1908-1909, Warren Garst <a href="/items/browse?advanced%5B0%5D%5Belement_id%5D=49&advanced%5B0%5D%5Btype%5D=is+exactly&advanced%5B0%5D%5Bterms%5D=Iowa+Governors">Iowa Governors</a> Warren Garst, Iowa's nineteenth governor, was born in Dayton, Ohio on December 4, 1850 to Dr. Michael Garst and Marie Louise Morrison. At age 8, he and his family moved to Illinois. At age 19 He moved to Iowa, and settled in Coon Rapids, where he and his brother owned and operated a general mercantile store, the Garst Store. He also was one of the founders of the Iowa Savings Bank in Coon Rapids. Garst married Elizabeth Johnson and they had one child, Ada Belle Garst. He was later married to Clara H. Clark and had two children: Louise Garst and Warren Carroll Garst Jr. Garst entered politics as a member of the Iowa State Senate, serving in the 25th thru the 31st General Assemblies. He also served as the lieutenant governor of Iowa from 1907 to 1908. On November 24, 1908, Governor Albert B. Cummins resigned from office, and Garst, who was lieutenant governor at the time, assumed the duties of the governorship. During his short tenure, he continued to carry out the policies of the Cummins administration. He left office on January 14, 1909, and retired from public service. Governor Warren Garst died on October 5, 1924, and was buried at the Glendale Cemetery in Des Moines, Iowa. State Library of Iowa and State Historical Society of Iowa 1908; 1909; National Governor's Association This digital image may be used for educational purposes, as long as it is not altered in any way. No commercial reproduction or distribution of this file is permitted without written permission of the State Historical Society of Iowa. www.iowahistory.org/libraries/services-and-fees/copyright-notice.html Still Image 1909-1913, Beryl Caroll <a href="/items/browse?advanced%5B0%5D%5Belement_id%5D=49&advanced%5B0%5D%5Btype%5D=is+exactly&advanced%5B0%5D%5Bterms%5D=Iowa+Governors">Iowa Governors</a> Beryl Franlkin Carroll, Iowa's twentieth governor, was born in Davis County, Iowa on March 15, 1860. In 1884, he graduated from the State Normal School in Kirksville, Missouri. After college, Carroll held several jobs including that of a livestock dealer, a teacher, and an editor and publisher of the Davis County Republican. He entered politics in 1895, serving as a member of the Iowa State Senate, a position he resigned from in 1898 in order to serve as postmaster of Bloomfield. He also served as Iowa's auditor from 1903 to 1909. Carroll won the 1908 Republican gubernatorial nomination and was sworn into office on January 14, 1909. He was reelected to a second term in 1910. During his tenure, he endorsed legislation establishing a state board of education; and he advocated for mining law amendments, as well as for initiating a pension plan for firemen and policemen. After Carroll left office on January 16, 1913, he retired from public service. He stayed active working in the life insurance business in Des Moines. Governor Beryl F. Carroll died on December 16, 1939, and was buried at the Odd Fellows Cemetery in Bloomfield, Iowa. State Library of Iowa and State Historical Society of Iowa 1909; 1910; 1911; 1912; 1913; National Governor's Association This digital image may be used for educational purposes, as long as it is not altered in any way. No commercial reproduction or distribution of this file is permitted without written permission of the State Historical Society of Iowa. www.iowahistory.org/libraries/services-and-fees/copyright-notice.html Still Image 1913-1917, George W. Clarke <a href="/items/browse?advanced%5B0%5D%5Belement_id%5D=49&advanced%5B0%5D%5Btype%5D=is+exactly&advanced%5B0%5D%5Bterms%5D=Iowa+Governors">Iowa Governors</a> George Washington Clarke, Iowa's twenty-first governor, was born in Shelby County, Indiana on October 24, 1852. In 1856 the Clarke family moved to Davis County, Iowa, settling one mile east of Drakesville. He taught school in Bloomfield before attending Oskaloosa College, from which he graduated in 1877. After graduating from Oskaloosa College, Clarke earned his law degree from the University of Iowa, and then established a legal career in Adel, Iowa. Clarke married Arletta Greene on June 17, 1888. He served four years as Justice of the Peace and in 1882 formed a partnership with John B. White for the practice of law. Clarke entered politics in 1900, serving as a member of the Iowa House of Representatives, a position he held eight years, the last four of which were as speaker. From 1909 to 1913, he served as lieutenant governor of Iowa. Clarke won the 1912 Republican gubernatorial nomination and was sworn into office on January 16, 1913. He was reelected to a second term in 1914. During his tenure, he endorsed restructuring election procedures; he advocated for securing a workmen's compensation bill; and he was a proponent of establishing a state highway commission; and for modifying and