Evening Republican, Volume 21, Number 131, Rensselaer, Jasper County, 11 June 1918 — POET REJECTED AS SOLDIER [ARTICLE]

POET REJECTED AS SOLDIER

Gibbs of Nowhere Fails to Sing His Way Into Camp of United States Marines. Buffalo, N. Y. —A float wave of poetic verse threatened to swamp the recruiting office of the United States marine corps here recently when Burt Gibbs of nowhere in particular entered the office and burst out: vMy country calls, I wish to fight. “Pray tell me, am I in right?” His auditors were staggered and one braver than the rest led the poetic Gibbs, still chattering, to the officer in charge. Gibbs effected a lordly bow and swept his hat to the floor: “I’ve come to fight to clean the sea, To make it safe for democracy.” This was followed with: “Prithee, kind sir, I’m known to fame. “Think and reflect —Gibbs is my name.” But Gibbs may gain poetical but never military fame. He was rejected as physically unfit.