Evening Republican, Volume 22, Number 53, Rensselaer, Jasper County, 4 March 1919 — HE PREFERS TO SERVE [ARTICLE]

HE PREFERS TO SERVE

DECLINES LUCRATIVE STATE JOB AND NEGLECTS PRIVATE AFFAIRS. * The Topeka, Kansas, Daily Capital contains the following very complimentary account of a former Jasperite who puts real service above private business or lucrative public position. Senator Francis C. Price," so justly and highly commended, is a former resident of Carpenter township, this county. His brother, Charles Price, was at one time clerk of the Jasper circuit court and another brother, Myrt B. Price, was county surveyor of this county for a number of years. His sister, Miss Antonnette Price, is the efficient librarian in the public library of this city. The article follows: “To abandon a lucrative private business eighteen months in order to serve on a draft board at small pay Where one made about as many enemies as soldiers and then turn around and decline a fat position on the utilities commission, where both the work and pay are attractive, is a stunt that can only be pulled off by a big man. And Kansas has that man —Senator Francis C. Price, of Clark county. Patriotism prompted him -to take the draft board work. That was one way he could do his bit in the big war. And he did it in an able and conscientious manner. But patriotism did not enteT into the big political job offered him and he felt free to decline it. It seems that about the only political office Senator Price cares to hold is that of state senator. After an apprenticeship in the house he came to the senate in 1889 and since then he has been coming back whenever he wished. Senator Price did service as district judge for eleven years and he was urged to go to congress, but he resigned the judgeship and refused to go to congress. The only office aside from state senator that might possibly appeal to him is that of supreme court justice. Senator Price is never on display in the senate even though he is the chairman of the most important committee and is president pro-tem. He isn’t a flowery speaker. But he is mighty forceful and there is an attentive audience when he does speak. He is a power in the senate and he is decidedly well-liked. Senator Price wafted into Kansas on a iprairie schooner in the early 80’s from Indiana about the time Beveridge and Jesse Overstreet and innumerable other Hoosiers came. Beveridge and Overstreet returned to Indiana and became famous. Senator Price remaifted here and gained just as much distinction. Mrs. Price, who is in Topeka her husband for the session, balks more fluently than Senator Price about certain events. Mrs. Price has heard her husband say that he had something like a dollar when he arrived in Ashland. The hotel was short on bedding and he used sheets of the Ashland Clipper to keep warm. The Clipper was a warm sheet in those days. Senator Price inveigled a charming Ohio girl into becoming his bride in 1-890. Mrs. Price had read Mfcrk Twain’s “Roughing It,” and came on her wedding trip fully prepared for any contingency that might befall a blushing bride in the wild and wooly west.”