Senator Melville L. Bowman View All Years

M. L. BOWMAN

MR. PRESIDENT: Your committee which was appointed to prepare and report resolutions commemorating the character, service and life of the late M. L. Bowman, begs leave to submit the following report:

M. L. Bowman served as a member of the Senate during the Fortieth, Fortieth Extraordinary and Forty-first sessions of the General Assembly of Iowa.

Mr. Bowman was born at Galesburg, Illinois, in 1885. At four years of age he moved with his parents to Hutchinson, Kansas. While still a youth his parents died, leaving him an orphan, at which time he returned to Iowa and began working under his guardian who was a stock man and banker. He responded readily to the training received as a youth, as evidenced by the fact that at 17 years of age he was serving in the responsible position of buyer at the Chicago stock yards.

In 1903, Mr. Bowman responded to an urge for higher education and entered the State Agricultural College at Ames, where he was graduated in 1905. During his college career, he served as superintendent of the college farm, in which position, together with extra work in the Agronomy Department, he financed his college education. Upon his graduation, he was offered a chair in the Farm Crop Department of the State Agricultural College by Professor Holden, who had taken a great interest in him during his progress as a student. Two years later, he had earned and was given a full professorship in farm crops experimental work.

During the time Mr. Bowman was associated with Professor Holden, they traveled to all parts of the state on what was known as the “seed corn specials.” Mr. Bowman originated the idea of an “oats special” which made similar educational trips throughout the state of Iowa.

Mr. Bowman was secretary of the Iowa Corn Growers’ Association. While his whole life and activities were associated and interwoven with farming and the livestock industry, he was a public-spirited man who always had an interest in civic developments. He operated a farm near Waterloo, Iowa, where he specialized in the raising of Holstein cattle. He found time during his busy career to serve his immediate community as secretary of the Greater Waterloo Association. While acting in this capacity, he was elected to the State Senate of Iowa from the Black Hawk-Grundy District. His record during the Fortieth, Fortieth Extraordinary, and Forty-first sessions of the General Assembly of Iowa give testimony of his active attention to a varied legislative program.

The sessions found him active in introducing utility regulation, appropriations for state educational institutions, development of municipal utilities, and a proposal to create a board of commerce, and also to use the state’s credit in establishing a system of rural credits based on real estate security. Senator Bowman was greatly interested in road development and he saw in such program the future welfare of the rural districts, to which he was ever loyal, as well as to the welfare and development of cities and towns.

Senator Bowman always took an active interest in politics. In 1926, he was a candidate for governor in the Republican primaries, and later was a Republican candidate for the nomination of Congressman from the former Sixth District. In 1942, he became a candidate in the Democratic primaries for Secretary of Agriculture. During the period from 1933 to 1936, Senator Bowman was state supervisor of the farm debt adjustment program. From 1936 to 1941, he served as public relations representative of the Central Nebraska Public Power and Irrigation District at Hastings, Nebraska. Thereafter he returned and took up his residence in Iowa as office manager at the Des Moines Ordnance plant.

On June 12, 1942, Senator Bowman was taken suddenly ill while riding in his automobile and passed away before he reached the hospital. He is survived by his widow and two daughters, Mrs. William Meade of Tacoma, Washington, and Marjorie Bowman of Los Angeles, California.

Senator Bowman was an outstanding agriculturalist and citizen. He left a worthy record as a member of the State Senate of Iowa.

Therefore Be It Resolved by the Senate of the Fiftieth General Assembly of Iowa, That in the passing of Senator Bowman, Iowa has lost a distinguished citizen whose life symbolized integrity and honesty in affairs of the state.

Be It Further Resolved, That this resolution be spread upon the records of the Journal of the Senate of the Fiftieth General Assembly of Iowa, and that enrolled copies thereof be transmitted to the members of his family.

J. BERG,

Committee.

The resolution was unanimously adopted.