Ben P. Hoover Biography


	This biography appears on pages 1186-1187 in "History of Dakota 
	Territory" by George W. Kingsbury, Vol. IV (1915) and was 
	scanned, OCRed and edited by Maurice Krueger, mkrueger@iw.net.

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				BEN P. HOOVER. 

	Ben P. Hoover was born in Wayne, Wisconsin, in 1854; came to 
Dakota territory ill 1871; and located permanently at Fort Bennett, in 
1876. He engaged in stock-raising and government contracts until 1879, 
when he moved to Fort Sully and was in charge of a post trader's store 
until 1883. He held the office of county commissioner of Sully county 
from 1883, until January 1, 1885; was a member of the constitutional 
convention held at Huron in 1883; was appointed United States court 
commissioner by Judge A. J. Edgerton and held the office until 
Cleveland was inaugurated in 1885. He continued in stock-raising until 
1893, located in Gettysburg, was reappointed United States court 
commissioner by Judge Edgerton and resigned when John E. Carland 
(democrat) was appointed United States circuit judge for South Dakota. 

	After the defalcation of W. W. Taylor in 1885, Mr. Hoover was 
appointed receiver of the Gettysburg State Bank. From 1891 to 1910 he 
was employed as legislative representative for the Chicago, Milwaukee & 
St. Paul and the Chicago & Northwestern Railway Companies; and the 
American and United States Express Companies and the Western Union 
Telegraph Company. He was presented with a gold watch by the members of 
the legislature at the close of the session in 1901, and a diamond ring 
at the close of the session of 1903. 

	Of his legislative work the correspondent of the St. Paul 
Dispatch has the following to say: 

	"His effectiveness is in his ability to pick up the strings from 
other men's broken packages, restore the wreckage to the hand of its 
owner and in some way to weave into the meshes of the string the ties 
of a common interest. Ben Hoover knows the purposes of the most 
secretive men by knowing the humblest of men, bell boys, hack drivers, 
janitors, clerks' and chief clerks, senators and representatives, 
boards and state officers are all alike to him, and from each he learns 
something about the other fellow. 

	"A word uttered here has a bearing on something there, and Ben 
Hoover gets that word, associates it with another word or an idea or a 
desire some other place; he pieces the segments of string together; it 
finally becomes the one important string, it touches all interests. 

	"Knowledge, not force, is power, and that is where Ben Hoover is 
more powerful than some men in the vocation of a professional lobbyist 
which he has reduced to a science. By his method of picking up here a 
little and there a little he knows more of the characteristics of the 
membership of the legislature on the opening day than any other man, 
and he has probably saved more new and untried members from 
embarrassment through their own inexperience, than has any other man. 

	"More than this, he protects the men who favor his interests as 
well as those of the corporation which he represents. It is claimed 
that no one ever heard a threat pass Ben Hoover's lips. He is not a 
destroyer, but a builder. There is scarcely an educational or other 
institution, or an important act of legislature, or a public policy in 
the realm of the state that does not bear some mark of his 
indefatigable labor, his effort as a builder. Ben Hoover is a lobbyist, 
perhaps the most effective legislative agent now or ever in the state, 
but among 133 members of the legislature, and seventy-five elective and 
appointive officers, clerks and chaplains there is no personal enemy." 

	He is a member of the Masonic blue lodge and Eastern Star Chapter 
at Gettysburg, South Dakota; the Royal Arch Chapter at Faulkton, South 
Dakota; the Knights of Pythias, the Independent Order of Odd Fellows 
and Rebekah and the Woodmen Lodges at Gettysburg. From 1907 until the 
present date, 1915, he has been engaged in the mercantile business at 
Gettysburg.