USA > South Dakota > Who's who in South Dakota, Vol. I > Part 8
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Recently Mr. Robinson issued a pamphlet containing only four-lined poems, entitled "Bits of Four." From it we culled the following :
EACH HATH SOME GIFT
Nor envy thou thy neighbor's gift; He covets thine in vain ; The eagle through the azure drifts, The salmon threads the main.
THE PRAIRIE MIRAGE
To thirsty lands, where once in rhythm rolled Foam crested waves, to fret the rock girt coast, There comes to frolic in the sea path old The perished water's insubstantial ghost.
ONLY A FEW
Only a few are the friends I have won; Hearts of my heart in Love's cement set; Trusting me, spite of the ill I have done- Thanks be to God, I hold all of them yet.
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EVOLUTION
Youth pleads,-God taught his children so-
"O give me joy ; my happines asure." Age prays, -God teaches men to grow-
"All peace be thine; O may thy joys be pure."
THE SCANDALMONGER'S PLEA
Ye curse me, but for fear of me A man and maid from sin are free Why, e'en the priest is more discreet Because I wander in the street.
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HISTORIAN
Robinson is the only state official who didnt' get his job by popular vote, nor as an appointee of the Governor. He was chosen by the State Historcial Society, after the position of State His- torian and Collector of Vital Statistics had been created by leg- islative enactment. In all probability he will continue to hold down the job as long as he may care to.
He is the author of "History of South Dakota, " published by Bowen & Co., Indianapolis; of a "Brief History of South Dakota," published by the American Book Co .; a "History of the Sioux Indians," and dozens of miscellaneous historical articles.
ROBINSON, THE MAN
Doane is a jolly good fellow, with an even, happy temper- ament, always delightful to meet and hard to break away from. One feels as though he had met his brother and you somehow hate to part. When a sight-seer reaches Pierre and inspects our new capitol, after treading on that cuss-ed, dis-cussed-ed $1,200 rug in the governor's office, which refused to remain on the floor during the recent primary campaign, if he desires to know the significance of those weird high-priced Indian pictures painted on the walls of the rotunda, all he has to do is to ask for Doane Robinson, and he will receive an hour's lecture, gratis, that will keep him assimilating for several months to come. Try it! and be convinced.
While practicing law at Watertown in 1884, Doane was married to Miss Jennie Austin, of Leon, Wisconsin. Their wedded life brought into being two sons-Harry, aged 24, and Will, aged 19. But Mr. Robinson's life, like that of all the rest of us, bas had its thorns. Mrs. Robinson was suddenly snatched away
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from him by the Grim Reaper, January 23, 1902. Hereunto re- lated are the words of Taylor: "Life is just a little Of the good and of the bad, Of things that make us happy And the things that make us sad."
L
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A STATESMAN EDUCATOR
At Janesville, Wisconsin, in 1868, three days before Christ- mas, the Angel of Life ushered into being a rugged little young- ster whose parents, aftewards, transplanted him on South Dakota soil, where he grew, studied, traveled and taught; and today there is scarcely a man, woman, or child above ten years of age, in the state, who has not heard of and does not know George Williston Nash.
For the past five years he has been president of the Northern Normal and Industrial School at Aberdeen. During this period, the old course of study has been boiled down and then greatly ex- tended, the organization of the school has been made more com- pact; it articulates together better as a completed whole; the faculty has been strengthened, thousands of dollars of new mater- ial and apparatus have been procured, a new building has been erected, the campus has been cleaned up and plotted, the enroll- ment has trebled and things in general have taken on a substan- tial expression.
One of Nash's greatest blessings is his strong, pleasing per- sonality. This makes discipline of the school come easy and na- tural to him. We recall that one day a few years since he sum- moned into the president's office at the normal for discipline, a young fellow who had been using tobacco on the premises. Pres- ident Nash did not scold him as some men would have done. He walked up to him manfully, placed his left hand on the young fellow's shoulder, looked at him kindly and said in a low broth- erly tone, "Now, see here, Mr. -- -, I don't want this matter to go before the whole faculty. Won't you just promise me pri- vately that you wont' use any more tobacco on the school grounds, and then keep your promise?"
