For the youth of good pluck,
Who can stare in the eye of fate,
Is the good old whiskey of old Kentuck
And invariably straight.

III

So here's to the corn
That is growing this morn
All tasselled and gold and gay!
And the old copper still
In the sour mash mill
By the spring on the turnpike gray!
May the fount of luck
For the man full of pluck
Flow ever without abate
With the good old whiskey of old Kentuck,
And strong and pure and straight.

ENVOY

Old straight whiskey! That is the drink of life--
Consolation, family, friends and wife!
So make your glasses ready,
Pour fingers three, then--steady!
"Here's good luck to Kentucky and whiskey straight!"

* * * * *

No one, like Allison, who has made the newspaper profession a life work,
has failed to study its weak spots and to note its imperfections; or on the
other hand, to grasp its marvelous opportunities for studying the wonderful
mystery of the variations of human nature. In the very essence of things
therefore, he recognizes the human elements in his own profession and does
not hold that the newspaper man is perfect or that it does not harbor types
of black sheep the likes of which may not be found in other flocks. At the
same time nothing raises his gorge quicker than to hear the uninformed or
unthinking deliver themselves, parrot-like, of the formula "that's only a
newspaper lie" or to see some man climb high by the aid of the newspaper
and then kick down the ladder by which he rose. Allison once discussed this
subject skillfully in an address on "Newspaper Men and Other Liars" which
is worth a half-hour of any man's time. The only difficulty would be
experienced in finding a copy, for so far as known, I have the only one
extant. Allison believes and says that by the very nature of his occupation
and training the newspaper man is the least of liars among men and proves
to his own complete satisfaction that the reporter gets his undeserved
reputation for lying from his very impersonality--an impersonality that may
be condemned with perfect safety. Fact, he declares, is a block of granite
that the whole world may see without wrangling over, but once inject the
human interest, with its divided opinions, into the occult mystery of the
printed type a