Chapter VI: Part 6

I found Michael Worthy and Secretary E. J. Smiley at the hotel waiting for me. There was much stir about the hotel, as if a general meeting was in progress. Mr. Smiley told me that he and Mr. Worthy had a tentative contract drafted, and that I might take my girl to the circus—then I was to drop by the hotel and sign up for membership in the Association, which would cost me $12 a year, in quarterly payments. I was going to take my girl to the circus anyway. Harvey Lynn and Anna Bates, and Myrtle Mercer, were in the hotel parlor waiting for me. We had planned this even before I got that telegram. I had complimentary tickets, and we could not afford to miss the circus to parley over a contract. We four circus lovers had gone to Holton with a livery team, in an open spring wagon.

After the circus, Mr. Smiley asked me if I had any objections to the contract? I told him that inasmuch as I was being pushed in with scant knowledge of what it was all about, and that in deference to my friends in Atchison who were urging me to get in PDQ, that I would sign on the dotted line—and trust to luck. It seemed to be Mr. Worthy’s field day, and he would have had his own way, anyhow. It looked as if it might rain, and I did not want to waste time quibbling over the matter. If need be, I would gladly forego shipping altogether for the life of the contract—which was six months, with renewal privilege — rather than get my friends in trouble.

When I had signed the paper, Mr. Smiley shook his head, negatively, grinned, and said in undertone so that Michael couldn’t hear, “He’ll not want to renew it.” I pondered this for many days, and don’t know that I ever did hit upon the right solution. There certainly was nothing in the contract to alert me on that point. Had Mr. Smiley known what I had decided to do in the matter before I got home that day, he would have been justified in making that prediction.

Well, it rained. It rained “pitchforks.” And, in that open wagon, there were two mighty sloppy girls, and as many sloppy boys—and, to make matters worse, the creek was over the Netawaka bridge. Held up here, I took the opportunity to scrutinize the $3.00 package I had so recently purchased, practically “sight unseen,” and see what they had really done to me.

The contract gave Mr. Worthy two-thirds of the business, and I was to have the other third. If either of us got more than the allotted proportion, he must pay the other one cent a bushel for the excess. We would buy now at a price supplied us from day to day by an anonymous somebody having no permanent address. No matter where located, any member receiving house that we might choose, would confirm our sales. It was September, and the old corn was about all gone. Mr. Worthy had 1200 bushels contracted from Herb Wessel, and I had 3000 bushels coming in from Charley Hannah. By agreement, these lots were not to be counted on the contract.

Harvey Lynn was Assistant Cashier of the Wetmore State Bank, and should have been able to decipher any funny business—but he could see no just reason why Mr. Worthy should be given twice as much as me. Certainly not on account of that old dump.

Anna Bates said, “Why, that old dump, nobody would risk their horses on that rickety high driveway. I’ve heard lots of farmers say they wouldn’t.” Mr. and Mrs. O. Bates were operating the north side restaurant, and as waitress Anna had a good opportunity to hear the corn haulers express themselves.

Myrtle Mercer said, “I know what I’d do. You could let Mr. Worthy have it all, and then go down to his lumber office once a month, and collect. That would give you a third interest in his grain business—just for grapes. That ought to hold him.”

Harvey said, “John, I believe Myrtle’s got something there. You can’t fight with your hands tied.”

“But,” I said, “that clause saying I must buy everything offered, at a designated price, will keep my hands tied.”

Myrtle said, “Think, think, think! Let’s pray that there shall be a way around that. It’s not fair to let Mr. Worthy do all the thinking. It’s only for corn shipped. And you always fill your cribs every winter anyway.”

She was all for the grapes.

As of the moment, Myrtle’s estimate of one-third was correct — but, like a struggling corporation doubling its capital with the induction of new blood, our new set-up raised the buyer’s margin from one cent to two cents a bushel; thus reducing the little man’s share to one-sixth of the gross, with all the expense of handling and shipper’s losses falling on the promoter. And the losses—mostly on account of wet snow-ridden corn being carelessly scooped off the ground into the sheller—were unusually heavy that winter. But Michael, being the man he was, took his medicine without a whimper.

Happily, there was a way around it. An honorable way. Michael said as much himself. Actually, I did not ship one car of corn in the whole six months. But I did spring the market on nearly all the 10,000 bushels of ear-corn cribbed that winter. My crib was 16-foot tall on the high side, with doors or openings well up toward the top, and it took more to get the farmers to bring it to me in the ear. The extra money paid for the shoveling was very generously interpreted by Mr. Worthy as no violation of our contract.

Though I was the loser, a funny incident fits in here. I was bothered some by petty stealing, but never a loss of any consequence. John Irving, commonly called “Nigger John,” head of the only colored family ever living in Wet-more—and, except John, a right good colored family it was — thought it a huge joke on me. He laughed “fit to kill” when he told me that he had climbed up to one of those high doors one night about 10 o’clock, and then dropped down on the inside to the corn, and was filling his sack, “when I gets me some company.” He said a white man, (naming him) with sack in readiness, had dropped down on top of him. He laughed, “That white man, he was sure scared most to def.” Nigger John also told me that he and our deputy town marshal had bumped heads in my corn crib one dark night. “But that’s eber time,” he lied. And John was not what you might call a really bad Nigger. Other men who helped themselves to my corn were not “white” enough to tell me about it.

