BIO: Walter Hamor, Tillard Pen Pictures, 1911, Blair County, PA

Contributed April 2003 for use in the USGenWeb Archives 
by Judy Banja <jbanja@comcast.net>

Copyright 2003.  All rights reserved.
http://www.usgwarchives.net/copyright.htm
http://www.usgwarchives.net/pa/blair/
_________________________________________ 

                Pen Pictures of Friends and Reminiscent Sketches
                                by J. N. Tillard

             Altoona, PA: William F. Gable & Co., Mirror Press, 1911 

                          The Bright Side of City Hall

              WALTER J. HAMOR Furnishes The Fun and Keeps Cheerful
          The Place Where The Populace Pays Tribute in Fines and Taxes

THE gloomy precincts of the City Hall is always illuminated by at least one 
bright spot. It is a place whose general aspect does not usually appeal to 
the aesthetic sense or offer much that makes for uplift or cause its denizens 
to break forth in glad, sweet song. Quite to the contrary, a sense of 
obsession, of being haunted by harmonies out of tune and being beset by 
exceedingly active but grating and unpleasant surroundings, is apt to take 
hold on one. The habitat of the place is likely to think of Dante rather than 
the apostle of light, and sights and sounds that greet his ears are anything 
but conducive to the cultivation of the finer sensibilities.
  In the night time, from the outer darkness is gathered in the sort of 
people told about in the Apocolypse, murderers and liars and thieves and all 
sorts or reprobates; they that look upon the wine when it is red, and wax 
hilarious and make unseemly noise and do all the other stunts that get the 
children of men into trouble, are herded in the bastile, and there is weeping 
and wailing and gnashing of teeth; sorrow endureth for a night and no joy 
cometh in the morning, unless peradventure a friend arriveth with the 
needful, or succeedeth in smuggling in a drink, or after much importuning, 
the janitor is induced to cool the coppers by a draught from the spigot that 
sizzes and adds to the thirst that is not quenched; there is no sympathetic 
hand stretched forth to ease the aching head or cool the fevered brow, and 
the ribald laugh of the policeman is all that comes in the way of 
consolation.
  For trimmings, the rat rustleth and the cock roach rejoiceth in the 
strength of his numbers; the dog catcher giveth the populace the ha, ha, and 
goeth forth full panoplied to put the kibosh on the canine.
  Along the halls other unpleasant experiences greet the visitor, for the tax 
gatherer lieth in wait and at the receipt of customs, publicans and sinners 
gather. He who seeks escape by rising higher, will bump into other evils. 
Perchance he may run foul of the health officer who is sprinkling 
formaldehyde in the council chambers to kill the germ that has sprung from a 
too perfervid oratory, or if the statesmen be in action, he may escape to 
close a contact with the danger zone by looking through an instrument from 
the engineers' office, as that worthy turns from surveying a lot of 
unfinished work to survey the gentlemen whose composite wisdom is doing its 
best to prevent him from giving any more disputed grades, by so crippling his 
resources that he will be unable to give any.
  But, as previously intimated, there yet remaineth a rest for the pilgrim 
through this vale of woes who deprecates strife and is not looking for 
trouble. For there dwells in the morning sun of the lower hall, an adjunct of 
the Sunshine Society; howbeit, he is not often there when the morning sun 
shines in, for he prefers the other end of the candle, and shines brightest 
after dark. But no matter what the time of the day, his rotund personality 
emits nothing but flashes of wit and good humor no matter what the 
environment, or how gloomy the day. Nothing is ever handed out from the 
office of the City Clerk more disagreeable than the jolly that goes with 
municipal manuals.
  In the midst of a seething mass of antagonistic interests, he always 
remains as serene and smiling as if he were the Santa Claus at the sunshine 
christmas tree festivities, which he frequently is. Not that he is a 
nonentity or has no purposes of his own, for quite the reverse is true, but 
he skillfully conceals all ulterior motives and without seeming to be 
interested in any earthly thing, achieves his purposes without jar or 
friction.
  Malicious persons have sometimes dubbed Walter J. Hamor, the "Councilman at 
Large", but none of them have ever been able to prove their case. He is too 
consummate a diplomat for that. While practicing exactly the same methods, he 
could give Tom Sawyer three laps handicap and beat him to the post. He can 
set more councilmen to whitewashing his fence, fighting for the privilege, 
without knowing what they are doing, than any other artist in the Tom Sawyer 
line. Not that he often cares to do anything of the sort, for he has moved 
along the lines of least resistance so long, that most of the time he prefers 
inertia to moving at all, and therein he displays his wisdom, for being 
content with sitting on the lid, it is harder to move him off the job.
  Some fellows have tried that trick, but they never got a sufficiently long 
lever set on a fulcrum low enough to get under him. Now don't imagine that it 
has been mere inertia that has kept him there these many years, for he is not 
nearly so indolent as he generally looks. The appearance is part of the game.
  When the strenuous, if misguided gentlemen in council are working hardest 
at that fence job, Mr. Hamor sits on the shady side of easy street munching a 
pretzel, with a look on his benign countenance as bland and guileless as that 
worn by the smiling son of the Sun in the Isle of Nippon who has just issued 
a pass to the impatient and noisy bunch of war correspondents authorizing 
them to go to the front on the next train that leaves after the last one has 
gone.
  Hamor has not held his place for these many years by a lucky series of 
events or a fortuitous concatenation of unforeseen circumstances, for he has 
forseen them all and provided for every contingency. The cards have not 
unfrequently run against him, but he has always been able to discern the 
exact location of the joker in the deck no matter who was shuffling and beat 
his opponent to it, thereby being able to trump every trick that was turned 
against him. And those who know him best, will heartily affirm that it has 
been a good thing for the city at that.
  Walter has the advantage of having begun right. Quite early in life he got 
into the newspaper business and from that vantage point learned how to play 
one knocker against another to their mutual advantage. That is, the mutuality 
all comes his way while the forces of the other fellows were divided.
  But after all he is a living example of the disarming power of perennial 
good humor. The impetuous and hot headed Stanton of the municipal government 
rushes in to annihilate him in a storm of wrath, and like "Old Abe," Walter 
is reminded of a story and by the time it is told, the causus belli is 
forgotten, or else has become so modified that it is easily adjusted.
  It will be a gloomy day indeed for City Hall when this apostle of the funny 
bone takes his leave; for to say nothing of the good cheer that he spreads 
around, there will be many a piece of legislation go lame wanting his clear 
head and ever watchful eye to note the weak places.
  No matter what his lonely enemies may say about him, he never assumes any 
authority that is not his or injects his selfish desires into public matters.  
His years of experience have brought him to a point where he can instantly 
detect foolish or vicious legislation, but if he interferes it is always in a 
way that will benefit the people of the community, and his attitude is never 
offensive.  More power to his elbow.

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