The Birmingham age-herald., 1920-07-30
MEN, WOMEN
 AND THINGS

ately picture to ourselves just how he looks, and nine times out of ten we fail to come anywhere near to a real likeness
 l am sure that this was the case with many who had read and heard of William Eugene Johnson. whose name is a by word in England and America, but for fear you will not catch the right John son, will give his nickname-"P Pussy foot"-and then you'll get the right man.
 
 may have seen pictures of hip, but if so I had forgotten how they looked. and so when he came to the speakers table at the Rotary lunch on Wednesday, would not have recognized him if it had not been for the fact that I knew he was to be the guest of honor, and was sitting next to Rotarian Cosby, who was sched- uled to introduce him.
 I had at least expected to see, either in his features, dress or manner, a tinge of the wild and woolly west" but after carefully looking him over there wasn't tho slightest thing to hang any such belief
 
 ly devoid of the picturesque, and just the kind of a person you would naturally call brother" on the chance of his being a preacher.
 But if he fails to look the part of man who has had varied career m an unsettled country, where his business was to keep track of and apprehend the very worst sort of desperadoes and law breakers, his record is filled with enough exciting exploits to furnish exciting stories for dozen yellow backs for boys who just naturally eat up books telling about fights, sudden deaths and hairbreadth escapes. But am not going to set down here summary of his he- roic acts west of the Mississippi.
 It's curious the careers men adopt and this is brought to our attention more for cibly in the instance of man like Will liam E. Johnson whose bearing is minis terial rather than bold. Somehow it's hard after seeing his quiet dignided person, and watching his easy manners, and hear ing of the Indian service of the United States. who during six years arrested over 5000 men, and out of this number con- victing 4,400. It's poor joke to say he is a man of arresting and convictng person. ality.
 Take the story of Al Jennings as it came out some years back in the Satur- day Evening Post or is now being thrown on the screen, and you can get a pretty fair idea of what a reckless breed of men the quiet government officer was up against in his effort to see that liquor wasn't sold to the Indians. It was country of desperadoes at the time when he entered upon his task of seeing to it that the crafty whites did not carry on noble red man with fire water"
 
 Unless one has lived in lawless land a rule either suspended or each one broken between the rising and the set- ting of the sun, it is next to impossible to know how the cards were stacked against an officer whose business it was to keep men from violating the revenue laws, and for the profit there was in it demoralize the wards of Uncle Sam. It was frontier life in all of it's crudity, and mixed up with the cupidity of whites and the gullibility of red men.
 I at times thought that the prohibition movement in Alabama was, to say the least of it, bit exciting during the heated campaigns when both sides were calling one another names, and any ! preacher who raised his voice for temper ! ance and had the grit to talk about it in his pulpit, was dubbed political par 1 son." and frequently had to move on ac- count of the animosities stirred by the passions of those who wanted the town. county, state or country either dry or wet.
 l But personally, I never objected to be singled out as political parson,' for find that frequently man or a cause is helped when he or it gets a nickname. Take, for example, the wonderful story of William F. Johnson. I do not know how he won the sobriquet of 'Pussyfoot, but my what an asset it has been. There are hundreds, yes thousands, of Johnsons, 1 for as to numbers they give the Smith tribe a close race; but there is only one "Pussyfoot" Here it once, and it will stick like cockleburr in the memory. This was why Rotarian Crosby had to give Brother Johnson's "entitlements' before the "Rotes' really caught onto who was looking at them, when he arose | to be presented.
 But if his looks are at variance with ms career as terror to evil-doers; the con trast is not so great as his jumping from the outskirts of civilization of the United States into the heart of London to carry on his gospel of making America and England both one vast Sahara without the sign of an oasis in the weary land to shade the sun-burned pilgrims while they die of thirst in alwayS seeing merely a mirage of saloons. It takes more than courage to make such leap. it requires imagination, and an undying faith in the righteousness of the cause of prohibition. l But stranger still, is it not remarkable that man whose life was in constant danger, and upnn whose head there was a price, should have passed unhsrmed | through the perils of almost a guerrilla xuarf.ra xr;tb inc rnost desperate men in