Also, someone had whittled out a hand-opening, enlarged the crack between two boards on the back side of the crib—with a loss of two or three bushels of corn. When I went down one evening about dusk to close the crib, I saw a very fine old lady—a grandmother—filling her apron with my corn. I sneaked away, praying that she had not seen me.

And again, I had given permission to a crippled man to gather up some shattered corn around the sheller after the day’s run. When I went down late in the evening to close the crib, I saw the man and his wife putting ear-corn in a sack. I didn’t want to humiliate them, so I walked unobserved around to the opposite side of the crib, and made a lot of racket. The sacks contained no ear-corn when I got around to the sheller—and I knew then that they would always be my friends.

Eighty-three dollars was the largest monthly check paid me on that lop-sided contract. With the sixth and last month’s collection in hand, I asked Mr. Worthy if he wished to renew the contract?

“Lord no,” he said, throwing up his hands. “The nice thing about this track buying is, when a fellow knows he’s licked, he can shoulder his scoop-shovel, go home and sleep soundly.”

But it was not so tough on Mr. Worthy as one might think. We had been buying on a one-cent margin. Now we — or more properly he — were working on a two-cent margin, and, barring shipping expenses and losses, he would still be making a cent profit on the third on which he would have to pay me one cent a bushel. It was just galling him — that’s all. He had the old-fashioned notion that one should labor for his money.

Mr. Worthy told me later that he had made the discovery of my billing at two o’clock that night after he had gone home from church. He laughed, saying he had made several futile nocturnal visits to that box before this time. It was luck more than perseverance that had rewarded him at that late hour. A freight train that would have picked up the loads, had it not already been loaded to capacity, passed through at 11 o’clock. Also, he said he had believed for awhile that I was selling my corn on the Kansas City market—and that when I would get enough of this that I would quit. Except on a sustained rising market, the dealer shipping to Kansas City could not compete successfully with the dealer who sold to the receiving houses, on advance bids. And that is how the Association was eliminating the track buyers.

I could not realize at first what tremendous advantage this lop-sided contract would give me. On the face of the contract—no. Decidedly the opposite. Nor was it out in the open for Michael to see. In fact, it was by way of developments mothered by that contract. The Association maintained a weighmaster at all member receiving houses, who would check on member-shipper’s receipts, at 35 cents a car, if desired; but it was not obligatory. Having had some rather unsatisfactory treatment from other houses, I had now found a place where I could depend on getting honest weights. I wrote F. M. Baker, telling him that while I hardly knew yet why the urgency, I had paid for a membership in the Association; and, as I had always had satisfactory weights from his firm, I desired him to disregard the Association weighmaster.

He wrote me, saying he deeply appreciated my statement of confidence in him; that he had been accused of all manner of uncomplimentary things—stated much stronger—and that if he could ever do me a favor, he would do it gladly. Thus was laid the foundation for a real helpful friendship—but, handicapped by that lop-sided contract, it did not come into being for another six months.

On the q~t, we belonged to the same poker club.

When I got a free hand, I also got the corn. We received bids from the purchasing houses every morning, good until 9:30 a.m. Corn bought after this time would be subject to the fluctuations of the day’s market, with a new bid the next morning. Though I hardly know how it got started, it became a fixed routine for the firm’s telegraph operator and buyer, George Wolf—now Executive Vice President of the Exchange National Bank, in Atchison—to call me up after the close of the market. If I had bought corn that day on the basis of the morning bid, and it had dropped a cent, or any amount, he would book it at the morning bid. And if it had gone up he would tell me to hold it for developments the next day. Sometimes the market would go up day after day, and I would not sell until there was a break; and then I would get the last top bid.

That was grapes—ripened on friendship’s vine.

I spent a pleasant hour with George Wolf in his private corner of the Exchange National, three years ago. We discussed old times. I believe George would now vouch for all I am saying here.

I went down to Atchison one afternoon, when corn had dropped a half cent. I had 3,000 bushels that I had bought from Jim Smith, and 10,000 bushels of the Ham Lynn corn which I had agreed to ship for his account, at $5 a car. The corn was several years old, and a portion of the big crib had been unroofed for one whole summer. The grade was doubtful. I did not want to buy it outright. There was a car shortage, too, and I wanted the shipment to take care of the grades as well as penalties, if any, in case the shipment was not completed within the 10-day time limit. Mr. Baker said he would take my 3,000 bushels at the morning bid, and Mr. Lynn’s 10,000 bushels at the present market (one-half cent less) if he would let it go at that. And in that case he would give me credit for the half cent, amounting to $50. He said, rather gruffly, “We don’t owe the farmer anything. There’s the phone. See what you can do with him.” Mr. Lynn accepted the new offer. And he was mighty glad that he did. By the time I got around to telling him all about the deal, corn had dropped several cents. If it had gone up, I don’t believe I would have ever told him. The Lynn shipment totaled 13,000 bushels, with only one car off grade.

