The Bridgeport evening farmer., 1917-03-12


George Steunenberg, known as the
''poet lariat" Of the army. and the
man who badly upset the Ilaiser sew
eral years ago with his poem on the
German trained Turkish lily, has
been retired from active service on
the issuance to him of a surgeons
certificate of disability.
Several years ago Capt. Steunen-
berg suffered an accident to his leg
which brought on blood-poisoning. OF
it he wrote: The surgeon says I
should have died by rights, but while
7 lived through it, it left my heart
weak and that's why am retired
He has written this verse of his re-
tirement:
I'm leaving the army behind me,
Retired" comes after my name,
Like worn out machine, I'm now
has been,
And it's only my humps that I
blame,
I've been many years in the service;
I'VE even done time in the ranks,
But the surgeons all so that I've seen
my day
And they gave me- my discharge
with thanks.
Capt. Steunenberg says that he will
devote the rest of his life to literary
pursuits He is not only poet but
q talented writer of prose and a mu-
sician s He was rated one of the
most popular men in the army, al
though he has disc1aimed this, say
ing he always got himself in wrong
wherever he went by talking too
much.
Born In Iowa.
Steunenberg was born in Iowa for
ty years ago. At the age Of % he
applied for position as stoker In the
navy, was accepted and finally mus
tered out az an engineer yeoman.
When the Spanish War broke out he
was commissioned as Second Lieuten-
ant in the LIST Idaho Infantry.
He returned from the war cap
tain and soon enlisted as private in
the Eleventh United States Cavalry,
and was promoted rapidly from the
ranks. His first poem to attract at
tention was the s'Cats of Leaven-
worth" written when an order was is
sued by Gen. Funston, then in COM
mand of Fort Leavenworth, that the
cats evacuate the place.
One of the verses Of that poem
ran:
Yellow cats, brindle cats. black cats.
and tan;
Cats from Kilkenny and the sunny
Isle of Man;
Shabby cats, tabby cats, and kitty
cats galore
Such q cataclysm never struck the
State before,
Bad cats. mad cats, revealing in
scraps,
Send 'em to the Golden Gate to scare
away the Japs,
For how could old Kuroki ever gain a
q footing there
With all the cats Of Leavenworth a
clawing at his hair?
1.-THE Dogs OF Smelling"
Steunenberg had scarcely written
the last words Of this poem when he
received orders from Washington to
proceed to Fort Smelling, MINI. He
found that that place was overrun
with dogs, and soon after his arrival
there an order against them, similar
to Gen. Funston's on cats, was issued,
Steunenberg could not resist the CO.
incidence and broke forth into song
on ."The Dogs Of Smelling" Part Of 1t
ran as follows:
O'Hara owns the grayhounds. O'Con-
nell owns the whelps;
They chant 1.-THE Wearing Of the
Green in sad and plaintive yelps
Price has one that kneels and prays
in innocence divine,
While Dutch Klemm owns a prodigy
that sings .Die Wacht am Rhein. ;"
Big dogs. little dogs. black dogs and
white
They raise the devil through the day
and howl through the night;
No one raises chickens here, nor
ducks nor geese nor hogs
Not q blamed thing in the post but
dogs. dogs, dogs!
In the crisis Of 1911 Steunenberg
was among those ordered to. San An
tonic on the border and there wrote
two other we'll known poems-'War
Is HelY' and "Why We're Here" La
ter he was stationed at Fort McPher-
son and brought the Indignation of the
citizens of Atlanta on his head when
he wrote to a paper in Boise, Idaho,
a criticism of the city.
He said Of Atlanta that it had an
unwashed appearance" and the "peo-
ple looked tired" He said it was
..cheap city, and the citizens Cheap
skates.. scarcely any of the streets
are named and the stranger gropes
through it as he would through an
African Jungle"
Reprimanded for Kaiser Poem.
1t was when stationed at the Pre-
sidio Of Monterey. Cal. in 1912 that
he wrote the satirical poem "Our OBJ
tect Lesson which brought about a
similar situation with Germany as
when Admiral Coghland recited .'Hoch
der Kaiser The Kaiser was great
w exercised over Steunenberg's poem
but the difficulty was passd over when
Berlin limited a rebuke would not be
out Of order and the poet was official
ly reprimanded.
Our Object Lesson.
The fighting in Macedonia is sore
subject with Germany. The Turkish
army was trained and its officers ed
ucated under the German military
system.-Literary Digest.