Reminiscing with Pearl Playford

Published November 8, 1962

Politics has been a favorite topic of conversation these past several weeks but everyone is glad that the election is over, or will be by the time this is in print. Some will be very happy over the results while others will be very disappointed, but anyway, the people have spoken.

Fifty years ago this week was also an important one as it was a Presidential year, and it will no doubt be remembered by many who are now going to the polls. There were three tickets, Republican, with Incumbent William Howard Taft, seeking re-election; Woodrow Wilson, Democrat, and Col. Theodore Roosevelt, candidate on the Progressive party. It was a big victory for the Democratic Party. It was the first time since 1890 that the Democrats swept Berrien County, giving every candidate on the State Ticket a win, and all but one of the County jobs.

Leon D. Case, Watervliet, was elected State Senator for the Berrien-Cass District, and the Democrats got both members of the House of Representatives, both of this county. Case was the first Democrat State Senator elected from the Seventh District since 1890. Harvey Sherwood, Democrat, was a Representative from the 7th District in 1885.

At that 1912 election Woodbridge W. Ferris, Democrat, was elected Governor of Michigan by 10,000 and voters also voted in favor of Woman Suffrage in Michigan by 7,000.

Wilson, in his talk to the Nation following his election, commented: “The result fills me with the hope that the thoughtful progressive forces of the Nation may now at last unite to give the country freedom of enterprise and a government released from all corporate and private enterprise and a government devoted to justice and progress.

“There is absolutely nothing for the honest and enlightened businessmen of the country to fear. Our hope and purpose is now to bring all the free forces of the nation into action and co-operation and to give to our prosperity a freshness and a spirit of confidence, such as has not been seen in our time. The responsibilities of the task are tremendous, but they are common responsibilities which all leaders of action and opinion must share. And with the confidence of the people behind us, everything that is right is possible. My own ambition will be more than satisfied if I am permitted to be the frank spokesman of the Nation’s thoughtful purposes in these great matters.”