Evening Republican, Volume 16, Number 246, Rensselaer, Jasper County, 14 October 1912 — JAMES WHITCOMB RILEY- The Hoosier Poet [ARTICLE+ILLUSTRATION]

JAMES WHITCOMB RILEY- The Hoosier Poet

T lI} DEN away between two busy thoroughfares in InffilNlMlll} dianapolis is Lockerbie H B street - Scarce two blocks BM in length It resembles nothlug so much as a country J lane. Great elm trees line jSm/l the sides and meet to form f a bower of shade. It is unpaved, for its “leading resident” does not like paving, and when, several years ago, the city council insisted that it should be converted into a conventional city street with a paving of brick, he voiced his protest in a poem beginning: Such a dear little street it Is, nestled away, Worn the noise of the city and heat of the day, In cool shady coverts of whispering trees. With their leaves lifted up to shake hands with the breeze, ' Which In all Its wide wanderings never may meet With a resting-place fairer than Lockerbie street! ' That poem has long been famous and Lockerbie street remains as it always was, “nestled away from the noise of the city and heat of the day." Its "leading resident" is no less a personage than James Whitcomb Riley, recognized as the greatest of living American poets and whose name Is one the best known literary critics of the world treat with a (profound respect Here in Lockerbie street he lives, guletly, unostentatiously, in a large brick house that breathes the verb spirit of comfort, but which makes no pretentions to elegance. And to this spot countless friends will wend their way on Monday, October 7, to extend their congratulations and felicitations, the occasion being the poet's birthday. ‘ •*’

This will begin what Is to be known throughout literary circles as “Riley week,” and which will mark the greatest ovation ever tendered an American writer. This celebration will not be confined to Indianapolis either, for nearly every city in the United States has enthusiastically taken up the Idea and arranged exercises to be held during this week In honor of James 'Whitcomb Riley. Every one seems anxious to pay tribute to the man who has brought sunshine Into thousands of lives. * Only a few months ago there was sadness In many hearts, for the word had gone forth that Mr. Riley had been stricken with an illness from which he could never recover. But today that sadness Is changed to joy, for Mr. Riley has been spared to celebrate another birthday. He Is not only alive, but practically as well as over he was. He Is always happy, and although he no longer strolls through the Indianapolis streets as once he did, he is still a familiar figure, and every day he takes long > rides In his big touring car. He Is an . enthusiastic motorist and one of his principal delights Is to take his friends for a spin around the city or through the country In the vicinity of IndiauappHs. In 1853, In the little country village of Greenfield —scarcely even a village tn those days—there was born James ’Whitcomb Riley, the son of Reuben ißiley, a lawyer and a man known for his fearlessness and unconventionality. The boy’s mother—a Marine —was a .gentle and naturally poet|c woman, and it was from her that Riley Inherited his ability as a rhymester. The young lad’s life, In his earlier years, was not marl&d by any unusual event. His was the life common to boys in small towns. Beyond this, nothing much Is known —there is ■nothing else to know. He attended ■school irregularly, more often than mot a truant —as he himself has pictured —barefoot, browned by summer puns, happy and care-free, listening to a voice no other boy could hear, keeping his heart open and his soul tree —a heart and soul that have never grown old. “I did not go to school very much,"

