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Chapter 1: The Early Years - Moundsville
Chapter 2: The Incredible Revolving Illuminated Cross
Chapter 3: The Center of Immensities-The Great War
Chapter 4: Flashlights From the Seven Seas-The Orient
Chapter 5: Standing Room Only--Detroit
Chapter 6: Elmer Gantry-Kansas City
Chapter 7: Preaching Out of the Overflow-Boston
Chapter 8: The Depression
Chapter 9: Radio Days
Chapter 10: Rest Where You Are
Chapter 1: The Early Years - Moundsville
High above the town, Bill Stidger sprawled full length, lanky, on the cool earth of Grave Creek Mound. He sank his hands into the dirt. The air was still all around him and the heat held everything transfixed. Above him the sky shone with a million stars. He was red-headed, freckled and proud of the peach fuzz beginning to cover his face. He heard the rumbling chorus of voices:
Rescue the perishing. Care for the dying
Jesus is merciful; Jesus will save!
The thunder of the singing rose from the church below, up the walls of the Mound and reverberated around Bill, pushing through the hot night, thrusting its joy into his heart. He felt himself drawn into the web of the music. He imagined himself there; he could hear the stamping sound of a thousand feet, pounding the floor in unison; hear the sputter of moths and insects as they darted too near the flames of the kerosene lamps; sense the fluttering of all the fans donated by Jones Funeral Parlor, feel that moment of coolness that almost freezes when a slight breeze stirs, waltzes through an open window and pats your shirt where perspiration has soaked through. The music changed:
Blest be the tie that binds
Our heart in Christian love
The fellowship of kindred minds
Is like to that above.
Driven by the music, Bill rose to his feet. He circled the top of the Mound. Glancing at the looming shape of the State Penitentiary at the base of the Mound, he ran down the centuries-old stone steps leading from the summit until he reached the ground. The music was louder and the church was only a block away. The church was glowing with its inner light. Bill tossed his red hair out of his eyes as he ran. The music stopped. The thunder of the voice of the prophets that walked the roads of Galilean times blasted out through the open doors. The tall, six-foot giant of a preacher, with gray hair, gray eyes, and a gray mustache-Dr. William Barrett King-sent forth a great outpouring of the Spirit that made the rafters shake. That good old-time religion: "To be washed in the blood of the lamb. Do you hear the call? Anyone . . . Do you hear the call?" From the last pew, behind which he was now standing, Bill saw person after person arise, make their way across their neighbors to the aisle and move exultantly toward the altar where they knelt before their preacher.
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Chapter 2: The Incredible Revolving Illuminated Cross
By late December, 1913, the cross was delivered and installed but not yet turned on. Bill advertised heavily in the Sunset Journal, in flyers given to his congregation and in his Pulpit and Pew Notes. He turned the official installation of the cross into a spectacle that attracted wide-spread interest throughout the district. He scheduled a special church service, immediately prior to the event, so that all people drawn to the lighting ceremony could first sample what Calvary had to offer by way of church service and hospitality. Whether Bill could "keep them coming" to Calvary was then up to him and his congregation.
The newspaper ad stated that after the special service the audience would assemble on the "Boulevard" and the cross would be lighted for the first time. And, when lighted, the newspaper continued: "It will be seen all over this district from the oceanfront and far out to sea by the sailors, clear down to Second Avenue and by the hill residents." It was unusual for churches to advertise and some ministers believed that advertising was not "appropriate." Bill completely disagreed. He needed to attract people and this was the most effective way he knew.
Well before seven forty-five PM on Sunday evening, June 4, 1914, Calvary Church was comfortably filled with more than two hundred people, eagerly anticipating the much heralded lighting ceremony. He gave, he thought, one of the best addresses of his career. His talk was entitled "A Lamp to Lighten the World" and he took the liberty of suggesting that the beacon, which would soon be shining from the top of Calvary, would make a difference in the world as would the people of his congregation. He also presented a program of music, with Joseph Wesley Gebhardt, a recognized young baritone, and Warren A. Herman, a celebrated violinist. It was Calvary at its best, and he was proud of his work and exhilarated to be preaching to his first full house.
