He entered the political arena when he championed a movement in 1872 to displace U.S. Senator Samuel E. Pomeroy, a former friend, in favor of his opponent John J. Ingalls. In 1872, citizens of the Ninth District elected St. John to the State Senate, where he represented them from 1873 to 1874. In 1876, the Prohibition Party solicited him to run for governor on their ticket. However, St. John refused the nomination. In 1878 and 1880, he won the gubernatorial election, and represented the Republican Party as governor of the State of Kansas.
In his inaugural speech of 1878, St. John raised the issue of Prohibition, stating that the money spent on alcohol in Kansas would pay for the operation of that State’s government for a year. Viewing alcohol as a social and economic pariah, St. John advocated its elimination as a source of evil from the state, and eventually the country as a whole. St. John advocated social rights be offered to all people, regardless of their gender, race, or economic status.
Governor St. John faced several high profile crises while in office. Federal troops left the South after the end of the Reconstruction period, and racial discrimination resumed. From 1878 to 1879 the “Great Exodus” of African Americans, mainly former slaves, arrived from the Southern states in search of a better life. The term “Exodusters” came to represent the freedmen who believed Kansas was their “promised land.” Advertisements spread by Benjamin “Pap” Singleton and others telling of the opportunities to own land in Kansas prompted their migration. The 1862 Homestead Act provided 160 acres of land to anyone who paid the filing fee and lived there for five years. The Desert Land Act of 1877 also provided for the sale of up to 640 acres of land at $.25 per acre.
Many people arrived by boat - having traveled up the Mississippi River to St. Louis, Missouri, and then by steamboat on the Missouri River across the state of Missouri - to arrive in the city of Wyandotte. This city was located at the confluence of the Missouri and Kansas Rivers, and is now part of present day Kansas City, Kansas. This was a trip of almost one thousand miles for those traveling from Louisiana. Today that trip would take fourteen hours to drive, however, in 1879 the trip took at least six days if done non - stop. For most “Exodusters,” due to lack of money and the slow speed of their vessels, the trip took somewhere around twenty days to complete.
Several thousand refugees arrived in Wyandotte in one month; fifteen thousand arrived in 1879 alone. The number of refugees became so large and so disproportionate to the number of permanent residents, that Wyandotte’s residents begged for assistance in sheltering, clothing, and feeding the poor and homeless, who often spent everything they had just to get to Wyandotte. Wyandotte’s residents donated food, clothing, and shelter for the refugees, but their resources were limited, and quickly stretched beyond their limits. At one point the situation was so desperate, that steamboats were banned from landing in Wyandotte, on the Kansas side of the Missouri River, and forced to land in Kansas City, on the Missouri side. Other cities in the region - such as Leavenworth and Atchison, Kansas - found themselves inundated as well. Militant citizens even made threats against the boat captains who continued to provide passage for refugees. The federal government denied assistance, and the State of Kansas found itself responsible for thousands of homeless and impoverished people.
To assist the Exodusters and the citizens of Wyandotte, Governor St. John established the Freedman’s State Central Association, which he headed. St. John knew the refugees were trustworthy and could not help being poor and homeless. The African American refugees were sent to neighboring towns and communities until, finally, Governor St. John advocated bringing them all to Topeka by train and establishing a camp to help them. Many of the refugees were sick with diseases such as measles; pneumonia; pleurisy, an inflammation of the lungs; and the bloody flux, intestinal bleeding, a form of dysentery.
On top of the large influx of new citizens, St. John was also dealing with disturbances in the southern part of the State. “Indian” raiders were attacking settlers along the southern border with Indian Territory, now present-day Oklahoma. St. John received messages from many citizens concerned about the situation. St. John sent a mounted guard to protect this part of the State from the unwanted visitors.
St. John, besides averting disaster with his forethought and cool head in many chaotic situations, also strove to improve the State’s infrastructure. He opened coal mines at the Kansas State Penitentiary in Lansing to help make the facility more self-sufficient. St. John also oversaw the addition of the west wing to the Statehouse in Topeka, as well as rebuilding the State Normal School in Emporia, now Emporia State University, following a disastrous fire.
During the summer of 1879, United States President Rutherford B. Hayes visited the state, and Governor St. John took him to the Woodson County Fair. In June of 1880, Governor St. John hosted United States President Ulysses S. Grant during his visit to Kansas. However, these famous and influential visitors were not the only ways that Governor St. John brought notoriety to the State of Kansas.
p), and barely know anything about John St. John other than he has a damn cool name), but will wait for those more knowledgeable of this period to provide their comments and analysis.
