The Jasper weekly courier. [volume] (Jasper, Ind.) 1858-1922, 1900-06-01


Why Jsass Whlicsab Riley d ths
Ansricas Pssl.
America has produced nothing
more typical in the matter OF letter
than James Whicomb Riley, say
the st. Paul Dispatch. She has
made several attempts to create I
poet out of musical material OF thil
great western world; she made
Longfellow and education made hin
something other than the type; sh'
made Whitman and his rugged pro
portions US vast a. the continent fail
cd to crystalline into q type; she
made Bret Harte and intensity made
him less than the type.
Then she made Riley. She made
him not of the east or west, but out
of the heart of the continent. She
measured the great valley Michilli-
mackinac to Mexico, from the Ale
ghsnies to the Arid plains, and drop
ped her poet into the green field
which came near the crossing Of the
trails. Then why call him the
American poet, if he is also the
Hoosier poet, asks the captious?
That is the very center Of the matter.
Not alone in politics is Indiana the
pivotal state; she is made by history
from the joining Of two streams Of
internal migration which found a gap
in the Alleghanies and ford in the
Ohio. She is far enough east to be
a compound of all that has been
American from the beginning; she is
far enough west to receive the new
life which passes the crowded sea
board. To assimilate these and
make the true American is Indiana's
mission. She merely lends her
name of Hoosier to the type.
Mr.. Riley's Americanism is found
ed upon that primitive vigor which
the rugged living Of the west made
necessary, q return to the elemental
type. It is not er-burdened with
philosophy; it is not passing into the
sere and yellow leaf of modern
thought. In all his literary work
and there is no man of letters who
seems more loyal to himself in his
letters-there is no voicing OF the
morbid, the unhappy; there is no
detected pose TO hint at insincerity I;
there is neither a touch OF the sem
sual nor a strident note for reform.
All is happy, is healthy. There is
eminent sanity and sincerity asteady
cheerfulness which has done more to
oil the cogs on the creaking cart Of
Old Time than has the sentimentality
of a score Of Toets of modernity.
Having given Mr.. Riley the rank
of the American poet, it is hardly
necessary to file the edges of that
judgment, and seek to say whether
in bic simple smother tongue" he
speaks a more natural language, az
in the "Ole swimmin' hole an
'leven more poems," or whether in
that fanciful individual poem, "The
flying islands of the night" which
ia not yet known as it should be,
he speaks the better language. But
we have poets who can write in the
English language, and we have no
one else WHO can sing the songs of
the people as they are sung in the
hearts Of the people: "The poems
here at hone" have gone voiceless
solong, that, beautiful as is Illileo,"
We would spare it if the choice came
between it and "Little Haly." 1t
is always that the poet himself likes
that part Of his work which most
closely connects him with them.
The man who created "Jamesy" and
the "Raggedy man" and clap Mil
Ter" and "Armazindy" is nearer to
US than the creator of Paradise
Lost" These are as near to US as
nature. And two of Mr.. Riley's
worlds have opened the book Of ma
ture little wider to US than it was
before. His "Child world" is like
"Child's garden" ofwhose
author it has been said he was 1.-THE
spirit ofboyhood, Juggling at the skirts
Of this weary old world Of ours and
compelling it to come back and
play" And beyond these very hu.
man children are the human animals
he has known, not wild animals, but
the faithful kind. Coon-dog Yves,
who has entered into our mental ken
mel along with certain grizzlys Of the
far west and certain elephants Of the
far east.
To reveal to US little more clear
ly that nature of which we are all q
part, to reconvince the world Of pos
sibilities Of Joy, to make beauty out