controlling investment companies. Clarke retired from politics after his term ended on January 11, 1917. He served as dean of Drake University Law School from 1917 to 1918, and returned to his law practice in Des Moines. Governor George W. Clarke died on November 28, 1936, and was buried in Adel, Iowa. His papers are in the collection of the University of Iowa. He is the grandfather of University of Iowa's Heisman Trophy winner, Nile Kinnick. State Library of Iowa and State Historical Society of Iowa 1913; 1914; 1915; 1916; 1917; National Governor's Association, Wikipedia This digital image may be used for educational purposes, as long as it is not altered in any way. No commercial reproduction or distribution of this file is permitted without written permission of the State Historical Society of Iowa. www.iowahistory.org/libraries/services-and-fees/copyright-notice.html Still Image 1917-1921, William L. Harding <a href="/items/browse?advanced%5B0%5D%5Belement_id%5D=49&advanced%5B0%5D%5Btype%5D=is+exactly&advanced%5B0%5D%5Bterms%5D=Iowa+Governors">Iowa Governors</a> William L Harding, 21st governor of Iowa, was born on October 3, 1877 in Sibley, Iowa. He was educated at Morningside College in Sioux City, Iowa, and the University of South Dakota Law School. In 1907, Harding married Carrie Lamoreux and began the first of three terms in the Iowa House of Representatives. In 1911 conflict over filling a U.S. Senate seat deadlocked the Iowa legislature, spotlighting Harding, who brokered a compromise by using the votes of his conservative colleagues to elect progressive Republican William S. Kenyon. When Harding ran for lieutenant governor in 1914, he attracted 11, 000 more votes than the top of the ticket. His appeal was that in a dry state he was a covert wet. Despite decades of prohibition, legal exceptions allowed a few saloons in river towns. Religious and progressive support for a prohibition amendment to the Iowa Constitution would cut off these avenues. The choice for governor in November 1916 was between a progressive Democrat who was dry and conservative Republican Harding, whose campaign rhetoric emphasized ""home rule"" and ""hands-off"" governmentcode words not only to ethnic communities who enjoyed beer but also to another constituency who wanted local control. Southern and central Iowans, more native born and rural (and dry) than other Iowans, needed a champion against modernism. ""Paved roads"" was their anathema: state-mandated hard-surfaced roads would ruin the isolated character of their counties and lure their children off the farms. In ""mud roads"" counties, Harding proclaimed that he opposed bonded debt and supported the local option of unsurfaced roads. Harding faced a formidable array of opponents: clergy condemned his candidacy from pulpits each Sunday; Governor George Clarke opposed him; and the formidable Des Moines Register, Republican from its founding, endorsed Harding's Democratic opponent and published a caricature by ""Ding"" Darling of a bloated and inebriated froglike Harding squatting in a mud road croaking, ""jug-o-rum.""However, Senator Kenyon, politically grateful, did endorse Harding. Democratic foreign-language newspapers urged their readers to switch parties to elect Harding. Harding was spectacularly successful in his courting of the two dissimilar constituencies. He carried 98 of 99 counties in an overwhelming turnout of voters: 115, 000 more people voted in 1916 than in 1914, and in both prohibitionist ""mud roads"" counties and wet Democratic counties Harding captured big victories. Three months after the new governor took office, the United States declared war on Germany, and the two factions that had elected Harding were eviscerated. Since prohibition (to conserve grain) and road paving (to transport troops) were tied to the national war effort, both issues of Harding's campaign were tainted as being unpatriotic. Harding appointed his former opponents, the urban progressives and community boosters, to a State Council of Defense, and following Iowa's lackluster ranking in Liberty Loan buying among the states, he ordered Councils of Defense to be set up in every county. By the third Liberty Loandrive, in the spring of 1918, Iowa employed a house-to-house assessment to become the first state to reach its quota, but community coercion had significant costs. County councils functioned as kangaroo courts, with mob violence the punishment. Churches divided, threshing crews reformed to ostracize individuals; old feuds resurfaced. Governor Harding's mandate that ""all must declare if they are friends or enemies"" led to forced oaths. Warnings to stop vigilantism came from the federal government, yet Harding repeated his threat of ""necktie parties"" for non-contributors. When James Pierce labeled the third Liberty Loan process ""Iowa's Reign of Terror"" and described public humiliations and mob coercion throughout Iowa, he was voted off the