Page:History of Iowa From the Earliest Times to the Beginning of the Twentieth Century Volume 3.djvu/230

 memorial to the State in an address, giving a brief recital of the tragic events which the monument commemorates. The gathering was one of unusual historic interest; among those present being several actors in the darkest tragedy ever enacted on Iowa soil.

The first State Convention was held by the People’s party at Des Moines on the 11th of June, 1895, at which the following nominations were made for the various State officers: Governor, S. B. Crane; Lieutenant-Governor, A. R. Starrett; Supreme Judge, T. W. Ivory; Superintendent Public Instruction, L. S. Tabor; Railway Commissioner, E. J. Stason. The platform favored additional security for depositors of banks; inspection of workshops; a general reduction of salaries of officers and a State tax on gold contracts.

On the 18th of June the Prohibition State Convention was held at Des Moines which nominated the following ticket: Governor, Francis Bacon; Lieutenant-Governor, M. W. Atwood; Supreme Judge, J. W. Rogers; Superintendent Public Instruction, Mrs. L. D. Carhart; Railway Commissioner, H. F. Jones. The resolutions denounced the mulct law; favored arbitration, the reduction of official salaries and of legal interest.

The Republican State Convention was held at Des Moines on the 10th of July and, as Governor Jackson had declined a reëlection and it was altogether probable that the Republican candidates would be elected, an animated contest arose in the party over the selection of the candidate for Governor. One of the candidates before the convention was James Harlan, the old time United States Senator and Secretary of the Interior, who had always had the confidence and admiration of the Republicans of Iowa and the Nation, for his unsurpassed services in the great conflict over slavery during the most critical period of our country’s history. There was a strong feeling that his services should have been retained by the State he had so ably and loyally represented for a quarter of a century