USA > South Dakota > Who's who in South Dakota, Vol. I > Part 12
Note: The text from this book was generated using artificial intelligence so there may be some errors. The full pages can be found on Archive.org (link on the Part 1 page).
Part 1 | Part 2 | Part 3 | Part 4 | Part 5 | Part 6 | Part 7 | Part 8 | Part 9 | Part 10 | Part 11 | Part 12 | Part 13 | Part 14 | Part 15 | Part 16 | Part 17 | Part 18 | Part 19 | Part 20 | Part 21 | Part 22
When Dr. Weir has finished the struggle, when his busy hans lie folded in silence across his manly bosom, when the deep blue eyes that now sparkle with intelligence and win him so many friendships are closed in endless sleep, the pastor who pronounces his eulogy will no doubt feel honored to proclaim, "The world has been made better because he lived."
He is a member of the Phi Kappa Psi, and of the Phi Betta Kappa fraternities; also of the A. A. A. S. and of the N. E. A.
Viewed from one angle, he is gentle, loving and com- panionable; from another, cultured, inspiring and philosophic; and fron still another, pious, reverent, manly and good. If his soul were stripped of its earthly encasement, we doubt if a sin- gle spot could be found on it. Congratulations, Dakota Wesleyan, on having such a seer in education for your anchor.
145
C. M. DAY
A STANDPAT EDITOR
Standpattism is not necessarily standstillisn; it is simply loyalty to one's convictions, the execution of an ideal, regardless of clamor, the adherence to a policy -right or wrong.
Jesus Christ was a standpatter of the first magnitude, and he got enduring results instead of temporary gain. Columbus was endowed with a similar nature. Washington revealed it, and Charlie Day, editor of the Sioux Falls Daily Argus-Leader, has it.
Day is a man of mighty strong convictions, and he has the courage to express them It matters little to him whether our whole congressional del- egation, multiplied farmers' conventions and what not are for or against Canadian rec- iprocity, Day is for it, and with him "Day" goes. Hav- ing taken his stand for it, no set of politicians can swerve him from his course. He'd pull down the Argus-Leader sign, send home the employres, turn the key in the door and shut up shop, if necessary, but change front -never !
Yet Day is not stubborn; he is simply unyielding in his conviction of duty. And it is this very element in his na- ture, breathed into his editor- ial work, that has given the Daily Argus-Leader such prominence, such wide circu-
C. M. DAY
WHO'S WHO IN SOUTH DAKOTA
lation, and made it the leading daily of the Dakotas and one of the most influential papers of the northwest.
Day is also a practical politician, -so much so that he will support after the primaries a republican ticket which he in whole or in part vigorously opposed before the nominations were made. In other words, he is a standpat party man. Wendell Phillips declared, "He wha forsakes principle for party, goes down, and the armed batallions of God march over him." Phillips was a theoretical politician. Day, like President Mckinley, is just the reverse, -a practical politician. Mckinley said, "Young man. stand by your party and your party will stand by you." This is Day's viewpoint. He remains "regular" and stands pat for his party in the state and nation.
DAY'S STYLE
Day has a style of writing that is peculiarly his own. It is as simple as that of a school boy, yet as penetrating as a javelin. His recognition as an editorial writer seems to come from his power of simplification. In a general way he writes in short. terse sentences that fairly snap with life, and carry conviction to his readers. It is, in other words, simple individuality imparted to his work. Day is a man with a pronounced personality. This finds expression in his writings. His face is his trademark. His intense expression reveals his standpattism. His standpattism and his clear-cut, eloquent prose, command respect, and cause a larger percent of his subscribers to neglect the news and to read the editorial page of the Argus-Leader, when their papers are received than any other newspaper we have ever known.
His editorial page discloses daily the incontrovertible fact that Charlie is a prolific writer. He expresses himself with equal elegance and grace on every conceivable subject that may interest the public minds He never uses a big word, if a small one will suffice. His treatises of political, of social and of moral prob- lems, reveal alike his wide range of knowledge and his simplified manner of digesting his themes.
Again. in his newspaper "debates" with other editors of the state, Mr. Day is always pre eminently fair, and he puts his crit- icisms of men and conditions in dignified language. His dispo- sition to give the other fellow a fair hearing, and his absence of personal replies to personal threats that are made at him by other papers, have won for him a host of admiring friends. Instead of using that ugly little word, spelled with four letters, that does so much to estrange men, he simply says "Editor So and So does the Argus-Leader an injustice," and thus puts his replies on a high plane.
