Looking down from Kersey Coates Drive, one sees ... the appalling web of railroad tracks, crammed with freight cars, which seen through a softening haze of smoke, resemble a relief map—strange, vast, and pictorialLooking down from Kersey Coates Drive, one sees ... the appalling web of railroad tracks, crammed with freight cars, which seen through a softening haze of smoke, resemble a relief map—strange, vast, and pictorial
out—farms and woodland, reaching off into infinity.
Below, in the nearer foreground, at the bottom of the cliff, is the mass of factories, warehouses and packing houses, and the appalling web of railroad tracks, crammed with freight cars, which form the Kansas City industrial district, and which, reduced by distance, and seen through a softening haze of smoke, resemble a relief map—strange, vast, and pictorial. Beyond, more distant and more hazy, lies the adjoining city, Kansas City, Kas., all its ugliness converted into beauty by the smoke which, whatever sins it may commit against white linen, spreads a poetic pall over the scenes of industry—yes, and over the "wettest block," that solid wall of saloons with which the "wet" state of Missouri so significantly fortifies her frontier against the "dry" state, Kansas.
So far, Kansas City has been too busy with her money-making and her physical improvement, to give much thought to art. However, the day will come, and very soon, when the question of mural decoration for some great public building will arise. And when that day does come I hope that some one will rise up and remind the city that the decorations which, figuratively, adorn her own walls, may well be considered as a subject for mural paintings. I should like to see a great room which, instead of being surrounded by a frieze of symbolic figures, very much like every other frieze of symbolic figures in the land, should show the splendid sweep of the Missouri River, and the great maze of the freight yards,and the wonderful vistas to be seen from the cliffs, and the rich, rolling farm land beyond. How much better that would be than one of those trite things representing Justice or Commerce, as a female figure, enthroned, with Industry, a male figure, brown and half-naked, wearing a leather apron, and beating on an anvil, at one side, and Agriculture, working with a hoe, at the other. Yes, how much better it would be; and how much harder to find the painter who could do it as it should be done.
In view of the enormous activity with which Kansas City has pursued the matter of municipal improvement, and in view of the contrasting somnolence of St. Louis, it is amusing to reflect upon the somewhat patronizing attitude assumed by the latter toward the former. Being the metropolis of Missouri, St. Louis has the air, sometimes, of patting Kansas City on the back, in the same superior manner that St. Paul assumed, in times gone by, toward Minneapolis. It will be remembered, however, that one day St. Paul woke up to find herself no longer the metropolis of Minnesota. Young Minneapolis had come up behind and passed her in the night. As I have said before, Kansas City bears more than one resemblance to Minneapolis. Like Minneapolis, she is a strong young city, vying for State supremacy with another city which is old, rich, and conservative. Will the history of the Minnesota cities be repeated in Missouri? If some day it happens so, I shall not be surprised.
The quality in Kansas City which struck Baron d'Estournelles de Constant, the French statesman and peace advocate, was the enormous growth and vitality of the place. "Town Development" quotes the Baron as having called Kansas City a "cité champignon," but I am sure that in saying that he had in mind the growth of the mushroom rather than its fiber; for though Kansas City grew from nothing to a population of 250,000 within a space of fifty years, her fiber is exceptionally firm, and her prosperity, having been built upon the land, is sound.
That feeling of nearness to the soil that I met there was new to me. I felt it in many ways. Much of the casual conversation I heard dealt with cattle raising, farming, the weather, and the promise as to crops. Business men and well-to-do women in the shopping districts resemble people one may see in any other city, but away from the heart of town one encounters numerous farmers and their wives who have driven into town in their old buggies, farm wagons, or little motors to shop and trade, just as though Kansas City were some little county seat, instead of a city of the size of Edinburgh.
In earlier chapters I have referred to likenesses between cities and individuals. Cities not only have traits of character, like men, but certain regions have their costumes. Collars, for example, tend to become lower toward the Mississippi River, and black string ties appear. Missouri likes black suits—older men in the smaller towns seem to be in a perpetual state of mourning, like those Breton women whose men are so often drowned at sea that they never take the trouble to remove their black.
Western watch chains incline to massiveness, and are more likely than not to have dangling from them large golden emblems with mysterious devices. Likewise the western buttonhole is almost sure to bloom with the insignia of some secret order.
Many western men wear diamond rings—pieces of jewelry which the east allots to ladies or to gamblers and vulgarians. When I inquired about this I heard a piece of interesting lore. I was informed that the diamond ring was something more than an adornment to the western man; that it was, in reality, the survival of a fashion which originated for the most practical reasons. A diamond is not only convenient to carry but it may readily be converted into cash. So, in the wilder western days, men got into the way of wearing diamond rings as a means of raising funds for gambling on short notice, or for making a quick getaway from the scene of some affray.
