SUPPLEMENT 
 
 KNOX COLLEGE BULLETIN 
 
 GALESBURG, ILLINOIS 
 
 GEORGE FITCH 
 
 KNOX '97 
 
 Series 
 
 12 
 
 Number 3
 
 "Mever in tKe world a sweeter, saner, more generous 
 and lovable human being." 
 
 Franklin P. Adams in N. Y. Tribune.
 
 GEORGE FITCH 
 
 A MEMORIAL 
 
 Published b>> 
 
 KNOX COLLEGE 
 
 Galesburg, Illinois 
 1918
 
 //' *f*rtcd 
 
 GEORGE HELGESEN FITCH 
 
 Born in Galva, Illinois, June 5, 1877. 
 Entered Knox College, 1894. 
 Graduated from Knox, 1897. 
 
 Worked on Galesburg Evening Mail and Republican-Register, 1897- 
 
 1898. 
 
 Edited Galva News, 1898-1901. 
 Edited Fort Madison Republican, 1901-1902. 
 
 "Frolic of the Types" column in Council Bluffs Nonpareil, 1902- 
 
 1905. 
 
 Married Clara Gattrell Lynn at Kansas City, Mo., Oct. 5, 1904. 
 Peoria Herald-Transcript, editor and special writer, 1905-1911. 
 
 "Vest Pocket Essays" and other special work for the Adams News- 
 paper Syndicate, 1911-1915. 
 
 Elected to Illinois Legislature, 1912. 
 
 Special writer for Collier's Weekly, 1914-1915. 
 
 Author of: 
 
 "The Big Strike at Siwash" Doubleday, Page & Co., 1909. 
 "Golf, The Automobile, Bridge Whist" Collier's, 1909. 
 "At Good Old Siwash" Little, Brown & Co., 1911. 
 "My Demon Motor Boat" Little, Brown & Co., 1912. 
 "Sizing Up Uncle Sam" Frederick Stokes, 1914. 
 "Homeburg Memories" Little, Brown & Co., 1915. 
 "Vest Pocket Essays" Barse & Hopkins, 1916. 
 "Petey Simmons at Siwash" Little, Brown & Co., 1916. 
 "The Twenty-four" Little, Brown & Co., 1917. 
 
 Contributed to Ladies' Home Journal, The American Magazine, Col- 
 lier's Weekly, Saturday Evening Post, Red Book, Hampton's, 
 Success, Munsey, etc. 
 
 Died, Berkeley, California, August 9, 1915.
 
 George FitcK 
 
 By STRICKLAND GILLILAN 
 
 A good friend journeyed to a better place. 
 
 I smiled while yet the tears were on my face, 
 
 It would have pleased him (maybe did who knows?) 
 
 To see me smile at his earth-sojourn's close. 
 
 He had so striven to teach the world to smile 
 
 Should we forget, in such a little while? 
 
 The chiefest reason for the smile I gave 
 Was not alone that he would have me brave, 
 But that I reveled in the thought that he 
 Had known, in life, he had the love of me 
 I had not waited till he went away 
 To say the kind things I with truth could say. 
 
 So I am glad not that my friend has gone; 
 But that the earth he laughed and lived upon 
 Was my earth, too ; that I had closely known 
 And loved the lad, and that my love I'd shown. 
 Tears over his departure ? Nay, a smile 
 That I had walked with him a little while.
 
 SrwasK and Knox 
 
 By WILLIAM EDWARD SIMONDS 
 
 I've just re-read the Siwash stories, those inimitable narratives, 
 generously embellished, to be sure, with the hyperbole of under- 
 graduate fun but also pungent with good-humored satire and alive 
 with the healthy spirit of American college life. What college- 
 trained man can follow without many a smile and chuckle these 
 broad burlesques of campus incidents and types ; fraternity intrigues 
 and initiations ; the battles on the gridiron and the exploits of foot- 
 ball giants like Ole Skjarsen; the escapades that become tradition 
 and grow more and more sensational with the years ; the hero-wor- 
 ships, and the friendships that tighten in memory even when inexor- 
 able Life separates us one from another? We all know how it is.' 
 Petey Simmons, Allie Bangs, Keg Rearick, Hogboom, captain of the 
 team, Mark Smith, the serious-minded, we knew them when we 
 were in Siwash, or, for that matter, we knew them when we were at 
 Hambletonian or Middledorfer, or Kiowa. It's astonishing how 
 many college men in the U. S. were at Siwash and affectionately 
 claim it as their alma mater. 
 
 But that's a special privilege of us Knox men, in spite of what 
 the beloved chronicler himself has to say in the preface of one of his 
 books. Siwash grew into the great American college under Fitch's 
 administration ; that's all. We know that it was founded here on the 
 Illinois prairie "and Siwash is only half a day from Chicago by 
 parlor car!" All the old grads have heard about the sewer racket 
 that used to be practiced out on Losey Street where the highway 
 crosses the little run in the hollow. Why, Knox men still rendezvous 
 at the Horse Shoe Cafe ; the present generation has a college song 
 in its honor. The old army muskets with which the cadets used to 
 drill, and which filled the heart of the Reverend Ponsonby with 
 terror, will not be lightly dismissed from the memory of the men 
 who bore their weight in the college ranks. "Browning Hall?" 
 Well, we call it Whiting Hall ; it's the sunshine of Siwash that gives 
 it a .brunette complexion. We did use to draw our partners by lot 
 for class parties in the good old days, although we secure our
 
 "dates" now in more sophisticated fashion. Even in the nineties we 
 still followed the traditional lottery plan. It worked all right 
 usually. Of course -this method broke up all "close corporations." 
 This was Pauline Spencer's experience at the time of the junior 
 party. Frankling was the "steady," and she drew Slaughter. "His 
 father had a dairy at the edge of Jonesville and Slaughter decided 
 that, as the night was cold and rainy, a carriage would be appro- 
 priate. So he scrubbed up the milk wagon thoroughly, put a lot of 
 nice, clean straw on the floor, hung a lantern from the top for heat 
 and drove her down to the party in state. She was game and didn't 
 make a murmur, but Frankling made a pale-gray ass of himself." 
 This is a matter of Knox history ; if the real name of the ingenious 
 youth wasn't Slaughter, it was the next thing to it. And Frank 
 Hinkley, who went bail for the boys when the police asserted final 
 authority, and who was the editor of the city daily, and just con- 
 valescing from four years of college life, really was and some 
 pages farther on in this magazine tells us how George Fitch began 
 his journalistic career as a reporter for that same daily. In the 
 chapter "Runaway Oratory" Gnothautii and Adelphi appear in 
 their own composite personalities ; and that ancient rivalry which 
 echoes yet, though feebly strives again in all its former strength. 
 The Shi Delts, the Fli Gams and the Eta Bita Pies are with us yet, 
 although we may not have identified the Alfalfa Delts, the Chi Yi 
 Sighs, or the Sigh Whoopsilons with any of the mystic brotherhoods 
 more recently installed. 
 
 But Knox College, after all, does not care to deprive any sister 
 institution of her share in the glory of Siwash. The genius of Fitch 
 made the atmosphere and spirit of that institution too typical and 
 too comprehensive to be segregated on the Galesburg campus. What 
 Knox is proud of is the fact that George Fitch is one of her sons ; 
 that by the quality of his work as a writer he won a distinct and a 
 distinguished place in literature, a unique position among American 
 humorists ; and most of all that in his life, both public and private, 
 he exemplified standards and ideals which can bring only honor to 
 the institution which had a part in the equipment and training for 
 his work.
 
 At Good Old SiwasK* 
 
 LITTLE did I think, during the countless occasions on which I 
 have skipped blithely over the preface of a book in order to 
 plunge into the plot, that I should be called upon to write a preface 
 myself some day. And little have I realized until just now the ex- 
 treme importance to the author of having his preface read. 
 
 I want this preface to be read, though I have an uneasy pre- 
 monition that it is going to be skipped as joyously as ever I skipped 
 a preface myself. I want the reader to toil through my preface in 
 order to save him the task of trying to follow a plot through this 
 book. For if he attempts to do this he will most certainly dislocate 
 something about himself very seriously. I have found it impossible 
 In writing of college days, which are just one deep-laid scheme after 
 another, to confine myself to one plot. How could I describe in one 
 plot the life of the student who carries out an average of three plots 
 a day? It is unreasonable. So I have done the next best thing. 
 There is a plot in every chapter. This requires the use of upwards 
 of a dozen villains, an almost equal number of heroes, and a whole 
 bouquet of heroines. But I do not begrudge the extravagance. It 
 is necessary, and that settles it. 
 