State Council of Defense. On May 14, 1918, Governor Harding issued his infamous Babel Proclamation, to supplement a ban on the teaching of German in any school in Iowa: ""Conversation in public places, on trains and over the telephone should be in the English language.""Church serviceseven funeralswere banned in any language but English. The proclamation was immediately controversial. The Bohemian, Danish, Dutch, and Norwegian ethnic communities were outraged to be considered a danger to the nation while speaking a language of the Allies. Yet Harding enforced his proclamation. Arrests were made for telephone party-line and street-corner conversations, and churches, colleges, private schools, and newspapers closed their doors, most of them forever. Only Iowa had such a ban, and it exposed the governor to some ridicule. After the fourth Liberty Loan opened in October 1918, a U.S. Treasury agent rebuked Iowa's Council of Defense for the ""strong arm"" methods it used to sell bonds, but the governor did not try to calm the vindictive atmosphere in the state. The Armistice and Harding's reelection bid came in the same week, along with the worst excesses of wartime Iowa. The people most injured by Harding's conduct of the home frontand those voters who might have defeated himstayed away from the polls. Harding's vote total dropped 129, 000 from 1916. He lost every township that had over half ethnic stock. Yet he won reelection by a small margin and continued as governor over a demoralized state. Harding hoped to win national office following his time as governor, but an election-week scandal derailed his career. A campaign worker solicited a cash donation of $5, 000 from the father of a young man convicted of rape, in return for a promised pardon, which Governor Harding duly issued. An investigation by Attorney General Horace Havner, at odds with Harding, provoked a blaze of publicity. Harding found no support among progressive Iowans, his recent allies. The Iowa legislature voted 70-34 to censure the governor, and he finished his term in 1920 under a cloud. Undermined by diabetes, Harding campaigned out of state for Republican candidates until his death at age 57 on December 17, 1934. He is buried in a mausoleum at the Graceland Park Cemetery in Sioux City, Iowa. State Library of Iowa and State Historical Society of Iowa 1917; 1918; 1919; 1920; 1921; Biographical Dictionary of Iowa This digital image may be used for educational purposes, as long as it is not altered in any way. No commercial reproduction or distribution of this file is permitted without written permission of the State Historical Society of Iowa. www.iowahistory.org/libraries/services-and-fees/copyright-notice.html Still Image 1921-1925, Nathan Kendall <a href="/items/browse?advanced%5B0%5D%5Belement_id%5D=49&advanced%5B0%5D%5Btype%5D=is+exactly&advanced%5B0%5D%5Bterms%5D=Iowa+Governors">Iowa Governors</a> Nathan Edward Kendall, 23rd governor of iowa, was born on March 17, 1868 to Elijah J. and Lucinda (Stevens) Kendall in Greenville, Iowa. He was the youngest of six children. He went to a local country school and then moved to Albia, Monroe County, where he learned shorthand. After working as a stenographer in a law office, he was admitted to the bar in May 1889. He was Albia's city attorney (1890-1892) and then Monroe County Attorney (1893-1897). In 1896 he married Belle Wooden, a Centerville, Iowa, schoolteacher. Kendall was elected to the Iowa House of Representatives as a Republican for five terms from 1899-1909. During his final term, he was an outstanding Speaker of the House. He then went on to become the U.S. congressman from Iowa's Sixth District from 1909-1913. A heart attack caused him to withdraw his nomination in the latter year and return to private law practice in Albia. At the Republican National Convention in 1916, he nominated Iowa's U.S. Senator Albert Baird Cummins for president. As governor of Iowa (1921-1925), Kendall sought to reorganize the overlapping state boards, bureaus, and commissions. This resulted in 1923 in the creation of the Department of Agriculture, embracing eight different boards. Five other boards were abolished and their functions transferred to the Department of Agriculture. Kendall strongly advocated legislation to permit farmer to form credit associations of their own, and the legislature passed two bills permitting cooperative marketing by farmer Kendall was especially proud of the so-called Warehouse Act. If a farmer stored grain on their farms under seal, they could get a certificate against which they could borrow money. In 1924 that scheme resulted in 300, 000 bushels of corn thus sealed under 250 certificates. Agriculture was the governor's main concern, but he had others. He was alarmed by ""the vast sums"" fraudulently collected from Iowa citizens due to the state's failure to regulate the sale of stock; as a result, he said, ""our state has become a