COLONEL NELSON'S "STAR"
"What do you expect to see in Kansas City?" I was asked by the president
of a trust company.
"I want to see the new Union Station," I said, "and I hope also to meet
Colonel Nelson."
He smiled. "One's as big as the other," was his comment.
That is a mild statement of the case. The power of Colonel Nelson is
something unique, and his newspaper, the Kansas City "Star," is, I
believe, alone in the position it holds among American dailies.
Like all powerful newspapers, it is the expression of a single
individuality. The "Star" expresses Colonel William Rockhill Nelson as
definitely as the New York "Sun" used to express Charles A. Dana, as the
New York "Tribune" expressed Horace Greeley, as the "Herald" expressed
Bennett, as the Chicago "Tribune" expressed Medill, as the
"Courier-Journal" expresses Watterson, as the Pulitzer papers continue
to express the late Joseph Pulitzer, and as the Hearst papers express
William Randolph Hearst.
Besides circulating widely throughout Kansas, Oklahoma, Arkansas, and
western Missouri, the "Star" so dominates Kansas City that last year it
sold, in the city, many thousand papers a day in excess of the number of
houses there. Other papers have been started to combat it, but without
appreciable effect. The "Star" continues upon its majestic course,
towing the wagon of Kansas City.
To me the greatest thing about the "Star" is its entire freedom from
yellowness. Its appearance is as conservative as that of the New York
"Evening Post." It prints no scareheads and no half-tone pictures, such
pictures as it uses being redrawn in line, so that they print sharply.
Another characteristic of the paper is its highly localized flavor. It
handles relatively little European news, and even the doings of New York
and Chicago seem to impress it but slightly. It is the organ of the
"feed lot," the "official gazette" of the capital of the Southwest.
While contemplating the "Star" I was reminded of a conversation held
many weeks before in Buffalo with a very thoughtful gentleman.
"The great trouble with the American people," he declared, "is that they
are not yet a thinking people."
"What makes you believe that?" I asked.
"The first proof of it," he returned, "is that they read yellow
journals."
It is a notable and admirable fact that the people of Kansas--the State
which Colonel Nelson considers particularly his own--do not read the
"yellows" to any considerable extent. ("I might stop publishing this
paper," Colonel Nelson said, "but it will never get yellow." And later:
"Anybody can print the news, but the 'Star' tries to build things up.
That is what a newspaper is for.")
Even the "Star" building is highly individualized. It is a great solid
pile of tapestry brick, suggesting a castle in Siena. In one end are the
presses; in the other the business and editorial departments. The
editorial offices are in a single vast room, in a corner of which the
Colonel's flat-top desk is placed. There are no private offices. The
city editor and his reporters have their desks at the center, under a
skylight, and the editorial writers, telegraph editor, Sunday editor,
and all the other editors are distributed about the room's perimeter.
Before talking with Colonel Nelson I inquired into some of the reforms
brought about through the efforts of the "Star." The list of them is
formidable. Many persons attributed the existence of the present park
and boulevard system to this great newspaper; among other things
mentioned were the following: the improvement of schools; the abolition
of quack doctors, medical museums and fortune tellers; the building of
county roads; the elimination of bill-boards from the boulevards; the
boat line navigating the Missouri River; the introduction of commission
government in Kansas City, Kas. (which, I was informed, was the first
city of its size to have commission government); the municipal ownership
of waterworks in both Kansas Cities. More recently the "Star" has been
fighting for what it terms "free justice"--that is, the dispensing of
justice without costs or attorneys' fees, as it is already dispensed in
the "small debtors" courts of Kansas City and through the free legal-aid
bureau. Colonel Nelson says: "'Free justice' would take the judicial
administration of the law out of the hands of privately paid attorneys
and place it wholly in the hands of courts officered by the public's
servants.
[Illustration: Colonel Nelson is a "character." Even if he didn't own
the "Star," ... he would be a "character."... I have called him a
volcano; he is more like one than any other man I have ever met]
"In the great majority of cases justice is still not free. A man must
hire his lawyer. So justice is not only not free but not equal. A poor
owner of a legal right gives a $5 fee to a $5 lawyer. A rich defender of
a legal wrong gives a $5,000 fee to a $5,000 lawyer. The scales of a
purchased justice tip to the wrong side. Or, even if the owner of the
legal right gets his right established by the court, he still must
divide the value of it with his attorney. The administration of justice
should be as free as the making of laws. It should be as free as police
service."