"I will!" said the young fellow in a firm, manly, semi- apologetic tone; and it's safe to say he never broke that pledge. Such power of discipline emanates from a big brotherly heart.
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As Ohio has become the mother of presidents, so Lincoln county, South Dakota, has become the mother of state officers. Gee whiz! they simply manufacture candidates down there for state officers. Cassill, the progressive state treasurer, was suc- ceeded two years since by George Johnson, a good husky stalwart from the same county. This year Johnson was a candidate for re-election, Lawrence was a candidate for superintenent of public instruction, and Tom Thorson wanted to go to Congress. The first two won. Think of it! Two state officers at the same time from the same town. This is, of course, one of the customary possibilities under the primary law. If some- thing isn't done to stop it, the first thing you know we are going to have a whole state ticket from Canton. But they are a jolly good bunch - bright, energetic, capable fel- lows; so, after all, what's the difference ?
Back to our subject ! Nash was educated at Canton, in Lincoln county. Then he went away to school, taught, etc., and all of a sudden he jumped back to,Lincoln county, bobbed out in 1902 as a can- GEORGE W. NASH didate for superintendent of public instruction, and he won. Since then, Lincoln county has had the intermittent state-office fever: and instead of getting weaker, as most fever patients do, she is actually growing stronger. Gracious! Since 1902, she has had two superintend- ents of public instruction, two state treasurers, and several dis- appointed aspiring nominees.
PREPARATION FOR LIFE
If there is any truth in the theory that a man's success in. life is proportioned according to his preparation to succeed, it certainly can find substantiation in the life of G. W. Nash. After finishing his public school work at Canton he went to Yankton College. Here he was graduated from the academy in 1887; from
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the college proper in 1891, being given his B. S. degree; and in 1895 the institution presented him with his Master's degree. (Since this was written, with his LL. D.)
Not satisfied with his preparation, he went to Europe and entered the University of Leipzig, where he attended school in 1894-5. Returning to this country he went to the University of Minnesota where he remained during '96-7, specializing on mathematics and astronomy.
With a super-abundance of native talent, with his latent powers now developed and vibrating for action, he returned to his alma mater at Yankton in the fall of 1897, and became pro- fessor of mathematics and astronomy, holding this position until he was nominated for superintendent of public instruction in 1902.
.A NEW FIELD
Everybody who was engaged in educational work in the state, and thousands of others, will recall when he entered office in 1903, how quickly a whole state was throbbing with renewed life. There was a college professor, untrained in the new line of work he was to follow, doing it more than successfully. Here was a man of energy, of foresight, of action, and of determination.
He was called all over the state to deliver commencement addresses. He went into every county in the state, spoke to school officers at their annual meetings, lectured before teachers' institutes, and delivered dozens of other addresses. The eyes of a whole state were upon him. He was "making good," with some left over. His re-election came; the governor's chair awaited him; his friends implored; but oh! no, Nash knew his business; he remained firm and declined. Presently the board of regents offered him the presidency of the normal at Aberdeen. He re- signed the superintendency of public instruction and accepted the job. Why not? It was in his chosen field of work. True, it re- duced bis influence to a smaller field, but it sunk it deeper. His state job was temporary, at best; the usual school presidency might last through his useful days. He did the right, the sen- sible thing.
VOTE GETTER
Be it said to the everlasting credit of Nash that he is the best vote getter whom the state has yet developed. In 1902, he was the high man on the republican ticket, having received 48,464 votes. In 1904, he came back with an increase of 20,716 (almost 50 per cent) and polled 69,180 votes -- the largest number of votes that has ever been received by any candidate in the state for the office of superintendent of public instruction.
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NASH'S BI-ENNIAL REPORT
By all odds the greatest act thus far in Nash's life was the preparation and publication of his bi-ennial report at the close of his first term as superintendent of public instruction. The state law provides that the state superintendent shall send to each county superintendent in the state a copy of his bi-ennial report, and that the latter shall, in turn, keep the same permanently on file in the office. Ordinarily, these reports consist of nothing but dry educational statistics, and nobody ever looks at them. Not so with the one Nash got out. In it he covered the entire field of educational thought and progress. The demand for copies of it was so great that the edition was entirely exhausted, and there is still a constant demand for it.