Whether they are entirely aware of it or not, the well-dressed men of eastern cities are, in the matter of costume, dominated to a large extent by London. The English mode, however, does not reach far west. Clothing in the west is all American. Take, for example, coats. The prevailing style, at the moment, in London and in the eastern cities of this country happens to run to a snugness of fit amounting to actual tightness. Little does this disturb the western man. His coat is cut loose and is broad across the shoulders. And let me add that I believe his vision is "cut" broader, too. Westerners, far more than easterners, it seems to me, sense the United States—the size of it and what it really is. Time and again, talking with them, it has come to me that their eyes are focused for a longer range: that, looking off toward the horizon, they see a thousand miles of farms stretched out before them or a thousand miles of mountain peaks.
And even as coats and comprehension seem to widen in the west, so hats and hearts grow softer. The derby plays an unimportant part. In Chicago, to be sure, it makes a feeble effort for supremacy, but west of there it dies an ignominious death beneath an avalanche of soft felt hats. Felt hats around Chicago seem, however, to lack full-blown western opulence. Compared with hats in the real middle west, they are stingy little headpieces. When we were in Chicago that city seemed to be the center of a section in which a peculiar style of hat was prominent—a blue felt with a velvet band. But that, of course, was merely a passing fashion. Not sothe hats a little farther west. The Mississippi River marks the beginning of the big black hat belt. The big black hat is passionately adored in Missouri and Kansas. It never changes; never goes out of fashion. And it may be further noted that many of these somber, monumental, soft black hats, with their high crowns and widespread brims, have been sent from these two western states to Washington, D. C.
At Kansas City there begins another hat belt. The Missouri hat remains, but its supremacy begins to be disputed by an even larger hat, of similar shape but different color. The big black, tan or putty-color hat begins to show at Kansas City. Also one sees, now and again, upon the streets a cowboy hat with a flat brim. When I mentioned that to a Kansas City man he didn't seem to like it. With passionate vehemence he declared that cowboy hats were never known to adorn the heads of Kansas City men—that they only came to Kansas City on the heads of itinerant cattlemen. Well, that is doubtless true. But I did not say the Mayor of Kansas City wore one. I only said I saw such hats upon the street. And—however they got there, and wherever they came from—those hats looked good to me!
Some of the bronzed cattlemen one sees in Kansas City, though they yield to civilization to the extent of wearing shirts, have not yet sunk to the slavery of collars. They do not wear "chaps" and revolvers, it is true, but they are clearly plainsmen, and some of them sport colored handkerchiefs about their necks, knottedin the back, and hanging in loose folds in front. Once or twice, upon my walks, I saw an Indian as well, though not a really first-class moving-picture Indian. That is too much to expect. Such Indians as one may meet in Kansas City are civilized and citified to a sad degree. Nor are the Mexicans, many of whom are employed as laborers, up to specifications as to picturesqueness.
I feel it particularly necessary to state these truths, disillusioning though they may be to certain youthful readers who may treasure fond hopes of finding, in Kansas City, something of that wild and woolly fascination which the cinematograph so often pictures. True, a large gray wolf was killed by a Kansas City policeman last winter, after it had run down Linwood Boulevard, biting people, but that does not happen every day, and it is recorded that the youth who recently appeared on the Kansas City streets, dressed in "chaps" and carrying a revolver with which he shot at the feet of pedestrians, to make them dance, declared himself, when taken up by the police, to have recently arrived from Philadelphia, where he had obtained his ideas of western manners from the "movies."
I mention this incident because, after having labeled Kansas City "Western," I wish to leave no loopholes for misunderstanding. The West of Bret Harte and Jesse James is gone. All that is left of it is legend. When I speak of a western city I think of a city young, not altogether formed, but full of dauntless energy. And when I speak of western people I think of peoplewho possess, in larger measure than any other people I have met, the solid traits of character which make human beings admirable.
Kansas City is said to be more American than any other city of its size in the United States. Eighty per cent. of its people are American born, of either native or foreign parents. Its inhabitants are either pioneers, descendants of pioneers, or young people who have moved there for the sake of opportunity. This makes for sturdy stock as inevitably as close association with the soil makes for sturdy simplicity of character. The western man, as I try to visualize him as a type, is genuine, generous, direct, whole-hearted, sympathetic, energetic, strong, and—I say it not without some hesitation—sometimes a little crude, with a kind of crudeness which has about it something very lovable. I fear that Kansas City may not like the word "crude," even as I have qualified it, but, however she may feel, I hope she will not charge the use of it to eastern snobbishness in me, for that is a quality that I detest as much as anybody does—a quality compared with which crudeness becomes a primary virtue. No; when I say "crude" I say it respectfully, and I am ready to admit in the same breath that I dislike the word myself, because it seems to imply more than I really wish to say, just as such a word as "unseasoned" seems to imply less.
You see, Kansas City is a very young and very great center of business. It is still engrossed in making money, but, being so exceptionally sturdy, it has foundtime, outside of business hours, as it were, to create its parks and boulevards—much as some young business man comes home after a hard day's work and cuts the grass in his front yard, and waters it, and even plants a little garden for his wife and children and himself. He attends to the requirements of his business, his family, his lawn and garden, and to his duties as a citizen. And that is about all that he has time to do. He has the Christian virtues, but none of the un-Christian sophistications. Art, to him, probably signifies a "fancy head" by Harrison Fisher; literature, a book by Harold Bell Wright or Gene Stratton Porter; music, a sentimental ballad or a ragtime tune played on the Victor; architecture—well, I think that means his own house.
