John Rankin Rogers

John Rankin Rogers (September 4, 1838 – December 26, 1901) was an American politician who served as the third governor of Washington from 1897 to 1901. Elected as a member of the People's Party before switching his affiliation to the Democratic Party, Rogers was elected to two consecutive terms in 1896 and 1900, but died before completing his fifth year in office.

Biography

Early years John R. Rogers was born September 4, 1838, in Brunswick, Maine, the son of Margaret Anne (Green) and John Rogers.

Rogers went to Boston as a youth and apprenticed as a druggist, then moved south to Mississippi in 1856 to manage a drug store for four years in Jackson. He moved north to Illinois in 1860, where he farmed and worked as a school teacher and druggist. He married Sarah Greene in 1861 and together they had five children. and governor the following year. As governor he supported the "Barefoot Schoolboy Act" which he had first sponsored while in the state legislature. The act provided a mechanism of state funding to equalize support for free public education between counties which had a large tax base and those without. Rogers was a conditional supporter of the Single Tax Movement associated with Henry George. He switched his affiliation to the Democratic Party in 1900 (he was the first Democrat to serve as governor; Ernest Lister would be the first politician from the state to be elected outright as a Democrat in 1913).

John R. Rogers authored many books, pamphlets and articles that followed a Populist and Arcadian Agrarian spirit. Growing up in New England when Jeffersonian ideals were talked about frequently was a strong influence on his political future.

Death and legacy Rogers served as governor from January 11, 1897, until his death from lobar pneumonia on December 26, 1901, at age 63. The stadium was reconstructed in 1972 and its name changed to Martin Stadium, after Clarence D. Martin, the eleventh governor of Washington (ironically, a graduate of the University of Washington). The present-day Rogers Field at WSU refers to the practice and intramural fields directly west of the stadium.

A granite statue of Rogers is in Sylvester Park, across the street from the Old Capitol Building, with the following quote engraved:"I would make it impossible for the covetous and avaricious to utterly impoverish the poor. The rich can take care of themselves."

Footnotes