

     After the close of the investigation Mr. Hughes was designated as one of
the special counsel of the United States Department of Justice to conduct an
inquiry for the purpose of ascertaining whether prosecution should be taken
against the coal owning and carrying railroads under the Anti-Trust and Anti-
Rebate Laws. In the summer of 1906, a strong demand arose for his nomination
as the Republican candidate for Governor. And when the Republican State
Convention met in Saratoga., Mr. Hughes was nominated by acclamation. On
receiving word that he was about to be nominated he sent the following
telegram to Senator Alfred R. Page of New York city, one of the delegates to
the Convention:

Hon. Alfred R. Page, Convention Hall, Saratoga, N.Y.

     "If I am nominated, and you think it advisable, present the following to
the convention:

     "I thank you for your confidence. The Republican Party has been called
to defend the honor of the State and to represent the common sense of the
people and the cause of decent government. I shall accept the nomination
without pledge other than to do my duty according to my conscience. If elected
it will be my ambition to give the State the same efficient and honorable
administration, free from taint of bossism or of servitude to any private
interest. A united party making an appeal to good citizenship must win.

Charles E. Hughes"

     He was formally notified of his nomination in the Republican Club in New
York city. In his speech of acceptance he said:

     "We enter upon the campaign inspired by the example and fortified by the
achievements of our great leader, Theodore Roosevelt. The national
administration with its record of established reforms has strengthened its
hold upon confidence of the people * * * Our state administration has also
accomplished many genuine reforms. The gas and electric monopoly of New York
city has been subjected to impartial investigation and a statute has been
passed fixing the rate to private consumers at eighty cents a thousand cubic
feet. While this act has been attacked and the claim of the companies that the
rate is so low as to amount to confiscation is before the Federal courts for
determination, the State has done all that it can do constitutionally to give
the residents of this city cheaper gas.

     "Corporations have been prohibited from contributing to political
campaign funds.

     "The business of life insurance, of vital consequence to the security of
our home, has been purged of its abuses and placed under restrictions
conserving the interests of policyholders.

     "What then is the supreme issue of this campaign? It is not an issue of
the Republican record. It is not an issue of Republican principles or of
Democratic principles. It is not a partisan issue at all. It is the vital
issue of decent government. It is an issue which shall array on one side all
lvoers of truth, of sobriety and of honest reform, be they Republicans,
Democrats or Independents.

"I promise an honest administration.

     "No interest, however prominent, will receive any consideration except
that to which upon the merits of the case it may be entitled, when viewed in
the light of the supreme interest of the people.

     "It will be my aim to make the administration of the government
efficient and economical.

     "I shall spare no effort to make effective the reforms in the business
of life insurance so essential to the interests of the policyholders.

     "I promise the enforcement of the law with equal severity and with equal
justice to all, rich and poor, corporations and individuals.

     "We desire to enforce the laws we have, and to enact such additional
laws as may be required to secure equal privileges and opportunities and to
prevent any one person or class of persons from being made the victim of
oppresion. We believe in open discussion and responsible criticism. But
efforts to make discontent serve self-interest, to create class hatred, to
distort the good and to exaggerate the evil, are subversive of our free
institutions and tend to anarchy.

     "We make our appeal to the common sense of the American people, which
has never failed to express itself decisively in a great crisis. We are
pledged to achieve reforms in the American manner, in accordance with the
genius of our institutions and with love of truth and even-handed justice.

"It is in this spirit and with these pledges alonethat I accept the
nomination."

     The exigencies of the campaign complelled Mr. Hughes to make an
exceedingly vigorous canvass of the State, extending to every large lcity and
in fact throughout nearly all the rural counties. He was the only candidate of
the Republican State ticket who was elected, receiving a plurality of 57,897
votes over William R. Hearst, the nominee of the Democratic party and of the
Independence League. The total number of votes cast for Mr. Hughes were
749,002 and for Mr. Hearst, 691,105.

In assuming office on January 1, 1907, Mr. Hughes in his inaugural address
said:

     "Fellow Citizens: I assume the office of Governor without other ambition
than to serve the people of the State. I have not coveted its powers nor do I
permit myself to shrink from its responsibilities. Sensible of its magnitude
and of my own limitations, I undertake the task of administration without
illusion. But you do not require the impossible. You have bound me to earnest
and honest endeavor in the interest of all the people according to the best of
my ability and that obligation, with the help of God, I shall discharge.

     "We have reasons to congratulate ourselves that concident with our
prosperity, there is an emphatic assertion of popular rights and a keen
resentment of public wrongs. There is no panaces in executive or legislative
action for all the ills of society which spring from the frailties and defects
of the human nature of its members. But this furnishes no excuse for
complacent inactivity and no reason for the toleration of wrongs made possible
by defective or inadequate legislation or by administrative partiality or
inefficiency.

     "The proper confines of legislative action are not to be determined by
generalities. Slowly but surely the people have narrowed the opportunities for
selfish aggression and the demand of this hour, and of all hours, is not
allegiance to phrases, but sympathy with every aspiratio nfor the betterment
of conditions and a sincere and patience effort to understand every need and
to ascertain in the light of experience the means best adapted to meet it.
Each measure proposed must ultimately be tested by critical analysis of the
particular problem, - the precise mischief alleged and the adequacy of the
proffered remedy. It is the capacity for such close examinatio nwithout heat
or disqualifying prejudice which distinguishes the constructive efort from
vain endeavors to change human nature by changing the forms of government.