I used to take an occasional flyer on the Board of Trade—mostly, I believe, before my good Christian friend, Albert Zabel, told me that it was gambling. I had 7,000 bushels of corn cribbed, and Albert had 3,000 bushels cribbed on the same lots, which he wanted me to sell. Corn was cheap then, and getting lower as the new crop promised a good yield. A good general rain the night before had spurred our desire to sell at once. My top bid that morning was 17 cents.

Ed Murray, agent at the depot, showed me a wire from the Orthwine people in East St. Louis, bidding Mike Worthy 18% cents. I had shipped some corn to the Orthwines. I wired them, offering 10,000 bushels at 18 3/4 cents, same as their bid to Mr. Worthy. Their reply was slow in coming, and I may say that when it did come, the market was off nearly five cents.

I had told Albert that evidently the Orthwine people were waiting for the market to open—and that I was going to sell mine on the Board, and asked him if I should include his in my sale? He studied a moment, then said, “That would be gambling, wouldn’t it?”

I said, “No—not when we have the corn to fill the contract. This will be protection against further loss. We gambled, Albert, when we bought the corn at the ridiculously low price of eleven to sixteen cents a bushel.”

Albert said, “I don’t know about that. If it wasn’t for them weevil in the corn, I would hold it over until next year.” We had previously discussed this, and decided that it would not be advisable to hold it over. He finally said, “No, I’ll not go in with you. I never gamble.” And just think of it, the fellow was buying and shipping hogs—continuing in the business until his finances were “not what they used to be.”

I sold 10,000 bushels anyway, on the Chicago Board — and cleaned up three cents a bushel by the time we sold our cribbed corn at 14 cents a bushel. “Them” weevil had us scared. But the damage was not enough to lower the grade beyond the number three contracted.

In the old days, many of the farmers would shuck their corn early, pile it out in the open on a grass patch or rocky knoll, and then haul it to market after it had taken rains and snows—the more, seemingly, the better. More than once have I gone out to the country, and shoveled drifted snow away for lots bought on contract. It was such corn as this that brought the weevil, which worked mostly in the damp spots. Another trick of the old farmer was to wait for a freeze before shelling and marketing his ground “cribbed” corn. One such car of mine, billed for “export,” and passed by the Greenleaf-Baker firm—that is, not unloaded in Atchison, was reported steaming when it arrived in Galveston. It had passed inspection in Atchison.

Think I should say here—well, really it should be apparent without saying—that our reputable farmers were not guilty of this practice. It was usually floater-tenants, irresponsible farmers making a short stay in the community, who devoted much time to figuring out a way to skin someone. A fellow by the name of Groves, farming the old Adam Swerdfeger place eight miles northwest of Wetmore, contracted to deliver to me 800 bushels of “Number Three, or better” corn at 32 cents a bushel. When the wagons began coming, in the afternoon, I saw the corn was not up to grade, and I held up the haulers waiting for the arrival of the seller. In the meantime I learned from the haulers that it was corn that had been frosted, gathered while immature, shelled while frozen, and stored in a bin on the farm. The fellow had sent word by the last hauler in, that there would be two more loads to follow. When they did not show up at the proper interval, I dumped the loads (in waiting) and let the impatient farmers go home. I knew now from the way the fellow was holding back that I would have a tough customer to deal with—but I would take a chance on him. I felt that I couldn’t afford to keep the haulers, who were my friends, waiting longer. The seller came in with the two loads between sundown and dark. I told him the corn was not up to grade. He said,”Well, you’ve dumped it, haven’t you?” I said, “Yes, for a fact, I have dumped thirteen loads of it—but here’s two loads I’m not going to dump.” But I did finally dump them, on agreement with the fellow to ship the lot separately and give him full returns. The shipment was reported “no grade” and the price was cut six cents a bushel. I paid the man 26 cents a bushel, on the basis of our weight—and was glad to be rid of him. Then, the next day I received an amended report on the car. It was found to be in such bad condition that the receiving house had called for a re-inspection—and the price was cut another eight cents a bushel. And this was mine—all mine.

It seemed to me that nearly everything, in the old days was, in a sense, touched with that horrible word—gamble. And I know that I really did gamble in an attempt to grow a crop of corn on my expensively tiled bottom seed-corn farm down the creek a mile from town, one very dry year.

I hired all the work done, paid out $500 in good money—and got nothing but fodder.

Another time I filled my cribs with 25 cent corn and held it for the summer market. When I was bid 49% cents a bushel, I jokingly told Mr. Worthy that I couldn’t figure fractions very well, and that I would wait for even money. Fifty cents was considered a high price for corn then—but usually when it would reach near that figure, the holders would begin to talk one dollar corn. It was a year when the corn speculators just didn’t know what to do, after the price began to slip.