After the service, the crowd surged out of the church and assembled on the east side of Nineteenth Avenue. There were not only the people from the church service but quite a few others from the neighborhood who filled most of the street in front of Calvary. Bill called the crowd to silence, said an introductory word and gave a short prayer dedicating the cross to the people in the district, to the people of San Francisco and to all the sailors on the sea. The great cross smoothly started to revolve, sending its sparkling beams first east, then north, west and south, making two complete turns every minute. The effect was "mysterious with reverence" as hundreds of people all over the district watched the cross until it was turned off about eleven o'clock that evening.
Sin in the Streets - The Barbary Coast and the Uptown Tenderloin
On Thursday morning, the day of the mass meeting, Paul Smith awaited with great curiosity the arrival of the prostitutes. Bill was not present as he was in San Jose until an afternoon train would put him in San Francisco in time for the meeting at the Dreamland Rink.
Promptly at eleven AM, an orderly, silent delegation of over two hundred women, all habitues of the Barbary Coast and Uptown Tenderloin "alley" houses, filed through the doors of Central Methodist Episcopal Church and took their places in the pews. The reporter from the Examiner described them: "Their eyes blinking at the unaccustomed morning light, their clothes of the best in their wardrobe, their manner defiant." The reporter wrote:
It was an amazing audience that faced the Methodist pastor when he ascended his pulpit.
Hats of the latest mode set off faces defiant, faces simple to the point of childishness, faces indicating much more than average intelligence, faces showing all the signs of the night life's ravages, and faces yet untouched by its harrowing experiences.
Paul Smith looked out over his audience and asked for the woman who had telephoned him to rise.
Mrs. M. R. Gamble, better known as Reggie, stood. She was a co-owner in one of the richest "parlor-houses," located at 40 Mason Street, and she walked forward and ascended the pulpit. She was smartly attired in a checked tailor made suit. Her face was pale with nervousness, but her dark eyes were brilliant with intensity. When she spoke she showed all the signs of an extraordinarily keen intelligence and a sure command of language . . .
Chapter 3: The Center of Immensities-The Great War
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With several hours to kill in Gondrecourt before the train to Toul would arrive, Bill explored the town and described his experiences on his way to the front lines in an article for the readers of the San Jose Mercury Herald in an article which he called "A YMCA Preacher-Secretary's First Night." This story appeared in early May, 1918, and was among the earlier first-hand reports by Americans of life in the Great War.
By the time I got back to the depot it had gotten dark. My train pulled in and on I climbed. We rode in complete darkness for 40 miles. As I, under the weight of my big sleeping bag and a ten-ton suitcase, stumbled into a compartment, in the darkness I noticed two soldiers with helmets and rifles. I waited a while until my eyes came to be familiar with the darkness and determined that they were French. But much to my joy one spoke to the other and they were American boys who had already seen three periods in the front trenches. They soon saw that I was new and took great delight in showing me the points where our train went nearest the front lines. Once we were within ten miles of the lines and at that point for several miles we could distinctly hear the rumbling of the guns and the flashes of the air rockets. The nearest thing that I can use for simile to get these air rockets over to my readers is that at that distance, ten miles away, from a train window, traveling through war country in total darkness, is that they looked like heat lightning back home of a summer evening. For miles and miles, ever minute or so these rockets went up, forming a great sheet of light along the horizon. The boys in the compartment told me that down on the actual front these make the trenches and "No Man's Land" as light as day. I saw several great fingers of fierce, white light flashing across the skies. Then suddenly these fingers turned themselves into ladders of light and seemed to climb up into the very source of all light to burn against as beautiful a star-lit night as I ever saw.
"They're searching the skies for planes," my friends, the American soldiers, said to me.
