E. L. Abel Biography, McCook Co., SD

	This file contains the biography of E. L. Abel from "Who's Who in South
	Dakota" by O. W. Coursey (1913) 

	Scanning by John Rigdon <jrigdon@mail.gabn.net>, final editing by 
	Joy Fisher <sdgenweb@yahoo.com> from a book in the possession of Joy Fisher.

	This file may be freely copied for non-profit purposes; all other rights, 
	including the right to publish this file in any format is reserved.


            LITTLE, BUT OH! MY

     "PREMIERES FUNERAILIES" (the first funeral) is the
inscription on a touching piece of triple statuary in the north
end of the Art Institute in Chicago. This same embodies Adam
and Eve carrying in front of them the nude form of their son,
Abel, killed by his brother, Cain, ready to deposit it in an open
tomb and it commemorates the first murder.

     Abel is represented in the Bible as an ideal son. Those who
believe in the re-incarnation of the soul may find some consola-
tion in the reputation that Abel's ideal soul is now re-incar-
nated in another Abel-the honorable E. L., of Huron.

     Here is a little fellow - "little, but Oh! my," "abel" to
hold his own with the best of them, whether in business, in pol-
itics, in the literary world, in oratory or in debate. "Abel?"
Yes; an "abel" man (phonetic spelling brings out the sense.)

     One of the first things a soldier must learn during actual
warfare is not to flinch under fire.  The same thing holds true in
political warfare. The fellow standing on the "stump" firing
his vocal musket at his hearers, who can withstand a return fire
without flinching, is the fellow who will win.  Such a political
soldier is little E. L. Abel. For this reason he makes an ideal
campaigner. He can go into the heart of the enemy's country,
open a political meeting as a Republican Evangel, parry off the
fiery darts of putrid iniquity hurled at him by his assailants, and
come out of the melee undisturbed in body, mind or spirit.

     Abel is a lawyer by training, but a banker by profession.  
His legal training serves as a great help to him in business af-
fairs, - not in getting out of trouble, but in keeping out. In
discussing this matter in a letter to one of his friends (which
mysteriously fell into our hands,) he said:

     "I  have  found, however, that we cannot always follow our
bent. If so, I would be at the bar in place of behind a bank
counter. When I should have started to practice law I simply
could not get away from the necessity, and that immediate, of
getting bread and butter to fill the mouths of a wife and baby,
and I had not the nerve to risk their welfare upon my ability,
knowing that they would suffer if I should fail to make good as
a disciple of Blackstone in action."

     Illinois gave birth to Mr.
Abel at Springfield, thirteen
days after Abe Lincoln's elec-
tion to the presidency in 1860.  
Having spent his boyhood dur-
ing those strenuous days he
became inoculated with a
spirit of loyalty and patriot-
ism that has lasted him through
life.
                                    [photo - E. L. ABEL]
     His education was ac-
quired in the city schools at
Springfield, in the University
at Carbondale, Illinois, and in
the hard school of experience.  
Like many others he started
out in life as a country school
teacher, and like thousands of
others have done, he used the
teaching profession merely as
a stopping stone to something
better.  During his odd mo-
ments he read law, and in
1884 he was admitted to the Illinois bar. The next year he was
elected city attorney.

                    ADOPTED BY SOUTH DAKOTA

     Tired of "down east" methods and believing that the "golden
west" held greater opportunities for a young man, Mr. Abel
"pulled stakes"  in 1887 and struck west. He settled at Bridge-
water, S. D., and engaged in banking and in the practice of law.
     "Some men are born great, some achieve greatness, and some
have greatness thrust upon them," said an old sage long ago.
Abel belongs to the latter class. Peculiarly enough, he has never
been an office seeker, but since coming to this state, he has been
almost constantly an office holder. Offices of various kinds have
been clinging to his political skirts like a bull-pup to a bone.

     At Bridgewater they made him alderman, then mayor, and
they kept him on the board of education for twelve consecutive
years. Governor Mellette appointed him trustee of the Sioux
Falls penitentiary in 1888. In 1902 McCook county sent him to
the legislature as state senator, and in 1904 they returned him
with an overwhelming majority. For awhile he edited the Salem
Pioneer Register. Then in 1905 he removed to Huron, and two
years later he established the City National Bank at that place
and became its president. Last year he was elected president of
the board of trustees of Huron College.