The "Star" has been hammering away at this idea for months, precisely as
it has been hammering at political corruption, wherever found. Another
"Star" crusade is for a 25-acre park opposite the new Union Station,
instead of the small plaza originally planned--the danger in the case of
the latter being that, although it does provide some setting for the
station, it yet permits cheap buildings to encroach to a point
sufficiently near the station to materially detract from it.
Many lawyers disapprove of the "free justice" idea; all the politically
corrupt loathe the "Star" for obvious reasons; and some taxpayers may be
found who cry out that Colonel Nelson pushes Kansas City into
improvements faster than she ought to go. Nevertheless, as with the
"Post-Dispatch" in St. Louis, the "Star" is read alike by those who
believe in it and those who hate it bitterly.
As an outsider fascinated by the "Star's" activities, I came away with
the opinion that Colonel Nelson's power was perhaps greater than that of
any other single newspaper publisher in the country; that it was perhaps
too great for one man to wield, but that, exercised by such a pure
idealist as the Colonel unquestionably is, it has been a blessing to the
city. Nor can I conceive how even the bitterest enemies of Colonel
Nelson can question his motives.
Will Irwin, who knows about newspapers if anybody does, said to me: "The
'Star' is not only one of the greatest newspapers in the world, but it
is a regular club. I know of no paper anywhere where the personnel of
the men is higher. I will give you a letter to Barton. He will introduce
you around the office, and the office will do the rest."
I found these prognostications true. Inside a few hours I felt as though
I, too, had been a "Star" man. "Star" men took me to "dinner"--meaning
what we in the East call "luncheon"; took me to see the station, put me
in touch with endless stories of all sorts--all with the kindliest and
most disinterested spirit. They told me so much that I could write half
a dozen chapters on Kansas City.
Take, for example, the story of the Convention Hall. It is a vast
auditorium, taking up, as I recall it, a whole block. It was built for
the Democratic National Convention in 1900, but burned down immediately
after having been completed; whereupon Kansas City turned in, raised the
money all over again, and in about ten weeks' time completely rebuilt
it. There Bryan was nominated for the second time. Or, consider the
story of the "Harvey System" of hotels and restaurants on the Santa Fe
Road. The headquarters of this eating-house system is in Kansas City,
and offers a fine field for a story all by itself, for it has been the
biggest single influence in civilizing hotel life and in raising
gastronomic standards throughout the west.
But these are only items by the way--two among the countless things that
"Star" men told me of, or showed me. And, of course, the greatest thing
they showed me was right in their own office: their friend, their
"boss," that active volcano, seventy-three years old, who comes down
daily to his desk, and whose enthusiasm fires them all.
Colonel Nelson is a "character." Even if he didn't own the "Star," even
if he had not the mind he has, he would be a "character," if only by
virtue of his appearance. I have called him a volcano; he is more like
one than any other man I have ever met. He is even shaped like one,
being mountainous in his proportions, and also in the way he tapers
upward from his vast waist to his snow-capped "peak." Furthermore, his
face is lined, seamed, and furrowed in extraordinary suggestion of those
strange, gnarled lava forms which adorn the slopes of Vesuvius. Even the
voice which proceeds from the Colonel's "crater" is Vesuvian: hoarse,
deep, rumbling, strong. When he speaks, great natural forces seem to
stir, and you hope that no eruption may occur while you are near, lest
the fire from the mountain descend upon you and destroy you.
"Umph!" rumbled the volcano as it shook hands with my companion and me.
"You're from New York? New York is running the big gambling house and
show house for the country. It doesn't produce anything. It doesn't take
any more interest in where the money comes from than a gambler cares
where you get the money you put into his game.
"Kansas is the greatest state in the Union. It thinks. It produces
things. Among other things, it produces crazy people. It is a great
thing to have a few crazy people around! Roosevelt is crazy. Umph! So
were the men who started the Revolution to break away from England.
