W. S. Ray
W. S. Ray, editor of the
Shelby Democrat, stands prominent
among the successful men of Shelby County. He was born in
Shelbyville on the 11th of February, 1848, and is the son of Martin
M. Ray, one of the most prominent men of his time in Indiana. The subject of this sketch completed a good common school education, with a collegiate course at the Northwestern Christian University of
Indianapolis, where he graduated in 1869. He then entered upon the study of law and continued in it until 1873, when he formed
a partnership with his brother, Harry Ray, and they commenced
the practice of law in Shelbyville. After this, Mr. Ray devoted
himself to his profession so successfully, that in 1874, he was
elected Prosecuting Attorney, and re-elected in 1876; the same year, 1876, he received the Congressional nomination for the Sixth
Congressional District of Indiana, in a convention held at Anderson. This was an honor which rarely falls to the lot of one so young, he
being at that time but twenty-eight years of age, but it was an
honor which he saw fit to decline, as he refused to accept the
nomination and continued in his law business, fulfilling the duties of
Prosecutor, until 1878. On the 13th of June, 1878, Mr. Ray started
a new Democratic paper in Shelbyville, in capacity of editor and
part proprietor, his partner being B. S. Sutton, of Shelbyville.
The
name of the paper was the Shelby Democrat and from the first it
was a success: it was a first-class county paper, and its circulation
increased in an unprecedented manner; the intention of its editor
was to make it as good a paper as there could be found in Indiana;
to this end the Democrat was enlarged in September, 1878, to its
present dimensions. In October, 1878, Mr. Sutton sold his interest
in the paper to A. McCorkle, and until the death of the latter, was
published under the firm name of Ray & McCorkle. Mr. Ray
became sole proprietor in 1878, and in 1880, established the Daily
Democrat, which has been sustained, as perhaps but few papers
have, in a city of but 5,000 people. As a politician, Mr. Ray is
bold and zealous; as a newspaper writer, is able and aggressive,
and his influence has been an important factor in moulding the
character and actions of the Democratic party in Indiana. Although
universally regarded as a strong partisan, he has always freely
criticised what he believed to be wrong in either the principles or
policy of his party. In his denunciation of civil service reform,
under the operations of the present law, and in his advocacy of
Governor Hill of New York for President, he has made himself a
reputation that is co-extensive with the boundaries of the Nation.
Mr. Ray is, in personal appearance, prepossessing, in manners
pleasing, popular among his associates, and withal a most elegant
gentleman.
History of Shelby County, Indiana, "Shelbyville
Sketches," page 530-31, Chicago: Brant & Fuller, 1887.
Contributed by Phyllis Miller Fleming
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