Evening star. [volume] (Washington, D.C.) 1854-1972, 1906-10-28
CUMM|NS IS COMING
Believed He Can Surely Carry
Iowa for Governor.
IN LINE FOR PRESIDENCY
Sketch of His Career Since He Was
Boy.
USED TO BE A CIVIL ENGINEER
Studied Law and Gave Up Lucrative
Practice for Strenuous
Political Life.
IN LINE FOR PRESIDENCY
USED TO BE A CIVIL ENGINEER

Special Dispatch to The Star.
SIOUX CITY, Iowa, October 27.-With the
election but few days off. and a most
str, nuous campaign about over, 1t remains
for the wise ones to predict what will be
the majority of Cummins for governor. as
we'll as the plurality of the republican
party.
Few men ever went into a campaign with
such odds as did A. B. Cummins when
nominated for governor for the third term,
for with all the ralicals of the party, to-
gether with the railroad forces. working
with all the powers that be against him;
the democratic and other parties combined
TO defeat his purpose; yet he wifi shake
or all his opponents and come safely out
of the fray with plenty 10 spare. All over
Iowa the prediction is freely made that his
majority will be $1,000. not so bad when
it is known that the republican majority is
less than 100000
The convention which nominated him
for the third term did even more than hon
orins CGTmins, for it placed the entire
party ON record for revision of the tariff
for the direct primary, for the election of
United States senators by the direct vote
of the people. 1t sounded the death knell
forever of railroad and corporation d0mina-
ton. and for the radiance from public
service of the railroad pass users
II did even more than all this. Friends of
gov, rncr in line for the pres denjIal n mi "a
tiOn in 1905.
Sketch of His Career.
Cummins is native of Green county.
Pa. having been born in little town in
that county in 1850. Born in cbscurity,
reared in a school of rugged training he
early migrated to Indiana Armed with
only a moderate education he was barely
equipped for the hard knocks Of the pioneer
state, but he was full of ambition and
knew that he could do things which other
young men had done before him. In a few
months he had mastered the art of civil
engineering. and with as little Of the new
knowledge as the statutes of the state
would allow he applied for job and re-
ceived a position with the Santa Fe rail-
road system. In three years he had
climbed the ladder to chief engineer of the
whole great system. Now he is as assidu-
ously fighting for the principles of that
and other railroads as he was then work.
ing for the Santa Fee.
Albert Cummins. however had other
plans. He did not always want to be tied
10 great railroad system. He often
longed to try to sway public opinion before
jury. One day he read little in a law
book and liked the thoughts II gave him
50 much that he read book after book and
in three years he had left the gravel road
bed and was ready to dispense law at the
usual rates.
Ia 1878 he arrived in Des Mones. Iowa.
having been told that Iowa furnished the
material for a bright lawyer to widen his
experience and incidentally strengthen his
pocketbook. He built up an enviable prac-
tice. which would today be bringing him
three to four times the salary of the gov
ernor's office. but he responded to the call
of his party and the people who We're harp
ing for a leader. and took up the cause he
has been sponsoring for the past five years.
While in the practice CT law at Des Moines
he broke up the greatest barbed-wire trust
that ever operated west of the Mississippi
river and gave the railroads such a scare
that they tried by every means possible to
win his friendship. Once when the state
was nearly turning to the ranks of the
prohibitionists. Cummns. believing that
some of the principles of the republican
party needed changing. ran independently
for the Legislature and won. The state
went democratic and Boise was chosen gov
ernor. Cummins in the legislature made