William Taylor Davidson
Davidson and [[Edgar Lee Masters]]
Davidson and [Edgar Lee Masters](/wiki/Edgar_Lee_Masters "Edgar Lee Masters")
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Davidson's prohibitionist activities aroused the ire of poet and novelist Edgar Lee Masters, whose father, Hardin W. Masters, was a supporter of the licensing of saloons. Edgar Lee Masters also believed that Davidson had prevented Hardin Masters from receiving a nomination to Congress. Davidson's marriage to Margaret George, who had been Masters' early childhood sweetheart, likely exacerbated the animosity toward Davidson that is apparent in many of Masters' literary works. Davidson was the subject of Masters' first printed poem, *The Minotaur*, which refers to a "Bill Davidson" in a prefatory note, and in which "slandering Bill" is the editor of a "vile sheet the 'Democrat'". Davidson was the basis for three of the characters in Masters' *[Spoon River Anthology](/wiki/Spoon_River_Anthology "Spoon River Anthology")*: Editor Whedon, who used "great feelings and passions of the human family / For base designs, for cunning ends"; Deacon Taylor, who belonged to "the party of prohibition" but who "had cirrhosis of the liver"; and Robert Davidson, who "grew spiritually fat living off the souls of men." In Masters' last novel, *The Tide of Time,* the protagonist Leonard Westerfield Atterberry (who was based on Hardin Masters) argues at length with a prohibitionist editor named "William T. Davis," who was clearly based on Davidson. However, there is little evidence that Masters' animosity toward Davidson was shared by others.


Who was Robert Davidson based on?