The Birmingham age-herald., 1920-12-13
By CAMPBELL CORY


 man went from among us, worn out at last from long Illness. In his prime, he and I walked a goodly journey arm Jn arm together. The only other man in Birmingham who was on the editorial staff of The Age-Herald when he was its ruling spirit is John Sparrow.
 "John," 1 said to him yesterday, "l feel the impulse to write tribute to our dead friend"
 Do it." said Sparrow, and be sure to say that he was man of warm imagina- tion and had great. sound heart in his bosom
 The first time I ever saw MT. Pinckard he was eating supper at the Windsor hotel in Montgomery. He had come in on the Western, which got in 30 years ago just as it does now, and he was leav- ing by the Louisville and Nashville, for Birmingham, which also had the same schedule as now. Just how we met I do not remember, but the Birmingham boom of 1887 was at it's height, and Mont gomery newspaper men hung much about the depot interviewing Birmingham trav- elers. He was a handsome man, a splen- did specimen physically. with a counte- nance where self-confidence and intel lect sought to outbeam each other. He was then riding the topmost wave of for tune, buoyant and enthusiastic to the last degree. He was indeed a striking man, and I noted then, as so often aft erward, that he thought about things in . large way. Most men talk of a fur mace or mine. His talk was of furnaces and mines. A man of vision had breezed across my path, and l made some in- quiries about him, with this result. He had come out of Chambers county. the old county where Alabama's S greatest literary genius, Johnse Hooper, did his ork. He had practiced law in Opelika for season. then passed on to Tusca- loosa as both lawyer and representative lof one of the foreign loan companies then just entering Alabama. He had married the daughter of a Georgia Meth odist preacher, whose surname of Ryburn is borne by one of his sons. He had gone to Birmingham on the tide that rose in 1886, had made wonderful sue cess in real estate and promotions, and was at that time in partnership with Mr. DeBardeleben, under the firm name or Pinckard x DeBardeleben. l still feel the thrill of that last item when l took it in that here was man so big that Henry DeBardeleben allowed his name to come first in the firm. His great achievement, so my inquiries developed, was the Notation of Bessemer, of which he handled the real estate and stock pro motion, while his partner backed 1t witn payrolls actual and potential. oig thing done in a big way, truly.
 The next thing l heard from Birming- ham, a newspaper man from Tennessee by the name of Rhodes had come to seek a journalistic fortune in the City or Magic, and MT. Parckard had gone to back him on a morning venture called the Herald. He put up good deal or his own money, and his enthusiasm had opened the purses of number of his business friends and associates. l doubt if my dead friend ever pulled in double harness long with anybody. He simply couldn't. He would have it his way or not at all, and the inevitable soon hap pened. He and MT. Rhodes parted com pany, the latter going out to start pa- per of his own.
 The next time I saw MT. Pinckard was on the Alabama on Wheels expedition which Capt Reuben F. Kolb, then com missioner of agriculture, took through the west in 1SSs It was an advertising trip, and some dozen of us were along representing half dozen Alabama towns. He was easily the most impress sive man in the company, by Tar the best posted on AlabamaS mlherai wealth, and whenever he choose he heid the center of the stage. The boon has waned, but everybody thought 1t was coming back at any minute. Nobody dreamed of the weary, weary years or depression just ahead of us. least of all had my friend Pinckards ardent spirit yet begun to droop. Nor did it till the bottom was out in 1893, and iron was drug on the market at $6 a ton. He saw it go, the fortune he had made, and last of all the paper he had learned to love as he did his life, and that had swal- lowed up so much of his money and half dozen of his very best years.
 Always while he was on the paper, his thoughts were on great and radiant future for Birmingham. His plans were large. He bought new press and a new dress, and sought to duplicate in appear ance. even in the extra wide columns. the New York Herald. He believed that the morning paper in Birmingham was, and of right ought to be, the leading pol.ti- cal influence in the state, and just here let me tell how it came about that he was accused of aspiring to the United States Senate.
 Feeling himself the depression of sec ing his fortune slipping, he was in keen sympathy with the farmers who in 1890 were striking out wildly for relief. He had been intimately associated with Cap tain Kolb in Alabama on Wheels and the paper made a fair start toward sup porting him for governor in his firss campaign. Outside of Frank O'Brien, his John Altman Altman was all for Kolb, and stayed that way. The other direc- tors and stockholders took alarm and called a halt, for our moneyed men then were as little minded as they are now toward any adventure in politics or gov ernment that have not first been ap- proved in New York. MT. O'Brien held the balance of power. and finally threw it against any avowed advocacy or cap tain Kolb. MT. Pinckard was not then strong enough financially to go it alone else history would have been. how diff ferent! In that close contest single daily paper of far less influence than The Age-Herald would have turned the scales and the embattled farmers would have had their way.
 know then and I know now that glimpses of political power did flow through Mr. Pinckard's mind, but his real motive in siding with the farAers was the feeling that he and they wers companions in the misfortunes or de- pression then threatening to engulf nun and everybody else, and he was TOT ooins something about 1t.
 When the markets rose again in 1897. MT. Pinckard made another fortunes s small in this day of profiteering, put large for that time. He promised me faithfully that he was going to invest erough of it in solid securities to supply his family with every comfort, buy him self few law books, take what business offered and so spend his days in quiet usefulness But the lure of doing oiS things in pig way caught his ardent and ambitious nature again. He went into mines and mining. and l know that visions of development equal to those wrought by his old real estate partner floated through his mind, for he told me