Warren F. Spalding, Secretary of the Massachusetts Prison Association,
has been nominated by Governor Foss, chairman and executive of the
Prison Commission, succeeding Mr. Pettigrove. Of the appointment the
Boston Transcript says editorially:
The Governor has supplanted one good man with another good man. That
Mr. Pettigrove was not to be reappointed was announced by the governor
some weeks ago, and yet Mr. Pettigrove’s friends hoped that he would
reconsider, as he had done on so many other occasions. There will be
regret at the passing of Mr. Pettigrove, who, in the many years in
which he has been prison commissioner has served the State well and
given his department the benefit of long experience and real ability.
The public, while regretting the departure of Pettigrove, will welcome
the incoming of Spalding. As secretary of the Massachusetts prison
association for many years, and backed by his long experience in prison
labor affairs, Mr. Spalding has been one of the foremost prison men
of the United States. The association of which he is the secretary
has been a leader in progressive ideas on prison management, and in
this Mr. Spalding has been the executive officer and initiator. There
will be no question whatever of the progressiveness of Mr. Spalding’s
administration and of the value of his services to the State.
Mr. Spalding is not unfamiliar to that office, having been secretary of
it from 1879 until he resigned in 1888.
Mr. Spalding was born in Hillsboro, N. H., Jan. 14, 1841, but was
educated in the public schools of Nashua, N. H. After leaving school
he engaged in the furniture business in his native place for several
years, and in 1870 came to Boston. There he became connected with the
Boston Daily News, and later worked for the Globe and the Commercial
Bulletin, both as a reporter and an editor.
Since 1872 he has been a resident of Cambridge and represented a
district in that city in the general court during 1894 and 1895. He has
been engaged in prison work for many years, having been secretary of
the Massachusetts Prison Association since 1890. In 1896 Mr. Spalding
was elected to the Cambridge Board of Aldermen. Mr. Spalding was a
private in Co. F, 1st New Hampshire Heavy Artillery, during the Civil
War and is a member of Post 186, G. A. R.
The governor’s nomination must be approved by the governor’s council.