The Birmingham age-herald., 1903-07-12
THERE'S MILLIONS INIT.
Original Colonel Sellers Lived and
 Flourished In Missouri

From the Washington Post.
 One hears almost annually of some person who was Mark Twain's inspira- tion" for the famous character of Col onel Mulberry Selers-that wonderful op- timist who has delighted two generations. taught the lesson of human kindness and loving charity as it was never taught by mortal man and given mingled hap plness and merriment to untold thousands of our time. Just how many persons have received this enviable distinction we shall not undertake to say They are innumerable by this time, and we shrink from the task of asserting and classifying them with anything like care. Indeed we are relieved of that laborious and futile undertaking by the sure knowledge that Mark Twain had originally In mind the late Thomas A. Harris of Pewee Valley, Ky, some fifteen or twenty miles to the north of Louisville.
 General Harris was a Missourian, a man of travel education, wide experience, indomitable courage and engaging man. ners and appearance. Gifted far beyond ordinary men in brains, address and mo- ble instincts he was beloved In private, successful in affairs, admired, respected and conhded In by all who knew him. He made millions like a genius and spent
  poet, an orator, a bold and shrewd spec ulator. No one ever lost a dollar through trusting him. His failures and disap- pointments touched himself alone. Mark Twain knew him well In the old days before the civil war, thrilled responsive to his sublime conceptions and the al- turing eloquence with which he gave them shape and substance, recognized his fine character, his noble purpose his 1-l. aIt ha fftl1 rla of hia amazing personality. And Mark Twain in painting Colonel Mulberry Sellers merely utilized the pathos and the humor and the splendid and beautiful benevolence of the mans unique and brilliant nature.
 Senator Vest remembers dear old Tom Harris. It was he who in the fall of 1S6l when Price was besieging Lexington, Mo- and when all efforts failed to dislodge Mulligan and his immortal Chicago bri- gade" conceived the expedient of the hemp bales and put the Confederate army behind them, rolling the movable breast works up the hill and over the union for tificatlons to victory But for Harris ge- nius Lexington would never have been taken. Thrice the force that Price had at his command could not have success fully stormed that formidable height. A year or so later Harris was in Richmond seeking a command. While there he fell out of fourth story window, alighting face downward on a pile of bricks. Vest said of 1t afterward, "It would have killed a snowbird. In Harris case there was only a nose split right down the middle and a scar which everybody thought had been made by a saber In some desperate hand to hand conflict with a hated foe.
 Harris was always the kind and cour- teous and clean handed gentleman. He loved his fellow man. He was ready to share his last dollar with any one who seemed to be in distress or sorrow. Great thoughts issued from his fruitful mind. Prodigious schemes and enterprises were the children of his intellect. Untold mill lions in which he had no share have been the creatures of his light suave sugges- tions. He never wronged man or woman He was incapable of deceit or pretense. But when he talked all men listened. Out of the crumbs of his opulent sugges- tion others gathered fame and fortune. And he died poorl He had made many men rich He had distributed succor, hope encouragement, as the sower filings his seed. But he always saw the bread upon the water and he never lost his faith in man. He was Mark Twain's Sellers.