Edward J. Mannix, Jr. Biography


	This biography appears on pages 1155-1156 in "History of Dakota 
	Territory" by George W. Kingsbury, Vol. V (1915) and was 
	scanned, OCRed and edited by Maurice Krueger, mkrueger@iw.net.

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				EDWARD J. MANNIX, JR.
				  By Roy M. Mayham.

	Edward J. Mannix, Jr., of Sioux Falls, South Dakota, editor and 
publisher of the Commercial News, Mannix National Trade Regulator, a 
monthly magazine of national importance and high reputation among 
retail merchants in every line of business, as well as among men 
prominent in manufacturing, jobbing and wholesale branches of trade, 
was born at Malone, Franklin county, New York, June 4, 1860. In the 
intervening years he has been a railroad telegrapher, a fruit jobber, a 
traveling salesman, an editor and a lecturer, and continues to combine 
the latter two avocations in a field that his own endeavors have made 
of increasingly greater importance in the mercantile world. 

	Educated in the Franklin Academy at Malone, New York, before he 
had attained his majority "Ed" Mannix had started for the west and 
begun his upward climb in fortunes in the state of Illinois, May 1, 
1880, as a telegrapher for the Chicago & Alton Railway. Another and 
better opportunity was offered in September of the same year when he 
removed to Sioux Falls as manager for the Northwestern Telegraph 
Company, afterwards the Western Union Telegraph Company. He remained 
with that company for nine years and even today the sound of an 
instrument tapping out the Morse code makes a furtive appeal to his 
hand and ear. 

	For a time after his employment with the Western Union he engaged 
in the wholesale fruit business. Ending his service in that line of 
work, he took a step that has since shown itself to have been perhaps 
the most important in his career. He became a commercial traveler. For 
fifteen years he put his whole heart into his work, from the beginning 
as a typewriter salesman through the advancing steps that brought an 
increasing valuation on his services as the representative of a vinegar 
manufacturer, to a traveler for some of the best known clothing firms 
in the country. Every day of his experience as a commercial traveler 
brought him in close touch with and to a deeper knowledge and insight 
into the problems of the small town merchant that afterward became of 
the utmost value to him. Information that he obtained during his years 
"on the road" helped to formulate a big idea which had gradually taken 
shape in his mind. As early as 1895, he began to notice the 
encroachments of the mail order houses over the country and even at 
that time foresaw what their growth would mean to the small town 
merchant. 

	In 1897 Mr. Mannix started the publication of the Commercial News 
to promulgate his ideas. He continued as a traveler for seven years 
longer, while, as a side venture in which he was fast becoming the more 
interested, he issued the lively new monthly magazine that soon found a 
battle awaiting it when, on the side of the small town retail merchant, 
he took up the big stick against the mail order houses. The test came 
in an injunction suit brought against him by Montgomery Ward & Company 
of Chicago that was thrown out of the federal district court when it 
came there to the attention of Judge John Carland, then sitting in the 
district of South Dakota. 

	From this on, the business of publishing the Commercial News, now 
national in its scope and importance, grew slowly, steadily, surely, 
and Editor Mannix quit the road to give his whole attention to the 
cause in which he had entered. Getting old is, in the opinion of "E. 
J.," a bad habit. He does not believe in retiring from business, nor in 
being driven out, else the mail order houses would long ago have 
overcome him. He believes that men have softening of the brain only 
because they refuse to use their gray matter. And, certainly, he has 
proven his theories. 

	One of his big ambitions is to keep the small towns on the map. 
About 1914, Editor Mannix, through the medium of his magazine, made his 
first definite move in that direction, in an attempt to form a closer 
fraternity between merchants and farmers. By the middle of 1915 he had 
so far achieved the initial steps of his plan, growing out of the 
organization of more than fifty Farmers, and Merchants, Clubs in four 
different states, that he had perfected the groundwork for a national 
federation of such clubs, with headquarters at Sioux Falls. For two 
years he was secretary of the South Dakota Retail Merchants, 
Association. 

	Mr. Mannix was married on the 3d of October, 1883, in Sioux 
Falls, South Dakota, to Miss Claudia E. Broker, and they have two 
children, a son and daughter, both of whom are grown. Mr. Mannix has 
not taken a very active part in politics and has held no political 
office except that of alderman of Sioux Falls for one year. For nearly 
ten years he was secretary-treasurer of Sioux Falls Council, No. 100, 
United Commercial Travelers. He is very loyal to home institutions and 
gives his best work to community building.