From The Columbus Journal - October 24, 1883
GUS. G. BECHER,
The candiate for county treasurer, was born at Pilsen, Austria, in 1845. In 1848, his father emigrated to St. Louis, Mo., at which place, in the Christian Brothers Academy, Gus. received a considerable portion of his education. In 1857, Mr. Becher's father removed to this city, Gus. following in 1859, in the meantime going to school. For eight years thereafter he was a clerk in the hardware store of Hurford & Bro. at Omaha, where he made many friends. After that he came to Columbus, and for the succeeding four years was engaged in the United States service, under Major Frank North, with the Pawnee Scouts. In '71 he served as enrolling clerk in the state senate. After his return he started in his present business, in which he takes great pride, and in which he has been very successful, enjoying the confidence, and winning the good will of every man with whom he does business. The county's money and the county treasurer's duties will be safe in his hands.
HENRY RAGATZ,
The nominee for county clerk, was born in Sauc county, Wisconsin, in the year 1854. His father was one of the early pioneers of that then frontier state, emigrating from Switzerland in 1838, and settling in Prairie Du Sac, Sauc Co., Wisconsin, the same year. His mother was a native of Germany, so he is a full-booded [sic] descendant of that sturdy, independent, frugal, persevering stock, that cross from the lands of William Tell and "Old Fritz" that underlies one of the best strata of our American citizenship. Henry was born and raised on a farm, doing the manual labor expected of boys of his age in that position, and receiving the advantages of a common school education during the winter months, ending with three terms at the high school in the city of Prairie Du Sac; thence he served a five year's clerkship in a general store in his native town, removing to this city in the early spring of 1879, where he started in the general grocery trade, in which he has met with the invariable success that honesty, prudence, economy and indefatigable energy insure. Last spring, unsolicited and unexpected by him, his friends nominated him for councilman of the second ward of this city. His opponent was one of the most prominent democrats in the city, but Mr. Ragatz was elected by a handsome majority in the old democratic ward. To those who know Henry Ragatz no word of commendation is needed, and his friends predict his election to the office of county clerk as a certainty.
AUGUSTUS W. CLARK,
The republican candidate for clerk of the district court, was born in Ashtabula Co., Ohio, June 11, 1839. In 1848 his family removed to La Salle Co., Ill., where his early youth and manhood years were passed. In 1879 he removed to this county, having previously purchased the farm formerly owned by W.H. Gibson northeast of the city.
Mr. Clark is one of those quiet, unassuming, careful gentlemen who seldom make mistakes and who never blunder, just the qualities needed in the discharge of the duties of clerk. Wise to apprehend the law and the instructions of the court, he has none of the peculiar smartness, characteristic of so many clerks, which leads them to assume the judicial functions, at odd times and stages of legal proceedings. He will make an excellent clerk.
GEORGE W. CLARK,
The gentleman whom the republicans of Platte county have named for the office of sheriff, was born in Columbiana Co., Ohio, March 11, 1849. In '51 his parents moved to Wisconsin.
Young Clark was brought up on a farm, with the usual good fortune of farmer lads in having plenty of work during all the year, with an oppotunity in the winter months of attending the district public school, of which he made such good use that early in life he was qualified to teach, which he did several years, before and since he removed to Nebraska.
Ten years ago Mr. Clark came to Nebraska, locating on government land in the northern part of Platte county, then known as Stearns Prairie, and engaged in tilling the soil in summer and teaching school in winter.
Since 1877 he has been engaged in the insurance business, and in March of this year opened an insurance and real estate office at Humphrey, a very thrifty business-center of Platte Co., where he is pursuing the even tenor of his way.
Mr. Clark, it is scarcely worth while for us to add, is an honest, capable man, of excellent personal habits, and he will make as good a sheriff as Platte county ever had--accommodating, obliging, gentlemanly, upright, doing his duty in every particular, and under all circumstances, bravely yet kindly. The men who vote for him can feel an assurance that in the discharge of the duties of the responsible office of sheriff, he will honor himself and justly represent the interests of the public.
