USA > Montana > A history of Montana, Volume II > Part 5
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further advanced post-graduate work, and each year visits the leading medical institutions of the eastern states for the purpose of doing research work in various professional lines. Since 1897 he has given special at- tention to the surgical branch of his profession and he is known as one of the most skilled surgeons in Mon- tana, with many fine operations, both major and minor. to his credit.
Dr. Witherspoon is a member of the alumni associa- tion of the Missouri Medical College, and also that of the City Hospital of St. Louis. He holds membership in the St. Louis Medical Society, the Silver Bow County Medical Society, the Montana State Medical Society and the American Medical Association. He is also identified with the Western Surgical & Gynecological Society, the Southern Surgical and Gynecological Society and the Tri-State Medical Society (Iowa, Illinois and Missouri) and is a life member of the Anglo-American Medical Association of Berlin, Germany, in which he was the fifteenth American physician to be thus honored. He is also a member of the American Association of Anato- mists, and is at the present time (1912) president of the Montana State Medical Society, of which he served as vice president in 1911. He is chief medical examiner for the National Life Insurance Company in Montana, and in his home city is a popular member of the follow- ing named and representative organizations: The Sil- yer Bow Club, the Country Club, the Red Rock Club, the Bonita Club, and the University Club. He is spec- ially fond of fishing and hunting and finds his chief di- version and recreation in indulgence in these attractive sports. Though he has never had any desire to enter the arena of practical politics, as he considers his pro- fession worthy of his unqualified allegiance, Dr. Wither- spoon is essentially progressive and loyal, although non- partisan as a citizen.
On the 2nd of October, 1890, Dr. Witherspoon was united in marriage to Miss Nina H. Butler, who was born at Dermopolis, Alabama, and is a daughter of Wallace C. Butler, now a resident of St. Louis, and a native of Missouri. Dr. and Mrs. Witherspoon have two children: Thomas, Casey, III, who was born on the 21st of May, 1893, and Evelyn B. W., born on the 5th of September, 1897.
SENATOR T. J. WALSH. In the choice of T. J. Walsh as junior United States senator, Montana contributed one of its ablest lawyers and public men to the honors and activities of the larger sphere of national govern- ment. The campaign of Mr. Walsh for the place in the United States senate, with all its attendant results in state politics, is still fresh in the minds of Montana citizens, and affords one of the most interesting and refreshing chapters of state political history. As a member of the senate of the United States, Mr. Walsh, by reason of his profound abilities, his progressive atti- tude, and his thorough training in political life, is cer- tain to become one of the strongest individual factors during the present national administration.
Senators Walsh entered politics, in a personal sense, only a few years ago, but for more than twenty years has been prominent as a lawyer in Montana and the Northwest. He was born in Wisconsin in June; 1859, and began life as a school teacher-an occupation which has afforded the training and preparation for a great many other men eminent in political and public life. He closed his educational work as principal of the high school at Sturgeon Bay, Wisconsin. While teach- ing he followed a rigid course of private study, and when twenty-two years of age was awarded a life cer-
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tificate after an examination covering all the branches included in the usual college course. He began his law studies in the office of James Anderson, at Manitowoc, Wisconsin, and in 1884 was graduated LL. B. from the university of that state. He began the practice of his profession at Redfield, South Dakota, in partnership with his brother Henry C. Walsh.
In 1890 Mr. Walsh moved to Helena, Montana, where he developed a business of such proportions that in 1907 he divided its responsibilities with Col. C. B. Nolan, a former attorney general of the state. The firm of Walsh & Nolan was one of the most prominent and successful legal combinations in the West at the time of Mr. Walsh's election to the senate. Senator Walsh is identified with a number of land and livestock companies in business in Montana, and also has inter- ests in timber lands and mines.
