ON. G. R. FOUKE represents the thirty-third district, composed of Gage and Saline counties, in the lower house, and is a resident of Liberty, Nebraska. He was born near Hagerstown, Maryland, February 10, 1853, and secured his early education under difficulties. He started in an independent battle for existence when seventeen years of age, on a ticket to San Francisco and $15 in cash. On the Pacific coast young Fouke spent seven years of varied life, herding sheep, freight teaming over the mountains, and into the mining camps. Having saved his earnings he started to school after he had attained his majority, and after a four years' course graduated in the academic and business departments. He went to Iowa in 1878, where he was married to Miss Emma Shaw, of Clinton county, who died two years later, leaving one child, Florence Emma. Mr. Fouke afterwards married Miss Sarah Wherry, of Wyoming, Iowa, and the union remains unbroken. In 1884 Mr. Fouke located at Liberty, Nebraska, and soon became extensively engaged in house furnishing, undertaking, and in the implement trade. He has served as a member of the town board, was justice of the peace for six years, and was elected to the legislature, as a republican, in 1896 by over 1,100 majority. He is a member of the committees on inter-

nal improvements, constitutional amendments, and miscellaneous subjects, and a member of the sifting committee, to which he was appointed in recognition of his ability as one of the leaders of the minority.

HE speaker of the house of representatives, who has twice been honored with this high and respon-

sible position, is one of the best known men in Nebraska. Hon. J. N. Gaffin was born near Pecatonica, Illinois, May 27, 1855, and was raised on a farm with all the varied experiences of rural youth. He mastered the common branches and graduated from the high school of Pecatonica with honors. At the age of twenty-one he became impressed with the desire to go west,

and spurred on by bright hopes and high ambitions he reached the town of Valley in the month of August, 1876, rigged out with the "prairie schooner" of the period. In October of the same year he was married to Miss Laura Williams, a public school teacher, and the union has been blessed with five children. Mr. Gaffin was successful at farming, and branched out to stock raising and feeding cattle and hogs for the market. In 1883 the family moved into their present comfortable home on their farm located five miles from Wahoo, in Saunders county, occupying and managing 320 acres of improved land. Mr. Gaffin was always a student of political questions, and in his early life was an ardent republican. For fifteen years he served his fellow citizens as justice of the peace, and for twenty years held a position on the school board. He was one of the prime movers in the Farmers' Alliance, and has taken an active part in the succeeding populist organization. He was a delegate to the Cincinnati and St. Louis conferences, as also to most, if not all, state alliances and people's party state conventions since the institution of the reform movement in this state. In 1890 he was elected to the legislature, being a member of the house, and was re-elected in 1892 and was chosen speaker of the house of 1893. This position he filled with such credit and honor to himself that he was the unanimous choice of the fusion party for speaker of the house of 1897. Speaker Gaffin is an ideal presiding officer, prompt, fair, able, and expeditious in the dispatch of business. He has guided the deliberations of the house in such a way as to command the respect of all, regardless of party. He is chairman of the committee on rules, and has shown a capacity for a vast amount of arduous labor in the smallest space of time.

ON. FRED GAYLORD, of Buffalo county, is one of the representatives of the fifty-eighth district and resides at Kearney. He was born September 2, 1860, at Ottumwa, Iowa, and resided in that state until 1883, when he came to Nebraska, first locating in Omaha, where he engaged in railroad work on the Oregon Short Line for a time. He afterwards entered the employ of the noted railroad contractor, John Fitzgerald, of Lincoln, and took part in the construction of the road-bed of the B. & M. from Grand Island to Broken Bow. His next situation was with Maxwell Brothers, of Kearney, in the gas works of which he is now superintendent. He joined the populist party in 1889, and has been a staunch defender of its principles ever since. Although one of the younger members of the house, and this his first legislative experience, he has made a record that compares favorably with that of many of his elders. Mr. Gaylord has had to struggle from early boyhood, his parents dying while he was quite young, and he may be said to have been the architect of his own education, and the reputation he has established for himself. He is a single man, and a conscientious and energetic member, serving on the committees on public lands and buildings, railroads, labor, telegraph, telephone and electric lights.