"Are they expecting an air raid tonight? I asked in my freshman ignorance.
"Sure, Mike! We have them every clear night like this in these parts. We've had them now for five straight nights!"
It all seemed too good to be true; an air battle, the sight of the guns firing and the rockets, a three-hour ride on a long train without a single light on it; the great searchlights scanning the sky and the possibilities of an air raid. Once again I am tempted to use that new American, and most expressive, phrase, "Can you beat it."
From the time I clambered aboard my train until we began to pull into the yards of the city of my destination I had not seen a human soul save those American boys. Nobody appeared to tell me where to get off or to help me with my ten-ton suitcase. One has to find out everything for one's self in war time. Fortunately for me, the American boys knew where I was to get off and knew the place for it was the last town before the front lines and they had been through it several times.
I found Toul in total darkness save for pocket flashlights . . .
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Chapter 4: Flashlights From the Seven Seas-The Orient
Our escort was a motley crowd of old men. Off through the jungle [in West Borneo] we could hear firecrackers going off and the wild yelps of the Dyaks. I can't say that I enjoyed the sounds. They smacked too much of utter abandonment and I had a thought that, on a New Year's day celebration like this was, they might in their drinking, hark back a generation or so and decide that it was a pleasant day for taking a head or two since here were two perfectly good American ones which none of the head hunters had in their collection.
The only consolation I had was that both Mr. Worthington and I are bald and the Dyaks always like lots of hair on the heads that they take. It happened to be New Year's Day at the first compound of Dyaks we visited. New Year's does not come at the same time for each tribe. It follows the harvests. When a tribe gets its crop in, then it is New Year's.
It is a blistering hot May morning. It is the end of a jungle trail which opened into a wide, cleared space in the forest of tall palms. In front of us is the Dyak house.
It is a long narrow house, built in one piece, community style, every room joining, and running in front of every room is a long front porch. It is a big wide platform, about thirty feet across, and it is the common meeting place of all who live in that compound. People step out of the privacy of their rooms onto the common platform, floored with narrow strips of bambo, and here all the community events take place.
"There are fifteen doors to this compound," said the head man of the crowd to me, with a certain element of pride, for that meant he was the chief of fifteen families. The doors were swung on ropes from above and had no hinges. At the end of the platform, which was raised from the ground about ten feet, a bamboo log ladder, with notches cut in it for the feet, was the method of getting up and down.
As we approached from the end of the jungle trail, little children by the dozens were scurrying down that banboo ladder like so many monkeys. It was hilarious to see them do it. So they thronged this May morning swarming like a lot of bees about Mr. Worthington. I soon learned the reason, for he began to reach into his pockets and out came a handful of picture cards, such as we gave out in the primary department in our Sunday schools at home.
He was the Pied Piper of Hamlin. Those little bare brown children followed him about clinging to his hands, pulling at this coat, calling him "The Picture Man" over and over. I thought of Jesus entering Jerusalem in triumph. So missionary Worthington was entering this Dyak compound in triumph.
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Chapter 5: Standing Room Only--Detroit
Henry Ford agreed to the interviews, which Bill later modestly ascribed to Ford's generosity toward him, a relatively young man and a minister. "Perhaps he has been kind to me for the same reason that he was kind to the timid boy reporter on a country newspaper after he had refused interviews to the city reporters in Cincinnati. When I asked him about this incident, he smiled a kindly smile and said, 'Oh, I just wanted to help that young man. He was so scared that he couldn't even remember the name of his paper."'
Bill presented himself precisely at the appointed hour at Ford's Dearborn office for his first meeting. "What do you want to find out, Doctor Stidger?" the industrialist inquired with some curiosity but no hostility.
"I want to know just what the average American wants to know: your religion, hobbies, home life and intimate friends, your ideas and ideals, your plans for the immediate and for the far future; what you are going to do with your money when you die; what is really going on down deep in your heart," replied Bill, having thought this all out beforehand.
