ROLLIN T ANDREWS

Senator Rollin T. Andrews, of Pardee, Atchison county, Kansas, has achieved an enviable record during his brief legislative career. He did not seek the position; it was a clear case of the place seeking the man, and he has in every way proven himself the man for the place. In the legitimate sense of the term he is a self-made man. The statement that a man is self-made does not necessarily imply that he began his active career in life without education or social prestige. That was no doubt true of many men some generations ago, but conditions have changed, and the man of education who succeeds today has to win out against the competition of other men not less efficiently equipped for the fight.

Rollin T. Andrews was born near Wyanet, Bureau county, Illinois, March 11, 1860, a son of Thomas W. and Emeline (Smith) Andrews. His father, Thomas W. Andrews, a native of Mount Gilead, Ohio, was a student at Horace Mann's college in northern Ohio. Later he was a printer, but in course of time studied law and was admitted to the bar. He was in the volunteer service of the United States army during the war of the Rebellion, and died from disease contracted while in the discharge of his duties as a soldier, in May, 1866, at the age of twenty-six. His untimely removal terminated a life full of brilliant possibilities.

Thomas W. Andrews' father came directly to Ohio from Scotland, where the history of the Andrews family may be traced for many generations.

Mrs, Emeline (Smith) Andrews, widow of Thomas W. Andrews, lives in Galesburg, Illinois. Her children are Senator Rollin T. Andrews; Cornelia. wife of George W. Williams, of LeRoy, Ohio; and Arthur and Ernest Andrews, of Galesburg. Isaac Smith, whose daughter became the wife of Thomas W. Andrews and the mother of Senator Andrews, emigrated from Pennsylvania to Kane county, Illinois, in 1832, and later removed to Bureau county, that state.

Senator Andrews spent his boyhood at Abingdon, Illinois, where he gained his primary education and prepared for a collegiate course. He was for three years a student at Abingdon College, and for one year a student at Oskaloosa, Iowa. He finished his classical studies at Drake University, Des Moines, Iowa, which institution conferred upon him the degree of Ph. B. He taught school in Illinois three years during his college career, and for one year succeeding his graduation from Drake University he was employed in the same way in Iowa. He was married to Miss Emma Dunshee in 1886.

In 1888 Senator Andrews bought a farm in southwest Missouri, and became active and successful as a tiller of the soil. There he remained until 1891, when he went to Atchison county and assumed charge of the Dunshee homestead, near Pardee. This property had belonged to his father-in-law, Professor Norman Dunshee, one of the pioneer settlers of Kansas, who located near Pardee as early as 1858 and became conspicuous in Atchison cotinty.

Professor Dunshee was a native of the state of Ohio. He was educated at Western Reserve College, and was an associate teacher in Hiram College, Hiram, Ohio, with ex-President James A. Garfield, and left that institution to remove to Kansas, where he was a farmer until 1871, when he accepted the chair of mathematics in Oskaloosa College. at Oskaloosa, Iowa. In 1878 he accepted a similar position with the college at Abingdon, Illinois. In 1880 he took the chair of ancient languages at Drake University, at Des Moines, Iowa, and he held that professorship in that institution at his death in 1890. He was married at Hiram, Ohio, to Miss Calesta O. Carleton, who died at the home of Senator Andrews, in February, 1899. Their two children are Josie, wife of Dr. E. C. Scott, of Maxwell, Iowa, and Mrs. Senator Andrews, of Pardee, Atchison county, Kansas. Mrs. Andrews is a graduate of Oskaboosa College, Iowa, and for five years taught languages at Drake University, Des Moines, Iowa.

Senator Andrews has not been by training a politician, and it may be truly said that, in the ordinary sense of the term, he is not a politician at all. He was recognized as a man of broad views and much patriotism, who would make a model representative of the people, and was urged to become a candidate for his present high office by prominent men of his party. A vacancy had occurred, occasioned by the death of Senator Walleck, of the second district, comprising the counties of Atchison and Jackson, and Mr. Andrews secured the nomination as candidate to fill the vacancy. The opposing candidate was ex-Governor George W. Glick, whom he defeated at the polls by more than six hundred votes.

Senator Andrews was one of the active Republican members of the upper house during the last session of the Kansas legislature. He was placed on the committees on fees and salaries, education, cities of the first class and military affairs, and was made chairman of the committee on revision of the journal. He was the author of many measures of local importance, notable of which were the act known as the bridge bills, which facilitated the collection of taxes from toll-bridge companies, and the act prohibiting a mayor or councilman from acting as attorney in cases adverse to the interests of the city they serve in their official capacities.

The family of Senator Andrews consists of himself, his wife and four adopted children, Julia, Marvel, Andrew and Arthur, whom they are rearing and educating with all the care and attention to detail that they would have bestowed on their own children, had their union been blessed with any. Senator Andrews is a whole-souled man, who loves mankind and counts no effort too great that promises to subserve the public interests. He is active and liberal in support of all such measures in a public way, and in private life has proven himself the true and helpful friend of more than one man whose needs made the ministration of a "friend indeed" particularly timely and grateful.

The same qualities of self-reliance and self-dependence which are the leading characteristics of successful pioneers in new countries are conspicuous in the intellectual constitution of the volunteer soldier. Hence, in our Civil war, many of our best soldiers were men who were then living or had in the past lived the hardy life of pioneers. The same ability that made many of these men leaders among their fellows in the organization of townships and counties, in the establishment of justice and in the planting of good and useful business enterprises, made them leaders of men on the battlefields of the south. To the army of our country Kansas contributed many such pioneer soldiers. Some of them were not only soldiers, but sons of soldiers. One of this class who rose to distinction was Major Tavner B. Pierce, who, since the war, has been in the foremost rank of those who have struggled to make Kansas the garden spot of America and the free home of men and women with brains and heart to recognize liberty and love it.