Senator
Arthur P. Gorman

The Guilford area of Howard County has a rich history and the story behind local place names provides much more context to our history.  As part of a research effort on local public space names to look into the origin, use, and association with slavery or oppression per the Howard County Public Facilities and Spaces Commission, some of this research is shared here, and on our FB Group.  Please provide feedback with corrections or additional information.

Gorman Road, Gorman Park along the Middle Patuxent River and Gorman Crossing Elementary School all seem to be named for one of the senior statesmen of Howard County – former US Senator Arthur P. Gorman.  The Gorman family was local living at Fairview on the corner of Gorman and Murray Hill Roads.

Arthur P. Gorman served in the US Senate from 1881-1899 and from 1903 until his death in 1906.  There are standard biographical sources for Senator Gorman including a very brief biography from the Maryland State Archives biographical series, 1 another brief biography from the US Senate, 2 and a more detailed biography in Monumental City. 3

Summary

As with many powerful people of his era, there was much to admire about former Senator Gorman and his family, but like his colleague former Governor Edwin Warfield, his views on race was not one of them.  Arthur Pue Gorman (1839-1906) was born in Woodstock Maryland to Peter and Elizabeth Gorman.  His father Peter was a contractor for the early B&O Rail Road.  Due to his father’s political connections, Arthur Gorman became a page for the Senate at the age of 12 working for Senator Stephen Douglas. As such, the Gorman family were known as supporters of Douglas Democracy where the issue of slavery was thought best to be decided by each state. They opposed secession and supported the federal government. 3

In addition to his duties in the Senate, Mr. Gorman had an immense interest in baseball and at the age of 20 was one of the founders of the Washington Nationals Baseball Club with the first game in 1860. 4, 5

Mr. Gorman quickly climbed the political ladder and was elected to the US Senate in 1881. By then he was a powerful politician in the State of Maryland after serving in the Maryland Senate representing Howard County since 1876. His biography is impressive.

As a powerful Democrat, Mr. Gorman supported Edwin Warfield for Governor in 1904 and wrote, with John Prentiss Poe, an amendment to the Maryland Constitution supporting the disenfranchisement of the Black voter and uneducated White voters.  This was called the Poe Amendment which Gorman vetted in the US Senate to make sure it could pass a legal challenge.  Governor Warfield decided to oppose the amendment not because he believed in Black voting rights, but because the Poe Amendment’s literacy test and grandfather clause would also affect White voters and it gave too much power to local voting boards.  This caused a split between Gorman and Warfield that persisted.  Gorman believed strongly in the rule of only White people as he demonstrated in several speeches. 6

The Politics and Racial Views of Arthur P. Gorman

Arthur Gorman’s father, Peter, owned two slaves (60 and 17 years old) according to the 1850 Slave Census and his wife, Elizabeth A. Brown (maiden name), owned 14 slaves aged between 2 and 24 years old.7 Since Arthur Gorman as a 9 year old lived with his parents it is natural he would have been supported and raised by these enslaved people.

But this is not what distinguished his association with oppression.  There is little written about his views on race before his support of the Poe Amendment and the disenfranchisement of the Black voter.  However, in desiring a return to the US Senate he devised a plan that would disenfranchise all illiterate voters that was passed by the Maryland Legislature in 1901.  The new Maryland election law would not allow party emblems or images on the ballots and would provide no assistance to the voters.  Mr. Walsh of Carroll County voted for the bill explaining that:

“I believe the presence of 55,000 negro voters in this State, 26,600 of whom are illiterate and ignorant, is a menace to the progress and well-being of this State, and a dangerous condition which much be met at some time, and the sooner the better.” 8

Gorman narrowly won reelection in 1901 and by the time he took office in 1903 (there was over a year delay in those days) he worked on a broader disenfranchisement of the illiterate voter through an amendment to the Maryland constitution.   It is his public political record on just this issue, the Poe Amendment to the Maryland Constitution, and his own words in the early 1900s and his support for the disenfranchisement of the Black voter, the puts him a negative light.  Senator Gorman said in 1903: 9  

“I said then, as I say now, that this country was made by the white men, that the Anglo-Saxons made its laws and its Constitution, that they conquered first the Indians and then the English, and that no other race of men shall ever have possession of this State or this county.” 9  He went on…

“no greater crime against good government, not greater outrage against the white women of our land has ever been perpetrated that the enfranchisement by constitutional amendment of the negro” 9

“From the day a cargo of Africans was landed and sold as slaves until this hour the burden of the white men of this county had been greater than that borne by any people known to history…The Anglo-Saxon has never and will never tolerate the social equality or the political domination of the negro race”. 9

In a speech at Ellicott City in October 1905 to support the Poe Suffrage Amendment to disenfranchise the Black voter, Gorman said:

“Experience has shown that in States where it [the understanding clause] is in force there is not an intelligent white man, naturalized or native, who has not passed the examination without the slightest trouble, and there is not one negro in twenty of the field class that can have an idea of what the Constitution is if you read it to him three times.” 10

Mr. Gorman who had experienced some cardiac health issues for the past six months died from a heart attack on the morning of June 4, 1906 in his Washington DC residence on K Street.11

Senator Gorman’s Local Namesakes

Gorman Road - Larry Madaras did a write-up on the naming of Gorman Road, done to honor the Peter and Arthur Gorman families. Not sure what more to say about this. 12(Madaras, Larry. 1985. Associate Professor of History and Government, Howard Community College. 20 p)

