William Orson Payne (1860-1935)

PAYNE, LANCASTER

Posted By: Dorian Myhre (email)
Date: 7/1/2014 at 20:38:13

From unknown newspaper 1935

W. O. Payne, 75, longtime prominent resident of Nevada, died very suddenly Sunday afternoon, at the home of friend, Charles T. Gibson at No. 7 East Pleasant View drive, Des Moines, where he had just arrived for a social call.

While the body of the veteran editor and politician lay in state in Des Moines, the daughter, Mrs. Bruce Lancaster is hastening west from her home in New York city to make arrangements for the funeral and interment of her father.

Burial will be in the Nevada cemetery by the side of his wife, Jessie M. Payne and parents, William P. and Adaline M. Payne.

The daughter is expected in Des Moines from New York this evening or early Tuesday, in the meantime funeral arrangements are awaiting her coming.

According to Dr. William Carpenter, coroner, Mr. Payne, who was diabetic, died from exhaustion and a heart attack after walking nine blocks from a street car to the Gibson home.

Mr. Payne lived in his office at 402 1/2 Locust st. and had started to visit at the Gibson home. Exhausted from the walk from the street car to the house, Mr. Payne died a few minutes after he had laid down to rest.

Mr. Payne was born May 7, 1860, at Lynn, Massachusetts. He was fifteen years of age when his parents came west and located first at Mitchellville where they spent a year and then came to Nevada where the father was elected to head the Nevada city schools.

The son entered the high school and was graduated with the class of 1877, the first to be graduated from the newly organized schools.

Of that class of nine young people, Mr. Payne, with Rose H. Murphy and Mrs. Minnie Mills, had been the sole survivors in this part of the country. One other, Mrs. Lina Hamilton Aures was in in New York the last heard from. Others who have passed on were Peter Joor of Maxwell, Florence Dana Corey of Seattle, N. W. Simmons and Helen Harper and J. W. Hague all deceased some time.

A year after graduating from the Nevada schools he entered the State University of Iowa, where he received the degree of A. B. in 1882 and that of LL. B. in 1883.

He then returned to Nevada to assist his father in publishing the Nevada Representative, an enterprise which he continued on the paper, he gradually assumed the editorial responsibility, and contributed many articles on political and governmental subjects.

He was an habitual attendant at Republican conventions and in 1909 was a delegate to the national convention, where he opposed adoption of the silver standard.

After disposing of his newspaper interests in Nevada in 1927, Mr. Payne moved to Des Moines to establish the Iowa Forum, a political journal, which he managed for seven years. His wife, Jessie M. Payne, died in June 1930, shortly before their only daughter, Jessie, published her first novel in New York, N. Y.

He had been retired from active business and editorial work for few years, but retained his interests in politics and upon his frequent visits to Nevada was always glad to discuss with his friends the political affairs of the day.

Mr. Payne had had personal political aspirations at different times in the past, having at least once been a candidate for congressman from the old Seventh district and later a candidate for the republican nomination for the office senator against L. J. Dickinson.

He made his unsuccessful run for congress against Cassius B. McDowell in 1914 and that for senate in 1930, when at the age of 70 he entered the contest after making a radio appeal to the voters of the state.

In the last five years Mr. Payne had taken a less active part in political affairs because of failing sight.

However in August, 1934, his plan for changing the method of apportionment of delegates to Republican national convention received the endorsement of the Republican state central committee.

The plan called for apportionment of delegates on the basis of Republican votes cast instead of upon number of senators and congressmen from each district.

The state committee also endorsed his proposal for changing the membership of the Republican national committee so as to base number or members from each state upon number of delegates to national conventions instead of giving each state two members.

Mr. Payne was recognized over the state as a student of government and political parties.

Mr. Payne has been the oldest living member of the Samson Lodge No. 77, K. of P. He was not a charter member but became a knight in 1885, three years after the organization of the lodge Nick Simser, who recently passed away in California was the last of the charter members.