Senator Walsh resolutely refused to become a can- didate for any political office until his success in busi- ness and professional life had been firmly established. However, there was never a time since his youth when public affairs did not claim his earnest thought and public questions his close study. He was one of Mon- tana's delegates to the national Democratic convention at Denver, in 1908, and again at Baltimore, in 1912, serving in each instance on the platform committee and on the sub-committee to which was delegated the actual work of preparing the party's declaration of principles. He was a candidate for Congress in 1906, but the Roosevelt sentiment was strong enough to hold for his opponent, Charles N. Pray, about the normal Republican majority, and he was beaten. However, at that time he became a potential candidate for the honors of the United States senatorship, and he led the fight in 1910 against Senator Thomas H. Carter, then one of the leaders in the party in the upper branch of congress. So vigorous was his campaign that, although the Republican candidate for congressman was elected by about five thousand votes, the people returned to a Democratic legislature with a majority of seven votes. Had the usual caucus been held and matters taken their ordinary course, Mr. Walsh would have been elected senator on the first day of the joint session. However, powerful supporters of Senator Carter from beyond the state, including the Amalgamated Copper Company, were able to dissuade enough Democrats from partici- pating in a caucus to defeat the assembling of one. A deadlock ensued, which lasted throughout the entire session. The same interests which used their power to circumvent united action through a caucus had pre- viously prevented the state convention from naming a senatorial candidate lest he should be the nominee. Though two-thirds of the Democratic members of the assembly were favorable to the candidacy of Mr. Walsh, the minority was able to prevent his election. His sup- porters remained firm until the very last day of the session, when, after fruitlessly balloting for more than seven hours, the assembly chose Judge Henry L. Myers.
For several years Mr. Walsh had persistently advo- cated a primary election law in Montana. Popular demand for such a law exerted a powerful pressure upon the legislature about the time of the senatorial deadlock just mentioned. To appease this popular de- mand, the legislature enacted a makeshift law, designed for the express. purpose of thwarting. the will of the people. It authorized the state party conventions to nominate candidates for the office of United States senator. It further provided that each candidate for the legislature might, if he saw fit, file an official state- ment, designated in the law as Statement No. I, to the effect that if elected he would vote for the candi-
date receiving the highest number of votes at the gen- eral election. In this way the authors of the law hoped to again accomplish the defeat of Mr. Walsh, relying upon their power and influence to prevent the state con- vention from naming him as its preferential candidate. These calculations failed, for when the state convention assembled more than half the delegates were bound by instructions from the county conventions favoring him. In this situation no one was proposed against him and he was nominated by acclamation. In the general elec- tion of 1912, Mr. Walsh received the highest vote cast for any candidate on the ticket, and led the senatorial candidate of the Republican party, Henry C. Smith, by about ten thousand votes, and Senator Joseph M. Dixon, the Progressive candidate, by about six thou- sand. The sentiment in favor of the election of sena- tors by direct vote of the people being particularly strong in Montana, in view of the repeated scandals that had attended the choice under the old system, every newly elected member of the assembly, save one, was bound by Statement No. I. One-half of the upper house, however, having been elected before the enact- ment of the law providing for such a pledge, were un- constrained except by the moral force of the vote indicating the popular choice. However, the Democrats secured a clear majority in each house, and when the vote was taken every member of the assembly, includ- ing Democrats, Progressives and Republicans, and one Socialist, responded in favor of Mr. Walsh.
As this article is published before Mr. Walsh begins his actual career as senator, it is of course impossible to indicate the exact lines of his position as a member of the upper branch of congress with regard to the public questions pressing for solution. However, it is noteworthy that Mr. Walsh has devoted much of his time during the last ten years to the study of public questions, and has formed his conclusions upon the basis of original research. He does not submit his judgment to that of others unless he is well fortified by opinions of his own. In 1911, Senator Walsh de- livered before the Washington State Bar Association a monograph on the recall of judges, an article which was printed as a public document and widely read. He has made a special study of railroad rates and regulations. He holds well defined views on ques- tions of particular interest to the West, and his course will be watched with special interest in his attitude with regard to the activities of the government con- cerning the disposition of the public land. He has always favored the pursuit of a policy that would make the public lands of this country as attractive to set- tlers and as inviting to capital as any the Canadian government has to offer. He favors development of the hydro-electric power sites on the public domain, with proper safeguards against monopoly, and at the same time he is opposed to the leasing system, pro- posed by many students of the question, since he believes that the rents derived by the government from such a source would in the end simply be a tax on the people of the locality in which the power is used.
