The Will of the People: Kansas Governors from Johnson County
In this election year, the news is dominated by political races at all levels of government. Over the last century and a half, Johnson County has been a major contributor to the political scene within the state of Kansas. The first governor of Kansas Territory made his headquarters here, and since then five Kansas governors have hailed from Johnson County.
Territorial Governor
Johnson County’s role as a locus of political power in Kansas dates from the earliest days of the territory. From late 1854 to the summer of 1855, the Shawnee Methodist Mission housed the office of the first territorial governor. Unlike state governors, territorial governors were under no obligation to the voters, but only to the President of the United States, who appointed them. President Franklin Pierce, a Democrat, chose as the first territorial governor of Kansas a Pennsylvania lawyer named Andrew Reeder. At age 47, Reeder had never before held public office. He arrived at Leavenworth on the riverboat Polar Star in early October, 1854, and for a short time lived at the fort. Late in November, the governor’s office moved to the Shawnee Methodist Mission. The first territorial legislature was elected the following March, and the governor’s relationship with that body was a tumultuous one. Perhaps hoping to escape the border hub-bub, Reeder moved the legislature to Pawnee, a town site near Fort Riley, but the legislators soon moved themselves back, reconvening at Shawnee Mission on July 16. Pro-slavery advocates perceived Reeder as less and less sympathetic to their cause. On July 27, the legislature signed a request to President Pierce asking him to remove the governor. This he quickly did, and Reeder left office August 16.
Reeder remained in Kansas for another year after his ouster, associating with the “unofficial government” of freestaters and generally endorsing their cause. Under threat from proslavery sympathizers, Reeder escaped Kansas in the spring of 1856 and returned to his law practice in Pennsylvania. He defected to the Republican Party, campaigning actively for John C. Fremont (the first Republican candidate for president) in 1856. Reeder served as a delegate to the Republican National Convention in 1860.
Reeder’s “term”, between being commissioned on June 29, 1854, and dismissal by Pierce in late July 1855, was a mere 13 months, a short and rocky political tenure. Johnson County’s next governor managed to build a much more illustrious career for himself on both the state and national levels.
A Reform Candidate
John P. St. John, a Union veteran of the Civil War, moved to Olathe from Illinois in 1869. He soon set up a successfu law practice and, like many Grand Army of the Republic veterans, remained a staunch Republican. In 1872 he was elected to the Kansas Senate and in 1878, Kansas Republicans nominated St. John as their candidate for governor. He won by a large margin and was re-elected in 1880.
St. John was a popular politician, well known for his oratorical abilities. Kansans named towns and a county for him, and he received 62 invitations to speak at 4th of July celebrations around the state in 1880. His administration was noteworthy for investment in new state buildings including the Topeka reform school, the Osawatomie hospital and the west wing of the statehouse. Appropriations were made for large additions to the Kansas State School for the Deaf in Olathe, and coal mines in Lansing were opened to create jobs for inmates. St. John was also noted for providing jobs, housing and aid to the thousands of indigent blacks immigrating to Kansas from the south.
Undoubtedly the most significant legislation during St. John’s terms stemmed from the governor’s stance as an ardent prohibitionist. St. John advocated a constitutional ban on the manufacture and sale of intoxicating liquors, and the legislature followed his lead. The measure was ratified by a majority of the voters in November, 1880. As head of state, St. John hosted a number of “water banquets,” at which no drinks stronger than water were served. Distinguished guests included former president Ulysses S. Grant, who may not have fully appreciated the governor’s teetotalling tendencies.
In 1882, Governor St. John received an unprecedented nomination for a third term. Due to a combination of a third-party challenge (from former Governor Charles Robinson of the Greenback party), the third-term issue, and St. John’s strong stance on both prohibition and woman suffrage, Democratic candidate George Glick emerged victorious.
Kansas’ prohibition governor soon gained fame on the national stage. In 1884, St. John was so disappointed at the failure of the Republicans to include a prohibition plank in their national platform; he left the party and accepted the Prohibition Party’s nomination for President. St. John campaigned energetically, particularly in New York, which he considered a key state. Nationally, St. John and his running mate received 150,626 votes, with 25,000 in New York State. The result was that Grover Cleveland, the Democratic candidate for president, carried New York by fewer than 1200 votes and consequently won the presidency. We would recognize St. John as the Ralph Nader of his time — he was widely vilified for deserting the Republican Party and pulling votes away that might have guaranteed a Republican in the White House. The backlash in Kansas was swift and sure, resulting in the legislature rechristening the county that bore his name. Undeterred, St. John continued his career as Prohibition advocate, traveling over 350,000 miles to make some 4,500 speeches for the cause.
Over time, the bitterness over St. John’s “betrayal” of the Republicans faded, although he remarked, “I believe I have been hanged in effigy more times than any other, and offered enough tar and feathers, to corner the market.” St. John died at his home in Olathe at the age of 83 in 1916. The city honored his memory ten years later with the naming of John P. St. John Memorial High School, erected at the corner of Park and Water.
The Good Roads Governor
Although officially of the Democratic persuasion, the next governor from Johnson County pushed for social reforms and government services that had been dear to the heart of St. John. George Hodges, a successful Olathe businessman, became governor in 1913, only the second Democrat ever elected to that office. His victory was not easily won — in the closest statewide contest ever, Hodges beat opponent Arthur Capper by only 29 votes. Hodges won with 167,437 votes (46.6%), beating Capper’s 167,408 (46.5%) and Socialist George W. Kleihege’s 24,767 (6.9%.)
