has never since been out of
my hair.

Allison's newspaper years are rich with experience, for while he could
never be classed as a Yellow Reformer, his caustic, or amusing, or pathetic
pen, as the case demanded, has never been idle. Away back in the old days
the gambling element in Louisville fairly "owned the town" and he attempted
to curtail their power. They tried to cajole him and to bribe him and when
both alike failed, intimidated the millionaire owner of the _Commercial_
out from under him! He either had to sacrifice Allison or his street
railway interests, and chose Allison to throw to the lions. But he made Mr.
Dupont go the whole length and "fire" him! He wouldn't resign when asked to
do so. And of course while it all lasted Allison had his meed of personal
amusement. For no editor ever took himself less seriously. Prominent
citizens came with fair words and he listened to them and printed them;
bribes were offered and accepted only for publication; while threats were
received joyously and made the subject of half-whimsical comment.

As a newspaper man Allison prided himself on never having involved any of
his papers in a libel suit, though he was usually the man who wrote the
"danger-stuff." He had complaints, yes; libel suits, no. Dick Ryan, known
in prehistoric newspaper circles in Louisville as "Cold Steel," because his
mild blue eyes hardened and glinted when his copy was cut--the typical
police court reporter who could be depended upon for a sobbing "blonde-girl
story" when news was off--always said that when a party came in to complain
of the hardship of an article, Allison talked to him so benevolently that
the complainant always went away in tears, reflecting on how much worse it
might have been if Allison hadn't softened the article that seemed so raw.
"Damned if I don't believe he cries with 'em, too!" said Ryan. "If I had
that sympathetic stop in my own voice I know I'd cry during ordinary
conversations, just listening to myself."

[Illustration: Young E Allison
_Caricature by Wyncie King
in Louisville Daily Herald_]

But of course the libel suit had to come to spoil an otherwise perfect
record. And of course it was political and sprang out of a red-hot state
campaign, while he was editor-in-chief of the _Herald_, in which his pen
went deep enough to enrage the adversary and force the libel case. Like all
political cases of this kind it was not a sui