(This scarce antiquarian book is a facsimile reprint of th...)
This scarce antiquarian book is a facsimile reprint of the original. Due to its age, it may contain imperfections such as marks, notations, marginalia and flawed pages. Because we believe this work is culturally important, we have made it available as part of our commitment for protecting, preserving, and promoting the world's literature in affordable, high quality, modern editions that are true to the original work.
(This scarce antiquarian book is a facsimile reprint of th...)
This scarce antiquarian book is a facsimile reprint of the original. Due to its age, it may contain imperfections such as marks, notations, marginalia and flawed pages. Because we believe this work is culturally important, we have made it available as part of our commitment for protecting, preserving, and promoting the world's literature in affordable, high quality, modern editions that are true to the original work.
(Madagascar: Land of the Man-Eating Tree presents the fact...)
Madagascar: Land of the Man-Eating Tree presents the facts, myths, and legends of Madagascar as viewed by a former governor of Michigan. Learn about cultures and creatures, pirates and castaways, and the interesting scientific and political beliefs of a highly educated and well traveled author of the 1920s. Originally published in 1924, this unabridged edition retains every word of the first printing in reset text, along with all the original maps and photos.
(Originally published in 1919, The Iron Hunter is the auto...)
Originally published in 1919, The Iron Hunter is the autobiography of one of Michigan's most influential and flamboyant historical figures: the reporter, publisher, explorer, politician, and twenty-seventh governor of Michigan, Chase Salmon Osborn (1860-1949). Making unprecedented use of the automobile in his 1910 campaign, Osborn ran a memorable campaign that was followed by an even more remarkable term as governor. In two years he eliminated Michigan's deficit, ended corruption, and produced the state's first workmen's compensation law and a reform of the electoral process. His autobiography reflects the energy and enthusiasm of a reformer inspired by the Progressive Movement, but it also reveals the poetic spirit of an adventurer who fell in love with Michigan's Upper Peninsula after traveling the world.
(This book was originally published prior to 1923, and rep...)
This book was originally published prior to 1923, and represents a reproduction of an important historical work, maintaining the same format as the original work. While some publishers have opted to apply OCR (optical character recognition) technology to the process, we believe this leads to sub-optimal results (frequent typographical errors, strange characters and confusing formatting) and does not adequately preserve the historical character of the original artifact. We believe this work is culturally important in its original archival form. While we strive to adequately clean and digitally enhance the original work, there are occasionally instances where imperfections such as blurred or missing pages, poor pictures or errant marks may have been introduced due to either the quality of the original work or the scanning process itself. Despite these occasional imperfections, we have brought it back into print as part of our ongoing global book preservation commitment, providing customers with access to the best possible historical reprints. We appreciate your understanding of these occasional imperfections, and sincerely hope you enjoy seeing the book in a format as close as possible to that intended by the original publisher.
Chase Salmon Osborn was an American politician, journalist and publisher, and iron ore prospector. He was the 27th Governor of Michigan (1911-1913).
Background
Chase Osborn was born on January 22, 1860, in Huntington County, Indiana, the seventh of ten children (seven boys and three girls) of George Augustus Osborn and Margaret Ann (Fannon) Osborn. His father, a native of Indiana, was descended from English and French Huguenot forebears who had settled in Massachusetts in the seventeenth century; his mother, born in Ohio, was of Protestant Irish ancestry. George Osborn, originally a carpenter, received a medical degree from Indiana Medical College. He established a practice with his wife, who had also studied medicine, but during the family's frequent economic reverses he supplemented their income by working as a carpenter.
Education
Young Chase moved with the family in 1866 to Lafayette, Indiana, where he attended school. He developed an uncommon knowledge of nature and a spirit of adventure that led him frequently to run away from home; once he worked for several months as a chore boy in a Michigan lumber camp. His formal education ended with three years (1874 - 1877) at Purdue University in Lafayette, two in the senior preparatory class and the third as a college freshman.
Career
Osborn began his journalistic career as a reporter for a Lafayette newspaper. In 1879 he traveled to Chicago by foot and freight train, worked briefly for the Chicago Tribune, and then went on the following year to Milwaukee, where he became a reporter for the Evening Wisconsin. Osborn moved north in 1883 to the mining town of Florence, Wisconsin, where he bought and ran a local newspaper. Over the next four years he also began prospecting for iron ore in the rich Menominee range, gaining practical geological experience. He sold his newspaper in 1887 and returned to Milwaukee as city editor of the Sentinel. At the same time he helped establish Miner and Manufacturer, a weekly dedicated to news of the state's burgeoning iron ore industry. The excitement of exploration proved irresistible, and before the end of the year he left Milwaukee to prospect for a mining syndicate. Settling with his family in Sault Ste. Marie, Michigan, which remained his home for the rest of his life, he became part owner (later sole owner) and editor of a weekly newspaper there, the News, but spent much of his time in the wilderness searching for ore. In 1901 he discovered a rich iron deposit in Ontario, from which he realized a considerable fortune. He sold the News the same year but in January 1902 bought a half-interest in the Saginaw (Michigan) Courier-Herald, which he held until 1912.