Senator Walsh is a man of splendid earnestness and of incorruptible integrity. For this reason the people of Montana may feel that their own interests, as well as those of the nation, are entrusted wisely, so far as he has control over them. As affording some addi- tional information concerning his ability and his atti- tude towards larger public affairs, there may be re- called some of his prominent activities as a lawyer within recent years. As counsel in a suit prosecuted in that state several years ago, Mr. Walsh is credited
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with having dealt a vital blow to trusts organized under the New Jersey laws. The articles of the cor- poration involved and its by-laws were framed so as to deny the minority stockholders an opportunity to inspect the corporation books. Only by consent of the board of directors, or by a vote of the stockholders in regular session, could the books be inspected. Mr. Walsh contended, and succeeded in establishing, that this was in contravention of the spirit of the New Jersey law, which, although not expressly so providing, he insisted gave to every stockholder the right at all reasonable times to inspect the books.
About the same time Mr. Walsh was special counsel for the government in a case which restored to the public domain in Montana coal lands worth several hundred thousand dollars. Valuable as was the de- cision in this case to Montana, it was more important as opening a way by which the government has since been able to secure the restoration of thousands of acres of valuable lands elsewhere. The Northern Pacific had acquired the Montana coal land in lieu of worthless land relinquished by it in the Mount Rainier National Park, under an act of congress permitting the selection of agricultural lands in lieu of those sur- rendered. It asserted, however, that by reason of the peculiar wording of the act the classification made by the surveyor was a final determination of its character. The question had been passed upon previously by the general land office and by Secretary of the Interior. Mr. Hitchcock, who had sustained the contention of the railroad that the classification itself was conclusive evidence of the character of the land, and that the determination so made could not be overturned The view taken by Mr. Walsh was sustained and the patents to the railroad company annulled.
Mrs. Walsh is prominent in club affairs of the state and has been the president of the Montana Federation of Women's Clubs. She has always taken an active interest in various civic organizations in Helena and in humanitarian work. Mr. and Mrs. Walsh have one daughter, who is a graduate of Vassar College.
GOTTFRIED R. M. STRITZEL. About twenty years ago a young German about eighteen years old, came to Amer- ica, a stranger, without capital and on application for work to the office of the German Consul at Montreal, received same in the capacity of water boy at ninety cents a day in the Mclaughlin Lumber Co.'s yard at Arnprior, Ontario, Canada.
Industry, the ability to adapt himself to circumstances, good business judgment and enterprise have since made this German-American a wealthy and influential citi- zen and today Mr. G. R. M. Stritzel is one of the wealthy residents of northwest Montana and controls a large share of the commercial enterprise of the town of Polson, which has been his home since 1908, the year before this reservation was opened to settlement. Mr. G. R. M. Stritzel, who was the third of six children, born in Blindgallen, East Prussia, Germany, on August 9, 1875, attended the German Gymnasium School until he was fourteen years and seven months old and then began an apprenticeship in a very large mercantile estab- lishment, at which he served four years. At the end of that time he set out for the new world, having dur- ing this period of time gathered very valuable experi- ence, but leaving without friends, influence and capital, and also having a rather inadequate knowledge of the language spoken in America he arrived at Montreal on June 19, 1893, and began at Arnprior, Ontario, Canada, his practical career in the manner above described, in
the fall of this year, after having (out of these little wages) saved enough for the expenses of the trip, he went west and obtained a position as hardware clerk in the general merchandise business of Schultz and Hansen at Gretna, in southern Manitoba and in the summer of 1897 with a capital of $230.00 estab- lished at Gnadenthal, a village close to Gretna, a mer- chandise business of his own. He continued in busi- ness in Manitoba until 1904, when he sold out and moved to Saskatchewan, starting another business known under the firm name of the Watson Lumber and Trading Co. in the then new town of Watson, on the C. N. Ry. main line, while there he held some public offices, such as notary public, etc., in connection with business, and in the fall of this year (1904) Mr. Peter O. Spaberg, then a very ambitious young rancher, whose able qualities as a business man are excellent, entered his employ and has ever since been with the firm, until it sold out and is at this date associated with him in his business enterprises at Polson.
