100 Years Ago, January 3rd
 
by Brandon Woolum
Huntington News Network Writer
 
Huntington (HNN) -- There is uncertainty and weeping and wailing and gnashing of teeth among the job hunters who have thronged Charleston during the present week.
 
The legislature adjourned yesterday until Monday morning at nine o’clock, and the committee appointments which were expected yesterday will not be made until Monday of Tuesday. Consequently there will be several days more anxious waiting before the disappointed three-fourths of the army of office seekers wend their weary way home war, sadder but wiser men.
 
The adjournment was taken for the purpose of allowing the legislators to digest the weightily recommendations of Governor White’s message, and to give Speaker Grosscup of the House and President Northcott of the senate time to consider the personnel of the committees and the claims of those who wait to be committee clerks before announcing his appointments.
 
Many of the members of the legislature, especially from the democratic side have gone to their homes to spend Sunday, but the army of office seekers still remain behind, and will be ere until they know their fates. Every county in the state has from one to a dozen representatives.
 
A fruitful topic of discussion in the lobbies today is the scrap that occurred in a saloon near the capitol between ex-Senator B. O. Holland, present postmaker at Logan, and Obe Petty, republican boss in Kanawha county, who resigned from the Charleston post office under a cloud of serious charges brought by women employees of the office. Holland, who was sore over his defeat for sergeant at arms, in the senate, engaged in an alternation with the Charleston man, which quickly developed into a furious fist fight, in which the Logan man received the worst of the deal. Holland is in bad shape, but his injuries are not deemed serious.
 
The legislation that is most likely to be adopted comprises measures providing for the centralization of practically all the power of the state practically all the power of the state in the governor and his appointive officers, thus building up a political machine which will perpetuate in office for many years the present White-Dawson regime and its henchmen.
 
A start was made in his direction at the special session last summer in the creation of the office of tax commissioner, the official to be a personal appointee of the governor. The first desire is to build up such a machine, and the second idea of Mr. Dawson is to be enabled to reward the men who elevated secured for him his nomination last summer by appointing them to official sinecures with good salaries.
 
Hon. Doc Lanham, of Grafton, has excited the attention of his fellow members of the legislature. They are yet uncertain how he is to be taken, whether he is a crank of the purest ray serene or the most hottest and honorable legislator who ever trod the halls of state capital.
 
For upon Lanham’s election to the house of delegates, all the railroads of the state, in the kindness of their mighty hearts made haster to dispatch to him certain passes which would enable him to travel to and from the capitol free of all coat while charging the same up to the state in mileage. Apparently, before he was elected, they hadn’t known that such a person existed as Doc Lanham, but when he became a part and parcel of the state government he was an object of solicitude.
 
But the Taylor county man did not appreciate their kindness toward him nor their solicitude for his welfare, and he fired the passes back to headquarters with the curt note that he didn’t need them. He paid his way to Charleston, and there is much discussion as to whether or not he is the only legislator who did so.
 
--- Three of the barbers employed in the shop of John Rau Jr., in the Florentine Hotel Building, went on a strike about ten o’clock this morning, and, while the shop in operation, it is with a seriously crippled force.
 
The reason for the strike was the continued employment of a barber who is not a member of the Barbers’ Union. The man has been here for some time, and several times overtures have been made to him to join the union, but he always refused.
 
Rau was asked to use his influence to induce the man to join the union, but he said that he was running an open shop, and refused to interfere. After due deliberation, the men decided this morning to go out on a strike.
 
Rau has succeeded in obtaining one additional man and now has three running. It is the intention of the strikers to open a shop of their own in the vicinity of the Florentine.
 
--- The saloon men of Huntington are contributing to a fund for the defeat of the proposed legislation inimical to their interests, which is a part of the program of the legislature at Charleston.
 
Each of them ahs been asked to contribute twenty-five dollars as a first assessment toward bringing about the defeat of the proposed measures, and nearly all of them have contributed that amount.
 
A strong lobby has been organized and the proposed dispensary law and other measures will be fought to a finish.

More 100 Years Ago Today by Brandon Woolum:
 
— Jan. 1, 2005
— Jan. 2, 2005
— Jan. 3, 2005
— Jan. 4, 2005
— Jan. 6, 2005
— Jan. 9, 2005
— Jan. 10, 2005
— Jan. 11, 2005
— Jan. 12, 2005
— Jan. 13, 2005
— Jan. 20, 2005
— Jan. 25, 2005
— Jan. 26, 2005