Indianapolis Times, Indianapolis, Marion County, 7 October 1944 — Page 7

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soft drink, is performing innumerable vital war jobs Walter Kidde and Co, including saving lives and preventing fire in speedy rafts, Mae Wests, fighter planes. But that is only one of hundreds of recent

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and Booth Tarkington, high vouchsafed that I should know my place.” ~ ” » IT SURPRISED me, too, no end to learn (by way of the Russos) that “Leomainie,” the subject of the famous hoax, had been set to music. Today being what it is, is as good a time as any to tell the story again. Riley lived in Anderson at the time along with Will Ethell, a sign painter; Samuel Richards, an artist, whose “Evangeline” later on created such a stir; William F. Myers, later secretary of state; a photographer by the name of Clark, and W. N. Croan, who was not only the publisher of the weekly Democrat, but Riley’s boss as well. Mr. Riley was a reporter on the Democrat at the time. » LJ = THIS GROUP of buddies met

regularly during the period of

1876-77. On one occasion when everybody was especially sour about the public's inability to recognize genius, Riley pulled from his pocket a manuscript and, without further cdaxing, started to read: “Leonainie—angels named her: And they took the light Of the laughing stars and framed her In a smile of white,” There were three more stanzas at the end of which Riley returned to the subject under discussion by remarking that, if given to the world over Edgar Allan Poe’s name, “Leonainie” no doubt, would go over big. (It is now known that the editor of the Anderson. Herald, the rival sheet, had just got done calling Mr. Riley “a jingling poet”), o » » IT WAS the start of the hoax. Somebody got hold of an old copy of Ainsworth’s Dictionary on the fiy-leaf of which Samuel Richards (or maybe, Will Ethel

"transcribed Riley's poem in imi-

tation of Poe's handwriting. A facsimile in an old magazine furnished the pattern. After which, Oscar Henderson, publisher of the Kokomo Dispatch, was dragged into the plot. Mr. Henderson printed “Leon-

~ ainie” on the front page of his

paper, issue of August 2, 1877, along with a lurid and elaborate story of how the poem was found.

Mrs. Samuel Richards is geners

ally credited with thinking it up.

“y v By Anton Scherrer -

ars Up Some Riley Mysteries |v

First edition (1886) of “The Boss Girl,” the cover of which was designed by James Whitcomb

“CALLING ‘at the house of a gentleman of this city,” explained Mr. Henderson to his readers, “our attention was called to a poem written on the fly-leaf of an old book. Noticing the initials E. A. P. at the bottom, it struck us that, possibly, we had run across a bonanza and, after reading it, we asked who the author was. “Then he related the following bit of interesting reminiscence. His grandparents, he said, kept & country hotel, a sort of wayside inn, in a small village called Chesterfield near Richmond, Va.

great treasure go for many years unpublished.” » » - COPIES of this issue were sent to all newspapers in the hope of catching the eyes of their literary critics. Some fell for it, but most of the big shots didn’t. For one, William Cullen Bryant didn't, and the Boston remarked rather testily: “If Poe really did write it, it is a consolation to think that he was dead.” Another critic - recalling the hoax played by Chatterton, and the suicide it led to, charged the writer of “Leonainie” with not having the good taste to follow Chatierton’s example. By this time everybody oconnected with the hoax got scared, and nobody more than Mr. Henderson. It was he who, finally, exposed the trick. After that, Riley resigned from the Anderson Democrat and returned to his old house in Greenfield. He continued his work arid soon thereafter was encouraged by C. B. Martindale who ran The Indianapolis Journal. From that time on for quite a while, Riley practiced under the pseudonym of “Benj. F. Johnson of Boone,” which, by the way, was the signature of the author of “The Old Swimmin’ Hole” (and Leven Other Poems).

Up Front With Mauldin

Vos ’ I

“Sure I got seniority. I got busted a week before you did.”

Cover of the first edition of Riley Hole,” published by George C. Hitt Co., Indianapolis, 1883.

- the discovery that James White

“The Old Swimmin’ &

By that time, - everybody had forgotten, or forgiven, the “Leonainie” hoax. ” EJ - y - WELL, AS I was saying, “Leonainie” was set to music. The song was composed by Will H, Pontius and dedicated to the Amphion Glee Club of Colum bus, O. It carries the copyright date, of 1879, and if that were not enough to tax our credulity, it also credits the words to “J. W. Riley.” The Russos combed all Indianapolis to find a copy of that song, but without success. The illustration in their book is a photograph of the copy in the Library of Congress. » ww » THE RUSSOS classify “Leonainie” as an example of Riley's “Ephemeral Publications,” which brings me to the division of their book labeled “Attributions,” in the course of which they explode most of the tall tales that have come down to us as classics. Much of the confusion can be traced to one James Riley, an Irishman born in 1848, who had three books published in Boston. To this day, the “Reader's Guide” and, apparently, some librarians accept Riley, the Irishman, and Riley, the Hoosier, as one and the same man, ” “ » THREE MORE examples: (1), “The Autobiography of James Whitcomb Riley” (written by Bill Nye); (2), the poem, “When the Booze Is in the Bottle” (written by Robley D. Stevenson of Indianapolis, and widely known as (“Wickwire”); (3), the poem “I Wood Not Be a Drummer” signed with Riley's pseudonym which appeared in 1882 in the Saturday Review (Indianapolis). The Russos reveal that, before Riley’s identity was disclosed, some scamps around here passed themselves off as the rural poet, “Benj. F, Johnson.”

giving it my direct attention, But we have something more

than the usual labor division,

“A STRONG Republican labor 1 committee has been organized in

each of the industrial states oute

side the Solid South, to carry into effect the labor policies of the national committee. In place s

of the usual formal national la bor committee of 20 to 25 members, we have thus enlisted the support of approximately 3000 union

“We ‘think that will prove to

be the better plan.”

5 =» »

The chairman said that the proportion of labor support he expects “is all a question of how

far the trend goes.

“There is a very heavy trend DOW in our favor among worke Dewey undoubtedly will draw a much larger support from labor groups than recent Republican

candidates have had.”

5 = =

IN THE Biltmore hotel, only a

block away, the Democratic na tional committee has followed

tradition by setting up a labor

“ # w ; MOST significant of all, however — considered culturally —is

comb Riley had nothing to do with the writing of “The Passing of the Backhouse” (beginning “When memory keeps me company and moves to smiles and tears”), It has appeared in pamphlet, leaflet and broadside form and on one occasion turmed up as one of the “gems” included in the so-called “

scripts after Riley's death. It's a falsehood on the face of it, declare the Russos,

WILLIAM LYON PHELPS and George Ade were of the same opinion. When Dr. Phelps edited “The Letters of James Whitcomb Riley,” any number of people wrote In regarding the possible

poem. His answer: “I have never found any proof whatever that he wrote it.” As for George Ade, he made it the subject of a point in his convocation address on James Whit comb Riley delivered at Purdue university in 1922 when he said: “He (Riley) never wrote anything which had to be circulated privately, and if any one tells you that he ever wrote anything which needed expurgating, you are hereby commissioned to nail the statement as a falsehood.” People who remember the speech recall that Mr. Ade bit his lip when he came down on the word “falsehood.” Which confirms another suspicion I've entertained for some time—namely, that nobody can be more serious than a humorist when he gets fighting mad.

gentlemen!

Imagine those sober,

We, the Wom British Plan For Soldiers Is Realistic

By RUTH MILLETT _ A LONDON newspaper reports that the British army has ruled that soldiers in the Middle East who have had more than three

sounds as though the