rendezvous for every crooked exploiter in the Mississippi Valley.""The result was a securities law limiting promotion costs to 15 percent of the value of securities and requiring a license to sell securities. Kendall keenly promoted the aims of a 1920 act of Congress to rehabilitate people disabled on the job, and the 39th General Assembly gave effect to that goal. Patriotism was another key matter. Of the returned veterans from World War I, Kendall said: ""The least we can do is compensate him by bonus or otherwise for the economic disadvantages he suffered by reason of his enlistment.""The result of this exhortation was a bond issue of $22 million to be expended on military veterans. That bonus bill was ratified by popular referendum in November 1922. Governor Kendall enthusiastically supported maternal and infant health and welfare. Other social matters included his support for the National Association for the Advancement of Colored People (NAACP) and the naming of a commission on the problems of the state's children with disabilities. During Kendall's term of office, steady work was done on roads and parks. He signed bills making Armistice Day a legal holiday and adopting a state banner. His concerns for insolvent banks gave a boost to legislation whereby the court could appoint the Superintendent of Banking as receiver for insolvent banks. Furthermore, a new Iowa Code was undertaken and completed in an extra session in 1924. Governor Kendall's proudest achievement was the appropriation of $2, 225, 000 to match the equal sum from the State Board of Education and the Rockefeller Foundation to complete and equip the hospital and plant of the College of Medicine at the State University of Iowa. Kendall's wife died in 1926, and in 1928 he married Mabel Mildred (Fry) Bonnell of Cleveland. Both marriages were a success, but alongside them was his love affair with Iowa. Kendall said: ""It is difficult to understand why a Divine Providence should have located the Garden of Eden in the far-off Orient, when the incomparable Domain of Iowa was readily available for that exalted enterprise."" Kendall left office on January 15, 1925, and retired from public service due to his failing health. Governor Nathan E. Kendall died on November 4, 1936, and his cremated ashes were buried on the lawn of his home in Albia, Iowa. State Library of Iowa and State Historical Society of Iowa 1921; 1922; 1923; 1924; 1925; Iowa Biographical Dictionary, National Governor's Association This digital image may be used for educational purposes, as long as it is not altered in any way. No commercial reproduction or distribution of this file is permitted without written permission of the State Historical Society of Iowa. www.iowahistory.org/libraries/services-and-fees/copyright-notice.html Still Image 1925-1931, John Hammill <a href="/items/browse?advanced%5B0%5D%5Belement_id%5D=49&advanced%5B0%5D%5Btype%5D=is+exactly&advanced%5B0%5D%5Bterms%5D=Iowa+Governors">Iowa Governors</a> John Hammill, 24th Governor of Iowa was born on October 14, 1875 in Linden, Iowa County, Wisconsin, the son of George and Mary Brewer Hammill, both of English ancestry. When he was 13, the family moved to a farm near Britt, Hancock County, Iowa. He graduated from Britt High School in 1895, and two years later obtained an LL.B. from the College of Law, State University of Iowa. After admission to the bar, Hammill practiced law in Britt. In 1899 he married Fannie B. Richards, born in Garner, Iowa. The couple had no children. In 1902 Hammill was elected county attorney and was reelected in 1904. Next he was a state senator from 1908 to 1912. He was elected Republican lieutenant governor in 1920 and reelected in 1922. When Governor Nathan Kendall became ill in 1922, Hammill was acting governor for 10 weeks. He was elected governor in his own right in 1924 and was reelected in 1926 and 1928, winning each election by huge majorities. In 1930 he lost the primary for U.S. senator and voluntarily retired as governor after three terms in office. Hammill's greatest achievement lay in highway improvement. When he became governor, Iowa was known as ""the Mud Roads State of the Union.""Under his stewardship, by ""legislating, locating, grading, draining and bridging"" its primary roads, Iowa became one of the ""best road states of the Union.""Secondary roads had been the responsibility of counties and townships. The new Secondary Road Law consolidated control of all of them with the counties, reducing the number of administrative officials from 5, 500 to 400 and producing practical administrative units. Secondary road funds were consolidated and simplified. As a result, hundreds of miles of secondary roads were graded and surfaced with gravel. Chaos had reigned over the state-run primary roads. Hammill brought order. Financial confusion gave way to a gasoline tax of two cents per gallon and later three cents per gallon, with five-ninths allocated