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Part 1 | Part 2 | Part 3 | Part 4 | Part 5 | Part 6 | Part 7 | Part 8 | Part 9 | Part 10 | Part 11 | Part 12 | Part 13 | Part 14 | Part 15 | Part 16 | Part 17 | Part 18 | Part 19 | Part 20 | Part 21 | Part 22 | Part 23 | Part 24 | Part 25 | Part 26 | Part 27 | Part 28 | Part 29 | Part 30 | Part 31 | Part 32 | Part 33 | Part 34 | Part 35 | Part 36 | Part 37 | Part 38 | Part 39
Gc 977.8 C33ca v.2 1390191
M. L.
GENEALOGY COLLECTION
ALLEN COUNTY PUBLIC LIBRARY 3 1833 01717 1015
Digitized by the Internet Archive in 2010 with funding from Allen County Public Library Genealogy Center
http://www.archive.org/details/centennialhistor02instev
CENTENNIAL HISTORY
OF
MISSOURI
DE LUXE SUPPLEMENT
1921 THE S. J. CLARKE PUBLISHING COMPANY CHICAGO
1390191
عـ
Julius S. Walsh
JULIUS S. WALSH, long a leading figure in financial and com- J mercial circles of St. Louis and recognized as one of America's most able financiers, was born December 1, 1842, in the city which is still his place of residence. He is a son of Edward and Isabella (de Mun) Walsh, the former of Irish extraction and the latter of French lineage. Edward Walsh emigrated from Ireland to the United States in 1815, settling first in Louisville, Kentucky, whence three years later he removed to St. Louis and here organized the firm of J. & E. Walsh, with which he was continuously identified to the time of his death in 1866.
In the acquirement of his education Julius S. Walsh attended the St. Louis University and also St. Joseph's College at Bardstown, Kentucky, from which institution he was graduated as a member of the class of 1861. He began read- ing law under the direction of the lIon. John M. Krum, a distinguished attor- ney of St. Louis, and subsequently entered the law department of Columbia Col- lege of New York city, winning the degree of LL. B. upon his graduation in 1864. St. Louis University conferred upon him the degree of Master of Arts in 1865 and about four decades later, or in 1904, he received the degree of Doctor of Laws from the same institution. He was admitted to the bar in the state of New York and left college with the intention of becoming an active member of the legal profession, but the death of his father occurred soon after- ward and his time aud energies were demanded in other directions. He had been his father's associate in business for two years prior to his demise and knew more intimately than anyone else the nature of the operations in which the firm had been engaged. Accordingly he was chosen to settle the estate and, although scarcely twenty-four years of age, took up the tasks in connection therewith and discharged them so capably that he won the favorable recogni- tion and approval of prominent financiers of the city. He became his father's successor on the directorate of various large corporations and in his opinions concerning intricate business problems displayed a thorough knowledge and mastery of the situation, with a keen outlook into future possibilities. Thus led through the force of circumstances into active connection with business enterprises rather than professional life, he passed on to positions of executive control. He was identified with the street railway lines of St. Louis from 1870 and was chosen to the presidency of the Citizens' Railway Company and of the Fair Grounds & Suburban Railway Company, while a few years later he be- came the president of the Union Railway Company, the People's Railway Com- pany, the Tower Grove & Lafayette Railway Company and the Cass Avenue & Fair Grounds Railway Company. He also projected and built the Northern Central Railway. His operations were continually broadening in extent, and
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Julius S. Walsh
