INDIANAPOLIS – Listening to four “living” governors at the Indiana State Fair Foundation’s Harvest Dinner brought to mind the only true farmer to serve in the state’s highest elected office.
That was James Douglas “Blue Jeans” Williams, who emerged off a 3,500-acre spread near Monroe City to serve in the General Assembly, Congress and then as our 17th governor. His career was forged in the state’s pioneer era, the Civil War, and then extending the rights of many Hoosiers.
A reporter described Gov. Blue Jeans Bill like this: “Lank, for all the world like Lincoln, and as tall, with a face which might be photographed for Lincoln’s, and a shambling gait and a carelessness of dress exactly like the dead president’s, Williams is a figure that never fades from the minds of the thousands who have once seen him.”
During the American Civil War, Williams was accused of being a “Copperhead” Democrat because he wanted Gov. Oliver P. Morton to reveal how emergency funds were being spent. When he won the governorship in 1877, he defeated future president Benjamin Harrison. He championed women’s rights, advocated for widows to inherit farmland, and found funding for the fledgling land grant Purdue University as well as for the new (and current) Indiana Statehouse.
When these four living governors — Democrat Evan Bayh (1989-97) and Republicans Mitch Daniels (2005-13), Mike Pence (2013-17) and current Eric Holcomb — were onstage, moderator Cindy Hoye asked them for “pearls of wisdom” for future generations.
Gov. Daniels picked up on a topic this column has dealt with in the past: that every 80 years or so, America faces a cataclysm. There was the 1776 Revolution, the 1861 Civil War and, eight decades later, the Great Depression leading into World War II.
Daniels’ first piece of advice was: “Try to be a person that people trust.”
Then he pivoted to the coming catastrophe: “Because of shortcomings of their elders, I think it’s highly, highly likely that one of those crises, that comes to any country and has come to ours at different times in the past — our revolution to the Civil War, depression — I believe this [coming] generation is going to be the one that has to deal with that.
“If you look at history, the failure or success of civilizations that have come before us has been the way they handle the great crisis,” said Daniels. “I think today’s young people more likely than not will be in their leadership years when that happens. It could be domestic or our debts and the economy, or international in origin. We have to be mindful that this does happen, some believe cyclically over so many decades.”
And to great applause from the audience, Daniels added of the coming generation: “They’re going to be up to it and they’re going to do a better job than some of their predecessors did. They’re going to get a chance at greatness. That’s when greatness is actually defined.”
Bayh was introduced as a “senator” and quickly said, “It’s Gov. Bayh.” As the program closed, he noted his current service on a national intelligence service commission. “I’ve been focusing on what’s going on in China, Russia, Iran and Venezuela,” he said before getting to the crux.
“Our children’s generation is going to be shaped by a global contest that is taking place now,” Bayh said. “It will be the contest and struggle between autocracy and dictatorship that those countries represent, and the freedom and liberty that the United States and our allies represent.”
This comes as some candidates talk of suspending the U.S. Constitution or promising to be a “dictator on day one” if elected.
“Living in a dictatorship is in some ways fairly simple,” Bayh continued. “You’re in service to the country. You have no rights, no liberties. You’re just disposable by the rule of a tyrant. Your individual freedom does not matter. You just do what you’re told.
“Living in democracy is hard,” Bayh said. “It’s difficult. It’s all about our individual freedom and what the government can occasionally do to empower us to our own full potential as individuals. That’s why we rebelled against the King way back when. So that’s the first thing I would say to the next generation: Stand for freedom.”
He said of the Russians and Chinese, “They cannot possibly defeat the United States of America. It is possible that we could defeat ourselves.”
“How do we reinvigorate and reanimate our democracy?” Bayh asked. “The genius of our democracy is not like some of these other countries. We’re not all alike, we don’t look alike, we don’t worship alike. But we reconcile those differences. And the crucible of our democracy is finding common ground together.”
He quoted his grandfather, Col. Birch Evans Bayh (a member of the Indiana Basketball Hall of Fame): “Nobody ever learned anything by talking. But you can learn a lot by listening.”
Bayh concluded in a manner Gov. Blue Jeans Bill would have admired: “I was born on our family farm in Shirkieville, Indiana You can’t talk to too many Hoosiers who weren’t one or two generations from the family farm.
“This fair and our agriculture heritage is part of the fabric that unites us as Hoosiers. Even more, it’s the values you learn: Hard work, ingenuity, thrift, being a good neighbor, being patriotic. Those are the core of Indiana values.”
Brian A. Howey is senior writer and columnist for Howey Politics Indiana/State Affairs. Find Howey on Facebook and X @hwypol.
