The sun., 1908-05-07
WROTE "CASEY AT The Bat
IT WAS PHINNIE THiIER VINO
WROTE IT FIRST.
Then Most Of the New spaper Poets IN the
Country Put Their Names TO II Hnd
Thayer Got little Touchy-it Was
BewIl,IerIng To DE WOln Hopper Too.

A San Francisco newspaper man now IN
New York read the paragraph printed yes
tprday wherein a magazine attributed 10
one Of its writers, George Whlteiield DNyS'
authorship Of the immortal poem, Casey
at the Bat Then spake that San Fran
cisco newspaper man thus.
Il have not the pleasure Of knowing Mr..
DVys. He may be- one Of your most
famous poets, but his name faded out be-
fore il ever crossed the Great Divide and
sounded clear and sweet through the togs
of San Francisco. But | welcome D'Nys.
He surely is the last Of the poets, great or
! small, living or dead, from Homer to Lamp
ton, to whom Casey has not been attrb-
uted
"Snce the world was thrilled with that
! epic the morning Of its appearance IN the
| columns Of the San Francisco Erdmlnp
| twenty years ago, signed +. J." t. the
| initials Of Ernest Lawrence Thayer, who
wrote it. not a day has passed that some
new poet has not claimed or had claimed
for him that work Of genius. Some days
! there must have been several claims, Tor
as I've figured It out in that statement the
total would be only 1850 whereas the num-
Der now must he not far short Of l,UO,OOO,
counting Mr. D'Vys.
1T was in 1887 or thereabout that young
then young Mr. Hearst returned to San
! Francisco from Harvard to show as how Il
newspaper should be run. To help him
make the show he brought along troupe
Of stars Of the LdmPooo. They were
! Joyous lot. There was Casey Noble, Genie
! Lent. Fatty Briggs, a chap named Barnes.
whose title to fame at Harvard was not
earned ON the Lam pooH but as a club swlnger,
| and there was Phinnie IL, L. Ihayer
| Lent and Thayer were sons Of rich men,
| but the others had to earn their living
Genie Lent's father wanted him to be a
| LAWYER. and he is a lawyer now, and Thayer's >
! father wanted him to 20 into the wool
| business at Worcester He's there now
But both rich papas could be made to yield
| TO a touch now and then, and at sucn times
journalism did not greatly concern that
| bunch Of Harvard stars.
sThen there we're times when papas were
obdurate and Briggs would draw some
pictures to Illustrate Phinnle Ihayer.s
verses Thayer could write rhymes while
thinking about anything else that pleased
I
day 10 set up their little club in funds for a
week He wrote them for every depart
ment Of the paper, including the advertising
department.
!One day he wrote Casey at the Bat
and was one Of those who told him II was
good stuff-of its kind. He didn't think
much of that. but he sat up and took notice
when THE sun praised II.
Il guess II was that SUNS praise which
started trouble. The verses began To
anpear in the backwoods and mountain top
papers signed with the names OF local bards.
Then the songbirds on the city papers
began 10 sign their names TO IL and pretty
soon YOU could get a rise out Of Phnnle
by asking which Of the poets he lifted
il from.
zone day Archie Gunter showed De
Wolf Hopper a clipping Of the verses he
got from the Examiner and Hopper memo
Tized them TO recite at performance some
baseball players were TO attend Then
began Hoppers trouble Gunter didn't
Know who +. l.. T. was and Hopper couldn't
learn, because he didn't know what paper
Gunter had clipped the verses from,
after turning down several hundred
bogus claimants, some Of whom tried to