The History of Maryland

HISTORY OF MARYLAND FROM 1865 TO 1909.

Political Condition at Close of War.

The state of Maryland is essentially conservative, although the conservatism is not of that hide-bound type which resists all improvement. The large number of first things which are attributed to the state show the progressiveness which characterizes the people, yet this progressiveness carries with it no feverish search for novelties; a careful testing, either by the Marylanders or by other peoples, is demanded before new measures are adopted. Thus it was thoroughly characteristic of the state that the worst taunt which could be flung at a political party was the term radical, and that the Democratic party dominated Maryland for many years, while it placed at the head of its tickets its name with the adjective, conservative, but lost the state on national issues to the Republican party, when it had lost the right to the use of this adjective.

In 1805 the state of Maryland found itself emerging from the great war of the past four years which was just closing. During that combat she had taken the side of the Union, though her sons had fought bravely in the armies on both sides of the struggle. She had suffered comparatively little devastation from the campaigns of the war, although the Confederate armies had thrice crossed her frontiers on important movements and two, noteworthy battles had been fought within her borders. In 1864 a constitutional convention had prepared fundamental laws for the state, which Augustus AV. Bradford, the governor, had just declared to have been adopted by popular vote. This constitution was redolent of loyalty to the Union, prescribed severe test oaths as to loyalty to be taken by individuals before they could exercise political rights, gave Baltimore increased representation in the legislature, abolished slavery and provided for the establishment of a state system of public schools.

The election of November, 1864, had resulted in the choice of Thomas Swann as governor and of Dr. C. C. Cox as lieutenant-governor, both of Baltimore City. Both men were candidates on the Union ticket and were opposed by Democrats, who supported the national platform on which McClellan sought the presidency. In national politics the state was represented in the Senate by Reverdy Johnson, an astute and genial lawyer, who was one of the leaders of the Federal bar, and by Thomas Holliday Hicks, who had been governor at the outbreak of the war. At Governor Hicks's death in 1865, his place was filled by the election of J. A. J. Creswell, of Cecil county, who was later appointed postmaster-general by President Grant, and who served as one of the United States counsel in the Alabama claims before the Geneva tribunal. Johnson, the other senator, was eminently serviceable to the country as a conservative, endeavoring to harmonize the diverse interests during the early reconstruction period, and was remarkably influential, owing to his knowledge of constitutional law and his personal popularity with the members regardless of their party affiliation. He retired from the Senate in 1868 to become Minister to Great Britain. He was cordially received there, and after a year's service returned to the practice of law in Baltimore, closing a long life of public service with a sudden death in 1876. From the House of Representatives, the eloquent and able Henry Winter Davis was just about to retire and to finish a brilliant career by an untimely death in December, 1865. Congress paid him the unprecedented tribute of having him publicly eulogized, though he was not a member at the time of his death. Among the representatives elected from the state to the Thirty-ninth Congress the most noteworthy were- Francis Thomas, an erratic but forceful man, a former governor of the state, who represented the Western Maryland district and the extreme Union men, and the gallant soldier, Gen. Charles E. Phelps, just returning from command of a Maryland regiment in the Union army. After a brief career in Congress General Phelps followed President Johnson into the Democratic party, and returning to the practice of law won high reputation as a judge of the Baltimore courts for nearly thirty years, while the literary labors of his leisure hours made him widely known as a Shakespearean scholar. Montgomery Blair, who had served in Lincoln's cabinet, was now residing in the state and threw himself into the conservative movement.

There had been no Republican party in Maryland during the war, but the dominant party had been the Union one, composed of Old Line Whigs, Know-Nothings and Democrats, banded together because of the predominance of one issue-the preservation of the Union. They had stayed together until the close of the war, but now a wide cleavage came among them, and in the days of the reconstruction of the Southern states those Union men, who were not willing to follow the course of the majority in Congress, aligned themselves with the Democratic party in the state, while the remnant of the Union party reorganized itself as the Republican party. The division may be seen clearly in the course of the two men chosen to executive office in 1864, for Governor Swann became a Democrat, while Lieutenant-Governor Cox became a Republican. The result of the readjustment of voters was that the vast majority of citizens became Democrats for the time, and the ranks of the Republicans, though much increased by the negro voters, who were added to the electorate by the Fifteenth amendment to the Federal constitution in 1870, were so much in the minority that, from 1866 to 1895, Maryland suffered the disadvantages of being a one-party state.