to the primary roads and four-ninths to the secondary roads. When Hammill became governor, Iowa had fewer than 600 miles of paved primary roads and 2, 500 miles of gravel roads. When he left office, Iowa had 3, 340 miles of paved primary roads and 2, 420 miles of gravel roads. When he came to office, 24 percent of the primary road system was unimproved; on his leaving office, only 3 percent remained unimproved. Hammill had dragged Iowa ""out of the mud."" Hammill had many other achievements. A keen tax reformer, he could boast of reducing the state millage levy and the assessed valuation of property. Moreover, a State Board of Assessment and Review was created, which added millions to the assessment roll and drafted a program for tax reform. In agriculture, Hammill created the Iowa Industrial and Agricultural Commission, which played an important part in laying the groundwork for Congress to consider the farmer' cause. The commission also produced evidence that led to the reform of the Chicago Grain Market. The governor himself visited Washington, D.C., and played a part in the Federal Tariff Commission, which raised the tariffs on butter and corn. He also created a commission of 11 midwestern governors and 11 farm leaders, legislators, and professors""The Committee of Twenty-Two""which aroused legislative and public opinion in favor of various farm relief projects. In banking, many of Hammill's recommendations were embodied in ""the most comprehensive recodification of the banking laws that Iowa has ever undertaken since banking was set up in this state.""This reform was a model for other states in renewing their banking laws. Although women had had the vote since the passage of the 19th Amendment to the U.S. Constitution, the Iowa Constitution still insisted on males only being members of the General Assembly. In 1925 Hammill strongly urged the adoption of a constitutional amendment to delete this anomaly from the Iowa Constitution. ""The women are to be highly commended and complimented in the thorough-going interest which they are taking in public affairs, "" he said. The amendment was ratified by referendum in 1926. Hammill was the first Iowa governor to mention aviation to the General Assembly. The legislature followed his lead and passed a law establishing air traffic rules and licensing of aircraft and airmen. When Governor Hammill left office, he returned to Britt, where he practiced law and looked after his three model farms in Hancock County. He died of a heart attack at the age of 60 on April 6, 1936 during a business trip to Minneapolis. He was buried in Britt, Iowa. State Library of Iowa and State Historical Society of Iowa 1925; 1926; 1927; 1928; 1929; 1930; 1931; Biographical Dictionary of Iowa This digital image may be used for educational purposes, as long as it is not altered in any way. No commercial reproduction or distribution of this file is permitted without written permission of the State Historical Society of Iowa. www.iowahistory.org/libraries/services-and-fees/copyright-notice.html Still Image 1931-1933, Daniel Turner <a href="/items/browse?advanced%5B0%5D%5Belement_id%5D=49&advanced%5B0%5D%5Btype%5D=is+exactly&advanced%5B0%5D%5Bterms%5D=Iowa+Governors">Iowa Governors</a> Daniel Webster Turner, 25th governor of Iowa and a founder of the National farmer Organization (NFO), was the fifth of nine children of Almira (Baker) Turner and Austin Bates Turner, a merchant and Civil War veteran. Daniel Turner served for 18 months in Company K, 51st Iowa Regiment, fighting guerrillas in the Philippines. On his return he settled down, went into business with his father, and, in 1900, married Alice Sample. He also remained in the reserves, rising to the rank of major before resigning in 1911. In 1903 he ran for the Iowa Senate seat from Adams and Taylor counties. His Republican opponent withdrew, as did his Democratic one. Once elected, Turner supported the Republican progressive Governor Albert Cummins loyally. He proposed a few progressive reform bills of his ownrequiring more information from county school superintendents and regulating the purity of linseed oil but as a freshman senator he had little influence. Turner was especially vocal in his opposition to the railroads' control of much of Iowa politics. He worked against the free pass system and the influence of railroad money on Iowa politicians. He strongly supported primary elections bills until one went into effect in June 1908. He also supported changing the U.S. Constitution to elect U.S. senators directly as a way to limit the railroads' influence in Washington. Turner declined to run for another term in 1908 and went home to run the family business, but he did not retire from politics. He spoke at the 1912 Republican State Convention. Unlike many Iowa progressives he supported the party when Theodore Roosevelt bolted to form the Bull Moose Party. In the mid 1920s he was a strong supporter