And what is his own house like? If he be a young and fairly successful Kansas City business man, it is, first of all, probably a solid, well-built house. Very likely it is built of brick and is "detached"—just barely detached—and faces a parked boulevard or a homelike residence street which is lined with other solid little houses, like his own. Now, while the homes of this class are, I think, better built and more attractive than homes of corresponding cost in some older cities—Cleveland, for example—and while the streets are pleasanter, there is a sort of standardized look about these houses which is, I think, unfortunate. The thing they lack is individuality. Whole rows of them suggest that they were all designed by the same altogether honest, but somewhat inartistic, architect, who, havinghit on one or two good plans, kept repeating them, ad infinitum, with only minor changes, such as the use of vari-colored brick, for "character." True, they are monuments to the esthetic, compared with the old brownstone blocks of New York City, or the Queen Anne blocks of cities such as Cleveland, but it must be remembered that New York's brownstone period, and the wooden Queen Anne period, date back a good many years, whereas these Kansas City houses are new. And it is in our new houses that we Americans have had a chance to show (and are showing) the improvement in our national taste. I do not complain that the domestic architecture of Kansas City represents no improvement; I complain only that the improvement shown is not so great as it should be—that Kansas City residences, of all classes, inexpensive and expensive, in town and in the suburban developments, are generally characterized by solidity, rather than architectural merit. The less expensive houses lack distinction in about the same way that rows of good ready-made overcoats may be said to lack it, when compared with overcoats made to order by expensive tailors. The more costly houses are for the most part ordinary—and some of them are worse than that.
I am well aware of the fact that the foregoing statements are altogether likely to surprise and annoy Kansas City, for if there is one thing, beyond her parks and boulevards, upon which she congratulates herself peculiarly, it is her homes. I could detect that, both in thepride with which the homes were shown to me and in the sad silences with which my very mildly critical comments on some houses, were received. Nevertheless, it is quite true that Kansas City very evidently needs a good domestic architect or two; and if she does not pardon me just now for saying so, I must console myself with the thought that, ten or fifteen years hence, she will admit that what I said was true.
Kansas City ought to be a good place for architects. There is a lot of money there, and, as I have already said, a great amount of building is in progress. One of the most interesting real estate developments I have ever seen is taking place in what is called the Country Club District, where a tract of 1,200 acres, which, only five or six years ago, was farm land, has been attractively laid out and very largely built up on ingenious, restricted lines. In the portion of this district known as Sunset Hill, no house costing less than $25,000 may be erected. As a matter of fact, a number of houses on Sunset Hill show an investment, in building alone, of from $50,000 to $100,000. In other portions of the tract restrictions are lower, and still lower, until finally one comes to a suburban section closely built up with homes, some of which cost as little as $3,000—which is the lowest restriction in the entire district.
I visited the new Union Station, which will be in operation this winter. It is as fine as the old station is atrocious. I was informed that it cost between six andseven millions, and that it is exceeded in size only by the Grand Central and Pennsylvania terminals in New York. The waiting room will, however, be the largest in the world. The gentleman who showed me the station gave me the curious information that Kansas City does the largest Pullman business of any American city, and that it also handles the most baggage. He attributed these facts to the great distances to be traveled in that part of the country and also to the prosperity of the farmers.
"You see," he said, "Kansas City has the largest undisputed tributary trade territory of any city in the country. We are not, in reality, a Missouri city so much as a Kansas one. Indeed Kansas City was originally intended to be in Kansas and was really diverted into Missouri when the government survey established the line between the two states. We reach out into Missouri for some business, but Kansas is our real territory, as well as Oklahoma and Arkansas. We get a good share of business from Nebraska and Iowa, too. These facts, plus the fact that we are in the very center of the great American feed lot, account for our big bank clearings. In bank clearings we come sixth, St. Louis being fifth, Pittsburgh seventh, and Detroit eighth. And we are not to be compared in population with any of those cities.
"Almost all our greatest activities have to do with farms and produce. We are first as a market place for hay and yellow pine; second as a packing center and amule market; third in lumber, flour, poultry, and eggs, in the volume of our telegraph business, and in automobile sales. And, of course, you probably know that we lead in the sale of agricultural implements and in stockers and feeders."
At that my companion, who, because he resided for a long time in Albany, N. Y., prides himself upon his knowledge of farming, broke in.
"I suppose," said he, "that instead of drawing stockers and feeders with horses, they use gasoline motors now-a-days?"
"Oh, no," said the Kansas City man, "they walk."
"Walk?" exclaimed my companion. "Theyhavemade an advance in agricultural implements since my day if they have succeeded in making themwalk!"
"I'm not speaking of agricultural implements," said our informant. "I'm speaking of stockers and feeders."
"What are stockers and feeders?" I asked.
