Richard Achilles Ballinger (July 9, 1858June 6, 1922) was mayor of
Seattle, Washington
Seattle ( ) is a seaport city on the West Coast of the United States. It is the seat of King County, Washington. With a 2020 population of 737,015, it is the largest city in both the state of Washington and the Pacific Northwest region ...
, from 1904–1906, Commissioner of the
General Land Office
The General Land Office (GLO) was an independent agency of the United States government responsible for public domain lands in the United States. It was created in 1812 to take over functions previously conducted by the United States Department o ...
from 1907–1908 and
U.S. Secretary of the Interior
The United States secretary of the interior is the head of the United States Department of the Interior. The secretary and the Department of the Interior are responsible for the management and conservation of most federal land along with natural ...
from 1909–1911.
Early life and Seattle career
Ballinger was born in
Boonesboro, Iowa, the son of Richard Henry Ballinger and Mary Elizabeth Norton. In 1884, he graduated from
Williams College
Williams College is a private liberal arts college in Williamstown, Massachusetts. It was established as a men's college in 1793 with funds from the estate of Ephraim Williams, a colonist from the Province of Massachusetts Bay who was kill ...
, where he was a member of the
Zeta Psi
Zeta Psi () is a collegiate fraternity. It was founded in June 1, 1847 at New York University. The organization now comprises fifty-three active chapters and thirty-four inactive chapters, encompassing roughly fifty thousand members, and is a ...
fraternity.
Ballinger passed the
bar exam
A bar examination is an examination administered by the bar association of a jurisdiction that a lawyer must pass in order to be admitted to the bar of that jurisdiction.
Australia
Administering bar exams is the responsibility of the bar associat ...
in 1886 and began practicing law in Seattle. He married Julia Albertson Bradley later that year, on October 26. The couple ultimately had two sons, (Edward Bradley Ballinger and Richard Talcott Ballinger).
Following the scandal-prone
Yukon Gold Rush era administration of
Thomas J. Humes, Ballinger was elected Seattle's mayor in 1904. With the support of the downtown business elite, he cracked down somewhat (but not heavily) on vice, and opposed
labor unions
A trade union (labor union in American English), often simply referred to as a union, is an organization of workers intent on "maintaining or improving the conditions of their employment", ch. I such as attaining better wages and benefits (su ...
. Ballinger later proved a roadblock to the city's strong
municipal ownership movement. He also named
Lake Ballinger in
Snohomish County
Snohomish County () is a county located in the U.S. state of Washington. With a population of 827,957 as of the 2020 census, it is the third-most populous county in Washington, after nearby King and Pierce counties, and the 75th-most populous ...
north of the city for his father, Col. Richard Ballinger.
Federal career and scandal
![Ballinger Nomination](https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/6/61/Ballinger_Nomination.JPG)
After serving as the mayor of Seattle, Ballinger joined the administration of President
Theodore Roosevelt
Theodore Roosevelt Jr. ( ; October 27, 1858 – January 6, 1919), often referred to as Teddy or by his initials, T. R., was an American politician, statesman, soldier, conservationist, naturalist, historian, and writer who served as the 26t ...
and served as commissioner of the
General Land Office
The General Land Office (GLO) was an independent agency of the United States government responsible for public domain lands in the United States. It was created in 1812 to take over functions previously conducted by the United States Department o ...
from 1907 until 1908. In 1909, Ballinger helped organize the
Alaska–Yukon–Pacific Exposition
The Alaska–Yukon–Pacific Exposition, acronym AYP or AYPE, was a world's fair held in Seattle in 1909 publicizing the development of the Pacific Northwest. It was originally planned for 1907 to mark the 10th anniversary of the Klondike Gold R ...
, a World's Fair to highlight development in the Northwest.
In 1909 despite previous promises to retain ex-President Roosevelt's cabinet officers, newly elected President
William Howard Taft
William Howard Taft (September 15, 1857March 8, 1930) was the 27th president of the United States (1909–1913) and the tenth chief justice of the United States (1921–1930), the only person to have held both offices. Taft was elected pr ...
appointed Ballinger to replace conservationist (and fellow Ohioan)
James R. Garfield as the
U.S. Secretary of the Interior
The United States secretary of the interior is the head of the United States Department of the Interior. The secretary and the Department of the Interior are responsible for the management and conservation of most federal land along with natural ...