Osborn early became involved in Michigan politics as a Republican. He served as post-master of Sault Ste. Marie (1889 - 1893) and as state game and fish warden (1895 - 1899). Although he was defeated for a congressional nomination in 1896, his strong showing in this race, as well as in an unsuccessful contest for the gubernatorial nomination in 1900, established his political future. The reform governor Hazen S. Pingree appointed him in 1899 to the state railroad commission, on which he remained until 1903. Osborn's experience on the commission and his high regard for President Theodore Roosevelt helped convert him to progressivism. In 1910, with the deft assistance of his friend and advisor Frank Knox, Osborn secured the Republican nomination for governor and, running on a strongly progressive platform, went on to win the general election.
The next two years Osborn saw a great deal of his program enacted, including a presidential primary law, tax reform, stronger regulatory acts for business, and, most important, a workmen's compensation act. Through retrenchment, Osborn turned an inherited deficit of more than $500, 000 into an equally large surplus. He vigorously championed other reforms such as conservation laws, greater government efficiency, and regulation of the banking and liquor industries; and his support for the initiative, referendum, and recall paved the way for their enactment by his successor. This strong record of reform won Osborn a national reputation and made him a lasting influence in Michigan affairs.
During the 1912 presidential campaign Osborn traveled an elliptical course. Angered by President William Howard Taft's growing conservatism, he was one of the early leaders of the National Progressive Republican League in 1911. In February 1912 he called a conference of like-minded governors who urged Roosevelt to seek the Republican presidential nomination. Osborn opposed, however, the formation of a third party, which he felt would mean abandoning the GOP to the conservatives. When Roosevelt ran as a Progressive, Osborn at first urged Republicans to vote for Woodrow Wilson while backing progressive Republicans in local and state contests. Yet his loyalty to Roosevelt remained strong, and after an assassination attempt on the former president's life in October, Osborn stumped vigorously for him. Osborn had pledged himself to a single term as governor, and although for a time he considered reversing this position, the split in the Republican party confirmed his original decision, and he did not seek reelection in 1912. Never again did he hold public office, although he unsuccessfully sought the governorship in 1914 and nomination to the United States Senate in 1918 and 1930.
Chase Osborn became increasingly concerned with the need for prohibition, championing it almost to the exclusion of other issues. Yet Osborn never lost his essential liberalism. He supported the third-party candidacy of Robert La Follette in 1924; and although he backed Alfred M. Landon in 1936, he switched his allegiance to Franklin D. Roosevelt in 1940. He favored much of the New Deal and in 1941 served on the advisory board of the Michigan Works Progress Administration. After 1912 Osborn spent most of his time in world travel, lecturing, and writing. His interests in science, conservation, and folklore led him into a number of ventures. He attempted, for example, to determine the source of the firefly's light, defended the American roots of the legend of Hiawatha, theorized about glaciation, and financed a study of the feasibility of transporting people across country by vacuum tube. In his final years, he became interested in promoting world peace through an international union of western democracies. A generous, unostentatious man, Osborn gave away much of his fortune to various institutions before his death, including grants of valuable land to Purdue University, the University of Michigan, and the state of Georgia. Reared as a Methodist, Osborn became a Presbyterian after his first marriage. He died of congestive heart failure at his winter home in Poulan, Georgia, at the age of eighty-nine. He was buried in the Duck Island Cemetery, Sault Ste. Marie, Michigan.
Chase Osborn was a member of the Audubon Society, National Rifle Association, Sons of the American Revolution, Freemasons, Elks, Kiwanis, Knights of Pythias, Lions Club, Odd Fellows, Sigma Chi, and Sigma Delta Chi.
Personality
Chase Salmon Osborn was named for his father's abolitionist hero Salmon P. Chase.
A tall, rugged man, Osborn possessed considerable political gifts, including exceptional oratorical powers. Although somewhat vain, he had a forceful personality that made him the focus of any gathering.
Connections
On May 7, 1881, Chase Osborn married Lillian Gertrude Jones of Milwaukee. They had seven children, four of whom - Ethel Louise, George Augustus, Chase Salmon, and Emily Fisher - survived childhood. Osborn's wife, from whom he had separated in 1923, died in 1948. In his later years he was aided by his adopted daughter, Stellanova Brunt; the adoption was annulled, and they were married on April 9, 1949, two days before his death.