USA > South Dakota > Who's who in South Dakota, Vol. I > Part 9
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C. W. DOWNEY
sold his plant at a low figure and left the state. What was wrong? Nothing; only his every thought was festooned in moral garlic.
"There is so much good in the worst of us, and so much bad in the best of us, that it ill-behooves any of us to talk about the rest of us."
Another writer saw it in this light: "In men whom men condemn as ill, I find so much of goodness still; In men whom men pronounce divine, I find so much of sin and blot, I hesitate to draw the line Where God has not."
May we implore forgiveness in advance for incorporating herein a tiny poem of our own? It hits on the head the nail which we are trying to drive:
TAFFY vs. EPITAPH(Y)
If thou hast good to speak of me, Say it while my soul responds; Don't pen it up within your bosom, Waiting for my fettered bonds.
If thou hast ill to speak of me. Say it after I am dead;
'Twill be harmless then through ages, Now 'twould ache my weary head.
Now's the time to speak good of me; Shower on me e'en your "taffy," When I'm soulless in my clay-house, Use your grudge for epitaph (y).
Mr. Downey belongs to the other class (optimists). He sees only the good in his fellow townsmen. He lives to bless his community. It is safe to say there is no more cheerful news- paper in South Dakota than the "Mitchelll Daily Republican." Why? Because its editor is cheerful. The severest test of an editor's work is not in finding something interesting to write (there are hundreds of new things of interest coming up every day), but in know what NOT to write. Editor Downey has gained this knowledge.
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NOT DR. COOK
Cook. Let's see-have we not heard that name before? Never mind! You need not "bring on your Eskimos." We shall adduce nothing that needs corroboration. Our case is proven. No instruments need be brought from Etah. We are not on the road either to or from the north pole-just merely taking a pleas- ant little trip up Spearfish canyon with Fayette L. Cook, pres- ident of the Spearfish State Normal School.
Here is a man whose life is an open book; who never faked a trip up a mountain, saw the "midnight sun," had his moral vision obscured by the aurora borealis. or confessed a brain-storm through Hampton's Magazine -at so much per line. Here is a man who went west instead of north, who staid instead of re- turned, who became a monumental benefactor instead of a mon- umental malefactor, who is embellishing his name instead of rel- ishing his shame, who tells the whole truth instead of playing the sleuth, who looks onward and upward, nor backward and downward.
In our "Who's Who" series, we have seen that one of our men, prominent in the public life of the state, came from New Hampshire, two from New York, two from Iowa, and a super- lative abundance of them from Wisconsin; but this is the first time we have picked up a victim from Michigan.
President Cook made his advent into this world in Ottawa county, Michigan, sixty years ago last August. He deceives the public in one thing only -his looks portend him to be a man of not over forty-five. We wish he might live forever. In fact, we think he will. The good men do is not always "interred with their bones."
Like the others who have won distinction, at an early age, Cook went west. Few men ever became "big" by going east (Taft tried it.) Down east is a good place to spend your for- tune-out west is the place to make it.
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FAYETTE L. COOK
President Cook is a graduate of the state normal school at Winona, Minnesota. He taught in country and village schools for three years; in the Minneapolis Commercial school one year; was city superintendent 1872-4; taught in the Winona normal 1876-9; was superintendent of Olmstead county, Minnesota, 1881-4; was instructor in thirty-eight teachers' institutes in Minnesota; and continuously, since 1885, he has been president of the Spearfish (S. D.) state normal school.
It will keep any other man in the state running to beat this record. Think of it! Twenty-five years-a quarter of a century -at the head of one of our schools. During this time we all know what has happened to the others. Trouble? Politics! Cook has been over in that western re- gion where he has been left alone.
By the way, if those phil- osophical literary students who contend that a man has no right to digress from his theme, will not be too severe on us. we should like to halt here for a moment to interject the proposition that those chaps over in the Black Hills region have demonstrated the fact that they are a pretty FAYETTE L. COOK sturdy set of pioneers. They have kept Martin at Washington through six congresses, Strachan as city superintendent of schools at Deadwood for twenty con- secutive years, and Cook at the head of the Spearfish normal for twenty-five.