"Cattle," he said. "There are three kinds of cattle marketed here; first, fat cattle, for slaughter; second, stockers, which are young cows used for stocking farms and ranches; third, feeders, or grassfed steers, which are sold to be fattened on grain, for killing. In stockers and feeders we lead the world; in fat cattle we are second only to Chicago."
"What do you expect to see in Kansas City?" I was asked by the president of a trust company.
"I want to see the new Union Station," I said, "and I hope also to meet Colonel Nelson."
He smiled. "One's as big as the other," was his comment.
That is a mild statement of the case. The power of Colonel Nelson is something unique, and his newspaper, the Kansas City "Star," is, I believe, alone in the position it holds among American dailies.
Like all powerful newspapers, it is the expression of a single individuality. The "Star" expresses Colonel William Rockhill Nelson as definitely as the New York "Sun" used to express Charles A. Dana, as the New York "Tribune" expressed Horace Greeley, as the "Herald" expressed Bennett, as the Chicago "Tribune" expressed Medill, as the "Courier-Journal" expresses Watterson, as the Pulitzer papers continue to express the late Joseph Pulitzer, and as the Hearst papers express William Randolph Hearst.
Besides circulating widely throughout Kansas, Oklahoma, Arkansas, and western Missouri, the "Star"so dominates Kansas City that last year it sold, in the city, many thousand papers a day in excess of the number of houses there. Other papers have been started to combat it, but without appreciable effect. The "Star" continues upon its majestic course, towing the wagon of Kansas City.
To me the greatest thing about the "Star" is its entire freedom from yellowness. Its appearance is as conservative as that of the New York "Evening Post." It prints no scareheads and no half-tone pictures, such pictures as it uses being redrawn in line, so that they print sharply. Another characteristic of the paper is its highly localized flavor. It handles relatively little European news, and even the doings of New York and Chicago seem to impress it but slightly. It is the organ of the "feed lot," the "official gazette" of the capital of the Southwest.
While contemplating the "Star" I was reminded of a conversation held many weeks before in Buffalo with a very thoughtful gentleman.
"The great trouble with the American people," he declared, "is that they are not yet a thinking people."
"What makes you believe that?" I asked.
"The first proof of it," he returned, "is that they read yellow journals."
It is a notable and admirable fact that the people of Kansas—the State which Colonel Nelson considers particularly his own—do not read the "yellows" to any considerable extent. ("I might stop publishing this paper," Colonel Nelson said, "but it will never get yellow." And later: "Anybody can print the news, but the 'Star' tries to build things up. That is what a newspaper is for.")
Even the "Star" building is highly individualized. It is a great solid pile of tapestry brick, suggesting a castle in Siena. In one end are the presses; in the other the business and editorial departments. The editorial offices are in a single vast room, in a corner of which the Colonel's flat-top desk is placed. There are no private offices. The city editor and his reporters have their desks at the center, under a skylight, and the editorial writers, telegraph editor, Sunday editor, and all the other editors are distributed about the room's perimeter.
Colonel Nelson is a "character." Even if he didn't own the "Star," ... he would be a "character."... I have called him a volcano; he is more like one than any other man I have ever metColonel Nelson is a "character." Even if he didn't own the "Star," ... he would be a "character."... I have called him a volcano; he is more like one than any other man I have ever met
Before talking with Colonel Nelson I inquired into some of the reforms brought about through the efforts of the "Star." The list of them is formidable. Many persons attributed the existence of the present park and boulevard system to this great newspaper; among other things mentioned were the following: the improvement of schools; the abolition of quack doctors, medical museums and fortune tellers; the building of county roads; the elimination of bill-boards from the boulevards; the boat line navigating the Missouri River; the introduction of commission government in Kansas City, Kas. (which, I was informed, was the first city of its size to have commission government); the municipal ownership of waterworks in both Kansas Cities. Morerecently the "Star" has been fighting for what it terms "free justice"—that is, the dispensing of justice without costs or attorneys' fees, as it is already dispensed in the "small debtors" courts of Kansas City and through the free legal-aid bureau. Colonel Nelson says: "'Free justice' would take the judicial administration of the law out of the hands of privately paid attorneys and place it wholly in the hands of courts officered by the public's servants.
"In the great majority of cases justice is still not free. A man must hire his lawyer. So justice is not only not free but not equal. A poor owner of a legal right gives a $5 fee to a $5 lawyer. A rich defender of a legal wrong gives a $5,000 fee to a $5,000 lawyer. The scales of a purchased justice tip to the wrong side. Or, even if the owner of the legal right gets his right established by the court, he still must divide the value of it with his attorney. The administration of justice should be as free as the making of laws. It should be as free as police service."
The "Star" has been hammering away at this idea for months, precisely as it has been hammering at political corruption, wherever found. Another "Star" crusade is for a 25-acre park opposite the new Union Station, instead of the small plaza originally planned—the danger in the case of the latter being that, although it does provide some setting for the station, it yet permits cheap buildings to encroach to a point sufficiently near the station to materially detract from it.
