The Topeka state journal. [volume] (Topeka, Kansas) 1892-1980, 1920-06-19
BY HARRY ROOT.


In the list of Sixth district men who
have made good there is Judge John
S. Dawson, of Graham county, who is
serving his first term on the supreme
bench, and is a candidate for a Sec
ond term He came. to Kansas from
Illinois in 1887, locating in Smith
county, near Cedar. In the winter fol-
lowing he Spotted a tree claim in
Graham county, a friend holding it
for him until he became Of age, when
he filed on it as a homestead. He
went to work to build a sod shanty
long before there was a railroad in
the county. He farmed and thaught
country school a few years, and
studied law on the side under the
tutelage of Henry j. Harwi, of Hill
City, who took a fancy to him, and
induced him to forsake the homestead
and go to town and finish his legal
education. For the next few years
he served as principal of the Hill City
schools, putting in his spare time as
a clerk in Harwi's office. Later the
school board of Wakeeney outbid the
Hill City board, and Dawson served
the high school there in 1928. For
several years he instructed in the
summer teachers" institutes in Ora
ham, Thomas and Sherman coun-
ties. In 1898 he was admitted
roe at Wakeeney. All the old-time
lawyers then practicing at the Wa
keeney bar, John A. Nelson. W. E.
Saum, 1. T. Purcell, E. A. Rea, A. d.
Gilkerson and Samuel Hutzel were the
examining committee, and in after
years Dawson confessed that he made
poor showing in his examination, but
the committee let him get by Daw-
son had a soft side for the newspaper
game in his young days. Once when
the Republicans and Democrats in
Graham county fused on the county
~ oI-A ~ IN Iicfc hn cd
both the Republican and Democratic
papers in Hill City. The owner of the
Republican paper insisted that every
thing he wrote against the Populists
should be good-natured and temper
ate, to which he complied. The owner
OF the Democratic paper insisted that
he should give the Pops Hail Co
lumbia," and the way that the en-
bryo lawyer and future judge bis
tered the Pops in the Hill City Demo-
crat was a caution. But notwithstand-
ing the combination of the Republi-
cans and Democrats and young Daw-
sons editorials, the Populists swept
the county, and their hostility to the
Democratic paper because of his bur-
lesque editorials was so bitter that
that journal speedily expired. Dawson
also owned a half interest in the
Western Kansas World during his So
journ in Wakeeney, and he wrote
lot of good stuff for that paper during
the Spauish-American war. Judge
Dawson has been loyal to the Sixth
district and Graham county. He To-
Gated there in his teens. When he got
few dollars ahead it went for i'm
provements and moro land when 1t
was cheap. Now the prosperity of the
county has made it valuable. He is
wheat grower by proxy, and is inter-
ested in several hundred acres. Last
year during court vacation he took his
,aI1 IN,
is interested in about 500 acres, and
the outcome is about as important to
him as the primary election.
In the June winter wheat crop re-
port recently made public by the Kan
sas field agent E. c. Paxton. the eight
northwestern Kansas counties show up
finely. The conditions are: Chey-
enne, go per cent; Decatur, 95; Ora
ham, 100, Norton, 95; Rawlins. 95;
Sheridan. 1913; Sherman IS; Thomas.
81. In these eight counties the fore
cast for number of bushels is placed
at 13,S5S.0OO. The Oakley Graphic,
his county. is put down in the 101
per cent class. That paper says:
From the west Kansas line to Hays
about the only thing that comes into
the travellers mind is the humming of
the old tune, When the Harvest Moon
is Shining on the River Believe it
or not when this crop is done eastern
Kansas in its staid. old dignified claim
ing that it is all of Kansas worth look
ing after is going to have to stand up
before the audience and take its hat
off, make a big bow. and say to us.
How do you do, Mr.. Wheat Belt p"
Few people in Gem. a Rock Island
town in Thomas county, know where