The Birmingham age-herald., 1910-11-06
THE BEST PAID
 POET IN AMERICA He Is Walt Mason of Emporia,
 Kansas IS VERY HARD WORKER Makes More Than $5OOO n Year Writ ing DOggereI--Is Telegraph and Exchange Editor on Elm
 poria Paper
IS VERY HARD WORKER
From the Kansaa citx star.


 as frail as he, but that was before the advent of Walt Mason--the Kansas poet who has made verse writing pay. What if he is a new god, he is the inspiration for a new genius, and the modern poet and Pegasus are as unique as any of by gone times
 In little room adjoining the editorial office of W. A. White in the Emporia Gazette. sits Walt Mason. When the to- bacco smoke clears you can see the best paid poet in America. Every day his prose poems appear in a total circulation of 10000, ,C00-the largest circulation ad- dressed by any American. These poems are syndicated by George Mathew Adams, and the writer receives $50 a week from the syndicate. A prose sketch in the Chi cago News every day brings him from $50 to $50 a week. He writes occasionally for Life. Golfers and the American; is a contributor to the Kansas Magazine and he has been asked to contribute to al many more publications He receives a salary as telegraph editor and editorial writer on the Gazette. The past year he has averaged $400 a month In September he received $600 for his writings
 A Round Man Tumbled Out
 It was the usual hazy autumn Sunday, that day in September three years ago, and the cub reporter idled in the Gazette office watching the obviously clean pop ulace going for It's mail to the postoffiee next door. A platform in the front win dow of the office Is built up two feet from the floor forming a sort of table and the space between makes convenient place for the storing of Congressional Records A much-used typewriter was on the window ledge and the cub jggled with the keys. He was wondering to whom the strange machine belonged when a queer vehicle drew up in front of the office. It was an odd affair topless phaeton, with one of the back wheels al- most spokeless. Hitched to it was a small bay horse. He rather rolled out, a big round man with a worried express sion, and he tapped on the door for ad- mittance. In the office he drew chair to the window, took off his felt hat. bar ing a head of short curly hair, and began to pound the keys of the machine. He worked while, then ventured a few re- marks to the cub. Ills name was Walt Mason, be said, and he had driven down from Atchison, Kas., to work on the Ga zette. Did they use that kind of flap doodle" on the Gazette? Where was there q good HVerymdn WHO WOulu ldhe good care of the horse? And these inn portant queries answered he turned again 10 his ''mill'' to grind out some more flapdoodle for the next days paper.
 Sang and State Listened
 He sat there several months at the old machine with his knees rubbing against those Congressional Records. Then T place was made for him in a room ad- joining and he continued to grind out the fiapdoodle that not only the Gazette, but the whole state took kindly to. The make up of the first page of the Gazette calls for star head" at the top of the sheet and Uncle Walt" as the Gazette soon learned to call him, would run verse each day in that space. The rhyme was usually on some local happening, but the philosophy contained therein was of uni versal application and the verses were copied daily throughout the country Oft entimes the poems were stolen and no credit given. Then MT. Adams arranged with Uncle Walt for the copyrighting and sale of the daily prose-poem.
 A Poet Who Gets Up Early
 You can forgive poet for being vls- ionary and even indolent, for that is their heritage. But here is a poet whose ca pacity for work equals that of any man and surpasses that of many who would feel that they had accomplished day 5 work when Uncle Walt Is but half begun. Seven o'clock in the morning sees him with his collar and coat off. pulling over the exchanges. There Is & clothes basket under his desk, but it makes no pretense to hold the discards of the exchange table and by S:30 the floor is filtered with newspapers. As exchange editor he has culled the best of Kansas paragraphs and he turns to his machine to write his 'In Other Words and Speaking of Kansas columns. Then he writes three columns of editorial, touching on every thing from the news of the day to the varieties of whisker culture indulged in by the home merchants. By this time it is probably Il o'clock. and the editorial writer walks home to his luncheon. At 12 O clock he is back in his room, but now as the telegraph editor. As the dispatches comes in he writes the heads for the stories and edits the copy. The thirty" the last of the telegraph copy, comes in at s:So o'clock, and MT. Mason turns to his machine and writes a prose sketch for the Chicago News. Sometimes that ends the days work, but more often he remains to answer some of the hundreds of letters he receives weekly from ad mirers. There doesn't seem to be many vacant spaces in that schedule, but they are there, and Uncle Walt fills them in with his inimitable, kindly humor. He loves a joke and he never misses an op- portunity to surprise one of the office force.
 On the Way Home to Dinner
 On his way home from work he stops in the book stores and scans the list of latest arrivals for tale of interest. And he can tell you with one glance if the story has action and plot enough to merit it's perusal. The book shelves keep him until clock, his dinner time. There is one thing he likes better than books and that is baseball. He was the orig- nator of the intercity league idea in Emporia and during the series that is played in the summer, the first bail pitched finds him on the "bleachers'' eagerly intent on the boys presentation of the national sport.
 He calls it "canned'' music in some of his editorials, but In the Mason home d. talking machine holds very dear place. If you stop in for visit after Mir. and Mrs. Mason have been for a drive about town with "Billy"-the same horse that brought the poet from Atch- ison-the typewriter will be pushed aside and the talking machine will be sovereign in front of the red brick fireplace He likes all kinds of music and the music stores are watched as closely for the new records as are the book places for the latest fiction. You can have any kind of music and your taste Is peculiar if its qualification falls not within the reper- tojre of Mr. Mason's cabinet of records. You close your eyes at Traumerel and think of the man opposite--the best paid