The Ekalaka Eagle (Ekalaka, Mont.) 1909-1920, April 27, 1917, Image 3

• 11 THg EICALAKA EAGLE ACHIEVEMENT OF WM. B. THOMPSON BORN IN VIRGINIA arrY 11141 IS NOW, BIG MAN IN FINANCIAL WORLD. Gave 41100,000 to Belgian Relief Fund, as Starter for the Rocky Mountain Club's Donation; Tend- ed Public SfhooIs of Butte and Columbia University. William B. Thompson, who was born in Virginia City and grew up' to - Manhood in Montana, is one of half a dozen Montanans who have achieved most for themselves. He went to New York, a young broker, about 20 years age. The narration of what he has accomplished in the world of finence Would fill a large volume— The Boston New Bureau, in a recent issue, paid this tribute to Mr. Thonipson: \The record breaking annual re- port of the Inspiration , Copper com- PeeY, now one of the foremost per- ., phyry copper mines of the world, calls attention to apother great achievement in mining by its presi- dent, William Boyce Thempson. When he became identified with In- spiration it was not generally re- garded as a big propoeition. Mr. Thompson was' a great believer in the property and that hie early fore- casts have been borne out is evident from the fact that the mine is now producing at the rate of over 133,- 000,000 pounds of copper annually, with a market value for its capital stock of close to $70,000,060. Gave $100,000 to the Belgians. \Had it not been for the European • war, William Boyce Thompson might have been able to continue to do big things eommercially and get away with his deeire to keep out of the public limelight. He gave $100,000 for Belgian' relief and 'John Hays - - 2 -3-lammond, president of s the Rocky 'Mountain club, was requested to keep the name of the denor a secret when delegated to announce that the club would begin a campaign for re- lief' of the suffering Belgians with. this $100,,000 as a starter. Mr. Ham- mond kept his word, but every one of the 1,500 meMbers of the Rocky Mountain club guessed correctly that W. B. Thon'tpson was the giver and that before he was through he and his friends would swell this $100,000 to at least seven figures. As one member put it: \When Thompson starts something he always finishee it, obstacles notwithstanding.\ \Of course the newspapers learned that the Rocky Mountain club had sacrificed the construction of a new $1,000,000 club house to devote its time, money and energy to the, relief of the suffering Belgians. lie is or- ganizing and helping to equip a motorcycle machine gun batterY vith headquarters at Yonkers. He a banker, miner and farmer. \He has an estate of close to 100 acres on rthe Hudson near Yonkers and grows everything this climate will stand for. He has se'ent hun- dreds of thousands for scientific re- search. He is deeply interested in flowers and has been a successful exhibitor at flower shows in 'New York and other cities, but hitt en- thusiasm for growing things does not atop here. He can take up the po- tato, the onion or any other veget- able and exploit its merits. Mr. Thompson hae large, conservatories and gardens on his Yonkers eetate, and what he cannot grow to advant- age there he grows in Montana. Born in Virginia City. \Incidentally It may be stated, Mr. Thompson was born, in Virginia City, Montana, May 13, 1869. His father, Wialiam Thompson, 'was a • Montana pioneer who became inter- ested in mining and lumbering. The elder Thompson vvas at one time mayor of Butte and rendered not- able service in improving the city government and securing the public safety. He also served several terms in the Montana territorial and - state legislature. Mr. Thompson's mother was a daughter of Major James R. Boyce', also a Montana pioneer and a descfndant of the old Smith and Marshall families of 'Virginia, to the lattet of which belonged John Mar- shall, the famous chief justice of the supreme court of the United States. \Mr. Thompson was educated in the public schools of Butte, the •Phillips -Exeter _Academy and the school of mines of ColuMbi univer- sity. He nes given to Phillips-Exe- , . ter acaaemy a gymnasium, which is now in course of construction and to cost $200,000. He has given to the city of Butte a park, which has been named for him. Keeps in the Background. \W. it Thompson is self-made: shys at publicity, and has marvellous ability in keeping in the back- ground, notwithstanding his activity in big things, commercially, industri- ally and financially. 'His busineee career wae begun in e' Butte, where he engaged in mining, banking and manufacturing, and in 1899 he came s 'east and, with the ex- eeption of tOo_yeears spent in Bos- ton, has.devoted 111'111s activities to New Yotk. \Mr. Thompson has been a direc- tor of the federal reserve bank of New York from its inception. He is also president of the'Magma Arizona railroad and a director of the Metro- politan Insurance company. He was a reptiblipan eleetor In 1912 and a delegate to the republican national conve,tion in 1916. He is the vice- presi ent of the Rocky Mountain club. of 'New York, of which organ- ization he is very proud.\ ,d s 4 4 Phlicei \If your school of stenography is so flourishing, *why do you advertise for pupils every day?