WALTER S. WELLS,
candidate for county judge, was born at Johnstown, N.Y., in 1857. He comes of good parentage, his father, John Wells, having served several terms as judge of Fulton county, N.Y., and one as a member of the national congress. Young Wells attended the public schools of his native town and afterwards Union University, at Schenectady, graduating in June, 1878. Two years afterwards he graduated from the Albany Law School. In 1880 he removed to Wheeler county, this state, and in September, 1882, to Platte county, where he now resides and practices law, being a member of the firm of Walker & Wells. The people of the county who do not know Mr. Wells, will have an opportunity during the campaign of making his acquaintance. In the conduct of his office he would pride himself in doing his whole duty by the interests that would come under his charge.
JOSEPH RIVET,
Republican nominee for county commissioner, is one of nature's noblemen, an honest man. The voters of the county who have had business before the Commissioners' Court, have found in him a man attentive to business and anxiously desiring to understand and do his whole duty, in the interests of the public whom he serves.
JOHN TANNAHILL,
Republican candidate for county commissioner, was born at Huntingdon, Canada, March 12, 1845, and is therefore in the 38th year of his age. In 1856, his father removed to Chickasaw county, Iowa. John was the oldest child of the family, and when his father enlisted in the service of the United States in 1861 (in the 7th Iowa) John had a good deal to look after, for a boy of sixteen; still more, when his father, after having honorably served his country, in the vicissitude of battle was taken prisoner at Belmont, and died at Annapolis just after being exchanged.
Like all other patriotic young men of the time, however, the incidents of the war, the cause of the Union, and the necessity of the preservation of the government were so engrossing that the beginning of the year 1865 found young Tannahill, at the age of 20, enlisted in the 156th Illinois regiment, and campaigning in Georgia in Gen. A.J. Smith's division. Of course his service was brief, because the war soon ended. In the seven months of his companionship with the boys in blue he was thoroughly imbued with the military spirit, and if called into duty to-day would make a model citizen-soldier.
While in Iowa Mr. Tannahill was elected road supervisor in a very thickly-settled district, giving excellent satisfaction. In 1869 he removed to Nebraska, taking a homestead in Butler county, and operating as a farmer and a grower of and dealer in garden seeds, in which he has gained an enviable reputation, all through Nebraska. While living in Butler county Mr. T. served six years as school director and two terms as justice of the peace, showing the qualities that always characterize him, wherever he is placed--affability, and a strict regard for justice and right.
We don't know of a single enemy that Mr. Tannahill has in all the wide world, and his friends will take pleasure in voting for him, because they can do so without misgivings of any sort.
J.E. MONCRIEF,
the candidate for county superintendent of schools, is known to every bright school lad and lassie in the county. His record as the official head of the public school system of the county is well known to intelligent parents and school officers who take any interest in public instruction, and it is safe to say that these by their votes, will place the seal of their approval upon his actions. He makes a very careful superintendent, and is economical in the expenditure of the county's money.
JOHN G. ROUTSON,
named by his political friends as candidate for surveyor, is thoroughly well qualified for the place in every respect, not only as a capable accountant but as being acquainted with the lands of the county. Besides which, his work will be done, as it always has been done, without reference to how it will affect one man or another, but exactly as it ought to be, squaring with the law and each man's right. This is John's uniform way of doing things, and a man might as well try to have him say that two and two make five, or that a straight line is not the shortest distance between two points, as to change his conduct of a public office.
CARROLL D. EVANS,
named for coroner, was born in 1856, at Tarentum, Penn., a town near Pittsburg. He received his mental training at the Tarentum Academy, the Pennsylvania Porter College and the College of Physicians and Surgeons, Baltimore, Md., where he graduated. In the latter city he served in the Baltimore City Hospital for eighteen months, where he acquired practical knowledge in surgery which has been of good use to him in his practice. For several years he engaged in the work of his profession at Bradford, Penn., after which he came to Nebraska, settling in this city in May 1882, since which time many of our readers have been acquainted with the doctor and his work.
He has shown himself versed in professional knowledge, with nerve enough for any emergency required, and would make a good sheriff in any contingency that would require him to serve.