The report contains an historical review of the educational development of the state; recommends uniform courses of study for the high schools of the state, better salaries for teachers, five day inspirational institutes, the introduction into our schools of ETHICAL CULTURE and manual training, state aid for high schools, a revision of the common school course of study, an ex- amination of the eyes and ears of the duller pupils to ascertain if their apparent sluggishness is not the result of physical rather than mental defects, and that the entire school law of the state should be re-written.
He also embodied in it the extensive written reports and recommendations of the various county superintendents through- out the state; brief reports of all the state and denominational institutions of higher learning : his elaborate and tasty Arbor Day annual; extended educational reviews and comments by thirty- eight of the leading newspapers of the state; a digest of the school laws' and all the educational statistics of the entire state.
Men who have since won distinction in certain lines of edu- cational endeavor, have each, in turn, found that G. W. Nash previously recommended the very thing they were doing, and that he was, withal, the pioneer in the forward educational movement of the state.
PERSONAL
In 1903, Professor Nash was united in marriage to Miss Adelaide Warburton, of Pierre, step-daughter of the late Jugde Fuller. Their home is now blessed with a bright little junior Nash nearly old enough to attend school.
President and Mrs. Nash are each trained singers and thor- ough lovers of music. This happy faculty woven into their home life, makes it ideal; and their services are in constant demand.
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President Nash is one of the very best educators in the state, and a man whose work has attracted the attention of the nation. He has dignified and successsfully prosecuted every field of work in which he has been engaged. Here is a symmetrical man-an all-round man, if you please-one who can do well anything as- signed to him.
Nash has that widening influence that comes from travel. During his career at Leipzig he went to all of the prominent cities in Europe including the Seven-Hilled City of Rome. He drank into his young life the vital truths of history and art first hand. He climbed Vensuvius, and was nearly ready to peek into its crater when the huge mountan, like an angry dog, began to growl at its intruder.
This year he went abroad again and took in the Passion Play at Oberammergau. It is travel and observation, added to book knowledge, that makes the completed man.
He has an exceptionaly pleasing address. His friends have repeatedly urged him to give up educational work and to take up law. There could be no doubt about his success in this other field of labor; but President Nash has a mind of his own, and having fitted himself for educational work, and having met with such decided success, he will in all probability continue in it.
Personally, we should like to see him enter the field of jour- nalism. He is a brilliant student in English, and a prolific writer. On the other hand, his political instinct and his foresight are as keen as a Damascus blade. While at home in Canton, during his younger days, he used to assist his father in his editorial work on the "Sioux Valley News," and his breezy editorials were watched for with an unusual degree of expectancy by all of their subscribers.
We shall all watch his future career with abiding good will.
NEWSPAPER COMMENT
Wednesday's write-up of Professor G. W. Nash in the Who's Who" column of the Argus-Leader called forth much favorable comment in Canton, the land of his birth and the home of states- men. The professor is well known here, both as boy and man,. and all are proud of his record. - Canton Leader.
POSTSCRIPT
Since this article on Dr. Nash's life was published, he has been called upon to deliver his lecture on "The Passion Play" over fifty times (eight times within his home city of Aberdeen) ;
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has been elected president of the South Dakota Educational As- gociation; and, in 1912, he conducted the teachers' institutes for one-fourth of the counties of the entire state, and lectured, all told, in thirty-three and one-third per cent of them.
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A NEWSPAPER MAN
"Who's who?" May we never overlook that splendid gal- axy of self-sacrificing individuals who deny themselves many privileges to make reports of public functions, who record the personal deeds of their respective communities, who visit the sick and paint scenes of the dying, who devote columns to weddings and pages to politics, who mould the opinions of readers and shape the destiny of our commonwealth, -- the newspaper men of our state.
