The Mankato free press. [volume] (Mankato, Blue Earth County, Minn.) 1879-1924, 1906-06-29
But He Is Well Acquainted
With Hard Work.
NOT AN IDLE BONE IN HIS BODY
Republican Candidate Held In High
Esteem BY Those Who Know
Him Best.
From Fridays Daily.
Ea2 -. $50 as j., 4

From Fridays Daily.
The simple life is A. L. Coles meas
ure, mode in which he was severely
schooled long before any learned doe
tor came from France to tell how it
should be managed, writes John Stone
Pardee in The st. Paul Daily News.
His tastes and indulgences, indeed,
are so very simple that the anecdotes
which usually cluster round a man in
public life in his case are hard to find.
a. L. Cole is all for business" is
the epitome furnished by one friend
after another. His life is business. His
amusement is hard work. His library is
his ledger His diversion is chasing
from one place of business to another.
He comes in at evening on No. g.,
say, goes direct to his store and puts
in busy hour or two with his man.
aeer; thence straight to his family, and
out again next morning on No. 3.
He has the building instinct well de-
veloped, but it runs to solid brick blocks
for his store with rooms over it to live
in and does not stretch to what most
men call home.
He has a legal residence in Walker
in the business block he built over what
was his store. His present dwelling is
in Akeley, in a brick block over bis
store, five rooms comfortably furnished,
good enough for any man to live III, no
doubt, but hardly the quarters one would
expect to find as the establishment of
a man reputed to be worth Sl50,0O0 or
more Green blinds and shady lawns and
trees about seem never to have entered
in his reckoning. He has been too busy
to surround himself with marks of leis-
ure, to line his walls with shelves of
books, to sit down before an open fire.
place.
He has these and other buildings; he
owns half dozen farms around Motley
and lands everywhere, but he has never
had the time to make himself home
and grow into it.
Only in the last year or two he has
learned to give little time to play
and get diversion otherwise than coming
III on No. 6 and out again on No. 8
Na1B ba
on high bank overlooking Cass lake
and he is actually learning the last two
years to loaf. There also he has gas.
oline launch, the only plaything he was
ever known to keep. 1t is perhaps char
acteristic of his thrift that this summer
cottage in the first place was built be-
cause he had the lumber from a pavilion
that fell into his hands through chatte
foreclosure and had to be moved from
another mans land.
But, having this summer cottage ant
launch, he gets good deal of fun out
of them. He exercises his natural so
ciability and has people coming and go
ing all summer and his launch is busy a:
a hotel bus.
He never was a mixer. In a coun
try where every other man is "Bill" O.
Doc" he is known as Cole. The near
est anybody gets to nickname is t,
call him "a. L."
All for business-he doesn't fish, h,
doesn't shoot, he doesn't play cards, h
doesn't join secret societies. If h
smokes, it hardly constitutes a habit
and if he has been known to take
drink, it is even less habitual than hi
smoking. He goes to church about a
often as most good family men do, blu
not so as to make him conspicuous a
an 'amen corner" member.
Outside of business. he is a domesti
man, and home is where he spends hi
evenings as far as business will let him
His wife is also his partner-silen
member of A. l.. Cole & Co. She cam
with him from st. Lawrence county
New York, twenty-five years ago, an
shared with him, with a woman's fort
tude and courage, the life of what wa
then the remote west Sensible, pract
cal, domestic, he owes not little of hi
success in business to her companion
ship, and possibly his entrance into pc
itics was more by her guidance tina
their nearest friends suppose.
She is a quiet home body does he
own Homework, does a good deal of he