USA > South Dakota > Who's who in South Dakota, Volume II > Part 5
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
At the end of the first year of their partnership, Attorney Carpenter was ap-
---
£
£
108
WHO'S WHO IN SOUTH DAKOTA
pointed register of the land office at Lem- mon. He accepted the position. Its location threw him into a new field. So when the twelfth judicial circuit, comprising a num- ber of newly organized counties in the north- west part of the state, was formed, Governor Vessey appointed Mr. Carpenter to the bench. The appointment came unsolicited ; he accepted; Fate had won!
His work on the bench as a jurist soon attracted wide and favorable attention. The attorneys in his circuit are unstinted in their laudations of his fairness and capabilities, while the newspapers continually sound paeans of praise in his honor.
As a student of criminology, the judge belongs exclusively as well as inclusively to the new school of thought-that is, to the reformation of the criminal instead of mere- ly to his punishment. "Some men are born (criminals), some achieve (crime) and others have (criminality) thrust upon them." We beg leave to digress long enough to suggest that if the legislature were to en- act a law authorizing the paroling of all convicts in our state penitentiary, except life termers, on the basis of attaining their free- dom, if they remained harmless during their entire pardon, and if they did not, that they would not only have to undergo imprison-
£
109
C. C. CARPENTER
ment for the unexpired portions of their terms, but would, in addition thereto, have to serve their original sentences all over again, that not to exceed one per cent of them would ever go wrong. The theorist says, "A lot of them are born criminals and they are serving their second or third terms now." Very well; the trouble is here; we need a board of employment whose business it shall be to see that good, remunerative, suitable employment is found for each dis- missed convict before he leaves the prison doors, and not thrust him out into a cruel, competitive world to make a living sewing buttons onto shirts when there is no other shirt factory within a thousand miles, and when it is a woman's job at best. Yes; we have something yet to learn, and Judge Carpenter is on the right track.
MILITARY AND PERSONAL
While Judge Carpenter was in the drug business at Watertown, he was appointed ad- jutant of the old first regiment, S. D. S. G., which position he occupied for two years. Then he was promoted to major of a squad- ron of cavalry. He served in this position for three years, but gave it up when he entered law school. Clay makes an ideal military officer. He is happy but firm, and he possesses that uncommon kind of common
110
WHO'S WHO IN SOUTH DAKOTA
sense which makes it possible for him to handle all kinds of men without friction.
The home life of Judge and Mrs. Car- penter has been blessed by the presence of Cyrus, Jr., by Lee, and by two of the sweetest twin girls that ever entered life. Their names are Doris and Dorothy.
The judge has an exceptionally pleasing personality. He makes friends readily ; and he is so democratic in his habits and yet so cultured in manner that all who know him love him. He is an A-1 "mixer" and we shall look for his rapid rise to a position of even greater prominence and power within the next few years.
(Later .-- Owing to the meager salary paid by this state to its circuit judges, Judge Carpenter has resigned his position on the bench and returned to private law practice.)
T
1
1
H
I tolmi
-
HARRY M. GAGE
NEW PRESIDENT HURON COLLEGE
Amid impressive and scholarly cere- monies, Professor Harry M. Gage, successor to Dr. Calvin H. French, was recently in- augurated president of Huron college. It
was a grand affair. The oath was ad- ministered by Hon. E. L. Abel, lieutenant- governor of South Dakota and president of
1
112
WHO'S WHO IN SOUTH DAKOTA
the board of trustees of the school. The state schools were represented by Dr. Rob- ert L. Slagle, president of our state college, at Brookings, while the denominational schools of the state were represented by Dr. William Grant Seaman, president of Dakota Wesleyan university, at Mitchell. There were also other dignitaries throughout the state and several more of national repute, representing various phases of school work, who appeared on the program.
President Gage's inaugural address was practical instead of theoretical. It dealt wholly with South Dakota conditions.
He was born in Ohio, thirty-three years ago. His father was a Presbyterian home missionary who came west in 1865 with Sheldon Jackson, a pioneer who attained some fame by introducing reindeer in Alaska.
