Julian K. Codding, warden of the Kansas State Penitentiary at Lansing, Kan., was born in Cook county, Ill., Jan. 16, 1861, a son of John S. Codding. His parents moved to Indiana when he was young and when he was twelve years of age came to Kansas, where his father had lived for a time in 1856. The family settled in Pottawatomie county where the boy was reared to manhood. He was educated in the common schools of Westmoreland and after finishing his literary education began to study law in the office of M. S. Deal. He was admitted to the bar in 1886 and began to practice his profession at Westmoreland, remained there seventeen years and then practiced at Wamego four years. He always took an active part in local affairs and politics and was one of the local leaders of the Republican party in Pottawatomie county. For six years Mr. Codding was the president and attorney of the Kansas State Law Enforcement League and worked actively in the interest of the organization for eight years, having charge of the enforcement fight. In 1901 Mr. Codding was elected to the state senate and represented his district in that body until 1905. Four years later, in July, 1909, he was appointed warden of the Kansas state prison, which position he still fills. Years ago a man who had committed a crime was sent to prison to be punished, he paid the debt of "an eye for an eye and a tooth for a tooth," but criminologists began to study the problem and came to the conclusion that it was better to reform a convict, to teach him some trade and make a responsible citizen of him rather than merely to punish. Mr. Codding has always been a reformer, a man abreast of the times, as he sees what the future will develop sooner than most men, and it is the idea of reform which he has so successfully carried out at Lansing that has given him a place of preëminence among the governors of penal institutions in the United States. During his short career as head of the Lansing prison, Warden Codding has inaugurated many reforms that were viewed with alarm throughout the country, but which have proved to be not only satisfactory but beneficial. The convicts do better work, are more contented and are becoming reformed in a shorter time. Not only the other states of the Union are watching the Kansas prison, but Canada as well, and it may be said that the eyes of the country are upon Warden Codding, who declares that he will make good the present reforms and those he purposes in the near future. In 1886 Mr. Codding married Mamie B. Henrie, a native of the State of New York, who came to Kansas with her parents when only a child. There are four children: Julia K., who lives at Louisville; Lynne, a student at Washburn College, Topeka, Kan.; Harold, who acts as his father's secretary, and Lorina, who lives at home. Mr. Codding is a member of the Masonic fraternity, of the Independent Order of Odd Fellows, the Modern Woodmen of America and the Red Men. The family are members of the Presbyterian, Baptist and Congregational churches.