Los Angeles herald., 1909-04-18

- OMEBODY has called Victor Murdoch the red
haired Kansas who is always laughing and
in dead earnest. He always is in earnest, but he
doesn't always laugh.
Away back in Wichita, in the late eighties
Murdoch and William Allen White used to fore
gather and in the fulness of their youth plan their
future whereby Murdoch to be the great literary
light of Kansas and White its political genius
That plan went askew. Murdoch is not great in
the literary sense, but Speaker Cannon will bear
evidence to the fact that he has made his political
mark White is not much of a statesman, but he
wrote whats the Matter with Kansas?' and stories
that classics in the present day literature Fur
thermore, it is the opinion of Kansas that neither
Murdoch nor White has well started upon his jour-
ney.
1t will pair Victor Murdoch to have his pet skeleton
ratified before the public gaze but nevertheless the
truth is to be served Murdoch dipped into fc
ton He wrote book. Murdock'S hair is red wiry
and very curly. If temperament may be red wiry
and curly, such is Murdocks
These things may acc ount for the fact that after
the young mans father the late M. NJ. Murdoch, read
his sons manuscript remarks were ade that singed
the sagebrush on the nearby Kansas plain
But Victor was young in those days, not well out
of his teens, and it natural right and proper
that he should have more wisdom than his father.
The result was that his manuscript, surreptitiousy
placed in the hands of a New York publisher, became
proof Sheets and full arrangements were made FOR the
publication of the book. Then Colonel Murdoch IN
the publisher and the manuscript and proof sheets
were destroyed And erotic literature lost gem;
Soon after Victor Murdoch attained his majority
he decided against the advice of his wise old father
that Wichita and Kansas were narrowing for hlIn
In Chicago he fit arena for the display OF MS
prowess H. H. KOhlsaat made place for the reu
haired boy on the Chicago Inter Ocean, and young
Murdoch announced that he would be the sensation
of Chicago journalism write the best sellers OF the
year. write the most popular song and, in the versa
tility of his genius write play that would establish
the American drama upon sound foundation
All of these things he would do or he would return
to Wichita and run for Congress in the district which
Jerry Simpson was then making famous. He as
sured his father he might become Governor of Kan
sas an ambition which the elder Murdoch long
nursed and which his failure to obtain most persons
believe to have been a loss to Kansas.
Victor Murdoch aged rapidly and lost much of the
callowness of youth. He quickly the absurdity
of his varied ambitions, and. though his success in
Chicago was assured he returned to his native city,
there to serve apprenticeship in the Office of the
wichita Eagle which his father had laid upon
broad foundation.
In the days when young Murdoch was making life
a low for his family friends and building up his
one-Joseph G.. Cannon recognized as one of the
veterans of the House of Representatives in Con-
gress He was chatting under the time honored rules
of that august body and was determined to upset
traditions that made it impossible Tor AMBITIOUS men
to rise above the sub-surface.
The year that Victor Murdoch made his dip into
Chicago journalism Mr.. Cannon was retired tempo
rarily by his constituency which, however, quickly
an the error of ways and sent him back to Wash
npon two years later with instructions to renew his
effort to turn things inside out