1925 James Donahue Ream

James Ream
10/18/1852 - 05/17/1933
James Donahue Ream
1925 honoree

James Ream was the first Master of both Custer Center and Nebraska State Granges. He was one of Nebraska’s leading agricultural pioneers settling in Custer County in 1880 where he developed his homestead into the Cedar Lawn Farm.

JAMES D. REAM – EXPONENT OF A RICHER RURAL LIFE

By L.S. Herron
- - - - - -

Let this be called achievement great,
To labor to emancipate;
That life to all who tread the field
May richer, fuller blessings yield.

No person in Nebraska has given more freely of his time and energy, without thought of personal reward, to make rural life richer and fuller than James D. Ream of Broken Bow. Every cause that has promised better things for farmers has found him enlisted in its support. No person in the state has shown a wider interest, or an interest more continuous and sustain. Production methods, economics, politics, rural social life, schools and education – all these have engaged his attention. For more than 40 years he has been a leader in his home community, and for 30 years he has been a familiar figure in statewide affairs.

A very modest man is Mr. Ream. He insisted that he did not deserve to have a review of his life and work presented here. Persistent effort was required to overcome his reticence and get from him the data that only he could furnish. “If I could go back and correct some of the serious mistakes I have made,” he wrote, “I would be more willing for the effort to be made.” We all know that only the person who never does anything avoids making mistakes. It is aims and motives that count.

As one who has not always agreed with Mr. Ream, I can declare that I know of no instance in which his motives have been other than pure and right. If he has made mistakes, they have been mistakes of the head and not of the heart. Can more be said? But whatever the mistakes, they are entirely overshadowed by the tremendous good he has done, the great service he has rendered to agriculture and the rural life of the state. He has helped in full measure to make this a better place in which to live.

- Boyhood and Early Life -

James D. Ream was born on a little farm near Newcastle, Pa., October 18, 1852. His father was a carpenter and cabinet maker, but did some farming. In the spring of 1855, the young boy’s mother passed out. That fall his father moved to Mahaska county, Iowa, where he purchased a few acres near a small town, and divided his time between carpentering and farming.

On this little farm, there was not enough work to keep young James employed, so he “worked out” for the neighbors. The first two summers he received the munificent wage of 25 cents a day, or $6.50 a month. The winters were spent at home going to school. His school education did not extend beyond that of the common school attended in this way.

In the spring of 1873, the lure of the mountains, which have always had great fascination for Mr. Ream, called his west, and he spent that summer in Denver, Colorado. It was not a permanent migration, however, for that fall he returned to the home community in Iowa and rented a farm, which he tilled for four years.

Feeling that he would never be able to own an Iowa farm, he rigged up a covered wagon in the spring of 1878 and started alone for Nebraska. He located near Stromsburg in Polk county, where he contracted for 80 acres of railroad land on a ten-year partial payment plan, and made one payment. Twenty acres was already under cultivation, which he planted to crops that year. He also broke out the other 60 acres.

The next year he purchased another 40 acres, and broke it out while farming the original 80. On the 60 acres of new grown broken the year before he sowed spring wheat, giving C.H. Morrill of Stromsburg a mortgage for the seed. That was the last of his farming in Polk county. He rented his land, and on January 5, 1880, set out alone on horseback to look for land he could homestead.

On this trip, he crossed the Platte River near Silver Creek, and then rode north and west to Albion and Oakdale. From Oakdale, he followed the Elkhorn valley to within 12 miles of O’Neill. At that point, he relates, he became so disgusted with the country that he crossed the river and rode southwest across the sand hills, without road or path, until he came to the Cedar River. Thence he continued south by Colwell’s Ranch to Loup City.

From Loup City, he rode to Lee Park and Westerville, and then westward through the hills of Custer county to Muddy Creek where the town of Berwyn now stands. Ten miles up Muddy Creek he found Wilson Hewett, who was well acquainted with the country, and was ready to assist him in locating a homestead. Mr. Hewett ventured the information that he could locate the new settler on the creek, where he could have running water. Mr. Ream replied that he did not want land on the creek.

“Well, what in the world do you want?” Mr. Hewett asked in astonishment.

“A place up next to the hills at the head of one of these nice little valleys,” Mr. Ream rejoined.

The next day they located Mr. Ream’s homestead and tree claim in his choice of all the little valleys he had seen. He soon found that he had fallen quite in love with the country. Back to Polk county he rode, and rigged up the old covered wagon again. Into it he put his meager belongings, and, with a neighbor who had become interested in the description of the new country, drove back to the claim.

