Stanley Parsons

Stanley Parsons

From When Kansas Was Young, pages 111 -114.
Didn't Recollect the President
by Thomas Allen McNeal

Back in the seventies there lived in the state of New York a widow possessed of considerable wealth and a son named Stanley, who caused a lot of worry and gray hairs to his fond mother, for Stanley was decidedly inclined to wander into the primrose-lined paths of sin. He looked on the wine when it was red. He also looked on and sampled practically everything else that had a kick to it and as a result the boy was fairly well lit up most of the time.
It occurred to Mrs. Parsons, Stanley's mother, that if she could get her boy far away from the giddy throng and lure of the city, he would reform and become a credit to his name and family. She had heard of the great free ranges of the west, where cattle fed on the sweet native grasses and fattened without any expense worth mentioning. It occurred to her that if her wayward boy could be induced to go out there where he would be widely separated from his old-time companions and kept busy looking after his grazing herd and communing with nature, he would forget his acquired thirst and likewise accumulate wealth, because the widow was inclined to be thrifty as well as anxious for the moral welfare of her son. "Stan" fell in with the idea readily enough, because there was in his blood a certain longing for adventure, and then, when out of reach of his mother, he would be freed from her chidings.
So one day in the later seventies he landed at Medicine Lodge with enough money to buy a moderate sized herd of cattle and secured a range a few miles west of the frontier town. If Stan was separated from his old cronies, he had hardly more than landed in the cattle country until he began to associate himself with new ones, who, when the opportunity offered, could hit a fairly rapid pace themselves, and it may be remarked in passing that Stan was generally well to the front of the procession.
What his fond mother did not know was that while the bounding west, that part included in the great cattle ranges, did not boast of the ornate saloons where the devotees of Bacchus were wont to gather and perform their libations, it was supplied with a brand of liquor of far-reaching and intensive power. Men who tarried with it long and often were apt to acquire a new variety of delirium tremens, under the influence of which their diseased imaginations not only beheld ordinary reptiles but prehistoric monsters - ichthyo- sauruses, dynastidans, pterodactyls, and mournful whangdoodles from the mountains of Hepsidam. Stan Parsons imbibed large quantities of the fluid commonly known in that section as "Hell's Delight," and was " stewed" most of the time. When the general quietude of the railroadless town of Medicine Lodge palled on him he would go to Hutchinson, where he would remain for days or even weeks in a condition of partial or total inebriation, his cattle meanwhile looking out for themselves. It is hardly necessary to say that his herd did not increase and multiply.
In the fall of 1879 Rutherford B. Hayes, then president of the United States, decided to make an official tour of the country. The journey planned was the most extensive ever taken by a president up to that time. Accompanied by one or two members of his cabinet, his wife, Lucy, who some people were mean enough to say was the real president of the republic during Rutherford's term of office, General Sherman, and other notables, the presidential party crossed the continent, visited several of the Pacific coast cities and on the return trip passed through Kansas. This was the first time that a president had visited the Sunflower state while in office and there was great interest in his journey. At that time there were many thousands of the men who had followed Sherman to the sea living in Kansas and they were especially elated at the prospect of meeting their old commander; in fact Sherman received a more enthusiastic welcome, so far as Kansas was concerned, than the president.
Arrangements were made for a number of stops in the state, one of them at Hutchinson. In his day Rutherford B. Hayes was the most expert handshaker among public men. He had a way of reaching out and getting hold of the other fellow's hand and doing the shaking himself. This was done as a matter of self- protection, for if a public man at a general reception were to permit his hand to be gripped by a few thousand muscular and earnest sons of toil he would have little more use for that hand for weeks afterward. Hayes not only always took the initiative in the public handshaking, but he had the manner of a man who was grasping the hand of an old friend whom he had not seen for years. When the presidential train stopped at Hutchinson, Hayes took his place on the platform and the crowd formed in single file to pass and shake his hand or rather to let their hands be shaken.
It happened that just at that time Stan Parsons was making one of his visits to the town on the Cowskin, and, noting the gathering crowd, went down to the depot with a somewhat hazy idea of finding out what it was all about. Once in the crowd he staggered into line and finally came to the President. Hayes, with his ingratiating, friendly smile and manner reached out, grasped Stan's hand, and shook it heartily. Stan paused, regarded Hayes from head to foot with drunken gravity, scratched his head in a vain endeavor to recollect, and finally said: "By G-- stranger, you seem to have the advantage of me. Seems to me that I ought to know your face, but damned if I can remember your name at all."