Davis Hanson Waite
| Davis Hanson Waite | |
|---|---|
 |
|
| 8th Governor of Colorado | |
|
In office January 10, 1893 – January 8, 1895 |
|
| Lieutenant | David Hopkinson Nichols |
| Preceded by | John L. Routt |
| Succeeded by | Albert W. McIntire |
| Personal details | |
| Born |
April 9, 1825 Jamestown, New York |
| Died | November 27, 1901 (aged 76) Aspen, Colorado |
| Political party | Populist |
Davis Hanson Waite (April 9, 1825 – November 27, 1901) was an American politician. He was a member of the Populist Party, and he served as the eighth Governor of Colorado from 1893 to 1895.
Davis Hanson Waite was born April 9, 1825 in Jamestown, New York to Joseph Waite and Olive Davis Waite. He studied law and graduated from Jamestown Academy. In 1851 he married Frances Eliza Russell and together they had two children, Austin and Josephine. Waite served in the state legislatures of Wisconsin in 1857, and Kansas in 1879.
Waite and his family moved to Leadville, Colorado, in 1879 to practice law. After his wife Frances died in November 1880, he moved to Aspen, Colorado. In Aspen he started the local newspaper and was secretary in the local assembly of the Knights of Labor. He remarried to Celia O. Maltby (née Crane) on January 8, 1885. They had one son, Frank Hanson Waite.
Waite had been elected to the Wisconsin state legislature as a Republican and had run a Republican newspaper in New York. In Colorado he edited the Union Era, a reform paper, and helped to organized the Populist Party national convention. In 1892 he was nominated as the Populist candidate for Governor of Colorado and he was inaugurated on January 10, 1893. A passionate supporter of the Populist Party's Omaha Platform, he was nicknamed "Bloody Bridles" for an 1893 speech, in which he proclaimed, "It is better, infinitely better that blood should flow to the horses' bridles rather than our national liberties should be destroyed."
His election coincided with the Panic of 1893 which hit the silver mining industry in Colorado particularly hard. In 1894, the Western Federation of Miners went on a five-month strike and Waite intervened on behalf of the union, ordering the deployment of the state militia to support and protect the miners. That same year Waite supported the American Railroad Union during the national Pullman Strike. As governor he was also instrumental in the passage of women's suffrage in Colorado, the second state to do so.
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