Legislator’s clout no match for unwritten rule

It was a generally quiet day at the state capital.

“There was little of interest in the sessions of either house of the Legislature yesterday,” The Argus of Albany reported on Feb. 8, 1894. “The liveliest fight of all was over Mr. Hobbie’s bill granting permission for the erection of a free bridge over the Hudson River at any point north of Waterford.”

The legislation, which Assemblyman William Hobbie, R-Greenwich, introduced and championed, would clear the way for a coalition of logging and paper companies to build a bridge at Schuylerville that would be available for public use free of charge.

The investment would result in a net savings for the local businesses, which would no longer have to pay to transport their goods across private toll bridges at either Fort Miller or Schuylerville.

Not coincidentally, Hobbie owned The Phoenix Paper Co. at Greenwich. Hobbie kept pushing for the free bridge, and there was great celebration when the legislation crossed the finish line.
“Schuylerville was the scene of great rejoicing Saturday,” The Granville Sentinel reported on April 27, 1894. “The bells on the churches and the whistles on the business houses and mills and factories sounded for half an hour in honor of Governor [Roswell P.] Flower for signing Assemblyman Hobbie’s free bridge bill.”

The pen that Flower used to sign the legislation was put on display at a local jewelry store.
The bridge bill’s passage was an example of Hobbie’s well-known clout in the Assembly.
“Every measure that he introduced on his own motion was passed,” the Sentinel wrote in an editorial on June 29, 1894, in which the paper endorsed Hobbie for the Republican nomination for another term. “He succeeded in establishing friendships and influences and a general confidence in his intensity and good judgment that made it easy for him to carry measures as he deemed important.”

Hobbie would lose his seat, however, in an election that tested the merits of term limits — even though New York, then as now, had no law requiring them.

Washington County Republicans had a longstanding tradition that the party’s local Assembly members would serve two years and then step aside to allow someone else to serve.
The tradition, an unwritten rule in many counties in New York, was intended to foster geographic diversity in representation.

Hobbie was first elected in 1892, and re-elected in 1893 to a second one-year term. Before that, he had served as Greenwich town supervisor in 1889-90.

The Sentinel, prior to the Republicans’ 1894 nominating convention, argued against enforcing the traditional two-year limit.

“And how long will it take any other among those talked of for the nomination to secure the confidence and influence that Mr. Hobbie would carry with him to a third term?” the paper’s editorial asked. “There are some among these aspirants who would not reach his position in 10 years, and others who could not in a lifetime.”

The county Republican convention rejected that argument, however, and nominated William Stevenson, who had represented southern Washington County in the Assembly in 1891-92. At that time, Washington County was split into two Assembly districts, which redistricting combined into one countywide district beginning with the 1892 election.

Stevenson, a farmer, real estate investor and banker, previously had served as Argyle town supervisor and chairman of the Washington County Board of Supervisors.

Party nominations were decided at conventions in that era, and there was no mechanism to challenge the endorsed candidate in a primary.

Hobbie, sensing he still had support among rank-and-file voters, filed paperwork to run as an independent in the general election.

“The numerous letters and personal assurances I have received from the representative men of the county reflect the deep-seated feeling of their commitments,” Hobbie wrote in an “open letter” to voters, quoted in The Morning Star of Glens Falls on Sept. 10, 1894. “My duty is plain, and I submit the question to the people of this county for their decision. I will be their candidate.”
The Washington County Democratic convention, which did not field an Assembly candidate, endorsed Hobbie’s independent candidacy by a vote of 67-16, The Granville Sentinel reported on Sept. 21, 1894.

The race grew nasty. At one point, it appeared that Stevenson supporters retaliated against The Cambridge Post, a Republican-aligned newspaper, when it endorsed Hobbie over Stevenson.
“Last week, the entire edition of The Post was stolen but was subsequently recovered where it had been concealed in the cellar of the office building,” The Morning Star reported on Sept. 22, 1894. “The editor, Rev. J.S. Smart, continues his advocacy for Mr. Hobbie in this paper with his wonted zeal.”

A court ruled against a Republican Party attempt to remove Hobbie’s name from the ballot.
On Oct. 26, 1894, Charles O. Reynolds, a blacksmith from Easton, signed a sworn affidavit denying rumors that Greenwich School Commissioner Joseph Barbur had told the blacksmith that Hobbie at one point recommended the public school system not hire Roman Catholics as teachers.

On Election Day, Hobbie carried Cambridge, Dresden, Fort Edward, Greenwich and Jackson, the Sentinel reported on Nov. 9, 1894. He also carried one election district each in Argyle, Hebron, Salem, White Creek and Whitehall.
But Stevenson won the overall vote.

A year later, however, Hobbie was back on the Assembly campaign trail, this time running with the GOP nomination. He went on to win the 1895 general election.

At the county Republican victory party, supporters chanted, “Hobbie’s got the grit,” The People’s Journal of Greenwich reported on Nov. 14, 1895.

“My little understanding of politics is that every true man is responsible to the people to express their sentiments, do their bidding and walk humbly in true spirit,” Hobbie said in his victory speech.

He served two more years in the Assembly.

 

Maury Thompson was a reporter for The Post-Star of Glens Falls for 21 years before retiring in 2017. He now is a freelance writer focusing on the history of politics, labor and media in the region.