• Abstract and Figures
• Public Full-text

THE LIBRARY OF THE UNIVERSITY OF CALIFORNIA RIVERSIDE WILLIAM ROCKHILL NELSON THE STORY OF A MAN A NEWSPAPER AND A CITY BY MEMBERS OF THE STAFF OF THE KANSAS CITY STAR CAMBRIDGE Printed at The Riverside Press 1915 COPYRIGHT, I915, BY IDA H. NELSON ANL LAURA NELSON KIRKWOOD ALL RIGJ'TS PESEKVED U. HE GAVE ALL TO KANSAS CITY William R. Nelson, owner and editor of The Kansas City Star, in making arrangements for the final dis- position of his estate, turns it over to Kansas Citv for an art gallery. The income from his property, carefully guarded, will go to the wife and daugh- ter during their lifetime. After that it will pass into the hands of a board of trustees to be sold and the proceeds used for the purchase of art treasures for the enjoyment of the people of Kansas City. We look upon this as a wise bequest. With Colo- nel Nelson art was not merely a rich man's fad. He was a lover of the beautiful. He appreciated its refining power. He knew that an appreciation of art is a matter of education. He loved Kansas City, the arena of his life struggles and his life triumphs, and in his desire to leave a perpetual monument, he has chosen wisely. In his life he made service to the people a dom- inating passion. It was an honest desire to benefit the masses which caused him to provide for the fu- ture art enjoyment of the city which he loved — a munificent gift which will make the name of William R. Nelson a treasured memory for gener- ations to come. editorial in the Des Moines la. Capital. An ( ) • svr I CONTENTS I- ANCESTRY, BOYHOOD AND EARLY ACHIEVEMENTS 1 II. FOUNDING AND GROWTH OF THE KANSAS CITY STAR 15 III. PULLING A CITY OUT OF THE MUD 24 IV. PARKS AND BOULEVARDS 34 V. IN THE CAUSE OF GOOD GOVERNMENT 42 VI. FIGHTING THE FRANCHISE GRABBERS S3 VII. IN THE SERVICE OF THE CITY 66 VIII. HIS LOYALTY TO THE COMMON WELFARE 78 IX. AS A BUILDER 87 X. AS A LOVER OF HUMANITY 97 XI. IN THE NATIONAL FIELD IO4 XII. AS A NEWSPAPER MAKER 115 XIII. THE LAST WEEKS 134 XIV. AS HE WAS KNOWN TO HIS HELPERS ON THE STAR 143 XV. THE SORROW OF THE CITY 163 XVI. HIS ALL TO THE PEOPLE I76 XVII. IN CONCLUSION : THE MAN AND HIS WORK 1 84 APPENDIX 205 ILLUSTRATIONS WILLIAM R. NELSON Frontispiece WILLIAM R. NELSON AT THE AGE OF SIX 4 From a daguerreotype FIRST ISSUE OF THE KANSAS CITY STAR 16 THE KANSAS CITY STAR IN MR. NELSON'S LAST YEAR 28 FIRST HOME OF THE KANSAS CITY STAR, 407 DELAWARE STREET 42 THE STAR'S PRESENT HOME, GRAND AVENUE TO MCGEE STREET, BETWEEN SEVENTEENTH AND EIGHTEENTH STREETS 60 OAK HALL 90 THE COTTAGE AT MAGNOLIA, MASS. 94 Showing Treatment of a Forbidding Building Site FARMHOUSE, SNI-A-BAR FARMS 112 HERD BULLS, SNI-A-BAR FARMS 130 HOUSE DESIGNING AND BUILDING WERE AMONG MR. NELSON'S RELAXATIONS I44 A Typical Nelson House on Forty-seventh Street SHRUBBERY WAS A FEATURE OF THE ROCKHILL DISTRICT l60 STONE BRIDGE OVER BRUSH CREEK, DESIGNED AS AN EXAMPLE IN THE "WAR" AGAINST "TIN" BRIDGES l86 AN UN-POSED PORTRAIT 200 WILLIAM ROCKHILL NELSON CHAPTER I ANCESTRY, BOYHOOD, AND EARLY ACHIEVEMENTS William Rockhill Nelson was born March 7, 1841, in Fort Wayne, Indiana. He came of a line of builders of cities and states. His American an- cestry reached back almost three centuries. Two of his forefathers were named in the grant of lands for the founding of the city of Harlem, New York. Another was named in the deed from the Indians for the site of Brooklyn. Yet another founded the city of Poughkeepsie. One was the first judge chosen by popular vote in the New World. In the provincial assemblies of the colonial days, in the Indian wars during the century preceding the Rev- olutionary War, in the Revolution itself, men of his ancestral blood served with honor and distinc- tion. They helped lay the foundations on which the colonies themselves were reared, and they were among the builders of the Nation formed by 2 WILLIAM ROCKHILL NELSON the union of those colonies. To plan broadly and build nobly for the common good was his inherit- ance. John Nelson, great-grandfather of William Rockhill Nelson, was a soldier in the Revolutionary War and received five hundred acres of land in Tompkins County, New York, for heroic services in the war. His son, Leonard Nelson, a farmer, married Mary De GrofT, daughter of Moses De Groff, whose whole family were conspicuous for their patriotism in the Revolutionary period. Isaac De Groff Nelson, the son of Leonard and Mary Nelson, and the father of William Rockhill Nel- son, was born in Poughkeepsie, New