The daily chieftain. [volume] (Vinita, Ind. Ter. [Okla.]) 1898-1902, 1900-03-01
A FAvoRITE BIRTH YEAR
More Famous Names Date from 1900
Than from Any other Year
Of the Century.

bart is the1fourth vice president OF the
United States who has died in the
month Of November His death oc-
CURED on the 2lst (1s9o); Henry Will
son died on the 22d (1s75); EIbridge
T. Gerry-who gave his name to the
still popular trick of gerrymandering
--on the Esd (1s1D; and Thomas A.
Hendricks on the 25th (1Ss5). The
fact is of no significance whatever;
yet, now that attention has been called
to It, future vice presidents will per-
haps eat their Thanksgiving dinners
with peculiar satisfaction when the
holiday falls, MS in 1899, on the, last
day Of the month.
A still more striking coincidence has
been familiar for the past three-quar-
ters of century to readers of Amer
lean history. This was the death on
the same day-and that day the ff-
tieth anniversary of the Declaration Of
1ndependence-of the second and third
presidents Of the American republic,
both of them signers Of the declara-
tion, and one Of them its author. The
passing away Of John Adams and
Thomas Jefferson (the former at 81
and the latter at s3) at an interval of
few hours, on July A, 1926, was sufi-
GENTLY remarkable to suggest purpose
at least, If not agreement, on the part
of these old friends. 1t is coinci-
dence perhaps unmatched in history.
Against November, as, so to speak, a
favorite death-month of American vice
presidents February may be set off
as a favorite birth month of Amer
lean and other men of genius-most
notably George Washington and Abra-
ham Lincoln, whose birthdays bring
two national holidays almost as close
together as Christmas and New Years
day. On February 3, 1900, Felix Men
delssohn would be 81 years of age: on
the sth John Ruskin would have cele-
brated the eighty-first anniversary
of his birth, and jules Verne will
have passed the seventy-second. Lin
coin, Charles Darwin and James
Russell Lowell were, all three, born
on the 18th Oowen would be 81 had
he lived). On the next day Lord
Salisbury will enter upon his seventy
first year; on the 10Th Ernest Le-
gouve rounds out his ninety-third, and
DR.. Weir Mitchell completes his sew
enty-first, with mental force still un-
abated Had February the same al
lowance of days as even the shorter
of the other months, Frederic Chopin
could be added to our list; as it is, he
misses it by the narrowest possible /
his natal day being March
(lSO9.)
1t was the same year, as well as in |
the same month that three of the I
names here mentioned were bestowed (
upon those who made them famous
Lincoln, Darwin, Mendelssohn. In
this and the other months OF 1909 &C.
Cured perhaps the greatest number
Of illustrious births that can be cred
tied to any single year of the cen
tury now fastening to its close. In
America we have Lincoln, Edgar Allan
Poe and DR. Oliver Wendell Holmes;
N England, Lord Tennyson, DR.. Glad
stone, Prof. Darwin, Lord Houghton,
Prof. John Stuart Blaclkie, Edwin
sitzgerald and Mrs. Mary Cowden
,larke; in Germany, Mendelssohn; and
n Poland, Chopin.
A further coincidence is to be noted
Ii the life-term Of two of the most
brilliant lights in this meteoric show
II. The American poet of night
ancies and day-dreams, and the Pol
sh tore-poet of nocturnes and etudes
we're born within ten days Of each
'ther, and died but ten days apart,
'oe's birth having occurred on Jan
Iary 10, 1909, and Chopin's death on
october II, 1s49, just nine days after
he author of THE Raven" was laid at
est in the Baltimore churchyard,
ghere. for half a century, his grave
as been cared for by the man that
ug it. 4 suggestive comparison
hight be made between the lives and
be genius of these two unhappy spir-
IS Of the early half of the nine
eenth century.-Joseph B. Glider, in
t. Nicholas