In 1865, while the unconditional Union men controlled the state, Maryland had its first law for the registration of voters. Disloyal persons were rigidly to be excluded from the lists, and the registrars were given power to refuse to permit suspected persons to register, even though they took the oath of allegiance. The courts upheld the constitutionality of the act, but it produced a widespread dissatisfaction and only a comparatively small number of voters registered. Governor Swann at first supported the law, but just before the November election of 1866 he changed his position, removed the police commissioners of Baltimore City, who had been extremely zealous in rigorously enforcing the law, and appointed others more conservative. These latter were thrown into jail on a warrant, but were released on writ of habeas corpus shortly after the election. In spite of their arrest and the limited electorate, Baltimore City cast a majority for the Democratic ticket, and the majority for that party's legislative nominees throughout the state was very considerable. This legislature, convening in January, 1867, repealed the registration law, and enacted one requiring merely an oath of future loyalty, while it also provided for a vote in April on the question of holding a new constitutional convention. During the session Governor Swann was elected to the United States Senate, a law requiring one senator to come from the Eastern Shore being repealed for that purpose. Fearing, however, that Dr. Cox, as governor, would follow a different policy, Governor Swann changed his mind at the last minute and declined the honor. The legislature thereupon elected as senator Philip Francis Thomas, an Eastern Shoreman, who had been in Buchanan's cabinet in 1860. In spite of Reverdy Johnson's efforts, the Senate, in February, 1868, refused to receive Thomas on the ground of a doubt as to his past loyalty, and the legislature then elected George Vickers, of Kent county, as senator. Governor Swann sat in the House of Representatives as a Democrat from 1869 to 1879. When Johnson r tired from the Senate in 1868, the governor a pointed, at his request, William Pinkney Whyte succeed him. Whyte was a man of wonderful physical force and energy, who entered politics about 1850 and closed his long and distinguished career 1908, while again a member of the national Senate.

Constitution of 1867.

A large majority of the electorate favored the constitutional convention, and it assembled at Annapolis on May 8, 1867. Its sessions lasted until August 17, and its acts were ratified by a two-thirds majority of the voters at the election held on September 18. The constitution went into effect on October 15, and is still in force, but slightly amended. It provides that the question of a constitutional convention be submitted to the people every twenty years; but, both in 1887 and in 1907, the people voted against holding such a convention, fearing the uncertain result of its deliberations.

In some ways the constitution of 1867 was a reactionary one from that of 1864. It abolished the office of lieutenant-governor and changed the oath of allegiance to the state so as to omit all mention of the United States: but it preserved many of the important feature, of the previous condition. A governor to serve for four years was provided and a legislature of two houses: the upper house or Senate, a continuous body elected for four years to consist of one member from each county, or legislative district of Baltimore City (of which there mere then three, now increased to four), and a lower house or House of Delegates, elected for two years, composed of from two to six members from each county, according to population as ascertained by state or Federal census. Each legislative district in the city is represented by the same number of delegates as the largest county. Although Baltimore City has nearly half the population and pays considerably over half the taxes of the state, it is seen that her representation is not proportionate to her importance, and a seeming jealousy between the city and the counties makes it doubly difficult, at times, for the former to obtain her desires. The legislature holds biennial sessions limited to ninety days. The state is divided for judicial purposes into eight circuits, each of which elects one member of the Court of Appeals. Baltimore City constitutes one circuit, with ten judges, in addition to the member of the Court of Appeals who does not sit in the courts below. Each of the other seven circuits contains from two to four counties and elects two judges, who are associated in holding court with the member of the Court of Appeals from the circuit, who sits also as chief judge of the circuit courts. The high reputation of the Maryland judiciary has been still further enhanced by the work of such chief judges of the state Court of Appeals as R. J. Bowie, R. H. Alvey, J. M. Robinson, James McSherry and A. Hunter Boyd.

By the constitution, Wicomico county was established on the Eastern Shore with Salisbury as its county seat. In 1872 the extreme western portion of the state was erected into Garrett county, with Oakland as its county seat, and the number of twenty-three counties thus attained has not since been changed.

The Republican party in Maryland struggled to check the march of events, but the Maryland courts decided against their contentions and Congress refused to listen to their complaints. The first election under the new constitution was held in Baltimore on Oct. 23, 1867, and resulted in the election of the Democratic candidate by a vote of 18,420 to 4,896. Two weeks later the state chose as governor Oden Bowie, the Democratic nominee, by a vote of 63,694 to 22,050, and associated with him an unanimously Democratic legislature.

Noteworthy Events, 1868-1908.

