Most of Them Received Their Training on Newspapers and Got the Western Point
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BY JOHN S HARWOOD.
Very few of the men who make the
Nation laugh with the written Joke be
gan life as humorists. The truth is,
a majority of them took exceedingly
roundabout ways to become full-fledged
-members of the laugh-provoking corps.
The dean of our present-day Joe
Millers none other than the white
robed Mark Tw'ain, was first a printer's
apprentice, then a Mississippi River
pilot, then a private secretry to his
brother, who was territorial secretary
in Nevada, before he began building
up a humorist's reputation while a
newspaper reporter and editor In Vir
ginia City. And quite a while before
he had attracted more than local fame
as a "funnyman" he had tried his hand
at mining. . '
C. B. Lewis ("M. QTuad"), at 66 our '
second oldest humorist and still in
active harness, began life as a print
er's "devil," "stuck" type and other
wise thoroughly learned the trade of a
Journeyman printer before he devel
oped Into a year-ln-and-year-out pro
ducer of fun with the same characters.
He also was a Civil War boy soldier,
rising from private to brevet captain in
a Michigan cavalry regiment and hav
ing his blood spilled in defense of the
country.
O. Henry, one of the latest men to
make the Nation laugh, got a lot of
the knowledge that he has put into his
stories at first hand as a cowboy, sheep
herder, merchant, miner, druggist and
extensive traveler In ordinary and ex
traordinary places. Gelett Burgess,
graduating at the Massachusetts In
stitute of Technology In 1887, was for
three year a draughtsman for a rail
road, then an Instructor of topograph
ical drawing and finally a designer,
before he broke Into the literary field.
Charles Battell Lommis, who also re
ceived his education In a polytechnic
Institute, held down a clerk's stool for
an even dozen years.
Jerome K. Jerome, an English hu
morist who enjoys the rather unusual
distinction among his country's Joe
Millers of having made the Tankees
laugh heartily, was a railway clerk, a
theater attache and actor, school teach
er, newspaper advertising solicitor, a
solicitor's clerk and a reporter. Tom
Masson, literary editor of one of the
country's leading humorous weeklies
since 1893, was an office boy, later
bookkeeper for the same firm and not
until he became telegraph editor for a
newspaper pres association did he
have his first Joke accepted and pub
lished. When Champ Clark went to
Congress from Missouri in 1893 and
soon thereafter began making the coun
try laugh with his maiden speeches
and written Jokes, he had behind him
a record as hired hand on a farm,
clerk in a country store, school teacher
and college president, country news
paper editor, lawyer and officeholder.
George Ade, liKe Mark Twain, M.
Quad, Jerome, Masson and Clark, ex
perienced the Joys and tribulations of
a newspaper worker's life before he
beganito coin a fortune by making his
follow beings hold their sides over his
slang words and phrases. He began
as a reporter on a country dally. Mr.
Dooley, too or. to call him by the
name his parents gave him. Flnley
Peter Dunne is a former newspaper
man, and Ellis Parker Butler, when
he had his first bit of humorous work
accepted by a New York editor, was
on a newspaper. As for tidwln A.
Oliver, of the Yonker's (N. Y.) States
man, and famous among humorists of
ail degrees and distinctions as the
father of the now common conversa
tional Joke, his whole business life has
been spent in the office of the States
man, where he "worked at the case"
when a youth.
Thus, It is plain that a goodly pro
portion of the noted humorists of the
day received their literary training In
newspaper offices. It is equally true
that not a few of them became satur
ated with the Western spirit and way
of looking at things before they began
to attract attention as coiners of laughs.
Though born down East, in Boston,
and educated there. It was on the Pa
ine Coast that Gelett Burgess spent his
first working years as railroad draughts
man, universal instructor and designer.
There, too, he began to attract attention
In the literary world as editor of the
Lark and by his unconventional way of
writing humor. A native Texan. O.
Henry in real life Sydney Porter knows
the strenuous life of the frontier and
pseudo-frontier from A to lzzard.