. One of his first acts was to revoke executive protection of lands potentially subject to development of hydroelectric energy pending surveys, restoring them to the public domain for leasing. Progressives feared that hydroelectric monopolies would grab such sites either to control or preclude development and would then dictate energy prices, since 13 companies (including
General Electric
General Electric Company (GE) is an American multinational conglomerate founded in 1892, and incorporated in New York state and headquartered in Boston. The company operated in sectors including healthcare, aviation, power, renewable en ...
and
Westinghouse) already controlled more than a third of waterpower resources as Roosevelt left office. However, that restoration soon provoked a scandal. In August, in conjunction with the National Irrigation Conference in
Spokane, Washington
Spokane ( ) is the largest city and county seat of Spokane County, Washington, United States. It is in eastern Washington, along the Spokane River, adjacent to the Selkirk Mountains, and west of the Rocky Mountain foothills, south of the Cana ...
, a
United Press
United Press International (UPI) is an American international news agency whose newswires, photo, news film, and audio services provided news material to thousands of newspapers, magazines, radio and television stations for most of the 20t ...
reporter published a story about 15,868 acres of land in Montana being sold to large corporations (General Electric,
Guggenheim and
Amalgamated Copper
The Anaconda Copper Mining Company, known as the Amalgamated Copper Company between 1899 to 1915, was an American mining company headquartered in Butte, Montana. It was one of the largest trusts of the early 20th century and one of the largest mi ...
). Ballinger at first ignored the story, then accused reporters of opposing development in the West. Although that Montana waterpower story proved to be overblown, accusations of favoritism continued to dog Ballinger as Secretary of the Interior.
The most serious charges involved
coal
Coal is a combustible black or brownish-black sedimentary rock, formed as rock strata called coal seams. Coal is mostly carbon with variable amounts of other elements, chiefly hydrogen, sulfur, oxygen, and nitrogen.
Coal is formed when ...
development in the
Chugach National Forest by a Seattle developer and Ballinger crony, Clarence Cunningham, and financed by a corporation associated with
J. P. Morgan
John Pierpont Morgan Sr. (April 17, 1837 – March 31, 1913) was an American financier and investment banker who dominated corporate finance on Wall Street throughout the Gilded Age. As the head of the banking firm that ultimately became known ...
and the
Guggenheim family
The Guggenheim family ( ) is an American-Jewish family known for making their fortune in the mining industry, in the early 20th century, especially in the United States and South America. After World War I, many family members withdrew from th ...
of New York City. The group had staked 33 claims, although
Alaska
Alaska ( ; russian: Аляска, Alyaska; ale, Alax̂sxax̂; ; ems, Alas'kaaq; Yup'ik: ''Alaskaq''; tli, Anáaski) is a state located in the Western United States on the northwest extremity of North America. A semi-exclave of the U.S. ...
land laws were designed to foster small farmers and prevent monopoly and thus required each claimant to prove that he or she was acting on his or her own behalf, as well as limited each claimant to 160 acres. While land commissioner, Ballinger granted the developer special access to government files. During the several month gap in 1908 between his employment as land commissioner and interior secretary, Ballinger acted as an agent for the Cunningham/Morgan/Guggenheim development group with the federal government, lobbying then Interior Secretary
Jim Garfield. Upon becoming Interior Secretary, Ballinger reassigned General Land Office investigator Louis R. Glavis, and ultimately fired him after he complained to
Gifford Pinchot
Gifford Pinchot (August 11, 1865October 4, 1946) was an American forester and politician. He served as the fourth chief of the U.S. Division of Forestry, as the first head of the United States Forest Service, and as the 28th governor of Pennsy ...
(head of the
Forestry Bureau
The Forestry Bureau () is an agency of the Council of Agriculture of Taiwan (ROC).
History
The Forestry Bureau was originally established in 1945 as the Office of Forestry Administration. In June 1947, the office was disbanded and the Forestry ...
and thus responsible for the Chugach, although also subordinate to the Interior Secretary), President Taft and cooperated with the press.