he once told an interviewer, “and when I did I was a failure in everything except reading, maybe. I liked to read. We had McGuffey’s readers. But I always ran away when we were to read 'Little NelL’ I knew I couldn’t read it without crying and, it I cried, the other boys would laugh at me." ■ To another visitor Mr: Riley said that he never had much schooling, and, continuing, he remarked: "What little I had never did me much good, I believe. I never could master mathemathlcs, and history was a dull and juiceless thing to me. But I was always fond of reading to a random, desultory way, and took naturally to anything theatrical. I cannot remember when I was not a deCiaimer, and I began to rhyme almost as soon as T could talk. The first verse I ever remember writing. was a four-line valentine. I was so small that I could hardly reach the top of the table, and I was painting a comic sketch on a piece of paper. I had a natural faculty for drawing as well as for rhyming,' and should probably have made a fair artist If I had kept at It. Well, below the sketch I was making I wrote four comic lines, and these were probably my first poetic effort." Perhaps the child Riley studied both the picture he had drawn and the lines he had written and decided then and there that the lines were so much better than the picture that he would devote his efforts thereafter to writing. In any event, he became a poet According to his own autobiographical sketch he was born "so long ago that he persists In never referring to the date. Citizens of his native town of Greenfield, Ind., while warmly welcoming his event were no less demonstrative some years since to ‘speed the parting guest’ It seems, In, fact, that as they came to know him better the more resigned were they to give him Up. He was 111-starred from the very cradle, It appears. One day, while but a toddler, he climbed unseen to an open window where . some potted plants were ranged, and while leaning far out to catch some dainty gilded butterfly, perchance, he lost his footing, and, with a piercing shriek, fell to the sidewalk below; and when, an Instant later, the affrighted parents picked him up, he was-4ie was a poet!” At the age of fifteen Riley ceased to attend school, and at the wish of his father began to study law. As may readily be understood, in view of 4ils career, the law had no attraction for the young poet So, after being advised by the. family physician to travel, Riley seized the first opportunity that offered and, putting aside his Blackstone, fled one afternoon between twilight and sunset to return to his native town no more for a year. Riley, as he afterward said, had no money with which to defray the expenses of a trip, and, when a patent medicine “doctor” made his advent In Greenfield Riley allied himself with the travels caravan and departed when the cavalcade pushed on to the next town. “I was with this man about a year," he said a few months ago. "His home was In Lima, Ohio, and he was a' kindly old fellow. I did a good many things white in his employ—painted signs, beat the bass drum a bit and, maybe, I recited. My experience put An idea to my head—-a business Idea for a wonder—and the next year I went

Into partnership with a young man. We organized an advertising company; we called it 'The Graphic company.* There were five or six young fellows—all musicians as well as handy painters. We used to capture the towns with our music, then contract with some merchants and decorate the fences along the country roads with their signs." Riley and his associates continued in this occupation three or four years. All the while the young poet was gaining a reputation here and there as a rhymester, a teller of good stories and a companionable, interesting, lovable young man. He wrote a great deal, and much that was submitted to eastern periodicals. Their editors, however, returned these contributions as regularly as they were received. It was discouraging, especially soln the eyes of the young poet, who believed and doubtless was justified in believing—that his products were as good as those the magazines accepted and published. He did not have a name —and lack of reputation In those days was a serious handicap. Riley never ceased to contend when with his friends that this fact and this alone held him back. To prove it, he wrote the famous "Leonalnle,” and, with the connivance of the editor of a Kokomo (Ind.) paper, presented it to the world as an unpublished poem by Edgar Allen Poe. An elaborate story was . devised, in which it was said that the poem, bearing the initials E. A. P., had been found, on the fly seas of a book. The verse was In Poe’s ‘wellknown style, and its publication aroused much Interest. In the end the hoax was discovered, but not until many critics had accepted the poem as "one of the best Poe had written."

For a time, he said to later life, he was hopelessly despondent. It was to this frame of mind that a letter found him and summoned him to Indianapolis. The note was from the editor of the Indianapolis Journal, and it urged Riley to accept a position on the Journal staff. At the same time a tender, encouraging note came from Henry Wadsworth Longfellow. These two .communications revived Riley’s drooping spirits, and, leaving Anderson and * Greenfield, he went to the state capital. Indianapolis gained a poet, and a few months later, In 1883, Riley’s first book of verse was Issued. _ . It was a simple little affair, bound In paper, bearing the title, "The Old Swlmmin’ Hole and ’Leven More Poems." Riley, as may be Imagined, did not long remain to the Journal’s regular emnloy. One after another his bound volumes began to make. their appearance. Then came the poet’s association with Nye on the lecture platform, followed, when that association was severed, by more poems, public readings and then many years of leisurely writing to hte home to quiet little Lockerbie street. Fortune has smiled on him and his wealth has Increased and his fame has grown. But he Is still the same gentle, lovable man who won friends In Greenfield and Anderson and Kokomo. He has made thousands of friends during his lecture tours. Yes, Mr. Riley’s birthday is to be a glorious event, and the tributes which will be paid him during "Riley Week” are indeed well deserved.