of the McNary-Haugen Bill, and he repeatedly decried the control of Republican conservatives over his beloved GOP. In 1926 he refused nomination to replace Senator Cummins, who had died in office. In 1929 Turner decided to run for governor of Iowa as the progressive Republican running against the ""Standpats.""He came out for a state income tax, which his two primary opponents opposed.Turner was elected in a landslide in November 1930, defeating Democrat Fred P. Hagemann of Waverly. As governor, Turner supported the state income tax, conservation measures, and municipal utilities, and he cracked down on improprieties in state government. His greatest challenge came in the spring of 1931, when farmer discontent with federal and state farm policies exploded over the issue of mandatory tuberculin testing of cattle by Iowa state veterinarians. In March 1931, farmers prevented state officials from testing on William Buttebrodt's Cedar County farm, and farmers from across the state, members of Milo Reno 's newly formed farmer Protective Association, took over the House chamber in the capitol at Des Moines. Turner promised to enforce state testing laws and to oppose efforts in the legislature to change them. When state veterinarians were prevented from testing cattle on two different farms in Cedar County in late August, Turner sent state agents with the veterinarians to Jake Lenker's farm, where 500 farmer clashed with the state officials. Turner was in Washington, D.C., at the time, meeting with President Herbert Hoover. Turner called out the National Guard by telephone and sent them to restore order in Cedar County. In late September state veterinarians, in the company of the National Guard, again went to the Lenker farm to test his cattle, but there were no cows to test. Lenker claimed to have sold his herd and was arrested for moving cattle under quarantine. Tensions subsided, and by October 1931 testing in Cedar County was finished, and the soldiers left. By contrast, when Milo Reno's farmer's Holiday Association (FHA) called for farmers to withhold produce from the market in August 1932, Governor Turner was loathe to call out the National Guard. He urged local officials to keep the roads open and held the National Guard in readiness. However, sympathy with the farmers and disgust with President Hoover's failed farm policies made Turner reluctant to act, even when farmers outside Sioux City turned back trucks and dumped milk onto the road and violence erupted there and elsewhere in western Iowa. When Reno called for a suspension of the strike, Turner agreed to the FHA proposal that midwestern governors meet in Sioux City to discuss the farm problem with the FHA men. Reno asked the governors of the Dakotas, Minnesota, and Iowa to support state action to stop foreclosures, congressional action to reinflate the farm economy, voluntary farmer crop withholding, and state action to prevent crop sales at less than the cost of production. Turner and the other governors agreed to telegraph President Hoover to ask for a federal financial institution halt to foreclosures, but Turner led opposition to the demand for state support of crop withholdingarguing that it could easily lead to violence. Turner was defeated in two bids for reelection in 1932 and 1934. He served on the War Production Board in Washington, D.C., from 1941 to 1945. He lived a long life, dying at age 92 on April 15, 1969, and was buried in Corning, Iowa. State Library of Iowa and State Historical Society of Iowa 1931; 1932; 1933; Biographical Dictionary of Iowa This digital image may be used for educational purposes, as long as it is not altered in any way. No commercial reproduction or distribution of this file is permitted without written permission of the State Historical Society of Iowa. www.iowahistory.org/libraries/services-and-fees/copyright-notice.html Still Image 1933-1937, Clyde Herring <a href="/items/browse?advanced%5B0%5D%5Belement_id%5D=49&advanced%5B0%5D%5Btype%5D=is+exactly&advanced%5B0%5D%5Bterms%5D=Iowa+Governors">Iowa Governors</a> Clyde Herring, 26th Governor of Iowa, was an automobile dealer, governor, and U.S. senator. He was the son of James Gwynn Herring and Stella Mae (Addison) Herring. He was born and raised in Jackson, Michigan, where he worked for a while as a jewelry clerk in a store. During that time, he repaired watches for Henry Ford. Herring was educated in rural schools and attended one year of high school. He served in the Spanish-American War. His family moved from Michigan to Colorado, where they operated a ranch. In 1906, after four years in Colorado, the family moved to Massena, Iowa, and Herring became a farmer Herring married Emma Pearl Spinney (1880-1969) on February 7, 1901. They had three sons. Laverne Barlow and Lawrence Winthrop both died young. The third son, Clyde Edsel (named for his father and Henry Ford's son), was a prisoner of war during World War II. In 1908 