The Princeton union. [volume], June 13, 1907, Page 2, Image 2

About The Princeton union. [volume] (Princeton, Minn.) 1876-1976

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ILLNYEOFTHEB
A 89
FAMOUS HUMORIST TO WHOSE GENIUS AND MEMORY
A MONUMENT IS TO BE ERECTED.
Characteristic Glimpses of a Man Who Made Millions Happy
Enough to LaughDisliked Being Lionized and Carica
tured as a BaldheadPopular Lecturer and
Writer of Humor That Simply Made
You Laugh or Burst
ROBERTUS LOVE
QONE,yhumorists.forgotten.,dnewspan
but not is Bill
Nye, most famous of
per He die eleve
years ago. Now there is going
to be a Bill Nye monument. The an
nouncement comes from the American
Press Humorists, an organization of
Mpoets, paragraphers and philosophers"
who do their poetizing, paragraphing
and philosophizing in the daily and
weekly papers. This association is
raising a fund to build a monument to
the memory of Bill NyeBill Nye of
the Boomerang.
The Boomerang was twins. It was
a pule and a newspaper, both owned
by Bill Nye Both inhabited Laramie,
Wyo. The Boomerang newspaper was
named after the mule The 'monu
ment is to be erected at Laramie,
we are told, because it was in that
far western town that Bill Nye first
discovered that he was a humorist.
Prior to that discovery he had made
the mistake of imagining that he was
a lawyer. The mistake was well nigh
fatal, as he confessed himself.
Three-year-old Project.
Though the definite announcement of
the Nye monument as a consummation
to be achieved this year is a matter
of news, the project is three years old.
The matter was discussed in a vague
and irrelevant manner during the sec
ond annual convention of the American
Press Humorists in St. Louis in 1904.
But the members were seeing the
World's fair, including the Pike, and
nothing definite v\ as done. The next
year the humorists met in Cleveland,"
BILL NYE AS HE WAS AND AS A
Rockefeller
living they
but thej waited John D.
and in thcr awe of the
forgot the dead
Last yea: Philadelphia was the place
of rendez\ ous, but the study of ancient
histoij on the spot precluded the con
sideration of tho monument matter
So the project was passed along to
Los Angeles, whore the fifth annual
convention is to be held during the
week beginning Sept 15 Secre
tary Frank Seaiight of the associa
tion, who lhes there, proclaims that
the Eill Nye monument fund will be
brought to a final locus and fulfillment
at a monstei entertainment to be held
In the Auditorium during the week
The Auditorium, by the way, is quite
an appropriate place for such an en
tertainment, for on Sundays and pray
er meeting nights it is the edifice in
which the Re* Robert Jones Burdette.
pastor ot the Temple Baptist church
of Los Angeles, preaches and prays.
Pastor Burdette is also Bob Bur
dette. Now you know him. For near
ly thirty years prior to his reforma
tion he was a famous press humorist
and funny lecturer He lives at Pasa
dena, near by, and will be one of the
Nye monument fund entertainers,
along with a dozen other press humor
ists who are bold enough to speak their
pieces on the stage. Mr. Burdette is
"perpetual parson and pastor emeri
tus" of the American Press Humorists.
The elective officers are Thomas A.
Daly of Philadelphia, president Rob
ert D. Tewne, editor of Judge, New
York, vice president, and Mr. Searight,
who in addition to being secretary is
also treasurer and in his latter capac
ity is willing to receive and account
for Nye monument contributions from
any sourceand no questions asked.
Edgar Wilson Nye was born at Shir
ley, Me., in 1850. He told with par
donable pride how at the age of two
years he took his parents to Wisconsin
and grew up on a farm. Though Mr.
Nye from time to time furnished the
world with much autobiographical in
formation, there is quite a wide gap
between the Maine village and the
Wyoming struggles, but he once re
marked that when he was ^fifteen years
old his father died and he took charge
of the 200 acre Wisconsin farm. It is
not to be doubted that he grew
fwith more than a speaking acqvrLu
ance with hard work on the'farm
N
N
4
This may account for the familiar ease
with which he wrote of mules, turnips
and other farm products.