 Then again, I want to answer in this preface a number of ques- 
 tions by readers who kindly consented to become interested in the 
 stories when they appeared in the Saturday Evening Post. Siwasli 
 isn't Michigan in disguise. It isn't Kansas. It isn't Knox. It isn't 
 Minnesota. It isn't Tuskegee, Texas, or Tufts. It is just Siwash 
 College. I built it myself with a typewriter out of memories, le- 
 gends and contributed tales from a score of colleges. I have tried 
 to locate it myself a dozen times, but I can't. I have tried to place 
 my thumb on it firmly and say, "There, darn you, stay put." But 
 no halfback was ever so elusive as this infernal college. Just as I 
 have it definitely located on the Knox College campus, which I my- 
 self once infested, I look up to find it on the Kansas prairies. I sur- 
 round it with infinite caution and attempt to nail it down there. In- 
 
 * The Preface to Mr. Fitch's book is here reprinted with the cordial per- 
 mission of Little, Brown & Company, publishers of "At Good Old Siwash" 
 and "Petey Simmons at Siwash."
 
 stead, I find it in Minnesota with a strong Norwegian accent running 
 through the course of study. Worse than that, I often find it in two 
 or three places at once. It is harder to corner than a flea. I never 
 saw such a peripatetic school. 
 
 That is only the least of my troubles, too. The college itself is 
 never twice the same. Sometimes I am amazed at its size and per- 
 fection, by the grandeur of its gymnasium and the colossal lines of 
 its stadium. But at other times I cannot find the stadium at all, and 
 the gymnasium has shrunk until it looks amazingly like the old 
 wooden barn in which we once built up Sandow biceps at Knox. I 
 never saw such a college to get lost in, either. I know as well as 
 anything that to get to the Eta Bita Pie house, you go north from 
 the old bricks, past the new science hall and past Browning Hall. 
 But often when I start north from the campus, I find my way 
 blocked by the stadium, and when I try to dodge it, I run into the 
 Alfalfa Delt House, and the Eatemalive boarding club, and other 
 places which belong properly to the south. And when I go south I 
 frequently lose sight of the college altogether and can't for the life 
 of me remember what the library tower looks like or whether the 
 theological school is just falling down or is to be built next year; or 
 whether I ought to turn to my right and ask for directions at Prex- 
 ie's house, or turn to my left and crawl under a freight train which 
 blocks a crossing on the Hither, Yonder and Elsewhere Railroad. 
 If you think it is an easy task to carry a whole college in your head 
 without getting it jumbled, just try it a while. 
 
 Then again, the Siwash people puzzle me. Professor Grubb is 
 always a trial. That man alternates a smooth-shaven face with a 
 full beard in the most startling manner. Petey Simmons is short and 
 flaxen-haired, long and black-haired, and wide and hatchet-faced in 
 turns, depending on the illustrator. I never know Ole Skjarsen 
 when I see him for the same reason. As for Prince Hogboom, Allie 
 Bangs, Keg Rearick and the rest of them, nobody knows how they 
 look but the artists who illustrated the stories ; and as I read each 
 number and viewed the smiling faces of these students, I murmured, 
 "Goodness, how you have changed!" 
 
 So I have struggled along as best I could to administer the af- 
 fairs of a college which is located nowhere, has no student body, has 
 no endowment, never looks the same twice, and cannot be reached 
 by any reliable route. The situation is impossible. I must locate it 
 somewhere. If you are interested in the college when you have read 
 these few stories, suppose you hunt for it wherever college boys are 
 
 10
 
 full of applied deviltry and college girls are distractingly fair; 
 where it is necessary to win football games in order to be half-way 
 contented with the universe ; where the spring weather is too won- 
 derful to be wasted on College Algebra or History of Art ; and 
 where, whatever you do, or whoever you like, or however you live, 
 you can't forget it, no matter how long you work or worry after- 
 ward. 
 
 There ! I can't mark it on the map, but if you have ever wor- 
 ried a college faculty you'll know the way. 
 
 GEORGE FITCH 
 
 July, 1911 
 
 National Politics at Knox in 1896 
 
 By WILLIAM MATHER LEWIS, Ex-'OO 
 
 THE political campaign of 1896 at Knox was an event of more 
 than passing importance ; not only did it mark the overthrow of 
 standpat Republican methods, it likewise dragged the shrinking 
 T. R. from the obscurity of the New York police office into the 
 White House lime light and brought George Fitch into prominence 
 as a newspaper cartoonist. 
 
 When a College mock-election was proposed it appeared on the 
 surface that the Republicans in the student body were overwhelm- 
 ingly in the majority. However, Presson Thomson, George Fitch 
 and J. L. Lewis, aided and abetted by a number of fervid "preps," 
 got their heads together with the laudable purpose of correcting such 
 a deadening condition and organized what was known as the Feder- 
 alist Party, choosing Roosevelt to run against McKinley. 
 
 The Republicans went into the campaign with all seriousness. 
 Hon. John R. Tanner and other political lights addressed their mass 
 meetings and real brass bands discoursed near-music. The Fed- 
 eralists, loyal to the plain living (if not to the high thinking tradi- 
 tions of Knox) realized that imported spell binders and professional 
 musicians were beyond their means and so decided to reach the great 
 voting public in a less costly way. 
 
 Each night thereafter until the close of the campaign a self- 
 elected editorial staff would labor long and loudly in the production 
 of a daily paper, copies of which were struck off on a mimeograph 
 
 11
 
 and placed in the hands of the students each morning. On the front 
 page of this fleeting publication there always appeared a drawing 
 with the word Fitch scrawled in the lower right hand corner. Those 
 of us who are fortunate enough to possess a file of that crude little 
 sheet still chuckle as we behold the collapse of the Republican ele- 
 phant and the glorification of Teddy so graphically pictured by 
 Fitch. 
 
 There is no question that these humorous sketches, even more 
 then than the barrel-house methods used on election day, were re- 
 sponsible for the great Federalist victory which was thus immor- 
 talized in the Swan-song of the paper on the "morning after." 
 
 "Little folded ballots 
 Falling in the box 
 Show the world that Willie 
 Cuts no ice at Knox." 
 
 Dear old George Fitch, sans coat and collar, crowded in the 
 corner of an eight-by-ten bed room drawing for dear life while 
 around him the staff "chortles" over its own wit. Thus I see him 
 still and wonder if perchance a little turn of fate might not have 
 made him a famous cartoonist, as nature and nobility of character 
 made him a loved writer, a writer who lived better than he wrote. 
 
 Ye Book III of Ye CKronicles* 
 
 AND IT CAME TO PASS in the days of Ernest, surnamed 
 Tilden, that the men of Adelphi were inspired with a mighty 
 desire to dabble in politics and straightway they gat themselves over 
 against the east wing of the Alumni Hall even unto the Gnothautians 
 and unto the Zeteticians and the E. O. Dans, and said, "Let us hold 
 an election after the manner of the mighty men of our land." And 
 it was so that the plan seemed good unto the Gnothautians, the 
 Zeteticians and the E. O. Dans, and they did straightway arrange 
 the preliminaries thereof. 
 
 Now they that were called Republicans were mighty above all 
 others and they did greatly rejoice saying, "Surely there shall be to 
 us a walk-over." And each one did thereupon wager his talent that 
 there might be returned to him two talents. But there were in the 
 Republican camp two that held themselves aloof and did say, "Ver- 
 
 * In the '97 Gale, Mr. Fitch had this lively narrative of the political 
 campaign, described in the article by Mr. Lewis. 
 
 12
 
 ily our brethren are become corrupt. Let us go hence and seek 
 strange gods." 
 
 Now the thing was told in the ears of Thomson, the second, 
 called Tomec, and he straightway fell a musing about the space of a 
 chapel talk. And Tomec arose and girded up his loins and said, 
 "Go to, now. I would fain go Democratic by a large majority, were 
 it expedient. But that those men of Belial, the Republicans, triumph 
 not over us utterly, I am resolved what I will do." So Tomec 
 went, and joined the reformers, and they took unto themselves Clay- 
 berg and Lewis, called Jakey, and Bill his brother. So these men 
 did privily lurk for the unwary of the Republican fold and they did 
 beguile many by their craftiness from the straight and narrow way 
 of their fathers. And they raised over themselves a new banner, 
 and on it a new name. And they called themselves Federalists and 
 Roosevelt, the policeman, was their leader. 
 