In July, 1868, a noteworthy flood occurred on the Patapsco River and in Baltimore. In autumn of that year the electoral vote of the state for president was cast for Seymour, the Democratic candidate, and in 1869 another unanimously Democratic legislature was chosen. In 1870 the Republicans carried several counties by small majorities in the congressional election, but elected no congressmen. A year later, largely through the efforts of Dr. Lewis H. Steiner, they carried Frederick county, and under his fearless and persistent leadership for twelve years in the legislature the party became an important factor in the state. At the election of 1871, William Pinkney Whyte was elected governor by a majority of 15,000, and the Democratic party continued under his leadership for several years. In 1874 he was chosen United States senator and, accepting the position, was succeeded by James Black Groome, of Cecil county, for the remainder of the gubernatorial term. The legislature of 1872 had, as Speaker of its House of Delegates, Arthur P. Gorman, of Howard county, a man of remarkable astuteness and shrewdness. During the years which followed, as president of the Chesapeake and Ohio Canal, which was controlled by the state in virtue of large investments therein, he built up a remarkable following in the Democratic party, and in 1880 he was chosen by the legislature to succeed Governor Whyte in the United States Senate. From that time to his death in 1906, the control of the Democratic organization in Maryland was in the hands of Senator Gorman and his friends, and, except for four years from 1899 to 1903, he was continuously in the Senate.

In July, 1872, the National Democratic Convention met in Baltimore and nominated Horace Greeley for the presidency. In November the state chose electors favorable to him by a majority of less than a thousand, so distasteful was his nomination to the conservative wing of the Democrats, while two of the Republican candidates for Congress were elected.

In July, 1873, a destructive fire raged in Baltimore. In the same year the Baltimore & Potomac Railroad was opened and gave a second route from. the North to Washington, and the city was traversed by a tunnel which permitted trains to run through it from east to west. In the endeavor to gain southern trade, Baltimore made an investment of a million dollars in the Valley Railroad of Virginia, from which she has had but little return. Some ten years later the Pennsylvania Railroad bought the line from Baltimore to Philadelphia, and the Baltimore & Ohio followed this purchase by building a parallel line to obtain an outlet for its trade.

The one-party state is apt to be one into which abuses creep, and such was claimed to be the condition in Maryland. Objecting to the control of Governor Whyte and his associates, a number of Reform Democrats broke away from their party in 1875, refused to accept the nomination of John Lee Carroll, of Howard county, for governor, and, fusing with the Republicans, nominated a reform ticket, headed by J. Morrison Harris and containing the name of S. Teackle Wallis, a leader of the Baltimore bar, as candidate for attorney-general. A reform ticket was also nominated for the mayoralty election

in Baltimore and was defeated by a small majority. In the gubernatorial election Harris carried the counties, but a large majority returned for the Democratic ticket in Baltimore City was sufficient to elect Carroll. Great frauds were proved, but the face of the returns was accepted as the basis of choice and Carroll was inaugurated. Now began an age-long conflict, which has no parallel in American history. Organizing an association, under the name of the Baltimore Reform League, Wallis and his associates waged a never-ending struggle with the state and City Democratic organizations. Gradually, a large number of independent voters came to hold the balance of power in Baltimore. No independent ticket was nominated and fusion occurred very seldom, but, from time to time, Republican candidates received the support of the Reform League, and that support, frequently, has led to an election. This, in turn, led the Democratic party to nominate men of higher character, and has much improved political conditions.
In 1876 the state swung far over into the Democratic column, electing six Democratic congressmen and casting a majority of nearly 20,000 for the Tilden electors. The Centennial Exposition in that year aroused much interest in the state. July, 1877, saw the most terrible strike of laboring men which Maryland has known. A reduction in the waves of the employees of the Baltimore & Ohio Railroad Company led to rioting and such disturbances that the National Guard. were called out and the assistance of Federal troops was asked.

The efforts of the reform element led to the nomination by the Democratic party of William T. Hamilton of Washington county, for the governorship in 1879, and he was elected by the large majority of 22,000. During his administration a number of important measures were adopted by the legislature, although that body failed to follow many of Governor Hamilton's recommendations looking towards good government. In 1880 the state's electors voted for Hancock, the Democratic nominee for president. In 1882 the reform element had its first victory in Baltimore City, electing "new judges" by coalition with the Republicans over the old judges renominated by the regular Democrats.

