AMES ARTHUR EDGERTON, chief clerk of the bureau of labor and industrial statistics, was born at Plantsville, Ohio, January 30, 1869. He was educated in the common schools, taught while yet a mere boy, and made his way through Bartlett (Ohio) Academy, graduating at the head of the scientific class when sixteen. He received the degree of A. B. from the National Normal University at Lebanon, Ohio, in 1887. After valuable experience as an historical editor, he took a year's private course in English literature, followed by a review course in Marietta College, received the degree of A. M. from his alma mater and served as register in Marietta College for a time. He came to Nebraska in 1890, and has been connected with various daily and weekly journals, having held many responsible positions, including those of managing editor and proprietor. He has taken a high place among national writers in the reform journals and magazines of the country, and is widely known as secretary of the national committee of the people's independent party. In 1893 he was clerk of the committee on railroads in the house, rendering high service in protecting the famous maximum rate bill from legislative errors. He is

the author of several books, among which are Poems, "A Better Day," "Populist Hand-book" of two editions, is a member of the Shakespeare Society of New York, American Academy of Political and Social Science, and many other important societies. In March, 1895, he was married to Miss Blanche Edgerton, daughter of Hon. J. W. Edgerton, of Grand Island.

ON. JAMES C. DAHLMAN, the democratic member of the secretaries of the State Board of Transportation, was born in Texas December 15, 1856. For the past eighteen years he has lived in northwestern Nebraska, and has been engaged most of the time in the stock business. He was sheriff of Dawes county three terms, and two terms mayor of the city of Chadron. In both of these important public trusts his official administration was eminently satisfactory to the people. He was a delegate to the democratic national conventions in 1892 and 11896. He was one of the influential members of the invincible Bryan delegation. He made a brilliant record as chairman of the democratic state central committee in his management of the campaign in this state in 1896. He was married in 1884 in Union, Iowa, to Miss Hattie Abbott,

of Winterport, Maine, and they have one girl, eleven years old, named Ruth in honor of her grandmother, one of the descendants of a Puritan family who came to this country in the Mayflower. Secretary Dahlman is fitted both naturally and by civic experience to make a first-class official in the position he now holds, and such a record is confidently expected by all who know him.

ON. JOSEPH W. EDGERTON, the populist member of the secretaries of the State Board of Transportation, was born in Morgan county, Ohio, September 4, 1852. He received a good common school education and came to Nebraska in 1876, locating in Furnas county. He read law with W. S. Morlan, Esq., now of McCook, and was admitted to the bar in 1879. Two years later he located in Polk county, where he resided for six years, going from there to Omaha, where he practiced his profession in the two Omahas for several years with success. In 1894 he located in Grand Island, his present home. He enlisted in the movement for national reform in politics as early as 1882 and has been an aggressive champion of the rights of the people, working through the agencies of

the anti-monopoly, union labor, and populist organizations. He was the candidate of the union labor forces for supreme judge in 1887, ran for congress in the first district on the same ticket a year later, in 1890 was the populist candidate for attorney general, and in 1891 their candidate for supreme judge. He was married in 1875 to Miss Jennie Selby, of Athens, Ohio. Mr. Edgerton is a politician of the better class, strictly conscientious and unostentatiously patriotic.

ON. GILBERT L. LAWS, the free silver republican member of the secretaries of the Board of Transportation, was born in Richland county, Illinois, March 11, 1838. He was of Scotch-Irish parentage, and his antecedents politically were whigs and radical republicans. His early life was devoted to the arduous duties of farm labor, dropping corn, shearing sheep, and harvesting in the fields. Under difficulties he embraced the few educational advantages that were at hand. He did chores for his board, worked in the lead mines, rafted railroad ties, helped with a wheelbarrow in the construction of the Illinois Central, roughed-it on steamboats, enduring hardships and over