While the lad was a small boy his par- ents came to Minnesota. Later, they went to La Crosse, Wisconsin, where the father be- came local pastor and where the boy got his early education. Then he attended school at Grinnell college academy, graduating with the class of 1896. From there he went to Wooster University (Ohio), and graduated with honors (cum laude) in 1900.
While attending the academy, and dur-
W
HW
M
113
HARRY M. GAGE
ing the early part of his college course, he helped to defray his expenses by working on a farm. Two summers were spent selling maps in Iowa and in Illinois. In February, before his college graduation, he decided to lead a business life; so he made a contract with the United States Building and Loan company, of Akron, Ohio, to work for them for one year. However, in August of the same year (1900), he received from Presi- dent French a telegraphic offer to come to Huron college to teach Greck. He accepted it; resigned his position with the Akron firm, and thus changed his whole career.
. At the end of his first year at Huron, he was given the chair of philosophy. From his arrival, he had taken a leading part in developing a college spirit throughout the state. He not only did his regular class work, but he spoke from the pulpits of the leading churches of the state. The strength of his thought, the compactness of his dis- course, his wide range of knowledge and the ease of his delivery attracted wide and favor- able comment everywhere, with the result that he was soon called upon to fill several lecture course engagements.
During his three years at Huron, he also spent much time in helping to raise money to meet the school's current expenses. In ad-
114
WHO'S WHO IN SOUTH DAKOTA
dition thereto, he spent his summer months doing graduate work in psychology and edu- cation at the University of Chicago.
However, in 1903, Professor Gage re- signed his position in Huron college, to be- come Columbia University Fellow in Philos- ophy, receiving $650 per year for his work. He studied in New York two years, special- izing in philosophy, psychology and educa- tion. Then, he was appointed assistant in philosophy at Columbia, but resigned a little later to accept the Armstrong professorship of philosophy in Parsons college, Fairfield, Iowa. Here, for four years, he devoted his time exclusively to class room work, giving up his summer vacations to study in the teachers' college, Columbia university. One of these summers was, however, given to Chautauqua work on the lecture platform.
Dr. Gage was appointed dean of the faculty of Parsons college in 1909, and for three years he did administrative work. This fortunate experience was preparing him un- consciously for the presidency of Huron col- lege. While in this position he spoke a great deal in Illinois, Iowa and Nebraska, under direction of the committee on speakers of the Men and Religion Forward Movement, on problems of religion in rural communities and on mental hygiene.
1
1
115
HARRY M. GAGE
But, in 1912, he accepted his second call to Huron college, this time being made dean of the faculty and professor of philosophy and education. He gave his time wholly to class room instruction, and to developing the purely educational work of the college. As president he will continue this same line of work.
Only thirty-three years of age! Think of it! President of one of the largest de- nominational schools in the west. Here was wisdom on the part of the board. It pays to "break in" a young man for such positions- one who is virile and effective-one filled with hope, ambition, and a determination to achieve.
When the vacancy occurred in the presi- dency of Huron college, through the resigna- tion of President French, the faculty at once became an inseparable unit in their request that Dr. Gage be made president of the in- stitution and it was done. May the future justify the act !
Following are a few extracts from his charming inaugural address :
"Finally, we have been reminded many times that one who studies law to help him succeed in life will never succeed in the law. Aristotle said, 'I succeed because I do freely and without compulsion what others do from
116
WHO'S WHO IN SOUTH DAKOTA
fear of the law.' So the ethical aim of edu- cation from the intellectual point of view is freedom. The free man as a student wishes Truth and does not follow selfish preferences. The difference between the selfish and the unselfish man is this: the selfish man does not wish any work to succeed unless he is chairman of the committee that has it in charge. The unselfish man does not even care to be a member of the committee, but he does want the work to succeed. In the same manner, the unselfish student yearns for the final reign of Truth, regardless of personal gains. The boy who in college has learned an unselfish regard for Truth can not become a charlatan. In the practice of medicine he is not a quack; in law he is not tricky; in business he never misrepresents; and, if he turns to invention and discovery, he never publishes his results falsely or prematurely and never advertises his inventions untruth- fully either for the sake of fame or fortune.