 Now there was in the ranks of the Republicans one Cardiff, a 
 mighty man of valor, wise in all the learning of the politicians. Now 
 when Cardiff, which is also called Pat, heard of what was done, he 
 was wroth, and swore with an exceeding great cuss. And he lifted 
 up his voice on high and called mightily unto all the Republicans to 
 stand fast and quit themselves like men. Yea, he did verily organize 
 his forces, and Latimer of the town of Abingdon was set over them, 
 and they did write upon their banner the name of McKinley, a wise 
 man of the East. Moreover, Cardiff did bestir himself and sought 
 out one John, a Tanner, a man much honored among the Republi- 
 cans of the country, who should make his men a speech. Likewise 
 did Latimer, which is called Johnny, also call upon one Carr which 
 had sojourned in a far country and was accounted wise by the towns- 
 folk, and upon others of fame in the land which did teach and ex- 
 hort with many and divers words. 
 
 Now Tomec and his men had seen the doings of Cardiff and 
 they did also get into the push. For they did publish a paper on 
 each day, in the morning, in the which were said many things both 
 true and false which should bring down laughter upon the heads of 
 Cardiff and his men. 
 
 So the day set for the voting drew on apace. And when it was 
 fully come, then did Tomec, in fear lest his men were not enough, 
 gather in many from the highways and hedges. And the men of 
 Cardiff also sought how they might bring to naught the purposes of 
 the Mugwumps. So the battle began. And it was equal for a time. 
 Nor could any say to whom it would go. But when the men of Car- 
 
 13
 
 diff were hard pressed by the new men of Tomec which he had gath- . 
 ered in, then did Ernest, which is called Tilden, swear a great oath 
 and bring in many men of divers races that they might overcome the 
 hordes of Tomec. Howbeit when the battle was come to an end it 
 was so that the men of Tomec had slain more than the men of Car- 
 diff. And Cardiff groaned with a great groan and rent his clothes 
 and did sit in sackcloth and ashes. And Tilden did kick himself 
 with no small vigor that he had sworn in vain. 
 
 But the men of Tomec raised a great shout and did run to bear 
 the tidings to the city. And Thomson which is called Tomec, and 
 Fitch the postmaster's son, and Bill the brother of Lewis which is 
 called Jakey, did neither eat nor sleep until they had gotten out an 
 edition of the Federalist with a rooster on it. 
 
 Here endeth the chronicle. Selah. 
 
 PAGES -17 AND 48 OF THE 1897 GALE 
 
 George FitcK 
 
 By WILBUR D. NESBIT 
 
 Dead ! With the laugh still on his lips ! 
 
 Dead? With a jest on his last breath! 
 Ah, but the joy that brimmed his quips 
 
 Laughed in the empty face of death. 
 
 Dead? Is the sunshine hidden quite 
 
 Through the dull cartain blinds and bars? 
 
 No ! He is laughing in the night, 
 Lending new gladness to the stars.
 
 Reporting for One Evening Mail 
 
 By FRANCIS H. SISSON, '92 
 
 IT was my privilege to be associated with George Fitch in both his 
 start and finish as a daily newspaper man. While I was editor of 
 the Galesburg Evening Mail, in the late '90's, a slender and 
 physically unimpressive youth forced himself upon me with the re- 
 quest that he be given the position on our staff as correspondent in 
 Knox College. He introduced himself as the son of his father, 
 whom I knew as editor of the Galva News, and explained to me his 
 ambition to be a writer if possible. 
 
 He failed to impress me with this first request for a position, 
 but he persisted in the idea throughout his college year, dropping in 
 occasionally to call upon me, evidently loving the smell of printers' 
 ink and longing to live in its atmosphere. His persistence, his evi- 
 dent sincerity, and his family background finally won him his wish, 
 and George Fitch became the Knox College correspondent of the 
 Galesburg Evening Mail as his first daily newspaper assignment. 
 
 He was not at first a particularly good news gatherer or news 
 writer. His handwriting was quite illegible and his typewriting 
 almost as bad, so it required a considerable measure of patience on 
 my part to struggle along with what seemed like rather unpromising 
 material. But the boy's modest, gentle spirit, sweet sense of humor, 
 and quaint outlook on life rather won me and I kept him at his job 
 with such guidance as I was able to give, but with more or less in- 
 different results. 
 
 He was much more interested in the humor and the color of the 
 life about him than in collecting and narrating its prosaic facts. 
 
 The summer vacation came on, and as he was handy I kept him 
 on the staff as a regular reporter and again with only ordinary re- 
 sults. He found it difficult to get names and initials and all the little 
 petty details of small city journalism accurately fixed in his mind. 
 His interest was elsewhere in the people and events themselves, 
 which he was slowly learning to interpret. 
 
 He was such an agreeable companion, so distinctly original in 
 his views and comment on things in general, that his presence in the 
 office was always a pleasure, and I had the undefined sense that here 
 
 15
 
 was a mine of unexplored riches which somehow I ought to be able 
 to tap. I remember recalling the historic incident when Editor 
 Stone of the Peoria Transcript, discharged Bob Burdette as a cub 
 reporter on his staff because Bob's sole news contribution from his 
 morning "beat" was a picturesque story of a dog fight; and that Bob 
 Burdette, joining the staff of the Burlington Hazvkeye, made that 
 newspaper famous and prosperous for a generation. 
 
 There came a day when the Afro-American Bicycle Riders of 
 the middle west held a racing meet on the famous Williams Race 
 Track in Galesburg, which at that time held the world's trotting 
 and pacing records. Not regarding the event of sufficient news value 
 to waste a "good" reporter on it, I sent; George Fitch, with more or 
 less indifference as to the result. 
 
 That night he laid a story on my desk that I never shall forget. 
 It broke the spell of the daily grind and brought to me with a start 
 the sudden realization that here was a new American humorist. His 
 story, printed as written, was a sensation, and his efforts were im- 
 mediately detached from the dull routine of weddings and funerals 
 and assigned to work for which his unusual gifts adapted him. 
 
 In the journalistic atmosphere which had produced Eugene 
 Field, Bob Burdette, S. S. McClure, John S. Phillips, and Earnest 
 Calkins, George started a "column" of original verse, anecdotes, 
 comment, and humor, which was soon the talk of the town and of 
 observing editors far and wide. 
 
 I left Galesburg and George left Galesburg. His work as a 
 paragrapher continued successfully, but I saw larger possibilities in 
 store for him and a few years later invited him to become editor of 
 the Peoria, 111., Transcript, in which I had an interest. There he 
 began to come into his own, not only as an editor, but as a writer of 
 humorous narrative and philosophy about the people and places he 
 had come to know so well. 
 
 One day there appeared in his paper a column story of the pre- 
 sentation of "Parsifal" by the Chicago G'and Opera Company. It 
 was a humorous classic. I sent a clipping to the editor of the New 
 York Sun, and it was reprinted by that paper on the editorial page 
 next day and widely copied. It was evident that George Fitch was 
 coming to his own and that here was a new writer of unusual talent 
 knocking at the doors of public recognition. 
 
 It was my pleasure to suggest the faith I had in his possibilities 
 to several New York magazine editors, who were quick to realize his 
 
 worth and began to bid for his work. 
 
 
 
 16
 
 To what heights lie might have attained had longer life been 
 granted him, I shall not undertake to say, but I believe there was no 
 successful writer of his day who so intimately understood and who 
 so skillfully interpreted the great, simple life of the Middle West, 
 its people, and its institutions, as George Fitch. 
 
 Not only did his friends and literature suffer irreparable loss in 
 his death, but his country also. The same intense loyalty which 
 characterized his friendships was found in his love for his country 
 and its institutions, which was reflected in an almost passionate de- 
 votion to every cause and movement that he believed made for pro- 
 gress. 
 
 For those of us who knew him well, the memory of his simplic- 
 ity, sincerity, and sweet sanity will always remain. He was destined 
 to do great things in literature and life, to be one of America's 
 greatest humorists, and one of her most useful citizens. 
 
 WKy Humorists are TKin 
 
 (The London Lancet expresses the opinion that all humorists 
 
 are thin) 
 
 They say ye humorist is thin 
 
 And eke of bony frame, 
 That he can never hope to win 
 
 Both fleshiness and fame, 
 His laugh may ring in merry tones 
 Yet, though he serves both huts and thrones, 
 He's just a wilderness of bones 
 
 A starting through the skin. 
 