Many lawyers disapprove of the "free justice" idea; all the politically corrupt loathe the "Star" for obvious reasons; and some taxpayers may be found who cry out that Colonel Nelson pushes Kansas City into improvements faster than she ought to go. Nevertheless, as with the "Post-Dispatch" in St. Louis, the "Star" is read alike by those who believe in it and those who hate it bitterly.
As an outsider fascinated by the "Star's" activities, I came away with the opinion that Colonel Nelson's power was perhaps greater than that of any other single newspaper publisher in the country; that it was perhaps too great for one man to wield, but that, exercised by such a pure idealist as the Colonel unquestionably is, it has been a blessing to the city. Nor can I conceive how even the bitterest enemies of Colonel Nelson can question his motives.
Will Irwin, who knows about newspapers if anybody does, said to me: "The 'Star' is not only one of the greatest newspapers in the world, but it is a regular club. I know of no paper anywhere where the personnel of the men is higher. I will give you a letter to Barton. He will introduce you around the office, and the office will do the rest."
I found these prognostications true. Inside a few hours I felt as though I, too, had been a "Star" man. "Star" men took me to "dinner"—meaning what we in the East call "luncheon"; took me to see the station, put me in touch with endless stories of all sorts—allwith the kindliest and most disinterested spirit. They told me so much that I could write half a dozen chapters on Kansas City.
Take, for example, the story of the Convention Hall. It is a vast auditorium, taking up, as I recall it, a whole block. It was built for the Democratic National Convention in 1900, but burned down immediately after having been completed; whereupon Kansas City turned in, raised the money all over again, and in about ten weeks' time completely rebuilt it. There Bryan was nominated for the second time. Or, consider the story of the "Harvey System" of hotels and restaurants on the Santa Fé Road. The headquarters of this eating-house system is in Kansas City, and offers a fine field for a story all by itself, for it has been the biggest single influence in civilizing hotel life and in raising gastronomic standards throughout the west.
But these are only items by the way—two among the countless things that "Star" men told me of, or showed me. And, of course, the greatest thing they showed me was right in their own office: their friend, their "boss," that active volcano, seventy-three years old, who comes down daily to his desk, and whose enthusiasm fires them all.
Colonel Nelson is a "character." Even if he didn't own the "Star," even if he had not the mind he has, he would be a "character," if only by virtue of his appearance. I have called him a volcano; he is more like one than any other man I have ever met. He is even shapedlike one, being mountainous in his proportions, and also in the way he tapers upward from his vast waist to his snow-capped "peak." Furthermore, his face is lined, seamed, and furrowed in extraordinary suggestion of those strange, gnarled lava forms which adorn the slopes of Vesuvius. Even the voice which proceeds from the Colonel's "crater" is Vesuvian: hoarse, deep, rumbling, strong. When he speaks, great natural forces seem to stir, and you hope that no eruption may occur while you are near, lest the fire from the mountain descend upon you and destroy you.
"Umph!" rumbled the volcano as it shook hands with my companion and me. "You're from New York? New York is running the big gambling house and show house for the country. It doesn't produce anything. It doesn't take any more interest in where the money comes from than a gambler cares where you get the money you put into his game.
"Kansas is the greatest state in the Union. It thinks. It produces things. Among other things, it produces crazy people. It is a great thing to have a few crazy people around! Roosevelt is crazy. Umph! So were the men who started the Revolution to break away from England.
"Most of the people in the United States don't think. They are indifferent and apathetic. They don't want to work. One of our 'Star' boys went to an agricultural college to see what was going on there. What did he find out? Why, that instead of making farmers theywere making professors. Yes. Pretty nearly the entire graduating class went there to learn to teach farming. That's not what we want. We want farmers."
The Colonel's enemies have tried, on various occasions, to "get" him, but without distinguished success. The Colonel goes into a fight with joy. Once, when he was on the stand as a witness in a libel suit which had been brought against his paper, a copy of the editorial containing the alleged libel was handed to him by the attorney for the prosecution.
"Colonel Nelson," said the attorney, menacingly, "did you write this?"
"No, sir!" bristled the Colonel with apparent regret at the forced negation of his answer, "but I subscribe to every word of it!"
Once the Colonel's enemies almost succeeded in putting him in jail.
A "Star" reporter wrote a story illustrating the practice of the Jackson County Circuit Court in refusing to permit a divorce case to be dismissed by either husband or wife until the lawyers in the case had received their fees. The "Star" contended that such practice, where the couple had made up their quarrel, made the court, in effect, a collection agency. Through a technical error the story, as printed, seemed to refer to the judge of one division of the court when it should have applied to another. The judge who was, through this error, apparently referred to, seized the opportunity to issue asummons charging Colonel Nelson with contempt of court.
Colonel Nelson, who had known nothing of the story until he read it in print, not only went to the front for his reporter, but caused the story to be reprinted, with the added statement that it was true and that he had been summonsed on account of it.
When he appeared in court the judge demanded an apology. This the Colonel refused to give, but offered to prove the story true. The judge replied that the truth of the story had nothing to do with the case. He permitted no evidence upon that subject to be introduced, but, drawing from his pocket some typewritten sheets, proceeded to read from them a sentence, condemning the Colonel to one day in jail. This sentence he then ordered the sheriff to execute.
