The news & observer. [volume] (Raleigh, N.C.) 1894-current, 1896-09-30
TOM DIXON.


York. to his old father in Shelby, y.
G., in which the young man is reported
to have said that when he got to Shelby
he would in one hour pursuade the odd
man" that he (Tom) was right ana
that the "old man. was wrong.
OF course it is all about the Mckinney
business. the young man having recent
" started out to elect that gentleman.
Tom Dixon has two brothers; one
preaching in California and one ~
BROOKLYN. While he was filing the
pulpit in the New York y. NJ. {. a.
Ruilding, these two brothers preached
for him once. They seemed to be
we'll balanced men, much liked Tom in
appearance, but just like other men IN
their mental balance. The transition
from Tom was somewhat pleasant. For
this precocious youngster kept the
nerves of all his friends on pins by his
sudden doings. He had done all kinds
OF extravagant things when a youth
in North Carolina, one of them being
his going to the legislature before he
was 81. He seemed to have much of
the sensationalist who was after draw
ing attention to himself, but there was
a certain dash and self-reliance which
older men somehow like in young
man even though they may deprecate
much that he may do or say. Then,
too, everybody here in North Carolina
knew his old father, good old Bap-
fist clergyman in Shelby, and they
all said: "he's got some metal in him,
and will come down to his PAGES in
time"
And then Tom Dixon got theatre
antics in his head, and took stage les
sons and went to Boston, and the old
man stayed at home and went along
about his Masters business.
And Tom grew to be aman of great
renown in Boston, and when he came
to New York, he was Immediately set
upon by the great New York Dailies
as a new sensation. He was called like
Abraham Lincoln, and snap shots were
taken of him during his sermons for
Mondays papers. And he got the Bos-
ton papers and the New York papers
together and sent them to the old home
in the little country town, and the
neig'hbors got about on the dry-goods
boxes and read about what a big man
tom" was away up in New York. 1t
NAV no doubt have occurred to the
old gentleman that Tom was growing
too fast; that the big men that he had
known of had grown more slowly, but
doubtless he said nothing thinking
maybe Tom might come out all right.
And then, too, in some of his Sunday
sermons before the MULTITUDE that
would gather to hear him in the great
Y. M. c.. A. building, a sweet piece of
home color would now and then be
dashed. 1t showed that his thoughts
clung still to the little town and to
the fields over which he had stretched
his long, ungainly, slim, slatternly legs
when a lad. A tarheel picture now
and then-these must have given the
old gentleman softer glimpses of his
conspicuous son far away in the big
city.
Then when he would quiet down and
the papers take a lull on him, he
would hunt up something else to make
him AN object of news. He would get
into trouble robin-hunting on Staten
Island, and glitter through the papers
for spell, and be glad again. And
the folks ait home read what he said
in his next Sundays sermon about
how it was that when he went hunting
over the hills in North Carolina, he
never thought. the robin was a song
bird and the congregation laughed. He
was doing eccentric things, but he was
still talking about home, and the peo-
pie took '9Tom's" side. And then came
another lull, and the next news-feature
he made of himself was leaving his
charge, and going to the Academy of
Music to preach independent" He had
before this been putting what he called
political preliminaries" to his ser
mons, and got more newspaper notices.
But the home-folks said Toms only
pitching into the vices of New and
Toms right.
And then came the Academy stage,
and the sermons got to be pretty near
ly all political preliminaries," but
everybody down here said its Tom
and its Toms way, but they thought it
"monstrous queer" But tom" came
down to North Carolina about that
time and delivered a lecture ON "The
New Woman" and he drew as his ideal
the same sweet Southern woman, wife
and mother that he used to know in
the little town, and everybody said:
"POm Is MIGHTY queer but he don Z