Suppose the constitutional limitation on county superintend- ents of schools, embodied city superintendents and the heads of bur state schools; where would Cook be? Where would the Spearfish Normal be? Well, it might as well have been the law, so far as the region east of the river is concerned. But a new lay has just dawned upon us. The flippancy of early days and he formative period of a young state are just sinking beneath
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the horizon; the east is reddening with the rosy-tipped fingers of a more stable period.
"SKIDDOO'S" COMMENT
The students of the Spearfish normal issue an "Annual" which they have named "Skiddoo." In the one issued in June, 1909, they paid a most deserved tribute to their esteemed pres- ident. We clip and use only a small portion :
"When Mr. Cook came to Spearfish, he found educational matters in a deplorable condition. From a small school in which he himself did all the teaching, a school devoid of apparatus, library, and other necessary material, has grown the present in- stitution with its splendid faculty, well equipped laboratories and excellent library; its training school which affords excep- tional advantages for the training of teachers; its dormitory, which through its excellent management, provides a comfortable home at such a reasonable rate, that it affords an opportunity for girls in the most meager circumstances to get an education, and to live in an atmosphere of culture and refinement. All this has our president accomplished for us. From day to day he has lab- ored, bearing up under difficulties and trying situations, because of lack of funds, but each day through his untiring energy and zeal, the institution has grown until it now stands in one of the most picturesque spots in Spearfish, a monument to the efforts of one of nature's noblemen. We, the Senior class of nineteen hundred nine, extend to Mr. Cook our warmest congrat- ulations for the wonderful success of his undertakings, and our sincere gratitude to him who has made it possible for us to look back with pleasure on the happy days spent with our alma mater. -Sentiments of Senior Class, '09."
COOK, THE BUSINESS MAN
Napoleon said: "Man is the product of his surroundings." In other words, if a man associates with children all his life, he becomes childish. This explains the uselessness of old worn-out pedagogs. Teachers, in general, are mere theorists. They are not at fault; they see and teach only theortical things. Few of them ever come in contact with the practical side of life.
Not so with President Cook. He has made the commercial side of Spearfish and of Lawrence county as much his business as school affairs. The businesss men of that community have great regard for his judgment. We recall having attended a "good roads" convention held in the opera house at Deadwood in the spring of 1909, at which President Cook, as a member of the
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FAYETTE L. COOK
committee from Spearfish, was present; and how attentively he was listened to by the large class of business men in attendance at the meeting; and how one of these substantial chaps, leaning over to a friend, when President Cook had finsihed speaking, said: "There's an educator with some common sense." This incident reveals only too plainly the light in which those of us are held by the business world, who have been engaged for a number of years in the teaching profession.
We recall just now that splendid paper read by President Cook before the S. D. E. A. at Lead, in November, 1909, on "Waste in Education:" how he approached his subject, and dealt with it, from a hard-headed, practical business standpoint. We need in educational affairs more men of Cook's calibre.
MARRIAGE
Most men marry about the time they reach their majority, or at least before they are twenty-five. Cook knew that his mar- riage contract was perhaps the longest one he would ever sign, so he took plenty of time to consider it well. If the idea entered his head at twenty-one, then he must have taken another twenty- one years to think it over, for he did not marry until his forty- second year. This was long enough to win both a Rachael and a Leah, with an equal margin for a third.
However, on August 25, 1892, he was united in marriage at Winona, to Wenonoa Culbertson.
TITLE
It will thus be seen that Cook is a great man. He has no use for "grandstand;" he doesn't care for titles. Plain "Mr." is good enough for him. As yet he has not been honored with "Dr." Mighty lucky just at present.