Alpheus Kempton, over north of Netawaka near the Indian reservation, had 5,000 bushels stored on the farm. He told me he had been watching my cribs, and thought that maybe I had inside information of a come-back in prospect. I too had been watching some cribs, with similar thoughts. The Greenleaf-Baker firm had 20,000 bushels stored in two long cribs at Farmington. As I frequently traveled the railroad—on a pass—and noticed the corn had not been moved out, I thought that maybe, after all, I had not erred in letting the high bids get away from me. I told Mr. Baker that I had been watching his Farmington cribs for a reminder as to when it would be time for me to sell mine. He laughed, saying, “I’ve sold it (on the Board) and bought it back probably twenty times.”

Well, Alpheus and I—we held our corn over another year—and then sold it for 301/2 cents a bushel. May I say that by this time I had brushed up on my arithmetic. And Christian or no, who is there to say I did not gamble that time? I still maintain that I gambled when I bought the corn. However, there were times when I sold 25-cent corn for 70 cents—and most of it went back to the country here. The only advantage that I could see in storing corn instead of buying it on the Board, was the possibility of striking a local market.

And again, I bought 5,000 bushels of wheat on the Chicago Board, at 61 cents a bushel, and margined it with $100. As the market advanced, I bought seven more five thousand bushel lots with the profits, making 40,000 bushels in all. It was a very dry time in Kansas, and wheat was jumping three to five cents a day—and had reached a fraction under $1.00 on the Thursday before Memorial Day, which of course would be a holiday, with no market.

My profit on the single $100 investment was now nearly $4,000.00. I had planned to get out before the close of the market on Thursday, because I did not want to run the risk of carrying the deal over the holiday. But the weather map, just in from Kansas City, indicated clear skies for Kansas over the week-end. This, coupled with the exuberant spirits of the excited dealers on the Atchison Board, caused me to change my mind. One more day of dry weather would likely double my earnings.

The weather man was wrong; horribly wrong.

It began raining in Wetmore about 10 o’clock that night. You’ve probably been lulled to sleep by rain patter on the roof. Believe me, there was no lullaby sleep in the constant rain patter on the roof over me that night. It rained off and on here all day Friday. Everyone I met on the street here exclaimed, “Fine rain, John!” I would say, “Yep”—and think something else. It was truly a $4,000.00 rain, in reverse—so far as I was concerned.

On Saturday morning, the speculators were back on the Atchison Board of Trade floor—to a man. The rain had washed their faces clean of all animation. Mr. Roper, working with telegraph instrument, rose and faced the weary-laden boys. “Gentlemen,” he said, “I’ve got good news — for nobody.” The death-like quiet for a fraction of a moment, as if we were standing in the Salt Lake Mormon tabernacle waiting for the usual pin-dropping demonstration, gave way to a concerted sigh. It had rained everywhere.

I sold 50,000 bushels at the opening. My profits were wiped out clean. The extra 10,000 bushels short sale made me $63.75 in about three minutes. And this, added to the return of my $100—and relief from liability—made me feel rich.

Though little or no wheat was grown here at that time, the Kansas wheat farmer was considered the biggest gambler of them all. Even so, having just got out of a big wheat deal, by “the skin of my teeth,” would it not be good business for me to take a “flyer” in some wheat land, and try growing the stuff?

Land in the wheat country was going begging at $300 a quarter—the same land that is now selling up to $200 an acre. Land agents were actually fighting over prospective buyers. Bill Talley, born in Indiana and reared here, was at this time operating a drink emporium in Wetmore, but had lived, and dealt in land, at Cimarron, in Gray County. At the depot, the day I started for the west, Bill told me to go to his friend, Johnny Harper. When I got off the train at Cimarron at 2 o’clock at night, Johnny was there to meet me. We by-passed the leading hotel—a rival agent, F. M. Luther, lived at the hotel—and Johnny took me to a restaurant three blocks away. The next morning Johnny and his partner, Mr. Emery, ate breakfast with me at the restaurant. Mr. Emery was to drive me across the river to look at land. Every parcel of land shown was priced at $300 a quarter. And at every booster stop we visited, the farmer would reply to Mr. Emery’s inquiry: “I would not take $25 an acre for mine.” A few sandhill plums, a dilapidated barn, and weather-beaten three-room house—made the difference. We got back to Cimarron about four o’clock in the afternoon.

As if he were sure I had seen a plenty to interest me on the side of a quick purchase, Johnny produced a map, saying, “Now, which piece have you decided on?” I had made no decision. Mr. Emery then thought I might like to see a big alfalfa field four miles up the river—not that it was for sale, but just to show me how good it was. In truth, it was just to get me out of town. The alfalfa looked good, but you know my mind was fixed on wheat, and this big field did not interest me.

I had company again for supper, and either Mr. Emery or Mr. Harper stayed by me until bedtime. It was Saturday. I needed a shave. Mr. Emery took me through the main business part of the town to a barbershop on the south side of the tracks. And here I came as near getting a skinning as I ever did in a business deal. There were, of course, better shops in town—but competitive real estate agents didn’t go across the tracks for their shaves. In the meantime Mr. Luther had dropped in at the restaurant. He was introduced by Mr. Harper. I asked Mr. Luther if he were engaged in business in Cimarron? He replied, “Yes, the real estate business.” Right away I had a notion that I should like to have a private talk with Mr. Luther. Likewise, Mr. Luther. And don’t think that Johnny didn’t catch on, too.

