1937 Harry Detlef Lute

Harry Lute, Farm Organization Leader

(Presented by Robert E. Holland at the Annual Meeting of the Hall of Agricultural Achievement, December 7, 1937.)

“Harry Detlef Lute, farmer and stockman, was born at Holstein, Germany, January 8, 1870, and has been a resident in the United States for 61 years.” So reads the first paragraph of a biographical sketch apparently written in 1931 and found among the papers of Harry Lute following his death December 23, 1933.

His father, John Lute, who was also born in Holstein, Germany, came to the United States in 1869 and became a section foreman with the Union Pacific Railroad in the vicinity of North Platte.

Harry’s early life is best told by Mrs. Lute, his widow, who still lives at Paxton, Nebraska. She says, “He was fifteen months old when his mother came from Germany to the section house at Nichols, a lone building nine miles from the nearest habitation. The first ten years in America was spent in this environment, at section houses in Nichols, Barton, Colorado, and Brule. Except for younger brothers and sisters, he had no playmates.”

“When he was eight years old, he entered school at North Platte, staying with relatives during the week. He went home on the train Friday evening and returned the same way Monday Morning.”

“The family left the railroad in 1881 and lived at Ogallala, his father going into the cattle business. They began building up the ranch at Paxton and moved there, I believe, in 1884. Cattle raising was at first the only line, but general farming and irrigation farming, after 1895, was carried on quite extensively. A great deal of hard work and responsibility must have fallen on Harry’s shoulders in the operation of this, his father’s ranch, because the father was an invalid the last five years of his life.” (His father died in 1901.)

“Harry’s schooling must have been rather hap-hazard, beginning at North Platte and attending the winter months at Ogallala until his was fourteen. He attended the Des Moines Business College a few months when he was perhaps eighteen. He spent two years in Lincoln attending the School of Agriculture, graduating in the spring of 1904.” That concludes the quotation from Mrs. Lute, and may we add concerning his schooling that he was an outstanding student.

On September 24, 1904, he was married to Emma Lulu Woods at Ogallala. She was born at Scotland, Indiana, and before her marriage was a schoolteacher. They had two daughters, Marjorie and Harriet, the latter now teaching at Paxton.

Following marriage, he moved to a farm adjoining his mother’s ranch, which he had purchased a few months before. The following fifteen years were largely taken up in improving and enlarging this farm. A modern home with trees and shrubbery replaces the very small, inconvenient house that was the first home. Good barns and sheds provided the protection for horses and the Angus herd of which Harry was very proud. Several good groves of trees, in a part of the state where growing trees means work and care, shows his industry and desire to improve rural life. The elder Lute and Harry were pioneers in the feeding of cattle in western Nebraska. In the early days these were marketed in Chicago. Some 9,000 acres were included in the ranching and farming operations, and this in turn included a very sizeable acreage of irrigated alfalfa and sugar beets.

“To farm people throughout Nebraska and surrounding states, Mr. Lute was known through his regular contributions to the columns of The Nebraska Farmer. Especially were the writings of Mr. Lute read by farmers and livestock men in the western part of the state. Mr. Lute wrote his column with a broad understanding of agriculture and with a deep and sincere liking for his work. ‘He gave us the local slant’, said a western Nebraska farmer. ‘We will miss him.’”

I wish to quote a short article from the May 13th, 1908, issue of The Nebraska Farmer, which gives an insight into Mr. Lute’s thought processes.

“FADS

‘I got my corn from Will over in Iowa. Will does not take much to monkey work but his oldest boy is a sort of a faddist and took up the seed corn fad and I’ll be hanged if he hasn’t taken prizes at the fairs and Will raises more and better corn than he ever did.’ So spoke a neighbor to me some time ago. I once met the lad referred to. He is from 15 to 17 years of age now.

As the man spoke, I thought: If to raise corn that will win at the fairs; if to grow corn that will increase the yield and the quality is a fad, then give us more faddists.

To be a faddist in that sense of the word means to possess a clear brain and an ideal with energy and stick-to-it-iveness to work up to this ideal, for it is not the work of a day to reach the desired end.

If to be a faddist means courage to break away from beaten paths - to get out of the ruts; if it means clear insight to realize the needs and to recognize those things that will best subserve those needs; if it means to have resolution to carry these ideas to a successful conclusion, then speed the day that there may be many more faddists.

If to be a faddist is to have in mind an ideal ear of corn; to select in the fall toward this definite standard and to carefully test each ear, then would that every farmer in the corn belt were a faddist.

Let us all, as farmers, be faddists enough to grow more corn per acre of the very best type suited to our conditions. We may do this by rigid selection, careful testing and better cultivation.”

I might say in passing that this was taken from a page in The Nebraska Farmer which was the “Nebraska Section of the National Corn Exposition” and which had as its motto “Nebraska, the First Corn State in the Union.”

For more than 25 years his column was a regular part of the magazine and gained a wide and interested following. In addition to his writing for The Nebraska Farmer he wrote numerous articles for other farm papers and for school papers.

Harry Lute was never a candidate for public office with one exception. He was a candidate for and served in the Nebraska Constitutional Convention in 1919 and 1920. To strive for political office was foreign to his nature.

Many positions of high degree came to him unsought. He was a delegate to several national conventions of the Nebraska Farm Bureau Federation and Farmers Educational and Cooperative Union of Nebraska. He was Nebraska delegate to the dry farming congress at Lethbridge, Alberta, Canada, in 1913; a delegate to the Agricultural Conference called by President Harding in 1921. He represented the Nebraska Shippers before the Interstate Commerce Commission in 1922 in the Western Hay and Grain Case.

