The Birmingham age-herald., 1911-05-28
RICHMOND P. ROBSON
BY WALTER HARPER

1 He probably has some other faults, that affect others than those who may get in | his way personally but they do not appear on the surface af tFi f When Captain Hobson returned glowing | from his success in the apanish-American war and was called upon by the rabble for speech he appeared ridiculously yer dant. He was more than sophomoric. He was loud, rancorous and unjointed. Per | haps that is why just about that time the wise women of the west tried to close his mouth with caresses. But .ney succeeded? Not by several smacks. He kept on speaking or trying to speak up and down the hills and hollows of Amer ica like wooden tenement on fire. | But Captain Hobson was no fool. He knew he could not speak, He grew con- scious of his defects and like the true southerner and Alabamian he was set to work-not to retire from the stage but to<overcome his difficulties.
 | I may be telling secret here but in my opinion the fact is no discredit to the man. Captain Hobson, I am told, put himself in the care and under the train ing of one of the best elocutionists in the country and burned gallons of midnight 1 oil addressing his trainer and his own shadow In the wall mirror on every con- ceivable subject under the sun, from growing alfalfa in Alabama to the dangers of the yellow peril.
 How well he has succeeded in acquiring the spell-binder's art will be attested by every man who has heard him speak dur ing the last five years. He is equal to every occasion but perhaps is nearer home Tn political antagonsm. His antagonists all admit that he is worse than the "yei- low peril"
 ''Dick'' Hobson believes in doing things. It may not be just right just the parlia- mentary thing but when he is called upon he is going to do or say something that gets in the papers, It is his way and he just can't help It.
 If 1t is in a national democratic con- vention or a roadside meeting of neigh boring farmers, 1t is all the same When he came to make speech at the Nation al Good Roads convention in Birmingham a few days ago he could not be satisfied to make merely straightforward address on the value of good roads. He tucked s little bill asking for federal aid in build ing roads in his pocket along with a pho- ltograph of his two handsome children that he had left behind him and just al the psychological moment, when he caught the largest crowd in the hall, he sprung 1t with just the proper flourish and asked 1t be indorsed
 Now, mind you. it was the bill and not the photograph that he fournished
 That is Hobson's way
 Four years ago, just after Captain Hob- son had received his first election to Con gress from the Sixth district of Alabama and before he had worked at 1t for a day he began to plan some practical work tc benefit the people of his district.
 HIS heavy lids were half closed over ms Keen eyes set on the far horizon. He was looking from Washington toward the Sixth district of Alabama. He was think. ing Did you ever see Captain Hobson IT deep thought? Something always hap pens.
 At last he jumped to his feet. A glad smile played over his handsome face q have it," he cried, joyfully. 'They cal me a kissing-bug hero. have beer trained as naval engineer and have done more fighting and ship construction thai I have dug potatoes. Here Is where I gs back to the soil. My constituents are no naval constructors. Few of them hav' ever seen a tugboat much less a man of-war."
 How did Hobson go back to the farm Like the usual political demagogue? No much. He had bright ideal. It may b the second one he ever had, but this on has made up for a thousand deficiencies fl other constitunt-lovers.
 He went right down to see Jim Wilson 7 the head of the agricultural department land asked something that had never bee asked before. "Jim, you have got bi department here with hundreds of brigh