Omaha daily bee., 1899-01-09
OF A VETERAN JOKER
Newspaper Humor Not What 1t Used to b.
in Days Gone By.
SMILE MACHINE NO LONGER IN FAVOR
Amateur Competition and illustrated
Syndicate Ruin the business
"Reminiscences of an Old
Time Funny Man.

THE old-time 'youmorist,' as Josh Bill
ings was wont to spell it, is passing away.
and, in the language OF the street. there's
only a few OF us left" said Jere johnson
Barker. the Hoosier humorist, to a Wash
ton Post man. IL say us for. by length OF
service anyway, I consider myself one of the
veterans Of the newspaper fun-making
guild. I began my apprenticeship on the old
Indiana American. Parson Goodwin's paper,
at indianapolis, in 1855. and, barring four
years in the army during the civil war, which
was no joke, I have been grinding out alleged
funnyisms ever since. 1t is permissible even
for a humorist to grow pessimistic In his old
age and, therefore, l have arrived at the
opinion that the palmy days of the funny
man have passed. There were giants in
those days-Artemus Ward, Josh Billings.
Bailey, the Danbury News man: Petroleum
V. Nasty or Charles Locke. the one funny
man I ever knew to make a fortune out of
It, for his heirs still own the Toledo Blade.
which he made a newspaper of national note.
Bill Nye is dead and Bob Burdette has taken
to writing for feminine weeklies. while NJ.
Quad has contracted syndicitis and doesn't
scintilate as he uesd to, in my opinion, al
though he turns out a prodigious lot Of stuff.
Therefore, like the old-timers in all trades,
I am permitted to exclaim that the business
has been ruined not by Chinese cheap
labor as Bret Harte would say, but by the
amateur funny man and the syndicates.
Every other man you meet nowadays Is an
amateur humorist and has one or two pet
Jokes to spring which he thinks entirely
original. Alas! there is nothing new under
the sun, especially in the joke line; they've
all been printed before and the best you can
do is to put them into new. up-to-date form.
| But the comic supplements supplied by the
| syndicates are no jokes to the professional
| funny man, whose business, by the way, is
| the most serious one on earth. When you
can n,rcbase a whole page, with illustrations,
for a couple Of dollars what's the use!
Old-Time Funny Men.
"some time ago Max O'Rell came over
here to Y. Doodle's land, and when ne
| got back to the frothy place where frog
meat is the steady diet and absinthe the
LIQUID refreshment, he wrote a book when
no branded Jonathan and His Continent
I might remark, in passing, that almost
| everybody else has since branded IT a pack
| of lies. but in one passage in that production
he says that the Omaha World and the
| Detroit Free Press are the two most widely
recopied papers in America. Modesty ior-
bids nv expression Of opinion as to that
Il statement, lot dDOuI thae 'hhS
Lewis IN. QUAD was scattering grins all
over the world through the columns OF the
| Free press. and l was trying to plant a
| smile where a frown had been by putting
| things in the Omaha World.
Lots OF people imagine that Bill Nye
| was the only Nye in the joke business.
| Lots of people are mistaken. There was
| another-his name was Fred-and he used
to run a column in the Omaha World,
| Heard at the Fountain If there's a foun-
tain in Omaha I never saw it squirt; but the
| things Fred Nye heard at his imaginary
fountain were bright enough to have gushed
| from the spring from which old Momus
| slipped. He went to Chicago. Rumor said
he did not do Nye as well there as he did
in Omaha. In those. days there was a chap
| on the Lincoln Journal whose name was
Walt Mason. The exchanges used to reprint
about all the stuff he wrote. Along with a
| friend he made a visit to Omaha. When
he got back to Lincoln he published an ac-
| count of his trip. He said, among other
things, as the reporters say: "A friend took
me I'D to Omaha. He went to see the town.
I went to let the town see me. Mr.. Jams,
the county clerk, entertained him. After
taking a few nips from a black bottle in
my room at the tavern, / strolled down
Farnam street.
"I went into a saloon. While l fingered
there about all the liquid portion of the
! saloon went into me. After that l was en-
tertained by Mr.. Jimjams.' Walt was q good
| fellow, but homely. Well. 'homely' isn't
| the word; he was uglier than any Hoosier
poet that ever heard tell Of the frost being
on the pumpkin or on a lecturing tour.
He went away to Denver, and from there
away over the big divide.
Jailed for q Joke.
"In the early 7O's Mr.. Bailey was saying
very smart things in his Danbury News.
Where do you reckon I was then? Out in
Kansas trying to make the homesteaders
smile, while the busy grasshoppers were
nibbling the roofs off their dugouts. Jake
Stotler's Emporia News was the paper. One
day a genial gentleman named Bill got
married. Next day my column had In it:
Married, at the residence Of the brides
parents, Miss Fannie Smith to Mr.. Frank S.
Bill. For further particulars see small
Bills
81 don't know whether the small Bills
ever came out or not, for soon afterward
l went to FL Paso, Tex. Paso Del Norte,
Mexico, is Just across the Rio Grande river.
In one OF my festive moments I made a red
hot tomale joke about the alcalde over there.
The genuine greaser seldom laughs, and he
would rather his head should be the land
ing spot for the butt of a siX-shooter than
to be made the butt Of ridicule. The old
alcalde didn't like my squib, and without
ever giving me notice, he got himself before
himself and issued a warrant, returnable to
himself, to put myself in limbo. But you
see the sly old duffer did not send me word
about the court proceedings. One night ]
took a notion to go over the river to a
fandango. l never reached the hall OF
hilarity. A delegation meet me at the south
end of the bridge. 1t consisted Of a squad
OF ragged policemen, who escorted me to
the lookup and chucked me in, locked the
iron door, and marched away.
A GrewsOme Jest.
81 felt in my pocket, found a match and
struck 1t and was struck with the palsy by
what l saw. There was a stone-dead greasel
on the greasy stone floor. Here's a co.
thought. but on second thought l knew l
wasn't a jolly situation for a joker.
but, like many other situations that
have had. I didn't hold that one long.
soon heard a lot of voices on the outside.
know their lingo pretty well and l coult
hear them saying. He's in there and well
hava him ont Now Won un5arSton1