York. In 1836, when he was twenty-six years old, he and his three sisters emigrated to Fort Wayne, Indiana. The following editorial, which appeared in the Times of South Bend, Indiana, after the death of Isaac De Groff Nelson in 1891, gives a glimpse of his sterling character : — The father of William R. Nelson was one of those broad-gauged, noble-hearted, public-spirited men who gave prestige, stability, and fame to the Sum- mit City and to Allen County. Governor James D. Williams ("Blue Jeans") appointed the senior ANCESTRY AND EARLY YEARS 3 Nelson one of the commissioners to oversee the construction of the new statehouse in Indianapolis. Much surprise was expressed at the time that this building was erected within the limits of the appro- priation, and with even a little balance left over. Such frugal management furnished cause for amazement, even in those days, and nearly every paper in the land commented upon this marvelous achievement of Mr. Nelson and his associates on the commission. It was a splendid vindication of the "honesty and simplicity policy" espoused and practiced by the " Blue Jeans " administration. The monument erected to Isaac De Groff Nelson in Lindenwood Cemetery in Fort Wayne testifies to the regard in which he was held by that community. The mother of William R. Nelson, Elizabeth Rockhill, was of Quaker stock. Her father, William Rockhill, a native of New Jersey, removed to Indiana in 1819, bringing with him his father and mother, an invalid wife, and three daughters. He was one of the enterprising pioneers of the West and was closely associated with the development of the new State of Indiana, serving in Congress as one of its first representatives. He was an extensive farmer. Mr. Nelson often expressed his pride in the fact that his grandfather was probably the first man in the world to plant a thousand acres of corn. 4 WILLIAM ROCKHILL NELSON The boy, William, was exceedingly mischievous and difficult to manage. He used to say that he must have been a natural insurgent. One of the first of his insurrections came when he was ten years old. A political speaker was making an open- air address at night. The boy got out one or two of his fellows with eggs, and plastered the speaker from behind trees. The next day placards were posted offering a reward for the arrest and convic- tion of the offenders. " I could see myself behind the bars," he said in telling about it, " and I was overwhelmed at the thought of the disgrace I would bring on the fam- ily. So I determined to run away. I got on board the train. But my father had heard of my plan from my brother and he came and took me off. He asked me and I told him the full truth about what I had done, and I shall never forget the note ' of satisfaction in his voice when he said : Well, thank God, you are not a liar, anyway.' " He told me to come to him always when I was in trouble and he would see me through. I real- ized then what a good father mine was." It was part of his father's theory of child train- ing never to give his son spending money unless ANCESTRY AND EARLY YEARS 5 he earned it by work. Once he wanted money to pay his way to a circus, and he went to his father for it. "You should earn the money," his father said. "No person should have money to spend that he has not earned." And then, with a twinkle in his eye, he added, " Your mother wants that wood carried in. You do that, put it where she wants it and I will pay you fifty cents." He earned the money, and he used to say that he enjoyed the circus all the more from having " worked his way in." The active, restless, unmanageable boy was finally sent to the college, now the university, of Notre Dame, a school at that time famous for its strictness of discipline. " It was a sort of Botany Bay for bad boys," he explained in after years to a friend who inquired how it happened that his father, a vestryman in an Episcopal Church, sent him to a Catholic school. His own boyhood gave him sym- pathy with mischievous boys, particularly with those who showed initiative and enterprise. Late in life, when Notre Dame conferred on him the degree of doctor of laws, he developed his theory of young America in a letter to the Reverend Father Cava- : 6 WILLIAM ROCKHILL NELSON naugh, president of the university. It is so charac- teristic of the man that it is worth quoting in full Had I been able to be present I should have per- haps ventured to say a word in behalf of the bad boy as exemplified in my own case.

Load more

  320

Copy Link