Evening public ledger. [volume] (Philadelphia [Pa.]) 1914-1942, 1917-12-15
PETER PUTTER
ON GRANT" RICE
What One Sports Writer
Thinks of the Poetry of
Another

Irwin Cobb says that the likely sue
cessor of James Whitcomb Riley Is
Grantland Rice, just as others have
said that the mantle Of Mark Twain has
fallen upon the broad shoulders of Cobb.
the man whom many regard as the best
living American humorist. And while
lovers of Riley may not agree with his
verdict, there is "a grea: appeal in the
verse of Rice. which has become 80
familiar 10 the readers of the EVENING
pur1Ic LEDGER. Rice Is the interpreter
of sports. lie finds angles in baseball,
football, golf an dtenns stories that
most of our sports writer's overlook. lie
has done q lot to dignity sport. He Is
more Of q commentator on sports than
a reporter of them.
Grantland Rice has just issued small
volume of poetry-"Songs of the stall
vart." lie has a rare faculty of tell
ing in rhyme the vital things of life
and sport as the adult seq and feels
them, and to those who delight in read
ing virile verse the little volume will
make an instant appeal.
Rice Is a southerncr, but 1t was not
until he was graduated from Vanderbilt
University that he wrote either prose or
verse. As a newspaper man he has
worked in four cities-Nashville, At
lanta, Cleveland and New York lie
began as a sports writer first. but IL
was not until he went back to Nash
willie after stays in Atlanta and Cleve-
land that he began as n "colyumnist
lie ran a topical column on the editorial
page of the Nashville Tennesseean, un-
der the title of Tennessee Uns,' ana
It was there that his first verse appeared.
But Nashville was not big enough TO
hold him, and so he went to New York
and there he remained for six or seven
wears, leaving 10 earn commission IN
the artillery.
Most of the verses that Rice printed
I'm his sports comment have been col
lected by him and now are a part OF
"SonEs of the Stalwnrt." The verses APP
near under the subtitles Of Songs Of
Somewhere Back" Songs of Courage"
songs of the On-Trail," Songs of the
/ Game" and Songs of the Drumiire.
l They are all excellent, both with refer
/ encc to the metrlcal style ana TO the
! thought that rings true in all OF them.
! Cobb puts the case ver@ concisely when
| he saws: you like Grantland Rice's
prose stuff until you have read some or
| his verses. Then you wonder why ne
/ doesn't write in rhyme all the time.
one of the very best poems in MS
collection is the first, Some Day Here
is a sample of his style:
=,
! So moves the dream of all the rowing world
The seekers of far lands whoVe lost 'heir
Gods countless aliens. by the current
From out wiir,'H the 'RHarbor and by tempest tossed
10 unknown lands where they must ever
And this 1, an that makes life worth the
This endless dream; "some day I'm soinH
Some of the very best verses are II
"Songs of the Drumfire." This Is typica
of them:
Perhaps. among the fallen brave. wen FIND
the grave Is deep.
But what Of it? o,r
Perhaps in somber No Mans Lana We J.
know our final sleep;
Since each of us owes God uea'h-d'''
why not swing out with valiant stride alonf
To where the Great Adventure waits this
side of Judgment Day"
So what of it?
Those who have read for two or three
years and are still reading Grantlant
Rice's column of sports comment in tn
EVENING PUBLIC LEDGER will be glat
TO know that the verse they read witt
so much pleasure Is in book form an'
the stray bits of poetry that have ap
reared from time to time are nov
gathered together. There is "A swing an'
a lilt to his verse that few of our othe'
modern versifers possess. His verse il
not mere verse most of it is genuine
poetry, and for those who have an cas-!
chair and reading lamp and pip
or cigar convenient, we can imagine M
pleasanter way of spending an evening
than hearing Rice sing these Songs o
; the Stalwart." PETER PUTTER.
iHnd Il. Rice Ne" York. D. N'D's'0" 90