     "It must freely be recognized that many of the evils of which we
complain have their source in the law itself, in privileges carelessly
granted, in opportunities for private aggrandizement at the expense of the
people recklessly created, in failure to safeguard our pubic interests by
providing means for just regulation of those enterprises which depend upon the
use of public franchises. Wherever the law gives unjust advnatage, wherever it
fails by suitable prohibition or regulation to protect the interests of the
people, wherever the power derived from the State is turned against the State,
there is not only room but urgent necessity for the assertion of the authority
of the State to enforce the common right.

     "The growth of our population and the necessary increase in our
charitable and correctional work, the great enterprises under State control, -
our canals, our highways, our forest preserves, - the protectio nof the public
health, the problems created by the congestion of population in our great
cities lead to a constant extension of governmental activity from which we
cannot have, and we would not seek, escape.

     "This extension compels the strictest insistence upon the highest
administrative standards. We are a government of laws and not of men. We
subordinate individual caprice to defined duty. The essential sof our
liberties are expressed in constitutional enactments removed from the risk of
temporary agitation. But the security of our government despite its
constitutional guaranties is found in the intelligence and public spirit of
its citizens and in its ability to call to the work of administration men of
single-minded devotion to the public interests, who make unselfish service to
the State a point of knightly honor.

     "If in administration we make the standard efficiency and not partisan
advantage, if in executing the laws we deal impartially, if in making the laws
there is fair and intelligent action with reference to each exigency, we shall
disarm reckless and selfish agitators and take from the enemies of our peace
their vantage ground of attack.

     "It is my intentiont o employ my constitution powers to this end. I
believe in the sincerity and good sense of the people. I believe that they are
intent in having government which recognies no favored interests and which is
not conducted in any part for selfish ends. They will not be, and they should
not be, content with less."

     Mr. Hughes married on December 5, 1888, Miss Antoinette Carter, who was
a daughter of the seniro member of the law firm of Carter, Hughes & Dwight. He
has four children, Charles E., Jr., who is an undergraduate in Brown
University, and Helen, Catherine, and Elizabeth.

     Mr. Hughes holds the degrees of A. B., A. M. and LL.D. from Brown
University and LL.D. from Lafayette College, Hamilton College, Columbia
University, George Washington College, and Knox College, and LL.R. from
Columbia. He is a member of the American Bar Association, of the State Bar
Assocition and of the Bar Association of the city of New York. He is a trustee
of Brown University and a member of the following clubs, Union League,
University, Republican, Lawyers, Brown, Cornell, Delta Epsilon of New York
city and of the Fort Orange Club of Albany, and of the Nassau Country Club and
Albany Country Club.

     In his first annual message to the Legislature in 1907, Governor Hughes
recommended the passage of a Public Service Commissions law, with supervision
over steam railroads, street railroads in cities, rapid transit railways and
gas and electric light, heat and power companies. In accordance with his
recommendations the Legislature passed a law dividing the State into two
districts, the first district consisting of New York City and the second
district of the rest of the State. The law created commissions of five members
for each district to take place of the State Railroad Commission, the Rapid
Transisit Commission of New York City, the State Commission of Gas and
Electricity, and the State Superintendent of Gas Meters. These commissions
have power to regulate the service given by public service corporations, the
rates that they shall charge and their financial operations and the commission
of the first district has authority to lay out rapid transit routes and
supervise the construction of rapid transit lines in the City of New York. The
New York law has served as the basis for similar statutes in other states.

     The Governor, in his message, also recommended that the undeveloped
water powers of the State should not be surrendered to private interests, but
should be duly safeguarded. In response to this recommendation the State Water
Supply Commission was authorized to make a comphrensive survey of the State's
water powers and to report upon plans for their development. A bill was passed
granting to a private electrical power corporation the right to establish a
plant upon the St. Lawrence river. The Governor declined to sign it until a
provision for adequate payment to the State, in proportion to the amount of
electrical power generated and sold, had been inserted. This was the first law
of its kind ever enacted in New York.


     The extension of the Corrupt Practices Act, the adoption of the
Massachusetts ballot, and Direct Nominations were also recommended by the
Governor's first message, no action was taken upon these recommendations, with
the exception of that relating to the betterprevention of corrupt practices.

     Important recommendations for the amendment of the Labor Law, for the
protection of women and children and the better enforcement of the law, were
followed by legislation along the lines suggested.

     In his annual message of 1908, Governor Hughes recommended that the
statute relating to pool selling and book making upon race tracks be amended
in accordance with the Constitution of the State, so as to place this form of
gambling upon an equality with other forms of gambling, thus removing the
immunity from interference with it had hitherto enjoyed. His recommendation
was adopted at an extra session of the Legislature.

     The Governor renewed his recommendations for the adoption of the
Massachusetts ballot and for the direct nomination of party candidates for
office, but no action was taken by the Legislature.

     During the panic of 1907 th eGovernor appointed an unofficial commission
to examine the banking laws of the State and suggest needed amendments. In his
message to the Legislature he recommended the adoptiono f the amendments
suggested by the commission and the bills so suggested were passed.

     Other recommendations regarding the revision of the New York city
charter and the ascertainment of the debt limit of New York city, affecting
the charitable and penal institutions of the State, relating to agriculture
and labor, and providing for safeguarding the public domain, resulted in
legislative enactments.

     Governor Hughes in the spring of 1908 was the choice of a majority of
the delegates from New York State to the Republican National Convention fo
rthe nomination for President. In the fall of 1908 he was renominated for the
office of Governor by the Republican State Convention, and was re-elected;
receiving 804, 651 votes to 735,189 cast for Lewis s. Chanler, the candidate
of the Democratic party for Governor.