Five Mile Beach weekly journal., 1923-01-26
A QUESTION
OF CLIMATE
Copyright, 1922, by the Macmillan Co.
WILLIAM ALLEN WHITE


Initials, so the IOWu naturally
~ called him Alphabetical" Nor
rison, and dropped the Colonel" He
came to our part of the country in an
early day-he used to explain that
they caught him in the trees, when
he was drinking creek water, eating
sheep-sorrel and running wild with a
buffalo tail for a trolley, and that the
first thing they did, after teaching
him to eat out of a plate, was to set
him at work in the grading gang that
was laying out the Cottonwood and
Walnut rivers and putting the lime
stone in the hills. He was one of the
original five patriots who laid out the
Corn Belt railroad from the Missis-
sippi to the Pacific, and vas appoint
ed one of that committee to take the
matter to New York for the inspec-
tion of capitalists, and be it said to
the credit of Alphabetical Morrison
hat he was the only person In the
crowd with money enough to pay the
ferryman when he reached the Mis-
souri, river, though he had only
enough to get himself across. But in
spite of that the road was built, and
though it missed our town, 1t was be-
cause we didn't vote the bonds,
though old Alphabetical went through
the county, roaring in the school
houses, believing at the crossroads,
and doing all that a good, honest pair
of lungs could do for the cause. How
ever, he was not dismayed at his fail
ure, and began Immediately to organ
ize a company to build another road.
We finally secured a railroad, though
1t was only a branch.
Over his office door he had a sign
Land Ofice'-painted on the false
board front of the building in letters
as big as a COW, and the first orr
newspaper knew of him was twenty
years ago, when he brought in m
order for some stationery for the
Commercial club. At that time we
had not heard that the town support
ed a Commercial elub-nor had any
one else heard of 1t, for that matter
for old Alphabetical was the presi-
dent, and his bookkeeper, with the
Miss dropped off her name, was sec
rotary. But he had a wonderfully
alluring letterhead printed, and
seemed to get results, for he made a
living while his competitors starved.
Later, when he found time, he organ
lied a real Commercial club, and had
himself elected president of it. He
used to call meetings of the club to
discuss things, but as no one cared
much for his monologues on the fu-
ture of the town, the attendance was
often light. He issued circulars re-
ferring to our village as "the Queen
City of the Prairies," and on the cir
culars was a map, showing that the
Queen City of the Prairies was 'the
railroad axis of the West" There
was one road running into the town !;
the others old Alphabetical indicated
with dotted lines, and explained they
were in process Of construction.
He became possessed of a theory
that a canning factory would pay in
the Queen City of the Prairies, and
the first step he took toward building
IL was W llNtSI III Il nlSH nat a lOnS
coat and white vest, and a pair Of
mouse colored trousers. With these
and his theory he went East and re-
turned with a contract. The canning
factory went up, but the railroad rates
went wrong, and the factory was
never opened. Alphabetical blinked
at it through his g~Old-rimmed glasses
for a few weeks, and then organized
a company to turn it into a wooden
mill. He elected himself president of
that company and used to bring
around to our paper notices of direc-
tors meetings, and while he was In
the office he would insist that we de-
voted too much space to idle gossip
and not enough to the commercial
and industrial interests of the Queen
City.
At times he would bring in an edi-
torial that he had written himself,
highly excitable and full of cycloniC
language, and if we printed it Alpha
betical would buy a hundred copies
Of the paper containing it and send
them east. His office desk gradually
filled with woodcuts and zinc etchings
of buildings that never existed save
In his dear old head, and about twice
q year during the boom days he would
bring them around and have a circu-
lar printed on which were the pic
lures showing the imaginary public
buildings and theoretical business
thoroughfares of the Queen City.
The wooden mill naturally didn't
pay, and he persuaded some eastern
capitalists to install an electric plant
in the building and put a street-car
line in the town, though the longest
distance from one side of the place
to the other was less than ten blocks
But Alphabetical was enthusiastic
about it, and had the governor come
down to drive the first spike. 1t was
gold-plated, and Alphabetical pulled II
up and used it for a paper-weight in
his Office for many years, and it is
now the only reminder there is in