Ford looked at Bill thoughtfully, sizing him up. He decided to proceed. "Ask your first question, Doctor."
* * *
"Mister Ford," I said to him, "they say that you are an infidel." Ford replied at once, quiet voiced, but with sincerity, in the presence of several of his executives: "I believe in God, and in Jesus Christ. I was brought up in the church. I am even now planning to build a church in memory of my father and mother." Bill immediately asked Ford for permission to be the first to announce the fact that he, Henry Ford, was building a church. Ford gave his permission and Bill's article placed these facts in the public domain.
On Ford's enormous wealth, Bill said: "The people want to know what you are going to do with your huge fortune when you die. A prominent magazine editor in New York specifically wanted me to put this question to you. It is one of the questions in which the average American is interested."
"Why do they want to know?" Ford asked.
"I presume because it is getting to be a habit with wealthy men to do some useful and social thing with the vast sums of money that they accumulate. Take Mister Rockefeller, he has established the Rockefeller Foundation."
"Well you can tell them . . ."
* * *
Despite some naysayers, there were vastly larger numbers of people who raved about Bill's ministry and about St. Mark's. And just how did he do it? He decided to record his success for posterity in a book entitled Standing Room Only, published in April, 1921. Then he followed up with a second book three years later on the same subject, entitled That God's House May Be Filled. Within the pages of these two books was the blueprint he followed and which he wished to pass along. Some of the points he made in his two books follow:
Credo: "I believe that a preacher has a right to use any legitimate way under God's sun-as long as it is dignified, and as long as it is reverent-of producing an atmosphere of reverence and worship in the minds and hearts of the people who come to his church."
And how should a church reach out to the city's population? "You reach the masses through the medium that talks to the masses in a great city, and that is the newspaper. There is no other way."
Get in the news columns. "You reach the masses better through the news columns than you do through paid advertising. Teddy Roosevelt and 'my fellow townsman' Henry Ford are talked about and written about because they are always doing something that makes good news. That is the way for the modern minister to get publicity. You catch the hearts of the masses not through generalizing but through focusing on a single individual . . .
Give Pulpit Editorials. "The pulpit has no right to remain silent on matters of civic welfare that are of vital interest to every person . . ."
Try the One-Hour Service. "Can service be cut to one hour and be successful?", a preacher asked me with skepticism in his voice. I said, "It can most assuredly. We have tried it out over three month periods in two summers, and I am here to say it is spiritual, interesting and draws the crowds . . ."
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Chapter 6: Elmer Gantry-Kansas City
Bill described the process that the novelist, Sinclair Lewis, employed during his stay in Kansas City at The Ambassador Hotel:
Naturally, since he was writing a preacher book, I wanted him to meet as many of the finest preachers of this city as I could. I took him to the Methodist preachers' meeting. I took him to various churches. I introduced him to a group of so called 'liberals' in the city.
It is only fair to say these men, whom Sinclair Lewis dubbed his Sunday school class, had been meeting for a long time.
It is also only fair to say that every man in that class knew what was going on while Lewis was here. We have been dubbed "guinea pigs," on which a writer was experimenting. We cooperated with him to help him get the background for his literary work. When he came to these meetings and hurled his invectives at us and at the church, there was a general understanding we would be patient with his egotism and with his condition. At other times he talked quietly, entertainingly and cleverly.
He would leave the room a few minutes and when he came back he would talk like a motorcycle going ninety miles an hour. He would stride up and down like a hyena in a cage.
Lewis usually opened with a bombardment: "What the hell right has the church to exist anyhow? What accounting can you loafers give society? What right have you to draw salaries? What do you believe in anyhow? What have you to give to the world?
After those opening remarks the preachers had their comeback. Many answers were given, which thoughtful visitors from time to time, like William Allen White and others, agreed were real answers, but as far as we learned none seemed good answers to Mr. Lewis.
