The Birmingham age-herald., 1921-04-13
M E N, w OM E N ..y AND T HIN G s

The thing like best about Irvir Shrewsbury Cobb is that he never fails 10 make mention of his home town, a rather rare thing for man who is | cosmopolite. -
 New York London. Berlin. Vienna Petrograd Rome, not even Paris have been able to make him forget Paducah like the Israelite of old, in his love for Jerusalem Cobb, in effect says, If forget thee, Q Padueah, let my right hand forget her cunning" .
 But de does not stop with the thought of his pen dropping from lis ralsied hand if he disremembers, but goes on the full way with the ae yout Jew of old yho in thinking of his holy city, added If I do not remember thee, let my tongue cleave to the roof of my mouth; if I prefer not Jerusalem above my chief joy"
 In small way can sxmpathize with Cobb in his rare devotion to the Ken lucky town which gave him birth, for in spite of the fact that have been away from Eufaula nearly two score years, it and its people are ever be fore me and always thihk of it as home and of them with a great love. This is my excuse for so often mention ing it in my column and my talks.
 And well may he love Paducah, for in it he found the rich material which his genius has made known around the world. It was his mission to take the small town man and glorify him. and no one who ever has had the privilege lof coming in the presence of Judge Priest will ever again be so foolish as to speak with contempt of the small town soul" Cobb has put a halo around the. head of the average man whe spends his life in the quiet eddies of our villages and towns.
 Others have had, thestask of writing g about Cobb, the celebrity who first ptook Louisville, New York and then London by storm only to invaie the continent and later, to be known l wherever the Seven Seas bathe the shores of even those countries still sit ting in the shadow of darkness; for he with his humor, his paths, his hu- manity has been able to touch the heart-strings' of rich and poor. tigh and low educated and uneducated. Mine shall be the humber job of de- scribing him as just one of us, the great army recruited into he cities from the home towns" of America. t3
 Some people have wondered how IT, win Cobb has kept his head from swell ing, his manners from becoming affect- ed, his heart from being spoiled and his humor from souring. living as he does now in an atmosphere of praise and publicity; but to me it's no secret. for n spite of all of his cos osmopolitanisln he is saved by the salt of the old Ken lucky traditions which flowereo in his home town and which has kept him sweet and clean. in the worlds capi- tals. s'a ,9 Now, when he was here several, years back to deliver the annual or ation at the Confederate reunion it was my mis- fortune to be out Of the city, and there fore have never had the pleasure of knowing him personality, Eand what I write about him is gleaned from what others have written orstolcls me: It isn't very satisfactory thing to do, and yet having been a. newspaper man so long himself he will understand how I am Compiling him" in order to please a ioVely matron and help worthy cause. 
 am for the time forgetting the man or letters whose stories have been a revelation to his friends an inspiration to all who live by writing, a source of delight to millions of readers and the despair of captiouxs-critics. I am not even dealing with the man of the world, but with Cobb, the big, noisy, good natured Paducah genius" who, in spite of the flight of years, is still at heart the centennial baby" being born Tn June.- 1876, with a boys love of ad- venture, and the urge to weave into tales the things he sees and hears.
 was glad to find Ellis Parker Butler referring to the fact that in the clubs of New York they have called this dahk-haied gemman from Kentucky (Ain't.sit pitiful to see a Yankee make try at negro dialect?) 'Old Irv Cobb, so long and so affectionately that lot or folks think he was christened that way" He admits that he himself had notion that the "Old" was sort of diminutive for Old Bourbon Bottled at the Still. gave this Butlerian yer sion because I wanted to let it be known that the brilliant K entuckian was the kind of man.sthat his friends would find a nickname for
 Butler makes this wise estimate of Cobb's great success in America s greatest citys "The general run of us are in New York but Cobb is all ways from Paducah.'' He know< ev- cry corner. of New York; but sees it with the freshness of vision of a cub reporter of the Paducah Daily News Now.sit is just because he has made his readers hee his home town and his home people in such vivid, and inter esting way that he has made his way straight to their hearts. His characters are not dummies to be dressed up with tail-rnade hand m e. downs" or cast off clothes. but they are living. breath : ing human figures. pulsating with life.
 It is always a risky thing to prophecy about the things which will live in lit erature. but am going to, risk my rep utation by prophesying that Cobb's Nest bid for immortality is. Aot in his war stories, notin his descriptions of Euro pean cities, countries and manners, not in any of his political writings, but the thing which will rank him as one of the t'immortals'' swill be the lifelike portraits Of the men, women and chill dren whom he knew in his home town. i do not enthuse over him as the globe trotter, but l love him as the gentle man from Paducah.
 predict that when many of the ann