Herring entered the automobile business in Atlantic, Iowa. As a result of his earlier acquaintance with Henry Ford, Herring received a free car and the right to own the Ford dealerships for all of Iowa in 1910. As president of the Herring Motor Company, and later the Herring-Wissler Company in Council Bluffs and Des Moines, he became wealthy. In 1915 his dealership sold and delivered more automobiles than any other automobile agency in the United States. Unfortunately, he lost much of his fortune in the Great Depression. He was defeated as a candidate on the Democratic ticket for governor in 1920 and as a candidate for the U.S. Senate in 1922. In 1932 the Democrats nominated him for governor, and he won in the Democratic landslide of that year, becoming only the second Democrat to be elected as governor of Iowa since the Civil War, and the first since Horace Boies in 1890. Herring was re-elected in 1934. His terms coincided with the worst years of the Depression, and most of his efforts dealt with the economic difficulties of the time. He advocated mortgage moratoriums, delayed farm mortgage foreclosures, increased federal subsidies, regulation of farm prices, unemployment and old age assistance, and the guarantee of bank deposits. During his administration, the legislature established the first state-owned liquor stores and legalized the sale of beer. One of his less popular official acts was to order martial law in Plymouth and Crawford counties to halt farm violence in 1933. Herring was the first governor to make extensive use of radio. He held a weekly radio talk show on which he explained his policies. On the show, he supported a one-cent-per-gallon temporary tax on gasoline and pushed for a 2 percent state sales tax and state income tax and corporation tax to be used for property tax relief. In his final message to the General Assembly in 1937, Herring stated, ""We fought and worked together to make the homes and farms of Iowa secure, to relieve distress, to see that no family suffered for lack of the necessities of life. The measure of our results is found in the security that exists today in Iowa. Our homes are secure... our farms are secure... our banks are secure."" Before the close of his second term as governor, Herring was elected to the U.S. Senate, where he served for six years. He was defeated for reelection in 1942 by George Wilson. Herring was the first member of the Democratic Party to serve both as governor of Iowa and as U.S. senator. While visiting Washington, D.C., in 1945, Herring suffered a fatal heart attack. He and his wife are entombed in the Mausoleum at Glendale Cemetery, Des Moines. State Library of Iowa and State Historical Society of Iowa 1933; 1934; 1935; 1936; 1937; Biographical Dictionary of Iowa, Wikipedia This digital image may be used for educational purposes, as long as it is not altered in any way. No commercial reproduction or distribution of this file is permitted without written permission of the State Historical Society of Iowa. www.iowahistory.org/libraries/services-and-fees/copyright-notice.html Still Image 1937-1939, Nelson Kraschel <a href="/items/browse?advanced%5B0%5D%5Belement_id%5D=49&advanced%5B0%5D%5Btype%5D=is+exactly&advanced%5B0%5D%5Bterms%5D=Iowa+Governors">Iowa Governors</a> Nelson George Kraschel, Iowa's twenty-seventh governor, was born in Macon, Illinois on October 27, 1889. He was the son of Fred K. Kraschel, who farmed near Macon, Illinois, and Nancy Jane (Poe) Kraschel. Nelson Kraschel attended Macon High School and from the age of 17 to 20 farmed his sick father's farm. Then he moved to Harlan, Shelby County, Iowa, and became an auctioneerbetween 1910 and 1930 selling $50 million of purebred livestock. In 1913 he married Agnes Johnson, a Harlan schoolteacher. They had three sons and adopted a daughter. Kraschel entered Democratic politics. After being defeated for the state senate in 1922 and after losing the primary for U.S. senator in 1932, he ran successfully for lieutenant governor in 1932 and was re-elected in 1934. He was elected governor in 1936 by only 2, 431 votes out of more than a million votes cast. His greatest triumph was legislation for homestead tax relief. Kraschel urged that sales, personal, and corporation tax revenues should be applied to old age assistance and emergency poor relief, but most should go to homestead tax relief. That would give tax preference to those who lived in their own homes and farms, ""thereby increasing the attractiveness of home ownership which will contribute more than anything else that we can do to insure the stability of our society.""The legislature duly passed the Homestead Tax Exemption Act, which relieved the tax burden on homesteads up to $2, 500 valuation. In January 1937, citing the previous year's drought, Kraschel called for extending the 1933 and 1935 farm debt moratorium laws, which protected 13, 000 farms for their owners. On February 12 the