The Pacific Commercial Advertiser

He Stopped a Bullet.

But It Was Unintentional on the Part of Senator Elect Lucien Baker.

Like a large number of his future colleagues, Lucien Baker, the new Republican United States senator elect from Kansas, is a lawyer. Mr. Baker was born on a farm in Fulton county, O., 46 years ago, but has been a resident of Kansas for a quarter of a century. He was educated in the Ohio public schools and at the University of Michigan, leaving the latter seat of learning a lawyer in 1869. He immediately located in Leavenworth, Kan., where the practice of his profession has yielded him a comfortable fortune. In 1872 he was elected district attorney, and ten years later sought the nomination for congressman at large, but was beaten in the convention by E. H. Morrill, the present governor of Kansas. In 1892 he was elected state senator. He is an antiprohibitionist and in 1890 bolted the Republican ticket on the prohibition issue. He has since returned to the Republican fold, but does not consider himself closely bound by party ties. In 1873 he was married to Miss Mary Higginbotham of Denver, and the son and daughter, who came to brighten their home, are now students at the University of Michigan and Vassar, respectively.

Early in Baker's legal career he quite unintentionally stopped the progress of a bullet. Three newspaper men named Anthony, Thurston and Embry got into a triangular row. Thurston and Embry met in a Leavenworth saloon, and as Thurston proved the quicker on the draw there was a funeral in the Embry family. When Thurston was tried for murder, Baker defended him and procured his acquittal on the ground of self defense. Anthony and Baker met on the street a short time later, and Anthony fired. The ball missed Anthony, but sped on down the street about 100 yards and passed through the body of Baker, who happened to be standing in front of a telegraph office. The ball cut off one of Baker's thumbs and dangerously wounded him in the body, but fate evidently intended him for a United States senator, and he did not die.

Lucien Baker