The Birmingham age-herald., 1917-11-22
"A Day With DaUison' Personal Impressions of Big Man Who Has Tackled Big
 Job and Is Doing It in a Big Way
By FRANK WILLIS BARNETT

! By FRANK WI
 Henry P. Davison made good in Bir- mingham.
 It was nothing to me that he was a great banker. We have some first class banking men here. I cared less about his being a millionaire. We have
 dozen or more at large in this com munity. To be a banker or millionaire isn't in itself a claim to any special 1 distinction. The woods, or rather the
 cities are full of them in America. |
 l I do not mean to say that I am hail 1 fellow we'll met with the banking fra 1 ternity, or that I can go in their pri-
 vate offices with my hat on, Tor l might as well confess that at times 1 have to very respectfully ask them for a little accommodation. l do not mind confessing that I have no millionaire
 chums but on the other hand am not shy if I happen to come into the presence of one of them.
 | Henry P Davison made good with me. q know he will be delighted to 1 know it), in spite of his being the greatest banker in the world and q multimillionaire, because he is a man.
  | Early Wednesday morning reporter on another paper pet meat the Tut wiler lobby and said: Have you met MT. Dayison?" I answered, "I have not. 7 I Well, take it from me, he is a man. Now, when an ordinary, everyday newspaper man puts his hall mark on a mans manliness, you can just bet he is the real thing.
 |
 ! nd ct1 11Y, I people. I like to meet men and women. l It's fun to write about them. I make l 1t a rule to try and be both fair and l appreciative. It's impossible to know | a man in day, but if you keep your 1 eyes and ears open, and watch him in 1 public and when he is off guard, you l can get a pretty good line on him if you have been a close student of hu- man nature. I put in yesterday trying
 to understand Henry P. Davison. It may amuse him to learn of it, and he 1 might object to my characterization
 but, anyway, I am going to set down l my impressions.
 l l watched the way in which he met l people who were presented to him in- ] formally in the lobby of the hotel; in I Tact, I met him casually, just to feel 1 at first hand his manner of greeting
 
 him daily in his trips over the coun- l try.
 He looked me square in the face, 1 gave me a warm pressure of his hand, 1 and said: q am glad to meet you, MT.
 Barnett" He didn't know me from Adams house cat, but all the same 1 he took the trouble to repeat my name,
 and to let me know by his handclasp that if I had taken the trouble to meet him that he would show proper | courtesy by not responding in per- 1 functory manner.
 It's a good test to try man out I and see how he acts in meeting new people.
 | I studied him as he arose to speak 1 to the hundreds who had gathered at 1 the lunch. He is not trained after l dinner speaker who says commonplace l things in an attractive way; but one I thing I learned, he uses terse Eng 1 fish in a strong and discriminating s manner. He is man of force, with q big message, and he gets it across" i" I to use a stage expression. His talk at l the lunch was not the cheap triumph of word painter. He was applauded l to the echo because he was a man of l action rather than words, whose story moved because it had the driving
 force of great personality behind it. After the lunch I asked him if he cared to deliver a message to body | of picked women from all parts of the state who were in convention at the Southside Baptist church.
 1 I was surprised at the eager way | in which he answered, "Why, of
 course, I will esteem it privilege and opportunity" Accompanied by Dr. Phillips, we drove to the church. l When we arrived Dr. Crumpton, the ! old Baptist war horse was making an l address. He was telling of the devoted
 life of the late Mrs. T. A. Hamilton, an | 'elect lady" whose work still lives in l the hearts of thousands, as she was the best type of the women of tho south who came on the scene of &C., 1 tion when the war clouds hung low over the north and the south.
 The entrance of Mir. Davison with l his Red Cross message was timely. The stage was set for his message. Tn the war between the north and l the south, the sign of the Red Cross had not yet risen in mercy over
 wounded soldiers cots. "There was a lack of woman's nursing; there was a dearth of womans tears.'
 | But many southern and many a northern woman. however. left her
 home and ministered untiringly amid the sad sights of the hospitals, and the
 cannons roar and, bending low caught | the last dying message Ito mother. l Hats off to the Red Cross brigade as 1 well as to the women who take Christ | to those sitting in darkness on the
 other side of the world. They are sis ters of mercy and their presence .n cur city is benison to Birmingham. I am
 not idly coupling together the Red
 Cross nurse and the missionary They
 are made of the same stuff They have