A series of
muckraking
The muckrakers were reform-minded journalists, writers, and photographers in the Progressive Era in the United States (1890s–1920s) who claimed to expose corruption and wrongdoing in established institutions, often through sensationalist publ ...
articles, including Glavis's in the November issue of ''
Collier's Weekly
''Collier's'' was an American general interest magazine founded in 1888 by Peter Fenelon Collier. It was launched as ''Collier's Once a Week'', then renamed in 1895 as ''Collier's Weekly: An Illustrated Journal'', shortened in 1905 to ''Colli ...
'' roused the
conservationists
The conservation movement, also known as nature conservation, is a political, environmental, and social movement that seeks to manage and protect natural resources, including animal, fungus, and plant species as well as their habitat for the f ...
. An article in ''Hampton's'' even accused President Taft of being part of a conspiracy hatched at the 1908 Republican Convention. Ballinger again dismissed the controversy and President Taft appeared to want the ordeal to end, maintaining that both Ballinger and Pinchot remained committed to Roosevelt's conservation policies. Ballinger, however, threatened to resign unless Taft consented to a congressional investigation to exonerate him, and in December sent a letter to Washington state's Republican senator
Wesley Jones demanding a complete investigation.
Although even
Charles Taft advised the President to ask for Ballinger's resignation, Taft stood by his appointee, and attorney general
George Wickersham even backdated to September 11, 1909 a report concerning Glavis' firing. After a Washington insider warned Collier that Ballinger planned to sue his magazine after the planned "whitewash", it hired
Louis D. Brandeis as its counsel. Pinchot went public with his differences with Ballinger's approach and his office delivered another report to the Senator Dolliver, Republican chair of the Committee on Agriculture and Forestry. This prompted Taft to fire Pinchot as well, while Roosevelt was in Africa. During the special committee's hearings, both Glavis and Pinchot testified, and testimony about the backdating by a stenographer prompted Taft to take responsibility for ordering it, though that stenographer and other employees were also fired. Brandeis's questioning made Ballinger's anti-conservationism clear, but did not unearth anything so serious as to warrant criminal charges. Nonetheless, public confidence in Ballinger's leadership of the Interior Department had waned.
After the Republican party lost heavily in the midterm elections that November, Ballinger finally resigned on March 12, 1911. Taft had replaced Pinchot with
Henry Graves, who was committed to protecting American forests, and Ballinger helped Taft to secure a new law which allowed Taft to withdraw public lands from private development, thus allowing them to protect as many acres in one term as Roosevelt had in nearly two terms. However, the series of Ballinger-related scandals, Taft's loyalty to his embattled appointee, and Ballinger's refusal to resign for more than nine additional months—combined with controversy over the
Payne–Aldrich tariff—split the
Republican Party and helped to turn the tide of the 1912 election against Taft.
Death
![Seattle - Richard A](https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/6/6b/Seattle_-_Richard_A._Ballinger_House_01.jpg)
Ballinger returned to the private practice of law in
Seattle, Washington
Seattle ( ) is a seaport city on the West Coast of the United States. It is the seat of King County, Washington. With a 2020 population of 737,015, it is the largest city in both the state of Washington and the Pacific Northwest region ...
, where he died on June 6, 1922, and was buried at the Lake View Cemetery.
My Edmonds News
/ref>
His wife Julia Albertson Ballinger (1864-1961) bore their sons Edwin B. Ballinger (1899-) and Richard Talcott Ballinger (1898-1971).
See also
* Pinchot–Ballinger controversy
The Pinchot–Ballinger controversy, also known as the "Ballinger Affair", was a dispute between U.S. Forest Service Chief Gifford Pinchot and U.S. Secretary of the Interior Richard A. Ballinger that contributed to the split of the Republican P ...
Notes
References
*
External links
, -
{{DEFAULTSORT:Ballinger, Richard A.
1858 births
1922 deaths
United States Secretaries of the Interior
Mayors of Seattle
Williams College alumni
General Land Office Commissioners
Taft administration cabinet members
20th-century American politicians
Washington (state) Republicans