- Education - Janesville Sesquicentennial
-
- [Photograph of James SUTHERLAND]
-
- Educator fought graft, slavery
- If James SUTHERLAND wore a hat, it must have been
white.
- He was apparently so good that when he was young he became
sickly from studying too much.
- As a Janesville representative in the Wisconsin Senate in
1854, he undermined graft in government,
- exposing the activities of men who were unabashedly defrauding
school funds, and derailing railroad officials who were bribing
legislators.
- He was an early advocate of the anti-slavery cause and attended
the convention that organized
- Wisconsin's Republican Party - then known for its anti-slavery
platform.
- SUTHERLAND was born March 20, 1820, in Ohio, and taught
school in winter so he could
- attend classes in summer. But because of ill health - attributed
in biographies as "too close application to study"
- he gave up his "cherished goal" of attending college.
- After his marriage to Elizabeth WITHINGTON in 1846,
he moved to Janesville in 1847.
- He was elected the first Janesville school superintendent
for the town of Janesville in 1848, and
- then for the city of Janesville until 1854. He also owned
one of the largest book and stationery shops in Wisconsin at
that time.
- In 1854 he was elected to the state Senate from the 17th
District and served four years, three as
- the chairman of the Committee on Education, School and University
lands. He took an "active part in exposing and holding up
to public condemnation the persons about the capital who were
familiarly known as 'The Forty,' and who had been defrauding
the school fund of the state by a fictitious sale of school lands,"
according to the 1879 History of Rock County.
- His committee revealed that school lands had been sold to
insiders for less than value at auction,
- that the school fund had been depleted by improper loans
and withdrawals, and that the books of the state treasurer and
land commissioners were in "almost hopeless confusion."
- SUTHERLAND was a member of the extra session of Legislature
that granted land to the
- railroad; however, he was among the few members who refused
bribes offered by railroad officials and voted against the grant.
Afterward, he took an active part in exposing the scheme.
- SUTHERLAND was influential in forming the "most
complete system of normal schools of any
- state." He introduced a bill that gave one-fourth of
the proceeds from the sale of swamp and over-flowed lands to
the funding of normal schools. "But for the timely introduction
of this measure, this fund, together with our normal schools,
would have been lost to the cause of education," according
to an edition of the History of Wisconsin.
- SUTHERLAND was elected mayor of Janesville in 1872
and 1873 by larger majorities than
- were ever voted for the office. He was also a member of the
Janesville School Board for several years.
- Biographers have called SUTHERLAND one of the "enterprising
citizens of Janesville who have
- given it a new impetus to business and prosperity by building
up its present magnificent manufactories."
- He was also a member of the Wisconsin State Historical Society,
an active member of the Rock
- County Bible Society, formed in 1848, was treasurer of the
Young Men's Christian Association [YMCA] for many years, and
devoted a "due portion of his time to church and Sunday-school
work." He was the author of the book, "Talks on Living
Subjects: A volume dedicated to those who hope through the influence
of the Bible to raise humanity to a higher and better life."
- A post card with SUTHERLAND's time-worn photograph
and information about his life was
- discovered when the 1894 high school cornerstone was unearthed.
- SUTHERLAND reduced his public activities later in
life because his health never recovered
- from the hard study of his youth.
- One sketch concluded: "Like mankind generally, (SUTHERLAND)
has been somewhat
- ambitious of public notoriety, and to accomplish something
good and great in the world; yet, it can never be said of him
that he sacrificed principle or trampled upon the rights of others
in order to accomplish his cherished objects."
- SUTHERLAND died at the age of 85 in 1905.
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