his ability to plan and perform made his cooperation sought in various direc- tions. His work in behalf of the St. Louis Agricultural & Mechanical Asso- ciation, of which he was elected president in 1874, is particularly noteworthy. Previous to that year the fair grounds were kept closed except one week each year. Mr. Walsh saw the opportunity for utilizing them in many directions and during the four years when he occupied the chief administrative office of the association the grounds were beautified, new buildings erected, the zoolog- ical gardens established and various other improvements made that converted the grounds into one of the favorite places of amusement and recreation for the people of St. Louis. Recognizing further opportunities in the business world, he began investigating the subject of making improvements at the mouth of the Mississippi river and in 1875 was elected president of the South Pass Jetty Company and thus served until the improvement was completed, giving a full navigable depth from the mouth of the Mississippi to the port of New Orleans for the largest sea-going vessels. From 1875 until 1890 he was the president of the St. Louis Bridge Company, his work in that connection proving of the utmost benefit to the city at large. In 1882 he was elected to the directorate of the Third National Bank, one of the strongest moneyed institutions of St. Louis, and he was also identified as a director with the Laclede National Bank, the Merchants-Laclede National Bank, the North Missouri Railroad Company, the St. Louis, Kansas City & Northern Railroad Company, the Wabash & West- ern Railroad Company, the Ohio & Mississippi Railroad Company and the Baltimore & Ohio Southwestern Railroad Company, while in 1888 he was chosen chief executive officer of the Municipal Light & Power Company. In 1895 Mr. Walsh was elected vice president of the St. Louis Terminal Railroad Asso- ciation and the following year was chosen to the presidency of an organization controlling the terminal privileges of twenty-two lines of railroad centering at St. Louis and later became chairman of the board of directors, which posi- tion he now retains. During his term of office as president, he brought about the unification of the terminal situation at St. Louis. In 1890 he organized the Mississippi Valley Trust Company, which developed under his guidance until it is now one of the strongest institutions of its kind in the west. He was first president of the Trust Company, which office he occupied until January, 1906, when he resigned to become chairman of the board of directors, of which posi- tion he is the present incumbent. He is also president of the Mississippi Glass Company, and a member of the board of commissioners of Tower Grove Park. Mr. Walsh was one of the directors of the Louisiana Purchase Exposition Com- pany and acted as a member of the committee on agriculture and as chairman of the committee on transportation. Various other corporations have felt the stimulus of his cooperation and the benefit of his wise counsel and discrimina- tive judgment. The power he has displayed in bringing into harmonious working order varied and complex interests, his inflexible adherence to a high standard of commercial ethics and his thorough understanding of a business situation, its uses and abuses, have gained him recognition as one of the coun- try's "captains of industry."
On the 11th of January, 1870, Mr. Walsh was united in marriage to Miss Josie Dickson, a daughter of the late Charles K. Dickson, of St. Louis. Their children are seven in number, namely: C. K. Dickson; Julius S., Jr .; Robert
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Julius S. caalsh
A. B .; N. S. Chouteau : Isabelle, the wife of Charles L. Palms; Ellen Hum- phreys, who is the wife of William Maffitt ; and Mary Josephine, who gave her hand in marriage to Captain John S. Bates. That Mr. Walsh is appreciative of the social amenities of life is indicated in his membership in the St. Louis, University, Kinloch, Noonday and Country Clubs of St. Louis and in the Union Club of New York. He has, moreover, served as vice president of the Mer- cantile Library Association and as president of the St. Louis Association of the Columbia (New York) University Alumni.
William Rockhill Relson
KANSAS CITY with its splendid park and boulevard system, K its beautiful homes, its publie baths, its art museum, its high standards of civic virtue and of civic pride, is a monument to the life of William Rockhill Nelson, for in all these things and many others of potent worth he had deep concern and was most influential in bringing about progress along these lines. Said one who knew him well: "In his view nothing was too big, nothing too good for Kansas City." To the world he became known as the editor of the Kansas City Star, and the Star was recognized as the exponent and the defender of all that has to do with the uplift of the individual, the com- munity and the commonwealth.