In Baltimore a new city hall had been erected and dedicated in 1875. Some ten years later a Federal building was constructed, and after another decade a splendid municipal courthouse was placed on the square still further to the west. The courthouse was opened in 1900, and, like the city hall, it was built within the original appropriation. A new custom house, somewhat to the south of the city hall, was completed in 1907, and thus the city has a rather unusually excellent civic centre. In October, 1880, the Baltimoreans celebrated, with elaborate festivities, the sesqui-centennial of the city's foundation.

At the conclusion of Governor Hamilton's administration, he was succeeded by Robert M. McLane, of Baltimore. In 1884 Maryland's persistence in voting for Democratic candidates for the presidency was rewarded by the election of Cleveland. He appointed Governor McLane United States Minister to France, and the remainder of the gubernatorial term was filled by Henry Lloyd, of Dorchester county. Maryland's congressional delegation during this decade numbered such eloquent and able men as J. V. L. Findlay, Isidor Rayner and Henry Stockbridge.

In 1887 the Baltimore & Ohio Railroad, which had been thought a remarkably prosperous corporation, ceased to pay dividends, and many citizens who were stockholders suffered severe losses. In 1896 the road went into the hands of receivers : John K. Cowen and Oscar G. Murray. Cowen was an able lawyer and a man of great power, and by the daring issue of receivers' certificates and extensive reconstruction of the road he was able, after little more than three years, to return it to its stockholders under the original charter. He became the first president of the reorganized road, and during his direction of its affairs a tunnel was dug under the city so that there, might be direct connection between the lines on the east and west sides of Baltimore.

In 1885 the first electric railway in the United States was opened in Baltimore. It did not prove a success, however, and was soon abandoned. A cable road was opened in 1889 and a trolley line in 1892, and the various lines were thereafter speedily electrified, so that within a decade all street car transportation in Baltimore was by electricity.

The financial interests of the state suffered a shock in 1890, when the defalcation of the state treasurer became known. He had been universally trusted and yet had managed to misappropriate considerably over $100,000 of the state's funds. The loss to his bondsmen was heavy and the incident gave an especial incentive to the founding of bonding companies in Baltimore.

The "belt" of suburban territory to the north and west of Baltimore was annexed to the city in 1888. The spring of the next year saw disastrous floods in western Maryland, which so damaged the Chesapeake & Ohio Canal that it was never afterwards successfully operated, although it was not sold to the Western Maryland Railroad until over fifteen years later.

The Democratic candidate for governor, Elihu E. Jackson, of Wicomico county, was elected in 1887, and in the next year the state's electoral vote was again cast for Cleveland.

There had long been complaint of intimidation and fraud at elections, especially in Baltimore City, and to prevent the recurrence of such acts an Australian Ballot Law was adopted in 1890. It resulted in much bettered conditions, but being only a partial measure needed considerable improvement.

Frank Brown, of Carroll county, was elected governor on the Democratic ticket in 1891, and in 1892 the electoral vote was cast for Cleveland for the third time. Governor Brown was obliged to call out the militia on account of a strike of coal miners in Frostburg in 1894. The congressional elections, in the fall of that year, showed for the first time a popular Republican majority in the state. This fact gave the party new courage, and in 1895 it nominated one of its best men, Lloyd Lowndes, of Allegany county. The Reform League and many Democrats, such as Governor Whyte, who had become dissatisfied with conditions in their party and in the state, supported Lown des, and especial efforts were exerted to prevent fraud or intimidation at the polls in Baltimore. The election resulted in the choice of Lowndes as governor by a majority of 18,000. The legislature was Republican on joint ballot, and chose George L. Wellington, of Allegany county, as United States senator, disregarding the Eastern Shore law and recognizing Western Maryland the strongest Republican portion of the state. The most important measures of the session were the passage of an excellent ballot law prepared by the Reform League (which did away with all intimidation and riot at the polls), and the establishment of the State Geological Survey, whose achievements have been very extensive and of a remarkably high character.

The nomination of William J. Bryan for the presidency by the Democratic party in 1896 was not favorably received in Maryland, where the sentiment in favor of a gold standard was very strong. The Prohibitionists nominated Joshua Levering, of Baltimore City, for president, but his vote was small, and the Republican ticket, headed by McKinley, carried the state by 32,000 plurality, while every Republican nominee for Congress was elected. President McKinley called to his cabinet, as postmaster-general, dames A. Gary, who is a prominent manufacturer of Baltimore and who had long been prominent in state politics. In 1897 a legislature was chosen with Republican majorities in both houses, the only time such an event has occurred, and at the Session of 1898, Hon. Louis E. McComas, a jurist of experience, was chosen United States senator, while a new and greatly improved city charter was adopted for Baltimore, coordinating the various departments and vesting large powers over appropriations in a board of estimates.