 Folks wonder how a funny theme 
 
 An antifat can be 
 And yet forsooth it doesn't seem 
 
 So very strange to me, 
 For though he writes, his bread to win, 
 He's paid in laughs instead of "tin," 
 Good God ! Ye humorist is thin 
 
 Because he has to be ! 
 
 By George Ftich, "Froilcs of the Type" 
 
 n
 
 " Frolics of $ie T$pe 
 
 SO far as I know, the earliest writings of George Fitch to receive 
 publication between covers, are to be found and it may be 
 difficult now to find them in two thin volumes bound in sober black 
 with gilt lettering on the front, entitled, "Frolics of the Type." 
 These two booklets contained selections from the "column" which 
 Fitch was then conducting in the Nonpareil, together with para- 
 graphs and sketches contributed by him. I remember that as he 
 gave them to me he said he had had them printed for some unfor- 
 tunate, a cripple, I believe, who made his living by selling copies on 
 the trains in and out of Council Bluffs. The "Frolics" were George's 
 contribution to philanthropy. While there is little of importance in 
 these pages some interest attaches to them as examples of Mr. 
 Fitch's early newspaper work, and now and then a flash of charac- 
 teristic wit gives promise of the humor of later years. A few of 
 these early sketches are therefore included here. 
 
 W. E. S. 
 
 INTERVIEW WITH WU 
 
 The Frolics Man had a short interview with Wu Ting Fang 
 yesterday while that dignitary was passing through the town. While 
 not of national import the result was exciting enough to make inter- 
 esting reading. 
 
 "How do you do," said Wu when the F. M. had introduced him- 
 self. "So you are a newspaper man, are you? How much do you 
 get?" 
 
 The weekly total was named, 
 
 "Not enough, not enough," said Wu impatiently. "How do you 
 support your family?" 
 
 The F. M. confessed that he had neglected to acquire that lux- 
 ury. 
 
 "No family!" said Wu in some amazement. "Tut, tut, young 
 man, you're old enough. Will no one have you?" 
 
 The F. M. said with some confusion that he didn't know. 
 
 "The chances would be against you," said Wu, surveying his 
 interviewer critically. "But have you asked no one?" 
 
 18
 
 The F. M. was slowly frying in his blushes. 
 
 "How do you spend your salary if you are not married?" 
 
 The F. M. replied with dignity that he spent what he could and 
 packed the rest away in barrels. 
 
 "You should be married," said Wu anxiously. "Promise me 
 you will do it at once." 
 
 There was an open window handy but the train was moving 
 across the bridge. The F. M. sank back with a sigh. 
 
 "Some one will take you if you persevere," said Wu cheerfully. 
 "Don't neglect it now. And tell them to double your salary. You 
 will need it. Goodbye." 
 
 Minister Wu is a delightful man but there is an element of per- 
 sonality in his conversation that is at times a little embarrassing. 
 We have complied with his last injunction, however. 
 
 OPENED IT RIGHT 
 
 The First Methodist church at Alton, 111., has been having lots 
 of trouble with its new pipe organ. It is a magnificent new instru- 
 ment, full of the latest devices for praising the Lord in fortissimo 
 and open diapason and it cost $5,000. At the opening concert a 
 long-haired genius from St. Louis presided at the organ and in the 
 midst of a pandemonium in E flat by Vogner. he pulled out the cy- 
 clone stop, the vox humana stop, turned on full organ and opened 
 the 16-horse power pipe that superintends the thunder department. 
 
 It was divine. Women shrieked and fainted, the chandeliers 
 swung and jangled, and the sun crawled under a cloud and stayed 
 there three hours. Everyone said that there had never been such 
 Vogner played in Alton. There were crashing, splitting effects in 
 it that had never been yanked out of a pipe organ before. It was 
 found later on, however, that the crashing, splitting effects were 
 caused by the plaster in the ante-rooms which had given away under 
 the strain; and the next day the rest of the handsome frescoed in- 
 terior fell with another grand, inspiring Vognerian bang. 
 
 The Pelee stop on the organ is now nailed down securely and 
 the women of the church are giving ice cream socials and oyster 
 suppers in order to raise money for frescoing purposes. And they 
 do say that the program at the next concert will be so light and airy 
 and pin pointy that "Rock of Ages" would sound like a Polish riot 
 beside it, and the Alton people who gather on the outside of the 
 church to hear the program free of charge will go away in disgust. 
 
 19
 
 WHEN ADAM WAS A BOY 
 
 (By Willie) 
 Each day I go to Sunday School 
 
 And there it's lots of fun 
 To learn about what Adam did 
 Back when the world begun. 
 
 I'd like to bin that Adam kid; 
 
 He was a lucky chap, 
 Why, he could do jest as he pleased, 
 
 Say! Wasn't that a snap? 
 
 He didn't have no grandma old 
 To shake her head and say, 
 
 "When I was young, the gals and boys 
 Got whippings every day." 
 
 When he was sick no neighbors came 
 And stroked his head and sighed, 
 
 And said, "My dear, you look just like 
 My little boy that died." 
 
 He didn't have no brother small 
 To squall with all his might, 
 
 And make him stay and rock him when 
 The ice was "out of sight." 
 
 He didn't have no brother big 
 
 To fill him full of woes 
 And, hully gee ! He didn't have 
 
 To wear his pa's old clothes. 
 
 No sister big to box his ears, 
 No aunt to make him work, 
 
 No pa to tan his jacket when 
 At school he chanst to shirk. 
 
 He bossed himself fr'm morn till night, 
 My ! Wouldn't that be joy ! 
 
 I'll tell you things was diff'runt then 
 When Adam was a boy ! 
 
 20
 
 LETTERS FROM THE OLD MAN 
 
 My dear Henry: Your request for $35 for a suit for evening 
 wear so that you can join the glee club has been received and filed 
 away in a cool place where it will keep. You never had any trouble 
 in wearing your middle-of-the-day clothes at night here at home, 
 my boy, and I guess you will have to keep right along in the same 
 old rut for a while. I am getting so that I do not dare to go out 
 except at night when my clothes don't show up so plainly and I 
 guess I am next in line for a new suit. 
 
 It seems to me, Henry, that if you labored as earnestly at 
 your lessons as you do at joining clubs, you would not be put to the 
 necessity of knocking your teacher's eye out. Only last week you 
 asked me for money for several golf clubs, whatever they are. I 
 don't see why you should want to join more than one club of the 
 same sort. Don't you ever get mixed up and give the wrong pass- 
 words? Ezra Toots was thrown out on his head from the Masonic 
 hall last week for trying to get in on the password of the Select and 
 Delirious Knights of Sobriety. 
 
 We would like to supply you with clothes for evening wear and 
 breakfast wear and late-in-the-afternoon wear but tired nature has 
 called a halt. Two months ago you wore a pair of pale blue overalls 
 morning, afternoon and evening and between times, and you would 
 have worn them to church if we had let you. If you keep on at your 
 present gait, Henry, I fear that you will need an asbestos robe 
 sometime. 
 
 Your mother is sending you to-day by express a very satisfac- 
 tory garment for evening wear. If you will put it on about 9 p. m. 
 when you are through studying, and then wiggle in between the 
 sheets of your humble cot and use the night for sleeping purposes 
 we will be pleased and proud. She has taken a good deal of care 
 with the garment and has ruffled it all around as you notice. Don't 
 be afraid to use it extensively. We will send you another when this 
 one wears out. Affectionately, 
 
 YOUR FATHER 
 
 A VERY BAD CASE 
 
 Consider now briefly the fate of a man when the snow cometh. 
 He riseth up while it is yet early and diggeth 911 yards of pathway 
 about the premises. When he cometh in he hath chilblains and a 
 frozen ear which swelleth up like unto an overripe tomato. 
 
 21
 
 Then he goeth up to the town and wadeth through two feet of 
 snow that his neighbor hath left upon the sidewalk. 
 
 His overshoe cometh off and his feet become compassed about 
 with ice and behold, as he passeth a building a hired varlet upon the 
 roof thereof overturneth a small avalanche of snow upon him. 
 
 When he cometh unto his office he hath wet feet and sniffles and 
 it rejoiceth his heart (selah) to find that there is a leak in the roof 
 just over his desk. 
 
 When he cometh home he passeth divers small boys. Where- 
 upon, with one accord, they salute him with great joy and frozen 
 snowballs. 
 
 His new hat is knocked seven ways for Sunday and as he turn- 
 eth to speak reproachfully he mislayeth the sidewalk which was 
 under his feet. 
 
