Rensselaer Republican, Volume 27, Number 38, Rensselaer, Jasper County, 28 May 1896 — MOUNT ON HIS FARM [ARTICLE+ILLUSTRATION]

MOUNT ON HIS FARM

Republican Nominee for Governor at Home. vi■ v - ” • "T"~ • y~ ■■ ■■■ FARMER STATESMAN. Interesting Story of His Rise from Poverty. . Hon. James A. Mount Is Popular with All Who Know Him, and Admiring Hoosiers Irrespective of Party Already Greet Him as the Next Execu-tive-A Plain, Hardworking, EveryDay Agriculturist with His Every Cent Invested inland Derived from the Soil of His Native State.

11K farmer is in the saddle in Indiana, and the big straw hat is the sign of his candidacy for the governorship. When .James A. Mount returned to Cra wfordsyille after obtaining the nomination a large party of his friends and fei--1 o w Republicans Went down tp the

railway station to meet and' congratulate him. As they marched down from the courthouse they hought every large shady straw sombrero the local merchants had in stock. Thus arrayed’ they made the town ring, and the noise produced by the marchers under those wide-spreading and inclusive habiliments will go echoing through the campaign. This js because .James A. Mount is a farmer and has been wearing one of that sort of lints ever since, as a barefooted boy, he began work on his father’s acres In Franklin township, ten and one-half miles from the center of Crawfordsville. Helan’t a play farmer, or a make-believe farmer, or a merchant with a farm to amuse himself with, but a plain, hardworking, every-day American agriculturist, with every cent ho lias in tiie world invested in and derived from the soil of his native Indiana, and' Mount is as good a Republican as he is a farmer. Call Him “Governor" Already. Every one‘near his home has taken to calling him “Governor” Mount. . The Democrats do IF, too, and seem to like it. For a time, after he was elected to the State Senate in 1888. his friends and neighbors took to varying his appellation of farjner with that of Senator. But just

as soon as he was accorded the nomination for the chief magistracy of this State, * with a unanimity that is still a surprise to politicians they hailed him by the title which every one is morally certain will be His by the suffrages of the people en riy next November. Nobody cares about the opposing candidates. It is a mere matter of form, tliis putting somebody up against him—as a small and agile hoy sots up the pins in a bowling alley—to be knocked down. Mount lives in Franklin township, Montgomery County, Ind., and' the township and county and State are going to elect him, and are proud and glad of it. When this farmer goes to a public meeting, ns he did to the annual session of the- . Tunis Sheep Kaisers' Association held in Crawfordsville recently, he is introduced in this fa shion: ‘‘Now. I am a Democrat, and mi.father was before me. and we believe,in Thomas Jefferson and Andrew Jackson, but I

take pleasure in presenting to you James A. Mount, the next Governor of this groat State of Indiana.” Then all the sheep raisers aud spectators and small boys, who came in because there was a meeting and they know Mount wus to be there and tulk. raised up their voices in a roar of confirmation thnt leaves no doubt about the result. Farmer Mount,'’ Semitor Mount. Gov. Mount—it tells the whole story of his life with its more than ordinary shnre of popularity and sucess. Farmer and Soldier, Too. But Mount was not always a farmer, though he began life that way and intends to end it so. From 1802 to 1805 —three long years—he was a soldier. Moreover, he was a good soldier, just as he has been a good fanner aud'just us he will be a good Governor. Gen. Lew Wallace has known him for a long generation nnd he anys so. Gen. Wallace was a soldier himself and knows one as soon as he sets eyes on him. Geu. Wallace lives in Crawfords vnie : not only lt» the sense of inhabiting a beautiful home within its limits, hut as pervading the entire municipality. What Gqn. Wallace says nbout the “Governor" is this: “I have known Jim Mount, man and boy, ever since the close of the war. lie was not in my command, but I ■wish he was, because be was a good soldier. There’s no doubt about it You know there are records kept, and if there Is anything in them against a man’s reputation it doesn't take long to find it out When Mount was mustered out after serving his full three years, he took the money he had saved from his pay and went to Lebanon Academy to get an education. In the army he was raised from private to corporal, and came Out a ser-