- Homesteading in Custer County -

In April, 1880, he dug a well, 80 feet to water, built a sod house, and prepared to keep bachelor’s quarters. This sod house sheltered him and his family for 20 years, when it was replaced by a large and commodious frame structure. He was the first settler in this picturesque little valley. The nearest neighbor was five miles away, where the city of Broken Bow now stands. The nearest post office was 15 miles away. It was not until 1886 that the Burlington railroad was built through Broken Bow.

The team that pulled his covered wagon onto the new homestead was traded for a yoke of oxen, with which he broke out the greater part of his present farm. It is characteristic of the man that the first breaking he did was strips for trees to shelter and beautify the home grounds. The grounds of “Cedar Lawn Farms” were laid out and planted than almost as they are today.

That year he had several acres of good sod corn. His first small grain crop of importance was 20 acres of oats in 1882, which yielded 55 bushels of heavy grain to the acre. Equally good crops of oats were raised in 1883 and 1884. The corn crops of 1883, ’84, ‘85, and ’86 were exceptionally good, yielding from 35 to 57 bushels to the acre. Mr. Ream says he has not been able to equal those early yields of corn and oats since that time.

In the spring of 1882, he joined with neighbors in ordering some apple and crabapple trees, and set out a small orchard. The next year he took up part of those trees and set out a larger orchard of four acres. For many years, this was noted as the best orchard in Custer county. Then drouth played havoc with it. He thinks it might still be thrifty if varieties better adapted to the region had been planted, and if the trees, instead of being given level culture, had been set in furrows.

Realizing that it is not good for a man to be alone, Mr. Ream was married on February 11, 1883, to Miss Anne E. Seevers of Mahaska county, Iowa. Through all the years, she has been a very close and most helpful companion. “I have always considered that she and I were partners in the married life,” he says “and that each one was entitled to all rights and privileges that the other enjoyed.”

Mr. Ream does not take Mrs. Ream along, and she does not go along - they go together. This has been true of the many times they have attended the meetings of “Organized Agriculture,” and other meetings and conventions, as well as vacation trips. They visited the St. Louis, Jamestown, Seattle, and San Francisco expositions. Four time they have been in Washington, D.C., and have toured Yellowstone Park twice, once in 1913, and again in 1919.

They have three children, two sons and a daughter - Fred H., Dayton, Ohio; Glenn C., Broken Bow, Nebr., and Loy G., now Mrs. Geo. Rohwer, Jr., Ft. Calhoun, Nebr.

- Helps Promote Better Farming -

Mr. Ream’s first public work for agriculture was in 1887, when he served as vice-president of the Custer County Agricultural Society. Later he served for eight years as president of that organization. He was always very much opposed to the hose racing part of the fairs, and left that to others. In 1888, he invited Ex-Governor Furnas to speak at the Custer County Fair. While they were looking over the agricultural exhibit, which greatly pleased the venerable ex-governor, the latter said:

“Why don’t you hold a farmers’ institute here? People who will bring such an exhibit to a county fair would surely give enthusiastic support to a farmers’ institute.”

Mr. Ream pleaded ignorance of the work of a farmers’ institute, and Mr. Furnas explained it to him. As a result, with the assistance of W.F. Wright of Nemaha county, the first farmers’ institute in central Nebraska was held in Broken Bow in January, 1889. This continued for nearly a quarter of a century, in which time two short courses were put on by the Extension Service of the Agricultural College. For over 20 years, Mr. Ream was chairman of the local farmers’ institute committee and assisted in the programs of the other institutes in the county.

After he became fully acquainted with the work of farmers’ institutes, he was convinced that more could be done toward developing the agricultural resources of the county by spending one dollar for institute work than by spending ten dollars in fair work. With the conviction, he lost a great deal of his former enthusiasm for fairs. Fairs, he believes, are only milestones, indicating progress, but do not provide the essential instruction necessary to progress.

In January, 1889, he attended the meeting of the State Board of Agriculture in Lincoln as a representative of the county agricultural society. There he made his first acquaintance with the agricultural and horticultural leaders of the state, including Dr. C.E. Bessey of the State University, with whom a close and lasting friendship was formed.

At the meetings of the State Board of Agriculture in those days, it was the custom to have papers and addresses by university professors and men of noted ability from over the state, dealing with agricultural problems of the day. “These provide to be the most fascinating features of the meetings,” he declares, “giving me a deeper insight into the secrets of nature, and a broader vision of the possibilities of agriculture in Nebraska.”

