Henry Tifft Gage (December 25, 1852 – August 28, 1924) was an American lawyer, politician and diplomat. A Republican, Gage was elected to a single term as the 20th governor of California from 1899 to 1903. Gage was also the U.S. Minister to Portugal for several months in 1910.
Biography
Gage was born on Christmas Day, 1852 in Geneva, New York. Relocating with his family to East Saginaw, Michigan, he spent his teenage years in Michigan, studying law with his lawyer father. In 1873 at the age of 21, Gage was admitted to the Michigan Bar, working for his father's law practice in East Saginaw for over a year. Over a year later, Gage relocated to California, settling in Los Angeles. Between 1874 and 1877, Gage was a successful sheep dealer, selling sheep to various farms around Los Angeles County. In 1877, Gage returned to law, opening his own practice. Largely successful in court, his practice quickly began to attract a number of prominent corporate clients in Southern California, including the Southern Pacific Railroad, who would enjoy a decades-long relationship with Gage. Three years later, Gage married Francesca V. Rains, a great-granddaughter of a Californio family. The Gages settled in Bell Gardens at his wife's family home.
Running as a Republican, Gage was elected as Los Angeles City Attorney in 1881, beginning a slow rise within party ranks. At the 1888 Republican National Convention in Chicago, Gage was chosen as a delegate-at-large during the proceedings. In a speech to the convention, Gage seconded the motion to nominate Levi P. Morton as the party's nomination for the vice presidency.
left|thumb|S.S. Itata in [[San Diego Bay in 1891]]
In 1891, President Benjamin Harrison appointed Gage as a federal prosecutor to prosecute the crew of the Chilean steamer Itata due to the Itata Incident. The U.S. federal government charged the crew with knowingly assisting an illegal arms purchase. Its cargo had consisted of weapons purchased for National Congressional insurgent forces fighting in the 1891 Chilean Civil War against President José Manuel Balmaceda. Upon review of the federal government's case, Gage dropped all charges against Itata's crew, claiming that the government had mistaken the arms purchase as illegal. Other minor candidates in the election included Job Harriman of the Socialist Labor Party of America and Prohibitionist J.E. McComas, a former State Senator.
Governorship
thumb|right|Gage 1898
Gage was inaugurated as the 20th governor of California on January 4, 1899. In his inauguration speech, Gage spoke at length about foreign policy, viewing with favor the recent results of the Spanish–American War and their effect on California's economy. "The peaceful acquisition of the Hawaiian Islands, extending our empire beyond our Pacific shore, should be followed as a political necessity by the annexation of the Philippines," Gage stated. "The center of commerce must move westward. California, favorably situated, will, among other advantages, reap the harvest of trade with these new territories, developing our many varied and growing resources, creating a western merchant marine for the carriage of our imports and exports, and luring to our markets the nations of the world."
In one of his first acts, Gage's administration reopened the State Printing Office, which had been closed down by Governor James Budd to cut governmental expenditures.
San Francisco bubonic plague outbreak
On January 3, 1900, Gage held a legislative session to discuss ways to improve San Francisco's port in attempt to increase trading with Asia. He also wanted to bring back the State Quarantine Service which had recently been removed. The federal Marine Hospital Service on Angel Island was responsible for the inspection of all incoming ships and preventing all foreign diseases from coming into California. Reintroduction of the State Quarantine Service would provide Gage with more oversight and ability to minimize threats of quarantine. However, the session was adjourned before any action upon the request could take place. From 1900 onwards, Gage's administration was often rocky. That year, the ship Australia laid anchor in the Port of San Francisco, unknowingly bringing to the city rats carrying the Third Pandemic of the bubonic plague. The disease soon made home in the cramped ghetto quarters of the city's Chinatown. Rumors of the plague's presence abounded in the city, quickly gaining the notice of authorities from the federal Marine Hospital Service, including the Marine Hospital Service's head in San Francisco, Joseph J. Kinyoun.
