K. C.'s Sun

(See Cover)

Better a garden In Kansas City than a park in Utopia.

This booster's boast was not uttered by a Kansas Citian but by a visiting French novelist. When Andre Maurois, in 1946, was teaching a course in biography at the University of Kansas City, he was smitten with Kansas City's beauty. "Who in Europe, or in America for that matter," he asked, "knows that Kansas City is one of the loveliest cities on earth?"

Lovely is not a word that comes often or naturally to the lips of Kansas Citians themselves. They are aware of their slums and stockyards as well as of their elm-shaded streets and comfortable homes. The city is self-conscious about its culture and somewhat nostalgic about its hell-raising past, and looks down its nose at drab Kansas City, Kansas "across the viaduct." Only 225 miles from the geographical center of the U.S., it has the drive of the East, the traditions of the South (e.g., separate schools for Negroes), and the friendliness and vigor of the West. It annually holds the famed American Royal Livestock and Horse Show, sends steaks to half the continent, and has already placed a plaque on the spot (in the Muehlebach Hotel) where Harry Truman signed the first Greek-Turkish aid bill.

Unlike most big U.S. cities, Kansas City also has an undisputed first citizen. He is Roy Allison Roberts, president and general manager of the Kansas City Star, a 265-lb. extravert who presides over his domain with the shrewd joviality of Falstaff and the hearty acumen of David Harum. He looks like the jolly personification of the sun at midday. He achieved and holds his zenith because of a deceptive appearance of innocence (his favorite description of himself: "I'm just a big, fat country boy"), almost inexhaustible energy, and a congenital talent for politicking.

Boom & Byline. In a political year, almost every man is a politician of sorts. But most men merely play at it. Roy Roberts devotes a great part of his skill, energy and time to it. He almost lost his amateur standing in 1936, when he guided Alf Landon into the worst debacle the Republican Party ever suffered. But in 1948 he made most of the 14-carat professionals look tarnished. He was closest to the biggest political story of the year--the Eisenhower boom.

One day last week, he had a rich, satisfying 18 hours. He had begun to get curious--and just a little nervous--about the Democratic bandwagon rolling towards General Ike's door. It was Roberts who had first given that wagon a shove down the Republican road and he who had announced--long in advance of Eisenhower's own statement--that Ike would decline to run.

Sitting at his cluttered desk in the cluttered expanse of the Star's city room, Roberts got General Eisenhower on the telephone in Washington. How did Ike feel about it now? Would he take a Democratic nomination? Roberts grinned around his cigar as the wire crackled with a string of cuss words. The General was angry. Hadn't he given his word? What kind of a fellow did they think he was?

This sort of talk was reflecting on his integrity. He had meant his disavowal and he still meant it. That was final. Reporter Roberts, said Ike, could make that as strong as he wanted to.

Roberts did. He wrote a story headlined IKE MEANS "No," and put it, under his own byline, on Page One of the Star. It was the kind of story he likes best: an exclusive that would cause a stir among the politicians. He padded happily around the desks, whacking backs and ruffling hair. "I never get over seeing that byline," he beamed. "I'll always be a reporter."

A few minutes later he was a politician again. Tall, handsome Harry Darby, G.O.P. national committeeman in Kansas, came up and gave him the inside on how Alf Landon had been given a drubbing at the Republican state convention in Wichita. (Roberts dabbles little in Missouri politics but--because the Star is the biggest paper in Kansas--he is Kansas' top GOPower.)

The Roberts-Darby group had won 13 of the state's 19 delegates to the national convention, and would doubtless force stubborn Alf Landon out as delegation chairman. It meant that Darby--who is for Dewey on the first ballot--would make the decisions of the Kansas delegation at Philadelphia in June. Roberts, who has a reasonably tough hide, used to wince at reminders of his 1936 fiasco with Landon. Now, enjoying his role as a friendly enemy of Alf's, he pushed his belly back from his desk and nodded: "Fine. Fine."

"Unofficial Capital." Then he turned his attention to the main business of the day. It was mayoralty election day in Kansas City. The Star's old hands, who remembered the late Tom Pendergast's heyday (1911-39), could hardly believe it: there was not one report of a head-cracking at the polls. The voting was light.

Roberts took a couple of hours out for the gusty kind of entertaining he enjoys most. He rounded up a dozen Star staffers, herded them over to the Kansas City Club and up to a comfortably furnished suite numbered 822. A lot of Kansas Citians call 822 "the unofficial capital of Kansas." It is a club-within-a-club with only 36 members, all bigwig Missourians or Kansans. (Harry Truman, an infrequent guest who was regarded by Roberts as a soft touch at its big green poker table, was made an honorary member after he became President.)

Entering 822, Roberts started in on the only regular exercise he ever takes: the lifting and downing of four large Scotch highballs before dinner. He stripped off his tentlike coat and trousers, took a shower, waddled around in his underwear for a time, got into a clean suit, and sat down to a roast beef dinner. Then he hustled his men back to the office.

