The Topeka state journal. [volume] (Topeka, Kansas) 1892-1980, 1902-10-21
MAN OF THE HOUR
Walter Wellman Writes Charac-
ter Sketch
Of the Man Who Has Won a
Great Victory.
HOW DEEP AND STILL.
President Roosevelt Is Quoted
as Saying of Him
A Man Who Thinks Vastly More
Than He Talks.

Walter Wellman furnishes the follow
president of the mine workers union
to the Chicago Record Herald:
John Mitchell is the man of the hour
1t is conceded by press and public that
ne has just won a notable victory. I
wish to tell you something of Mitchell
as man and labor leader. In some
respects he is not a promising subject of
study 1t is too much like studying d
well. How deep and still he isl ex-
claimed President Roosevelt to friend
the ots-sT day, Just after Mr. Mitchell
Deep and stilr' tells the story OF
Mitchells character. He thinks a thou
sand times more than he talks. He is
and cackle every time they think new
thought Yet he talks well when he
talks at all Nor is he averse to con-
versation with his friends. 1t all de-
pends upon his mood Once l took
walk with him for half an hour. He
uttered not more than a dozen words in
that time. He was thinking out things
thinking about the strike. Again l
rode with him for several hours on a
train. He talked about the strike the
whole journey. For nearly six months
he has had scarcely a thought that did
not relate to his battle for his people.
He has read nothing in newspapers ex-
cept dispatches and articles about the
strike. There are many magazines and
reviews lying about upon the table in
his rooms, kept open at the places where
will find that every one contains some
thing about TIE deadlock between the
coal trust and the miners.
Come to think of it. this power OF
concentration is found in every man
that has ever done very much in the
world. Mitchell has it to a marked de-
gree His battle is on his mind wher-
ever he goes-when he falls asleep-in
his dreams; when he awakeS; and it
never goes away for a single moment.
even when he is asleep again 1 tried
once to divert his mind with a story,
funny story from real life of a man
who had been tricked into clipping with
his own wife. When the climax came
and Mitchell was expected to laugh he
did not. There was far-away look in
his black, knowing eyes. He was think
ing about that beastly strike again.
Then he forgetS to eat his meals, and
his faithful secretary, Miss Morris, or
one of his district presidents has to go
and tell him. Thus it has been for
months, five or six hours sleep a night
often less, and every minute of the re-
mainder put IL at his work.
! One would think such constant con-
centration of mind would wear him out.
! benumb the fiber of his brain. trans
form him into a monomaniac- or at
! least DESTROY his sense of pro portions.
But it is not so. The more he works
on his strike the more erfect do mis-
nSnIdl 1dCultloS appear TO operate. He
is like the athlete who becomes more
proficient with steady training, OF the
skilled workmen of these days of re-
fined specialization, who does only one
/ piece of work year in and year out, and
does it easily and perfectly.
| AS for nerves. were it not for one
thing, you would never know that Mr..
Mitchell has them. He smokes 10 or 20
wretched cigars day or partly
smokes and chews and mouths them
! nNC9 SiOna11V r61iphfjnO r1116
not knowing whether they are lit or
not This one sure sign of nerves is
the only one you detect in him. In all
other respects one would think he was
articulated with steel wires
Mitchell not only has the power of
concentration. but the power of silence.
He is one of the few men in this world
who have such control over their
tongues that he almost never has occa-
sion to regret word spoken by himself.
Hundreds of newspaper men can testi-
fly to the impenetrability of his silence
when he does not want to speak. He
makes no breaks" He cannot be trap
ped or tricked or crosS-questioned into
expression. Everything he tells is told
deliberately and with a purpose.
When Mitchell does talk he talks well.
He has his Irish ancestors gift of speech
when he wants to use it. Except from
and then one or two day-you would
never suspect that he is Irish. But he
| is. His parents came from Dublin.
They are Presbyterians. He was born
| at Braidwood. Ill. where he has lived
all his life. He is Al years old, and he
worked Is years in the mines. He has
had little chance to secure an educa-
ton. but he has always been a great
reader of newspapers. In many ways
he is simple minded as a child, but it
would be a bold liar who could lie to
him while confronted with that bright,
steady gaze. have never set much
store by the poets method of reading
character in the eyes, the nose or the
Hchin But in Mitchell's case the eyes
do certainly mean something. They are
about the steadiests and deepest you
lever saw.
Work. work for the miners This is
the only religion to Mr.. Mitchell. He is
very much in earnest He takes his
mission seriously. There is in him none
of that fiippancy and half sincerity we
too often find in men who chance to rise
to the head of movements like this. But
there Is no cant or pretense about it.
He has no phrases about uplifting my
people" or my cause He practices
no rhetorical tricks, designed to snare
the approval of others, or tickle his
Town vanity. Probably if Mitchell could
sit down and analyze himself he would
find that he doesn't quite know why he
! is so much in earnest in this work of
his and in the end he would be forced
to admit that it is simply because he
happened to be in it. and now that he
is IN it he must do his best or despise
himself The controlling force in his
character seems to be that mysterious
inherited and only half conscious id0la-
@.z.-.-..--..-...--e- -