The same year saw the outbreak of the Spanish-American war. The patriotism of the state manifested itself in the enlistment of two regiments of volunteer soldiers and a battalion of naval militia; but the short duration of the struggle prevented them from engaging in active campaigning. Two of the popular heroes of the war in the regular forces, however, Admiral W. S. Schley and Gen. H. G. Otis, were born in or near Frederick City.

The new charter of Baltimore City went into effect in 1899 with the Democratic party in power, and the same party won the gubernatorial election in the autumn, owing, in large part, to party dissensions, Governor Lowndes being defeated for reelection, by John Walter Smith, of Worcester county. Four years after Governor Smith's retirement from the governorship he was elected to the United States Senate.

In 1900 the state cast its electoral vote for McKinley for the second time by nearly 14,000 majority. In 1901 Governor Smith called an extra session of the legislature to amend the ballot law and to provide for a state census, since certain frauds, which were afterwards corrected, had been found in the Federal census of 1900. The election law adopted at this session abolished the party columns and emblems from the ballot and marked the beginning of a continuous policy on the part of the Democratic party organization for the suppression of the negro vote. The election of 1901 turned upon the question of approving, or condemning, this election law and certain so-called trick ballots in some of the counties, and resulted in the choice of a Democratic legislature, but in the election of a Republican Clerk of the Court of Appeals and a Democratic comptroller by very small majorities. In recent years the state has shown a tendency to cast its vote for Republican candidates on national issues and for Democratic ones on state issues; thus, in 1902, the Republicans carried Maryland on the Congressional vote; but in 1903 Edwin Warfield, of Howard county, was selected as governor by a majority of 12,000 over Stevenson A. Williams, of Harford county, a strong candidate named by the Republicans.

The period since Governor Smith's election has been one of remarkable construction of public buildings at Annapolis. The United States government has erected a new Federal building there and has reconstructed the Naval Academy at the cost of several millions of dollars. A building for the Court of Appeals and the State Library was erected near the State House, and a very large annex was added to the State House itself in Governor Warfield's administration, while the interior of that fine colonial structure was remodeled so to restore its original appearance as far as possible.

An important event was the great fire of Feb. 7, 1904, in Baltimore, which burnt over about 160 acres of ground and destroyed nearly $100,000,000 worth of property. Fortunately, the public officials acted with promptness and decision, and so effectively that no lives were lost and there was no robbery. Fortunately also, the legislature was in session and passed a number of remedial measures, establishing a Burnt District Commission to deal with the difficult problems arising from the fire. The city had recently sold its controlling interest in the Western Maryland Railroad and still had in its treasury the sum received from that sale. This money was used for widening streets and for other improvements, and the spirit of progress urged the city on to the construction of an adequate sewerage system, the development of the public parks and the building of modern municipal wharves to take the place of those which had burned.

In the autumn of 1906 a month's canvass of the city produced subscriptions sufficient to enable the Young Men's Christian Association to erect a new building at a cost of over six hundred thousand dollars.

The legislature of 1904 proposed to the voters a constitutional amendment relating to the suffrage. This amendment is usually known by the name of John P. Poe, Esq., a leading lawyer who framed it, included a so-called "grandfather's clause," and gave considerable discretionary power to the officers of registration. It was opposed by Governor Warfield, the Democratic attorney-general, and many other prominent members of that party, as well as by the united body of Republicans, and was defeated in the election of 1905 by a majority of 34,000, although a legislature with a Democratic majority was then elected. The legislature of 1904 elected Isidor Rayner as United States senator, and also passed a law known as the Shoemaker Law, designed to promote good roads by lending state aid to their improvement. This movement towards improved roads received a great impetus in 1908, when the legislature voted to issue bonds to the amount of $5,000,000 for that purpose. At the presidential election of 1904, the vote of the state was very close and, by small pluralities, seven Democratic electors and one Republican elector were chosen. Shortly after President Roosevelt's inauguration he called to his cabinet, as secretary of the navy, and later as attorney-general, Charles J. Bonaparte, of Baltimore City, who had long been prominent in reform movements.

The most important measures of the legislature of 1906 were the passage of the so-called Haman Law for oyster culture in the waters of the state, and the sale of the state's holdings in the stock of the Baltimore & Ohio Railroad, by which sale the state's debt was virtually extinguished. A general local option law was introduced, but failed of passage.