 When he cometh to, it is under his right ear. 
 
 He also findeth that he is sitting upon 20 cents worth of eggs 
 with a $25 overcoat and that he hath splintered his spine and broken 
 seven commandments to say nothing of the eggs. As he reacheth 
 home he striketh the spot where little Willie hath poured water on 
 the step and lo ! he sigheth for more commandments to break. 
 
 When he entereth the house he is shooed out with a broom be- 
 cause of the snow on his boots. 
 
 Later on his wife telleth him that the gutters are full of ice and 
 the water pipes are frozen and that Sallie, the hand-maiden, hath 
 gone sleigh riding, and that Thomas, the son, hath fallen under a 
 bob sled and hath spoiled $7 worth of clothes. 
 
 After supper he picketh up a paper and findeth a poem on 
 "Beautiful Snow," and lo ! he forgetteth the fate of blasphemers 
 and sayeth many things with a great noise. 
 
 THE FAT MAN IN SUMMER 
 (In answer to 1,000,000 inquiries: "Why don't you get fat?") 
 
 The sun's bright rays come blazing down 
 
 Aslant; 
 The small dogs droop about the town 
 
 And pant, 
 
 While gloomily each fat man hot 
 Mops off his brow and says, "Great Scott!" 
 And tries to find a cooler spot, 
 
 But can't. 
 
 22
 
 The sweat rolls off his forehead brown, 
 In drops; 
 
 His polished collar wilts and down- 
 ward flops; 
 
 Unbound, his broad expanse by vest; 
 
 In shirt and trousers he is dressed, 
 
 But for one thing he'd shed the rest 
 The cops. 
 
 He limps on aching and dejected feet, 
 He melts away 'till he's a wreck 
 
 Complete ; 
 
 Upon his doleful way he goes, 
 Encased in soaked and soggy clothes, 
 And brightly red each feature glows 
 
 With heat. 
 
 Ah, who would be a fat man when 
 
 'Tis hot? 
 Or strive to make two hundred-ten 
 
 His lot? 
 
 To puff and pant and wish that he 
 Were dead and out of misery 
 Ah, do we wish for flesh ? Well, we 
 Guess not. 
 
 THE "J'INER" 
 
 Augustus Henry Thompson was to fellowship inclined, 
 
 He loved to meet in mutual love with brothers true and kind. 
 
 There were so many orders that it seemed too hard to choose, 
 
 So he joined the whole assortment and hustled for the dues. 
 
 He belonged to twenty brotherhoods, had hopes of twenty more, 
 
 And he had to stretch his manly breast to hold the pins he wore. 
 
 He was a Modern Woodman and a knight of high degree 
 In the temple of the Masons and likewise the K. of P. ; 
 He was an Elk and Eagle and a Red Man bold and brave, 
 And once a week an evening to the Maccabees he gave; 
 He has joined the A. O. H.'s and the jolly J. I. G.'s, 
 And had in an application to the great R. S. V. P.'s.
 
 It took Augustus Henry lots of time to do it right, 
 For he was a loyal lodgeman and he never missed a night. 
 He was Chief Sublime Tarara in the Royal Happy Herd ; 
 He was Rajah of another bunch, and Pooh-Bah of a third; 
 He had swords to arm a legion and regalia by the mile 
 It kept Augustus humping, but he did the thing in style. 
 
 Yes, he was a valiant lodgeman, and it was with genteel woe 
 That his brothers heard of his demise, a month or so ago. 
 Poor Thompson met a tragic end. One evening, it appears, 
 He was sick and went home early for the first time in ten years ; 
 And when his wife awoke and found him standing by the bed, 
 She thought it was a burglar, and she shot Augustus dead. 
 
 JOHN HENRY AT THE DENTIST'S 
 
 Last night while I was off behind the Samoan islands some- 
 where dreaming about 35 knots an hour, something grabbed me by 
 a nerve in the base of my jaw and yanked me back to the United 
 States and up against the head of my bed. It was worse than ten 
 thousand shipwrecks. I held an investigation and found a large 
 molar on the rear balcony of my upper jaw in a state of violent 
 eruption. It would ache steadily for about two minutes and would 
 then give a throb that would jerk me half way over the foot of the 
 bed. It was very painful indeed. I sat up all night holding onto 
 my jaw and reciting little selections, both sacred and profane. 
 
 This morning when I looked in the mirror I found myself 
 bulged all out of shape. Still I was relieved. During the night I 
 thought that the tooth was about four feet in circumference and red 
 hot. However, the bump on my jaw isn't much bigger than a cob- 
 blestone. I am going down to the dentist's this afternoon and have 
 him talk to the tooth with his little gas tongs. I love my teeth as 
 well as anyone, but I can't sit up with this one another night. 
 
 I took my inflated tooth up to the dentist to-day and submitted 
 it to him for inspection. Of course the usual thing happened. Just 
 as I struck the top step leading to the office I found that I had mis- 
 laid the toothache on the way. However, I wasn't to be fooled. 
 There was only one stairway and I knew it would be waiting for me 
 at the bottom. So I went in. I was bitterly disappointed. The 
 dentist was there and had nothing to do. It was almost a personal 
 
 24
 
 affront. If it had been anyone but Jenkins who knows me I would 
 have passed myself off as a bill collector. 
 
 The dentist crowded me into his little old undersized barber 
 chair and tilted me over until he could see the rafters of my mouth. 
 Then he took a steel crochet hook and felt around the tooth until he 
 found a spot that made me try to jump over the instrument tray. 
 This seemed to satisfy him. At least he stopped prodding and told 
 me I would have to have the tooth filled; that it was probably 
 clamped around my jaw and could not be pulled without bringing 
 out more of my back bone than I could spare. He really didn't have 
 to apologize for not pulling it but he seemed to think so. 
 
 I am to come back to-morrow at 3 and have an 18-carat gold 
 filling put in. I was for silver without the consent of any other na- 
 tion on earth, but he said no. Gold would be better. In the mean- 
 time he is killing the nerve. This is a mistake, I think. I haven't 
 any too much nerve anyway and it has been failing steadily ever 
 since I made the date. Teeth are a confounded bore. Sometimes 
 I envy the hen even, though she has no educational advantages. 
 
 The nerve in my tooth passed away this afternoon. I never 
 saw anything die so hard. It began its death struggle shortly after 
 I got home yesterday afternoon and every jump jarred my medulla 
 oblongata. Picture if you can a forty-acre melon patch full of 
 cholera morbus with a little strychnine mixed in and then crowd all 
 that pain down into one small 2x4 tooth ! It writhed and squirmed 
 all night, pulling me over the foot of the bed a couple of times and 
 only passed into a comatose condition early this afternoon. It's 
 wonderful what a rumpus a little nerve can kick up when it is irri- 
 tated. I have nicknamed this nerve "Senator Smoot." 
 
 When I landed at the dentist's this afternoon he was very sym- 
 pathetic. The nerve was dead, he said, and now the rest was easy. 
 First he would drill into me about a foot, he said, and pull out the 
 nerve and then he would enlarge the chasm and build me a beauti- 
 ful monument of gold enough of it to salt a Utah mining claim. It 
 would be very easy he told me. Then he asked me to please open 
 my mouth. I had it opened so wide that my front teeth had become 
 tangled with the back of the chair, but he didn't seem to notice it. 
 
 Picking out a drill with a nasty looking burr on the end, my 
 friend, Mr. Jenkins, turned on the motor, made a flourish and started 
 to work. First he bored a perpendicular shaft down through the 
 tooth into my neck. I tried to tell him to look out or he would dull 
 
 25
 
 his augur on my collar button, but I got my tongue on the buzzer 
 and decided not to talk any more. It would be his loss anyway and 
 I didn't give a durn what happened to him. Just as I had given up 
 hope he pulled out the drill. I waited to see him lower a bucket to 
 haul out the debris but he didn't do it. I asked him if he had struck 
 any pay dirt yet and if he thought my backbone had a cavity in it, 
 too. He only smiled. 
 
 "I was just clearing away the decayed stuff," he said. "I 
 haven't begun yet." Then he pulled up his sleeves, geared up the 
 motor a notch and began to bore laterals. He would bore sideways 
 a foot or two into my cheek and then he would turn on a cold blast 
 to see me squirm. Finally while he was resting another patient 
 came in and I escaped. He thinks I am coming in to-morrow but I 
 am not. I am going to sub-let the job to a prospecting com 
 
 I have just returned from the dentist again. My mind is wan- 
 dering a good deal and I do not know all that has happened but I 
 will try to set it down as nearly as possible. 
 