Mr. Nelson was born in Fort Wayne, Indiana, March 7, 1841. For three centuries his ancestors had lived on the American continent and his forefathers were among the builders of cities, including Harlem, Brooklyn and Pough- keepsie, New York, and others farther west. The ancestral line was also repre- sented in the early colonial and Indian wars and in the Revolution. His great- grandfather, John Nelson, fought for the cause of independence and his valor and loyalty was later recognized in the gift of five hundred acres of land in Tompkins county, New York. John Nelson's son, Leonard Nelson, a farmer, wedded Mary De Groff, daughter of Moses De Groff, a representative of a family conspicuous for their patriotic service during the Revolutionary war period. Isaac De Groff Nelson, son of Leonard and Mary Nelson, and father of William Rockhill Nelson, was born in Poughkeepsie, New York, and in 1836 removed with his three sisters to Fort Wayne, Indiana. He was at that time a young man of twenty-six years. At his death in 1891, the Times of South Bend. Indiana, spoke of him as a "broad-gauged, noble-hearted, public-spirited man who gave prestige, stability and fame to the Summit City and to Allen county." He was one of the commissioners appointed to oversee the construction of the statehouse in Indianapolis and whose frugal management led to the construction of the building not only within the amount allotted for the purpose but also left a surplus to be returned to the state treasury. Isaac D. Nelson married Elizabeth Rockhill, daughter of William Rockhill, a native of New Jersey, who in 1819 removed to Indiana and became prominently identified with the up- building of the state, being one of its first representatives in congress. IIe engaged extensively in farming and was probably the first man in the world to plant a thousand acres of corn. Such is the ancestry from which William Rockhill Nelson sprang.
The boyhood of the future editor of the Star, as he himself described it, was a period of insurgency. He chafed at restraint and rule, but there came into his life certain influences which turned this spirit of insurgency into a fighting
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force for the right. He would never suceumb to the domination of injustice to the many and he did not hesitate to express his honest convictions. On one occasion in his youth, after participating in some mischievous prank, he was ealled before his father and on being questioned told the full truth. The father's response was: "Well, thank God, you are not a liar, anyway." He then told the son to come to him when in trouble and he would see him through. The incident made a deep impression upon the mind of the youthful culprit. That he had early become a factor of force in his home community is indicated in his being called to act as secretary when a meeting of the substantial business men of his town was held to draft resolutions opposing secession. As a young man he read law. Later with a partner he engaged in growing sea-island cotton in Georgia, but the venture proved unsnecessful. Returning to his native city he took up contracting, building roads, bridges and buildings. In this connection he was instrumental in promoting the first good-roads law passed in Indiana and forever afterward was a stalwart champion of the good roads movement.
From young manhood Mr. Nelson was deeply interested in polities and his great admiration was won by Samuel J. Tilden through the latter's courage in fighting the Tweed ring. He ever regarded him as one of America's construetive statesmen and carried as a guiding factor in his own life the words which he heard Tilden utter: "While it is a great thing to lead armies, it is a greater thing to lead the minds of men." Throughout his life the pictures of Tilden, Cleveland and Roosevelt hung above his desk as those of three great constructive leaders in American citizenship.
Mr. Nelson was thirty-five years of age when he turned to what really became his life work. With his cotton growing venture in Georgia there had been estab- lished by himself and his partner a store which the latter conducted for several years after they ceased attempting to raise cotton. Then the store failed and in its failure was involved most of Mr. Nelson's fortune. He had merely enough remaining to purchase an interest in the Fort Wayne Sentinel. With un- daunted enthusiasm he turned to the work of editing this newspaper, in which he saw an instrument that promised far greater opportunity for achievement than the field of polities. After a year or two he sought still greater scope for his efforts in this direction, and in 1880, after carefully looking over the entire western field, he and his partner in the Fort Wayne Sentinel, Samuel E. Morss, established the Kansas City Evening Star, the first issue appearing September 18, 1880. A year later he became sole owner and from that time put forth every effort to transform "the muddiest city in the country" into a metropolis of beauty. His financial limitations made the publication of the paper uphill work at first, but he persevered and as his capital inereased he put it back into the paper, enlarging and improving it. In 1882, with borrowed money, he bought The Mail, a small paper, with an Associated Press franchise, thus ac- quiring the needed telegraph news service. The development of the Star was indicated in the removal to a new building in 1889, with the installation of two new Potter presses, and in 1894 the growth of the paper necessitated still larger quarters, which were secured in what was then one of the finest newspaper build- ings in the country. Another removal was made in 1911 and after two years the equipment of the plant was increased until its capacity was four hundred and twenty thousand sixteen-page papers an hour-a marvelous growth from the
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little six-column four-page sheet originally printed. On the 29th of April, 1894, the first Sunday edition of the Star was issued and on the 18th of November, 1901, the first morning edition was brought forth, following the purchase of the Times. The morning, afternoon and Sunday editions of the paper were all furnished to its subscribers without increase of the price-ten cents per week. On the 6th of March, 1890, Mr. Nelson brought out the Weekly Kansas City Star, an eight-page paper for farmers, at a subscription price of twenty-five eents per year, and its circulation grew so rapidly that ere his death it had reached three hundred and fifty thousand, being sent into every state of the Union and into many foreign countries. Mr. Nelson always had the encourage- ment and support of his wife, who in her maidenhood was Ida Houston, a daughter of Robert Houston of Champaign, Illinois. They were married No- vember 29, 1881, and they became the parents of a daughter, Laura, now the wife of Irwin R. Kirkwood of Kansas City.
