The Birmingham age-herald., 1915-04-22

~ OL. WILLIAM R. NELSON, edl- lk tor of the Kansas City Star, who NJ died recently, was the subject of one of Julian Streets best chapters in Abroad At Home." On the way across the country gathering material for the | book MT. Street, with Wallace Morgan,
 the artist stopped in Kansas City for
 the purpose of seeing the Union station and Colonel Nelson, 'one as big as the other
 "Colonel Nelson is a character says Street, writing about the editor in Abroad At Home. Even if he had
 not the mind he has, he would be a | character if only by virtue of his ap- pearance I have called him a volcano; he is more like one than any other man
 I have ever met. He is even shaped like | one being mountainous in his proportions, and also in the way he tapers upward | from his vast waist to his snow capped peak Furthermore, his face is lined scanned and furrowed in extraordinary suggestion of those strange enarled lava | forms which adorn the slopes of Vesuvius. Even the voice which proceeds from the oolonels crater is Vesuvian; hoarse, deep, rumbling, strong. When he speaks great natural forces seem to stir, and you hope tbat no eruption may occur while you are near, lest the fire from | the mountain descend upon you and de- stroy you.
 "'Umph. rumbled the volcano as 1t
 shook hands with my companion and me. | You're from New York? New York is
 running the big gambling house and show house for the country. It doesn't produce | anything It doesn't take any more inter- est in where the money comes from than gambler cares where you get the money you put into his game
 Kansas is the greatest state in the
 union. It thinks. It produces things. Among other things, it produces crazy people, It is a great thing to have a | few crazy people around Roosevelt is | crazy JImph, So were the men who
 started the revolution to break away from | England
 ".Most of the people in the United States don't think. They are indifferent
 and apathetic They don't want to work. One of our Star boys went to an agricul- tural college to see what was going on
 there. What did he find ouH Why, in stead of making farmers they were mak- | ing professors. Yes. Pretty nearly the
 entire graduating class went there to learn to teach farming. That's not what l we want. We want farmers.
 .erhe colonel's enemies have tried. on various occasions, to get him, but with out distinguished success. The colonel l f;eI,+ xxr;tb Or,ra Vt ybar, 6o 1, was on the stand as witness in libel suit which had been brought against his paper, copy of the editorial containing the alleged libel was handed to him by the attorney for the prosecution.
 "'Colonel Nelson, said the attorney, menacingly. did you write this?
 "'No, sirn bristled the colonel, with apparent regret at the forced negation of
 his answer, but I subscribe to every word of itr
 "Once the colonel's enemies almost suc- ceeded in putting him in jail
 "A Star reporter wrote a story illus trating the practice of the Jackson county circuit court in refusing to permit d.
 vofce case to be dismissed by either nus hand or wife until the lawyers in the case had received Cnelf 1eeS. is' Ses@' >S--
 tended that such practice, where the cou' } ple had made up their quarrel made ths } court, in effect, a collection agency ) Through a technical error the story al , printed, seemed to refer to the judge oi } one division as the court when it should
 have applied to another. The judge, who
 was. through this error, apparently re- ferred to. seized the opportunity to issue
 a summons charging Colonel Nelson witt ,. contempt of court.
 .sColonel Nelson, who had known noth ling of the story until he read it in print | not only went to the front for his re porter, but caused the story to be re printed. with the added statement that i was true and that he had been sum moned on account of it.
 . .'When he appeared in court the judg,
 demanded an apology. This the colone
 refused to give, but offered to prov 1.-the story true. The judge replied tha
 the truth of the story had nothing to d , with the case. He permitted no evi
 dsnce upon that subject to be introduced