147
C. M. DAY
For this reason the newspaper fraternity like him, and a few years since they elected him president of the South Dakota Press Association.
BIGNESS
One thing that everybody likes about Editor Day is the big- ness which he shows in giving up the free use of his editorial page to his enemies as readily as he does to his friends. Every few days, as is customary with a live editor, some one has a griev- ance at him to air. Mr. Day invariably publishes these harsh things about himself just as freely as he does the kind comments that come floating along. It takes a patriot to do this.
But the reader must not infer that Mr. Day is passive in his nature, or that he is too well balanced to err. Like the rest of us, sometimes he, too, acts on impusle rather than reason, and then something drops. One end of his editorial pencil is thor- oughly steeped in vitriolic acid; but fortunately for himself as well as for the public he usually writes with the other end.
Not long since he deliberately accused Clate Tinan, editor of the Kimball Graphic-a newspaper man; - think of it! of dressing as well as Senator Gamble.
Once again he got his pencil turned around and specifically stated that a certain Sioux Falls attorney who was a member of the South Dakota legislature, was not a statesman, whereupon the broken-hearted state legislature passed a resolution denouncing Mr. Day for such unfriendly and unjustifiable criticism. Of course this helped to advertise the Argus-Leader, and it brought Mr. Day a score or more of new subscribers. On another occa- sion Charlie inadvertently sharpened the vitriolic end of his edi- torial pencil, and then when he began to write he put on more pressure than he had intended, and he inflicted a Fitfy-Thousand- Dollar wound in the right hyprochondrical cavity just under the diaphragm of a valiant Norskman at Huron, that caused the fel- low to believe he was suffering from internal peritonitis, appen- dicitis, atrophic cirrhosis of the liver, and gall stones --- all at once.
On this occasion Charlie would have been punished, if it had
not been for a counter-irritant. While the wound was being dis- infected by the lamented Kittredge with paroxide of courtry- gen. (We must have medical terms to fit the remedy. ) changing venue occasionally as the distressful days passed by ,a coterie of long, pious faced politicians, signed a written agree- ment with this same valiant Norskman that if he would secure the nomination of several of their ring-leaders to good fat offices. they would, immediately thereafter, join hands with him in
14A
WHO'S WHO IN SOUTH DAKOTA
bringing about certain political reforms which the injured Norsk- man desired -particularly the election of postmasters and the dividing of other political patronage by a legally constituted committee, etc., etc., ad infinitum.
The valiant Norskman kept his part of the agreement. But when the primary election was over, the signers of this sacred (?) political pact kicked over the traces, repudiated their part of the agreement, and in so doing inflicted such a painful wound in the Norskman's left hypochondrical cavity, just below his diaphragm, in such dangerously close proximity to the Norskman's big heart, that he forgot all about the wound inflicted on the opposite side by Charlie Day, and so it gradually healed. But the other wound made by the broken pledge produced a running sore which is still discharging.
ON THE PLATFORM
It seldom occurs that a polished writer is also a good public speaker. Day is an exception-a combination. He can say more in five words on the platform than some folks can say in five min- utes. Again, he is one of the readiest off-hand speakers in the state. He can sit at his editorial desk all day doing his regular work, and then in the evening drive out to some point in Min- nehaha county and fairly hypnotize a political gathering for sev- eral hours with his snappy argument. Mr. Day's services are also in demand among the state schools. Recently he delivered an able address before the students of our state university, and on Decoration Day of this year he was the orator at Geddes. June 15th, he delivered another patriotic address before the Lake Madison Veteran's association, at Colton. Charlie's combined literary attainments will yet bring him just recompense in the political realm.
Here is a sample of his pointed talks. Speaking at a ban- quet held in Sioux Falls in honor of Senator Kittredge, during the eventful campaign of 1908, he said : "If Senator Kittredge isn't renominated at the primaries next Tuesday, I, for one, will walk down the streets of Sioux Falls with my head bowed in shame."