The group was aware of just what Mr. Lewis wanted. He was honest with them and they were fair with him. Everyone had a stimulating time. Lewis has a quick mind, even if it is not a profound mind-and he awakened that group of preachers as they never had been awakened before.
A preacher left one of the first of the meetings and exposed the dreadful fact that though it was a group of preachers they did not even say grace before they ate.
"That bird is a crook and I'll prove it to you before I leave this town," declared Lewis.
He did.
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Chapter 7: Preaching Out of the Overflow-Boston
It was late afternoon in mid-December, 1928: Tremont Street in Boston, near the Ritz Hotel. The bum bent over the tall wire basket, reached inside and began to rustle the contents for something of value-a bit of discarded food perhaps, an article of clothing to protect against the cold or a magazine with pictures to be read around the fire. He found a magazine, glanced through it and then curled it into a tight roll able to fit in his jacket pocket. The bum shuffled on, crossing the Boston Common, checking out other homeless men who were making the Common their shelter. Some had fashioned beds out of paper cartons or had covered themselves with newspapers. "Can you spare a dime for a cup of coffee, brother?" The litany was directed at anyone passing by who looked like he might have some extra money.
The bum seemed intent on making his way to Louisberg Square, the most fashionable address in Boston. He presented a sharp contrast to the finely dressed men and women hurrying along Mount Vernon Street, anxious to be wherever they were headed so they could be out of the penetrating winter cold. He had three days' growth of beard-a red scraggly beard. An old battered hat was pulled down over his eyes. He did not have an overcoat and his light jacket was drawn up close about his neck and fastened with a heavy safety pin.
A distinguished-looking elder gentleman drove up to the curb at 72 Mount Vernon Street, the home of the Boston University School of Theology. The gray-whiskered man was Dr. Marcus Buell, retired professor of New Testament. Mrs. Buell was in the back seat of the Ford.
Just as Dr. Buell removed the car keys and was preparing to get out, the tramp opened the front door of the car and slipped onto the front seat beside the Professor. Mrs. Buell stiffened in horror: the alarmed professor straightened up, not at all sure what harm this desperate man might bring.
"What do you want, sir?" Dr. Buell asked.
"Old man, I'm hungry. I gotta have money for food. I haven't had a bite to eat for two days-I'm starving and desperate. You gotta give me money to eat!"
Dr. Buell felt that he and his wife would be better off if they engaged this man in conversation. "What is your name?"
"My name's Kahn, sir. What of it?"
"Where did you come from? " The old doctor was sparring for time, looking for a police officer as he talked.
"I came from Pittsburgh. I've been workin' in the steel mills. They've shut down. I was told that I could get work in Boston and I can't. I'm starving. I have five children and I gotta have money to eat-and you gotta give it to me."
The professor pulled out a worn purse, reached down into it and handed the tramp a quarter. With a smile, Dr. Buell said: "I believe you. You look tired and hungry. Go and get something to eat, and God bless you."
Then the tramp looked directly into the face of his former teacher and said, removing his hat:
"Dr. Buell, you really are generous, aren't you?" Dr. Buell's eyes opened wide with astonishment.
Then, as he recognized the mischief maker, he smiled, "Why, Bill Stidger! What will you be doing next?"
* * *
Bill's own ministry used techniques that were so out of the ordinary they were sometimes hard to believe. His donning the garb of a bum and begging from the wealthy was part of the legend about him. He was also reputed to having conducted a service for the "dead" church. He had the congregation file past a coffin that showed the reflection of the observer in a mirror. These were grandstanding tactics, but they made valid and timely points. Out of these exploits, however, grew a cruel and unfair saying:
Boston, dear Boston
The City of baked beans and cod,
Where the Cabots speak just to the Lodges
And Stidger plays vaudeville for God.
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Chapter 8: The Depression
Bill's daughter Betty struggled with her freshman year at Smith College, but, finally, she achieved passing grades, which she thought was nothing short of a miracle. The following describes her insight into this miracle:
Fate intervened and with its help, I somehow made it through final exams. The freshman year was now over; my grades scraped along at the bottom of the barrel. That I just passed Zoology, was on the borderline in French, and was only saved from failing in History by my term paper, no longer phased me. What of it! I was still in college and next year would be different.