Conspicuous in this class of laborers and public benefactors is Clauson W. Downey, city editor of the "Mithell Daily Repub- lican." Here is a man who for eighteen years and six months has stood at his post of duty, with only two vacations of ten days each, nine years apart. Before making the following assertion, we have carefully gone into, and made a comparison of, the var- ious newspapers of the state, and we have fortified ourselves with the evidence, that during the past eighteen years he has written approximately six times as much matter as any other editor in the state. Until less than a year ago he did all of the writing for the Mitchell Daily, both city and editorial, furnishing on an average six full columns a day; some days furnishing eight col- umns, and he has gone as high as ten. In addition to all of this he has mostly done his own proof-reading; has gathered nearly all of the news himself, acted as special advertising solicitor for his employers, helped to set type when needed, and done many other details peculiar to the printing business. Talk about a strenuous life-there are others besides Teddy.
Editor Downey's life, from early childhood has not been as "downy " as others we have known. Born in Atlanta, Illinois, November 15, 1862, he came into this world as a little "sucker." His early experiences were the common lot of most boys. In 1879 he graduated from the high school of his native town.
Some editors are newspaper men by birth-that is, through
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heredity, others become printers through choice, necessity or en- vironment; Downey entered the profession through natural in- stinct. Late in the afternoon of December 5, 1879, six months after his graduation, while standing in the print shop of the "Atlanta Argus," trying to gratify or to satisfy his smell for printer's ink. young Downey was accosted by the editor of the paper, George L. Shoals, who asked why he did not learn the printer's trade.
"That's just what
I want t o do," snapped out the lad; "can you help me?" "Sure!" said Shoals, "pull off your coat, roll up your sleeves, and start right in." Young Downey did not do like other boys nowadays, pipe out the question, "How much are you willing to pay me?" He belonged to the "old school" that be- lieved a trade was the foundation for success in life and that one would have to
be learned, even if it were necessary to be bound out, like Ben Franlin, as an appren- tice lad.
The boy was soon into it. He was set C. W. DOWNEY to work with a huge hand-roller, inking forms on an old Washington press. Did you ever try it? There are some things in newspaperdom to this day that make one's "back ache," but nothing like lifting and push- ing and pulling an old-fashioned hand inker. Nothing was said about wages. Our youngster was thinking about learning a trade-about becoming a printer-of becoming independent when finally placed on his own resources. Wages? Nonsense! Lucky he did not have to pay for the privilege.
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Saturday night came. The boy marched up and got paid- $1.50 per week. Think of it! Thirty-one years ago; getting $1.50 per week for such drudgery. There isn't a lad on the con- tinent today who would do it for a cent less than $1.50 per day (and yet some people enjoy voting the democratic ticket.)
Well, our boy inked himself as well as the type; he blistered his hands and posed and imposed upon his legs; but he stuck to it for an entire year until he was relieved by another "sucker," and promoted to the type case. Here he worked for three years, setting up forms.
He was now of age. Manhood gave birth to new ambitions. Dependence gave way into independence; and the responsibilities of life made the man impatient to earn more money than the boy. He quit the printing business and struck out into the field of telegraphy. One year was enough. The earliest impressions make the most ineffaceable record. A printer once-a printer always.
The young fellow got the western fever; he struck for Da- kota, and landed at Northville, a few stations south of Aberdeen, on the Northwestern railroad, in the spring of 1883. At that time Northville was about as bleak as the region around the north pole if Cook and Peary tell the truth.) There wasn't even a roadway up main street. Here our young printer got hold of an old press, got some space in a breezy board shack, started a newspaper which he called the "Northville Advance," and began to earn a livelihood publishing mostly Notices of Final Proof. Editor Downey harvested his crop of "final proofs" at "harvest" time, sold out the paper, returned to Atlanta, Illinois, and took up his old job on the "Atlanta Argus."
Another year at the old stand and our ambitious printer, as is customary with a large proportion of his profession, made a break for Chicago. Here he found employment in the job print- ing room of Culver, Page, Hoyne & Co. (afterwards known as the John Morris Printing Co. ), and remained with them for nearly three years.
Late in 1886, he got the Dakota fever again. Back he came; went opposite Northville to the town of Ashton on the Milwaukee railroad; bought the "Ashton Leader," which was badly run down, began to build it up, jumped into a red-hot county-seat fight; forced to the wall a competing newspaper in the same town; got the field to himself; bought $1,000 worth of new equipment for his own print shop; and was doing fine until -until-all of a sudden, it ceased to rain.
