1907 saw last effort to move capital

Imagine moving the state capital from Augusta to some other Maine city. The moving vans would stretch from Kittery to Madawaska. Billions would be needed to replace all the buildings, including the irreplaceable Capitol and the Blaine House.

When state government was still relatively young, the idea did not sound so outlandish. Powerful political forces plotted capturing the capital several times. The final time was initially reported as gossip a century ago this winter in the Bangor Daily News: “It is being talked in a quiet sort of way, that a movement is on foot to change the state capital from Augusta to Portland,” said a front page story on Jan. 7, 1907.

Everyone agreed Augusta offered poor hotel accommodations and the State House was overcrowded. Gov. William T. Cobb had called for construction of a state office building in a recent speech to the Legislature. None of this was new. But Portland political schemers had seen a chance to gain another bauble for the Forest City and the battle began anew.

The capital had been moved from Portland to Augusta in 1832 after a great political ruckus. Some Forest City residents wanted it back. “Portland wants the capital in the same way that a beautiful woman buys a diamond tiara for her adornment,” said Forrest Goodwin, a former Senate president from Skowhegan and one of the chief spokesmen for the opposition.

Within days a bidding war had begun. Joseph P. Bass, the publisher of the Bangor Daily Commercial, pledged $100,000 if lawmakers would ship the capital to Bangor, claimed the Bangor Daily News. An unnamed Lewiston power broker had put up $500,000, but the reporter admitted uncertainty as to whether the bidder was serious or even a real person.

The serious bidding was still to come. Portland city fathers offered to raise $500,000 toward the project, the Bangor Daily News reported on Jan. 29. On March 4 they upped the ante to $750,000. A site would also be provided.

The idea of peddling the state capital was “repugnant to patriotic men and women who love Maine,” chided a Bangor Daily News editorial, one of many in the weeks ahead. But just in case an auction resulted, the Queen City might not be a bad spot for the capital, the paper suggested. Bangor was near the geographical center of the state, if not the population center.

And residents were quite proud of their fine hotels and other amenities.

Bangor didn’t have the political clout to hijack the capital. So officials limited their statements to bashing Portland’s audacity. The project would cost too much, they argued. Bangor’s movers and shakers figured it would make more political sense to ally themselves with Augusta against the Portland cabal, and to save their own greedy ambitions for another day.

Portlanders and their supporters made their case during several packed hearings. “Year after year, the citizens of Maine have been going down to this Bethlehem of Judea to pay taxes. We have been met by smiling landlords who have told us courteously that we might sleep in the manger,” said Joseph B. Reed, a lawyer and former state representative from Portland. “The hotel accommodations of Bethlehem of Judea have been a public scandal for 1907 years. I believe that the hotel accommodations of Augusta will be a public scandal for the next 907 years.”

Forrest Goodwin said Portland’s case boiled down to gluttony: “It is a question of getting something to eat. … Vittles! … You can hear the hoarse voices of the Portland people day in and day out in the lobby, continually crying out – Vittles! vittles! vittles!”

It was a generally accepted fact in both Bangor and Portland that Augusta hadn’t done enough to provide proper accommodations, while profiting handsomely. But this issue soon became moot. On Feb. 5, the Bangor Daily News reported a new corporation of prominent businessmen had taken over the Augusta House, planning to remodel and enlarge the famous hotel. An elevator, modern plumbing and baths, hardwood floors and individual telephones were among the improvements planned. The announcement was “the death blow” for Portland’s quest.

In the end, the effort to move the capital to Portland drowned in a quagmire of competing proposals and parliamentary maneuvering. Passed in the Senate, it soon died in the House. “Removal of Capitol Dream of the Past,” declared the headline in the Bangor Daily News on March 22, the day after the House vote.

But was it dead or merely comatose? “Bangor Aroused; Wants Capital,” a large black headline at the top of the front page of the Bangor Daily News announced a few days later. Bangor boosters were suddenly inspired. At a meeting of the Bangor Board of Trade on April 1, a plan was devised to incite “a mighty wave of enthusiasm” for having the capital at Bangor. A committee should be appointed, statistics developed, sympathetic candidates elected and so on.

Some people, like Patrick H. Dunn, even had their favorite spot picked out for the new state house. Dunn urged them to consider building it across the river in Brewer. He described “a nice location… right near the salmon pool.”

No one is left to tell us whether all this folderol was an April Fools’ prank dreamed up after a tour of the bars on Exchange Street or a serious discussion. Whichever, historian Neil Rolde says in his essay “How Augusta Became and Stayed the State Capital” that the issue never came up again for legislative action.

Wayne E. Reilly can be reached at wreilly@bangordailynews.net