Tom Masson, a Yankee by birth, re
ceived his business training in the
Middle West, where Ellis Parker Butler
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was born, reared and tolled until he
struck out for New York, hunted up
his old friend Masson and .asked him
how to go about getting along In the
metropolis. The two had met years
before in Iowa, when Masson was
keeping books and Parker was a coun
try newspaper worker. Champ Clark,
born in Kentucky, has worked out the
greater part of his truly picturesque
career In Mississippi River states. Once
he drifted as far west as Kansas, where
"atmosphere" was about the only thing
he succeeded in taking away with him
when he shook the dust of the Sunflower
State from his feet
George Ade has been truthfully ac
cused of being a representative prod
uct of the Hoosler literary - belt. Born
therein and therein a humble newspaper
worker for a number of years, he at last
became a newspaper reporter in Chicago,
where. In the course of time, he gar
nered the first fruits of humoristie cul
tivation. Mr. Dooley was Chicago trained
as reporter and editor, as well as Chi
cago born and raised. Not until after he
had won International fame as a humor
ist philosopher did he leav the Illinois
metropolis for the national one. The
Middle West boasts of the birth-town of
Mark Twain, and the sage-brush coun
try of the fact that while he was one of
its pioneer settlers he developed the hu
morous streak with which he has con
vulsed the nations for so many years.
M. Quad's characters were created while
he lived In Michigan; he was born and
raised in Ohio and Michigan.
After the West near, middle and
for New York City and Its environs
seem to hold the distinction of having
produced the largest number of humor
ists now prominent in the public eye.
Oliver, of dialogue Joke fame, has
lived and labored continually Just north
of the city boundaries. - John Kend
rick Bangs Is also a product of Yonk
crs, where he has lived the greater part
of his life. Charles Battell Loom Is,
born In Brooklyn, is now the first citi
zen of Hackensack. the mere mention
of which town arouses the risibilities
of the average New Yorker. Then
there Is Carolyn Wells, that rara avis
of the literary world a truly capable
pettlcoated humorist. Rahway, N. J.,
was her birthplace, and In that metro
politan suburb she makes her home. .
I
Perhaps all this Is mere coincidence,
and perhaps, too,, it is a mere coinci
dence that most of the better known
humorists of the pen are rather young
in years. With the exception of M.
Quad and Mark Twain, who carries his
72 years with the sprlghtllness of a
load a third less light, practically all
the men are in Time's "children's"
class. Mr. Dunne will not be 41 till
next monthr Ade, Burgess and Masson
THE SUNDAY OKEGOXIAN, PORTLATOD, JUNE SI, 1903.
are each a year older. Ellis Parker
Butler can qualify as the "baby" of
the masculine Joe Millers, since he has
to his credit only 38 years. In this
connection. It Is rather interesting to
note that, like Mr. Butler, the major
ity of the "funny men" made their rep
utations as such In the thirties, and
most of them In the early thirties, at I
that. Among the women humorists,
Miss Wells, Mrs. Woodrow Wilson, a
late comer In the field and a former
Middle West newspaper worker, and
Miss Beatrice Herford (sister of the
quaintly humorous .Oliver), whose
written and spken monologues have
given her fame both here and in Eng
land, are all young, of course, though
the reference books are noncommittal
as to their years which they should
be.
Though Miss Wells Is of the- East
and has never been of the West, It is
nevertheless true that she became a
humorist of the nonsense verse type
under the guidance of Gelett Burgess
while he was yet a leading literary
light of San Francisco; She had been
trying, without success, for several
years to break Into print when she
chanced upon a copy of the Lark, Bur
gess' magazine, and read therein his
classic, beginning.
"I never saw a purple cow,
I never hope to see one."
Straightway, Miss Wells fired some
of -her verse at the Lark. Back came
a scathing letter'of criticism from the
editor. In which he practically told
the young lady to submit no more
manuscript to him. Far from taking
the hint, Miss Well forwarded anoth
er batch of her work. It came back:.
So did many other batches, and with
them came letters as sharply critical
as the first. ' For over a year Miss
Wells kept doggedly at her work try
ing to profit by these criticisms.
Finally,, she had one verse accepted,
and a year or two later her work was
In demand. She herself gives the credit
to Mr. Burgess for her training and
success as a writer of nonsense stuff.