 When I went back to the dentist he was eight feet high and had 
 fangs and a tail. He grinned at me, threw me into a chair and 
 opened my mouth until he could look down and criticize the archi- 
 tecture of my floating ribs. Then he brought out a burr bigger than 
 all the others, rubbed arsenic, nitrogylcerin and tobasco sauce on it 
 and jabbed it into my quivering molar. He would bore until the 
 drill got red hot. Then he would soothe the tooth with ice water 
 and swab it out with a hornet's nest. When he got tired of boring 
 he would take a cold chisel and hack away, talking cheerfully mean- 
 while, and ever and anon bringing up little pieces of vest and back- 
 bone with a grapling hook as an evidence of good faith. He ran 
 laterals, lower levels, entries and working chambers in that tooth. 
 He put in a pump and sunk an air shaft. He drilled down into each 
 root and into the jaw, finally he gave a shout of triumph. "Pay 
 dirt," he cried. But no. It was only my watch he had drilled into. 
 
 This made him furious. My mind began to wander at this 
 point. He threw away the drill and took a pick. He tried a hand- 
 saw. He put in a blast. He timbered the cavity to prevent caving 
 and filled it with boiling water. He enlarged it until he could put 
 in his head and look around. It was full of bumble bees and little 
 devils with red hot toes, each one dancing on a nerve. He shouted 
 with glee. He lined it with corns and danced on a nerve. He 
 stirred up the devils and bumble bees together, mixed them with re- 
 
 26
 
 morse and forty-rod whisky, and cambric needles, and cactus thorns, 
 and wall-eyed tarantulas, and then waded in himself with a pitch- 
 fork and three bomb shells. 
 
 And then I went home. My hour was up. 
 
 The dentist finished my tooth to-day. When he had finished 
 drilling out the cavity he gagged me with a sheet of rubber so that 
 I couldn't call for the police. I waited for him to back a truck load 
 of gold down into the cavity and send for a pile driver. Instead he 
 took out a little chunk with a pair of tweezers. I thought he had 
 drilled a hole as big as a marble quarry, but it didn't turn out to be 
 much bigger than a barrel. 
 
 Jenkins was very gentle at first. He put in a little dab of gold 
 and beat it with a toy hammer. Later he took a mallet and then he 
 used a sledge. Then he took a hydraulic hammer and beat upon the 
 bottom of my brain pan until reason tottered on her perch. He kept 
 this up until I had figured that it must be about May, 1908. Fin- 
 ally he stopped. 
 
 "It's filled," he said. 
 
 I was satisfied and wanted to go home. But he wouldn't have 
 it. He was a neat workman and didn't like to do a botchy job. So 
 he put an emery stone in my mouth and ground down the corners. 
 Then he filed and sandpapered the tooth and went over it with an 
 adz and bung starter. Finally he heated it red hot, annealed the 
 filling, welded it to the roots, brazed the roots back onto the jaw, 
 tempered the mainspring, put in a lightning rod, wired it for gas 
 and electricity, perfumed and bug powdered it, tuned it, polished it 
 and put his name plate in the corner. Then he took his knee out of 
 my stomach. 
 
 "All through," he said, "five dollars." 
 
 I wanted to give him five days instead, but he insisted on the 
 money, so I paid him. I carried my tooth home with me and am 
 getting used to it. I would rather eat with a nail keg concealed in 
 my jaw, but I suppose this crowded out feeling will die out after a 
 while. But I am resolved on one thing. When I awake with an- 
 other toothache I am going to take an ax and separate myself from 
 the tooth. 
 
 JOHN HENRY 
 
 27
 
 Vest Pocket Essays 
 
 By GEORGE FITCH 
 
 CONCERNING BABIES 
 
 A baby is a large volume of noise entirely surrounded by safety 
 pins. 
 
 The baby itself is not large, however. It rarely weighs more 
 than an unabridged dictionary, and is very fragile to look at. But 
 even the smallest baby can make a noise which will cause an old 
 bachelor three blocks away to tear the picture of Roosevelt from the 
 wall, and stamp on it. 
 
 This is because a baby deals exclusively in noise. He does noth- 
 ing and thinks of nothing but making noise. Men who have become 
 great by sticking to one thing and learning all about it, claim that 
 specialization is a new idea, but for over 6,000 years babies have 
 specialized in noise and their success is more impressive than that of 
 Edison or Hans Wagner. 
 
 Babies are very young and have no pasts to speak of. They 
 are greatly beloved by all who know them, not because of what they 
 say, but because of what they do not say. Babies do not tell ancient 
 stories to their friends or give them advice, or talk politics when they 
 want to read a good book or tell them that the country is going to the 
 dogs or ask them for $5.00 till pay day. As babies grow older, they 
 talk more and lose a few friends each year. A young boy baby is 
 frantically beloved by hundreds of women, but after he is grown up, 
 and has learned conversation in all its branches, he is lucky if he can 
 keep one woman fond of him long enough to die married. 
 
 Babies are great diplomats. A baby can induce a strong man 
 to get up at night and prance all over the place in his pajamas, 
 though the man would positively refuse to do it for his wife or his 
 employer, or the President of the United States. Men who have 
 never sung a note in their lives and would fight at the suggestion 
 from anyone else, will sing half the night when requested to do so 
 
 This is a typical Vest Pocket Essay and is considered by Mrs. Fitch as 
 perhaps the best of the series Mr. Fitch wrote for the George Mathew 
 Adams Syndicate. 
 
 28
 
 by a mere baby with no particular eloquence at its command. Babies 
 are the greatest gamble in the world. It costs $5,000 to raise a 
 baby, and you never can tell whether it is going to be worth $5,000 
 or 30 cents when it grows up. However, if it is a girl, you can al- 
 most always find some young man to take a chance on her in that 
 other great gamble matrimony. 
 
 Babies are very feeble and could 1 be completely demolished by 
 a strong man. Yet they often live for 95 years, which is more than 
 any strong man can do. But babies do not smoke cigars, drink cock- 
 tails or eat nineteen griddle cakes at a sitting. Feed a baby on lob- 
 ster Newberg and it would soon fade away. Strong men grow old 
 and feeble on beefsteak, while small babies grow big and strong on 
 milk alone. There are three kinds of babies cow babies,- tin babies 
 and home talent babies. 
 
 Babies are not often given the consideration they are entitled 
 to. Among to-day's babies are the presidents of 1960, the steel kings 
 of 1950, the baseball stars of 1940, the aviators of 1930 and the 
 golf champions of 1935. 
 
 29
 
 "Pete"* 
 
 By GEORGE FITCH 
 
 One warm day late in the spring two years ago I was walking 
 down the street from my home with an interior stuffed and distended 
 with dissatisfaction. Friends rushed by in new cars and waved 
 cheerfully at me. Families sailed by in old cars, happy and foot- 
 loose. Rich men tore long, jagged holes in the atmosphere in their 
 portable volcanoes, and contented workingmen chugged along in cars 
 which they had made themselves out of binder wheels and garden 
 hose and twine. The whole world was on wheels excepting myself. 
 I was turning this bitter thought over and over and getting more in- 
 clined to move to Mars every minute, when I passed a man who was 
 beating an automobile by the roadside with a monkey wrench. 
 
 I call it an automobile merely from politeness. Persons skilled 
 in machinery could readily see that it had once been an automobile, 
 but the layman would never have suspected it. It was such a weary, 
 decrepit, dirty, ill-kept, down-trodden little brute that my heart went 
 out with pity to it. Its top was old and ragged. Its lamps were 
 broken. Its paint was gone. Its hood was bent in a dozen places. 
 Two tires were disintegrating. Everywhere it had been repaired 
 with wire. For less than two years it had served its brutal master 
 I knew him and remembered when he bought it and he had used it 
 up almost as badly as old Simon Legree used up Uncle Tom. It was 
 pitiful. The little car was exhausted, racked, almost unable to stand. 
 Yet I knew that as soon as its owner had finished teating it he would 
 drive it full speed down the hard stone pavement again and maybe 
 run it into a hitching post, as I had seen him do the fall before. As 
 
 * Mrs. Fitch was asked, "What writing of George's do you like best? 
 What did he consider his best work?" She answered: "I suggest one of 
 the less well known articles that he wrote, which is a great favorite of mine. 
 It was really the first draft and blocking out of a projected book on "Pete." 
 There was no special article that we liked better than another; generally 
 it was the latest one which we were fondest of. As a whole we both con- 
 sidered the "Homeburg Memories" as his best work as far as he had gone." 
 