\ asked he Caller. \Because we are short-handed, suppose,\ replied the head of the school of stenography. osiopP F PATRIARCHS OF EARLY DAYS Top Row, Left to Right—John Adkins, Jacob Loeb-, John B. Sanford, William Reed, C. C. Stubbs, Name Unknown. Middle Row, Left* Itight—D. F. Hedges, John B. Wilson . , Herman Gans. William E. Cox, John D. Thompson, Name Unknown, Judge N. Hilger. lbetont Row, Left to Bight—Andrew O'Connell, ('. P. Van Wart, Name tknotvn. The grand jury of Lewis and Clark county whose photograph is present- ed in this issue was the , first one called in the iounty after the erection of the present court house in 1890. Its members include men of promin- ence in Helena and the state 27 years ago. Nearly all of them are dead. C. F. Van Wart, who occupies the middle position in the front row is the only member of the jury still living in Helena, and at least 10 of them have been dead for some years, including Messrs Loeb, Sanford, Reed, Stubbs, Hedges, Wilson, Gans, Cox, Hilger and O'Connell. Mr. Adams is living at Butte. Mr. Thompson is also living, but, his ' place of residence is unknown to the , writer. , Judge Nicholas Heger, who died it ! few years ago, VMS the father of Da- vid Hilger, the prominent Lewietown banker and members of the Montana Panama -Pacific expoeition. Mr. Van Wart, who is nearly 80 years of age, is living in bueiness re- ' tirement at Helena, speaking of the business Nf the jury, said that one matter of considerable importance that came before it was an investiga- tion of the question of whether the Lewis and Clerk court house had been properly couteructed. It was charged that the founda- 1 tions were insecure; that there had been mining done under the site, and that the building rested upon an ' earthen shell over an underground ' excavations into which it might des- cend in case the shell should give way. Mr. Van Wart said that excavatione I around the foundation were made. and the grand jury made an examina- tion, and concluded that the building was safe. The jury recommended thet the county buy the ground north of the! building, which was_at that time cov-' ered with various structures, includ-1 ing a church. The ground was pur- I chased and converted into the tree - covered lawn that now fronts the building. \Part of effe business that came be- fore us, as I remember,\ said Mr. Van Wart, \was a murder - case. A man had murdered another in Kelsey gulch. I do not remember the names We indicted the defendant, and he was tried and convicted and sent to the penitentiary for life.\ The members of the jury were principally business men, with a sprinkling of ferment from the val- ley', They vvere representative mem- bers of tile responsible and intelli- gent part of the public and highly re- spected citizens of the community. HOW CONFEDERATES ATTEMPTED TO NAM VIIRGEIM CliTY IFOR JEFF DAVOS' WIFE But for the stirring events which distracted their attention the confed- erates who came to Montana in the early sixties might have attempted to swing the territory to the rebel cause. There were a great many individuals who s sympathized with the confederate - cause in Virginia City, when the town was new. It is Bald that when the doughty south- ern leader, General Price, was dis- astrously defeated in Missouri the wing of hfs army marched up the Missouri river, continuing their re- treat into the wilderneste There they learned of the gold discoveries in Montana, and, concluding that their_ cause was practically lost, be- came argonauts and went gold hunt- ing. But In their hearts they kept alight the fires of loyalty to Dixie, and they came very neav leaving per- manent evidence of that loyalty on the map of Montana. Virginia City was then practically Montana. Gold had just been discovered and the new district went by the name of Al- der gulch. The new Eldorado had not been christened. A group. of confederates got to- gether one night and decided to name the new gold camp \Varnia.\ Varina was the maiden name of Mrs. Jefferson Davis, wife of the president of the confederate states, and a woman much esteelned in the south. The chivalric southerners let it be known that the name of the town of Varina. The union men heard it. They discussed it indignantly. Something had to be done. They talked of calling a masi3 theeting of the minerty, and putting the question to a vote. But one resolute man saved them the trouble, and christened the town Virginia. Comes a Legal Document. This man was one of the miners' judge°. His name wee Bissell. He was a man of considerable force of character, and one of the leaders of the community. He was a loyal union man, and pronounced in his views. Also he was somewhat pep- peri: legal document came to him for his official approval. In this docu- ment the new town had been desig- nated \Varina.\ He heard of the christening party of the southerners, and was prepared for the emergency. \Varina he said judiciously. \What does 'Varina' mean?\ He was told that \Varina\ had been designated as the name of the town. \Where does the name come from, and who is 'Valetta',\ he demanded, although he knew all the time. He was told that Varina was the name of the wife et the president of the southern confederacy, and that the town had been named in her honor. Judge Bissell rose to the occasion. This was the first document that had been submitted to any miners' judge for approval, and he saw his oppor- tunity. \This is a union community,\ he roared. \Sympathizers with the reb- el cause are endeavoring to foist the name of the wife of the head of the rebellion on this town. will see to it that no such blot will mar the records of p this 'court.