Ethically we desire students who care for Truth regardless of consequences. Professor Carl E. Seashore says in an article in The Iowa Alumnus, March, 1909, 'If the investigator who gave Marconi the principles of wireless telegraphy, had aimed directly at the saving of ships at sea,
117
HARRY M. GAGE
he would probably have failed; but he de- voted himself to the mastery of an abstract principle and laid a large foundation.'
"In my zeal for an unselfish love of Truth I have not forgotten that liberal edu- cation does and ought to fit a man to do something and to do it well. But let it be thoroughly understood that the best and practically the only good work is done by men who are completely absorbed in the ob- jective ends of Truth, men whose minds are unhampered by utilitarian considerations. The realization of the practical aim of edu- cation is assured only by intellectual honesty which is the guarantee of human progress. The most unselfish and serviceable or, if you please, the most successful men in the world are the ones who have made a conquest of Truth before attempting to revise or formu- late the rules of practice. These men, for- getting self and seized by an absorbing pas- sion for the concrete expression of Truth, are able to throw themselves with a glad abandon into the work of life. They have seen the Truth and the Truth has made them free-free from the selfish falsifications by which the charlatan, the quack, and the demagogue would enslave the human race."
*
"Thinking is the most pleasurable of
-
-
118
WHO'S WHO IN SOUTH DAKOTA
exercises, once the art has been learned. It is also the most profitable and altogether the best thing in life, since it is the most thor- oughly human thing a man can do. There is no doubt, however, that the discipline of learning to think is at least a little painful. In ignorance or in disregard of this fact many students enter light-heartedly upon a college course, knowing well that a bachelor's degree is a most respectable thing and that it is well to be known at least as one who once attended college. Furthermore the mere ex- perience of being in and about a college is always agreeable and sometimes thrilling. The result is that we always have in college students who have never caught the vision of intellectual life or, having caught it, would avoid the irksomeness of pursuing it. This spirit fathers a long list of well known dis- tractions that overshadow the principal ends of the curriculum. A revaluation of the things that occupy our students' time and at- tention is emphatically demanded. When the outlines of a complete human life are being formed distortion or subordination of the values that are eternal is a capital sin. The supreme achievement of the artist is to have nothing in his picture that does not count. He will have nothing that distracts attention from the end he has in view-
Inil esdiAl
HARRY M. GAGE
119 -120.
nothing that complicates his purpose. Col- leges are to be gauged by the same standard. We must eliminate from our general college activities whatever does not deepen the im- pressions of the curriculum, whatever does not intensify mental life."
-
121
J. W. PARMLEY "DADDY". OF OUR GOOD ROADS
The young husband steps into the birth chamber, picks up his tiny, first-born child that has just acquired a human soul, looks into the little blinking eyes and then feels welling up within him the noble impulse that he is a father. It is a great thing to become a father. Said the oracle of the last century, with regard to George Washington, "Provi-
122
WHO'S WHO IN SOUTH DAKOTA
dence rendered him childless, yet his country can call him 'Father.'" Joe Parmley, of Ipswich, is a double header, as a father. This does not mean that he is both a father and a step-father ; no, not yet. Joe is simply papa and daddy both; that is, he is father of a promising son, named Loren, now a stu- dent in college, and of a talented daughter, Miss Irene, who is as yet a high school stu- dent; and daddy of our good roads move- ment in South Dakota.
While others in the state have been struggling to emblazen their names in im- perishable splendor across the political sky (only to wake up later and find that their ambitions have exploded like a meteor and that their political lights have gone out for- ever, leaving them dead-broke in the scrap- heap of the "ex's"), Joe Parmley has been quietly plodding along with an irresistable determination to have this generation build up its roads in South Dakota. And he has succeeded mighty well. Out of his own hard- earned cash, he has contributed thousands of dollars toward the enterprise; has spoken in behalf of the task all over the state; has written dozens of bristling articles along these lines, and has built a lot of good public highway with his own individual equipment. Without his enthusiasm, his leadership, his
m bles on giiint
123
J. W. PARMLEY
voice, his pen, his cash and the work of his own hands, the state perhaps would not have awakened from its lethargy for another half century.