 "Pete" was published in the National Weekly, January 13, 1913. 
 
 80
 
 I watched him, my great idea came to me. I would buy this little car. 
 
 It was a desperate idea, but I was a desperate man. I was tired 
 of seeing second-hand delight and breathing second-hand fumes. 
 For years my bank account had been engaged in a stern chase witli 
 the price of automobiles, with the latter always hull down ahead. 
 Every time I had saved $100, the price of good cars had gone up 
 $250. On that day I had $400 in the bank. It might buy this little 
 ruin and kindly treatment might restore the car to health. If I 
 couldn't run it I could at least carry the starting plug around and 
 pose as a car owner among strangers. 
 
 I tried to resist my idea. But I couldn't. It had me by the 
 throat. Before I knew what I was doing I had asked the man if he 
 wanted to sell his car. 
 
 "Sell this conglomeration of revolving junk!" said he somewhat 
 wildly. "Say, if I found anyone who wanted to buy this madhouse 
 masterpiece, this movable ruin, this four-thousand-degree-in-the- 
 shade parody on a rheumatic garbage wagon, I'd knock him down 
 before he could change his mind." 
 
 "What will you take for it?" I asked, breathing hard and 
 clutching my check book. "Will you sell it for $300?" I asked ner- 
 vously. 
 
 "Three hund " said the owner. Then he stopped. He seemed 
 to be fighting for breath. "You say, are you offering me three 
 hundred dollars for this car?" 
 
 I blushed all over. But I really hadn't tried to cheat him. He 
 had a perfect right to refuse it. "I'll give you $400 and not a cent 
 more," I said with dignity. 
 
 He looked at me for a minute with a far-away look, like a man 
 who is fighting a great battle with himself. I saw then that he loved 
 the little car and I felt sorry for him. But he did not deserve to 
 own it and I refused to weaken. I hauled out my check book. 
 
 "I'll let you have it," he finally said in a smothered voice. "If 
 I didn't take your money, somebody else would." 
 
 "I've got to examine it first," I said in a businesslike manner. 
 
 "Go ahead," said the owner dejectedly. I walked around the 
 car four or five times, looking at it intensely. I counted the wheels. 
 I got into it and grasped the steering wheel. It turned like a reg- 
 ular wheel. I felt of the tires and twiddled the crank handle. Then 
 having exhausted my knowledge of automobiles, I said I was satis- 
 fied, and bought the car. The owner bullied it into starting and 
 drove me home, instructing me profusely in its disposition all the 
 
 31
 
 way. I gave him a check. He gave me a receipt and went away, 
 leaving me a little bit dazed. He seemed a little bit dazed, too. 
 
 I was an automobile owner. Considering what I had bought, 
 this statement seemed presumptuous, but I was stubborn about it. 
 Practically I was an extensive fool who had spent his savings for a 
 
 mechanical invalid. 
 But technically I was 
 an automobile owner 
 and entitled to wear 
 the grimy palm and 
 greasy trousers of the 
 craft. And as I looked 
 at the mob of passing 
 cars I swelled up out 
 of a mere sidewalk 
 user into a capitalist, 
 a quarry of the police 
 and a member of the 
 gasoline gang. It was 
 great. I was getting 
 my money's worth al- 
 ready. 
 
 After supper I went 
 out to my car, set the levers as I had been instructed, and cranked a 
 while. I didn't really expect it to go, so I wasn't disappointed when 
 it didn't. I knew it would start for anyone who knew anything about 
 cars. But I couldn't learn enough to start it in several days and I 
 realized that it was going to block traffic a good deal, standing where 
 it was. So I called up my brother who lived in the other end of 
 town and told him I had something interesting to show him. 
 
 My brother is younger than I. In fact I brought him up my- 
 self, by hand and foot, very carefully. But he knows more about 
 automobiles than I do about anything. He was brought up on auto- 
 mobiles. He has driven them, sold them, and has helped- make them. 
 He diagnoses sick automobiles as they pass in the street and he can 
 tell by looking into the radiator of a car what is the matter with its 
 hind axle. He could not afford a machine of his own and the idea 
 occurred to me that he might like to drive mine. I would do any- 
 thing for my brother. I love him dearly. It did me good to think 
 of the pleasure he was going to have. 
 
 When my brother arrived, I led him out to my car. He looked 
 
 GEORGE FITCH IN "PETEY," His FAITHFUL 
 ROADSTER 
 
 32
 
 at it a long while, walking around it and inspecting it very carefully. 
 He was so deliberate it made me impatient. 
 
 "Well," I snapped, "how do you like it?" 
 
 My brother was peering into the thorax of the car, but he 
 emerged as I spoke and rubbed his head with a puzzled air. 
 
 "I don't see where the cobs come out," he said. 
 
 When I had finished telling him that it was an automobile and 
 not a corn sheller, he was greatly interested and looked it all over 
 again. When I told him he could run it if he wanted to, he was 
 much pleased. He took off his coat and borrowed an old pair of 
 trousers from me and inside of ten minutes we were riding around 
 the streets, while I watched every move he made with hawklike 
 eagerness. I didn't care to run it any more, I said; I'd been out all 
 afternoon and it was a pleasure to see him handle the car. It was 
 just a little trick anyway that I had picked up for amusement. I 
 had only paid $400 for it. 
 
 When I said that, my brother gave a loud cry and fell over 
 backward. If I hadn't grabbed the steering wheel we would have 
 been dashed to pieces against the curb. He acted very queerly the 
 rest of the evening, asking me repeatedly if I felt all right and if my 
 head pained me. He even asked me if I thought $350 would be too 
 much for him to pay for a picturesque old lawn mower which was 
 for sale near his home. And he seemed relieved when I asked him 
 if he was crazy. 
 
 The next day I started the car myself and ran it around the 
 town with all my might, full of weird, jumpy bliss. I don't mean 
 the car ran with all its might. I supplied the might. I killed the 
 car whenever I throttled it down and cranked it about once a block. 
 It limped and stuttered, gurgled, howled and squeaked. Its front 
 wheels obeyed the steering wheel about as closely as a fox terrier 
 sticks to his mistress on the street. The clutch only worked occa- 
 sionally. The whole concern was one vast asthmatic rattle. But I 
 didn't care. It ran, and more than a hundred people remarked on 
 the fact with pleased surprise. That night I asked the garage 
 keeper, who was a friend of mine, if he could put the car in good 
 order that evening. He was an honest man, and when we had fin- 
 ished discussing the subject I had a lot of new knowledge. At 60 
 cents an hour it would cost about $175 to put my automobile in first- 
 class shape. In the meantime its diseases were acute. A little more 
 running and it would break permanently in a dozen places. I went 
 home full of gloomy perplexity.
 
 Of course I might, by enrolling in a correspondence course, 
 learn auto repairing in 1,897 lessons and rebuild my car myself. 
 But it would take a year, and besides I distrusted my ability. I 
 had already ruined two meat grinders and a baby buggy that spring 
 while repairing them. I might wait and save the money. But that 
 would take all summer. I might and then the only logical solution 
 struck me with a bang. It was a wonder I hadn't thought of it be- 
 fore. I would lend the car to my brother. 
 
 It was as simple as wishing the job done. I waited several days 
 and then called Bob up. When I offered to lend him the car for a 
 week he wouldn't hear of it at first. But I was firm. We always 
 divided things up in our family, I reminded him. I had had a week's 
 use of the car and I couldn't enjoy it unless he got some fun out of 
 it too. It would absolutely ruin my pleasure unless he ran it awhile. 
 So when he found I was really in earnest he accepted thankfully. 
 The next day I ran the car over to my brother's house and left it. 
 Then I left town for a week. I had to go away about that time any- 
 way, and I didn't want my brother to worry for fear I was at home 
 pining for my car. 
 
 I traveled a good deal that week, and travel was never so pleas- 
 ant before. I found that by alluding casually to my "car" in the 
 opening sentence of a conversation I could not only win the respect 
 of those who didn't have cars, but the intimate friendship of those 
 that did. I found also that I could talk as grandly about my $400 
 car as if it cost $5,000 and was my ninth offense. I made a lot of 
 friends on the strength of it and scarcely set foot on a sidewalk all 
 week. 
 
 I was all anxiety to hear about my car when I returned, and 
 called up my brother at once. I said "hello" to him and inquired 
 about the auto's health in the same breath. 
 
