ing. This occupation he followed until he emigrated to the United States in 1868. He settled in Iowa in 1873, was elected twice as councilman of Moingona village on the temperance ticket, and served two terms as school treasurer. He resigned his position in 1879, came to Nebraska and located on a homestead, where he still resides. In 1876 he was married and has a family of several children. He was elected county surveyor by the republicans of Phelps county in 1883 and 1885. He attended the republican state convention as a delegate the latter year, was dissatisfied with the action of that body and left the party. He has been four times in succession elected to the legislature of Nebraska, first in 1890 and last in 1896, each and every time as the candidate of the people's independent party. In 1892 he was a delegate to the national convention of his party held in Omaha. Representative Soderman is one of the few men who has never asked for a nomination and yet has been repeatedly honored by his fellow citizens. He is a man of deep conscience and the strictest integrity. His committees are chairman of committee on claims, and a member of the committees on public lands and buildings, penitentiary, and immigration.

ON. LUCIEN STEBBINS represents the fifty-fourth district in the house, is a farmer and a typical western legislator, with positive ideas on reform, but insisting on reasonable methods, holding purity of purpose paramount to party success. He was born in South Wilbraham, Massachusetts, February 1, 1833, of Puritan ancestry, and traces his line to the emigrants who came in the Mayflower. He was educated in an old-fashioned New England schoolhouse, from which he "graduated." He emigrated to Pike county, Illinois, in 1850, and in 1860 pushed on to the farther west, spending a share of his time in various central, western and Pacific states, and about twenty-four years ago located in Lincoln county, where he has since resided. He was married October 19, 1859, to Elizabeth Perry Walsh, an amiable and intelligent school teacher, who has been the devoted and faithful companion of her husband. Their family embraces five children and a number of grandchildren. Mr. Stebbins enlisted in Company F, Fiftieth Regiment California Volunteers, and was a brave soldier. He is a member of the Unitarian church, having united with the first branch of that denomination established in North Platte, through

the influence of Mrs. M. E. Coggswell, missionary of that society. Representative Stebbins is credited with writing the first letters published in Kansas and Nebraska favoring the organization of the peoples's (sic) independent party out of the Alliance movement. He is one of the venerable fathers of the populist party. His house committees are: Chairman of committee on irirgation (sic), and member of the committees on county boundaries, county seats and township organization, constitutional amendments and federal relations, live stock and grazing.

HE eighth district, embracing the counties of Cass and Otoe, is represented in the house by Hon. Vincent W. Straub. He was born in Nebraska City in 1867. His parents were Otoe county pioneers, and located on a farm when Vincent was quite young. They were thrifty, industrious, and far-sighted, and accumulated a few thousand acres in Cass and Otoe counties, which has since been developed into valuable farm and stock land, and is now occupied by fine herds of registered Galloway cattle, Clydesdale horses, and Chester White swine. Vincent has led the life of a prosperous farmer's son, interrupted only by the years

spent in acquiring a thorough business education. He attended Elliott College at Burlington, Iowa, and Bryant & Stratton's at St. Joseph, Missouri, from which latter institution he graduated with high honors. Co-extensive with his agricultural pursuits, he has had mercantile and banking connections, but some time since decided to concentrate all his efforts in farming and stock raising. In 1891, on the death of his father, he became the executor of the paternal estate, and has administered the same with such ability as to greatly increase its value by adding one thousand acres. He made a business-like and eminently successful campaign in 1896, and was triumphantly elected on the fusion ticket, running ahead of the vote for presidential electors by several hundred. He served as a member of the committees on finance, ways and means, railroads, apportionment, and insurance.

HE second district, Pawnee county, is represented in the house by Hon. William Sutton, of Table Rock. He was born in Jo Daviess county, Illinois, April 7, 1844, and there resided until 1861, when be became a volunteer in the Fremont Rangers, serving under General Fremont until his command in the west was at an end. The independent bat-