The Alaska citizen., 1910-08-06

ShCCtdtuldf 1ndeed haS been the
 career of Leigh $. J Hunt. the mar ! whose stories of hunting big game ir
 Africa did much to fire the enthusi .asm of former President Theodore &oo=eyelt; in fact. Hunts friends
 gave him the credit of first sugges
 ting at the White House the expedi
 lion that has drawn so many eyes Ito the Dark Continent Be that as
 ir may. few men have had as var
 jed exploits in widely separated parts of the world as Hunt Africa being one of his fields of operation. and
 few men have been tossed higher and dropped lower by the caprfces of fortune.
 Hunt is not exactly in the class of Andrew Carnegie, though he is credited today with several millions. He has one Carnegie peculiarity, how. ever, and that is bestowing libraries. . Columbia City, Ind, near which Hunt was born, is the possessor of such gift, and the Hoosiers of the . Columbia City district are proud of the son of their state who has
 made himself a friend not only of .hc biggest men of America. but as wCa of the Emperor of Korea, the l,hc1iye of Egypt and the rulers of other lands
 The middle-aged farmer friends of the Hunt family are still telling the story of how Hunt. then a boy of seventeen, came 10 be made teacher Of toroien languages in the Mt. Pleas ant Ind, schools. even though Eng @li#h was his only accomplishment. He had been principal of the schools of Columbia City, at that early age. but he had been living beyond his means, had gone in debt and he decided to seek a new field.
 Before departing, however, he dropped postal card to each of his creditors saying he would pay his debts as soon as he could-that they were not forgotteu-and started for Iowa
 Do you want a school teacher?" he inquired of the Mt Pleasant board of directors.
 Yes was the reply, but he must speak two foreign languages"
 I'm the man you want" young Hunt quickly replied
 "But can you speak two Ian guages?' the directors queried
 Don't worry about that; I can teach them, anyway" assured the ap- plicant, and he got the job. Then so the story goes, he sought a tutor who taught him the linguistic les sons at night that he imparted to the 1 high school students the next day Hunt made good, soon became prin- IiCpal of the East Des Moines. la, high school, and later superintendent of the Agricultural College, at Ames All this time the young instructor was paying off his old creditors back in Indiana. With his turn for finance, he became interested in the possibilities of the savings bank, then little developed institution. From Ames Hunt went far out to the West; and selected Seattle; then a town of only a few thousand people, as his field.
 But Hunt didn't start a bank. h. stead he bought an interest in the principal paper in the town, at that i time the Seattle Post-Intelligencer i He knew nothing about the neWspa- per business, but took a few lessons l from James s. Clarkson, owner of the Iowa State Register, postmaster-gen- eral, and chairman of the Republican 1 National Committee. Hunt first as sumed the duties of business manager 1 of the POst-Intelligencer; then he 1 thought he could make more out of the publication if he had entire con- 1 trol. To the other members of the 1 syndicate that owned it he said:
 Let me take over the paper, and I will pay each of you for your inter- | est, with one per cent. a month added from the time your ownership began"
 This sounded fair enough, and the members of the company assented. Hunt didn't have the money, but he went to his old friends in Iowa and borrowed it. Under his manage ment the paper passed through its golden era.
 With the Post-Intelligencer behind 1 him Hunt became the political die tator of Washington. But he was more than a politician. He was a builder, and with his assistance the people of Seattle took some of the notable steps that later made their city the metropolis of the North west. He interested former Senator Russell A. Alger, of Michigan, in iron enterprises, and the Rockefellers in Washington's mines.
 Then the great panic of the early '90s swept across the country. It