AUGUSTA -- Gov. Carl Milliken stood before the Maine Legislature in April 1917 to give a powerful message about America's entry into World War I.

The 39-year-old governor had been in office only four months.

"For more than 30 months, Americans have watched with growing horror and amazement the appalling world catastrophe across the sea," he said. "With unbelievable patience and self-restraint, we have seen our flag insulted, our rights insolently invaded, our citizens, even women and children, foully murdered upon the high seas."

Milliken, a Republican, led Maine through the war, won a second two-year term, and dealt with issues from women's suffrage to the ongoing debate over Prohibition.

He's remembered as Maine's first full-time governor, the first to live in the Blaine House, and as a man who enhanced the look of Augusta by improving Capitol Park, among other places.

Described as "strikingly handsome," the former lumber executive climbed his way through the political ranks to become governor, worked briefly for the federal government, and then headed to New York City.

There, he worked for the fledgling motion picture industry for 20 years, a position that put him at odds with his Baptist brethren.

He's a fascinating former governor, the third in a Kennebec Journal six-part series on interesting chief executives.

POLICY IMPACTS

In his inaugural address, Milliken said he favored granting women the right to vote, talked about the need to require lights on cars, and vowed to aggressively enforce the state's Prohibition law.

Two years before Maine would become the 19th state to vote in favor of women's suffrage, Milliken said he supported the amendment. He repeated his support in his second inaugural.

"Woman's fitness for an equal share in the responsibility of government has been further demonstrated by the heroic part she has played in the activities and sacrifices of the war, and the strong impulse toward democratic ideals all over the world has served to emphasize the injustice of denying her the right of suffrage," he said.

While talking about state highways, Milliken said the state should consider imposing weight limits on trucks and he recommended lights on cars "traversing the highways at night."

And though he professed "sympathy" for those hooked on liquor, he said he would no longer tolerate those who break the law -- particularly local officials who look the other way.

"It is necessary also that every local official charged with enforcement of the law should know that regardless of supposed local sentiment his failure to do his duty faithfully will bring prompt and certain punishment, including dismissal from public office," he said.

Four months later, he was back addressing the Legislature to ask for support and money for World War I.

"He was very much like the Civil War governors because he's very absorbed in the war effort," said State Historian Earle Shettleworth.

The state's 103rd Infantry came to be called the "Milliken Regiment" in his honor, according to his obituary published in The New York Times.

Milliken was re-elected in 1918, and in his second inaugural, he spoke of his concern for soldiers returning from war, saying that a small number would likely be unable to work because of physical or mental disability.

Most, however, would be ready to take their place in civilian life, he said.

"In the mercy of God, most of our boys will return to us sound and whole, mentally alert, physically vigorous and with ambition quickened by travel and contact with the world," he said. "They have played the man's part and done their work."

FULL-TIME GOVERNOR

Milliken is remembered as the state's first full-time chief executive and the one who worked with the Blaine family to make the Blaine House the governor's mansion, Shettleworth said.

Even before the Blaine House became state property, Milliken moved his family to a Western Avenue home so he could serve full time, according to "The Blaine House: Home of Maine's Governors," by H. Draper Hunt.

"True to his word, the governor-elect moved his wife and six children, with toys, pets, and innumerable other possession, to the big house owned by his father ...," he wrote.

Two years later, the home across the street from the Statehouse was donated to the state by the family of former U.S. Senator, Secretary of State, and Republican presidential candidate James G. Blaine.

Although Blaine was never governor, his home has served as the permanent residence for chief executives for nearly 90 years. After some remodeling, the Milliken family moved into the home in January 1920.

In addition to official state business, there were reports of private parties.

"At a weekend Halloween party in 1920, twenty young couples spent the night at the Blaine House," Hunt wrote. "It was a tight squeeze, but with army cots, and a makeshift bed for one young man on the billiard table, everyone was fitted in." As a footnote, Hunt adds that Milliken paid for private parties out of his own pocket.

Shettleworth said Milliken made significant changes to the Augusta area by overseeing improvements at Capitol Park, the Statehouse grounds, the Blaine House grounds and in creating a Blaine Memorial in Forest Grove Cemetery.

"The effect of all those is still in place today," he said. "Probably in Augusta, he left as visible a public monument as any governor because of those landscape improvements."

EARLY YEARS

Born in Pittsfield in 1877, Milliken attended public schools, graduated from Cony High School and was a member of the Bates College class of 1897.

Two years later, he got a degree from Harvard University before returning to Maine to work in the lumber business.

He was elected to the Maine House of Representatives in 1905, before moving to the Senate four years later. From 1913 to 1915, he served as Senate President.

The following year, he ran for governor.

For days, perhaps weeks, prior to the September election, the Daily Kennebec Journal promoted Milliken as one of the Republican nominees for various offices. The partisan Republican paper also ran front-page political cartoons lampooning Milliken's Democratic opponent, Gov. Oakley Curtis.

Back then, Mainers voted in September, and the paper ran a front-page story on a rally for Milliken just prior to election day.

Imagine this scene:

"Fully 500 men, each carrying a torch, marched in the parade and escorted Mr. Milliken to the hall."

Milliken defeated Curtis by more than 13,000 votes, and led several Republicans into office. The headline in the Sept. 12, 1916, Daily Kennebec Journal ran big and bold: "Republicanism is Triumphant in State of Maine."

FILM INDUSTRY SPOKESMAN

Not long after he left the Blaine House, Milliken took a job as secretary and chief spokesman for the Motion Picture Producers and Distributors Association, and worked out of its New York City office.

That group -- the predecessor of today's Motion Picture Association of America -- was the movie industry's first self-censorship organization. At that time, the film industry drew fire from religious groups that objected to violence and crime in films, according to Milliken's obituary in the New York Times.

This put Milliken, who once served as national president of the Free Baptists, in a bind. He resigned from the administrative council of the Federal Council of Churches in 1931 on the eve of a report by the group criticizing the film association, according to an obituary in the Lewiston Daily Sun.

"As secretary of the movie industry's first self-censorship unit...he was often the target of attacks from religious groups that objected to crime and violence in Hollywood films," the Times wrote.

Judging from the quotes in the Times obituary, Milliken didn't hesitate to fight religious fervor with a few strong words of his own.

"Mr. Milliken charged in turn that 'pulpeteers' who attacked motion pictures as 'social sewage' misrepresented religious opinion in the United States," the newspaper wrote. "He went on to add that most young people 'have a healthy contempt for anachronistic attitudes and senile jeremiads."

Milliken, third in line at the association, worked for fellow Republican Will Hays, who served as president.

"I think it's a fairly important job he had," said Val Almendaez, collections archivist at the Margaret Herrick Library, a privately funded arm of the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences.

Film historian Jonathan Kuntz, a visiting associate professor at UCLA, said he didn't immediately recognize Milliken's name, but after some quick research, called him "a pioneer" of the film industry.

"He was in an incredibly important position," he said. "In many ways, it's the granddaddy organization of the group that gives ratings. Carl Milliken appears to have been a founding father of all this."

Susan Cover -- 623-1056

scover@centralmaine.com