Background
John Alexander Martin was the son of James Martin and Jane Crawford. He was born on March 10, 1839 at Brownsville, Pennsylvania.
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John Alexander Martin was the son of James Martin and Jane Crawford. He was born on March 10, 1839 at Brownsville, Pennsylvania.
He received his education in the common schools and in the printing office.
Late in 1857 he went to Kansas and in February 1858, when he was not yet nineteen, he bought an Atchison newspaper, which he renamed Freedom's Champion (subsequently the Champion and still later the Atchison Champion). Within three years he was recognized as one of the political leaders of the younger generation in Kansas Territory, serving, among other positions of honor, as secretary of the Wyandotte constitutional convention and as state senator in the first state legislature. He resigned political office to become, October 27, 1861, lieutenant-colonel of the 8th Volunteer Infantry. On November 1 he was promoted to the rank of colonel, serving as provost-marshal of Nashville, Tenn. , and later as brigade-commander during the Chattanooga campaigns. He was mustered out November 17, 1864, and returned to the editorship of his newspaper. Martin had three ruling passions; the Old Soldier interest, the Republican party, and Kansas. During the period 1865-84 he was an active leader in the editorial organization of the state, and in the management of the affairs of the Republican party, local, state, and national. He was chairman of the Atchison county central committee, 1859-84, except during the war, a member of the state committee, beginning in 1870, and of the national committee almost continuously, beginning in 1868. He was secretary of the national committee during the early eighties and sponsored a plan for reapportioning representation in the national convention in order to recognize partially the growing Republican vote in the West. A state law providing for arbitration of labor disputes was enacted in 1886, and he urged the passage of a federal law in this field, as well as the federal licensing of locomotive engineers. Martin's administration came in a period of unusual railroad building and of the settlement of the western part of the state. Local government units were induced by various means to issue excessive amounts of bonded indebtedness to finance railroad building. These practices were opposed by Martin, and he urged repeatedly, but without success, the adoption by both state and national governments of a program which might forestall the collapse of the boom in Kansas and elsewhere, and bring about a public control of big business. He advocated a comprehensive state corporation law designed to meet the abuses prevalent in the conduct of business, and attacked the monopoly question in its national aspect from the standpoint of the discriminative practices of the railroads: "They are monopolizing a dozen branches of business the coal trade, the grain trade, the elevator business, the express business, etc. " After four strenuous years as governor, he retired again to the editorship of his newspaper. In 1869 he published a Military History of the Eighth Kansas Veteran Volunteer Infantry, and in 1888 he printed, for private distribution, a volume of Addresses.
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Martin's major political ambition was the governorship of Kansas. He was elected in 1884 and reelected in 1886. Among the chief issues of his administration was the enforcement of the prohibition law. He had been an opponent of prohibition at the time of the adoption of the constitutional amendment of 1880, but by 1883 he indorsed it and was nominated and elected on a platform containing a prohibition plank. He was convinced by the experience of the state and especially of his home town of Atchison that "the saloon-keepers, as a rule, were a lot of shameless ingrates, who were not only opposed to prohibition, but to any and all restraint on their dirty business". He felt that the only way to deal with them was to stand squarely on prohibition of the liquor traffic and thereby to eliminate its influence from politics. Prohibition under his administration became the settled policy of the Republican party in the state and of the state of Kansas. He advocated revision of legal procedure, the modification of the judicial system, both an enlargement and a reform in line with progressive practices adopted in some other states, and the codification of state law. He took great interest in penal reform, and was quite successful in dealing with railroad labor troubles, 1885-88.
He had married, on June 1, 1871, Ida Challiss, the daughter of Dr. W. L. and Mary (Harres) Challiss.