form a new party. In 1910, he moved his law practice to Indianapolis. His investments in farms, grain elevators, coal mines and banks made him wealthy. For the next five years he spent his time working in his law practice and overseeing his business interests. He returned to active politics again in 1915 when he announced he would run for governor. Indiana had just begun implementing its new primary method of electing candidates, and removing candidate selection by convention. He defeated Warren T. McCray and Quincy Alden Myers by over 50,000 votes to win the nomination. Governor Tax reform In the general election, the campaign focused primarily on prohibition and tax reforms of the previous administrations. He defeated Democrat John A. M. Adair in the November election by plurality. Goodrich's primary goal was to bring "efficiency and economy" to the government. Almost all of the state's primary source of revenue came through property tax which was seen as unfairly targeting farmers and the rural parts of the state. In 1917 Goodrich tried to have a constitutional convention called to amend the Constitution of Indiana to allow excise taxes to be imposed. Opponents of the tax lobbied the Indiana General Assembly to kill the excise tax bills. The General Assembly approved the constitutional convention but the opponents took the measure to court. The Indiana Supreme Court ruled that the legislature had no constitutional authority to call a convention, and that a convention could only be called if approved by popular vote. Earlier court decisions had stated the legislature also had no power to amend the constitution, effectively creating a narrow and difficult path for amendment. The decision ended the attempted imposition of new taxes but started a movement that succeeded in later years. Although he could not have excise taxes legalized, he did succeed in having legislation passed in 1919 to standardize property tax assessment across the state and grant the State Board of Tax Commissioners power to override local assessments, which effectively led to higher property values being attributed to city properties to ensure that the rural part of the state was no longer paying the majority of the state's revenues. World War I Goodrich began several measures to reform the civil service. He began by attempting to eliminate the patronage system. He eliminated numerous positions by not hiring anyone to fill them, but his plans were soon prevented by