      While in the state senate, Abel was a power for good. He
hoped to shape our oil inspection law which has since been cop-
ied by ten other states. He introduced and steered through the
senate an anti-trust law that was a model. Corporations rushed
on their lobbyists and defeated it in the house.

                MANY SIDED FELLOW

     It will readily be seen that Abel is a many sided fellow, a
symmetrical man, if you please. We have already detected him
to be a teacher, lawyer, banker, politician, and statesman. But
this is not all, he is also an orator and a poet.  Abel is one of
the happiest combinations of literary ability and business instinct
that we have ever had in the state. He has delivered the great-
est number of addresses on the greatest variety of subjects of any
man in South Dakota.

     His addresses are all literary jewels, clad in garlands of
rhetoric, studded with diamonds of speech, and they sparkle and
glitter before us at this time such a large collection of them that we
feel at a loss, and utterly incompetent, to select for publication
herein any one of them or any part of the same. Again it is
scarcely necessary, for he has spoken during the past twenty-
three years in every town of any size in the state.

     His style can readily be caught, however, from a couple
paragraphs taken from his Memorial address before the Elk's
Lodge:

     "The great mission of our order is to bring men nearer to
each other and to develop more completely the brotherhood of
man. Fraternalizing human hearts is the greatest and most im-
portant duty each of us is called upon to perform, for love weaves
into life the woof and warp of happiness, without which the
heart is as barren as a desert.

                    *   *   *   *

     "The perfume of the flowers we place upon a brothers' coffin
cannot reach back and bring solace to his troubled hours while
yet he trod the troubled path of life, and the tears we shed upon
his grave can never heal the wounds we made in life upon his
tortured heart.

	"Let us place our flowers upon the graves of our departed
brothers, and mingle with them our sorrowing tears to give ex-
pression to our grief; but while life lasts let us not forget to give
each other every day the beautiful flowers of brotherly love and
kindness, then when the cord of life is cut and some brother falls
into that sleep from which no awakening comes, we can stand be-
side the grave and place our flowers upon the coffin which holds
his lifeless form, with a serene feeling of satisfaction in the fact
that our floral offerings are but the emblem of those we gave
while he was still our cherished companion in the pilgrimage of
life."

     The heart and character and brotherly devotion of the man
are amply set forth in the above paragraphs. But we dare not
close without giving to our readers one of his beautiful, patriotic,
inspiring poems. It should be reproduced by every newspaper in
the state, and be published in our school readers.

              KNOW YE THE LAND?

     Know ye the land where the blue joint doth flourish,
     And cattle on prairies grow heavy with fat;
     Where the white-coated sheep in winter do nourish
     The grasses which cover the earth like a mat;
     Where the growing of wheat brings the gold from the east,
     Where people ne'er hunger but are ever at feast;
     Where the owner of sheep has a fortune in sight,
     And hard times are past while the future is bright;
     Where potatoes, rye, barley and long-headed oats
     Make the farmer's life easy in the raising of shoats;
     Where the cow's golden butter and the fruit of the hen
     Are the products which bring such large fortunes to men;
     Where the country is blessed with the richest of soil,
     And bountiful harvests reward man for his toil;
     Where bright gold and silver in profusion abound
     And beautiful jasper for building is found;
     Where churches in plenty raise toward heaven their spires
     And schools in great numbers furnish learning's desires;
     Where the song of the plow boy is heard early at morn
     As he goes forth to till the broad-acres of corn;
     Where the maid's rosy cheeks are the youth's wild delight
     While their beautiful eyes shine like stars of the night;
     Where matrons meet age with faces so fair
     That they seem ever youthful, though silvered their hair;
     Where Hygeia's blessings are showered upon all
     And summer keeps smiling until late in the fall;
     Where winters are short and soon melt into spring;
     Where the harvest is crowned by Mondamin, the king;
     Where the flower of its youth to rescue suffering afar,
     Promptly respond to the call of the nation to war?
     Know ye he land? 'Tis the land which we love,
     Which hath been bountifully blessed by the Father above;
     'Tis our fair South Dakota which nature has blest,
     Affording humanity a place of sweet rest;
     And today she invites the proud sons of the east
     To sit at her tables and partake of her feast.

     (Later.-Since the above was written, Mr. Abel has been
nominated and elected Lieutenant-Governor of South Dakota;
and, at the time of going to press his political star is greatly in
the ascendency.)