genni. In the academy he did two years’ work in one, altld came put a .well-instruct-ed man. Then he got married, and he married a graduate of this same academy, so that he would not be short of learning in the family. Ever since he has been farming, and he is as •much of a success as a farmer as he was as a soldier or a student. r , “Mount’s prosperity has come him, not by being mean’or stingy, or by working his men and beasts to death, : or by taking usury, but by watching the markets, being a little ahead in, getting his products to them, keeping liis land and machinery in proper condition, and the like—what they cull in New England, ■forehanded’ is just the word. He hasn’t • deputed any one else to do his work, but asks none of his hired' hands to do any

more labor in a day Ilian lie does himself. He is a living example of the statement that farming in the United Statescanbe made to pay. Since he has attained prosperity he has_not shut himself up and been content with it, but lias earnestly sought to increase his usefulness. Knowing what it is to prosper, he and his wife have journeyed all over this and the adjoining States lecturing on the elements of success to Farmers’ Institutes. He would talk to the men; Mrs. Mount to the women. In this way he has obtained a national reputation—sufficient' to have induced the authorities at Chautauqua to invito him to lecture there song before he had ever thought of going into politics. He did not do it to make money—neither he nor his wife was paid for the addresses, and in most instances they have even paid their own traveling expenses. “This is enough to prove that Mount is a progressive man. Other tilings, in his life show it just as strongly. Hu son, Harvey Newland Mount, was graduated with honor in the class of ISO! from Wabash College here and obtained the Baldwin oratorienj nrixe. His elder daughter, Hattie Leo Alo.tftt, now Airs. Butler, was i educated at Alexander College, in - Kentucky. and the younger, Miss Helen Xesblt Mount, is a Bachelor of Arts from Coates College for the Higher Education of Women, at Torre Haute, lod. The sou lias take,n a post-graduate 1 course at Princeton University, and found time while preparing fdr the ministry to earn His”master's degree. “This keeping abreast of the times shows itself in other ways,” Gen. Wallace went on. “His new house is probably the most comfortable hereabout. He has fitted it with the modern improvements and makes it attractive by simple and genial hospitality.—No matter. Who goes there —friend, enemy, laborer, or tramp—he is received as if he were the President of the United States. Jim Mount is a plain and unassuming man, and success has made him simpler instead of hardening his heart, as it so often does. If he has any fault it is because he is so kindly in his nature First to Cros9 tile Chattahoocbe. Air. Mount’s record as a soldier is more “than ordinarily creditable. Ho enlisted for three years in Company"D of the 72d Indiana 'regiment ami was mustered out at the close of the WSr as a sergeant. His regiment was in many engagements, and it is a fact that he never lost a day during

ins entire, period of service, filled as it was with extended marches and skirmishes. Ho was named by Gen. Wilder in his dispatches as having twice'volunteered to lead the skirmish line during the desperate fighting at •Chickumauga. In 18(12 he was stricken with measles, and, though ordered to his tent he arose when a call wifs made for reinforcements

on the occasion! of Morgan’s raid and marched to Hartwell, eleven miles. This was Just before the battle of Stone River. In Sherman's Atlanta campaign in 1804 Sergeant Mount was the first man in the Federal army to crow the Chstta-

hoochee river and was named again by Gen. Wilder“far this act of bravery. Stern Foe of the Lobbyist. It was through the efforts of James A. Alouut, when in the State Senate, that a "bill passed the Legislature, and became a law, compelling all animate intended for food to be Inspected on the hoof before slaughter. The measure was intended primarily to aid in preserving the health Of the people of,lndiana, since the necessary certificates'could only be issued by local authorities, but if was also aimed at the aggressions of the beef trust, and would have had the effect <jf protecting the, business of the smaller butchers and marketmen who were being driven out ;of business. ■ • Air. Alount jjj bitterly opposed to lobbying in all its and expresses self as hoping to see the day when the

capitol during the session of a legislature will be the signal to pass any bill to which they may express themselves.as opposed just as soon as it becomes evident they are the attorneys or tools of any monopoly. When the bill regarding meat inspection was put upon its passage hastily, to prevent the gathering of these agents, they still managed on a single day’s notice to gather at Indianapolis in numbers.