Ellis Parker Butler also was really
started on his career as a humorist by
a fellow humorist, Tom Masson. While
Butler was on a Kansas City newspa
per he sent a "funny piece"- to Mr.
Masson's weekly paper. It" was ac
cepted and that was the only thing
the weekly accepted from Mr. Butler
for a long time. After it had accepted
several other things, Mr. Butler one
day walked into Mr. Masson's office
and informed him that he had taken
his advice and come on to make his
way in the metropolis.
As he had come without prospects and
with but little money, he asked Mr. Mas
son to give him a little advice on how to
get along in the big city He was told
first to hunt out a boarding-house where
he could afford to live, and then to work
hard and take his chances with the rest
of the metropolitan strugglers after fame
and dollars. Butler took the advice both
as to boarding-house and work. He sot a
position on a trade paper, by hard work
he finally became Its editor, and this post
he retained until recently, his humorous
writing beinc done as work on the side.
Not until two or three years ago did
Mr. Butler's name begin to appear with
regularity in the magazines at the heart
of laughable stories. He frankly admits
that the Idea of the story with which he
made his first pronounced hit was sup
plied by a magazine editor: that all he
did was to write the story. However that
may be, the story itself has netted its
author a small fortune and gained him a
popularity with publishers that undoubt
edly haa added materially to bis bank
account.
Among the new generation of humorists
George Ade has -probably earned mora in
a single year than any of his colleagues,
and h.! steady Income probably ranks
second only to that enjoyed by Mark
Twain. Since he became a successful
playwright there have been several years
when from his plays, books" and newspa
per humor Mr. Ade has enjoyed a yearly
income topping the salary given by the
Nation to the man it calls President.
Though he has never engaged in play
writing, Mr. Dunne has at times enjoyed
an Income comparable in amount to Mr.
Ade's. Kach of these men, by the way. Is
the creator of a new style of humor. Ade
is the "daddy" of slang fun and Dunne
of philosophical fun. The fact that each
Is a creator of a peculiar brand of humor
that is close to the great mass of people
doubtless accounts in large measure for
the big earning powers of each.
Legend hath it that when Ade began
his newspaper career In Lafayette. Ind..
following ' his graduation from Purdue
University, he received part of his small
salary in meal tickets on a cheap restau
rant. It is a fact that while he worknd
in Lafayette he helped get up a city di
rectory. Ade became a reporter in 18S7.
Three years later his salary had risen
to tl5 a week and then Ade struck out
for Chicago.
The ensuing- decade Ade spent in the
employ of one Chicago newspaper. By
the time the decade was pretty well spent
he had managed to acquire a local repu
tation as- a writer of light short stories.
Then, one day after reading an old fable,
he conceived the Idea of dishing up slang
In fable form. This happy thought speed
ily brought him fame and fortune, and
the public has kept Ade writing his
unique fables long after he has longed to
close this literary chapter of his career.
Though most humorists, when they
make a National reputation, take up their
headquarters in New York City, Mr. Ade
has studiously refrained from doing so.
He comes to New York frequently, at
the dictates of business, but his home
Nation
Is on a farm in Northern Indiana, his
acres being one result of his creation
of the slang fable. By thus returning to
his native state he controverted his own
clever slur on Indiana, made when a
woman, who wanted to be real nice to
him, said:
"Have you ever thought, Mr. Ade, how
many bright people come from Indiana?"
"Yes," replied the author, "and the
brighter they are the quicker they come."
Another bright man who has come
from Indiana is 'George Ban- McCutch
eon, the novelist. When George was
still working on a small Indiana news
paper he wrote his first novel. He sent
the manuscript on to Chicago for his
brother John and Ade, a college friend,
to look over. The two found a publisher
for it. Then Ade devoted a lot of time
to getting up all sorts of freak schemes
to advertise the book. The publisher
made use of them with avidity, and In
a surprisingly short time Ade's chum,
George Barr McCutcheon, had a National
reputation. Ade and McCutcheon, when
they were boys together in Lafayette,
Ind., collaborated in writing patent medi
cine advertisements, out of which they
made their first good slice pf money.