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WHO'S WHO IN SOUTH DAKOTA
PIONEER EDITOR
"Pussonally speakin'," as they say in New England, I like a thoroughbred. I like the man who can march to known defeat, without a whimper, and take his medicine, and smack his lips, and lie like a pirate when he says, "it's good." I like the chap who can finish as well as he can score. I cannot refrain from admiring the man who can take success or failure with even mind; the grim, steady, true-souled chap who can break the shaggy nut of experience, and whose poker face will not disclose to the on- looker whether he found within a kernel that was sound or one that was not. J. F. Halladay, editor of the Iroquois Chief, for- mer state auditor, managing bank director, astute political man- ager, steadfast friend, as true a soldier as ever carried musket, or ate hardtack, or slept in the trenches, is one-a thoroughbred. I mean -- and it is about him that the "Who's Who" column con- cerns itself today. A man who can spend his last ten cents for a good cigar is a thoroughbred, and that is what "Dick" Halladay did when twenty-eight years ago he crossed the border into Da- kota territory to begin a career which has been a credit to him- self, a joy to his family, and a pride to his hundreds of personal friends.
J. F. Halladay was born in Kansas but he must not be blamed for that. It was a good while ago -in 1860-and he got out of that state as soon as he could. At the age of fourteen his edu- cation was completed so far as school is concerned, but it isn't completed yet, for each year adds to his better equipment for the things that count-just as it always does with the man who keeps everlastingly doing things. He came to what is now South Dakota, twenty-eight years ago, from Beatrice, Nebraska. It was an overland trip, and Dick was absolutely "broke" after he had bought that choice Havana, but he was a millionaire in pluck and purpose and he set out to make good. He got a job on a Huron morning daily, filed on a claim between Iroquois and
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J. F. HALLADAY
Cavour, looked wise, and began to hustle. In January, 1883, he went to Iroquois and for two years worked on the Herald but two years later got a position in the Bank of Iroquois. He resigned this place in 1883 and started the Iroquois Chief with a partner, whom he bought out two years later, and ever since he has been the editor of one of the most influential weekly newspapers of the state. Only a short time ago he became a stockholder in the Farmers & Merchants Bank of Iroquois, of which institution he is a now one of the man- aging directors.
In politics, Mr. Halladay is a stalwart. He has always been active, and everybody always knows just where Dick Halladay is at. He is not only not a trimmer, but he cannot understand the man who is. Hence his closest fiends are men of the same sturdy type, who stay put, and won't wobble, and who fear defeat less than they do the play to the galleries.
President Harrison ap· pointed Mr. Halladay to the position of postmaster at Iroquois, and he served for four years giving way to a democrat named by President Cleveland. He was appointed J. F. HALLADAY to the same position by Pres- ident Mckinley and served all told nine years as postmaster, resigning in 1902. Eight years ago, he was brought out for state auditor. He received the support of practically every re- publican paper in the state and was unanimously nominated. His public work was of a particularly high grade and he was renom- inated and re-elected by a big majority He was a member of the Herried and Elrod administrations which made such a fine record in reducing the floating debt of the state and paying off the bonds, and as state auditor he took an important part in that work.
Mr. Halladay was elected secretary of the South Dakota State
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WHO'S WHO IN SOUTH DAKOTA
Press association when it was a feeble and struggling association and served for seven years doing much to build the association up to its present standard. He was also honored by being selected as president of the association. Dick has hosts of friends every- where in the state, but literally everybody in the newspaper bunch like him and most of them are his warm personal friends.
Mr. Halladay has never followed politics for a business, but simply for his love of the game. He has been mixed up in the game since 1883. Only twice in twenty years bas he failed to at- tend the state convention as a delegate from Kingsbury county and he isn't a "boss" either. He is simply a "good guinea" with a genius for making and holding friends, and with plenty of appetite for hard work. When the republican party split into two factions, Mr. Halladay lined up with his friends on the stal- wart side, and he has been aggressively with that element ever since: In the primary fight between Kittredge and Crawford, Dick was "called from the plow" to help manage the stalwart end of it, and last spring the press bureau for the stalwarts was placed in his exclusive charge. At the conclusion of the cam- paign, his work was everywhere highly commended and one of the leading insurgent newspapers declared that "Halladay is the best political editor in the state."
