The Birmingham age-herald., 1919-06-15

bonne Prof Barrett Wendell of Har- | ward read 'Dooley' in London ac- cent to audiences of deeply perplexed | Frenchmen, and just see what Howells made out to say about the wild fabul- Tn Mr George Ade, the American spirit arrives; arrives, puts down it's grip, looks around takes a chair, and makes itself at home. There it is, with it's hat pushed back, it's hands in it's pockets, and at its outstretched rect that whole vast droll American world, essentially alike in Maine and ore gon and all the hustling regions be- tween: speaking one slang, living one life, meaning one thing.
 In the very thick of the Nortn American Review MT. Howells said
 this-which proves it must be so, and prompts us to inquire how Ade came by his talent. He owes 1t to being Ade. for one thing; for another to ms richly American career, which began at a "whistling station" in Indiana and in due course led to Purdue uni yersity, where George learned to wear q small buckwheat cake instead Of a hat. and a Turkish towel instead or a collar, and sported coon shirts, fev- erish socks, and very bulldoggy shoes with wide terraces running arodnd them and walked like frozen-toes hen. thus developing genuine case of the inflammatory rah-rahs-or Ei-
 bert Hubbard was mendacious. Al A; literature is confession, quoth hl-
 bert. and I have cabbaged the above details from one of Ade's own
 fables" Besides, I know. l had similar attack of the inflammatory rah-rahs in those days, myself.
 In the fullness of time George got to be so cultured at Purdue that he could trim a policeman and chuck a hackman right back into his own hack and drive off with h1m. Aflame with l an ambition to be up and doing and | launch forth upon his life work, he | proceeded to Chicago, where he be- | came a journalist at a slight stipend | in order to mould public opinion, but | contracted the food habit and along | with it a keen desire for the needfui, l though, all the while, fame and for
 tune lay in wait just around the cor
 ner.
 1 Presently, the worlds fair opened, and there, sure enough, the American | spirit arrived, looked around, and sat | down. Where some of it sat was indi- cated by a notice attached to plds- ter animal: Ladies will please not i sit on the lions tail; it has been broken off twice already" But, where the American spirit or any part of It sat, there you met Ade in pursuit of | a hit. Shortly after, Ade began writ ing his fables" and all America ap- plauded. It has been fables ever
 since, with now and then a story or
 an article or a play. and he speedily grew so rich that when he felt in his pocket for card and instead found l $100 bill. It seemed to vex him.
 As "Dooley" says, "We are gr-rea' people, but we don't know it." and one of the characteristically American things about us is that we begin in
 the country, move to the city, ana work like Sam Hill so as to get money I enough saved up to move back into the country That was the way with Ade Unless Ebert Hubbard was mis- taken, as soon as Ade found himsel all clogged up with funds, he made for the Wilderness and threw up 8
 Shack with Onyx Foundations and
 Florida Water piped into every room
 It faced four different Ways. The Ex-
 cursionists ride as far as Brook to sec
 the Real Things come out and pile
 into the Blue Assassin and go ou
 hunting Baby Carriages. And there
 are times when Ade has politicians
 there in droves. with $S worth Ol
 violets and a roast OK at each plate