Ben F. Rogers. By
establishing a municipal free employment bureau, which probably is
the first and only one in Oklahoma, Ben F. Rogers, city attorney at
Madill, has practically solved the problem of unemployment in his
city and county. The result has been gratifying to the extent that
during the first half of the year 1915 it was necessary for him to
prosecute only three cases wherein vagrancy was charged.
Mr. Rogers conceived
the idea shortly after he entered the office early in 1915. It was
during a period of industrial depression in the United States,
brought on by the war in Europe, when practically every community of
the Middle West faced the problem of relieving the condition of the
unemployed, or depleting their treasuries by feeding incarcerated
vagrants for an indefinite time. Mr. Rogers divulged his idea to the
mayor, the city council and the business men of Madill and the
farmers roundabout, and they promised to support any plan he proposed
to promulgate. Thereafter practically every man without employment in
the city, instead of becoming a prisoner in the county jail on a
charge of vagrancy, was given honest work to do.
This plan has not
only been successful of itself, but Mr. Rogers finds that it has
lessened the number of other offenses triable in city courts. The
experiment has been one of the most interesting in the legal career
of the city attorney, and he has had many incidents of interest in
his work. For nearly two years he was an assistant to United States
District Attorney D. H. Linebaugh of the Eastern District of
Oklahoma. The moral phase of the plan appealed to Rogers, as well as
the economic side of the matter, for he is the son of a Methodist
minister and a member of the Educational Commission of the East and
West Oklahoma Conferences of the Methodist Episcopal Church, South,
of which commission Bishop Murrah is chairman.
Mr. Rogers was born
in Prentiss County, Mississippi, January 26, 1886, and is a son of
Rev. John H. and Willia Alice (Gresham) Rogers. Rev. John Rogers, who
is a native of Mississippi, has been in the ministry for a good many
years and has been a member of the East Oklahoma Conference for eight
years. The grandfather of Ben F. Rogers was G. W. Rogers, a native of
Tennessee and a pioneer settler of Prentiss County in Mississippi in
1835. The latter, who is still living at the age of eighty-five, is a
veteran of the Confederate army, and Mr. Rogers’ maternal grandsire
was killed in battle as a soldier of the Southland. The Gresham
family is descended from Lord Gresham, an English nobleman.
The early education
of Ben F. Rogers was acquired in the public schools of Mississippi.
Later he was a student in the University of Mississippi and the
Southern Normal University at Huntington, Tennessee. In the latter
institution he prepared himself for the teaching profession and spent
four years as a public school teacher. He afterward studied law at
Cumberland University, at Lebanon, Tennessee, graduating in June,
1909. As has been the lot of many a minister’s son, it was necessary
that he earn his way through the higher institutions of learning, but
this experience doubtless better equipped him for a successful
professional career than plenty of money and pampering might have
done. He was valedictorian of a class of eighty when his degree of
LL. B. was conferred. He began the practice of law at Ardmore,
Oklahoma, in 1909, as a partner of J. T. Coleman. After three years
he moved to Hugo and took up practice. The year following his advent
there Mr. Rogers was appointed assistant United States district
attorney. He resigned that position in 1914 and again engaged in
private practice, one year later being elected to his present office
of city attorney.
Mr. Rogers possesses
a literary bent that has occasionally led him into the realms of
literature. During his years of preparation for his professional
career he developed a talent for oratory, and has acquired more than
local note as a platform speaker. One of his lectures, “Scraps
of Sunshine,” which has been delivered a number of times in
Oklahoma, has brought him many compliments from men of known forensic
ability, and once was the inspiration of an invitation to enter
lyceum platform work. Mr. Rogers, however, is faithful to his chosen
career.
Mr. Rogers is a
member of the Methodist Episcopal Church, South, and of the county
and state bar associations. His fraternal connections are with the
Knights of Pythias
and Woodmen of the World, and his college fraternity was the Kappa
Sigma. He was secretary of the local commercial club for a short
time, and a member of the Madill Civic League. As city attorney he
drew the ordinance creating a board of library commissioners, and
establishing a city library.
Mr. Rogers has three
brothers and two sisters. Rev. J. W. Rogers is presiding elder of the
Vinita District, East Oklahoma Conference, M. E. Church, South.
Charles L. Rogers is superintendent of schools at Bennington,
Oklahoma. F. H. Rogers is a druggist at Tahlequah, Oklahoma. Miss
Gertrude Rogers is a graduate of the Northeastern State Normal at
Tahlequah and occupies the chair of history in the Tahlequah High
School. Miss Anna Lee Rogers is attending high school, and is at
home with her parents at Roff, Oklahoma, where the parents reside.