The world has a wholly erroneous
impression of Bill Nye's personal ap
pearance. This is due chiefly to Walt
McDougall, the comic artist who il
lustrated Mr. Nye's weekly output for
several years. It is true that during
the latter period of his life the humor
ist was bald on top of his head, but he
had quite a fringe of hair at the sides
and rear. There is a photograph of
him taken in 1870, when he was editor
of the Laramie Boomerang, which
shows him with a full set of whiskers,
though a fur cap serves to leave the
matter of his upper baldness at that
period an open question.
Those- McDougall pictures, though
they enhanced the humor of Nye's
writings, were not pleasing to Nye him
self. It is related that Nye requested
the managing editor of the American
Press Association, which syndicated
his weekly letters during the last seven
years of his life, to get another artist.
McDougall, he said, made him look
ridiculous. Accordingly the artist C.
G. Bush was cast for the Nye perform
ance, but the newspapers taking the
service forthwith emitted such a roar
that it was deemed necessary to return
to Mr. McDougall. Mr. Bush's pictures
were good, but they had too much hair
to suit the public, which had been
dieted on baldness until baldness and
Nye had become brothers.
"Let me^ illustrate the stuff myself,
then," requested Bill Nye.
Now, Mr Nye was a humorist, but
At 4 3
CARICATURIST SAW HIM
not an artist Nevertheless he was
permitted to execute some crude
sketches, which were funny while they
la&ted, but eventually the McDougall
pictures replaced all substitutes
Measurably Handsome Man.
Nye was by no means a hairless liv
ing skeleton, though he was tall, nearly
six feet, and slim. After he became
famous he always shaved clean, per
haps on the theory that it would look
ridiculous to have his hair on the
wrong end of his head. He wore
clothes, he confessed, to cover his body,
and it must be admitted that he did
not waste his time in studying the
Parisian fashions. But he dressed
pretty much as the average man dress
es and therefore was in no sense a
comic Sunday supplement at large.
Nye was, in fact, a measurably hand
some man. Walt McDougall's idea
seems to have been that he must make
Nye's personal appearance as exag
geratedly funny as were his writings,
which accounts for the fact that those
who did not know Mr. Nye by sight
continue to think of him as a cadaver
ous scarecrow with a benevolent grin
on its face.
As a youth Nye put in six sorrowful
months trying to read Blackstone,
Coke, Chitty and other favorite au
thors in a Wisconsin law office. He
always maintained that he could read
those authors over and over again and
find them just as fresh and novel as
at the first reading. Nevertheless he
managed to be admitted to the bar at
ence to the Cheyenne Sun, for which
he received $1 per column. In one of
his numerous autobiographical confes
sions he states that his income from
this Source was nearly $60 a year.
This, he said, was so much more than
he made at the law that he determined
to sink deeper into journalism. So
he secured a regular job on the Lar
amie Sentinel at $12 a week. For a
thort time he worked in Denver as a
reporter on the Tribune, the paper on
which Eugene Field somewhat later
made his first reputation as a humorist.
Returning to Laramie, Nye established
the Boomerang, which boomed once
wrk. He was also elected, appoint-
Laramie, Wyo., in 1876, where he set
tied down and made
a feint at prac
ticing law. For pastime and income
he sent a weekly letter of correspond- morists are aware that these are not a
ed and otherwise erected into the dig
nities of justice of the peace, police
magistrate, United States commission
er, postmaster and superintendent of
school?. They called him Judge Nye,
which nodoubt helped some.
But being the official Pooh Bah of
Laramie was not particularly lucra
tive. Nye worked so hard to make a
living that his health broke down. The
Boomerang was not financially suc
cessful. He resigned his multitudinous
offices. He wrote to the postmaster
general that he would find the key of
the postoffice under the door mat. Then
Mr. Nje letcirned to the vicinity of his
former home in St. Croix county, Wis.,
to recuperate. That was about the
year 1883.
Quoted In All Quarters.