In July 1908 Mr. Stritzel transferred his residence and principal activities to Montana and established at Polson the Stritzel-Spaberg Lumber Company. This company incorporated with a paid up capital then of $15,000 has the most extensive lumber trade in this part of the state, and is one of the leading concerns in the commercial enterprises of Polson. Mr. Stritzel is president and general manager, and Mr. Spaberg is vice-president, secretary and treasurer of the company.
Mr. Stritzel is vice-president of the Security State Bank at Polson, vice-president of the Flathead Power and Traction Company, a stockholder in the Montana Fire Insurance Company, and has extensive real estate holdings in Polson and in Canada. He is a member of the executive committee of the Polson Chamber of Commerce and belongs to the German Lutheran church. In political affairs he is considered Democratic.
Mr. Stritzel has the finest residence in Polson, built at a cost of fourteen thousand dollars, a modern and attractive home. He was married in Dresden church, near Langdon, North Dakota, March 15, 1898, to Miss Lena Schnell, a daughter of Frank Schnell, who is now a resident of Claresholm in South Alberta, Canada. They are the parents of four children all born in Canada and named as follows: Clara, Albert, Helen and Florence.
The following few items are taken out of the history of Mr. Stritzel's ancestors: Mr. Stritzel's great-great- great-grandfather, Johann Friedrich Stritzel, a noble- man, was born April 15, 1668, in Kaltwangen, East Prussia; his wife, Christine, was the daughter of a Swedish count, who at the same time was a command- ing general in the army and he died under Karl XII in 1698 during the war with Poland.
The son of this couple, Johann Friedrich, the great- great-grandfather, was born on December 10, 1716. He married Louise von Troshen, and their son Friederich Stritzel, great-grandfather of Gottfried R. M. Stritzel was born January 10, 1767. He was a Black Hussar and took a very active part in the Polish war in 1793. On October 10, 1798, he married Maria Bartsch and became manager of the two domains: Alsnienen and Wolmen, belonging to the Count of Eulenburg, with headquarters at Schoenbruch. Here he died December 10, 1822. Gottfried Stritzel, the youngest of his three children was born April 15, 1812. He served in the Kaiser-Alexander regiment in Berlin and when he left the militia became an art gardener and followed this profession practically until his death, which occurred
C
Chelson Story
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on July 3, 1898, the memorial day, when his son Fried- rich (the father of our subject, Gottfried R. M. Strit- zel) was wounded in the battle of Koeniggraetz, Aus- tria.
Friedrich Stritzel, who was one of a family of six children, was born April 28, 1843, in Linkehnen, East Prussia. On October 1, 1862, he joined the 8th Com- pany 5th East Prussia Grenadier Regiment No. 41. and retired as underofficer in the Landwehr on Octo- ber 1, 1865. On the 15th of February, 1866, he joined the 3d Company of the 2d East. Prussia Grenadier Regi- ment No. 3 and fought in the battles of Trautenau, Koeniggraetz and Tabitschau. In 1871 after coming out of the war as an invalid he received a commission as controlleur in the customs office at Blindgallen in which town his son Gottfried R. M. Stritzel was born. After several advancements Friedrich Stritzel rose to the rank as the superior of the customs office in Kl. .
Kallweitschen and later in the town of Heilsberg. For serving the German Crown and Fatherland in these dif-
ferent ways for about thirty-five years he now receives since October 1, 1900, a very substantial Government pension. His wife whose maiden name was Anna Kab- bacher (a Salzburgerin) died on March 22, 1884 (Em- peror William I's birthday). Of this marriage there were six children, four of whom are still living: Fried- erich, Bertha, Gottfried R. M. and Amanda.
