The Immigrant Controversy
The formerly benign art project exploded into controversary during the 1887 Legislative session. After Governor Luce publicly endorsed continuing the project, Senator Jay Hubbell (a Michigan-born lawyer who lived in Houghton) introduced Senate Bill No. 62, appropriating $30,000 to continue and complete the Capitol’s decoration.
Two months later, Senator John Rairden (an Irish-born furniture painter and finisher living in Wayne County) introduced an amendment stating that “no one but citizens of the United States or of the State of Michigan should be awarded the contract excited some debate.” This would, he thought, exclude William Wright, who was born in England and lived in Sandwich, Canada (now known as Windsor).
Senator Hubbell furiously and publicly questioned Senator Rairden’s motivations. According to The [Detroit] Evening News, Hubble “got up and stated that he had in his possession a letter, recently written by Senator Rairden to Wright, the Detroit decorator, offering to vote for a $50,000 appropriation, if Wright would agree to employ only union men.”
Then others entered the fray. Senator Henry Seymour (a New York native living in Sault Ste. Marie MI), called the amendment “a wise provision and in the line of protection to American industry.” Sen. Edward Edwards (another native New York Stater now living in Fremont) “said it was the rankest kind of Know-Nothingism to adopt such a proviso. He thanked God that the idea of the founders of the Republic was to make it an asylum for the poor and oppressed of all lands.”
In the mid 19th century, the State of Michigan actively recruited immigration from the German States. It is possible that members of the Weidemann and Hensler families first learned about Michigan via a publication like this. Bentley Historical Library, University of Michigan
National Immigration Debate
Not surprisingly, this fight echoed a similar verbal battle that played out in Congress two years earlier. At this time, Americans and their elected leaders were caught up in major debates regarding immigration, citizenship, union and non-union labor, and which companies could obtain government work. Nationally, this resulted in the passage of the 1885 “Alien Contract Labor Law,” which prevented contractors from bringing in foreign laborers.
Along this same line, in 1887 the Michigan House of Representatives debated a bill “to prevent the employment by corporations of aliens who shall not have declared their intention of becoming citizens” around the same time that funding for the decorative painting project – which most people assumed would go to the Wright Co. – was being discussed. Ultimately it did not become law.
Finishing the Project
A bill to spend $20,000 continuing the Capitol’s decoration finally passed both the State House and Senate in the spring of 1887. The final law incorporated a mandate that the contract must go to a citizen of the state, or someone who had declared his intention to become a citizen. It was signed by Governor Luce on June 3.
Four months later, on October 26, 1887, the second decorating contract valued at $20,000 was awarded to the William Wright Company of Detroit – the only firm to bid. Perhaps to the surprise of some Legislators, the citizenship proviso had no effect on the firm’s ability to bid for the job. William Wright was an American citizen, having completed his naturalization process almost twenty years earlier, in 1868.
In 1889 the Legislature passed, and Governor Luce signed, a third appropriation for $10,000 to finish the decoration project. Interestingly, the provision requiring the contractor be an American citizen was not included in this act.