That little sawed-off Ajax of the south, the Demosthenes of Atlanta, John Temple Graves, speaking at a Lincoln banquet in Chicago, said with reference to the "Lincoln Road" which congress at that time contem- plated building from Washington to Gettys- burg, "I would not have you of the north forget that our sires and our brothers lie side by side at Gettysburg with yours. Therefore, I propose an extension to this road. I would have it begin at Richmond, extend to Washington and thence on to Gettysburg. Its sides I would buttress with slabs of white marble. Its top I would ma- cadamize with crushed white stone. And then along each side for its entire length, I would plant unbroken rows of flowers that bear only white blooms. And when it was done, I would call it 'The Great White Way, the Lincoln Way, the Way of Peace.'" In harmony with this beautiful sentiment, may we suggest that in the broad range of fu- ture years, when Joe Parmley's dust has been consigned to dust again, and when auto. mobile travelers and joy riders pass over the dustless boulevard from Aberdeen to
T
124
WHO'S WHO IN SOUTH DAKOTA
Ipswich that penetrates the hearts of hills and lifts its commanding bosom above the lake beds along its route, and while they feel entranced at the sight of spring-time anem- ones and later inhale the fragrance of June roses along its sides, let each one acclaim, "This is the Great White Way, the Parmley Way, the Way of Progress!" Yes; they need not wait till then, they can begin it now, for this boulevard has already been officially named, "The Parmley Highway." It con- stitutes one of the important sections of the new "Twin City-Aberdeen Yellowstone Park Trail," which now bids well to become one of the important national highways of the United States.
And Joe is mighty proud of that twenty- six miles of elegant highway. He knows, as does every man of experience in road build- ing, that where a road is graded but has not been macadamized, the only way to keep it in good shape is to drag it. Accordingly, he took a worn-out, model F Buick automobile, and from it built a one-man tractor that will drag the Parmley highway from Ipswich to Aberdeen and back-a total distance of fifty-two miles-in a single day, and give sufficient time to double back repeatedly over areas that need it. This gasoline drag is now known as the "Parmley Patrol." Joe pays
5
125
J. W. PARMLEY
the salary of the operator and bears all of the other expenses himself. He claims that with this outfit one man can patrol and keep in fine shape 100 miles of road. It is possible that he has again hit upon a practical solution of a vexatious problem.
OLD FRIENDS MEET
"Say, Joe, do you remember a letter you wrote me while at old Lawrence soon after you came west?" Of course Joe didn't remember, but his companion did, and he continued :
"Well, you had left school a junior and said then no one had asked you whether you could translate Homer, speak French, dem- onstrate the binomial theorem, or knew the color of Julius Caesar's hair, but a good many had asked what you could do."
Forgetful of the surroundings on the corridor of the Evans hotel at Hot Springs, and of the many things both men had been doing the past thirty years, the "boys" were living over college days of a generation ago. The speaker was Bob Selway, of Wyoming, the big sheep man, and the other was Joe Parmley, of South Dakota, or to be more specific-of Ipswich, Edmunds county, South Dakota-the subject of this "Who's Who" sketch.
Joe first saw the light of day on a farm
1
126
WHO'S WHO IN SOUTH DAKOTA
in southwestern Wisconsin, where his child- hood was spent plowing corn, milking cows, studying the birds and rocks and learning to be an athlete-at the wood pile-to hold his own in a rough and tumble, or if he didn't to come up smiling all the same and never admit that he was licked. Incidentally, he entertained the country-side at the picnics with such classical recitation as Cassabi- anca," "John Burns at Gettysburg," or the "Seminole's Reply." But the big world was calling, and he took his first ride on the cars to Appleton where he spent three years in Lawrence university, pursuing a scientific course, and as captain of the football club.
The snow was still on the ground when he arrived in Aberdeen, Dakota Territory, in 1883. He looked at a map and said, "Sometime the Milwaukee will build west from Aberdeen;" bought a load of lumber, hired a team to take it forty miles toward the setting sun; counted his cash and found less than fifteen dollars for hardware and the future. When nearing the present town- site of Roscoe, he saw a tent and he made for it. Charley Morgan, of Chicago, had pre- ceded him less than a day. The two joined forces, named the town "Roscoe"-after Roscoe Conkling who was then in the height of his brilliant career-and remained firm
To
127
J. W. PARMLEY
friends till death separated them a few years later.