In 1907 the Republicans nominated George R. Gaither, of Baltimore City, for governor, and he was defeated by Austin L. Crothers, the Democratic candidate of Cecil county, by about 7,000 majority.

In 1908, the electoral vote of Maryland was again divided, two Republicans and six Democrats being chosen.

Industrial Growth.

Maryland began her career as an agricultural state and her chief city gained her first prominence as a commercial emporium. Agriculture and commerce are still the 'chief occupations of the citizens of the state, but mining for coal in the Alleghany mountains, quarrying for building stone throughout western and northern Maryland, and manufacturing of various sorts now diversify the industry of the people. Tobacco is still raised in southern Maryland, grains of various sorts are produced successfully, especially in Frederick, Washington, Carroll and Queen Anne's counties. The neighborhood of large cities has greatly increased the trucking industry in the light soils of the Chesapeake Bay counties and dairy farming in western and northern Maryland. Sufficient areas of woodland still stand so as to make lumbering profitable, and the cultivation of fruit trees furnishes an important occupation. The Bay affords supply of fish, crabs, clams and oysters. The time of many men is occupied not only by the growth, but also by the canning and preservation of fruit and oysters. Baltimore is the chief manufacturing centre of the state and has many establishments engaged in the manufacture of copper and iron, in the weaving f cotton duck, in the making of fertilizers and in the sewing of ready-made clothing, while the ship-building industry at Sparrow's Point on the Patapsco is of considerable importance.

As the Bay afforded means of transportation to ocean-going sailing vessels and to the smaller bug-eye or canoe, from the time of the first settlement, so it and its estuaries have now provided routes for many steamboat lines which have made access easy for passengers and freight from various parts of Maryland, Delaware and Virginia to Baltimore. Two railway lines cross the Eastern Shore, connecting with steamboat lines for Baltimore, and, along the centre of that shore runs the railroad from Cape Charles to Philadelphia, a line which is fed by branches touching all the important towns, and which accentuates the age-long struggle for trade between the emporium on the Chesapeake and that on the Delaware. Across the state, from east to west, runs the line of the Baltimore & Ohio Railroad, the oldest such corporation in America, connecting the state with the south and west. Parallel with it, from Delaware to the District of Columbia, is the course of the lines of its former great rival, the Pennsylvania Railroad. The same road controls the Northern Central Railroad, which gives access from Baltimore, through Harrisburg, to the West and to the Great Lakes. Trolley lines now connect Baltimore, Annapolis and Washington, and a short railroad runs from Baltimore through Harford county into Pennsylvania, while Frederick has connection with York, and Hagerstown has connection with the Shenandoah Valley and with the Cumberland Valley. The most important other road is the Western Maryland. This railroad connected Baltimore and Hagerstown for many years, and recent extensions have led it through Cumberland into West Virginia. The limestone turnpikes of western Maryland have long been famous, and the recent good roads movement, elsewhere referred to, makes the outlook most hopeful for improved transportation throughout the state.

Progress in Education, Etc.

During the period, which is now under discussion, must be assigned Maryland's most conspicuous progress in education. Joseph M. Cushing, of Baltimore City, secured the insertion of a clause in the constitution of 1864, providing for the establishment of a state system of education, and he also secured the appointment of Rev. Libertus van Bokkelen as the first state superintendent. A State Normal School was opened in 1866 and county superintendents speedily were at work, organizing the work of instruction throughout Maryland. Henry Barnard's year's service at St. John's College as president, before he was appointed the first national superintendent of education, was too short a time for him to leave much mark, but the long and efficient career of the genial Irishman, M. A. Newell, as principal of the State Normal School, was important for the state. The constitution of 1867 continued the state system, and, after a generation of beginnings, the years in which Cushing was president of the State Board of Education from 1896 to 1903 were characterized by decided advance. A second normal school at Frostburg, a normal department at Washington College in Chestertown, the systematization and strengthening of teachers' institutes, the rise of high schools, the distribution of free school books to pupils, the separation of the superintendency of education from the principalship of the Normal School, and the appointment to the former office of the tactful man, M. Bates Stephens - these are some of the educational achievements of that period. The larger part of the direct tax of the state is levied for schools, and is supplemented by large contributions from counties and city. The system of education in Baltimore City is about forty years older than the state system, is independent of state control and has been greatly improved, in the last few years, under an able, unpartisan school board.