Kittredge was defeated; Day hung his head, but it was with fervent sorrow. Three years elapsed. Kittredge lay unconscious in a hotel at Hot Springs, Arkansas, awaiting the final summons to appear in Court. Day stood by his side, holding his limp fev- ered hand. And the greatest consolation of that trying hour to Mr. Day was the fact that neither he nor the Argus-Leader had ever forsaken the senator. Charlie's head was no longer bowed
149
C. M. DAY
in shame; but it remains bowed in grief. They were true friends.
Day's ready wit makes him an ideal toastmaster. He acted in this capacity during the Roosevelt banquet, held in Sioux Falls. The Commercial Club of that city, the Elk's lodge, and other or- ganizations are continually pressing him into similar service.
One evening, while attending an Elk's banquet at the Cat- aract hotel in Sioux Falls, Mr. Day was called upon to respond to the toast, "The Ladies," so we were told by one who was pres- ent. It was just about midnight when he arose to speak. He followed his subject for a few minutes, and then looking at the hands of the clock, said that the day observed as "Mothers' Day" was just approaching. Concluding his remarks, the speaker said : "If mother be living and with you, pay her some slight mark of respect which her old eyes will not be too dim to see and apprec- iate. If she be living and absent, write her a good cordial letter and let her know that you thought of her on 'Mothers' Day.' If she has gone-if her weary feet have climbed the 'silver stair- way of the stars,' let us give to her sacred memory the deep de- votion of a thoughtful hour; and let us here resolve, as man to man and Elk to Elk, to try to be as clean and brave and manly as Mother would have us be!"
It was told us by our informant that when Mr. Day sat down, there was hardly a dry eye in the room. Then came an outburst of applause which made the banquet hall ring again and again. And a large number of those present, before they went home that very night, wired orders for flowers to be sent to their absent mothers the next morning ; and several of theni have never since allowed the day to pass unobserved.
Charlie Day was born to win. In his veins courses blood of the Sons of Erin, the followers of Bruce and the descendants of good old Yankeedom. Dame Nature permitted him to draw his first breath at Sidney, Iowa, November 4, 1853. (He will draw his last one in South Dakota). Day's mother was a very charm- ing lady possessed of great literary talent, and she was also noted for her wit and humor. His father was Judge James D. Day, of the Iowa supreme court. Thus Charlie came into the world under the most favorable circumstances-came in, as previously stated, to win.
At the age of twenty-three young Day struck westward. He landed in Sioux Falls, South Dakota, twenty-five years ago, July 9, 1886, penniless. Discouraged? Never! He took a job the next morning on the Daily Argus, as news editor. He started in at $5 per week. Thus the first dollar he ever earned in our fair young state was with his pen. We predict the last one will be earned with his tongue.
150
WHO'S WHO IN SOUTH DAKOTA
But, as has been said a thousand times, you can't keep a good man down. The manner in which Charlie wrote up pink teas and other townfolk affairs, at once won him recognition. Young Day had ideas; he expressed them. His columns revealed originality. Almost before he knew it he was doing editorial work on the paper, as a side line.
Day knew the value of saving. Every spare dollar, and some that he couldn't spare, were slipped into his worshipped savings bank. Two years after becoming identified with the Daily Argus, he had saved up enough money to get married, and in one year more (1889), to acquire an interest in the paper. The next year, 1890, he and his partner, Tomlinson, bought the Weekly Leader, and merged it with the Daily Argus, -thus giving birth to the Daily Argus-Leader. Later, Day bought Tomlinson's interest. Five years ago the ownership was converted into a corporation with Charles M. Day as editor-in-chief and the leading stockholder in the company. He has done nearly all of the editorial work for fifteen years. When Day took charge of the Argus-Leader, its total circulation throughout the country at large was only one- third of what it is today in the city of Sioux Falls alone; and its total circulation today is twelve times what it was when he as- sumed control. This shows thrift. It shows that Day's fearless- ness in expressing himself editorially meets public approval, otherwise the public would not accord him this patronage.
SOCIABILITY
Charlie Day is one of the most sociable creatures ever created. He makes friends wherever he goes, or with whomsoever comes. This admirable trait in his nature finds expression in many ways. For instance, unlike other editors of large daily papers who betake themselves into a closed room-one not infrequently locked -to do their editorial work, and leave with everybody around the shop explicit instructions that they are not to be interrupted except in cases of the most extreme necessity, Day does his editorial work in the open, right out in a room among his employees, where the public also has easy access to him; does it amid all kinds of in- terruptions, and never complains. Why? Well, because he's a social creature, and he enjoys the sociability of his fellowmen; besides, he likes to keep in touch with everybody.
