Daily Kennebec journal. [microfilm reel] (Augusta, Me.) 1870-1975, 1899-09-19
Poet Markham Explains.


and a cruel fate has decided that the
latter institution must suffer. Mr..
Markham is Californian product, but
he has how moved East and intends to
make his home in Philadelphia. Not
only will he lecture, but he also
threatens to write two books, one OF
which, he says, will be imbued with
the spirit of the poem, and the other
will be made up of economic ana
literary essays.
Professor Markham says that until
he was % years of age he was iai
er. His mother owned ranch' anu
as he was '.the man of the place, ne
had 70 begin to herd sheep at the age
of seven When he became little
older he herded cattle and planted ana
harvested wheat. At the same time he
attended school for three months each
winter and succeeded in obtaining
faw hooks from which he gained in
n
Afterward he learned the blacksmith
ing trade and worked for time at
that. Thus" he says, through
good part of my life l came in close
contact with the mysteries of the farm
and the life of the man with the hoe
Continuing, he said:
This was one reason why the sub
iect attracted me, but there was also
the knowledge that there is poetry in
everything if you go deep enough, and
have the understanding of sympathy
and imagination. If one has the eye TO
see, and the ear to hear, there are no
commonplace things. The small man
sees nothing great except in the I'M
usual or extraordinary. He would
rush to see a brass band or a prize
fighter, and tread on bed of peoples
or a worm crawling in the path. The
inspiration for poetry, both as part
of my own life and experience. and as
filled with romance, gloomy though t
might be ina gination and tragedy, the
essentials of poetry. But | did not
expect the verses would make me a
reputatio | have written other
things which seemed to me stronger
and better. The universally of the
idea had most to do with the popular
ity. | was practical, and therefore,
appealed to humanity. For. after all,
the bread and butter problem touches
most of mankind more closely than
anything else. Higher ideals and ideas
must come after the stern and sordid
reality of keeping alive to the vast
majority of mankind. And the failure
of social justice in the struggle for
bread and butter is the cry of the ma n
with the hoe. If men did not feel it
to be cry burdened with just cause,
the poem would nor have struck a re-
sponsive cord. Because the picture
suggested the poem, is not to say that
the sufferer is found only chained to
the soil. have seen him in the coal
mines. the factories, and wherever in
dustrial competition has thrust the
toiler down to the same hopeless level
Of bare and british existence"
Professor Markham is in error when
he says that his ressimistic poem en-
joys popularity. II has called forth
more adverse criticism than favorable
comment. 1t has attracted attention
by its pessimism; not because it ac-
curately describes a condition. AS a
poem it has many merits, and it de-
scribeS we'll the picture of MilletWhicn
suggested it, but as an epistle to la
boring mankind it is to be condemned.
ANY class of literature which makes
men discontinued with their lot and
discourages them in their efforts to
rise above the environments in which
the accident of birth has placed them.
pernicious in the doctrine that the
social system instead of the man him
self is to blame for his failure to rise.
In the story Of his own life, as quoted
above, Professor Markham shows how
man can rise in life to high plane,
in spite of many adverse circum-
| stances: and in view of this it is very
strange that he should teach such a
doctrine as underlieS his famous poem.
Rising from the ranks, as it We're,
himself. the author of The Man With
the Hoe knows that in this country,
at least, the man whom he describes
is one who lacks energy and ambition
| II is not oppression which keeps him
down, but because he has not within
himself the ability am determination
to rise Thousands upon thousands OF
men in this country by rising from the
most humble positions to prominence
have controversial the doctrine taught
! in The Man With the Hoe" This
| poem is of no use except to bring out
| bitter adverse criticism showing that
| the American man with the hoe is moi
dull, plodding thing, but king
among men; and to furnish fertil.
subject for parodies,