Texas Druggists’ Secretary And Former Mayor of Forney, Agent of The News 41 Years
Dallas Morning News
Saturday, 19 January 1929
Section 1, Page 4
Special to The News
FORNEY, Texas, Jan. 18 – “It isn’t essential, financially speaking, that I have the agency in Forney for The Dallas News, but I give it the same attention I would the biggest proposition that could be submitted to me. It’s a matter of sentiment with me, for at one time The News agency, with my work as correspondent for that paper, meant my bread and butter.”
This is the feeling expressed by Walter D. Adams, for forty-one years representative of The Dallas News in Forney. He was appointed correspondent in the fall of 1887, by the late Frank M. Doremus, when the latter was managing editor of The News and he has been the combined agent and correspondent since August, 1893.
Probably it’s only natural that Mr. Adams, who is one of Forney’s very successful business men, should have a newspaper bent. He was born in Kemp, Kaufman County, Dec. 31, 1871. He began an apprenticeship on the Kaufman Sun at the age of 12 years, learning to set type on that paper. His first compensation was a suit of clothes, for which he worked six months, and he labored a year on the paper at a salary of $1 per month.
In 1887, Mr. Adams came to Forney, and two years later, in 1889, he established the Forney Tribune. He was then 17 years old, and recognized as the youngest newspaper man in Texas. After operating the Tribune for one year, Mr. Adams disposed of his interest and entered A & M College, where he remained about a year. On his return to Forney, he again became owner of the Tribune and conducted the paper for two years.
Mr. Adams began his career in Forney as a retail druggist on Aug. 8, 1893, when he purchased a store operated by his brother, Frank M. Adams, who died last year. The latter relinquished his business to [illegible] Forney to serve as [illegible] the appointment [illegible] during the second administration(?) of Grover Cleveland.
Covered Lynching Case.
It was on May 7, 1890, when the annual convention was held in Houston that Mr. Adams became a member of the Texas Press Association. At that time the late R.M. Johnston of the Houston Post was president, and Fred B. Robinson, now of Waco, was secretary.
Some thrilling incidents which have occurred in the Forney neighborhood, since he has been correspondent for The News, are recalled by Mr. Adams. One of these has to do with the lynching of a negro, which took place soon after he assumed his duties as a news-gatherer. The negro was charged with having attacked a white woman. His examining trial was held in Forney, then the officers started to Kaufman with him to place him in jail. Great indignation was in evidence in Forney, and when Mustang Creek, a mil and a half south of the town, was reached, a mob blockaded a bridge across the creek, took the negro from the officers and hanged him from a bois d’arc tree near the bridge.
“When the officers returned to Forney, they reported that they had been overpowered, their prisoner taken from them and hanged, and that they thought it was the work of Sam Bass and his gang of outlaws,” Adams said.
“There are two reasons why I remember this episode so clearly,” remarked Mr. Adams. “It came so early in my career as correspondent for The News; then, to, I had not sent all of the details of the lynching to my paper, and I got a call-down. In my reply to the ltter telling me of my shortcomings, I stated that I had no way of proceeding to the scene of the lynching. The letter instructed me about as follows: ‘The next time an event of this kind occurs, secure a horse, go to the scene, get a front seat and give us all the details.’”
Adams Clark Adherent.
Vivid recollections of the Hogg-Clark gubernatorial campaign of 1892 are impressed on Mr. Adams’ memory. He remembers that the late George Bailey was sent to Forney as staff correspondent for The News, to report a speech made for Clark by Judge Richard Morgan of Dallas, now dead. He heard a speech made by James S. Hogg, in Forney on the front gallery of the home of the late Dr. L.M. Stroud, which was at that time on the north side of the Texas & Pacific tracks.
The the possession of Mr. Adams, who was a Clark man, is a picture of the interior of the old Forney Tribune office. On the door may be seen the slogan which the Clark followers adopted in the campaign of 1892, “Turn Texas Loose.” Pictured in the group in the Tribune office, when the photo was made, is C.B. Gillespie, managing editor of the Houston Chronicle, and now on leave of absence, by reason of ill health. Mr. Gillespie, by the way, learned to set type on the Forney Tribune.
It was on July 26, 1895, that Mr. Adams was granted a license as a registered pharmacist, by the Texas State Board of Pharmacy. Indicative of the respect and esteem they had for him, his fellow druggists elected him president of the Texas Pharmaceutical Association, when the yearly convention was held in El Paso in 1914. He held this office for one term. Seven years later, or in 1921, Mr. Adams was elected secretary of the Texas Pharmaceutical Association, and he is now serving his eight consecutive term. The association, at present, has 3,300 members.
Besides looking after the many and varied details of the secretary’s office, Mr. Adams is also editor of the Texas Druggist, published quarterly, the official organ of the Texas Pharmaceutical Association. It is printed at Richardson and it has a circulation of 4,000 copies. It is one of the neatest and most attractive of the official magazines of any retail dealers’ association in the State.
This year the golden jubilee of the Texas Pharmaceutical Association will be observed, when the annual convention is held at the Texas Hotel, Fort Worth, June 18-21. The association was organized in Dallas in 1879. Group insurance is carried by the association on its members – for those who desire to avail themselves of it. About 1,000 members have this insurance, the total amount in force at present being approximately $1,500,000.
Mayor for One Term.
Only once has Mr. Adams held an elective political office. This was in 1914, when he was elected Mayor of Forney. He served one term and declined to be candidate for re-electoin.
For seven years Mr. Adams served as a member of the board of regents of the College of Industrial Arts, Denton, to which he was appointed by former Gov. O.B. Colquitt of Dallas. He was named by the late Gov. Tom M. Campbell on the board of managers of the North Texas Hospital for the Insane, Terrell, but resigned after serving only a few months, the work not having an appeal for him.
Three times Mr. Adams was offered the appointment as a member of the State Board of Pharmacy, but each time he refused to serve. He was technically qualified, but declined the compliment because he was not a college graduate.
Mr. Adams is a member of Hella Shrine Temple, Dallas, and the Dallas Scottish Rite consistory. His membership as a Blue Lodge Mason is in Brooklyn Lodge No. 386, Forney. The lodge was named Brooklyn by reason of the fact that Forney, in the very early days, was known as Brooklyn, the name being changed to Forney with the coming of the Texas & Pacific Railroad to Forney in about 1873.
While Mr. Adams has enjoyed a considerable number of distinctions that do not come to the average man, conferred on him by his fellow citizens and by the druggists of Texas, there is none that he prizes more highly than to know, he says, that he has been connected with The Dallas News for forty-one of the fifty-seven years of his life, and for forty-one of the forty-three years of the existence of The News.