governor issued a proclamation citing the continuing economic emergency that had necessitated the relief acts of 1933 and 1935 and ""a new emergency""the natural disasters of 1936as reasons for renewing the laws. The General Assembly extended three of the four measures, but the Republican Senate blocked the fourth, and the law expired. In 1938 Kraschel intervened in the Maytag Company's industrial dispute at Newton. The company had announced a wage cut and locked out its workers, who called a strike and staged a sit-down in the plant. Under the protection of the National Guard, Kraschel called on the strikers to return to work, the company not to impose the wage cuts, and negotiations to take place on all issues. The strikers returned to work, and eventually a settlement was reached. In 1938 Kraschel faced the same Republican opponent he had defeated by 2, 431 votes in 1936 and lost by nearly 60, 000 votes. Kraschel left office on January 12, 1939.He returned to farming and auctioneering, and made another unsuccessful bid for governor in 1942. Kraschel lost two sons in World War II. He worked as general agent for the Farm Credit Administration of Omaha (1943- 1949) and then returned to his auctioneering and his cattle. He served as an agent for the Farm Credit Administration from 1943 to 1949, and then retired to his farm in Harlan. Governor Nelson G. Kraschel died on March 15, 1957. State Library of Iowa and State Historical Society of Iowa 1937; 1938; 1939; Biographical Dictionary of Iowa, National Governor's Association This digital image may be used for educational purposes, as long as it is not altered in any way. No commercial reproduction or distribution of this file is permitted without written permission of the State Historical Society of Iowa. www.iowahistory.org/libraries/services-and-fees/copyright-notice.html Still Image 1939-1943, George Wilson <a href="/items/browse?advanced%5B0%5D%5Belement_id%5D=49&advanced%5B0%5D%5Btype%5D=is+exactly&advanced%5B0%5D%5Bterms%5D=Iowa+Governors">Iowa Governors</a> George Allison Wilson, 28th governor of Iowa, and U.S. senator, was born on a farm near Menlo, Adair County, Iowa, to James Henderson Wilson and Martha Green (Varley) Wilson. He attended nearby rural schools, Grinnell College (1900-1903), and the State University of Iowa Law School (1907). In 1907 he was admitted to the bar and also started his law practice in Des Moines. In 1898, at the age of 14, Wilson had first been exposed to politics as a page in the Iowa Senate. As an adult, he joined the Republican Party, where he served in many different posts, including assistant secretary of the Iowa Senate (1906-1909) and secretary (1911). He became assistant Polk County Attorney and in 1914 was elected Polk County Attorney. In 1917 he was appointed a district court judge, resigning in 1921 to return to private law practice in his own firm, Wilson & Shaw. In 1925 he returned to politics, winning a seat in the Iowa Senate. He served there from 1926 to 1935. In 1938 he ran for governor and won, taking office in 1939 and serving until 1943. As governor, one of Wilson's first decisions was to eliminate the three-member State Board of Control, due to the board's neglect of the state's prison systemthen a total of 15 institutions. His term in office saw the creation of the Tax Commission, the Department of Public Safety, and the Industrial and Defense Commission. In addition, the Board of Social Welfare was reorganized, and he helped to pass the teacher-tenure bill. His last political office was that of U.S. senator (1943-1949). He defeated the incumbent, Senator Clyde L. Herring, who had been endorsed by Vice President Henry A. Wallace. He remained as Iowa's governor for a brief interim (from January 3, 1943, when his colleagues in the Senate were sworn in, until he took his own oath as a U.S. senator on January 14, 1943). As a senator, he served on the Small Business, Armed Forces, and Agriculture committees. His reelection bid was thwarted by his opponent, Guy M. Gillette, who defeated him in the fall of 1948 with the endorsement and support of former vice president Henry A. Wallace. Wilson returned to Des Moines and resumed his law career, this time with his son George in the firm of Wilson and Wilson. Years later a granddaughter of Wilson would marry a grandson of Wallace. Wilson was married to Mildred E. Zehner, and the couple had four children. He died at the age of 69 on September 8, 1953 and was buried in Des Moines' Glendale Cemetery. State Library of Iowa and State Historical Society of Iowa 1939; 1940; 1941; 1942; 1943; Biographical Dictionary of Iowa This digital image may be used for educational purposes, as long as it is not altered in any way. No commercial reproduction or distribution of this file is permitted without written permission of the State Historical Society of Iowa. www.iowahistory.org/libraries/services-and-fees/copyright-notice.html Still Image