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 suit for damages, but an indictment for criminal libel, found by a complaisant political grand jury at the other end of the state--intended to cause the greatest amount of annoyance and to die out slowly. By that means it costs the accused both time and money while the state pays all expenses for the prosecution. Judge "Bill" Smith, one of the greatest of Kentucky lawyers on constitutional points, or rather Judge William Smith of the Jefferson Circuit Court--because he has passed over now, taking his kindly and childlike, yet keen and resourceful personality out of life's war for good and all--Judge Smith told me the story of that case one night after we had discussed down to the water-marks in the paper, his treasured copy of Burns. And at my very urgent solicitation he transcribed the salient features, not in all the intimate details of the spoken words, but with deep poetic feeling and rare conception of their human aspects. He wrote: There are three poets in Burns. One is the poet you read; the second is the poet some mellow old Scot, with an edge on his tongue, recites to you; the third and most wonderful is the Burns that somebody with even a thin shred of a high voice sings to you. Burns is translated to the fourth power by singing him--without accompaniment--just the whinnying of a tenor or soprano voice, vibrant with feeling and pathos, at the right time of the evening, or in some penumbrous atmosphere of seclusion where memory can work its miracles.