The San Francisco call., 1896-03-22
The Humorist Tells How Much
Better It Pays to Talk
Than to Write.
THE ODD STORY OF HIS RISE,
His Interesting "reminiscences of Bill
Nye and James Whitcomb Riley.
Never 0yerworked.

Robert ]. Burdette, the widely known
numorlst and author of several books,
who made his reputation on the Burling-
ton HawkeYe and since then has delivered
funny lectures in all parts of the country,
is at the Occidental. The humorist was
here eight years ago. He has come to
speak on the Rise and Fall of the Mus
tache," and will address himself to the
public here on Tuesday night. Last night
he spoke in Alameda.
Mr.. Burdette is below the medium size
and younger by much than the average
person would suppose from having, in a
general way, followed his career. His
hair, which is rather long, is black, and
his eyes and mustache are of the same
hue.
The humorist is the close friend @
James Whitcomb Riley, with whom he
has been associated in times past, and
was also an admirer of Bill Nye. Unlike
Mr.. Nye, however, Burdette says he never
overworked, but on the contrary was lazy,
and so can hardly remember, even when
doing the routine work of daily paper
for years, that he ever got tired. Mr..
Burdette began doing his first humorous
work on the Peoria Transcript. It at
tracted attention, and Frank Hatton of
the Burlington Hawkeye engaged him to
go on that paper and write funny para
graphs.
ut was the proudest moment of my
lfe,' said Mr.. Burdette, ''w hen some OF
the papers began to say [ was the Dan
bury News man of the West. No, when l
began to lecture | got along all right, too.
But scared? Great Scottl Scared to death.
could hardly stand up and say anything.
Stlll, managed to get along. | lectured
IN halls and schoolhouses throughout
Iowa and some of the adjoining States
and usually managed to do very fairly. /
stood in with the committee and we
divided. Sometimes l didn't get more
than would pay expenses, but this was
not frequent.
81 remember one night 1 had been lee
turing at Noblesville, Ind, and on my way
back met Whitcomb Riley, who had been
lecturing at little place near by. How
have you doneY' he asked me. on re-
pl1ed, L got some OF the committeeman
and thus had something of crowd. How
did you do?' s0h, held the janitor SPELL
bound for an hour he said. l think Riley
is great humorist and has way of say
Ing things that Is calculated TO bring hilar
lty TO any audience.
Poor Bill Nye died too soon. There was
more good stuff in him than ever came
out. If he had lived he would have done
some great work. But he overworked and
then there was something the matter with
his spine. He got hurt once few years
ago in Wisconsin during a cyclone. Bill,
in explaining how it was afterward to some
people who asked him how it occurred,
said he didn't know; he guessed he stepped
ON peal OF thunder.
"Nye was very methodical in his writing.
His syndicate letter came out regularly
every week no matter how he felt. He grew
rich, he had fine residence on Staten ISL
and and another very fine residence at Ashe-
VILE. He also had money in the bank.
in regard to lecturing and writing, it
pays much better to do the former than the
latter. It is an old story that spoken words
are much more profitable than those that
are written. DR.. Talmage told me a story
recently that well illustrated this He had
written a careful and as he thought an in
teresting and important article and sent it
to leading publication, saying that if
check for 500 was forwarded him he would.
let the publishers have the article. After
a while it came back with a note from the
publishers saying that while they regretted
it they found the article hardly available.
''Then he sent it to some friends who
published weekly paper, and marked the
price down to 500, but word came back in
much the same way. Then the doctor
sent it to a daily, and offered the whole
thing, big as it was, for S25. But the pro-
prietors sent the manuscript back, saying