Sketch Of The Democratic Nominee For Prosecuting Attorney

Twenty-one years ago the people of Sylvan would have ridiculed the idea that M. J. Lehman would ever beconae a candidato for a county office. Y et this boy of 17, uncultured as he was, ignorant of every branth in advance of the first reader had long aspired to possess the higher mental qualitiea. When to hls friends heconflded lus ambition for an education, it met with a not unnatural derision. Where could he get the nncessnry money and where had he shovvu ability sufficient to warrant lts expenditure should he succeed iu obtaimng it. Disappointed in his hopes of encfturagement, the Germán boy determined to rely upon hiuiself and accordingly he laid his plans with that systematic perseverance which afterwards made him formidable at the bar. He hired his time of his father, worked on railroads sunimers, went to school winters and with much difflculty secuied in addition to the $150. ÜO, a year due his parents, the necessary fuuda for his clothes, books. and tuilion. In 1869, with a pillow case containing his provisions, he started for the academy at Grass Lake. Af ter one terra of school at that place, he took a third grade certifícate to teach and iinmeimmediately after took a school for the winter. At the cloae of six months he held a second grade certilicate and at the end of a year a first and was pronounced by the county superintendent and also by common consent the beat district school teacher in Jackson county. Working in haying and harvest, teaching winters and necessarily contracting some debts, he managed to take the full academie course, besides several terms at the Ypsilanti Normal School. Economical, indeed he had been, but, when he graduated f rom the Law Department at Ann Arbor, he o wed $1,250. Although many of these debts were outlawed before their liquidation, he considered the obligation as binding as if the statutes were behind to compel their payment. Helias educated his youngerbrothers and sisters and has given help to make more comfortsble the last days of his aged parents. His long and hard struggle with debt consequent upon these filial and brotherly duties has kept liimjfrom the ünancial prosperily which must otherwiae have been brought by his talents and industry. Aa a lawyer and as a citizen Mr. ehman is plain and unassuming and has the strongest common sense. In his speeches hedoes not aim at minute aualysis but he has an instinct for the decisive proof of a question, which, when he has once found, he attacks with heavy persistent blows. His speech in the Ingham Circuit on the Furgesou, W ebbe case was universally conceded to be the event of the term. It is not easy to find the parallel of this history. The career of Mr. Lebui .n, democratie candidate for prosecuting attorney, his manful struggle with poverty, not yet eutirely over, his benevolent concern for the welfare of others even while he was harrassed and liampered by debt must appeal to the hearts of voters whose partisan prejudices are not stronger than their sympathy for sturdy perseverance and unseliish devotionto friends.