John K. Tener - Political Career

Political Career

In 1908, Tener, a Republican, was elected to serve in the 61st United States Congress from Pennsylvania's 24th congressional district. As a former ballplayer, Tener organized the first Congressional Baseball Game which is now an annual tradition on Capitol Hill.

Tener planned to run for re-election in 1910. Instead, the Republican Party nominated Tener as its candidate for Governor where he would face a divided electorate. Pennsylvania had recently experienced a scandal during the construction of the new Pennsylvania State Capitol. State Treasurer William H. Berry had found that there had been an unappropriated cost for the building's construction of over $7.7 million ($192,060,000 today), including a number of questionable charges. The scandal led to the conviction of the building architect and a former State Treasurer. Berry failed to get the Democratic nomination and broke away taking independent Republicans and Democrats to form his new Keystone Party.

Tener won the election with 415,614 votes (41.7%) over Berry with 382,127 (38.2%) with the help of a 45,000-vote victory in the City of Philadelphia. The Democratic candidate, State Senator Webster Grim of Doylestown, Pennsylvania finished third with 13%. Governor Tener was the first Governor since the American Revolution to be born outside the United States and only the second to have been born outside of Pennsylvania.

Tener's initiatives as governor included reforming the state public school system and the highway system. With schools, Tener signed into law the School Code of 1911, which established a State Board of Education empowered to set minimum standards and minimum salaries. The Code also mandated that all children regardless of race or color between the ages of eight and sixteen would be required to attend school.

The Governor also signed the Sproul Highway Bill bill into law, which gave the state responsibility over 9,000 public roads that counties and cities had previously maintained. Rebuffed by the voters for a bond issue to fund the program, Tener signed a bill designating fees from automobile registrations and drivers licenses to be used for road funding. In 1913, the Governor sign a bill requiring hunting licenses in Pennsylvania, using the fees generated by the licenses to fund conservation programs.