Mr. Nelson's contribution to newspaper publication included three dis- tinet and valuable innovations: the supplying of seven papers to subscribers for ten cents weekly, followed by a morning and evening edition and Sunday paper with no increase of price; and the publication of a complete farm weekly at twenty-five cents per year. These prices were continued until mounting costs, during the war, forced an increase. That he was recognized as a most prominent figure in newspaper eireles is indicated in the faet that he was chosen vice president of the Associated Press in 1902-3 and from 1905 until 1914 was a member of its board of directors. His newspaper policy was ex- pressed in his instruction to his staff and employes: "Always keep in mind the family that is paying us ten cents a week-and particularly its women members." One of his biographers said: "Mr. Nelson's methods in the con- duet of the Star were as individual as everything else he did. Ilis interest extended to the smallest details. But particularly in his later years he paid little attention to the business aspects of the newspaper. His attention was absorbed in editorial duties. . He almost never wrote anything for the paper with his own hand. He was too busy for that. But the day rarely passed when he did not outline one or more articles of some sort. Ahnost always in these outlined articles there would be striking sentenees which could be used verbatim. He was a master of nervous, epigrammatic English.
One of his axioms was that under all circumstances the Star must be a gentle- man. Ilis staff knew that he would not sanction the publication of articles reflecting on the private life of any person, unless a court proceeding made it necessary. 'I don't enjoy traveling in a well-trodden path,' he would say. 'The Star should pioneer.' If a poem by Rudyard Kipling or a story hy S. G. Blythe was the most interesting thing that had come into the office on a day, his instructions were to 'play it up' on the first page." It was Mr. Nelson's custom to speak of "the Star family" and he had the keenest personal interest in all of his staff of assistants and employes. His biographer has said: "It took more than brilliancy, more than the mere ability to write well, to get a permanent position on the Star. A man had to be the right sort, in character, in reliability, as well as in ability. But when he had proved his worth, and had been taken into the Star family, Mr. Nelson was his loyal friend through thiek and thin, and nothing could happen, no tongue could utter flings enough to
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shake the loyalty of Mr. Nelson to the men he trusted and had faith in. The men who worked for Mr. Nelson knew on all occasions exactly what the poliey of the Star would be upon any question, as soon as it arose. As soon as a man was mentioned as a candidate for office anyone on the Star could tell you whether the paper would oppose him, and the same with political movements, and eivic movements of all kinds. Were they on the square for the public good ? That was all. If they weren't, it was all settled beforehand that they could never have the support of the Star."
Throughout his editorship of the Star, Mr. Nelson was the champion of progress in Kansas City. He worked untiringly to promote its improvement and its beauty. Ile labored indefatigably for reform. He was vigorous in attacking measures, men or movements that he deemed to be inimical to the publie good. When for three months he was unable to leave his home during his last illness, he continued to direct the editorial policy of his paper and when the Star was promoting a campaign to raise money for the Provident Association and he was too weak to sit up, he had the telephone held to his lips as he lay in bed and dictated a sentiment to be printed across the top of the Sunday morning paper : "On this His day the Lord asks only for His poor. If the people of Kansas City were as generous to the Lord as the Lord has been good to them, there would be here no hunger, no poverty, no want."
In 1902, some years after he had established a summer home in the east, Mr. Nelson built a paper mill with eapacity sufficient to supply all the white paper used in issuing The Daily and Weekly Star and continued the operation of the mill until the market conditions for ground wood pulp, used in paper manu- facture, would have necessitated the building of his own pulp mill in Canada ; but he felt that his venture would have added too great a burden to him in his advancing age.