However, before the sheriff could do so, a lawyer, representing the Colonel, ran upstairs and secured from the Court of Appeals, in the same building, a writ of habeas corpus on the ground that the decision of the lower judge had been prepared before he heard the evidence. This the latter admitted. Thus the Colonel was saved from jail—somewhat, it is rumored, to his regret. Later the case was dismissed by the Supreme Court of Missouri.
An attorney representing the gas company, against which the "Star" had been waging war, called on the Colonel one day to complain of injustices which he alleged the company was suffering at the hands of the paper.
"Colonel Nelson," he said, "your young men are not being fair to the gas company."
"Let me tell you," said the Colonel, "that if they were I'd fire them!"
"Why, Colonel Nelson!" said the dismayed attorney. "Do you mean to say you don't want to be fair?"
"Yes, sir!" said the Colonel. "When has your company been fair to Kansas City? When you are fair my young men will be fair!"
If there is one thing about the "Star" more amazing than another, it is perhaps the effect it can produce by mere negative action—that is, by ignoring its enemies instead of attacking them. In one case a man who had made most objectionable attacks on Colonel Nelson personally, was treated to such a course of discipline, with the result, I was informed, that he was ultimately ruined.
The "Star" did not assail him. It simply refused to accept advertising from him and declined to mention his name or to refer to his enterprises.
When the victim of this singular reprisal was writhing under it, a prominent citizen called at Colonel Nelson's office to plead with the Colonel to "let up."
"Colonel," he protested, "you ought not to keep after this man. It is ruining his business."
"Keep after him?" repeated the Colonel. "I'm not keeping after him. For me he doesn't exist."
"That's just the trouble," urged the mediator. "Now, Colonel, you're getting to be an old man. Wouldn't you be happier when you lay down at night if you could think to yourself that there wasn't a single man in Kansas City who was worse off because of any action on your part?"
At that occurred a sudden eruption of the old volcano.
"By God!" cried the Colonel. "I couldn't sleep!"
The shades of night were falling fast,As through a western landscape passedA car, which bore, 'mid snow and ice,Two trav'lers taking this advice:Visit Excelsior Springs!
The shades of night were falling fast,As through a western landscape passedA car, which bore, 'mid snow and ice,Two trav'lers taking this advice:Visit Excelsior Springs!
Have you ever heard of the city of Excelsior Springs, Missouri? I never had until the letters began to come. The first one reached me in Detroit. It told me that Excelsior Springs desired to be "written up," and offered me, as an inducement to come there, the following arguments: paved streets, beautiful scenery, three modern, fire-proof hotels, flourishing lodges, live churches, fine saddle horses, an eighteen-hole golf course ("2d to none," the letter said) four distinct varieties of mineral water, and—Frank James.
The mention of Frank James stirred poignant memories of my youth: recollections of forbidden "nickel novels" dealing with the wild deeds alleged to have been committed by the James Boys, Frank and Jesse, and their "Gang." I used to keep these literary treasures concealed behind a dusty furnace pipe in the cellarof the old house in Chicago. On rainy days I would steal down and get them, and, retiring to some out-of-the-way corner of the attic, would read and re-read them in a kind of ecstasy of horror—a horror which was enhanced by the eternal fear of being discovered with such trash in my possession.
I had not thought of the James Boys in many years. But when I got that letter, and realized that Frank James was still alive, the old stories came flooding back. As with Maeterlinck and Hinky Dink, the James Boys seemed to me to be fictitious figures; beings too wonderful to be true. The idea of meeting one of them and talking with him seemed hardly less improbable than the idea of meeting Barbarossa, Captain Kidd, Dick Turpin, or Robin Hood. I began to wish to visit Excelsior Springs.
Before I had a chance to answer the first letter others came. Mr. W. E. Davy, Chief Correspondent of the Brotherhood of American Yeomen, wrote that, "Excelsior Springs is one of the most picturesque and interesting spots in that portion of the country." Ban B. Johnson, president of the American Baseball League, also wrote, declaring, "I believe Excelsior Springs to be the greatest watering place on the American continent." Then came letters from business men, Congressmen and Senators, until it began to seem to me that the entire world had dropped its work and taken up its pen to impress upon me the vital need of a visit to this little town. The letters came so thick that, from St.Louis, I telegraphed the Secretary of the Excelsior Springs Commercial Club to say that, if he would let up on me, I would agree to come. After that the letters stopped as though by magic. Until I reached Kansas City I heard no more about Excelsior Springs. There, however, a deputation called to remind me of my promise, and a few days later the same deputation returned and escorted my companion and me to the interurban car, and bought our tickets, and checked our trunks, and put us in our seats, and sat beside us watchfully, like detectives taking prisoners to jail. For though I had promised we would come, it must not be forgotten that they were from Missouri.
