OLD NEWS

J.W. Riley recalled as favorite in Arkansas

Ad for the Feb. 4, 1890, Twins of Genius show, featuring humorist Bill Nye and poet James Whitcomb Riley, that never appeared at the Capital Theatre because the touring partners broke up over Riley's drinking in Louisville, Ky., at the end of January 1890.
Ad for the Feb. 4, 1890, Twins of Genius show, featuring humorist Bill Nye and poet James Whitcomb Riley, that never appeared at the Capital Theatre because the touring partners broke up over Riley's drinking in Louisville, Ky., at the end of January 1890.

Unlike Mark Twain, Edgar Allen Poe, Herman Melville, W.H. Auden and Ernest Hemingway, James Whitcomb Riley (1849-1916) does not have a "verified" page on Facebook.

Perhaps we should wonder why those other definitely dead writers require social media or why Papa's page has a "Get Hemingway alerts!" button, but let's don't. Instead let's think about Riley, who, 100 years ago today, was eulogized by the editor of the Arkansas Gazette.

"James Whitcomb Riley, the Hoosier Poet, whose art lent beauty to commonplace things, and whose poetry appealed to everyday folk, is dead, mourned by thousands throughout the United States," the editorialist wrote July 25, 1916. (I think the editorial writer was the great J.N. Heiskell, then 33.) "Those who read but little and whose little reading comprises a mite of poetry know Riley and love him.

"One may get an idea of his popularity from local booksellers, who will tell one that his poems have a greater sale in Little Rock than those of any other poet.

"Riley loved the life around him and he could make beautiful the everyday things in which the average person lacking Riley's aid could see no beauty. A whistling boy furnished the theme for a real poem, and a country path gave him the theme for another in which there is soul and beauty. He could take an everyday incident and present it so that a hard-headed practical man, in reading it, would feel a gripping in his throat."

Riley was so famous that, the day before, the Gazette had given him a 5-inch obit on an inside news page.

Today he's remembered in Indiana, name-checked by two of his former homes, a children's hospital, a festival, a highway rest stop. But long gone are the days of Hoosier Poet brand coffee and mustard, and the SS James Whitcomb Riley. What does the rest of the nation know of him? Possibly "Little Orphant Annie," maybe "The Raggedy Man."

At his best, he's vivid. But the man published prodigiously, mostly treacle. Here and there some gems, but also some awful tripe. He dealt in nostalgia and was noted for creative abuse of apostrophes and spelling meant to render the dialects of illiterate 19th-century folk. Representative quote:

He 'tend like the pigs 'uz bears an' said,

"Old Bear-shooter'll shoot 'em dead!"

An' race' an' chase' 'em, an' they'd ist run

When he pint his hoe at 'em like it's a gun

The Gazette was keen for arts and letters back in the day but, of course, dead writers should never count on a Page One obituary. Mark Twain's death in 1910 was an exception. His notice filled the full sixth column of the front page before jumping inside to sprawl over most of Page 3 under a three-column portrait. Tacked on were four items with reactions -- including one from James Whitcomb Riley.

Riley received nothing like Twain's ink when he "joined the silent majority." But that Gazette editorial was still a gracious nod to a long career. Things it might have said but didn't remind me that all of us have reason to fear eulogists with long memories.

RYE AND RILEY

The editorial didn't mention, for instance, an old scandal in which Riley was exposed as a drunk. Had the editor mentioned it, the fact that the children's poet had been so out of control would have shocked teetotalling Arkansans. Our state was among the first to embrace Prohibition, with the Newberry Act of 1915.

Biographer Richard Crowder (Those Innocent Years is available through the Central Arkansas Library System) wrote that Riley had struggled with alcohol for decades, since a prank (see below) cost him his first editing job. Also, he suffered from depression, and by the 1880s was in chronic debt due to his financial illiteracy: Promoters took most of his earnings from lucrative speaking tours.

In the late '80s, he and humorist Bill Nye (whose funny Boomerangs columns appeared in newspapers including the Gazette) collaborated as The Twins of Genius. Their tour was "a success unprecedented in the annals of Lyceum," delivering a one-two punch of wit (Nye) and sentiment (Riley).

The schedule was exhausting. They even were set for a one-night stand Feb. 4, 1890, at the Capital Theatre in Little Rock. Tickets cost $1 -- the price for a month's worth of Gazette home delivery.

But they never arrived. In late January, Riley went on a bender at a hotel in Louisville, Ky., and Nye disavowed him. The Louisville paper published details under the headline "Rye and Riley."

In 1890, George W. Caruth and Robert A. Little presided over the Gazette. Their editorial page on Feb. 13, 1890, snarked: "James Whitcomb Riley, 'the Hoosier Poet,' says he believes that 'the sober, second thought of the public will come to a realization of the terrible injustice' recently put upon him. Riley seems to have run to seed as a chronic bummer, and is disgusted because the public found out."

When Nye sued Riley for $30,000 in lost revenue, the editors smirked at that, too.

But the man with a reputation as an early riser may sleep until noon, and Riley was seen as kind and gentle. His brother-in-law took over as his manager; his books of children's verse sold, and eventually he became wealthy and respected.

Had he not shaken off the whiff of alcohol, I think the Gazette editor would have remarked on it. Newspapers weren't too shy to speculate about "vice" in the old days. From Twain's Page One obit: "It is certain to be recalled that Mark Twain was for more than 50 years an inveterate smoker, and the first conjecture of the layman would be that he had weakened his heart by overindulgence in tobacco." But no, the paper reported, his doctor said his illness was not due to nicotine poisoning.

BLOOMY

In 1877 at age 28, Riley was frustrated that East Coast papers rejected his submissions. He was running his amateurish verses in the Anderson [Ind.] Democrat newspaper, which he edited. Hoping to sidestep bias against the unknown poets of middle America and demonstrate his genius, he wrote a halting imitation of Edgar Allen Poe, "Leonaine":

And they made her hair of gloomy/ Midnight, and her eyes of bloomy/ Moonshine, and they brought her to me/ In a solemn night.

He snookered the Kokomo [Ind.] Dispatch into publishing it as a long-lost work by Poe.

Quickly exposed and sacked, Riley survived the shame, but the hoax poem had been set loose into the world. In 1909 the Gazette reprinted "Leonaine," mistakenly crediting it to Poe.

In keeping with the great tradition, a helpful reader quickly corrected the Gazette, by writing a letter to the editor. Which reminds me: Thank you, readers. Thank you.

Next week: Bevo, the Drink Triumphant

ActiveStyle on 07/25/2016

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