None of us who weathered through the dry years of 1889
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and 1890 in Dakota, will ever forget them. Hot! One pioneer, in Faulk county swore he had to shrink hoops onto his hogs to make them hold swill. Another sturdy pioneer addressing an old settler's picnic in Beadle county, a few years since, had just de- clared with considerable emphasis that he had to feed his hens cracked ice to keep them from laying boiled eggs, when he was interrupted by a rugged, sun-burned gentleman in the audience, who had passed through the same ordeal, with the query, "Where in hell did you get the ice?"
Hot! The creeks and lakes all dried up; birds lying dead by thousands along the roadsides and in the old-lake beds; snakes by the half million in the small pools that were left; horses drop- ping dead everywhere in the fields; roadways along the railroads white from early morning until late at night with one continuous chain of covered immigrant wagons -people driving out of the dreadful place, taking with them everything- except their land which would not produce the taxes.
Hot! The buffalo grass was dry as gun powder. How the great fires used to sweep down from the northwest, driven at from forty to seventy miles an hour by the awful winds; before them, vast droves of fleeing, hungry wolves, jack-rabbits, and other wild animals; behind them, dead bodies burned to crisps, remnants of charred homes, an endless black veil, desolation.
Cold! The winters were the opposite extreme. How well we all remember the "big blizzard" of '88. What a dismal task for the ensuing week, going over great snow banks hither and thither, hunting for burial the hundreds that perished in that awful storm, before the surviving wolves should devour them. Will any of us ever forget it?
This digression, and the incorporation herein of the misfor- tunes of the latter '80's., is made intentionally, to show that any man in buisness who might fail in times like these is not to blame. Editor Downey was in the newspaper business. Business men could not afford to advertise. Subscribers could not and would not pay their subscriptions (they dont' always pay, even during good times.) There was not much left at Ashton but "ash"-es. Mr. Downey was forced to pack up his outfit and go south. He stopped in the older portion of the state-the south- east part-and settled at Beresford, where he unpacked his por- table print shop, established the "Beresford Sentinel," and got out the first issue of the paper, in December, 1890.
This plucky chap knew that "all things good come to them that wait." He decided to "stick." In the midst of all this adversity, he took unto himself a bride.
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"Foolish man," you say. No; not at all. Some wives are a burden, some are not. Mrs. Downey at once learned the type- case, took her place in the print shop, helped her young hus- band, and thereby saved the expense of a hired man.
At the end of six months he sold the "Sentinel;" he and his wife traveled around for a few months, looking for a suitable location, and finally settled in Mitchell in 1891, where Mr. Dow- ney accepted a position as foreman in the newsroom of the "Mitchell Daily Republican." In May, 1892, the company made him city editor and when the prolific Ralph Wheelock sold his interest in the plant in 1895, Mr. Downey not only succeeded him as editor of the paper but kept up the local work as well, thereby shouldering the responsibility which two men had previously carried.
It will thus be seen that Mr. Downey is not only an editor, but an all-round printer as well. This experience makes his ser- vices valuable to his employers. During the printers' strike in 1905 when the entire force of the Mitchell Printing Co. walked out of the office one Monday morning, Editor Downey, for two days, wrote all of the news, set it up, proof-read his own work, ran the press, and did a large part of the job work. For three days more, after some non-union help had arrived, he made up the forms, in addition to his other work.
Again, on top of all these other anxieties, Editor Downey has for the past fifteen years corresponded for nine outside daily newspapers, and he has placed Mitchell on the foreign map as well. Each year he sends a four-page article with illustrations of the Corn Palace at Mithell, to the "World-Wide Magazine," and other material to the metropolitan press.
TWO CLASSES OF EDITORS
With editors, as with other people, there are but two gen- eral classes-pessimists and optimists. The former curse their race, the latter bless it. With what brotherly pity we all remem- ber the fate of a former newspaper man who lived in south- central South Dakota: how he left his home town, after a res- idence therein of some nine years, friendless; how he established himself in another nearby town and after a residence there of some ten or eleven years, left for another city not far away, and what a public jollification meeting was held by his townsmen when he left; how at the third place he abused every single man in the community, supposing foolishly that by exposing to the entire neighborhood the sins of each man (either imaginary or real), he was purifying society, how he was finally tried for libel,
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