Henry T. Gage

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Henry T. Gage
United States Minister to Portugal
In office
June 11, 1910 – November 19, 1910
PresidentWilliam Howard Taft
Preceded byCharles Page Bryan
Succeeded byEdwin Vernon Morgan
20th Governor of California
In office
January 4, 1899 – January 7, 1903
LieutenantJacob H. Neff
Preceded byJames Budd
Succeeded byGeorge Pardee
Personal details
Born
Henry Tifft Gage

(1852-12-25)December 25, 1852
Los Angeles, California, U.S.
Political partyRepublican
SpouseFrances V. Rains
Children5
ProfessionLawyer, politician, diplomat

Henry Tifft Gage (December 25, 1852 – August 28, 1924) was an American lawyer, politician and diplomat. A

U.S. Minister to Portugal
for several months in 1910.

Biography

Gage was born on

Bell Gardens
at his wife's family home.

Running as a Republican, Gage was elected as Los Angeles City Attorney in 1881, beginning a slow rise within party ranks. At the 1888 Republican National Convention in Chicago, Gage was chosen as a delegate-at-large during the proceedings. In a speech to the convention, Gage seconded the motion to nominate Levi P. Morton as the party's nomination for the vice presidency.[3]

S.S. Itata in San Diego Bay in 1891.

In 1891, President

1891 Chilean Civil War against President José Manuel Balmaceda. Upon review of the federal government's case, Gage dropped all charges against Itata's crew, claiming that the government had mistaken the arms purchase as illegal.[1]

By 1898, Gage had become a prominent corporate lawyer within Los Angeles business circles, as well as a successful owner of real estate, particularly the

Southern Pacific Railroad
, who had worked with Gage since the 1870s, and saw him as supportive of their interests.

In the

House Representative James G. Maguire by 6.7%.[4] Other minor candidates in the election included Job Harriman of the Socialist Labor Party of America and Prohibitionist J. E. McComas, a former State Senator
.

Governorship

Gage was inaugurated as the 20th

Pacific shore, should be followed as a political necessity by the annexation of the Philippines," Gage stated. "The center of commerce must move westward. California, favorably situated, will, among other advantages, reap the harvest of trade with these new territories, developing our many varied and growing resources, creating a western merchant marine for the carriage of our imports and exports, and luring to our markets the nations of the world."[5]

In one of his first acts, Gage's administration reopened the State Printing Office, which had been closed down by Governor James Budd to cut governmental expenditures.[5]

From early on in his administration, Gage was highly partisan, mostly because of frequent accusations from

Southern Pacific. When a newspaper published a political cartoon portraying railroad tycoon Collis Potter Huntington leading the governor around on a leash, Gage was so incensed by the accusation that he ramrodded a censorship bill through the California State Legislature, restricting the press whenever editorial content involved politics or politicians.[6]

San Francisco bubonic plague outbreak

Main article: San Francisco plague of 1900–1904

On January 3, 1900, Gage held a legislative session to discuss ways to improve

Chinatown. Rumors of the plague's presence abounded in the city, quickly gaining the notice of authorities from the federal Marine Hospital Service, including the Marine Hospital Service's head in San Francisco, Joseph J. Kinyoun.[9][10][11]

Allied with powerful railroad and city business interests, Gage publicly denied the existence of any pestilence outbreak in the city, fearing that any word of the plague's presence would deeply damage the city and state's economy. Supportive newspapers, such as the

Treasury Secretary Lyman J. Gage
to intervene. Secretary Gage agreed, creating a three-man medical commission to medically investigate the city. The commission conclusively discovered that bubonic plague was present.

Like Kinyoun, the Treasury commission's findings were again immediately denounced by Governor Gage. Gage believed the federal government's growing presence in the matter was a gross intrusion of what he recognized as a state concern. In his retaliation, Gage denied the federal commission any use of the University of California, Berkeley's laboratories to further study the outbreak.[12] The Bulletin would also attack the federal commission, branding it as a "youthful and inexperienced trio".

The clash between Gage and federal authorities intensified. Surgeon General Wyman instructed Kinyoun to place Chinatown under

Chinatown
residents were correct in that the quarantine violated their civil rights, yet most of these lawsuits were eventually thrown out of court on later dates.

Between 1901 and 1902, the plague outbreak continued to worsen. On January 8, 1901, Gage pushed to allow the state health board members to delegate the local health units in attempt to monitor and control cases regarding the plague.

federal government would remove Kinyoun from San Francisco with the promise that the state would secretly cooperate with the Marine Hospital Service in stamping out the plague outbreak.[13]

Secret cooperations included preventive measures such as inspection, isolation and disinfection. Gage and Mayor Phelan provided funding to inspect and disinfect Chinatown of any signs of the plague.[7] To the public, however, this was marketed as a cleanup campaign that was renovating and getting rid of the town's filth. Despite the secret agreement allowing for Kinyoun's removal, Gage went back on his promise of assisting federal authorities and continued to obstruct their efforts for study and quarantine. A report issued by the State Board of Health on September 16, 1901, bolstered Gage's claims, denying the plague's outbreak.[14]

Labor agitation

As Gage fought his growing battle with the federal government, labor agitation was starting to spill over along the San Francisco waterfront. In the July 1901, members of the

stevedores and fireman belonging to the City Front Federation. Between 10,000 and 16,000 men joined the strike.[15]

Employers grew quickly frustrated with the strikers, asking for

state militia to crush the strike. Phelan refused, though violence between strikers and officers of the San Francisco Police Department
began to break out in September.