Gorman Crossing Elementary School- the HoCo School Board recommended two names for the new southeastern elementary school: Gorman Road Elementary School and Gorman Crossing Elementary School. Since the roads were to be redesigned and the school would not be on Gorman Road itself, it was decided to call the school the Gorman Crossing Elementary School. The name was approved at a Board meeting on July 8, 1997.  13

Gorman Stream Valley Park Natural and Resource Area – there is a little known County Park called the Gorman Stream Valley Park and Natural Resource Area 14 (Howard County Land Preservation, Parks and Recreation Plan – June 2017) which is a combination of 228 acres of County land and hundreds of acres of Columbia Association open space between Route 29 and Gorman Road on both sides of the river.  This should be added to the list of names to be reviewed since it is a County park.

Gorman’s Promise – this is worth a mention because this neighborhood proposed to be named to honor Arthur Gorman ran into considerable objections due to his views on the disenfranchisement of Black voters and matters of race. In 2000, the Rouse Company was planning to name a new Columbia neighborhood Gorman’s Promise, until Black leaders in the community raised the issue of Arthur Gorman’s support for disenfranchising the Black voter while he was a US Senator. It seemed the company was more focused on Senator Gorman’s baseball background than his role as a US Senator and Maryland politician.  The name was recalled and was instead named for the poet Ralph Waldo Emerson. (The Baltimore Sun 18 May 2000, Thu Page 103 “Columbia to Weigh Annexation”).15 The Columbia Association ended up rejecting the annexation of the Emerson development. (The Baltimore Sun 22 Nov 2000, Wed, Page 52 “Columbia rejects proposal to annex development site”)16

Sources

1 Maryland State Archives - Archives of Maryland Biographical Series. Arthur Pue Gorman (1839-1906). MSA SC 3520-1675. Oct 2, 2001. Viewed 8-20-2021.https://msa.maryland.gov/msa/speccol/sc3500/sc3520/001600/001675/html/msa01675.html

2 United States Senate.  Arthur Pue Gorman: A Featured Biography. Viewed 8-20-2021. https://www.senate.gov/senators/FeaturedBios/Featured_Bio_Gorman.htm

3 (Monumental City 1880 p. 755) Biography up to 1880 – 2nd edition of The Monumental city, its past history and present resources by George Washington Howard p. 753-756. The original document is dated 1873 but was updated on October 1, 1880 according to Howard’s Conclusion written on page 870.

4 United States Senate. Why the Washington National were once Known as the Senators.  Viewed 8-20-2021. https://www.senate.gov/artandhistory/history/minute/Washington_Nationals_Once_Known_as_Senators.htm

5 Brian McKenna.  Arthur Gorman.  Society for American Baseball Research. Viewed 8-20-2021. https://sabr.org/bioproj/person/arthur-gorman/

6  1911. Frank Richardson Kent. Governor Warfield’s Break with Gorman and the Defeat of the First Suffrage Amendment. In The Story of Maryland Politics. Chapter 33, pages 330-339. Baltimore, Maryland. https://hdl.handle.net/2027/loc.ark:/13960/t8pc37673 accessed 8-20-2021.

7 1850. The National Archive in Washington DC; Washington, DC; NARA Microform Publication: M432; Title: Seventh Census of the United States, 1850; Record Group: Records of the Bureau of the Census; Record Group Number: 29.

https://www.ancestry.com/imageviewer/collections/8055/images/MDM432_300-0019 and https://www.ancestry.com/imageviewer/collections/8055/images/MDM432_300-0018

8 1901. March 21. New Election Law. The Baltimore Sun (Baltimore, Maryland) · Thursday, Page 9. https://www.newspapers.com/image/365313783  

9 1903 10-25 Gorman Speaks – Talks on Negro Issue. The Baltimore Sun (Baltimore, Maryland) · 25 Oct 1903, Sun · Page 14. https://www.newspapers.com/image/371312328/

10 1905 10-27. Gorman Hits Out. The Baltimore Sun (Baltimore, Maryland) · 27 Oct 1905, Fri · Page 1. https://www.newspapers.com/image/371167538/

11 1906 6-5. Senator Gorman Dead. The Baltimore Sun (Baltimore, Maryland) · 5 Jun 1906, Tue, Page 1. https://www.newspapers.com/clip/83821831/

12 1985, April. Larry Madaras. A History of the Murray Hill Road and Gorman Road Area of Howard County. Howard Community College. 20 pages.

13 Howard County Board of Education. Meeting Minutes. July 8, 1997. https://go.boarddocs.com/mabe/hcpssmd/Board.nsf/legacy-content/83NN6J4D980C/$FILE/07-08-97%20Reg%20BOE%20Mtg.pdf

14 May 15 2007. Howard County Land Preservation, Parks and Recreation Plan – June 2017. Howard County Department of Recreation and Parks. Columbia, MD. https://dnr.maryland.gov/land/Documents/Stewardship/Howard-County_2017_Final-LPPRP.pdf

15 18 May 2000, The Baltimore Sun, Thu Page 103 “Columbia to Weigh Annexation”.

16 22 Nov 2000, The Baltimore Sun , Wed, Page 52 “Columbia rejects proposal to annex development site”.