When Day succeeded to the editorship, the Kimball Graphic said, "Charlie Day is a man that the newspaper boys of the state will snuggle up to," and the prediction has come true.
151
C. M. DAY
DAY'S FAMILY
Two years after young Day landed in Sioux Falls, Don Cupid broke open his little savings bank, took out enough money to get Charlie a wedding license, a wedding suit and some furniture, and the young reporter on the Daily Argus set up housekeeping at once with Miss Annie Louise Davenport. Mrs. Day is a strik- ingly handsome lady with a Grecian cast of features. She is winsome in her mannerisms, stately and dignified in her appear- ance; yet withal common and companionable. Charlie has more than once been envied by less-contented members of his own sex.
Mr. and Mrs. Day are now closing the latter half of middle life. Like other people who have reached this age, they have already begun to live over again their own lives in the lives of their offspring, and to find their chiefest comfort in their child- ren -a son, Herbert James, aged 21, and a daughter, Miss Dor- othy, aged 18. Herbert graduated this year from the University of Missouri, and he is now taking his medical course. Miss Dor- othy also graduated in June from the Sioux Falls high school, being valedictorian of her class which consisted of fifty-nine members. No small distinction !
Thus ends our review of the life of an Iowa lad who at ma- turity crossed the Big Sioux into Dakota; and who, through fru- gality, honesty, hard work and sticktoitiveness carved for him- self a niche in the hall of our state's proud fame where he will be revered for many years to come as the "biggest" editor in South Dakota newspaperdom.
Here's a hand, Brother Day, of recognition and congratula- tion. Keep plodding! the hill-top is not yet reached. Destiny lies before you.
152
WHO'S WHO IN SOUTH DAKOTA
AN AGED GENERAL
Gen. Conklin, of Clark, S. D., was born so long ago that nobody else living seems to know just when it was. Suffice it to say he was a large boy well along in his 'teens when the last one of the signers of the Declaration of Indpendence died. He thus becomes the connective link between two historical epochs. Conk- lin himself says it was somewhere between the hours of six and eight, on May 5, 1829, at Penn Yan, New York, that he entered life and gave notice to his proud parents that he was ready for his first meal.
Think of it! Juhn Quincy Adams was president of the United States and a colony of prominent revolutionary heroes were still alive. The general has actually lived through three complete generations who have come and gone. He was married in each of them and helped to produce the particular generation in which he was at the time living.
HISTORICAL DEVELOPMENT
The general has watched with keenest interest the develop- ment of our national history. During his life the Mexican, the Civil and the Spanish-American wars have all been fought -- and won! He watched the spinning wheel and the hand loom give way to the modern factory; the cradle yield to the reaper and the latter to the twine binder; the flail superceded by the threshing inachine; the top carriage supplant the stage coach and then both yield to the automobile; steam power giving way to electricity ; the telegraph, telephone, cablegraph, wireless telegraphy and the aeroplane -all glide in and take their respective places in the on- ward march of our modern civilization. He was born before the first railroad was built in America. Today the country is per- meated by a mesh of railroads as intricate in their interlacings as the organs of circulation in the human anatomy. When he was a boy it took five weeks to cross the Atlantic. Now it takes
153
GEN. S. J. CONKLIN
less than five days. He has tarried to see the north pole discov- ered, and then split in two by Peary and Cook for kindling wood; the south pole also located; and the western continent soon to be divided into two island empires by the Panama Canal. What an age through which to have lived!
TRAINING FOR LIFE
With General Conklin life has not been a bed of roses, or one long sunny dream. Left fatherless at the age of three, he was kicked out into a cruel world to hustle for himself. At the age of twelve, some of his kind friends (?), taking advantage of the New York law, apprenticed him for five years to a shoemaker and tan- ner to learn the cobbler's trade, but they made absolute- ly no provision for the lad's education. When he finally reached his eighteenth year, he went into business for him- self. Then he began his edu- cation. While others slept, young Conklin was burning tallow candles over his books in an old attic.
GEN. S. J. CONKLIN
Almost before we can comprehend it, we find him helping to organize the republican party in the state of New York and dab- bling in politics. The writer is well along in middle life, yet Conklin had stumped the east for four successive republican pres- idential nominees, before the writer was born.
