---
title: Improvement Era
description: Monthly periodical of the Mormon church, 1897 onward. This library holds the issues of November 1897 to December 1930.
authors:
  - Richards, Preston D.
collections:
  - periodicals
tags:
  - magazine
  - improvement-era
periodical: Improvement Era
volume: 22
number: 4
published: 1919-02
publisher: Young Men’s Mutual Improvement Associations
publisher_place: Salt Lake City
language: en
type: magazine
reference: 'Richards, Preston D., "Congressman Joseph Howells," *Improvement Era* 22, no. 4 (February 1919): 299–300.'
source:
  url: https://archive.org/details/improvementera2204unse
  transcription: Transcribed from the Internet Archive scan of each issue (the item for each issue is named in the issue's own source); unnumbered advertising leaves are omitted, printed page numbers are kept as page markers.
  identifier: improvementera2204unse
start_page: 299
end_page: 300
rights:
  status: public-domain
  basis: US publication 1930 or earlier (published 1919-02)
  source: https://archive.org/details/improvementera2204unse
  publication_year: 1919
  note: The Internet Archive item metadata carries a blanket "© Copyright by Intellectual Reserve, Inc." notice. The library owner judged it inapplicable because this issue was published in 1919, before 1931; a scan-level notice does not restore copyright.
---

# Congressman Joseph Howells

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Congressman Joseph Howell
    By Preston D. Richards, of the General Board, Y. M. M. I. A.

     Congressman Joseph Howell was born in Brigham City,
Utah, February 17, 1857, and died in Logan, Utah, July 18, 1918.
He attended the common schools and completed the full course
at the University of Utah.
     He was three times elected a member of the Territorial Legislature and served one term in the State Senate.   He is spoken
of now, by those who were associated with him in the State
and the Territorial Legislature, as one of the most able and
far-seeing legislators our State has ever had.    To him is due
the credit for the establishment of the Agricultural College, at
Logan.
     Seven times the people of his State, whom he loved, and to
whom he was ever true, elected him to represent them in the
Congress of the United States, of which he was a member continuously from March 4, 1903, to March 4, 1917.
     While a member of Congress he succeeded through his unostentatious but earnest, intelligent and persistent work, in
securing legislation pertaining to mining and agriculture, which
has helped to give the West its present splendid position in the
Nation. To him perhaps more than to anyone else is due the
credit for the establishment by the Government of the Bureau
of Mines and to the passage by Congress of the Three-hundredtwenty-Acre Enlarged Homestead Act. It has been justly said of
him, that he knew personally more Bureau and Division heads
in the various Executive Departments in Washington, and was
better known by them than any other man in Congress. No man
in Congress held a more envied place in the esteem and respect
of his associates. Through his splendid abilities and the exemplary life of himself and family, for fourteen years in the
Nation's Capital, he did a great deal toward placing his people
right before the world. He was honored and respected by all
who met him and loved by all who became acquainted with him.
During that time his home in Washington was a Mecca for Utah
people.
    He was for a time a member of the Board of Regents of the
University of Utah, and was until his death a member of the
Board of Trustees of the Brigham Young College.
    For two terms he was mayor of Wellsville, Utah, and for
many years he was Counselor to Bishop William H. Maughan,

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                                                                     HON. JOSEPH HOWELL                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                       |

I Bern, Brigham City, Utah, February 17, 1857; died, Logan, Utah, July 18,1918 |

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