"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.
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
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.
"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.