Return To Politics
In 1896 the Straightouts attempted to nominate Broward for sheriff, but he was busy with his filibustering operation and declined. In 1900, the war over and his filibustering days behind him, Broward was nominated for the State House and elected almost without opposition. In the House, Broward supported many progressive initiatives, including a state dispensary bill and a law allowing insanity as grounds for divorce (at the request of powerful developer Henry Flagler), but the most important was the state's Primary Election Law act. Broward had long supported a primary election system to replace the state's convention system, which was controlled by a small clique headed by Flagler. A strong law was drawn up in the House, which Broward enthusiastically supported, but after the Senate weakened the bill substantially Broward withdrew his support. The bill passed anyway.
Broward was not naïve when it came to politics. As a Straightout and supporter of the "common man," Broward would have been naturally opposed to Flagler's control of the party nominating system in the state. It tended to produce Democratic candidates from the Anti faction, and as Florida was at the time a one-party state, it also ensured Anti control of the state government. Broward was smart enough to sponsor Flagler's requested divorce bill, but still wanted power out of the big man's hands.
Read more about this topic: Napoleon B. Broward
Famous quotes containing the words return to, return and/or politics:
“I got my first clear view of Ktaadn, on this excursion, from a hill about two miles northwest of Bangor, whither I went for this purpose. After this I was ready to return to Massachusetts.”
—Henry David Thoreau (1817–1862)
“Each work of art excludes the world, concentrates attention on itself. For the time it is the only thing worth doing—to do just that; be it a sonnet, a statue, a landscape, an outline head of Caesar, or an oration. Presently we return to the sight of another that globes itself into a whole as did the first, for example, a beautiful garden; and nothing seems worth doing in life but laying out a garden.”
—Ralph Waldo Emerson (1803–1882)
“Our family talked a lot at table, and only two subjects were taboo: politics and personal troubles. The first was sternly avoided because Father ran a nonpartisan daily in a small town, with some success, and did not wish to express his own opinions in public, even when in private.”
—M.F.K. Fisher (1908–1992)