CHAPTER XXIX.
SOME FORMER RESIDENTS OF SHELBY COUNTY AND THEIR ACHIEVEMENTS. (CONT'D)
JOHN KUHL.
John Kuhl is the son of Valentine Kuhl and Clara (Kramer) Kuhl, pioneers of Westphalia township, where they settled in 1874. John Kuhl was educated in the public schools of Harlan, and was graduated from the commercial department of St. John's University, and attended Notre Dame University for one year. After his mother's death in 1885 he worked on the home farm and in the spring of 1886 he accepted a position with a harness and implement dealer of Earling, buying the business in the fall of 1889 and selling it in 1891, immediately thereafter locating at Randolph, Nebraska. In company with others, Mr. Kuhl operated a line of harness stores at Randolph, Pender, Belden, Wausa and Bloomfield, Nebraska. After 1896 he gave his attention to buying and selling of farm lands and the supervision of his own lands in Nebraska and Oklahoma. He was elected director of Randolph State Bank in 1911 and director of the Indian Territory Building and Loan Association of Durant, Oklahoma. He was a passenger on the steamship "Carpathia," in April, 1912, and witnessed the rescue of the passengers of the "Titanic," after which he continued his trip to Europe. He visited Brazil, Argentine, Chile, Peru and Panama in 1913. In the fall of 1906 he was elected to the Nebraska State Legislature as a Democrat, the Legislature at that time being Republican. He was a member of the committees on judiciary, revenue and taxation, and banks and banking. Subsequently Mr. Kuhl was chairman of the committee on privileges and elections. While in the Legislature he was a member of the joint committee of the House and Senate to draft new banking laws, embodying the principle of guaranty of deposits, which feature had been promised in the Democratic platform of Nebraska. This law was subsequently upheld by the supreme court of the United States without division. Mr. Kuhl also made a motion in caucus looking to the taking of appointment of standing committees from the speaker, and giving the selection of committees to a committee on committees, selected by the caucus of the dominant party, a rule which was subsequently adopted by the national House of Representatives and first suggested there by Senator Morris of Nebraska, then a member of the national house, following its adoption by the Legislature of Nebraska. His highest political honor came to him when he was chosen speaker of the thirty-second session of the House of Representatives of Nebraska. He organized the Nebraska Legislative League, was elected first president of the league, composed of members of territorial and state legislatures of Nebraska, past and present, also governors, past and present. The society holds a reunion every year and is in a flourishing condition.
Transcribed by Cheryl Siebrass, October, 2023 from the Past and Present of Shelby County, Iowa, by Edward S. White, P.A., LL. B.,Volume 1, Indianapolis: B. F. Bowen & Co., 1915, pg. 553-554.
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