His term focused on progressive legislation and suppression of white cap vigilante organizations operating in the southern part of the state.

While still a young boy, his family moved to New Philadelphia, Indiana where he attended public school and worked in his father's tannery producing leather.

After it healed he attempted to enlist again, and helped raise a company of the 139th Regiment Indiana Infantry, serving from April 1864 until the conclusion of the war.

[1] He left the army after the war and studied briefly in a St. Louis, Missouri college before moving to Indianapolis, Indiana where he worked in a dry-goods store as a bookkeeper.

During the Indiana Gas Boom, Durbin worked with his father-in-law to found a number of manufacturing businesses and became moderately wealthy.

Durbin's primary goal as governor was to bring efficiency to the state, and reform the government to function more economically, and to enact progressive legislation.

Although exact numbers are not known, at least sixty-eight lynching had occurred in recent years against suspected criminals, and numerous other types of vigilante justice was being dealt out by the groups.

[4] In 1903, a police officer was killed in Evansville, and the sheriff sent word to the governor, requesting assistance in protecting the suspect in custody.

[4][5] Indiana's industry had grown at a rapid pace over the past decade, and numerous labor unions had begun to form in the state.

[6] Automobile usage in Indiana went from almost non-existent to such a level that Durbin began to advocate the construction of superior state highways.