Dad played an incredible role for me, behind the scenes. So I later discovered. Smith College believed they could get along without me and so they wrote Dad a fine letter explaining that, although I had not completely failed, they would advise Dad to save his money and send me to a smaller school with less strict standards. Dad didn't even show the letter to Mother. He sat down and wrote directly to President Neilson:
"Dear Dr. Neilson:
Enclosed please find my check for the tuition of my daughter Betty's sophomore year at Smith College.
We Stidgers are sometimes slow at catching our second wind. Perhaps I am wasting my money but, if so, it is in a cause of which there is no better. I have absolute faith that Betty will earn my trust in her ability.
Faithfully and fraternally,
William L. Stidger"
Smith College never said another word on this subject, and I am forever grateful to Dad for his confidence in me and his forthrightness with President Neilson.
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Chapter 9: Radio Days
Bill Stidger was a pioneer in radio broadcasting. He was given his own show, five days a week, on a national hook-up in 1937 in the depths of the Depression. Bill decided that he would name his broadcast "Getting the Most Out of Life," and he was clear in his own mind that the simple message he wished to send to as many people as possible was that "we get the most out of life by putting the most into life." He chose as his daily greeting for the program: "Good day, my friends, and all things glad and beautiful! Are you getting the most out of life?"
Overall, Bill planned to observe certain rules in broadcasting that had paid off for him already. In his earlier books for preachers, he had demonstrated how his methods, if followed, would lead to "Standing Room Only." Bill now set down the tenets for successful radio shows, calling them his Ten Radio Commandments, which Time magazine later published:
1. Speak in a conversational tone;
2. Take your sermons not from the Bible but from life;
3. Leave out the word "I";
4. Neglect the needless;
5. No bunk;
6. No sob stuff;
7. Make the web of your sermon optimistic, cheerful;
8. Check and recheck your script before delivering . . .for absolute factual accuracy;
9. Keep the word "not" out of your sermon script;
10. Use no introduction. Plunge right into the middle of the sermon.
* * *
Bill was on a trip to Berlin over Christmas and New Year's in 1934 when the following incident occurred:
We were a group of four Americans on a recent Sunday afternoon, taking tea at the Kaiserhof in Berlin. In addition to our party there were only five others in that Kaiserhof tearoom, and they were evidently Germans. We finished our tea and had called for the check when the little German waiter bent over me and said, "If you will stay for another half-hour, Chancellor Hitler will be here."
With typical American curiosity, we stayed.
Promptly on schedule Herr Hitler appeared, almost by magic, in the room. There was a sudden scurry, a sense of electrical excitement, a sudden hush, waiters moving about swiftly, and in stepped a group of young Germans dressed in their Sunday best-black suits, black ties, white collars. They quickly walked over the entire tearoom, examining every curtain, table, and window. Then came Hitler and his entire cabinet.
As Hitler entered, he raised his hand in a lazy half-hearted Nazi salute, walked over to a table, sat down, surrounded by every single member of his cabinet. All of them ordered tea and sandwiches except Herr Hitler himself, who ate nothing during the hour that they remained in the Kaiserhof tearoom. The others ate heartily, talked, told stories, laughed, and seemed to be in a generally hilarious mood.
Hitler himself smiled but did not laugh. He seemed to have come merely to listen to the music. Now and then he smiled. Once he included our table of Americans in his smile, and it made quite an impression on the women in our party. We had heard the usual rumors about his physical and mental ill-health-that he was incapacitated; that he had gone crazy.
We sat for an hour watching Hitler's every move and facial expression. He seemed to be in a normal condition, alert mentally, with a rather pleasing smile; not bad to look at; with rather a kindly look in his eyes; quite unlike the man who was said to have taken a personal part in the terrible Purge of 1934.