Mr. Luther bid us “good night,” and stepped outside. Mr. Harper bid me “good night,” and started on his way out—and I went up to my room. We were to start right after breakfast on a drive to Dodge City, thirty miles down the river, where I would get a train for home. I did not go to bed immediately. I went back downstairs for something, I don’t remember what now. Maybe to pick up a little disinterested information from the restaurant man. Mr. Luther came back in at the front door. Mr. Harper followed immediately. I went back up to my room.

The following morning three real estate men ate breakfast with me. Mr. Harper, Mr. Emery, and I started for the livery stable a block away, while Mr. Luther lingered awhile over his coffee. Bill Talley’s friends owned their driving team, and did their own stable work. When they got their fractious horses partly hitched, I made an excuse to run back to the restaurant. Mr. Luther said, “You were over in the neighborhood of the Kelly school house yesterday, I believe. I can sell you three quarters in the same section as the Kelly school house for $200 a quarter, or $600 for the three quarters.” I promised to write him—or see him later.

Mr. Emery drove me to Dodge City, showing me a big 30-acre cottonwood planting on the way, which purportedly was the reason for the drive. It did not interest me. We had cottonwoods at home. Mr. Emery stabled his foaming horses at a livery barn on the south side of the tracks, near the river, a good quarter of a mile from the Santa Fe depot. We ate our dinner at a restaurant close by the depot. It was Sunday. Mr. Emery showed me the town. We visited “Boot Hill” Cemetery, the only visible reminder now that Dodge City was once the wildest and toughest spot in the Old West, and other semi-interesting and some non-interesting places. After walking our legs off, we were now near the depot again.

Mr. Emery wished to look in on his erstwhile steaming horses. Yes, I would go along with him. On passing the depot I dropped out of the line of march on the pretense of wanting to get a line on the through train I was to take that evening. This done, I hiked back to the restaurant, inquired for a real estate office, and was told the Painter Brothers in office above the restaurant were the men I should see. A poker game was in full swing, but one of the brothers—I couldn’t for the life of me remember which one now—took time out to tell me that he could sell me land as good as the best for $200 a quarter. He gave me some literature. We planned to meet again.

I rushed back to the depot in time to meet Mr. Emery on his return from the stable. We walked some more. A local train from the west was due at 3 o’clock. Johnny Harper got off this train—and took over. Mr. Emery bid me “good-by” saying he would now drive his team back to Cimarron. Johnny proposed a walk. We took in the town again—always by our lonesome. He saw me off on the train. I did not learn how Johnny planned to get back to Cimarron. And I didn’t care.

Bill Talley was at the depot when I got back home. He said, “Well, did you see Johnny Harper? Fine fellow, isn’t he?” And, “Did you find anything to suit you?” Yes, I had seen Johnny; fine fellow, too. No, I had not bought anything—yet. But I planned to buy three quarters in the same section as the Kelly school house, from F. M. Luther, for $600. Bill popped his fist in the palm of his left hand, and bellowed, “Damn Luther!”—with shocking prefix.

It is only fair for me to say that ordinarily Bill was not given to the use of such language. But the exigencies of the situation were very much out of the ordinary. With prospect of a cut in commission—and his fear that I might run afoul of Mr. Luther—Bill had gambled the price of a telegram to Johnny Harper. I did not learn the why of this explosion for a little over one year. My brother Frank was considering a trade for a quarter of irrigated land south of the river, two miles from Lakin, and had written from Fresno, California, asking me to look it over, and report to him. On going through on the train, I stepped off at Cimarron, and inquired for Johnny Harper. A by-stander said Johnny was not among the people on the station platform—but, he said, “Here’s his brother.” Johnny’s brother stepped forward, saying he was going west on the train. On the train, he said, “You were out here last year driving with Johnny. Why didn’t you buy, then?”

I told Johnny’s brother that they had “herded” me so closely as to make me suspicious. He said they had to do that to keep their competitors from blocking their sales. He said the competitors would quote a low price on tracts in the neighborhood of the places visited by Johnny’s prospects—and then, if the prospect decided to buy, the competitor would discover that his partner had just sold it to another—but he always had other bargains to show him.

Johnny’s brother also told me that our friend Talley had gotten into an altercation with Mr. Luther, and that the Cimarron man had knocked the whey out of our Wetmore boy—all while the latter was connected in the realty business with brother Johnny.

If I could have gone out there wholly on my own—that is, without any helpful interference from Mr. Talley, and maybe got lost on the big flat beyond the sandhills just south of the river for a week, I could have made a potful of money. I had planned to buy two sections. But, instead, I bought 80 acres of rather swampy bottom land here for the same money, $2400 — and then spent $1800 more to install five miles of drain tile.

This tiling was a gamble that paid big dividends.

Michael Worthy, my late semi-partner in the grain business, had better luck than I. He bought Gray County wheat land in the neighborhood of the Kelly school house — which was to be passed down as a huge profit-making legacy—even to the third generation.