During the late war he was chairman of the Paxton Four Minute Speakers. He was a member of the Paxton Methodist Episcopal Church, the Red Cross, and the Commercial Club. In the Odd Fellows he had been through all the chairs and had the State Degree on both the subordinate and encampment branches. He was a member of the Nebraska State Historical Society and the Nebraska State Young Men’s Christian Association. He served on the Paxton School Board some ten years, occupying at different times the offices of Secretary and President. He was President of the local and county Farmers Union. He served ten years as Sunday School Superintendent of a rural church which he attended. Thus, it will be seen that he was active in all those affairs whose purpose was the improvement and upbuilding of the community.

His devotion to agriculture brought many demands upon his time for service. He was a lecturer for the Farmers Institute from 1905 to 1907. In reality the Farmers Institute presented the first opportunity to any to serve in a broad way the agricultural interests of the State.

For five or six years he served on the State Executive Board and the State Exchange Board of the Farmers Union. All these activities permitted him to remain on the farm and to personally direct its operation - in fact to participate actively a large part of the time.

Then came a call, the acceptance of which would necessitate removing from the farm - a call to the Secretaryship of the Nebraska Farm Bureau Federation. Up to this time, C.W. Pugsley had been serving without pay as Secretary of the Federation during the short period since its organization. Mr. Pugsley had been the first Agricultural Extension Director in Nebraska, was then editor of the Nebraska Farmer, was later Assistant secretary of Agriculture under Henry C. Wallace and is now President of the South Dakota State College. May I quote Dr. Pugsley’s words in the Federation Board’s attempt to induce Harry Lute to serve as its Secretary? He says, “It became very clear to me that a full time Secretary could be used to great advantage, and I urged the Board to employ one.”

“Harry had always been a power in Progressive Agriculture, had given freely of his time, had been keenly interested in the movement from its inception and seemed the only suitable person available. His judgment was always good, and he had the qualities necessary for a leader among farmers.

“I recall that we had a hard time convincing him that he should undertake the work. He was naturally hesitant about giving up his farming activities which were paying him more than he could hope to receive as Secretary. He was finally persuaded, however, and took over his duties.”

But, at about that time, he sold the home place and some other land which in a sense freed him to accept the position. He served the Farm Bureau Federation three years, from July 15, 1920 to July 15, 1923, and during his period as Executive Secretary the membership in the Federation was built up to over twenty thousand.

In his letter of resignation, dated July 4, 1923, to the Executive Committee of the Nebraska Farm Bureau federation, he said in part: “I wish to express my appreciation to the Board members present and past, for their loyal support. I feel that personal interests now demand my attention and that my first duty lies in that direction.

“I still believe that the Farm Bureau is on the right track and if properly supported, will secure for Agriculture, the recognition it deserves. I still propose to be a booster for the farm Bureau whenever I can serve the farmers through it.”

Already known to thousands of farmers in the State through the medium of the column in The Nebraska Farmer, the Farmers Union, Farmers Institute, and other activities, his connection with the Federation added greatly to his volume of friends.

He possessed in abundance those qualities which make for deep and lasting friendship and which at the same time marked him as a leader. He was sincere, thoughtful, and considerate of others; tolerant of the views of others but possessing positive convictions in matters of an ethical nature; modest to the point of shrinking from public utterance frequently unless called upon; deeply spiritual but with a working religion; studious and industrious; serious but possessing a keen sense of humor; he abhorred sham and pretense; he loved nature; he had a rugged constitution and enjoyed good health; truly one of nature’s noblemen. As a long time neighbor and friend of his remarked to me recently, “Harry was just a common every-day man.” Little wonder that he won the confidence and respect of those who came to know him!

During the time he was Secretary of the Federation he and I were often out in the State in attendance at meetings together. In those days we still traveled by train mostly. This gave opportunity for many conversations, and on those occasions, if a conversation did not begin with, it usually ended with his favorite interest, ranching - the raising of fine cattle. Occasionally he would lapse into a silence, looking wistfully out of the car window and with fingers tapping the windowpane, say more to himself than to others, “I wish I were back with my tar-babies.”

And he went back! In 1923 he resigned as Secretary of the Farm Bureau Federation and returned to some of the land he still held and lived on the ranch near Sarben. He gradually restocked his ranch, largely with Herefords, however, and then in 1925 the home place came back to him. It must have been a keen joy to the family to return to this beautiful, commodious modern home, with its broad inspiring outlook down the North Platte valley to the east; and the hills rising to the north across the river. In this home still lives Mrs. Lute, Harriet and Marjorie.

It will be seen from his early history that his formal schooling was rather meager, but he was not uneducated. He, himself, said his “hobby” was reading. His studious reading habit, his power of observation and discernment, his determination to learn, to know, cap-sheafed by reducing to writing many of his thoughts and observations made him an educated - a self-educated man.

He was always cheerful, and though financial burdens bore heavily the last few years, he never showed it nor complained. Taken suddenly ill in December 1933, he underwent an operation for appendicitis. Complications developed and a week later, on December 23, 1933, he passed away.

With the admirable qualities he possessed as a man, the unselfish devotion he gave agriculture, the unswerving loyalty he bore to home, community, State and Country, the service rendered to farmer solidarity, through organization, to the memory of Harry D. Lute, rightfully and richly belongs the title, “Farm Organization Leader.”