Gage became increasingly concerned that violence along San Francisco's waterfront was spilling out of the city's control. On one instance, in order to reassure himself that violence was not increasing, Gage disguised himself as a striker and walked amongst the stevedores to observe conditions personally.[6] In October, Gage negotiated settlement with employers and the Teamsters, though the terms of the settlement were never made publicly known. Gage was the first California governor to negotiate an end to a labor strike.

End of administration

Gage's troubles over the

Sacramento Bee and the Associated Press on the plague's spread had made the outbreak become publicly known throughout the United States. The state governments of Colorado, Texas and Louisiana passed quarantines of California, arguing that since the state had refused to admit a health crisis within its borders, states receiving rail or shipping cargo from California ports of call had the duty to protect themselves.[13]
Threats of a national quarantine grew.

As the

Republicans. This harmed Gage whose allies were mostly business interests.[13] However, instead of putting allegations of the outbreak to rest, conflicting studies and reports from federal officials and the media continued to contradict Gage's assertions. In turn, the powerful shipping and rail companies within the state and throughout the country faced quarantine and economic boycotts
from other states.

At the state Republican convention that year, the Railroad Republican faction refused Gage renomination for the governorship. In his place, former

progressive
-minded Reform factions of the party.

In his final address to the California State Legislature in early January 1903, Gage continued to publicly deny the outbreak, blaming the federal government, in particular Joseph Kinyoun, the Marine Hospital Service and the San Francisco Board of Health, for damaging the state's economy.[16]

In my first biennial message, January 7, 1901, I referred, at some length, to the subject of certain false and exaggerated reports concerning the alleged existence of bubonic plague in San Francisco, which, through the interest, ignorance, or recklessness of a few persons, were indiscriminately published in the year 1900, and thereafter intermittently continued.
The falsity of the reports has been frequently proved, but, unfortunately, through the ill-designed efforts and action of Dr. J. J. Kinyoun, assuming to represent the United States Marine Hospital Service at San Francisco, and of the members of the San Francisco Board of Health, much damage nevertheless accrued to the various commercial, industrial, and other productive interests of the State, injuring alike the laborer, merchant, farmer, and fruit-grower.

— Governor Henry T. Gage, Journals of the Senate and Assembly of California, 35th Session, vol. 1. 1903

Post governorship

After leaving

U.S. Department of State
and President Taft. He returned to California shortly afterwards.

Gage died in Los Angeles on August 28, 1924, at the age of 71.

Legacy

Despite his administration being characterized by historians as both rocky and incompetent, a lasting legacy of Gage's tenure of office was his signing off on the establishment of the

California Polytechnic State University
in 1901.

In 1902, Gage appointed

California Attorney General
. Webb became one of the most successful, longest-serving attorneys general in the history of California.

Gage Avenue in Los Angeles was named after him on October 28, 1929.

Los Angeles County and is a registered California State Historical Site.[2]

California Historic Landmark
(No. 984) given the title on May 26, 1989.

References

  1. ^ a b Melendy, H. Brett & Benjamin F. Gilbert (1965). The Governors of California. Georgetown, Calif.: Talisman Press.
  2. ^ a b "Gage Mansion - Oldest Remaining Home in Los Angeles County". LA Almanac. 2006. Retrieved August 11, 2007.
  3. ^ "Gov. Henry T. Gage: Biographical Information". Santa Clarita Valley Historical Society. July 2001. Retrieved August 12, 2007.
  4. ^ "November 8, 1898 General Election Results". JoinCalifornia.org. November 8, 1898. Retrieved August 13, 2007.
  5. ^ a b Henry Gage (January 9, 1907). "Inaugural Address". The Governors' Gallery. California State Library. Retrieved April 28, 2012.
  6. ^ a b "Henry Gage 1899 - 1903". The Governors' Gallery. California State Library. 2012. Retrieved April 28, 2012.
  7. ^
    ISBN 978-1-4214-0510-0
    .
  8. ISBN 0-375-50496-6
    .
  9. doi:10.1001/jama.1901.52470150038003
    . Retrieved October 17, 2010.
  10. ^ "The Plague, "American Medicine", and the "Philadelphia Medical Journal"". Occidental Medical Times. 15. San Francisco: 171–179. 1901. Retrieved October 17, 2010.
  11. ^ "Bubonic Plague At San Francisco, Cal". Annual Report of the Supervising Surgeon General of the Marine Hospital Service of the United States for the Fiscal Year 1901. Washington: Government Printing Office: 491. 1901. Retrieved October 17, 2010.
  12. ^
    ISBN 978-0-8147-2232-9
    .
  13. ^ a b c d "Public Health Politics and the San Francisco Plague Epidemic of 1900-1904" (PDF). Mark Skubik, San Jose State University. 2002. Retrieved August 19, 2007.
  14. ^ California State Board of Health (1901). Report of the Special Health Commissioners Appointed by the Governor to Confer with the Federal Authorities at Washington Respecting the Alleged Existence of Bubonic Plague in California (1 ed.). Sacramento: Superintendent State Printing. Retrieved October 17, 2010.
  15. ^ "Inventory of the Peter Comacho Papers, 1904-1959". San Francisco State University, Labor Archives and Research Center. 2007. Retrieved August 21, 2007.
  16. ^ "Conclusion: Public Health Politics and the San Francisco Plague Epidemic of 1900-1904" (PDF). Mark Skubik, San Jose State University. 2002. Retrieved August 19, 2007.

External links

Wikimedia Commons has media related to Henry Gage.
Party political offices
Preceded by Republican nominee for Governor of California
1898 		Succeeded by
Political offices
Preceded by
Governor of California

1899–1903 		Succeeded by
Diplomatic posts
Preceded by
United States Minister to Portugal

June 11, 1910–November 19, 1910 		Succeeded by
Edwin V. Morgan
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