Archive for December 7th, 2011

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Dec

Fort Dodge’s Live Ones: Sidney J. Bennett

   Posted by: admin    in People

The Fort Dodge Messenger: Dec. 7, 1906

Fort Dodge’s Live Ones: Sidney J. Bennett

As the first of a series of cartoons of “live ones of Fort Dodge,” the Messenger takes pleasure in presenting the well known face of our honored Mayor, Mr. Sidney J. Bennett.

The Mayor’s claims to fame are multitudinous and varied. A self-made man he lacks the usual human weakness of “worshiping (sic) his maker” that detracts from characters such as his.

Three times Mayor of Fort Dodge, and as often a member of the Board of Supervisors for the County, there are really no monuments of the progress and advancement of the City or County that do not bear the impress of his genius. Anybody who doubts the foregoing can easily be set right by a few minutes conversation with the subject of this sketch or any of his hosts of partisan friends and admirers.

Not only has Mr. Bennett achieved fame at home, but his services abroad are no less distinguished. It was he who bored the monster hole through the mountains of the Pacific Coast and gave to the world the “Stampede Tunnel; a work requiring a special knowledge of engineering, unbounded energy and superb leadership in the management of men; these qualities becoming most apparent in Mr. Bennett’s makeup in the fact that he completeed the work ahead of contract time, thus earning a large “Bonus” which laid the foundation of his ample fortune in the full enjoyment of which he is passing the years of his later life.

A soldier in the Civil War, a pioneer in western settlement, a politician  of the best type, and, above all, a truthful citizen in all cases, except where the size of the fish he caught is involved, the Mayor of Fort Dodge takes first rank for the sturdy fiber of manhood that makes for good citizenship.

It is with the sincere wish of many years of happiness and usefulness for our distinguished fellow citizen that this paper presents him to the readers; and when the time comes, as come it must to all, when he must retire to private life, to enjoy the contemplation of days well spent; whatever estimate is put upon his public services by those who may succeed him, all may have the consolation implied in Prince Hal’s comment on Falstaff: “We might have better spared a better man.”

(Editor’s note: As mentioned, this is the first in a series. I don’t currently have them all copied, but I’ll try to get the rest of them. Also, each of these is accompanied by a caricature, which I do not have scanned at this time.)

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