In 1895, he was elected a member of the State Board of Agriculture from the 6th Congressional District, serving until 1899. He was elected again in 1908, and served until 1911. While serving on the board, his interest centered in the county collective exhibits of the State Fair. He worked out so much improvement in the score card used in judging those exhibits that the board of managers had the words “Ream Score Card” printed across the top. That designation remained on the card until Mr. Ream requested W.R. Mellor, then secretary of the State Board of Agriculture, to take it off. Mr. Ream was superintendent of the agricultural exhibits at the State Fair one or two years.

One of his strong convictions after he had worked on the State Board of Agriculture was that the board had gotten away from the original intent of the law creating it, and had become merely a state fair board. It had also come about that the majority of the members of the board were not farmers. On January 16, 1900, he read a paper before the board in which he urged that operating a state fair was not all the State Board of Agriculture should do. He contended that the state board should deal in a broader way with the development of agricultural resources of the state, or leave the name for a body that would.

- Has Mixed Science With Practice -

Sometimes you see farmers who are so ardently devoted to promoting improved methods of agriculture that they have no time to practice them on their own farms. Mr. Ream is not that kind of an uplifter. He has not been too busy in public work to test out and apply improved methods on his own farm. He was one of the early growers of alfalfa in central Nebraska, and one of the first to begin raising winter wheat.

Long years ago he investigated level and shallow cultivation for tilled crops, and adopted both as the best practices under suitable soil conditions. He designed special implements for this kind of cultivation. While deep plowing was still being preached as the acme of thorough farming under all conditions, he had discovered by observation that deep plowing may very easily be overdone in a sub-humid climate.

Experience with his first orchard, and a study of tree culture under dry conditions convinced him that trees should be planted in furrows or ditches to prevent run-off in heavy showers. In January, 1908, he read a paper before the State Horticultural Society advocating this system of tree and orchard culture for central Nebraska.

The first evergreen trees he planted were red cedars. He did not know, of course, that these trees, by serving as alternating host for apple rust, would become a menace to his apple orchard. When this fungus appeared, he studied it carefully, and obtained all the information he could about it. Botanists then believed that it completed its cycle from cedar trees to apple trees and back again in one year. It is noteworthy that to Mr. Ream belongs the credit for first discovering that his cycle requires to years.

With a natural love for plants and trees, he has not taken so deep an interest in live stock breeding, although he is a firm believer in live stock as a factor in profitable farming. Years ago he established a pure-bred herd of Poland China hogs, but later retired from the business. For many years, he has purchased both hogs and cattle for feeding, instead of growing them on his farm. In this way, he has been able to adjust his feeding operations to his feed supplies. Within the past few years he has been developing a dairy herd, and now owns a fine Holstein bull, the first pure-bred animal on the place since his venture in hog breeding.

To his original homestead and tree claim of 320 acres, he added by purchases until at one time he owned 960 acres. Later he sold 320 acres of this and put the money into improvements. He now has 620 acres, 480 of which are in the valley. When the building program was started, the new house was built before the new barn, and Mrs. Ream had her steam heat, air pressure water system, electric lights, and electric washer before an elevator and dump were installed in the granary.

Mr. Ream believes it is the smaller things well done that pay best. He is not, therefore, an advocate of extensive farming for the average farmer, and considers it bad policy to plunge into debt expecting to pay the debt from the profits of the venture. Instead, he advocates going slowly and growing into larger things.

The “History of Custer County” bears this testimony to Mr. Ream’s success in mixing science with practice:

“As a result of the investigations and experiments of Mr. Ream in methods of farming, his crops are usually above normal, and his farm is today one of the most attractive of the central west. The evergreen windbreaks, consisting of cedar and Black Hills spruce, are exceptionally fine. No distinguished visitor ever comes to Broken Bow with a desire to see what the country can produce without being taken to the Ream farm, where he sees a practical demonstration of what thrift and skill, when applied in harmony with nature’s laws, have been able to accomplish. His improvements are of the first order, and stand as a splendid monument to the profits of agriculture as conducted by Mr. Ream.”

- Active in Farm Organizations -

Although Mr. Ream has been very active in movements concerned with agricultural production, he is more widely known for his activity in farm organizations having for their purpose the improvement of rural social and economic conditions. And it is in this field that he has rendered his best and most enduring service to agriculture.

