The Montgomery advertiser., 1907-07-28

great folk dies. the paper my compact | his past from his cradle days into memoir, and enlar-e more or less re- | gretfully thereon throughout divers grieving columns. Also. the "Morgue" I in its collections includes leading | names of business and science, as well | az those f potentates political His Impress Left Upon His Times. Aware of these things, I called at
 a newspaper office where I am known and loved and asked for the envelopes devoted to "C. F. King" They were l many, a fair armful in truth evident | ly MT. King had left his impress upon | his times.
 i By t orough ransack of these | 'Morgue" envelopes. I acquired the following knowledge. c. F. King was horn upon a North Carolina plantation in Rockingham County in 1867. His people were not rich as were few Of ] North Carolina In years closely fol- | lowing the Cival war There were nine | of the King children. two younger and SIX older than the present corpor- ation magnate
 C. F. King was seven years of age l when his father died; and the poor circumstances of the household were properly rendered poorer still by a | rascally executor who robbed bare the | small estate and fled. It was on the plantation of his grandfather that the | subject of my inquiry lived. following
 his fathers death. until he attained the age of twelve. During that Quin- l tette of years, he attended a country
 school-the only seminary he ever saw the inside of as a pupil. At the age of twelve young King. | feeling a crowding need of doing something towards his own support. l became a book ae~nt and wandered
 hither and yon in North CaroLna selling the Life of Christ" Shakes peare" and "The Worlds Wonders" He was so successful that at the age | of fifteen one finds him engaged by the Southern Methodist Publishing Company of Nashville to sell its pub | lications.
 MT King continued as a book agent | until he reached the age of seventeen, at which time he became associated lotte, in the State of North Carolina. He later became @ general newspaper correspondent, representing long | string of papers in the South. East and West, and some of the liveliest | newspaper copy sent out over the l wires in those days carried his sigma. | ture.
 
 was best reported in the copy" of C.. F. King His ringing of alarm bells. | and his description of the Hornets Nest Riflemen. as wept over and clung l to by sisters, sweethearts, wives and mothers. the gallant corps departed | by special train to quell that servile
 insurrection. were highly effective. | A Chapter of Newspaper Enterprise. | His crowning effort was his stories
 of the Bostain Bridge railway wreck. when twenty-four were killed and twice
 as many injured. c. F. King. first on | the ground, camped on the single wire
 for forty-eight hours. He sent live
 copy, dead copy, any kind of copy to | hold the wire, while about him. four | deep, stood a circle of special corre-
 spondents. gnashing their defeated l teeth.
 | Following the Bostain Bridge tri-
 umph, the Atlanta Journal invited
 the energetic MT. King into its busi-
 ness office, where for five years he drew | mankind's attention to every Southern | advantage, from watermelons to "Un- | cle Remus" Harris. Then, on kindred
 lines, he put in three years with the
 "St. Louis Republic" On the heels of
 his Republic" work, early in 1897. MT.
 King joined the Boston "Traveler.' and | labored two years in the business vine | yards of that journal.
 The year 1899 arrived. and c. F. King
 was in his thirty second year. He be- i came impatient at being upon the pay | rolls of other men, and resolved to | start a pay roll of his own. He com
 bined the Boston Journal" tho New York "Sun,' the Philadelphia Times, | the Baltimore Herald" and the Chi-
 cago Inter Ocean" in an advertising l group which he called the Great East | ern Newspaper League. and with his | eve on the West made ready for adver- | Using action.
 i The West is strong in what baseball | folk call Team work" In every town there are exchanges, commercial clubs
 and chambers of commerce. The West
 Is an Antonio. and borrows money
 from a Shylock East, giving as security
 of ioosening the Shylockian purse
 strings, the Western Antonio. through
 whose trade bodies chronicled. goes
 largely into advertising. taking pages
 at a time It was to harvest home this l Western advertising that c. F. King organized his Great Eastern Newspaper | League
 On the threshold of the enterprise, MT. King visited the Pullman people
 with a purpose of hiring a private car. | There would be from six to ten assis- | tants with him; a private car was ne- | cessary. Besides. 1t would be impos- | ing and have favorable weight with | those Western Antonios who like to
 see things done in style.
 A Western Procession of Victories.
 The Pullmans wanted fifty dollars a
 day for a private car. Having but a
 few hundred dollars. MT. King gave up | hiring the car and bought 1t outright
 instead, making eloquence do duty as a | first payment
 | The expedition was procession or
 unhroken victories. MT. King in his | Drivate car covered twenty-six thous-
 and Western miles in nine months. | sneaking to those commercial clubs, l exchanges and chambers of commerce.
 and publishing page write-ups of what | unlimited milk and honey flowed in tha fortunate regions he visited. He
 raturned. money in his pocket, content | ment in his heart, and the Pullmans | sold his car for him at neure Whlch l reduced his nine months travelling ex-
 penses to a paltry five hundred dollars. ] An things considered, MT. King | Western campaign was a bewilderlns
 If was in February, 1901. that c.
 F King wound up the affairs or his | Great Eastern Newspaper League ana
 rested from his labors While thus
 rostine he elaborated another onward | sten His genius for advertising was | adn,itted He had made fortunes TOT | otber men. through his unique and | stril<ing celebration of their goods. lie
 H,as resolved thereafter to have per