Oscar Porter was a track buyer at Bancroft until Jim Wilcox, elevator owner, crowded him out. Being a track shipper, Oscar was not eligible to come into the Association — nor was I, but somehow I had been roped in. Porter wanted to know how I did it, that he might do likewise. I could give him no helpful information. His next step was to start legal action to compel me to divulge the secret. I was subpoenaed to appear in court—supposed to be the star witness—in a complaint lodged by Mr. Porter against the Association.

County Attorney S. K. Woodworth called me aside, said he knew I had the information to smash the Association, if I would just give. He said I could tell the truth—he added, “and I know you will,” without fear of having it used against me. I asked him if he were thinking of the time when I had slightly stretched the truth—but I really had not done this — in behalf of his candidacy, in my newspaper? He laughed at that.

I told Sam that he could depend on me to answer his questions truthfully, as always—he laughed again—but that I would not make a statement. He said he would not ask me to do that. I was not particularly in sympathy with the Association, but I did not want to volunteer information against it—and then, too, my Atchison friends and my partner Michael were entitled to some consideration.

I answered the County Attorney’s questions truthfully, and I believe satisfactorily—but still they did not get what they wanted. I had the information, of course, but Sam and Oscar knew too little about the business in hand to formulate the right questions. I believe they did not know about that illegal contract.

If they could have had Michael and our illegal contract, written in violation of the Sherman Act, brought into court, they would have had a case. But then it was I, a lowly track buyer comparable to the complainant, who had by some hook or crook, aided by a swift kick in the pants, bolted through the barrier that was keeping Oscar out of the Association.

LOCAL “BOARD OF TRADE” Not Hitherto Published—1947.

By John T. Bristow

This, a continuation of the preceding article, brings us up to the second phase of my grain dealing experience. The businessmen, and some who were not so businesslike, organized what they called a Board of Trade, purportedly for the enhancement of the town’s interest—but, in reality, as events proved, to locate an outside man in the grain business here.

Goff had two merchants advertising in my newspaper — one a particularly live businessman—quoting prices, and drawing trade away from this territory. Even people living right here in town would go up on the noon train, and come back at four o’clock, loaded with purchases.

There had been discussions as to whether or not it was morally legitimate for the local paper to accept outside advertising when in competition with the home merchants—and the publishers all around had decided that it was quite legitimate, especially when the home merchants did not make liberal use of the paper’s space. Yet, I doubted if it was wise for me to do so. However, I do not think I was violating the code of loyalty when I prayed for a live merchant like Mr. Abbott.

The Board of Trade had come to life in Moulton De-Forest’s office across the hall from my printing office, on a Thursday night. My name, mentioned for possible membership—I was told, later—was discussed at length. I was the culprit, at least it was I who owned the vehicle carrying the price-smashing ads which were making them unhappy. And though I was at the time publishing The Spectator, doing job printing, buying and shipping grain, writing fire insurance, selling real estate, and making more farm loans than both the other assembled loan agents, there was doubt if I should be classed as a businessman, in the true sense. Stupid as this may seem, it is a fact. The reason for it is not apparent—yet.

There were in this organization men who had been at odds, even fighting mad, over other activities. It seemed as though something nasty was always brewing then. The man who had not so long before been petitioned to leave town, and the fellow who had borne the liberally signed document to the printing office for public exposure, were now working together in an effort to push me around, simply because I had been so indiscreet as to accept outside advertisements.

The leading Prohibitionist had been especially active in trying to clean up the town. It had provoked the imbibers and the “blind-tiger” boys. They got up a petition asking the Prohib to leave town, and brought it to the Wolfley printing office, where I was in charge during the editor’s absence. I refused to print it. They berated me plenty. But they got handbills printed elsewhere—now signed “Committee.”

The Prohib did not choose to leave town.

One of the “boys” got gloriously drunk—and bragged a little. The Prohib and the Drunk met in the middle of the main town square. There were a lot of people on the street. Ed Cawood, quite young then, is the only one now living that I recall. The Drunk struck at the Prohib, missed, and fell flat in the street. He had to have help to get up.

Years later, I heard a brother of the Drunk, a highly respected, and ordinarily very truthful man, in telling the story, say that his brother (called by name) beat the Prohib up scandalously. You can’t rely on what the old fellows tell you. You’ve got to know it—or let someone who does know it, tell it. Hearsay, after it passes through a generation is not reliable.

Here I wish to say that, except the grain business, the sidelines enumerated herein were acquired from the long established agency of S. C. Shuemaker, at the same time I bought the newspaper after his death, and that I was not butting in on anyone’s prior rights. Also, I want to say that the ones having those unreasonable notions, had axes to grind.

However, a committee came over to my office, and asked me to join them in Moulton’s office. I gave them $1.00 membership fee, and noted the freshly written by-laws calling for an additional dime for each and every time I might be absent from the regular Thursday night meeting. Keep this in mind.

The members who had no axes to grind were pretty decent. They felt the need of something to counteract the inroads the Goff merchants were making on the local merchants’ business, and decided that a full front-page write-up in The Spectator was desirable. It was promised for the second week ahead. Nothing was said about paying for this service—and no payment was expected.