We would expect the record to show that he was an ardent member of the Farmers’ Alliance in the ‘80’s, and of the Populist party that grew out of it. Apparently the leaders of that movement did not impress him with entire sincerity, and while he attended the Alliance meetings, he refused to follow when the movement became the Populist party. Many a friendly argument did he have in those days with his neighbor O.M. Kem, who became the noted sod-house congressman from the “Big 6th” District.

About 1908, the American Society of Equity sent organizers into Nebraska, and established headquarters in Hastings. The organizers worked chiefly among wheat growers, and preached united holding to increase the price of wheat. Mr. Ream joined the organization when the organizers invaded Custer county, but the Equity did not attain any considerable strength there. In a few years it disappeared from the state.

Mr. Ream helped to organize the Nebraska Farmers Congress, which was a sort of clearing house for all farmers’ organizations and activities in the state. He continued active as a member and attended the meetings regularly so long as it remained an organization of and for farmers. Along with other tillers of the soil, he dropped it when it became the tool of commercial interests.

In 1911, he became convinced that Nebraska needed a farm organization with local groups that were part of a state and national movement. At that time, the state had no such organization of any kind. He turned his attention to the Grange, and helped to organize several subordinate, or local, Granges in the spring of 1911. In the fall of that year, the state Grange was organized, and he was elected state master, a position he held for eight years.

He was attracted to the Grange by the stress it placed on developing a better community life and giving the members of the community, both young and old, an opportunity for self-expression. He has always been very friendly toward the Farmers Union and has criticized it only for what he considers a lack of sufficient emphasis on the cultural side of life. As master of the State Grange, he edited the “Grange Journal,” which under his guidance was a persistent and able advocate of better community life and improved rural schools.

In the Grange, the state master and his wife represent the state in national conventions. While serving in the capacity, Mr. Ream stood with the progressive wing in the National Grange, which was trying to swing the organization around to a more forward-looking economic and legislative program. He contended steadily for indorsement of woman suffrage and the initiative and referendum. Finally he was successful in getting the national Grange to adopt a resolution declaring that “there is not right, privilege, or opportunity in life to which man be nature or nature’s God is endowed that is not of right the equal heritage of woman.”

When the 1915 meeting of the national Grange was held in Oakland, California, the subject of peace and war was uppermost. At the convention the following resolution, written by Mr. Ream, was adopted:

“That until such time as the confidence in human integrity and human righteousness enables the peoples of the earth to maintain worldwide peace without the intervention of military and naval forces, we favor the formation of an international police force to be contributed to by all adhering nations, and to be under the direction and control of such international court of control as the adhering nations may decide.”

In May, 1917, Mr. Ream became a member of the Nonpartisan League, which was then attracting so much attention in North Dakota. For three years, he served as chairman of the state executive committee of that organization. He was also a member of the national executive committee, and attended three of the annual meetings of the national organization. Among the members of this national committee, he ways he found some of the clearest thinkers and most loyal workers it has been his pleasure to meet.

When the county agent system of agricultural extension was proposed, Mr. Ream was an enthusiastic supporter of the proposition that the county should employ a county agricultural agent, believing that if farmers would co-operate intelligently with a well-qualified county agent, great progress could be made. He took an active part, therefore, in the organization of the county Farm Bureau and the state Farm Bureau Federation, and for several years served as president of the county organization.

“But I resigned this position,” Mr. Ream writes, “when the leaders of the National Farm Bureau Federation espoused reactionary measures, and the old-line politicians, who had previously refused to join the Farms Union, Grange, Equity, and other progressive farm organizations, flocked to the Federated Farm Bureau. But my resignation contained the statement that I was maintaining my membership in order to aid the organization of boys’ and girls’ clubs, for I believed that was the most valuable work the Farm Bureau could do.”

That agriculture must be as thoroughly organized as other interests are is one of Mr. Ream’s deep-seated convictions. He believes that the various farm organizations should unite on a national program, and then work together to carry it out. “Legislation and co-operation,” he says, “when aided by intelligent diversification of production, and all guided and supported by efficient organization, will give to agriculture all that it asks - a square deal.”

- Service in Public Office -

Mr. Ream has never been an office-seeker, and at numerous times has declined to become a candidate. He has been pressed into service several times, however. A good many years ago he served as county commissioner, making an excellent record in efficient service to the people. In the early days, he was elected justice of the peace, and refers proudly to the fact that the only cases he tried were from outside his community.

In 1900, at the urgent solicitation of a great many citizens of Custer county, he consented to become the fusion candidate for the lower house of the legislature, and was elected. He was active in the session of 1901 in support of all progressive measures, and particularly measures for the advancement of agriculture. As his best work of the session, he counts the influence he was able to exert to secure more liberal appropriations for the upbuilding of the School and College of Agriculture.