\ Swore From the Bedch. And, with a little picturesque pro- fanity, delivered in open court, and from the bench, he siezed a pen and expunged the name \Varina 'sub- stituting therefor •\Virginia.\ And so the new town was named Virginia. There are those who say that Bis- sell knew what was coming, and had agreed, after counseling with a num- ber'of the union leaders, to make this juditial repudiation of the con- federate name, and that his substitu- tion of the name, \Virginia was a sort of a. sop to the soutlierners, many of whom were from the old do- minion. J. X. Beidler, head of the Vigilan- tes, and one of the strong men of the territory, was a pronounced union man. He tells in his journal of a clash between the confederates and' the union men. It seems that a number of patrioticly inclined indi- viduals proposed to observe the Fourth of July. On July 3. 1864. they went out six miles from the town and selected a fine cedar flag pole. With infinite labor they brought the pole to the city and planted it in the center of the camp. It was all properly rigged up and the union men proposed to run up the stars and stripes in the morning of July 4. They had no idea that the pole would be molested. But the confederates heard of the undertaking, and in the still hours of the night, chopped the flagstaff down. The next morning, when the union men brought their flag down to run it up, they found their staff, and which they had worked so hard to bring to town, cut into cordwood. The flag raising was deferred. X. Beidler's own Story. ' \We were equal to any emergen- cy at that time,\ writes the Vigilante chieftain. \We sent out into the woods and procured another flagpole, 20 feet longer than the first one, and raised her on time and had the stars and stripes fluttering in the breeze. We were happy, but during the night some of the same gang stole some coal oil from a poor colored woman, saturated our pole with It and set it on. fire. We discovered what they had done in time and put out the tire.\ Uncle George Irvin, afterwards one of the most prominent men in the state, and who died in Butte a few years ago, also wrote of this in- cident. Mr. Irvin said\that a number ANNOUNCEMENT THE FAMOUS AUTO -PULL TRACTOR ATTACHMENT Will Advance i25.00 In Price After May 10th ORDER TODAY The only aub-agenta officially appointed in Montana at (late of this Issue are listed below: 1 - • _ . . Mr. B. E. Williams Whitewater Mr. W. R. Denhart Windham it. .1. Whittaker l'harles Comsteek Allssoula Hendon Auto & li ply Co.—..Sydney W. E. Thistlewood Roundup F. W. Bishop ..._'...-. .—...s .-.. Kremlin - 0 e T r w a l od d l n o e t Motor Inn Gardite Harlowton E. E. Lints It. E. Hunt Opbeim F C Wright Fort Ilenton Chas Seharfe ....-----.......-.;„ Cottonwood Motor Home Garage Shelby J. C. F. McLean Jordan C. A. HUNT & CO. GREAT FALLS, MONTANA. AGENT FOR MONTANA MONTANA CITIES BAR I. W. W. TALK JAILS AWAIT ANY WHO SPEAK AGAINST THE PRESIDENT OR THE GOVERNOR. Butte Police Break Up Meeting and the Chief Speaker Bids Officers Good -Bye from Rear of a Departing Train; German Drubs Another Traitor in Great Falls. RED CORPUSLES WILL CIRCULATE Industrial Workers of the World are not doing much talking in Mon- tana these. days. In half a dozen towns in the state members of this organization who have started ,ora- Lions against military service or the government have been called to ac- count by byetanders, who, in some cages, handled them roughly. In Great Falls an I. W. W. began a tirade againet the attitude of the United States in regard to the Eu- ropean war, when a little German tailor, who evidently had the right kind of patriotism for his adopted country, knocked the orator off the box on which he was standing and proceeded. to sit on him until a po- liceman appeared. The I. W. W. watt locked up. Butte has tabooed I. W. W. meet- ings as long as the war lasts, accord- ing to the announcement of Chief of Police Jerry Murphy, who issued or- ders by which plans for a big meet- ing in Finland hall were suddenly disarranged. s itagno Johnson, I. W. W. organizer, Vino was advertised cts lecturer for the evening, bid the po- lice good bye from the rear end of a train that was pulling out of Butte. \No one is going to condemn the president or the governor in Butte from a public platform or on the streets while we ere at war with Ger- many,\ declared the chief. \Anti- war meetinge will not be allowed, and if anyone attempts such sessions we have some cells below that are yawning felt him.' The man who was in charge of the meeting which had been called, and which was broken up by the police, spoke with a strong German accent when interviewed by a newspaper man. He said the 11100t lug was planned as a test case to learn the attitude of the police. 