Excelsior Springs is a busy, pushing little town of about five thousand inhabitants, situated in Clay County, Missouri, about thirty miles from Kansas City. The whole place has been built up since 1880, on the strength of the mineral waters found there—and when you have tasted these waters you can understand it, for they are very strong indeed. But that is putting the thing bluntly. Listen, then, to the booklet issued by the Excelsior Springs Commercial Club:
Even as 'truth is stranger than fiction,' so the secrets of Nature are even more wonderful than the things wrought by the hands of man. Just why it pleased the Creator of the Universe to install one of His laboratories here and infuse into its waters curative powers which surpass the genius and skill of all the physicians in Christendom is a question which no one can answer. Like the stars, the flowers, and the ocean, it is merely one of the
Even as 'truth is stranger than fiction,' so the secrets of Nature are even more wonderful than the things wrought by the hands of man. Just why it pleased the Creator of the Universe to install one of His laboratories here and infuse into its waters curative powers which surpass the genius and skill of all the physicians in Christendom is a question which no one can answer. Like the stars, the flowers, and the ocean, it is merely one of the
great eternal verities with which we are surrounded. Whither and whence no man knows.
great eternal verities with which we are surrounded. Whither and whence no man knows.
Having paid this fitting compliment to the Creator, the pamphleteer proceeds to expatiate upon the joys of the place:
There are cool, shaded parks and woodlands, where you can sit under the big, spreading trees which shut out the hot summer's sun—where you can loll on blankets of thickly matted blue grass and read and sleep to your heart's content—far from the madding crowd and the world's fierce strife and turmoil.... Here the golf player will find one of the finest golf links his heart would desire. The fisherman will find limpid streams where the wary black bass lurks behind moss-covered rocks.... Here you and your wife can vie at tennis, bowling, horseback riding, and a dozen other wholesome exercises, and when the shadows of the night have fallen there are orchestras which dispense sweet music and innumerable picture shows and other forms of entertainment which will while away the fleeting moments until bedtime.
There are cool, shaded parks and woodlands, where you can sit under the big, spreading trees which shut out the hot summer's sun—where you can loll on blankets of thickly matted blue grass and read and sleep to your heart's content—far from the madding crowd and the world's fierce strife and turmoil.... Here the golf player will find one of the finest golf links his heart would desire. The fisherman will find limpid streams where the wary black bass lurks behind moss-covered rocks.... Here you and your wife can vie at tennis, bowling, horseback riding, and a dozen other wholesome exercises, and when the shadows of the night have fallen there are orchestras which dispense sweet music and innumerable picture shows and other forms of entertainment which will while away the fleeting moments until bedtime.
Though the writer of the above prose-poem chose to assume that the imaginary being to whom he addresses himself is a married man, the reader must not jump to the conclusion that Excelsior Springs is a resort for married couples only, that the married are obliged to run in pairs, or that those who have been joined in matrimony are, for any reason, in especial need of healing waters. If unmarried persons are not so welcome at the Springs as married couples, that is only because a couple spends more money than an individual. The unmarried are cordially received. And I may add,from personal observation, that the married man or woman who arrives alone can usually arrange to "vie at tennis, bowling, horseback riding, and a dozen other wholesome exercises" with the husband or the wife of some one else. In short, Excelsior Springs is like most other "resorts." But all this is by the way. The waters are the main thing. The paved streets, the parks, the golf links, even Frank James, sink into comparative insignificance compared with the natural beverages of the place. The Commercial Club desires that this be clearly understood, and seems, even, to resent the proximity of Frank James, as a rival attraction to the waters, as though under an impression that no human being could stomach both. Before I departed from the Springs some members of the Commercial Club became so alarmed at the interest I was showing in the former outlaw that they called upon me in a body and exacted from me a solemn promise that I should on no account neglect to write about the waters. I agreed, whereupon I was given full information regarding the waters by a gentleman bearing the appropriate name of Fish.
Mr. Fish informed me that the waters of Excelsior Springs resemble, in their general effect, the waters of Homburg, the favorite watering place of the late King Edward—or, rather, I think he put it the other way round: that Homburg waters resembled those of Excelsior Springs. The famous Elizabethbrunnen of Homburg is like a combination of two waters found at the Missouri resort—a saline water and an iron water,having, together, a laxative, alterative, and tonic effect. Mr. Fish, who has made a study of waters, says that Excelsior Springs has the greatest variety of valuable mineral waters to be found in this country, and that the town possesses two among the half dozen iron-manganese springs being used, commercially, in the entire world. Duplicates of these springs are to be found at Schwalbach and Pyrmont, in Germany; Spa, in Belgium, and St. Moritz, in Switzerland. The value of manganese when associated with iron is that it makes the iron more digestible.
Another type of water found at the Springs is of a saline-sulphur variety, such as is found at Saratoga, Blue Lick (Ky.), Ems, and Baden-Baden. Still another type is the soda water similar to that of Manitou (Colo.), Vichy, and Carlsbad, while a fourth variety of water is the lithia.
In 1881 the present site of the town was occupied by farms, one of them that of Anthony Wyman, on whose land the original "Siloam" iron spring was discovered. This spring, the water of which left a yellow streak on the ground as it flowed away, had been known for years among the negro farm hands as the "old pizen spring," and it is said that when they were threshing wheat in the fields, and became thirsty, none of them dared drink from it.