"Most of the people in the United States don't think. They are
indifferent and apathetic. They don't want to work. One of our 'Star'
boys went to an agricultural college to see what was going on there.
What did he find out? Why, that instead of making farmers they were
making professors. Yes. Pretty nearly the entire graduating class went
there to learn to teach farming. That's not what we want. We want
farmers."
The Colonel's enemies have tried, on various occasions, to "get" him,
but without distinguished success. The Colonel goes into a fight with
joy. Once, when he was on the stand as a witness in a libel suit which
had been brought against his paper, a copy of the editorial containing
the alleged libel was handed to him by the attorney for the prosecution.
"Colonel Nelson," said the attorney, menacingly, "did you write this?"
"No, sir!" bristled the Colonel with apparent regret at the forced
negation of his answer, "but I subscribe to every word of it!"
* * * * *
Once the Colonel's enemies almost succeeded in putting him in jail.
A "Star" reporter wrote a story illustrating the practice of the Jackson
County Circuit Court in refusing to permit a divorce case to be
dismissed by either husband or wife until the lawyers in the case had
received their fees. The "Star" contended that such practice, where the
couple had made up their quarrel, made the court, in effect, a
collection agency. Through a technical error the story, as printed,
seemed to refer to the judge of one division of the court when it should
have applied to another. The judge who was, through this error,
apparently referred to, seized the opportunity to issue a summons
charging Colonel Nelson with contempt of court.
Colonel Nelson, who had known nothing of the story until he read it in
print, not only went to the front for his reporter, but caused the story
to be reprinted, with the added statement that it was true and that he
had been summonsed on account of it.
When he appeared in court the judge demanded an apology. This the
Colonel refused to give, but offered to prove the story true. The judge
replied that the truth of the story had nothing to do with the case. He
permitted no evidence upon that subject to be introduced, but, drawing
from his pocket some typewritten sheets, proceeded to read from them a
sentence, condemning the Colonel to one day in jail. This sentence he
then ordered the sheriff to execute.
However, before the sheriff could do so, a lawyer, representing the
Colonel, ran upstairs and secured from the Court of Appeals, in the same
building, a writ of habeas corpus on the ground that the decision of the
lower judge had been prepared before he heard the evidence. This the
latter admitted. Thus the Colonel was saved from jail--somewhat, it is
rumored, to his regret. Later the case was dismissed by the Supreme
Court of Missouri.
* * * * *
An attorney representing the gas company, against which the "Star" had
been waging war, called on the Colonel one day to complain of injustices
which he alleged the company was suffering at the hands of the paper.
"Colonel Nelson," he said, "your young men are not being fair to the gas
company."
"Let me tell you," said the Colonel, "that if they were I'd fire them!"
"Why, Colonel Nelson!" said the dismayed attorney. "Do you mean to say
you don't want to be fair?"
"Yes, sir!" said the Colonel. "When has your company been fair to Kansas
City? When you are fair my young men will be fair!"
* * * * *
If there is one thing about the "Star" more amazing than another, it is
perhaps the effect it can produce by mere negative action--that is, by
ignoring its enemies instead of attacking them. In one case a man who
had made most objectionable attacks on Colonel Nelson personally, was
treated to such a course of discipline, with the result, I was informed,
that he was ultimately ruined.
The "Star" did not assail him. It simply refused to accept advertising
from him and declined to mention his name or to refer to his
enterprises.
When the victim of this singular reprisal was writhing under it, a
prominent citizen called at Colonel Nelson's office to plead with the
Colonel to "let up."
"Colonel," he protested, "you ought not to keep after this man. It is
ruining his business."
"Keep after him?" repeated the Colonel. "I'm not keeping after him. For
me he doesn't exist."
"That's just the trouble," urged the mediator. "Now, Colonel, you're
getting to be an old man. Wouldn't you be happier when you lay down at
night if you could think to yourself that there wasn't a single man in
Kansas City who was worse off because of any action on your part?"
At that occurred a sudden eruption of the old volcano.
"By God!" cried the Colonel. "I couldn't sleep!"