The Bridgeport evening farmer., 1914-01-02
F OFFER, DEAN OF AMERICAN CARTOONISTS is 57 TO-DAY.

Every profession has it's dean, and MT. F. Opper does the deaning for American cartoonists. The benign and benevelent-appea gentlemen ss<he is all of that. which proves that looks are often deceitful-has known aftv-sgyen varieties Of anndns. nav 7 ing been born at Madison, Lake seoun-. ty, Ohio, hfty-seven 9hars ago to- day, Jan. ?, 1857. His full name is Frederick Burr oppeF but he signs his work simply IF. 9Rper.ia
 MT. 0pperss alma mater was an Ohio village school. At fourteen he left that institution to take. post graduate course. in a. country neYspa-- per office. He had deeided that neu5s-i paper work offered the shortest path to fame and fortune, and while this would indicate that Freddie wasn't a. very bright lad. it must be renern- bered that he was only a poor country boy. At school. and while acting as devil in the rural newspaper office. Opper was very fond of drawing, and even at that tender age he made ca ricatures of local people. It is un- derstood that the subjects of these sketches were no more pleased with them than MT. Bryan, MT Root, MT. ArchboId,e and other worthy gentle men who have since felt the sting of the Opper lash.
 After year in the newspaper office, Mr. Oppersd ecIded to go out into the great world If he had been an or dinary lad he would have chosen Gin cinnati or Cleveland or Columbus or Cantan, or some other Buckeye State city beginning with c. as the one of his operations But, no! Nothing less than New York would do for Freddie aopper. For a time he kept the pot boiling by working in a store. drawing display cards and doubling as a salesman It was only a little while however, until he placed several sketches with several New York com fc papers, including "The Phunny PhelIowD s and wild Qats'' This work attracted the attentforS Of Frank Leslie, who gave the youthful artist a regular job on Leslie's Weekly. Af- ter three years with that publication he Wenf over to Puck. For eighteen years his work appeared weekly in
 
 from MT. Hearst, and has been with the Hearst publications ever since. His work now appears regularly in all of the Hearst papers and in scores of others Lss
 Tn addition to newspaper work, MT. Opper has illustrated books for Mark Twain, Bill Nye. George V. Hobart and Finley Peter Dunne. Among his best known cartoon series are Hap py Hooligan,n @'Maude,'' teAlphonse and Gaston," "John Bull" Willie and His Papa,D and s"The Cruise of the Piffle:" Uncle Trusty.'' and "The Common People" are well known fg- ares in MT. Opper's cartoons.
 . A fair Canadian who has won a wide following of readers is Maude Radford Warren, who was born at wolfe Island Canada, the daughter of Maj. Isaac Henry Radford, thirty nine years ago to-day.
 3 It was while she was instructor in literature and composition at the University of Chicago, her alma ma ter. that Miss Radford began her 1it- Ierary career with ssKing Arthur and His Knights" In 1907 she mar ried Prof. Joseph Warren. of the University of Chicago faculty. and in the following year she wrote her first novel sThe Land of the Living ; Since then she has written many nov els and stories for the leading Ameri- can magazines. Her latest novel. .sThe Main Road has vastly added = A@< popularity.