Take, for example, the story of the Convention Hall. It is a vast auditorium, taking up, as I recall it, a whole block. It was built for the Democratic National Convention in 1900, but burned down immediately after having been completed; whereupon Kansas City turned in, raised the money all over again, and in about ten weeks' time completely rebuilt it. There Bryan was nominated for the second time. Or, consider the story of the "Harvey System" of hotels and restaurants on the Santa Fé Road. The headquarters of this eating-house system is in Kansas City, and offers a fine field for a story all by itself, for it has been the biggest single influence in civilizing hotel life and in raising gastronomic standards throughout the west. But these are only items by the way--two among the countless things that "Star" men told me of, or showed me. And, of course, the greatest thing they showed me was right in their own office: their friend, their "boss," that active volcano, seventy-three years old, who comes down daily to his desk, and whose enthusiasm fires them all. Colonel Nelson is a "character." Even if he didn't own the "Star," even if he had not the mind he has, he would be a "character," if only by virtue of his appearance. I have called him a volcano; he is more like one than any other man I have ever met. He is even shaped like one, being mountainous in his proportions, and also in the way he tapers upward from his vast waist to his snow-capped "peak." Furthermore, his face is lined, seamed, and furrowed in extraordinary suggestion of those strange, gnarled lava forms which adorn the slopes of Vesuvius. Even the voice which proceeds from the Colonel's "crater" is Vesuvian: hoarse, deep, rumbling, strong. When he speaks, great natural forces seem to stir, and you hope that no eruption may occur while you are near, lest the fire from the mountain descend upon you and destroy you. "Umph!" rumbled the volcano as it shook hands with my companion and me. "You're from New York? New York is running the big gambling house and show house for the country. It doesn't produce anything. It doesn't take any more interest in where the money comes from than a gambler cares where you get the money you put into his game. "Kansas is the greatest state in the Union. It thinks. It produces things. Among other things, it produces crazy people. It is a great thing to have a few crazy people around! Roosevelt is crazy. Umph! So were the men who started the Revolution to break away from England. "Most of the people in the United States don't think. They are indifferent and apathetic. They don't want to work. One of our 'Star' boys went to an agricultural college to see what was going on there. What did he find out? Why, that instead of making farmers they were making professors. Yes. Pretty nearly the entire graduating class went there to learn to teach farming. That's not what we want. We want farmers."