Allied with powerful railroad and city business interests, Gage publicly denied the existence of any pestilence outbreak in the city, fearing that any word of the plague's presence would deeply damage the city and state's economy. Supportive newspapers, such as the San Francisco Call, San Francisco Chronicle and the San Francisco Bulletin, echoed Gage's denials, beginning what was to become an intense defamation campaign against Joseph Kinyoun, director of the San Francisco Quarantine Station. In response to the state's refuting of the plague's existence, U.S. Surgeon General Walter Wyman recommended to federal Treasury Secretary Lyman J. Gage (no relation to the governor) to intervene. Secretary Gage agreed, creating a three-man medical commission to medically investigate the city. The commission conclusively discovered that bubonic plague was present.
Like Kinyoun, the Treasury commission's findings were again immediately denounced by Governor Gage. Gage believed the federal government's growing presence in the matter was a gross intrusion of what he recognized as a state concern. In his retaliation, Gage denied the federal commission any use of the University of California, Berkeley's laboratories to further study the outbreak. The Bulletin would also attack the federal commission, branding it as a "youthful and inexperienced trio".
The clash between Gage and federal authorities intensified. Surgeon General Wyman instructed Kinyoun to place Chinatown under quarantine, as well as blocking all East Asians from entering state borders. Upon hearing Kinyoun's announcement, Gage sent telegrams and spread the word to California's elected officials, party leaders, and even delegates of the National Convention. He encouraged them to speak with the President about cancelling the quarantine and removing Kinyoun from his duties. In response to what he said to be massive scaremongering by the Marine Hospital Service, Gage pushed a censorship bill through the legislature to gag any media reports of plague infection. The legislation failed, yet laws to gag reports amongst the medical community succeeded in passage and were signed into law by the governor. In addition, $100,000 was allocated to a public campaign led by Gage to deny the plague's existence. Privately, however, Gage sent a special commission to Washington, consisting of Southern Pacific, newspaper and shipping lawyers to negotiate a settlement with the Marine Hospital Service, whereby the federal government would remove Kinyoun from San Francisco with the promise that the state would secretly cooperate with the Marine Hospital Service in stamping out the plague outbreak.
Labor agitation
As Gage fought his growing battle with the federal government, labor agitation was starting to spill over along the San Francisco waterfront. In July 1901, members of the International Brotherhood of Teamsters went on strike, protesting against recent orders to haul luggage for a non-unionized cargo company. The Teamsters strike was quickly joined by sympathizing sailors, stevedores and fireman belonging to the City Front Federation. Between 10,000 and 16,000 men joined the strike.
Employers grew quickly frustrated with the strikers, asking for San Francisco Mayor James D. Phelan to request Gage in ordering in the state militia to crush the strike. Phelan refused, though violence between strikers and officers of the San Francisco Police Department began to break out in September.
Gage became increasingly concerned that violence along San Francisco's waterfront was spilling out of the city's control. On one instance, in order to reassure himself that violence was not increasing, Gage disguised himself as a striker and walked amongst the stevedores to observe conditions personally.
Post governorship
thumb|right|upright=1.2|Ex-Governor Gage (seventh from left) with members of the Redwood Park Commission, including [[Robert E. Kenna (sixth from left), at Big Basin State Park, 1911]]
After leaving Sacramento, Gage returned to Los Angeles to resume his law practice. In 1909, President William Howard Taft appointed Gage as U.S. Minister to Portugal. Gage served in Lisbon for a little more than five months until November 1910. Political instability in Portugal, due to the Revolution of 1910 that deposed King Manuel II, as well as his wife's deteriorating health, forced Gage to submit his resignation to the U.S. Department of State and President Taft. He returned to California shortly afterwards.
Gage died in Los Angeles on August 28, 1924, at the age of 71.
Legacy
Despite his administration being characterized by historians as both rocky and incompetent, a lasting legacy of Gage's tenure of office was his signing off on the establishment of California Polytechnic State University in 1901.
In 1902, Gage appointed Ulysses S. Webb as California Attorney General. Webb became one of the most successful attorneys general in the history of California and its longest-serving (37 years, until his retirement in 1939).
Gage Avenue in Los Angeles was named after the former governor on October 28, 1929. Henry T. Gage Middle School, located on Gage Avenue, also is named after him.
The Henry Gage Mansion is a California Historic Landmark (No. 984), given the designation on May 26, 1989. Located in Bell Gardens, the Gage Mansion, built in 1795, is the oldest remaining home in Los Angeles County.