Joe was appointed the first county superintendent of Edmunds county, and he tramped all over the county organizing school townships and schools. He held the office two terms, and was then elected reg- ister of deeds. At various times he has held by appointment and election the office of county judge, and he served two terms in the state legislature, besides holding numerous other offices of honor and trust from mayor up to road boss. He admits having studied law, but he always refused to practice. It is an open secret though that many attorneys when stuck on a title to real estate get him to tell them what is wrong with it.
He has always been a leader in better methods of farming and stock breeding and he is owner of the largest herd of Shetland ponies in the northwest. Mr. Parmley still has in use the first manure spreader sold in Edmunds county, though he loaned it to every farmer for miles around, in order to induce them to buy for themselves. He built the first silo in the country west of Aber- deen, and is today spending much time in addressing public meetings of farmers on corn, cows and the silo.
n
الــ
128
WHO'S WHO IN SOUTH DAKOTA
While a member of the legislature, he introduced a bill for farmers' institutes and saw it defeated by farmer votes. Then he changed his vote to "no" in order to move re-consideration, and three days later he got the present farmers institute law on our statute books. Joe has always been an ad- vocate of prison reform and he is the autho of our present parole law, said to be one of . the most practical in the union. Within the past year he became sponsor for a prisoner on parole. A few weeks after being paroled, the prisoner-not criminal-was asked to teach a class of boys in a Methodist Sunday school. This came to Parmley's notice and he ran down to Pierre and asked the board of pardons if they didn't think it safe to let Sunday school teachers run loose, and they did. The next mail carried a full pardon to a useful citizen who went wrong and was caught-notwithstanding we were particeps crimus by leading him astray in the United States army in time of peace. If you happen around when he is pitching alfalfa or filling a silo or working on the road with $3.00 a day men, it will be well to see that there is an avenue of escape before defending the shirt factory at the pen where the state's able bodied wards get 39 cents a day and the state boards and clothes them. This monu-
129
J. W. PARMLEY
mental waste and the expenditure of 67 per cent of the nation's income for war and navy has been the subject of bitter attacks by him, and his address before the state conservation congress on "Better Roads or Battle Ships" and before the state peace society on "War's Waste of Men and Money" were said to be the strongest pleas ever made in the state for world peace or arbitration, except the ad- dresses made by President Taft.
Mr. Parmley has traveled extensively in the United States, Canada and Mexico, and he has written much for publication. His descriptions of the Pyramids of San Juan Teotihuacan attracted wide notice and elic- ited very favorable editorial comment. As a literary student, Joe is a volume de luxe of God's choicest edition, while as a public speaker he is one of the choicest and keenest in the state. We are greatly pleased to re- produce from the files of the Argus-Leader two paragraphs from his eloquent speech re- cently delivered before the district bankers' convention at Watertown :
"The face of our continent is chang- ing. Yesterday we faced Europe. To-mor- row we will face Asia. West of this point lies one half of the territory of the United States with one-tenth of the people. It is the better half and capable of main-
ИзНЬ
1
130
WHO'S WHO IN SOUTH DAKOTA
taining a population many times greater than the total of the whole country. We are at present simply scratching around on the surface of things. A thousand civilized men will thrive where a hundred savages starved. The inner chambers of God's great granite safes, where the oil and coal and the iron, the nitrogen, the silver and the gold have been stored since the morning stars sang to- gether, are fastened with time locks set for the hour of man's necessity. It is for us to get the combination."
"I come to you this afternoon with a plea for the silo for I believe that it will solve some-yes many-of the financial and eco- nomic problems confronting us. I believe that right here within a few miles of the center of the North American continent in the valley of the Sioux or over in the valley of the "Jim" or of the Missouri or on the hills of the Coteau or in that trans-Missouri country there can be established a perma- nent industry that will add fertility to an al- ready fertile soil, that will bring prosperity and contentment to a dense population and . will work out on the trestle board of life the plans of the Great Architect of the Uni- verse."
1
13/
CLEOPHAS C. O'HARRA HAS MADE GOOD
Back in 1908 when Spafford, Erickson, Norby, Burt and Anderson composed the board of regents, they held a meeting at the Royal hotel in Huron. During the session, a motion was made to appropriate $200 to defray the expense of sending Dr. Cleophas
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.