David K. Larimer Died 1912

LARIMER

Posted By: Connie Swearingen -Volunteer (email)
Date: 1/7/2019 at 20:18:24

Sioux City Journal
19 March 1912

Funeral of David Larimer In Spokane
Newspaper Men Of That City Pay Tribute to Late Sioux City Editor

Special to The Tribune

Spokane, Washington, March 19—Tributes of love and respect were paid to the memory of David K. Larimer, newspaper man, who died at Sioux City, Iowa, the night of March 8, in Greenwood Cemetery here the afternoon of March 13. Rev. M. E. Dunn, pastor of the United Presbyterian Church, conducted the services and E.E. Lohnes sang two hymns. There was a profusion of wreaths. The pall bearers were Robert A. Glen, news editor; Malcolm Glendenning, city editor; J. Newton Colver, sporting editor; Will C. Morris, cartoonist; Connor Malott, formerly city editor and Howard Brownlee, copy reader, all of the Spokesman – Review. He is survived by his parents, Mr. and Mrs. W. B. Larimer and two sisters, residents of Spokane.

Mr. Larimer was looked upon as one of the most brilliant and versatile newspaper men the northwest ever produced. He earned his spurs on the Spokane Spokane-Review, the Portland Oregonian, the Seattle Times and the Salt Lake Tribune, in the days when politics fairly sizzled and he was intimately acquainted with public men in every corner of the west. Afterwards he went to the Omaha Bee and later served as telegraph editor on the Sioux City, Iowa Tribune.

The Spokesman-Review says of him; “Big in heart as in body, “Dave” Larimer was a picturesque and lovable Bohemian, who combined a love for news with a passion for politics. His soul became afire at any semblance of a ruction, from a caucus out in Alki precinct to a national convention. Being fundamentally a friend of the under dog in any fight he found himself lined up with the democrats here and the anti-Mormons down in Utah.

“Always a versatile correspondent both personally and professionally, he had a wide epistolary friendship with big men in politics all over the country. His views on political affairs and the inside workings of practical politics were considered the most authoritative published in any paper.

“Having the highest opinion of Senator George Turner, he decided one night that the senator was the proper man for the democrats to run for the vice presidency in 1904. He started a campaign of letter writing and personal preachment that pushed forward the Spokane man to formidable position among the candidates at the St. Louis convention.

“The stories which “Dave” Larimer used to turn out are still remembered and pointed out to the youngest in the business as models of crisp, incisive, humorous style, in pure Shakespearean English.”

The Death of “D.K.L”
From The Public, Chicago

Every reader of The Public for three years past will recall the excellent contributions which have appeared in its columns, some as editorial correspondence and some as signed editorials, over the initials “D.K.L.” Many a reader has asked with friendly interest who the writer was; and well they might for his contributions were among the most useful and most acceptable that have come to us. Perhaps there was never a very good reason for concealing “D.K.L.’s” identity, but all such reason as there may have been, disappear with the death of David K. Larimer.

Mr. Larimer, who died suddenly of Bright’s disease at Sioux City on the 8th, was telegraph editor of the Sioux City Tribune. He came into the connection after a long and varied newspaper experience. Beginning on the Spokesman-Review of his native city, Spokane, he served on the Portland Oregonian, on the Seattle Post-Intelligence, on the Salt Lake City Tribune and on the Omaha Bee, before going in August 1909, to The Sioux City Tribune, where for a man of his rigorous non-partisan democracy he found delightful editorial companionship. Not long before his employment on the Omaha Bee, Mr. Larimer grasped the doctrines of Henry George, and it was early in his employment there that he introduced himself to The Public with an expression of a wish to give work for the promotion of Henry George democracy, since he could not give money.

After that, from time to time, when there was something to be said which he felt it incumbent upon him to try to say and in the line of The Public’s policy to publish his welcome contributions came. They were always informative, acute, lucid, interesting and genuine; and more than once, entirely apart from the contributions that it published, The Public has been indebted to Mr. Larimer for facts, hints and suggestions which have entered satisfactorily into its decisions on questions of editorial policy. Though a mere boy in years, for he died at 38 and a friend whose face we have never seen, David K. Larimer is one whose death touches us more than most deaths have, with a tenderly affectionate realization of his fidelity to the truths that came within his vision and the readiness and ability with which he sprang to their service.