When Mr. Halladay was a candidate for a second term as state auditor, Coe I. Crawford was a candidate for the nomina- tion for governor. Insurgency had crept over the line into Kings- bury county, and the convention of that county wanted to give their support to both Crawford and Halladay, and passed resolu- tions to that effect. The action was unexpected and unprecedented, as Dick was fighting Crawford, and the action of the convention would give out the impression that Hallady had sold out his friends. He met the situation like a thoroughbred. When the resolutions were adopted, Dick asked for permission to address the convention, and when he appeared on the platform, was greeted with cheers, the delegates supposing that he was about to make the usual speech of thanks. Instead he plainly pointed out that the double-header endorsement was a stone around his neck that he refused to carry, that it put him in a false light be- fore the people of the state, and would hamper him in the state convention. He therefore announced his refusal to accept the endorsement by his home county, under the circumstances, and declared his purpose to go to the state convention and make a fight on his own merits, without the support of his home county. This he did. The anti-Crawford people controlled the convention, and Halladay was unanimously renominated. Old politicians said
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J. F. HALLADAY
at the time that this was the nerviest political move that had ever come under their observation.
Mr. Halladay was a member of the first capital commission that adopted plans and selected the material for the new state house. The judgment of the first commission was criticised at the time by some, and among them were many of Halladay's best friends, but its judgment was later vindicated when the new commission, consisting of members of the rival faction, erected the building in strict accordance with the first commission's plans, although they had made a campaign issue of the fact that the first commission had chosen Bedford stone instead of home material.
In May, 1886, Mr. Halladay was married to Carrie E. Ham- mond, of Iroquois. They have two children-Edna May, 20 years old, who is now taking a college course and music at the Wesleyan University of Mitchell, and Clinton Frank, 18 years old, who is studying in the engineering department of the State College at Brookings. Mr. Halladay's family life is ideal -as many South Dakotans know who have been entertained in the beautiful and cozy home at Iroquois. Dick says he is hen-pecked, and I guess maybe he is, but that is simply another proof of his good stuff. He is a wise man who lets a good wife "boss" him in the home.
The Iroquois Chief which is simply Dick Halladay in print has always been a strong and unswerving republican newspaper. It has been on the job all the time, and its influence in western Kingsbury and eastern Beadle counties always shows up when the returns come in.
Mr. Halladay is not a rich man-but I want to correct that statement. He is. Any man is rich who has a beautiful and in- teresting family, a good business, a big bunch of friends in every town and county in the state, and the abiding respect of all who know him, and who is always counted on to steadfastly and bravely adhere to what he believes and to those in whom he be- lieves. In the things that really count in this strange experience that we call life, Dick Halladay is one of the richest men in the state, and he has reason to look back over the twenty-eight useful and busy years spent here with the complete satisfaction of a man who has done a man's work and has done it well.
-By C. M. Day.
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WHO'S WHO IN SOUTH DAKOTA
A STURDY EDUCATOR
Once more we ask "Who's Who in South Dakota?" and this time the pendulum stops over the little town of Parkston, twenty- two miles south of Mitchell, on the Milwaukee railroad. Aside from the unfortunate death of Anges Polreis, and the two murder trials which grew out of it, this town might scarcely ever have been heard of outside of the immediate community in which it is situated, were it not for the fact that there resides therein a great overpowering personality -a leader in the educational thought of the state, a man of unyielding convictions, Professor Charles H. Lugg.
The searchlight of educational thought is reaching out into the dark unknown, seeking hidden truths, just as the silvery moonbeams flicker themselves across the bosom of a placid lake and penetrate the dark recesses in the under-brush along the op- posite shore. Back of this investigation as one of its unyielding pilots, stands Charles H. Lugg. Ever alert, deep, far seeing, well balanced -he has been associated with practically every ad- vanced educational movement in the state for nineteen years.
Lugg has repeatedly declined to become a candidate for Superintendent of Public Instruction. His reasons for it are that the $1,800 salary attached to the office does not justify the cash out-lay necessary to secure it; furthermore, that among the lead- ing politicians in both factions of his party there has come to the surface a strong disposition to use this particular office for "trading stock," and that if he entered the fight -even with all the backing which had been pledged to him-there is no telling where he might land.