While Mr. Ream was serving the legislature that winter, Prof. A.E. Davisson, principal of the School of Agriculture, invited him to address the students of the school. The address was given in one of the rooms of the old dairy building. I remember it very well, for as Mark Twain said about remembering the day of his birth, “I was there” - by virtue of being enrolled in the 11-weeks short course. That was the first time I saw Mr. Ream.

His neighbors pressed him into service again in 1919 by electing him a member of the constitutional convention, which met in January, 1920. In that convention he was a member of the committees on education and initiative and referendum. He stood for all the proposals that would bring and keep the state government closer to the people and make it more democratic.

He urged upon the constitutional convention a solution of the injustice to school districts in western Nebraska that contain school lands. These lands are not taxable, and the school districts in which they were situated were getting nothing from them except their pro rata share of the state apportionment. He contended that they should receive from the state school fund a payment equal to what the taxes on the school lands would be.

The state attorney-general decided that this was a question with which the legislature could deal without specific constitutional authorization. Accordingly, the representative from Mr. Ream’s district introduced a bill in the 21st session of the legislature to provide for payments to these district equal to taxes. On an urgent call from T.C. Grimes, county superintendent of Custer county, Mr. Ream went to Lincoln during the legislative session and helped to secure the enactment of this measure.

Mr. Ream has never been a strong party man. In his early life he was a Greenbacker. Later, his opposition to the liquor traffic led him to affiliate with the Prohibition party. When that party went too much to seed on one issue and refused to emphasize the initiative and referendum, he left it. For several years he found expression for his keen sense of justice in the Socialist ranks. In recent years, however, he has been quite nonpartisan and independent in politics.

- Rural Culture Crowning Work -

Great as have been Mr. Ream’s services to agriculture in promoting improved methods of farming, organizing farmers, and as a public servant, his crowning work has been his activity in improving rural social life. Soon after the country was settled, he was one of the leaders in organizing and conducting a literary society. From that time to the present there has been some organization in the farm club community, Alliance or Grange, promoting self-expression and community life. Outside speakers and lecturers, including professors from the State University, have come to the neighborhood schoolhouse with message of information and inspiration.

As a side light on the kind of a community these activities have developed, Mr. Ream points to a record of 45 years with only one lawsuit between members of the Custer Center community, and the wide notoriety that been given it for the social, moral, and intellectual stand it has maintained.

Mr. Ream believes that community life is simply a broader field of home life. “I would rather my child would grow up in a home with meager advantages surrounded by a highly-developed community,” he says, “than to grow up in a good home surrounded by bad community conditions.”

In line with his intense interest in better community life, he has been an ardent advocate of improved library facilities for rural communities, and a persistent worker for better rural schools. Believing that the many one0room country schools are too small for efficient school work or worth-while community life, he has been an earnest advocate of consolidated rural schools, and was one of the active workers for the redistricting features of the present Nebraska consolidated school law.

All of this tremendous activity for better rural conditions has been wholly unselfish. He has persistently refused to capitalize his leadership by seeking office, position, or emoluments. Not only has he given his time freely to many public causes, but in most cases he has borne his own expenses as well. Had he devoted more of his time to his own farm and less to the public weal, he would have been much wealthier in this world’s goods - but not in the riches that are proof against moths, rust, and thieves.

In religion, as in other lines, Mr. Ream has been a seeker after truth, let it take him where it would. Through years of study and meditation on the great questions of how things came to be, where we are going, and what we ought to be doing while here, he has developed a religious attitude free from formula and vitally concerned with the business in hand, life itself. Two years ago he arranged for a series of eight lectures, by as many different ministers, in the neighborhood church on the general theme, “What are we here for? Or, what life means to me.”

His philosophy of life is summed up in this statement:
“I am optimistic as to the future of agriculture as well as to the future of the whole human race. I am a believer in the theory of the evolutionary development of all things, and that no human progress has been or can be made except by the efforts and sacrifices of those who have caught the broader vision of human possibilities - that all life, vegetable or animal is endowed with a spark of Divinity ever clamoring for an opportunity for greater development, that man is only part way up the incline of human possibilities, and that his progress upward to greater perfection depends upon his vision of life and his interpretation of the message or inspiration he receives from the spark of Divinity within him.”

James Ream

1925 Tribute to the Honorable

James Donahue Ream

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By L.S. Herron
Nebraska Hall of Agricultural Achievement
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