George Hodges had risen from the poverty of a fatherless home to a successful business partnership with his brother that included a chain of eight hardware stores and fourteen lumber yards as well as banking interests and ownership of a newspaper, the Johnson County Democrat. George Hodges’ political career began with two years’ service as an Olathe city councilman. In 1904 he was elected to the Kansas Senate. Hodges was instrumental in passing legislation giving women the vote and he also introduced a good roads bill that became law in 1907. Kansas was the first state in the country to have such a law, which provided for the construction of hard-surfaced roads with funding through county and township governments.
As governor from January 1913 to January 1915, Hodges continued his reform efforts. He appointed a number of women to key state positions and increased state support for education. The Hodges administration also pushed through legislation supporting better schools, stronger regulation of business, and the upgrading of state hospitals and prisons.
The election of 1914 again pitted Hodges against Arthur Capper, and this time Capper won. Hodges returned to his businesses in Olathe and never again sought elective office, although he remained active in civic life. Hodges died in 1947 at the age of 81.
The Interim Governor
These days Johnson Countian Frank Leslie Hagaman is known, if at all, as the man who served as governor for 41 days in 1950-51. His short executive career, however, belied long years of service to the people of his county and his state.
Hagaman was born in Illinois in 1894 and grew up in Kansas City, Kansas. After serving in the Army during World War I, Hagaman earned a law degree and returned to Wyandotte County, where he set up practice. In 1935, he and his wife moved to a home on Wyncote Lane in far northeast Johnson County.
In 1938, Hagaman ran as a Republican for the state legislature. He was elected for four consecutive terms, serving as a member of the legislative council, Majority Floor Leader, and Speaker of the House. Hagaman was elected to two terms as Lieutenant Governor of the state in 1946 and 1948.
“Les” Hagaman was well-liked by both constituents and fellow politicians. He was an effective advocate for his home county as well. During his first legislative term, Hagaman introduced eight bills of local concern and all eight of them became law. These included the first local zoning law in the state, permitting the zoning of suburban areas for the protection of residential property through the action of township zoning boards. Other bills permitted extension of Kansas City bus service farther into Johnson County, enabled greater funding for volunteer fire departments and provided money for restoration of the north building at the Shawnee Methodist Mission in Fairway.
In the fall of 1950, the sitting governor, Frank Carlson, ran for and won a U.S. Senate seat. Carlson resigned the governorship in late November. As Lieutenant Governor, Hagaman took over for the remainder of Carlson’s term. His swearing-in ceremony took only 14 minutes, and his term lasted 41 days, until the newly-elected Edward Arn took office in January. The legislature was not in session during this period and Hagaman’s duties consisted mostly of shepherding the state budget through its final stages of preparation.
After his brief reign as state executive, Hagaman returned to practice law in Johnson County. He died on June 23, 1966.
Native Son
John Anderson was the first governor from Johnson County who was actually a native. Born on a farm near Olathe in 1917, Anderson graduated from Olathe High School in 1935. He attended K-State and K.U., earning a law degree in 1944. Anderson then worked in the office of Federal Judge Walter A. Huxman (a former Kansas governor) and in 1946 started his own law practice in Olathe.
Soon thereafter, John Anderson began his political career, running successfully as a Republican for the office of county attorney. His involvement in some high-profile cases helped him win the 1951 race for the Kansas Senate. In 1956 Anderson was appointed to fill an unexpired term as state attorney general, and he won election to the same office in 1956 and 1958.
In 1960, Anderson won the gubernatorial race, defeating the incumbent Democratic governor, George Docking. His bid for re-election in 1962 also was successful. Anderson and his family were the first to occupy Cedar Crest, the newly-renovated governor’s mansion in Topeka.
Anderson was known for his tough stance in criminal cases, and as governor he refused executive clemency for the two men convicted of the Clutter family murders in southwest Kansas (immortalized by Truman Capote in In Cold Blood.) Governor Anderson also backed many changes in education, as school district unification took place across the state, several vocation-technical schools were organized and the University of Wichita joined the regents system under the new name of Wichita State University. Anderson also oversaw improvements in the state highway system and state psychiatric and medical facilities.
John Anderson did not seek a third term in 1964, choosing instead to return to his law practice in Overland Park. He has continued through the years with his law practice and farming in Johnson County.
Managing the Unmanageable
Robert Bennett, the last governor from Johnson County, became the state’s chief executive officer at a time when the government had grown complex and unwieldy. Bennett’s lengthy experience in elective office helped him to deal with the demands of statewide service. Prior to winning the gubernatorial election in 1974, Bennett, a practicing lawyer, had spent ten years as mayor and city councilman in Prairie Village. He had been elected to the Kansas Senate for three terms, serving from 1965 to 1974, and one year as President of the Senate.
The 1974 election is notable for two political firsts—it was the first time that candidates for governor and lieutenant governor ran as a team, and the first run for a four-year term. The race was a colorful one. Much comment was made about Bennett’s beard, and whether it was a political liability (he was, in fact, the first Kansas governor elected in the twentieth century with whiskers.) The combination of Bennett’s learned vocabulary, beard and Johnson County origins caused some across the state to view him as an elitist. On the other hand, his Democratic opponent was Attorney General Vern Miller, known for his flashy participation in drug raids and other dramatic law enforcement scenes.
Bennett did, in fact, win a narrow victory over Miller, and proceeded to try to streamline state government. He sought to hold down bureaucratic growth, achieve balance in appointed positions based on gender, race and geography, and to balance rural and urban concerns.
During Bennett’s term, the Republican Party lost political control on a number of fronts. Running for re-election in 1978, Bennett narrowly lost the race to John Carlin, the Democratic Speaker of the House of Representatives. Governor Bennett returned to Johnson County, where he continued in the legal profession until his death in October, 2000.
--ALBUM vol. 17, no. 4 (fall 2004)