BIOGRAPHICAL
Our subject was born on a farm at Geneva, Minnesota. He got his early education in the rural schools. Later he attended the high school at Albert Lea. Upon leaving the high school he
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C. H. LUGG
entered the country schools as a teacher. Although his salary was comparatively small, through rigid economy he managed to save enough money in a few years to put himself through Valparaiso University.
His next move was to come to South Dakota where he took charge of the graded schools at Olivet, in the year after he had done his first country school teaching in Minnesota. The death of his mother early the next summer compelled his return to Minnesota where he remained for a year. Returning to South Dakota in 1893, he was elected principal of the Parkston graded schools.
Lugg's first task was to prevail upon the good people of Parkston to ex- tend their course of study and to educate their children at home. It took him several years to get a new high school building and a three-year course of study ; yet with that persistence charac- teristic of the man he stuck to his convictions until he succeeded.
After nine years as principal at Parkston, the people of Hutchinson county called him into a PROFESSOR C. H. LUGG larger field of service and made him county superintendent of schools. He was re-elected and served four years, from 1902 to 1906. In the latter year his services gained state recognition and he was called to the presidency of the state educational association.
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Lugg also received other recognition. He was made chairman of the committee that revised our common school course of study, and Governor Elrod appointed him a member of the commission that revised the school laws of the state.
Upon the completion of his county superintendency, Pro- fessor Lugg was made assistant principal of the Parkston schools. In the spring of 1909 when the principal, Professor Karns, re- signed to accept the principalship at Wessington Springs, Lugg succeeded him as principal at Parkston. He is still there, and he seems to have a life lease on his job.
This year when Lugg refused to become a candidate for state superintendent, his party prevailed upon him to become a can- didate again for superintendent of Hutchinson county; but he re- mained firm and declined the honor. Lugg knows from exper- ience that the county superintendency leads nowhere; that if a man has a good job at home it is best to keep it, unless one has determined to give up educational work and desires to use the county superintendency as the jumping-off place.
Professor Lugg is a broad-minded, rational Christian gentle- man. He finds God in Nature instead of merely between the lids of an unauthenticated book. Go with him into the Bad Lands, and Lugg will begin to point out to you the finger prints of God in the furrows of the sedimentary dunes; accompany him through the Black Hills, and he will point you to the same signs in the grooves of the rocks; sit with him on his lawn at the twilight hour, and he will show it to you in the tinted glow of the sunset; ride with him at night, and he will show it to you in the shaggy cirrus and in the twinkling stars.
Ah! the reason for it all is that Lugg has been trained to observe. May his great life find itself being repeated in the lives of those whom he has had the privilege to train!
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CLATE TINAN
JUST A DEMOCRAT
Two types of men are fast disappearing-if indeed they ever existed. One is the "Rube" of the comic supplement-the sim- ple farmer whose whiskers reach to the bottom of his vest, who tries to turn in a fire alarm at the mail box, who never saw a train of cars, and who gawks at the billboard pictures of actresses on his first visit to the city while Aunt Samanthy indignantly tries to presuade him to move along. The American farmer is not of this type-never was of this type in fact. He belongs to that yeomanry which this year produced nearly nine bililon dol- lars of new wealth. He goes to town in his auto, he farms with the latest of machinery, his children go to college, he wears "store clothes" and attends the theatre, enjoys frequent trips, subscribes for the daily newspapers and magazines, studies the markets, talks politics, and if you dont' think he is the best posted man to be found in a day's journey, just tackle him on almost any old subject, and you will change your mind.
The other type which has gone-if indeed he was ever with us-is the ragged and discouraged country editor of the stage and of the funny paragraph, who takes cabbage and turnips in ex- change for his paper, who prowls through the alley to get a bit to eat, or clambers up to a cheerless garret for a few hours of restful sleep-the tacky, brow-beaten, and poverty-stricken coun- try editor-who lives without a dollar, or a square meal or an extra suit of clothes -he is not to be found anywhere today -not at least in South Dakota-and to be honest about it he never lived here. Newspaper men are much to blame for the current impression of their poverty, because it is a stock joke among the editors, and they seem to rather like it, but the public often gets a wrong impression of the newspaper cratf, and sometimes fails to appreciate either its dignity, its influence, or the financial returns which usually come from honest effort.
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