In 1870 the state made its first appropriation for the education of negroes, and in 1908 it established a colored normal school, taking over as its nucleus an institution founded by Cushing and his associates immediately upon the emancipation of the slaves and long in receipt of a subsidy from the state. This policy of subsidizing private educational and beneficent institutions is so characteristic of Maryland that it is worthy of mention. The building of the Maryland School for the Blind at Baltimore was dedicated in 1868, and other and special features of the state's educational system have been founded since 1865: such as the excellent school for the deaf at Frederick in 1867, the school for colored deaf and blind at Baltimore in 1872, and the work for adult blind in 1908. In 1902 the Mary] and State Library Commission began its useful work of aiding municipal libraries and distributing traveling libraries. This period is also filled with new educational enterprises under private management. The McDonough School for the training of poor boys, and Rock Hill College, a Roman Catholic institution at Ellicott City, were opened in 1865. In 1866 the Peabody Institute, the gift of George Peabody to Baltimore City, where its founder once reside-1, began its important career as a' great reference library, a seat of public lectures, a hall of art and a conservatory of music. In 1867 the Jesuits opened their theological seminary at Woodstock and the Redemptorists theirs at Ilchester, while the Methodists began a training school for colored men in Baltimore, which later developed into Morgan College. In 1868 the Methodist Protestant Church opened its successful Western Maryland College at Westminster, beside which college e church placed its theological seminary in 1882.

The greatest stimulus to education came, however, from the foundations established by Johns Hopkins, a Baltimore banker, whose estate of about seven million dollars, after his death in December, 1873, was equally divided between the university and hospital which bear his name. The university was the first to open its doors, inaugurating as its first president, that renowned educator„ Daniel C. Gilman, in 1876. He remained at its head for twenty-five years and was succeeded by the noted chemist, Ira Remsen, who had been a professor at the university from its opening. President Gilman's policy was to establish an institution which should lay its chief emphasis upon systematic graduate instruction leading to the degree of doctor of philosophy. He instituted a system of fellowships for the encouragement of original research and caused the physical sciences to take a more prominent place than they were wont to do in other American universities. The professors were carefully selected and arrangements were early made for the establishment of a university press, through which the results of the research of professors and students might be made public. It was found necessary to have an undergraduate department, but, as no dormitories were provided for it, its students have been chiefly those residing in Baltimore or its vicinity . The undergraduate institution was arranged in a three-year curriculum, with the courses combined into several groups, following in general the method which President Gilman had used while he was director of the Sheffield Scientific School at Yale. The reputation of the university spread with a perfectly astonishing rapidity. There was a widespread demand in the United States for carefully arranged graduate courses, and the Johns Hopkins both met and stimulated it. The Johns Hopkins Hospital was opened in 1889 and arrangements were at once made to add a medical school to the university. After careful thought and the selection of eminent men to fill the several chairs, the school was opened in 1893, and from the very first took a front rank among the medical schools of the world. Its standards have been very high and it was the first medical school in America to demand of every one entering its walls a bachelor's degree from some college.

Professional education has flourished greatly in Baltimore since the close of the war. The University of Maryland had conducted a medical school since 1807 and continues to preserve its high position. In 1882 it established a dental school, and in 1904 it annexed the Maryland College of Pharmacy, while the faculty of law, reorganized in 1869, has conducted a highly successful practical school, at which the instructors have been the leaders of the bench and bar of the city. Just before celebrating its centennial in 1907, the university added St. John's College at Annapolis, founded in 1784, as its department of arts and sciences. Among the independent medical schools which have flourished in Baltimore during our period have been the College of Physicians and Surgeons, founded in 1872, and the Baltimore Medical College, founded in 1882, while the Baltimore University School of Law, founded in 1890, and the Baltimore Law School, founded in 1900, have trained with care a considerable number of legal practitioners. The establishment of state examining boards in law and medicine has done a great deal to elevate the standard of these professions. Although many educational institutions must be omitted, reference is necessary to the great success of the Maryland Institute Schools of Art and Design, under the presidency of Joseph M. Cushing and the directorship of Otto Fuchs. Although its building was destroyed by fire in 1904, and its two great supporters died about the same time, it found other able leaders and friends, and now, reestablished in two fine new edifices and subsidized by both city and state, it is able to do a more efficient work than ever before.

In 1882 Enoch Pratt, a wealthy merchant and financier of Baltimore, offered to give the city about eleven hundred thousand dollars for the establishment of a public circulating library. He intended that the whole city be served by the library, which should comprise a system consisting of a central building and branches in different localities, and asked that the institution bear his name and that the city support it with an annuity of $50,000. The city accepted the gift, the buildings were erected, Dr. Lewis H. Steiner was called from Frederick to organize the library, and it was opened in January, 1886. In the twenty years which followed, it clearly demonstrated its extensive usefulness and justified the generosity of its founder.