But the Boomerang, though dead,
had made its mark. It was a sheet
of modest appeal ance, making no par
ticular specialty of news, but bubbling
full of Bill Nye Stray copies floated
into eastern newspaper offices. A gen
tleman who was connected editorially
with a Rochester newspaper in the
Boomerang days told me recently that
he picked up a copy of the Boomerang
on his desk one day just out of curios
ity, because it looked so lonesome and
was so far away from home. The
next thing he did wras
to put the
Boomerang on his regular exchange
list, after sending a large section of
it, scissored out, to the composing
room. The Boomerang was quoted
east and west, north and south, and
it was evident that a new humorist
had arisen.
Bill Nye wrote a book about his
Boomerang experience while he rusti
cated in Wisconsin Offers from big
eastern papers began pouring in, but
Nye was shy. Finally the New York
World induced him to go to the me
tropolis and take a job as a regular
contributor. Incidentally he was in
great demand as a lecturer. His plot
form tours with James Whitcomb
Riley are recalled as events in the
lyceum world Nve declined to live in
New York city, but took a house in the
rural districts of Staten Island, where
his children could play with the goats,
for he had married and multiplied.
Nye wrote for the World from lSS^
until 18S9, when his services were se
cured by the American Press Associa
tion. From^that time until his death,
more than seven years later, he fur
fcished a weekly letter of about two
columns, whether he was sick or well,
at home or on the road, missing only
one wreek
He wrote his matter, we
aie informed, with a lead pencil on
all sorts of paper, frequently on the
homely stationery of some small ho
tel at which he stopped while chasing
a lyceum engagement. Much of his
work during the last three years of his
life was done at his farm home near
Asheville, N. C, where he built a hand
some residence near the George W
Vanderbilt estate. It was there, on
Washington's birthday, 1896, that the
humorist died.
Nye's weekly salary from the Amer
ican Press Association was the largest
ever paid to a syndicate writer up to
that period It figured up about 12^
4Jents a word. Thus the Boomerang
came back to himafter many days
It is said that from his writing and
his platform work he earned at one
time about 840,000 a year
Nye disliked being lionized. About
fifteen years ago he wrote a play, "The
Cadi," which was to be produced in
New York. He was in the city on
business connected with the play
"Nye came into the office one day,"
says Dexter Marshall, who at that
time wras
managing editor for the
American Press Association, "and look
^d around in a bashful, hesitating man
ner. He said that he had to be in
town for the day and he didn't want
to attract attention Couldn't we hide
him somewherebehind a screen, for
instance? fixed up a corner in the
office and screened it off. Nye sat
down there, with books and papers
and spent the day
Had to Laugh or Burst.
The Nye brand of humor was some
thing new under the sun. Artemus
Ward, Petroleum V. Nasby and Josh
Billings had won wide recognition, but
each of them relied to some extent
^pon distorted spelling to attract at
tention. Nye always spelled correctly
and used good grammar. His exag
geration was linguistic rather than or
thographic. He could string hifalutin
adjectives like chain lightning, making
the humblest, commonest object in our
everyday life take on a glamour so much
out of proportion to its real importance
that the exaggeration was ludicrous
The reader simply had to laugh or
burst.
"What Was the funniest thing you
ever wrote?" Bill Nye was asked
shortly before he crossed the great
divide.
"The funniest thing was borrowed
froin my platform manager," replied
the humorist, who was modest as well
as shy. "He gave me the idea, and I
put it like this: On being requested
one day to do the carving at dinner I
replied that I was not much of a suc
cess as a carver because I couldn't
make the gravy match the wall paper."
Bill Nye published half a dozen
books. But the American Press Hu.-
sufficient monument to his genius.
They know too well that books of
avowed humor which are made up of
fugitive pieces are subject to the stat
ute of limitations. Usually they resem
ble the household cookbook or the
campaign life of Garfield in their gen
eral mechanical makeup. Their fate
is to end up on the bargain counter
along the sidewalk, marked down to 30
cents. Wherefore, O lords and mas
ters, let the boys build a more endur
ing monument to Bill Nye, and long
let the prairie zephyrs of Laramie ca
ress the memorial of the man who
made millions of us happy enough to
augh
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T. H. CALEY, VicePres.
J. F. PETTERSON, Cashier.
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