'it was learned. of young union men, including him- self, armed themselves and stood guard around the flagstaff until morning, after the attempt had been made to burn the etaff. The flag was not molested further. There were many acrimineus dis- cussions between the union men and the coltfederates, but soon the atten- tion of the belligerents was attracted by other considerations, the making of money, new discoveries and the organization of a semblance of law and order all had the effect of mak- ing the bellicose of both sides forget about the great war, and consider more of things closer to them. The next year peace was declared. MARY MACLANE, BUTTE AU- THORESS, IS BRINGING OUT ANOTHER BOOK. • • First Effort Created Literary Scum- tion, and Made School Girl Fun. ons and a Stike; Second Book Did Not SeU; Mary Says This Is sv. , Good One. Red commies Will circulate a- t the ., announcement that Mary MacLane, the Butte authoress, has written a new book. Mary modestly admits that its perusal will be good OM' tired business men. The new .effort is entitled, \I Mary MacLatte,\ starting out like . a pronounciamento of Venustiano Cerranza, but in the reading matter that follows there is more pep and paprika than in the effusians ef the first chief of the Mexicans. It is now 15 years since Mary Mao - Lane, then a fledging school girl of 19 summere, wrote the \Story of Mary MacLane.\ the publication of this book created a furore hi literary circles, and in a day, this young girl. who had never been out of the gray atmosphere of Butte, was famous. Second Book a Failure. The sales of the book were in keeping with the sensation it creat- ed, and Butte was given a lot of pub- licity because of her residence there. Mary realized about $20,000 in roy- alties the - first year of the book's publication. With this she went east and completed education. About two years later she brought out a second book. But it did not have the punch of the initial effort and its reception was not such as to bring her much financial emolument. When Butte awakened to the fact that outside of W. A. Clark and Jack Monroe, a celebrity was residing in their midst, Mary became the - objeet of much attention. The society woe men of the city decided that Mare should be taken into the inner cir- cle. So they planned a great coming out reception. Mery l out to be amused, attended. She was then in the first flush of her newly acquired fame. Some Butte matrons attempted to patron- ize her. She patronized right back 'and with interest. She said sharp things to those who would not know her when she was obscure. It seems that the trouble with Mary was that she thought out loud. Some gush- ing society queen would say: \Put 3Ie In It.\ \So you are the little girl who wrote the book. What is the name of the book?. It must be very in- teresting to write a book! The next time you write one I wish you would put me in it.\ Then Mary would say what she thought, and her thoughts were not always in complimentary vein. The eociety queen, somewhat ruffled, would pass her on to the next, with about the same result. Oh, it was a great party, that reception to Mary Machine. They talk about it in Butte yet. The party, from the viewpoint of the society leaders, was a failure. No further functions were given in honor of the young authoress, and it was years before some of the women who had been prominent in arranging the af- fair could bear to hear the function discussed. They were willing to ad- mit that Mary might be a genius, but insisted that she would never occasien the disciples of G. Harry Lehr to look to their laurels. Butte husbands laughed, read the book, and thereafter were foe Mary. Mary and Dick Kilroy. Mary west east to garner her tri- umphs, collect her royalties and: learn something of the big beyond. She did a few atelier assignments on some big Sunday newspapers, and brought out her second book. Then she dropped completely out of sight. until a few years ago she returned to Butte to visit relatives. Dick Kilroy was managing the Butte Evening News, Heinze's publi- cation, at the time. Dick had a fat purse and a desire for achievement. He sought out Mary and offered her employment on his paper. \I will go to work for you Mr. Kilroy, if you will send me down to Thermopolis, Wyoming, to write up a prize fight that will be pulled off there next week \- said Niary, who just fairly hated the spotlight. \Done said Dick, who is a Dub- lin graduate and always believed in brevity. So Mary went to Thermopolis. Her gambling blood was her undoing. She bet a wad of tuoney on the short - ender in the fight—and lost. The in- cident so disgusted Mary that she re- tired from journalism and also from public life.. Oar A lee Miller Contest.. Robert E. Mitchell claims that the oldest joke is the one about the col- ored preacher who was invited to dinner by a member of his flock. The host asked the preacher how he liked his chickens, and the preacher re- plied: \Well it's hard to say. De white ones is de easiest to find, but de black ones is de easiest to hide after gets 'em.\ • THIS GREAT FARBIERS' MUTUAL INSURANCE COMPANY Wrote Over $1,000,000.00 of Fire Insurance • ln the last four months for Montana farmers, because It COST 40 PER CENT LESS. Why pay exorbitant rates to the Old Line Companies? Write for full InfortnatIon. _ EQUITY MUTUAL FIRE INSURANCE COMPANY 27-28-2040-81\rod Block. °BRAT FALLS MONTANA. • fir .