One of his first interests in Kansas City was to create a public spirit and a community feeling, and he started out to ereate publie opinion in favor of street paving. When he advocated a cause he kept it constantly before the people in editorials, in news write-ups, in quotations from men who were authority upon the subjeet, in cartoons, and in every possible way until public opinion was with him. In this connection it has been said: "Street-paving was the first public improvement he advocated, and he dealt not in generalities, but in faets and figures, and modern instances and ancient. His first triumph as a defender of the faith was in preventing the gift of the city's streets to a transportation company that had demonstrated its unwillingness to furnish adequate street-car service. The greatest municipal achievement in which Mr. Nelson aided (the parks) is inseparable from the interlaeing and interlinking system of parkways and boulevards-streets of superfine quality, demonstrating by the manner of their construction and their systematie maintenance what intelligent road- making might mean." In connection with transportation interests he evolved the slogan "Navigate the river" and advocated water transportation as a pre- ventive measure of high freight rates. He never faltered in this until a line of boats and barges was put into operation, connecting Kansas City with the greater waterways of the country. He promoted the campaign that resulted in the building of a six-million-dollar Union Station in Kansas City and the development of a terminal system sufficient to care for the traffic of the growing
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city, involving the expenditure of about fifty million dollars. On the 19th of May, 1881, he began a fifteen-year campaign that at length brought to Kansas City one of the finest park and boulevard systems on the face of the globe, and in connection with the boulevards he promoted the tree planting which has constituted one of the greatest features of beauty in Kansas City. Iligh ideals of citizenship which he entertained made Mr. Nelson a dominant force for good government. Kansas City was at one time notorions for its gang rule and its election frauds. These reached a climax in 1894, but the Star's work in de- nouneing and exposing eleetion crooks was so effective as to arouse the city and county and resulted in the defeat of the gang tieket at the polls. He labored untiringly for the passing of better election laws by the state legislature and "his fundamental democracy made him the earnest supporter of movements to increase the control of the people over their government-the direct primary, popular eleetion of senators, the initiative, referendum and recall, and the com- mission form of government." Writing of Mr. Nelson's policy, the New York Evening Post said : "As a result of all this, the hold of the Kansas City Star upon its community was such that in any situation that arose in the affairs of the city-the location of a park, the undertaking of public works, or what not- its voice was always potent and usually decisive. This does not by any means imply that it eould deeide eleetions. It carried no 'vote' in its pocket. That is impossible for a truly independent paper ; such a paper must always be ready to fight, when necessary, for the side that is almost sure to lose, and to take defeat with equanimity, after having done its best for the cause it thinks right. This is what happened again and again to the Kansas City Star, but its influence and standing were left quite unimpaired by the adverse count of noses."
It was characteristie of Mr. Nelson that he never allowed one defeat to discourage him but kept on with his work though it might take years until the reform or beneficial projeet for which he was laboring had become an established faet. He continued a eampaign for an auditorium in Kansas City for five years ; his campaign for viaduets and highways to connect the two Kansas Citys cov- ered several years, and it was frequently his habit to send a reporter into a community to work up public opinion. Ile became the champion of municipal ownership of street railways and labored untiringly to secure protection from floods in the Missouri and Kaw rivers, for the lessening of the smoke nuisance, the installation of smoke consumers, the abolition of railway grade crossings, the suppression of unnecessary noises, the support of the annual clean-up of the eity, the improvement of alleys and back-yards, the encouragement of the love of birds, the planting of trees and the suppression of insect pests, the betterment of publie school conditions and in fact everything that had to do with the city's welfare and progress. Ile did more than almost any one man to stimulate agri- culture in the vicinity of Kansas City. Hle was untiring in his advocaey of the workmen's compensation bill, and his love of democracy and his loyalty to the rights of the people was shown by his constant opposition to fraudulent home eooperative companies, lotteries, policy games, loan sharks, fee-grabbers, and to lawyers and doctors who were a diseredit to the profession. He became so convinced of the evils of intemperance that in 1905 he decided to accept no more liquor advertisements for his paper, and in giving the reason why the Star so strongly opposed the saloon he said : "If they will bring me one man, just
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