Election returns were coming in. Roberts spotted the trend in a precinct report from the onetime "Bloody First" Ward, a Pendergast stronghold. "That's a barbershop on North Main," he said. "They used to vote about 385 to 6 for the machine. Look what they got -- only two to one." It was soon clear that the election was in the bag for the Citizens Association, a loose fusion of anti-Pendergast Democrats, yeasty Republicans and independents, held together by the Star's backing. What was left of Old Tom's once mighty machine, now run with little enthusiasm by his nephew Jim, had taken its fifth straight election beating from the town's "good deeders."* Kansas City's reform government seemed safe for a while yet.

Reminders of the Past. Roy Roberts left the Star building before midnight, piled himself into the front seat of his 1946 Pontiac. Harvey Anderson, his Negro chauffeur-handyman, was waiting to pick him up. Roberts, who has a nickname for everybody, calls Anderson "the Senator" because he is a precinct-worker for the good deeders.

They turned south on Main Street (see map), away from the cluster of tall buildings which give northwest Kansas City its impressive skyline -- a skyline dominated by the 30-story, $6,000,000 city hall, built during the Pendergast days and still much too large for the city's needs. They passed the two-story, yellow brick building at 1908 Main, where Old Tom Pendergast's greedy fingers had pulled the strings. The lights there were still on ; Jim Pendergast's men were measuring their defeat.

Beyond the World War I Liberty Memorial, a 217-ft. shaft topped by flame-colored light, they drove through a district of small homes and gardens to Country Club Plaza, the neo-Spanish shopping center of J. C. Nichols' famed suburban development (TIME, Dec. 1). Just beyond, they turned west along Brush Creek, lined and bottomed with the concrete Tom Pendergast sold. Just across the Kansas line, the car turned up a short driveway to a large stone-and-brick house,/- a full eight-iron shot from the tenth green of the Mission Hills golf course. As he opened the front door, Roberts whistled shrilly and yelled to his wife: "Hey, Madam, I'm home."

Wide-Open Cow Town. The Kansas City on which Roy Roberts shines has changed in appearance only slightly in recent years, but it has changed its character considerably. Kansas City grew big and rich on the nation's appetite for meat and bread and for the West's desires for the East's calicos and gadgets. But Kansas City also grew famed among U.S. cities for its sin. The cow town became a little Paris, a wide-open playground for cattlemen, drummers, oil wildcatters, and--somewhat later--glad-handing U.S. conventiongoers.

After Tom Pendergast got his grip on the city administration, its seamy side got much more national attention than its solid core of respectability and its increasing commercial importance. During Pendergast's reign, the town was a free-&-easy capital of grifters, gamblers, gangsters and striptease grinders. In no other city in the U.S. were vice and gambling so well protected. When the Boss needed money, his boys put a deeper bite on the brothel-keepers, bookies and crapshooters. Tom Pendergast, who made his town a trap for suckers, turned out to be one of the biggest suckers himself; as his horseplaying fever increased, he bet more than a million dollars in one year, lost as much as $600,000 of it.

Many Kansas Citians, always more than a little envious of St. Louis' maturity and greater size (by 366,000), thought all this high-bucking naughtiness good business; it brought visitors and dollars. Besides, the machine was building up the town. The Star, which always fought Pendergast politically, treated him personally with respect. It reported his comings & goings in the society columns, recorded his growing prowess in Democratic national affairs.

Bullets & Ballots. The citizens and the Star got an awakening on election day in 1934. Four people were killed by gunplay and knifings at the polls as the young, earnest Citizens group tried to do something to halt illegal voting. Pendergastlies gave a Starman a pistol-whipping about the head, chased him back to the Star. From there on it was open war, with Roy Roberts, then the Star's managing editor, planning much of the reformers' strategy. It was the beginning of Pendergast's decline & fall.

Now the old honky-tonks and clip joints have vanished from Twelfth Street; the bawdy houses on Cherry Street are now mostly respectable boarding houses. The raucous Chesterfield Club, where the waitresses wore nothing at all between their pumps and their permanents, has been torn down.

But the greatest change has come in the town's leadership. Merchants, bankers, railroad managers and hundreds of citizens who once would never think of messing in the town's dirty politics are now the backbone of the reform. Says Roberts: "Pendergast had civic leadership constricted. He even controlled the Chamber of Commerce. Good and able citizens took no part in the city's affairs. If they bucked the machine, they were liable to personal harm. When the machine broke down, we had a flood of new blood. Where there were a few civic leaders a few years ago, there are now scores."

Roberts is No. 1 citizen, but he is by no means Kansas City's boss. His position is unique in big-town journalism and politics. He never gives an order, has asked only one favor of the city administration in eight years (one of "the Senator's" friends needed a job). His great power is the Star. He can sit back, dictate an editorial or work up a story that will get the things done. Big Roy is the easiest man to see in town. To his desk every day come a steady stream of citizens to tell him their troubles and plans--everything from politics to church benefits. He always takes time to listen.