Ade is a most likeable chap, and as
modest as he is likeable. In appearance
he is strikingly boyish, and what men
would call good-looking and women hand
some. He is an entertaining conversa
tionalist when occasion demands, but pre
fers to listen to the other fellow talk.
Though he is now on what some pessi
mistic folks call the wrong side of 40,
he, has not got out of touch with youth.
Only lately he wrote a play for produc
tion by the dramatic club of his alma
mater, and he takes delight in gathering
with college boys and other youthful
spirits, devotees of the art of spontaneous
fun.
Another prominent humorist, who,
like Ade, is Just now devoting most
of his attention to the stage, Is
Jerome K. Jerome, who recently said
in an Interview, when he was in this
country, that he couldn't write an
other book like "Three Men in a Boat"
if he tried. The reason he gave was
that at the time he produced that
laughmaker humor was spontaneous
with him. In other words, Jerome K.
thinks he's getting serious, whatever
else the world may think about it.
John Kendrlck Bangs is another hu
morous writer, who. after he had a
reputation as such, turned toward the
stage, but, to put It mildly, with noth
ing like the success of Ade. Jerome,
as a dramatist, has been fairly suc
cessful. Jerome first got interested in the
stage when he was struggling to exist
in London. As already stated, he was
a theater attache and at one time an
actor. One of his duties In those days
was to let himself be killed twice In
the same performance. After he had
taken to newspaper work and got tired
of free lancing, he - applied fOr and
of View Before
received the post of dramatic critic
on a paper, his salary being $7.50 a
week. He was 30 when his first pop
ular humorous book came out; that
was In 1889. The previous 16 'years
had been exceedingly hard and fre
quently discouraging ones to Jerome,
who had to support himself from the
time he was 14, when his parents died.
But since "Three Men in a Boat" ap
peared he has had easy sailing finan
cially. Today It Is his ambition to do
something . serious that will give him
fame, and it la through the stage that
he hopes to accomplish this dream,
which not infrequently lays its spell
on the funmakers of the Nation,
whether of the written, spoken or pic
tured cult.
Tom Masson Is another specific ex
ample of a humorist who longs to ac
complish something serious. His dream
Is to give the world a monumental
and definite work on the history of
humor. Ha has been dreaming this
dream ever since he began trying to
get his jokes into print. To this end
he has colleVted a large reference li
brary, and when he Is not enaged In
his bread-and-butter work he Is pretty
sure to be found working on his his
tory, which he expects will fill 10 vol
umes of encyclopedic dimensions.
. Of course. Mr. Masson is proud of
some of his jokes, but the bit of work
of which be is proudest is his organ
ization of the Dutch Treat Club. The
name betrays the character of the
club, which has for members practic
ally all the big magazine editors of
the metropolis and numerous authors
whose works are widely read In the
periodicals and book form. Masson Is
president of the club, -which Is now
about a year old.
It is to Masson that the world is
Indebted for the term "Summer girl."
And 'twas in February, when a bliz
zard was making things decidedly un
comfortable for humanity, that he
evolved the phrase that has gone round
the world. It flret appeared at the
head of some verses; since then it has
been worked to death with perennial
regularity. Perhaps even Masson Is
now sorry that he fathered the
phrase.
John Kendrlck Bangs, like Masson.
Jerome, Mr. Dooley, Mark Twain, Tom
Masson, Ellis Parker Butler, Gelett
Burgees and others, has sat in an ed
itorial chair. In short, he had occu
pied so many editorial chairs that he
easily holds the honors in this partic
ular among the Joe Millers of the
English tongue. He also has the dis
tinction . of being the only humorist
who ever took politics seriously
enough to be a candidate for office.
