The Kansas City sun. (Kansas City, Mo.) 1908-1924, 1918-02-23

So remarkable has been the career
of Madame c. ]. Walker, famous the
world over for her wonderful success,
that the most conservative journals
and newspapers of the country includ-
ing the Literary Digest, New York
Times, Kansas City Star and many
others too numerous to mention have
spent columns-especially since the
erection of her two hundred and fifty
thousand dollar mansion on the Hud-
son in an attempt to do her justice.
Well might she be called a financial
genius-and truly did the Des Moines
Leader say just this past week after
she had addressed an overflow meet
ing in one of the city's largest audi
toriums: From the washtub to mil
lion dollar fortune is the sort of a
fairytale of which any American wom-
an might be proud to be the heroine"
The Literary Digest styles her "The
Queen of Gotham's Colored 400" And
Francis l.. Garside in the Kansas City
Star describes in detail her most in
teresting interview with the Madam
but read the story for yourself and
then as she so aptly suggests pause
while you take off your hat to her.:
II found myself in a very large
beauty parlor With parquet floors,
with the ceiling, sidewalks and deco
rations of delicate gray. A clerk
told me l could not see Madam, she
was asleep, but she kindly made an
appointment for me, and on the sec
ond call / was taken upstairs and
seated in the drawing-room to await
Madani's convenience. l am not a
Southerner; l waited.
when she came into the room
few minutes later l realized how
adaptable my sex is to change from
poverty to wealth, for Mrs. Walker,
washerwoman fourteen years ago, car
ried her generous weight gracefully
on high French heels and wore an
expensive lavendar silk dressing
gown on a weekday morning, with
lack of selfconsciousness few of us
know when we set on our Sunday
clothes. She has an income of one
quarter of a million dollars a year
She made every cent of her money
any living soul. Pause while you take
off your hat to her.
Mrs. Walker was born in Delta.
La, of ex-slave parents. Left an or
phan at seven, she was treated with
such cruelty by those with whom she
lived that she married at fourteen to
get home. She was left widow at
twenty with one child, and her only
means of support was the washtub.
MANY years ago her hair began
coming out, and she prayed the Lord
to save it.
"'He answered my prayer she told
me, for one night had dream, and
in that dream man appeared to ma
and told me what to mix for my hair.
Some of the remedy was grown in
Africa, but l sent for it, mixed it, put
it on my scalp and in a few weeks
my hair was coming in. l tried it on
my friends; it helped them, l made
up my mind l would begin to sell it.
Mrs. Walker lived then in st.
Louis. She moved to Denver where
she arrived with dollar and a half.
She quickly found a place as cook
and saved her money until finally she
had enough to buy the ingredients she
needed for her boon to bald-heads.'
Her first laboratory was an attic. She
worked two days in the week to get
money enough to pay her rent, and
the rest of the time she spent max.
ing up her hair grower She seems
to have had an excellent business
head, for says the writer:
"She has always had respect for
printers ink that places her ahead of
many white folks, for as fast as she
earned little money she spent 1t in
advertising, and she at one time own
ed a newspaper of her own called
The Afro-American, in which she ex-
tolled editorially, Geographically, and
locally the wonders OF her wares.
She went on the road; she establish
ed agents in various towns; she NOV
ed to Indianapolis, where her factory
is now located, and opened headquar-
ters in Pittsburg and New York, and
always she advertised, spending more