The man who technically runs the town is City Manager Perry Cookingham. The first time the city manager went to see Roberts, the fat man told him: "All we want is the best government you can give us. If we think you're wrong, we'll tell you--on Page One." The last time Cookingham saw Roberts was to tell him that another city had offered him a similar job at higher pay. The quick result: a boost from $18,000 to $25,000 for Manager Cookingham.

The Nelson Tradition. To be up-to-date about Kansas City, every citizen has to read what Roy Roberts wants him to. Roberts' Star has no competition. The afternoon Star subscriber must also take its morning edition, the Times, and the Sunday Star. Circulation of each paper is above 360,000.**

The Star is known the country over for its conservative makeup (a banner headline is a rarity), its daily Page One story reflecting sweetness and light, and its local boosting. Some Kansas Citians wish they had some other paper to read; some say, "You'll never get anything in this town if Roy Roberts doesn't like you."

Like other Starmen, Roberts is steeped in the traditions of Founder William Rockhill Nelson,/-/- a volcanic autocrat whose No. 1 tenet was to lead the people. Nelson told the citizens how to build their houses, what to put in their gardens, how to feed their babies, how to cultivate a pleasant voice. He also fought corruption and was Kansas City's greatest booster. Staffers even say that Roy Roberts, because of his enormous girth and bull neck (18 1/2 inches), is beginning to look a little like the "Old Colonel," whose picture hangs on almost every wall at the Star.

The sandy-haired son of a fire-&-brimstone Congregational minister, Roberts started working for the Star as a paper-carrier in Lawrence, Kans. 50 years ago. At the University of Kansas, he was the Star's correspondent (also editor of the student paper, a campus politician, and a leading spirit in the Good Government Club and the Scoop Club).

On the Inside. When he joined the Star's staff (at $22.50 a week) in 1908, he announced to Starmen in their favorite saloon that "this fat boy from Kansas is going to be the best Goddamned reporter the Star ever had." He soon was. He did stints at local, sports and state coverage before the Old Colonel sent him to Washington. For 15 years he was one of Washington's best "back door" reporters ("I never cared much for press conferences").

He returned to Kansas City as managing editor in 1928. Thanks to his Washington years, he has a list of friends which includes almost every major Republican and Democrat on the national scene. He has an insatiable urge to be on the inside of everything important that is going on. Says Roberts: "I got started playing politics so I'd have background for political reporting, and I still play it that way. Before I'm anything else I'm still a fellow looking for a story."

Washington Levee. Politics is also Roberts' biggest recreation. He sometimes gets so engrossed in the game that he plays on both sides at once. In 1944, when he was strong for Tom Dewey, he was also strong for Home-Towner Harry Truman to get the Democratic vice-presidential nomination. At the Democratic convention he took Truman aside, advised him to "shut up this talk of yours about not being good enough to be Vice President or people will begin believing you." In the campaign, the Star gave Truman as much attention as it did Dewey. Kansas City wags said that Roberts would not be happy until he elected both of them.

Roberts has covered every national political convention since 1912. He goes as a reporter, but he also gets a lot of politicking done. In 1940, a word from him in the press row got Kansas on the Willkie bandwagon early. This year the Kansans will probably be for Dewey at the start, but Harry Darby and Roy Roberts both think well of Arthur Vandenberg and like his chances.

Next week, Washington will get a visit from Roberts, an event which always pulls a long stream of bigwigs to his hotel suite. Among those expected at the country boy's informal levee: Ike Eisenhower, Bob Taft, Arthur Vandenberg, Dozens of others will drop in. They know Roberts not only as Kansas City's first citizen, but as a sagacious politico who can tell them which way the wind is blowing.

*In the nine years since Old Tom went to prison for cheating the income-tax collector of $443,550, his machine has had only one victory worth crowing about: its defeat, demanded by Harry Truman, of Congressman Roger C. Slaughter in 1946's Democratic primary. A fortnight ago, oldtime Pendergastlies celebrated a minor victory: eight Pendergast machinemen were acquitted of vote-fraud charges (on which the Star had gathered the evidence) growing out of the 1946 primary. In a year of trials, only four of 39 accused had been pronounced guilty.

/-Roberts lives in Kansas on account of Old Tom Pendergast. The boss's assessors, by upping tax valuations, had made it tough on the Star's wealthy executives to own property on the Missouri side.

**The Star's monopoly in Kansas City dates from 1942, when the Journal-Post gave up a long-lost fight. The Star also has a country weekly, which goes to 440,000 farmers in Kansas, Missouri, Arkansas, Oklahoma.

/-/-The Star is owned by more than 150 Starmen, who in 1926 borrowed heavily to buy it from Nelson's estate. Some of them draw up to $50,000 a year in dividends. Roy Roberts' stock is estimated at close to $1,000,000; his salary at $50,000.

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