TUSCARAWAS COUNTY OHIO - BIOS: RALSTON, Hon. Samuel M. (1931)
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INDIANA ONE HUNDRED AND FIFTY YEARS OF AMERICAN DEVELOPMENT
The Lewis Publishing Company, 1931
Volume III, page 496

        HON. SAMUEL M. RALSTON, governor of Indiana from 1913 to 1917, was
born December 1, 1857, on a farm near New Cumberland, Tuscarawas County.
        In 1865, when he was in his eighth year, his parents moved to Owen
County, Indiana, where he lived until 1873. Financial reverses, resulting
from the panic of that year, overtook his father, who had been a successful
farmer and livestock dealer, and served to deprive the growing boy, then
sixteen years old, of many advantages he otherwise would have enjoyed.
        Samuel knew trials and difficulties without number, on the farm in
the butcher business and in the coal mine, but he bore them cheerfully and
never ceased in his efforts to fit himself for a higher calling. For seven
years he taught school during the winter months and attended school during
the summer. He was graduated August 1, 1884, in the scientific course of
the Central Indiana Normal College at Danville, Indiana. Mr. Ralston read
law in the office of Robinson & Fowler at Spencer, Owen County, Indiana. He
took up his legal studies in September, 1884, and was admitted to the bar
in the Owen Circuit Court January 1, 1886. In the following June he entered
upon the practice of his profession at Lebanon, Boone County, Indiana. Here
he enjoyed a paying practice until he went to the governor's office.
        Politically Mr. Ralston was always identified with the Democratic
party. He was his party's candidate for joint senator for Boone, Clinton
and Montgomery counties in 1888. Twice he was a candidate for secretary of
state, respectively in 1896 and 1898, and was defeated for the nomination
for governor in 1908 by Vice President Thomas R. Marshall.
        In 1912 there were expressions all over the state that now had come
the time to nominate "Sam Ralston" for governor. When the convention
assembled in Tomlinson Hall March 17, 1912, no other name than that of
Samuel M. Ralston was presented for governor, and his nomination followed
by acclamation.
        Mr. Ralston was elected governor by an unprecedented plurality.
Governor Ralston's remarkable strength of body and mind, his quick and sure
insight into the intricacies of civic machinery, his readiness for instant
action, gave him a wonderful mastery over the details of his office and
made him a most excellent judge of state and economic problems. Courage and
determination marked his conduct while in office.
        During the great street car strike in Indianapolis in October and
November, 1913, the governor called out the entire National Guard. He
refused to put the troops into the streets to force the immediate action of
the cars, but demanded that the street car company through him treat with
the strikers. His firmness won the day. His services as arbitrator were
effective and the City of Indianapolis returned to normal life.
        Under the leadership of Governor Ralston the Legislatures of 1913
and 1915 passed many acts for the protection of the working man and the
betterment of his working and living conditions and the protection of
society. Laws were passed providing for the prohibition of the sale of
habit-forming drugs, for the conservation of our natural resources,
development of livestock industry, prevention of tuberculosis, for
industrial aid to the blind, for the regulation of hospital and tenement
houses, and for securing a supply of pure water and the establishment of
children's playgrounds. In 1915 there was passed, with the support of the
governor, a law that effectually stamped out the social evil and abolished
the redlight district. Two of the outstanding pieces of constructive
legislation of his administration were the Public Utilities Law and the
Vocational Educational Act.
        For many years Indiana carried a heavy debt. It had been an issue
in every campaign of more or less consequence for forty years, but no party
and no leader had been willing to take a stand for its early liquidation.
Governor Ralston was, and before his administration closed the state paid
the last cent it owed, and for the first time in eighty years was out of debt.
        Realizing the important part of good roads play in our
civilization, Governor Ralston in 1914 appointed a non-partisan highway
commission, composed of five distinguished citizens of the state.
        Great as were the services he rendered the state there was no
bluster or pretense about the centennial governor. He pursued the even
tenor of his way and his acts met with the approval, with but few
exceptions, of the entire press of Indiana. He died October 14, 1925.





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