Latest of all the important educational institutions of Baltimore came the Woman's College, founded by the Methodist Episcopal Church in 1884, and opened four years later. During the most of its existence it has been under the able presidency of Rev. Dr. J. F. Goucher, whose generous donations to it have been very considerable, and it has attained a widespread reputation as giving a well-balanced and thorough culture to women.

Jacob Tome, a wealthy citizen of Port Deposit, in 1889 endowed the secondary school which bears the name of Tome Institute and is situated at his residence. Owing to the fact that Mr. Tome left it several million dollars, the institute has been able to maintain, with great success, a boarding school for boys and day schools for both sexes. About 1890, the Reformed Church in the United States took possession of the old buildings of the Female Seminary at Frederick and established therein a school of high order for girls. We have devoted thus much space to educational matters because in no other way has the progress of Maryland been more marked during the past forty years.

In the line of charities and correction, great progress has also been made. At the very beginning of our period was held the great Southern Relief Fair for the aid of the former slaveholding states, and the whole period has been marked not only by beneficent acts, but by systematic development of organized charity. In Baltimore City the Charity Organization Society and the Association for the Improvement of the Condition of the Poor, after a period of effective separate work, have united themselves for greater effectiveness in the Federated Charities. A house of correction for short-term prisoners was opened at Jessups in 1877, and a long and wise wardenship of the penitentiary has resulted in that institution returning a revenue to the state, while the moral character of the convicts has been much benefited by the treatment received while incarcerated and by the efforts of the Prisoners Aid Society. The character of the county jails still leaves much to be desired, however, and, to Maryland's disgrace, she still postpones providing for all her insane and feebleminded in state institutions, though excellent care is given to those who can be received in the institutions already established. Training of the feebleminded was begun in 1889, and an excellent institution is maintained at Owings Mills, but is not able to accommodate all who need its care. A State Board of Aid and Charities was established in 1900, but has not yet attained to the desired stage of efficiency.

Religion.

In religious matters, the development has been steady. The Roman Catholic Church, under the statesmanlike direction of Archbishops Spaulding and Bayly and Cardinal Gibbons, and the Lutheran churches have handled admirably the problems of assimilating immigrants. The Methodist churches have been active and retain their numerical predominance among Protestant denominations, while the work of the Baptists and Presbyterians, and of the Protestant Episcopalians forcefully led by Bishop Paret, has been noteworthy among the forces that make for righteousness. A large Hebrew immigration from the east of Europe has diversified considerably the population of Baltimore City.

In general, the history of Maryland since 1865 has been one filled with achievement and with such a spirit as to make one hopeful as to the future and confident in the determination of the people to make the state embrace its opportunities and advance to a high position among American commonwealths.

BIBLIOGRAPHY. - Brackett, J. R.: Progress of the Colored People in Maryland (1890); Forrester, A. E.: (comp.) City Hall of Baltimore (1877); Gilman, D. C.: Launching of a University (1906); Gambrill, C. M.: School History of Maryland (1903); Hollander, J. I3.: Guide to Baltimore (1893); Hollander, J. H.: Financial History of Baltimore (1899); Howard, G. W.: (ed.) Monumental City (1889); Maryland Geological Survey Reports (1897-1908); Maryland Historical Society: Report on the Western Boundary of the State; McSherry, James: History of Maryland, continued by B. B. James (1904); Nelson, S. B. (comp.): History of Baltimore (1898); Passano, L. M.. School History of Maryland (1900); Riley, E. S.: Ancient City (Annapolis) (1887); Riley, E. S.: Legislative History of Maryland (1906); Schultz, E. S.: History of Free Masonry in Maryland, 4 vols. (1884-88); Seharf, T. J.: Western Maryland (1882); History of Maryland, Vol. III. (1897), Baltimore City and County (1881), and Chronicles of Baltimore (1874); Sioussat, St. G. L.: Baltimore (1900); Spencer, E. (ed.): Baltimore's Anniversary, 1730-1880 (1881), Sterner, Bernard C.: Citizenship and Suffrage in Maryland (1896, Life of Reverdy Johnson (190R), History of Education in Maryland (1894), and Institutions and Civil Government in Maryland (1899); Whealton, L. N.. Virginia Boundary of Maryland (1906); Williams, T. J. C.: Washington County (2 vols., 1906).

BERNARD C. STEINER,
Librarian, The Enoch Pratt Free Library; Associate in History, Johns Hopkins University.