Rev. Dr. Flack, a resident of the neighborhood, having heard about the spring, took a sample of the water and sent it to be analyzed—as my informant put it,"to find out what was the matter with it." The analysis showed the reason for the yellow streak, and informed Dr. Flack of the spring's value.
From that time on people began to drive to the Springs in the stagecoaches that passed through the region. First there were camps, but in 1882 a few houses were built and the town was incorporated. In 1888 the Chicago, Milwaukee & St. Paul Railroad began to operate a line through Excelsior Springs, and in 1894 the Wabash connected with the Springs by constructing a spur line. The Milwaukee & St. Paul tracks pass at a distance of about one mile from the town, and this fact finally caused the late Sam F. Scott to build a dummy line to the station.
I was told that Mr. Scott had handsome passes engraved, and that he sent these to the presidents of all the leading railroad companies of the country, requesting an exchange of courtesies. According to this story, Mr. Scott received a reply from Alexander Cassatt, then president of the Pennsylvania system, saying that he was unable to find Mr. Scott's road in the Railroad Directory, and asking for further information. To this letter, it is said, Mr. Scott replied: "My road is not so long as yours, but it is just as wide." Perhaps I should add that, later, I heard the same story told of the president of a small Colorado line, and that still later I heard it in connection with a little road in California. It may be an old story, but it was new to me, and I hereby fasten it upon the town where I first heard it.
Excelsior Springs is the headquarters of the Bill Club, which has come in for humorous mention, from time to time, in newspapers throughout the land. The Bill Club is a national organization, the sole requirement for membership having originally consisted in the possession of the cognomen "William" and the payment of a dollar bill. Bill Sisk of Excelsior Springs is president of the Bill Club, Bill Hyder is secretary, and Bill Flack treasurer. By an amendment of the Bill Club constitution, "any lady who has been christened Willie, Wilena, Wilhelmine, or Williamette, may also join the Bill Club." The pass word of the organization is "Hello, Bill," and among the honorary members are ex-President Bill Taft, Secretary of State Bill Bryan, Senators Bill Warner and Bill Stone of Missouri, Bill Hearst, Colonel Bill Nelson, publisher of the Kansas City "Star," and Bill Bill, a hat manufacturer, of Hartford, Conn.
The head waiter at our hotel was a beaming negro. As my companion and I came down to breakfast on our first morning there, he met us at the door, led us across the dining room, drew out our chairs, and, as we sat down, inquired, pleasantly:
"Well, gentamen, how did you enjoy yo' sleep?"
We both assured him that we had slept well.
"Yes, suh; yes, suh," he replied. "That's the way it most gen'ally is down here. People either sleeps well or they don't."
After breakfast we were taken in a motor to the James farm, nine miles distant from the town. Never have I seen more charming landscapes than those we passed upon this drive. An Englishman at Excelsior Springs told me that the landscapes reminded him of home, but to me they were not English, for they had none of that finished, gardenlike formality which one associates with the scenery of England. The country in that part of Missouri is hilly, and spring was just commencing when we were there, touching the feathery tips of the trees with a color so faint that it seemed like a light green mist. It was a warm, sunny day, and the breeze sweet with the smell of growing things. There was no haze, the air was clear, yet by some subtle quality in the light, colors, which elsewhere might have looked raw, were strangely softened and made to blend with one another. Blatant red barns, green houses, and the bright blue overalls worn by farm hands in the fields, did not jump out of the picture, but melted into it harmoniously, keeping us in a constant state of amazement and delight.
"If you think it's pretty now," our guardians told us, "you ought to see it in the summer when the trees are at their best."
Of course such landscapes must be fine in summer, but the beauty of summer is an obvious kind of beauty, like that of some splendid opulent woman in a rich evening gown. Summer seems to me to be a little bit too sure of her beauty, a little too well aware of its completeness. The beauty of very early spring is different; there is something frail about it; something timid and faltering, which makes me think of a young girl, delicate and sweet, who, knowing that she has not reached maturity, looks forward to her womanhood and remains unconscious of her present virgin loveliness. No, I am sure that I should never love that Missouri landscape as I loved it in the early spring, and I am sure that such a painter as W. Elmer Schofield would have loved it best as I saw it, and that Edward Redfield or Ernest Lawson would prefer to paint it in that aspect than in any other which it could assume. I should like to see them paint it, and I should also like to see their paintings shown to Kansas and Missouri.
What would Kansas and Missouri make of them? Very little, I fear. For (with the exception of St. Louis) those two States seem to be devoid of all feeling for art. I doubt that there is a public art gallery in the whole State of Kansas, or a private collection of paintings worth speaking of. As for western Missouri, I could learn of no paintings there, save some full-sized copies, in oil, of works of old masters, which were presented to Kansas City by Colonel Nelson. These copies are exceptionally fine. They might form the nucleus for a municipal gallery of art—a much better nucleus than would be formed by one or two actual works of old masters—but Kansas City hasn't "gotten around to art," as yet, apparently. The paintings are housed in the second story of a library building, and several people to whom I spoke had never heard of them.