The Bridgeport evening farmer., 1914-06-01

international organization with branches in nearly every great nation, has already commenced preparations to make this celebration one of the greatest literary events of the century.
 "A prophet is not without honor save in his own country and Walt Whitman was a prophet of democracy. Perhaps this explains why Whitman has more admirers today in England and it's possessions and in France, and even in Japan, than in the United States.
 Ask the average cultured English man or Frenchman to name the great est American poet, and he will almost inevitably hesitate between Whitman and Poe. Tn the nation which boasts of being the cradle of democracy, the poet of democracy, although 8. native son, is least appreciated.
 Walt Whitman was born in West Hills, Long Island, May 31, 1919. His father was a carpenter, and Walt, af- ter a sporadic education, left school at twelve to follow his fathers trade. Of a restless, wandering disposition, he quickly tired of the hammer and saw, and entertained a transient ann- bition to become a lawyer. After a brief experience in a, barrister's office, he entehed the employ of a physician, and quickly assimilated a great deal of knowledge about medicine.
 WhitInanss rolling stone proclivities
 
 where he served as s'devi1.'s He then became an itinerant teacher in rural schools, although himself almost with out formal education. He soon re- turned to the printers case, and as a tramp printer" with occasional ex- roamed all aver the United States and Canada Many are the stories that have been told by veterans of the stick of the kindly, lovable, vagrant, hobo print There were many gen fuses s1nong those wandering printers of the old days, but moak of them were destined to be mute and ingiorious, and to die unhonored and unsung Whitman was a. notable exception, and the observance of the Whitman centenanry will be incomplete if the few remaining tramp printers do not participate.
 During his wanderings Whitman mingled with men and women of ev- cry class, and this association with all kinds of people intensified his spirit of democracy From the printers case Whitman graduated to the edi- torial chsir-an easy and common transition in those days. when most printers could ''double'' as editors and reporters when occasion arose, and when most newspaper writers had a working knowledge of the typograph- teal art.
 
 Whitman was very successful, but the wanderlust constantly drove him from one post to another. In 1845 he was for a short period the editor of the Brook lyn Eagle. then an infantf1e journal with a. past of five years and a future that seemed very uncertain.
 All of these years Whitman was seeking to find spoetica1 expression for his emotions. thought and yearnings. but all of the verse forms but fettered and bound his free spirit and c1ogged the mental machinery. It was not un- til he was well past thirty that he hit upon the curious, original, irregular and recitative measures which are pe- culiarIyaW W hitmanes and which be- come absurd and ridiculous when att tempted by others. His grotesque, law lessness of expression. his utter de- f1ance of all literary forms, his a,bso- 1ute originality, first found expression in Leaves of Grass. " This Sthin quarto of less than a hundred pages was orig inally published in 1855, but with the passing years it grew into a large book of about 400 pages.
 During the civil war he was sum moned to Washington to look after his wounded brother, and his tender and compassionate spirit made him the men In the armies around Washington and in Virginia and Maryland. His kindly nature and his medical know1- edge made him the ideal nurse, and during the war and for years after it was no uncommon sight to see soldiers stop whitman in the street, and to en- brace and even kiss him.
 John Burroughs, who first knew Whitman. in those troubled days, has said: ''He had done domestic tasks for them, had written home and eased anxieties and cheered the sdownheart- ed and as he moved serene and com forting down the rows of cots the men had come to. know and love him with the deepest sort of love.
 After the war Whitman was given a clerkship in the government service, but was surnmarily dismissed by Sec retary of the Interior James Harlan as the author of ''an indecent book .'' He obtained a similar post almost im- mediately. but left Washington .fn. 1874 to settle in Camden. N. J., where he lived until his death in 1892.
 Whitman was first recognized as a genius by another genius of almost an tithetica1 type, Emerson. Early in his career Walt won the praise of foreign critics of the most distinguished at tainTnents and undoubted literary dis cernment, and in his latter years Whit man was almost universally recognized by European men of letters as Ameri- ca's foremost poet.
 Among his countrymen Whitman did not fare so well. Harland was not the only famous man of that day to denounce Whitmanis work as op- scene and indecent. and at one time Whitman's publish CT was subjected to prosecution for circulating obscene lit erature. Gradually Americans began to take a saner view of the Good Grey Poet" and his works, and to realize that the obscenity charge could no more stand against whitman than against Shakespeare or some of the books of the Bible In England, the obscenity charge was never made.
 Like many another genius. Whit man had no regard for money, and in his latter years he would have plunged into the depths of poverty save for the delicate assistance of his many friends and admirers. That prince of pagans,