NELSON STORY. The amassing of a great fortune may be the end and aim of many a man's life, but to gather wealth through business ability and to distribute it wisely and well, has been the ambition of such men as Nelson Story, who is credited with one of the largest individual fortunes in the state of Montana. Few men have impressed themselves more conspicuously on the business development of this state and his influence has also been notable in the founding and fostering of enter- prises devoted to high ideals along the lines of educa- tion and good citizenship. The life of every prominent and successful man of the West has been more or less adventurous, and that of Mr. Story has been no excep- tion. He was born in 1838, in Meigs county, Ohio, and is a son of Ira and Hannah (Gile) Story. The first record of the Story family in New England that has been preserved, relates that one William Story came to the colonies in 1637, from England, and gained per- mission to erect and operate a sawmill. Ira Story was a son of John and Priscilla (Choate) Story, the former a son of John and Hannah Story, a grandson of Deacon Seth Story and a great-grandson of William the settler. Ira Story and his wife were both born in New Hamp- shire and both died in Meigs county, Ohio, the former when aged fifty-six years and the latter at the age of fifty-four years. Their family consisted of four children.
Nelson Story grew up with the advantages that accrue to a boy who has to toil in the open air, this giving encouragement, perhaps, to an energetic habit of life that has attended Mr. Story throughout his career. Dur- ing this period on the home farm he attended the dis- trict schools and in order to secure further educational training, taught school one term to provide for the same. He attended Ohio State University at Athens, Ohio, for about two years. When his father died he was thrown entirely upon his own resources and con- tinued school teaching until he had secured sufficient capital to enable him to reach the West, toward which section he had long been directing his thoughts. In a busy life like that of Mr. Story it would require a volume to justly place before the reader every step in his busi- ness progress and to closely follow the young school Vol. 11-2
teacher until fortune began to smile on his efforts and he began to feel sure that his judgment had led him aright in directing his steps beyond the Mississippi river.
In the early days of freighting between the Missouri river and the Rocky mountains, Nelson Story took part, and the vivid tales of the adventures of that life still possess a magic charm for the ears of the younger gen- eration. In the course of time Mr. Story made invest- ments in California and the territories, his excellent business judgment leading to many profitable purchases, and he personally engaged in placer mining in Montana as well as in other sections near and remote. While his mining interests increased, he engaged also in lumber- ing and acquired large bodies of land and went exten- sively into the stock business. In 1892, when he sold 13,000 head of cattle from his ranch, it was believed to be one of the largest transactions in live stock that had ever been recorded in northwest ranching. Finance has also claimed his attention and he has been president and the largest stockholder in the Gallatin Valley National Bank at Bozeman, Montana, which city claims him as a resident. In addition to erecting here one of the most palatial private residences along the Northern Pacific Railroad west of St. Paul, Minnesota, he has built busi- ness blocks along the leading streets, has improved much real estate and has contributed many thousands of dol- lars to churches and schools and to assist both public and private enterprises from which he, personally, reaps but little reward, but these contribute to the general welfare.
Mr. Story was married in early manhood to Miss Ellen Trent, and seven children were born to them, the four survivors being: Rose, who is married and the mother of three sons and one daughter; Nelson, Jr., who married and has one son and one daughter; Thomas B., whose family also consists of a son and daughter; and Walter P., who is a graduate of Shattuck College, Fari- bault, Minnesota. Mr. and Mrs. Story have given their children exceptional educational as well as social advan- tages. In addition to the beautiful summer home at Bozeman, Mr. Story and family have an equally attrac- tive one for the winter at Los Angeles, California. The family attend the Episcopal church. Politically Mr. Story has always been a Republican. Personally Mr. Story is kind, genial and approachable and those who have known him for more than a quarter of a century see no change in his manner with a change in his for- tunes. He was hearty and hospitable in his pioneer log cabin and he is equally so to the deserving in his stately homes. The cut of his visitor's coat does not bother him-it's the honest man beneath it that he welcomes. His life has been such that fidelity and honesty have assumed value to him and he is able to discern true man- liness under a forbidding guise. He may tell of experi- ences in the past which revealed the same to him on many occasions and of times of danger and excitement, of combats with Indians and struggles with breakers of law and order, but through it all the listener will recog- nize the underlying sense of justice, the wise judgment and the honesty of purpose. In the retrospect Mr. Story can look with pardonable pride over his many honor- able achievements and can surely take pleasure in the great esteem in which he is held by his fellow citizens.
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