One of them, a Chicago lawyer, came to Senator Mount with a long argument favoriugAhe side. Uliable to convince him that he should reconsider IltSTvofe dndT>nug -ffir- matter lief ore" the Senate for the second time the lawyer resorted to covert threats. It ended in the—Chicagoan's being told plainly that he was (i scoundrel and the bill went through. Began In poverty. J. J. Insley, a prominent resident ~of has known Mr. Mount lor thirty years. “His early struggles to secure a foothold on his father’s farm after lie came back from the war were hard ami for a time almost hopeless. Old Mr. Mount was an honest, hard-working, -XsMdsftt&fllßg uifju who tor more than half a century did his duty to himself, his family, his country and his church. He brought up a family of twelve children, all of the same kind as himself. When Jim Mount left the academy and wanted to marry Kate Boyd there was considerable opposition. Well-meaning friends went to her and told her that with such a husband life would be one long sojourn in n buckeye cabin, with a ride to town on top of a loud of cabbages for its sole diversion. But they had their own way and began life together by Jim’s taking a lease of his father’s farm. He took the improvements at tjieir full value, about $1,500, boarded -his father and his horse, limited himself to three little rooms io the lean-to of the family homestead, and paid half of all he raised as'rent. When his seven years’ contract on those terms expired he tobk it for two years more, paying SSOO cash a year. At the end of tlgat time he had grubbed out twenty acres of swamp lflnd, dug 700 yards of ditch, all with his own hands, and became the owner of 120 acres of land in Madison County. This he swapped for his father’s 200-aere farm, paying $1,500 more, these last bearing 10 per cent interest. In fourteen years he had everything paid, and since then he has taught from tim£ to time until he owns 51)0 acres of the best land in the country, all under beautiful cultivation. Devotion to His Church. “One noteworthy thing about Mount is his devotion to his church. No matter how hard up he was. or how arduous his struggles, he always had money to devote to the maintenance of public worship. His father was an elder among the Presbyterians for fifty years, and the son is likely to equal his record. “It hasn’t been luck that makes Mount rich to-day. It is hard work and system. From 1807 to 1887 no one in this county did as much with his own hands-as this man. His noightars used to say that it was no wonder he had good crops, for he had fertilized every inch of his land with his sweat. Besides doing his own share, he used to stay up nights and fill in the drains he had hired a man to cut for him daytimes. Besides that, he opens an account on his books with every plot of land, and he can tell you to a penny Just how much that ground haa cost him in labor, fertilisers, seed and interest on inveat-