It was these early experiences on the stump that caused the young fellow to determine to fit himself for a lawyer. He kept faithfully at it until 1857, when he was admitted to the bar and became one of the most successful lawyers in that state.
WAR RECORD
Harkening to the call of his country, in 1862, he laid aside everything to help save the Union. President Lincoln commis- sioned him an officer. At the close of the war he was assigned to duty for three years under the treasury department with head- quarters in Wisoensin. Later on he served four years in the re- construction service, with headquarters at New Orleans.
154
WHO'S WHO IN SOUTH DAKOTA
NEWSPAPER MAN
General Conklin finally quit the military service, went back to Wisconsin and started a republican reform newspaper. But in 1879, seeing that the tide of emigration was westwerd, he packed up his newspaper plant, and with it headed for Watertown, South Dakota.
He got out several boom editions of his paper. One consisted of 200,000 copies. It set forth the advantages of the new terri- tory in such a neat, readable, appetizing way that the North- western railway company bought 50.000 copies for distribution along their line of road. The president of the road wrote: "It was worth more for the purpose intended than any carload of advertising matter we have ever invested in " The Milwaukee company also bought 40,000 copies of the issue.
Newspaper work was to his liking. Here he could unfold himself to the limit, so that as a person read his iconoclastic edi- torials he would fairly rise in his chair as he felt the tiny muscles of his scalp use his epidermis for a fulcrum and prick his hair on end. And the general took advantage of his opportunities. The old files of his paper still plainly disclose this truth.
There was in this territory at that time a bunch of usurers. Conklin kept after these fellows relentlessly till he finally helped to drive them from the state.
WRITER AND SPEAKER
Again, Conklin is a prolific writer and speaker. It is doubt- ful if the state has as yet produced another man who can pin so many adjectives to a noun, indulge in such superlatively classical complex sentences, put into the imagination such vistas of thought, and lift the soul into such realms of comprehension as he.
His style will at once be caught by reading the following extract from one of his arguments made in the court of Clark county :
"Nature in her bountiful munificence has provided us with a safeguard against the monsters which a violation of her laws has brought into existence: as the morning light in the east warns us of the coming day, and the darkness at noontide of the approaching storm; so nature hangs out upon the face of man a record of the light or darkness that dwells within; with an indel- ible finger she traces upon the features of every living creature of our race the history of their virtues or their vices, whether the man is to be loved or admired or detested; advertises to the world whether he loves peace or contention; whether he strews
155
GEN. S. J. CONKLIN
the highway of human life with flowers or with thorns; whether he lives to bless or curse his race.
Look this man Hoskins in the face and tell me whether he makes peace or trouble in this world of ours' hatred, revenge, and all the evil passions which language can express hang out in bold relief from every feature and tell you why he chose dark- ness rather than light to commence this prosecution; why he crept to your home and roused you from your slumbers at mid- night to listen to his perjured deviltry. Go to the seven-hilled city of Rome, that summit of perfection in art, and search until you shall find the most accomplished delineator upon canvass of the human face and human character that the art world can fur- nish; employ him to visit all the great commercial centers and cities of the known world, and require him to descend into all the slums and dens, and hells of vice and infamy and human degredation, and to study faithfully the lines of character and debauchery and crime chiseled upon the human face; then have him search out the condemned felons in all the jails and peniten- tiaries of the civilized world and study with care every shade and shadow of the emotions and passions that crime traces with indelible characters upon the features of its victims, from boyish innocence to hardened crime: then let the artist repair to his studio and there by years of patient toil have him paint one fiendish face, the character lines of which shall express all that is low and vile and licentious and dishonest and devilish that he has seen and studied and then bring that picture here breathing from every outline all that is loathsome. inhuman, dishonorable and infamous, and hang it upon the wall yonder for us to gaze upon, and it would be a thing of beauty, a paragon of loveliness com- pared with the face of this man Hoskins."
STATE MILITIA
After all, the proudest achievement in General Conklin's life was his organization in 1901 of the South Dakota State Guards (now National Guards). At the extreme age of seventy- one, Governor Herreid commissioned him Adjutant-General and assigned to him the thankless task of organizing the military forces of the state.
Need help finding more records? Try our genealogical records directory which has more than 1 million sources to help you more easily locate the available records.