Mr. Bangs, back in '94, aspired to be
L
They Developed
Mayor of Yonkers. To that end he In
duced the Democracy of that New York
suburb to make him Its candidate. The
three weeks that followed were doubtless
the most serious In Mr. Bang' existence,
as he went about trying to catch the elu
sive vote. He caught some, but his op
ponent caught 207 more, and the joke was
on BanKs. The Baneslan campaign fur
nished a lot of amusement for New York
ers, who were kept posted by the daily
papers of the progress of a humorist as
a politician. ,
After he gave up all designs on the
Mayoralty. Mr. Banss turned his atten
tion to education, and In 1897 he be
came vice-prepldent of the Yonkers school
board, with the avowed Intention, his op
ponents declar, of substituting his hu
morous works for the standard text
books. However that may be, Mr. Bangs
remained a prominent director of the
Yonkers young Idea till 1904. Since then
he has eschewed puBlic preferment.
Bangs has the distinction of being the
most productive of our fun-makers. He
thinks nothing of turning out two or three
books a year, with scores of short stories
and lnnumerablo paragraph Jokes on the
side.
Bdwln A. Oliver, Banes' old fellow.
townsman, when he began writing on the
Statesman, his father's paper, turned out
short stories. "From this work he drifted
Into the dialogue Joke this is his modest
explanation of his creation of this form
of laugh-producing writing. Oliver did
this drifting some thirty-odd years ago,
and since that t)me he has turned out
Jokes at the rate of six to ten a day. AH
told he has sprung about 80.000 Jokes In
print. It is safe to say that most of Mr.
Oliver's Jokes have been copied the
world over. That publication which aims
to print any humor whatever rarely neg
lects to exercise the clipping scissors on
Oliver's column, signed with the pen of
Ed I. Torialle.
Among the present day American hu
morists he divides with Mark Twain the
distinction of having cracked Jokes with
the present King and Queen of England.
He was entertained by them in 1896, when
they were Prince and Princess of Wales.
The Prince, it seems, had been smiling
for years at jokes of Oliver's copied by
the British publications.
When John W. Oliver.' the humorist's
father, died a year or two ago, he was
the oldest newspaper editor In the coun
try. The son now sits in the editorial
chair so long filled by the father. Prior
to his father's death he looked after the
paper's business side. Today his eye is
on all departments of the paper which
his jokes have made internationally fa
mous. But his especial pet is a column
headed "Whim Whams," which he once
seriously told an inquirer was written by
the office boy after he had finished sweep
ing out the office and running his daily
quota of errands. (Copyright, 1908, by the
Associated Literary Press.)
Jewish Institutional Church.
Chicago Dispatch.
Rev. Dr. Emil G. Hirsch has started
movement hi Chicago for the establish
ment In that city of a Jewish Institute
a church, a school, a social center for
physical, moral and spiritual aid for both
Jews and Gentiles, with all the features
of a modern Y. M. C. A. It is expected
that a fund of at least J400.000 will be re
quired, toward which $50,000 has already
been pleased. In the sermon in which
Dr. Hirsch gave the outline of his plant
he predicted that the example which has
been set by his congregation would be
followed by the orthodox rabbis. That
thev would make their customs conform
with modern ideas and observe Sunday
instead of Saturday as the Sabbath.
Speaking of the "negative reform con
gregation," he said: "They still cling
to the customs that are possible in the
ghetto, and In Palestine. They have not
adjusted themselves to their present en
vironments." Hone Cars.
New York Sun.
I have 'wandered through tne capitals from
Singapore to Cork,
I have battled with the savage Moro men.
I behold some wondrous changes on return
ing to New York
But it's good to see the horse cars once
, again.
From Yonkere on the north the town has
spread past Rockaway.
From the Rarltan far out alonp the sound:
Its piera have kept on pushing- farther out
Into the bay
But Its horse care still go Jiggling axosnd.
The downtown Ktreets are canons roofed
with narrow strips of sky.
And from the windows up beneath the
roofe
I cap faintly hear the Jingle as tha same
old cars crawl by
And the same old clatter of the horsea
hoofs.
Tha rumble from the subways and the au
tomobile's bray
Are blended with the old familiar Jar
When perchance an overladen truck ob
struct! the right of way
- And the driver o'er the pavement hauls
his car.
There are places in the sandy, sunny land
of pines and yams
And up among the Northern lumber men
Where patient mule teams switch their talla
while trundling the trams
But It's here 1 see real horse oars once
again.