Henry DeForest told those dominating members that they were acting like spoiled children, or worse—imbeciles. It is really surprising to what absurd lengths some fairly just people will sometimes go in trying to force their will upon others.

Now, Thursday night was always a busy night with us — but it was doubly so the next Thursday night. The Board fellows decided that they could not wait two weeks for the write-up, and asked me to advance it one week. I told them that we would accommodate them it we could get Mr. Abbott to reduce his space, or forgo the advertisement altogether. Mr. Abbott would oblige. And this was the straw that ultimately broke the spinal column of the Board of Trade.

Our full office force burned the midnight oil that Thursday night—and then some. The Board members trudging up to Moulton’s office could have looked in on us and seen that we were having no picnic. But, by golly, we were a little proud of our accomplishments, hoping it would please. And it did. The thing that caused me to lose faith in the Board was that paltry dime assessed against me for missing the meeting.

The prime purpose of the Board was to locate an outside man in the grain business here, backed up by a stronger purpose of one of its members to sell an old canning factory building to be converted into an elevator:—plus one up-and-coming young doctor who was crying for an opposition paper, with political slant. The business was delegated to a committee of four—the canning factory owner, a relatively new doctor, and two other men.

At this time doctors, after petty politicians, were the bane of the local papers. It was considered by the profession unethical for them to advertise—yet, too often, they craved top newspaper recognition when only minor mention or none at all was due. The case in hand was the third, with as many different doctors, with which I had to contend—in every instance for what the paper failed to say about them, or what it did say about some other doctor. But I want to say that our old reliables, Dr. J. W. Graham, and Dr. Thomas Milam, did not fall into this category.

However, the cases I had t o deal with were really mild — mild indeed to the one which threatened to do mayhem, or worse, to the whole office force, when I was printer on T. J. Wolfley’s Spectator. A doctor who had come down from Granada and located in Wetmore, sent word that he was going to pay us a visit at 10 o’clock of a Saturday morning for the express purpose of cleaning out the whole office. The offending item was a week old, and the demanded retraction in Friday’s paper had, as viewed by the Doctor, added “insult to injury.”

Theodore Wolf ley really enjoyed a scrap—and managed to have something on tap nearly all the time. He represented one faction of the local Republicans, and Moulton DeForest, when not a pronounced Prohibitionist, essayed to control another faction. The Doctor, a husky farm-bred boy in the Granada neighborhood, now on honored citizen of Wetmore, was a rantankerous Republican allied with the De-Forest faction—until he switched to the Populist party without losing any part of his rantankerous attributes.

Anticipating in advance the proposed call from the Doctor, Wolfley procured a revolver, and he and I practiced shooting the thing in the office, from a distance of ten feet, with target pinned on the leg of the imposing stone. He never hit the target once, but he broke a window pane all of two feet above the stone. He always shut his eyes and flinched before pulling the trigger.

I was supposed to be stationed at the imposing stone, in pretense of performing my regular duties, with iron side-stick—a lethal weapon when expertly wielded—in readiness for my part of the defense, if, and when, the Doctor might extend his belligerence thus far.

The printing office at that time was over the old Morris store on the north side of the main street. A stairway went up on the outside, with turnback to the front porch above. At the appointed hour, heavy feet pounded on the stairs. I had all of one minute in which to visualize my precarious position. With each step on the stairs my nervousness mounted. The irate intruder would of necessity be stationed somewhere between the editor and his foreman. The thing that worried me was my boss’ unpredictable marksmanship.

But it was not the Doctor’s heavy feet on the stairway. He had sent his understudy, Joe Eyman, who also was a husky bigfooted farm-bred boy from up in the Granada neighborhood. Joe fixed matters so that the Doctor and the Editor could talk it out between themselves. And in good time Joe became eligible to write MD after his own name. He then married Hattie Smarr, and they went to Sundance, Wyoming, to hang out his shingle. She was known in later years, in Wetmore, as Mrs. Stalder.

I am not sure if the belligerent Doctor’s grievance was professional or political. Probably the latter—but I do know that he was touchy in a professional way, for he later accounted for one-third of my unfavorable experience with doctors, as earlier mentioned in this writing. His successor in the Granada field had sent in by our Granada correspondent, a dollar’s worth of advertising, in the form of a personal, which had piqued the Old Doctor, causing him to do a bit of rantankerous snorting at me. But I did not rush out and buy a gun. I used the weapon I already had. The paper ignored him—and that whipped him into line in about one year. And he was ever after that my friend—with full ‘appreciation of the silent power of the press. He was a good doctor, and a good fellow—when he was good.

As Populist crusader, the Doctor was a success. His advertised meetings drew big crowds. He always brought in a principal speaker. One time he had two billed for the same night—”Sockless” Jerry Simpson and “Peruna” Jerry Botkin—but he got Mary Ellen Lease, instead. The Doctor and his two very fine little girls, Bertha and Belle, led the singing. The Doctor himself was not a noted vocalist—but he bore down heavily on the refrain of his favorite Populist song, “Turn The Rascals Out.”