meat, and exactly how mdeh he has obtained from its produce. The' Mount farm lies about miles atid a half from the city of Grawfordsville. Some 500 acres in extent, it stretches along a little valley, formerly swamp land and reclaimed by ttfe efforts of its present owner, for more than a mile. This soil Ms extremely rich, ten feet of muck resting on gravel in which water remains through the driest seasons. On the farm, 100, is ah inexhaustible supply of gravel from which enough' has been taken to provide excellent roads for miles in every direction, many of them built by himself.' Montgomery; County is the pride" of Indiana in this respect, having. more miles of roads good for either light travel or heavy hauling than any in Indiana—and all of it public. Alount was~one~of the poor men in the West to discover nbt only the value of this, but that it was cheaner for the farmers to combine and pay for making and graveling the high-" ways by voluntary subscription than by -waitingfor the road law to draw its weary length through skeins of red tape. He has avoided both the expense of compliance with all legal technicalities and the ’delay consequent upon them, and has taught his neighbors the same lesson. , Over such roads as these, past farms jusFlM'glirrriTrg—te~»how__lhe__(!oiningex-cellencemf-their-cropa_in .this far adyanc-"' ed season, over two beautiful streams, the Little Sugar and the Big Rocky, through lovely groves of birch, sycamore, maple, walnut and oak, lies the approach to the Mount residence. The house is spacious almost beyond the hopes of city dwellers, airy, roomy and with a pleasant outlook on every side. There are broad verandas on-which hammocks swung in the 1 pleasant and wholesome air. There is an attic large enough for a kindergarten playground and a cellar ready for bushels of winter stores. The house is supplied with well water and rain water, automatically pumped by a--windmill to the top and thence distributed, both warm and cold. Natural gas is supplied, and more than the customary urbap conveniences are in use. All about the lawn, are beds of dowers, behind is a kitchen garden with vegetables and small fruits in profusion to tempt an epicure, and to the side lies an orchard. Here Mrs. Alount is supreme. She hastened in to greet her visitors the other day aud then retired to return with lemonade and home-grown apples. Airs. Alount saw that her guests’ wants were supplied and then hastened otrTwlHf characteristic and customary thoughtfulness to see that the driver was duly furnished with food and drink. Books within and bleating lambs without showed- the business and pleasure of the household. Beyond' the garden lies the old homestead, the front building more than sixty years old, but still in good repair, with the lean-to in the rear, where Mr. and

Mrs. Mount set up their little housekeeping, fnrnishing the three small rooms in it with second-hand furniture and living in themi’or'BeviVffi~ypyrs-r t f--h«i8.1,-jinromjttipff ; country. Beat Type of the American Farmer. Mr. Mount is a mail of middle height; slightly bowed by labor, hut with his still active figure indicating great strength and nervous force. His eyes are gray and fearlessly honest, his lips firm beneath the blonde mustache, now beginning to turn gray. He wears a chin whisker of moderate length, not unlike that of the typical farmer. His hair is darker and curly, though its thinness about the temples and intermingling of white indicates the approach of hale and hearty age. The complexion is bronzed like that of every healthy man whose life lias been passed out of doors, nnd his entire appearance that of the best type of American farmer. In conversation his face lights up and the little furrows left by the years deepen

as he smiles or frowns to lend impressiveness to his speech. lie is proud of his achievements and willing to discuss them, but without taastfAness. His family is even a greater source of comfort to him—not one of his children, he avers with* thankfulness, hag ever given him a moment’s uneasiness. But his chief delight is in his little grandchild, Master James Everett Butler, a sturdy, flaxen-haired youth of 5 years, who finds equal delight in making his distinguished ancestor now his body servant, again his steed for riding purposes, and always his willing servitor to command. Mr. Mount says laughingly that he is having “all of the fun add most Of the worry”. ffith this small descendant Mrs. Mount is gentle and placid, with the wholesomeness of aspect, speech and manner which characterize women both good and happy. Though her husband’s partner in an unusual sense, holding all his interests in her care and sharing with hint all his responsibilities and burdens, she shows no sign of ever having been other than the mistress of circumstances. It was Impossible, when it came time for the writer to bid this worthy couple good-by, to wish them better fortune. With one another, their children, their easily borne cares, their home, their lives filled with well-doing and the honors already in sight, there was nothing left in the world to be desired.

MRS. KATE BOYD MOUNT.

PRESENT RESIDENCE OK JAMES A. MOUNT.

J. A. MOUNT, REPUBLICAN CANDIDATE FOR GOVERNOR OF INDIANA

MOUNT IN HIS EVERY-DAY CLOTHES.

HELEN NESBIT MOUNT. (Daughter of James A. Mount.)

JAMES EVERETT BUTLER. (Grandson of James A. Mount.) REV. HENRY NEWLAND MOUNT. (Son of James A. Mount.)

FARMER MOUNT’S OLD HOME.