Elias Milton Ammons was an American ranchman and politician. He served as a governor of Colorado, the State's Lieutenant Governor, and as Speaker of the Colorado State House of Representatives.
Background
Elias Milton Ammons was born on July 28, 1860 in Macon County, North Carolina, United States. He was the son of Jehu Richards and Margaret Caroline (Brendle) Ammons, both of whom traced their ancestry back to colonial forebears. His sister Theodosia Grace Ammons was on the faculty at Colorado State University, and president of the Colorado Equal Suffrage Association.
Education
Ammons worked as ranchhand and teamster after the removal of the family to Colorado in 1871; but, thanks to training received at home from a cultured mother and a father who had been educated for the Baptist ministry, he was able quickly to make up the time lost when he returned to school in 1875. His formal education closed in 1880, when he was graduated from the East Denver High School.
Career
Ammons entered on a journalistic career, having become a reporter on the Denver Times in 1879; by 1885, when failing eyesight forced him to abandon newspaper work, he had risen to the post of associate editor.
Since outdoor life seemed advisable, he went into the cattle business in 1886 in partnership with Thomas F. Dawson. Until his death he retained his interest in this industry and in all forms of agriculture.
His political career began in 1890 with his appointment as clerk of a district court. Within a few months he resigned to take a seat in the lower house of the Colorado legislature, of which body he was made speaker two years later. When the Republican party committed itself to the gold standard in 1896, he withdrew from its ranks and helped organize the Silver Republican party in Colorado. It was as a "Teller Silver Republican" that he was elected to the state Senate in 1898.
The transition to the Democratic party was easily made; in 1904 and 1906 he was its unsuccessful candidate for lieutenant-governor, but in 1912 he carried the gubernatorial election by a plurality of nearly 48, 000 votes.
The most perplexing problem during his administration was the great strike in the Colorado coal fields (1913-1914), which became so serious after the "Ludlow battle" between the strikers and the state militia on April 20, 1914, that federal troops were called in to restore order. Ammons was accused of grossly favoring the mine owners throughout the struggle, and a motion calling for his resignation was introduced in the legislature but defeated by a vote of 26 to 4.
After his term of office expired (1915), he continued to give freely of his time to business and civic enterprises.
Achievements
Politics
Firstly Ammons became a Democrat, served in the Colorado State Senate from 1898 to 1902. Both preceding and during his term as governor he opposed vigorously the Reservation policy then followed by the Federal Government, on the ground that it would deprive the people of the West of their right to develop the natural resources of their states.
Membership
Ammons was long a member of the Grange and on the State Board of Agriculture.
He was also president of the Farmers' Life Insurance Company (1911-1925), of the Denver Chamber of Commerce (1923-1924), and of the State Historical and Natural History Society (1922-1925).
Personality
Although not strong physically, and nearly blind, Ammons was a man of great vitality and energy.
Connections
Ammons was survived by his wife, Elizabeth (Fleming) Ammons, to whom he was married on January 29, 1889. He was the father of three children.