Also, let me add that any time the editor of a local paper lets the politicians handle him, he is going to be woefully out of luck. Politics was dirty then. If an editor was a Republican, he was expected to engage in mud-slinging, shying the muck at all and sundry Democrats, regardless of their standing as citizens. The mere favorable mention of Republican candidates was not enough. And if he were true blue, he must keep up a barrage against editors of Democratic papers, and vice versa, a sort of nonsensical exchange of blasts. I steadfastly refused to be drawn into their political scraps. They called me a “mugwump.” But Gov. E. N. Morrell said—put it in writing—that inasmuch as I had succeeded in keeping my political skirts clean that I was a high-minded Republican. My hardest task was to hold down a brilliant and goshawful sarcastic local politician who wanted to engage in muck-raking, over the assumed name “Samantha” in my paper.

Politics was something to be shunned by me—that is, from a business standpoint in connection with the publication of the newspaper. I once went over to Edgerton, in the Missouri hills beyond Rushville, to investigate an offer of $1,000 bonus for the establishment of a newspaper. I struck the town at a time when a teachers’ convention was being held there. The banker, who was on the committee welcoming the teachers, was also on the committee pulling for the paper, and he had arranged the appointment with me. Mistaking me for a professor, he gave me a hearty handshake, and welcomed me along with the teachers getting off the same train. When I got up town, I called at his bank—and was “welcomed” again.

“What’s your politics?” he asked.

“Republican,” said I.

“Your train leaves in one hour,” said he.

I did not know Missourians as well then as I do now. The banker laughingly said, “Stick around awhile—I will talk the matter over with you when I get a moment’s time.” He told me that there were only two Republicans in the township; that I could run the paper as an Independent until election time, and then I would be expected to be a good Democrat—a real old “Missouri Mossback” and no foolin’, I think the order would have been. I judged they did not want a newspaper. They wanted a political “organ.”

On invitation of the banker, I attended a meeting in the school house, which was set in a natural oak grove — and met many sociable and interesting people. In the gathering, there were a lot of pretty girls—and all in all, it looked to me as if it would be a swell place for a young fellow to settle down. But—while I wouldn’t know why I was a Republican, I couldn’t pretend to be something that I was not.

A young doctor from Goff had come here to make his professional start. He first took his old schoolmate, Ecky Hamel, to task for calling him by his given name, demanding that he be addressed as “Doctor.” Ecky had gravitated from country school teacher to printer and reporter, and thought he himself was some pumpkins, too. But I don’t think this was held against the Doctor when Ecky wrote the five-line item that touched off the explosion—caused the Doctor to whoop-it-up for a competing paper.

The offending item merely said that “Dr. Jermane of Holton, who had operated on Lyman Harvey here last week for appendicitis, had died of a like operation at Holton this week.” A Philadelphia lawyer could have found no fault with this—but the local doctor thought it was a reflection on his professional ability. Knowing that he had brought the Holton doctor here to do the job, and knowing also that the local doctor had been duly recognized in the item reporting the Harvey operation, I thought he had no kick coming — and let it go at that. And anyway, Mr. Harvey had also died of his operation.

The complaining doctor was a hustler, socially a good fellow, very much on the way up in his profession, when a catastrophic repercussion reduced him to the level of the ice-man. As attending physician, he had brought into the world an illegitimate child whose birth was a great embarrassment for its little mother and the maternal grandparents. And on a subsequent call at the country home he discovered the child was missing. I am not familiar with the details at this stage of the affair, but rumor had it that the doctor turned sleuth and dug up the fact that the child was buried in the back yard.

The home folks, older members of the family, contended that it had died of natural causes—pneumonia, I believe. The doctor was wholly within his rights when he reported the matter to the authorities—but he did not prove an apt witness in court. Two older doctors from the north part of the county, combined and “proved” in effect, on the witness stand that the young doctor did not know enough about such matters to make a case.

In the ice business in a southern Kansas town the fellow made good. And though the “injured” doctor had kept on whooping-it-up for a competing paper until he did, with the help of some disgruntled politicians, put me out of the newspaper business, I’m glad to say he was not one to carry a grudge beyond the time of its actual usefulness to him. Just for old friendship’s sake, he wrote me from the office of his artificial ice plant—owned jointly with his brother—complimenting me on one of my articles in W. F. Turrentine’s Spectator. This note on the background of the doctor is given here for reasons which will appear later.

J. W. Coleman, publisher of the Effingham New Leaf, having conceived the idea that a string of local papers along the Central Branch, would be the motive power to land him in a fat political job, came here to negotiate with me for the Spectator. My paper was not for sale. The doctor and the political boys combined to persuade Mr. Coleman that a second paper would be preferable. It would seem the MD and PB’s did not want to crush me on the spot—or maybe it was their idea of one huge joke to let me die a slower death. In either event, it was the wedge that pried me loose from The Spectator. I sold to Coleman. I did not permit this to cause me to break with the Doctor and my political friends — as there was the outside chance that they might have been misquoted by the over-anxious purchaser. And then, too, it was not long before I really liked it. It afforded me time to give my full attention to other more congenial matters — for getting married, for instance. The wife said it was a great stroke of good luck for me.