The Birmingham age-herald., 1916-03-26
SAYS IRWIN COBB IS A GREATER WIT
 THAN MARK TWAIN Bozeman Bulger Regards Cobb as Best Reporter He
 Has Ever Known
TELLS STORIES OF
 KEENNESS OF HUMOR
Former Birmingham Newspaper Man Here Yesterday With New York American League Base
 ball Club

Irwin $. Cobb is as plain as an old
 shoe simple, ssuming and human: yet he is one of the wittiest men I have ever known" said Bozeman Bulger, author, playwright, one of the greatest sporting writers of the present day, who was in Birmingham yesterday with the American league baseball club of New York.
 MT. Bulger has been associated with MT. Cobb for 12 years, half of which was spent with him on the New York World. MT. Bulger was formerly a member of The Age-Herald staff, going with the New
 York World some P years ago. when he left Birmingham.
 T regard Irwin Cobb as even more of wit than Mark Twain was in his ! palmiest days" continued MT. Buger. "Cobb's wit is never forced, and he avoids 1 the slapstick variety which so often char acterizes the works of Twain.
 | About this lecture tour MT. Cobb made last winter, I started him off on that
 He didn't want to go, as he states in his article in this weeks issue of the Satur- day Evening Post. But he attended a | meeting at the Green Room club with
 me in New York and persuaded him to ] make talk on his experience in the war zone across the Atlantic.
 | MANY ACTORS PRESENT | "In the room at the time were many
 actors and actresses, and several enter
 tainments had been planned for the even- ing. Cobb arose to make his talk, and
 told in simple language straight from 1 the shoulder what he had seen in Europe. l It was one of the greatest addresses ever heard, and those actors, many of them, were in tears when he had done An actor by name of Kruger was on 1 the bill to follow Mr. Cobb with little one-act sketch, a parody popular
 play, but there was some hitch. and I was called upon to make a 1O-minute talk to the crowd.
 | T went behind the scenes afterwards
 and found that Kruger had been com pletely overcome by MT. Cobb's graphic description of conditions abroad. He was hysterical, and it was impossible for him | to appear in his condition.
 | MT. Cobb in that address told of the horrors of the war, but he frightened it by
 interspersing stories filled with keen wit
 and humor. One of the best of his stories | was ILLUSTRATING OI nlS SenSdLlOnS when 1 a shell exploded near him.
 l "I felt something like the negroes
 down south said it was, said MT. Cobb. | One negro met another and they began ! discussing the war The first negro asked the other if he was. going to Europe
 to fight The other said the rlght1ng
 part of it was all right, but he didn't
 think he would go. Tn response to de-
 mand for a reason he said that they had 1 olIno in bo uyhic 1od nall eight miles, And when dem shells hit de ground, nigger, he said, rocks fall ] five miles away for half hour. 1 Tt was good story and told in Cobb s
 inimitable manner greatly relieved the 1 horrors he was visualizing to his hearers 1 by the force of his words,
 WAS GREAT REPORTER
 "Cobb was regarded as the greatest re- l porter in the United States, and has lost none of that reputation yet. He was on the Sun when I went to New York, but joined the World staff G few months aft CT I became member of that corps of news eatherers. At that time we had a | city editor who was famed as one of the best in the country, but who was a
 notorious grouch. Cobb walked into the | new sroom one day and the city editor was missing from his post.
 Where's Chapin? he demanded. l "'He's home sick someone answered. :, Well I certainly hope it is nothing l trivial was Cobbs reply, as he turned ljauntily towards the door.
 1, MT. Cobb has carried large amount of excess avoirdupois ever since I have l known him, although he claims that at l one time he was known Slim because | of his sylph-like form. However, not very long ago it was necessary for his health that he be operated upon. The | phy sicians thought that all that was necessary would be to remove a protuber- ance above his stomach.
 l q called at the hospital to see him l many times after the operation, but I'll never forget the first visit l made him. He was in bed flat on his back, so weak
 that he could hardly turn his head His
 voice seemed far away so weak was he. " They began excavating,' he told me, 1 soon after I got here, and found. after i they got inside. that there were subter- l rannean passages, which it was necessary 1 to explore. Some of those doctors got i in up to their armpts, and were having | the greatest time of their lives. Why, 1 Bozeman, those fellows got il pounds of 1 leaf lard out of one of those passages, 1 and when walked up a little old lean doctor was on the foot of the bed growl- 1 ing at big chunk of meat they had l removed
 During his time in the hospital he
 kept the nurses in continual state of
 merrment One of the nurses told me l that he always refused to eat soup un- less he was first told who had been op- erated on the day it was offered him. You can't be too careful he would say.
 COVERED THAN CASE
 | MT. Cobb gave up active newspaper work about five or six years ago. He i covered the Thaw case up until that time, and some of the greatest stories | that ever. broke were covered by him in wonderful styiee If there ever was ! a better newspaper reporter than Irving. ! Cobb. have not had the good fortune 10 meet him.
 {. Since giving up newspe per work, he has been writing for many magazines, and his lecture tour last winter was his | first venture into that field Incident
 ally, he says it is hls last; that he has
 got enough of that business, and that