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Chapter 10: Rest Where You Are
Bill usually wrote three letters a week to Betty. This is his final letter:
Last night we listened to the Red Sox beat the Detroit Tigers 9 to 0. It was a magnificent game and a shut-out for Kramer. We are HOT just now and have won our last seven games in a row and Dom Dimaggio has hit safely in thirty-three straight games. The whole of New England is excited about this, and none more than your Mother. That woman knows every player-his record, his batting possibilities when he comes up; yells at him-while lying on the bed, listening to the game-to "make a hit!" This has all developed this summer; and I am glad of it. Remember my story in The Ladies' Home Journal, "What I Saw in My Wife to Marry Her?" for which I won a prize of $200 (I bought her engagement ring with that money.) Well, the thing that I saw in my fictional gal friend (and it was purely fictitious in Iva's case) was the fact that she KNEW baseball. Now, "at long last," she DOES know baseball, but it has taken me forty-five years to teach it to her, and that's a long, long time to vindicate myself as to "What I Saw in My Wife to Marry Her."
Well, old kid; this must be all for this broadcast. Listen in again, on this same station, at this same time, come next Monday.
Your ever faithful and fullsome,
Father
But there was no "listening in again, on this same station, at this same time," for these were the last words that William (Bill) Leroy Stidger ever wrote. On the next morning, after breakfast, as he was preparing to leave for Worcester to deliver his sermon, "I Will Pray," he complained of chest pains and said that he wasn't feeling well. He lay down on the sofa in the living room while Iva went to the kitchen to call the doctor. When she returned, he was lifelessly still. The Bill, whom Iva loved and had shared 43 years with, was gone; perhaps he had already moved gloriously on to try and catch up with the heroes and giants whom he had met in his life and in his reading; but he was gone from her, nonetheless. The doctor pronounced Bill's body dead of a massive coronary on Sunday morning, August 7, 1949, in his 64th year.
* * *
And the principal address at Bill's memorial service, made to a packed church, was given by Pat McConnell:
Travelling Human
Thirty-five years ago there appeared in the Epworth Herald a series of articles entitled "Traveling Human." They were stories of people picked up by a traveler who was alive to what was going on around him. A crying baby was the center of one interested and annoyed group. An old couple going back to visit the hometown of their birth had a story to tell. A drinking roisterer was the maker of a disturbance. They had no plot and pointed no moral. They were flashlights turned on human faces with care, joy, annoyance, written for anyone who knew the language of life to read.
There are people who bend their energies toward a set goal: it may be a million dollars and they become the richest men in the cemetery. It may be some high goal of scholarship and they end up in the insane asylum as the most learned inmate. Life is to them a destination and they travel in a compartment with shades drawn to shut out the beautiful but distracting scenery. The man who traveled human never missed a sunset, a tree, a flashlight on the seven seas or a sermon in a stone. His ears were tuned to the chirp of the cricket or the thunder's roar. He could see the far horizon as clearly as the tired look in the travel-worn mother's eyes who had walked four days and nights with two small children to meet her soldier husband. The man who traveled human saw life as a journey and not as a destination.
Anyone who sees life through human eyes can not long be content as a reporter or as a journeyman storyteller. He has to lay down his pen and render first aid to some other traveler who has been overtaken by a fault. Once it was a man about whom his enemies chose to believe the worst and swarmed over him for the kill. The man who traveled human roamed far and wide in his friend's defense.
It was a long, long journey that the man who traveled human took. It carried him into the far corners of the earth in peace and war. Up and down the world he went poking his flashlight into the nooks and crannies of continents and back roads. But he was not only interested in geography but in folks. Always it was a man, woman, or child in the picture. Once it was a silhouette of a soldier against a flaming battle front. Over fifty books were filled with stories. The little people were never nudged out by the big folk. Multimillionaires shared his pages with Miss Mary of Moundsville . . .
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