John Raines was an American lawyer and politician from New York.
Background
John Raines was born May 6, 1840 at Canandaigua, New York, the son of John and Mary (Remington) Raines. His father and grandfather were Methodist clergymen, the latter having emigrated to the United States from Yorkshire, England, in 1817.
Education
Young Raines was educated in the public schools of Canandaigua and was graduated from the Albany (New York) Law School.
Career
After spending a brief term teaching school he began the practice of law in Geneva, New York, early in 1861. Within a few months he was commissioned captain of Company G. 85th Regiment, New York Volunteer Infantry, and served in the Army of the Potomac and in North Carolina until July 1863.
He established his family, as soon as his military service ended, in Geneva where he continued to practise law until 1867, when he moved to Canandaigua. The next ten years he devoted to legal matters, an expanding insurance business, and his first tentative ventures into politics.
Entering the state Assembly in 1881 as an organization Republican, he served for three sessions and then was defeated for reelection, but he regained his seat in the session of 1885. The following year he began a term of service in the state Senate which lasted until 1889. As a reward for party service he received the nomination for Congress in his district and was elected to the Fifty-first and Fifty-second congresses (1889 - 93).
In 1892, at the time of a redistricting of the state, he withdrew in favor of Sereno E. Payne. But he was not long out of public office. A special election held in December 1894 resulted in his return to the upper house of the state legislature, where he remained a prominent Republican leader until his death.
He achieved national prominence as a result of his vigorous fight for the liquor excise bill of 1896, which placed the retail trade in intoxicants under a system of high license fees and prohibited Sunday sales. The law contained a section granting exemption from the Sunday closing regulation to inns and hotels, a provision which resulted in a rapid increase in the number of hotels in the larger cities of the state. At best the "Raines law" hotels were subterfuges which permitted liquor dealers to sell on Sunday and after closing hours on weekdays; many of them became houses of assignation. Despite the popular clamor against this feature of the law, Raines long defended it and demanded its scrupulous enforcement.
In 1906, however, he cooperated with leaders of the Anti-saloon League and representatives of the Committee of Fifteen, which had been investigating the social evil in New York City, to modify those features of the excise system which had proved to be unenforceable. Although his public career was concerned mainly with state and national affairs, Raines never lost contact with the life of his native village. For twenty-two years he served as president of the local board of education, a service terminated by his death which occurred at Canandaigua in December 1909.
Achievements
Politics
Concerning most economic questions he strongly supported the conservative viewpoint and he frequently conferred with Thomas C. Platt, the Republican "boss" of the state, in formulating his party's legislative program.
Connections
He married Catherine A. Wheeler on September 18, 1862.