 "Oh, the car's all right," said my brother, "and I am too, in 
 case you might be interested." 
 
 "Have you enjoyed the car?" I asked hospitably. 
 
 "Yes," said my brother; "it's been like old times; only I wish 
 you hadn't come back until to-morrow." 
 
 "Why?" I asked. 
 
 "Well, you see, I found a little work to be done on it and I've 
 been fixing it up. I haven't had a chance to run it yet." 
 
 And do you know, that nervy brother actually wanted me to 
 wait a day longer while he drove my new car all around the coun- 
 try. That's the brother of it for you. 
 
 84
 
 When I saw my car a few minutes later I hardly knew it. My 
 brother had done it a lot of good. He had spent the entire week, 
 I found, under it, on top of it and coiled around it in the way 
 auto mechanics have. He had revamped the engine, edited and re- 
 vised the magneto, mitigated the exhaust, reformed the clutch, re- 
 suscitated the carburetor, manicured the tires, cleaned the car from 
 end to end, and polished the brass work. And when I took the 
 steering wheel and opened up the throttle I found a thing of life 
 under me, fighting for more speed, and purring like a half-ton pussy 
 cat. It was magnificent. It must be a wonderful pleasure to work 
 on a car and bring it up from a ruin to a spirited young thing which 
 has to have mud on its number plate in order to avoid the law. It 
 made me feel good to think how much my brother must have enjoyed 
 himself. But I was always doing things for him. 
 
 That was the beginning of a summer full of joy. I have heard 
 of sick tigers who, when cured by foolhardy physicians, have "become 
 the slaves of their rescuers. My little car seemed almost alive in its 
 anxiety to repay me. It ran, day and night, with eagerness. It 
 staggered pluckily over rough roads, dug its way out of sand patches, 
 and buzzed cheerfully along through rain and mud. No burden was 
 too great for it. Although built for three, it would carry six, and go 
 at the Main Street hill as sturdily and confidently as if it was carry- 
 ing one, laboring faithfully up on the high gear and performing such 
 herculean efforts before it stopped with a gasp and waited apologeti- 
 cally for me to kick in the low-speed pedal, that I began to think of 
 it as a human being, and to regard it with affection. In a month 
 I had stopped calling it "here you" and had given it a name, a gen- 
 der, and a place in the family circle. 
 
 "Pete" he was after that, and from that time on the doings of 
 Pete during the day were the main subject of conversation at the 
 table at night; and the state of his health on Sundays was a subject 
 transcending all others in importance. 
 
 Pete was our friend and companion. Pete carried us out into 
 the country on picnics and over the river into the hills on exploring 
 tours. Pete took us to the far end of the town to spend the evening 
 and waited patiently for us to reappear. Pete stood placidly while 
 my two little daughters swarmed over his seats and yanked at his 
 levers. 
 
 He usurped the place of dolls and dogs for them. They loved 
 him because he was a little car, as children love everything little. 
 They guarded him from the bad boys who tried to "honk-honk" him. 
 
 85
 
 They cluttered around, all anxiety, while I fussed with his internals, 
 and pitied "poor sick Petey." They threw themselves at him with 
 shouts of joy whenever I went out and cranked him. A hundred 
 times that summer my three-year-old princess put her arms around 
 my neck and said: "Oh, papa, let's get Petey and take a little ride." 
 
 Of course I don't mean to say that we didn't have troubles. It 
 seemed to me that Pete was continually disintegrating somewhere. 
 As he convalesced in his differential, he declined in his radiator. 
 When he retained water in his radiator he was generally enjoying 
 paralysis of the oiling system. And when he oiled perfectly, his 
 cranks as a rule were working loose once more. He also rattled in 
 twenty places and his valve mechanism was as noisy as a small 
 thresher. But strangely enough, this didn't worry me. I found very 
 early a vast difference between the owner of a second-hand car and 
 the proud mahout of a next year's model. The latter is worried and 
 depressed when any little thing is going wrong. The former is jubi- 
 lant and happy when any little thing is going right. So long as Pete 
 ran and came home on demand, I was happy. That summer and fall 
 I coaxed, chevied and badgered him over 2,500 miles of road, leaving 
 behind me a trail of bolts, parts, discarded accessories, and small 
 tools, by which even a detective could have tracked me. 
 
 Not only did Pete serve me and my family all that summer, but 
 he helped make my brother happy. Regularly on Sunday afternoons 
 we would load up and drive over to his house, where my children 
 would frolic with his children, and he and I would walk solemnly 
 around the car 700 times discussing it in that intimate and personal 
 manner which experts and owners use. There are more things to 
 talk about in an automobile than there are in politics. During that 
 summer we talked Pete over carefully from the extreme rear edge 
 of his off hind tire, which generally needed vulcanizing, to the tips 
 of his headlights, which always needed cleaning. And the talks al- 
 ways ended the same way. Bob would go down cellar, put on his 
 war togs, and come out with a bushel of tools. Then he would pry 
 into the dank, greasy gizzard of the car and enjoy himself while I 
 stood by and encouraged him. These little talks did Pete a world of 
 good. He was always the better for them. Owners who run cars 
 all year round and neglect to talk them over regularly with some 
 kind, sympathetic friend who has a knowledge of ignition do them 
 a great injustice. 
 
 Sometimes Pete developed so many things to talk about during 
 the week that I could not wait until Sunday. Then I would drive 
 
 36
 
 him over and lend him to Bob for several days at a time, during 
 which time Pete improved steadily. It was beautiful to see them to- 
 gether. Some people are stingy with their automobiles, but I was 
 never that way. 
 
 When the cold weather came I put Pete away in a barn for the 
 winter, and in the spring an army of automobile agents descended 
 upon me like Assyrians surrounding a lamb, or wolves attacking the 
 Israelites I don't remember which is historically correct. They 
 brought with them samples of all the cars made in America and 
 points east. They offered me fabulous sums in trade for Pete. For 
 weeks I rode about in cars which were mechanically so perfect that 
 getting power and speed was as simple a proposition as turning on 
 molasses from a spigot. 
 
 It had been a fortunate winter for me and I had enough money 
 in the bank to sell Pete down the river and buy a dream of a little 
 touring car which started with a button and would run until election 
 day with no care whatever, except providing new speedometers as 
 fast as the old ones wore out. 
 
 But strangely enough, I couldn't get interested. The perfect 
 cars left me cold. In a perfect car I was only a motorneer. The 
 car supplied the brains and left me only the steering to do. Beyond 
 mending a tire occasionally I couldn't look forward to a single bit of 
 excitement. 
 
 I couldn't even go over and visit my brother. There would be 
 nothing to talk about. And if I loaned him the new car all he could 
 do would be to run it around and wear out the tires. Brotherly af- 
 fection is strong, but there are limits to it. 
 
 As I thought these things over I began to realize that I loved 
 Pete. He was more than recreation to me. He was excitement, 
 suspense, uncertainty, triumph, and a baffling mystery which I was 
 working out bit by bit. He had a personality. He had traits and 
 weaknesses and also strength of character. There wasn't a part of 
 him -which was a stranger to me. When he ran he was a chorus of 
 sweet sounds and rackets. When he stood still he was a challenge 
 twenty times as interesting as a golf course. 
 
 So I scorned the automobile agents and kept Pete. I kept him 
 as a companion, not as a personal street car. And he rewarded me 
 by struggling pluckily through his fourth year of existence with 
 great success. He took me to town every day and took some friend 
 home with me at night, said friend always causing me to swell with 
 pride by marveling at the way the little brute clawed up the Main 
 
 37
 
 Street hill. He took me to Chicago and back without a breakdown, 
 gasping home the last few miles with a rheumatic magneto, while I 
 patted him and gloried in his spunk. Once he hauled for ten miles 
 the disabled six-cylinder car of a man who had often alluded to him 
 with scorn as a "prehistoric bang-buggy." Twenty times he took 
 me through the country, and brought me home again breaking 
 down quietly in his garage half a dozen times after his day's work 
 was done. 
 
 I have grown proud of Pete as well as fond of him. Hundreds 
 of people have said to me: "Well, you certainly have gotten a lot of 
 use out of that little mess." 
 
 How many owners of good cars get the same compliments ? I am 
 so proud of him that I even refuse to paint him, and his upholstery 
 is a disgrace. I wish he was six years old instead of four. I glory 
 in his age as a son glories in his 73-year-old golf-playing father. 
 
 I have decided to keep Pete forever, replacing him as he wears 
 out. This year he has had a new magneto, carburetor, front wheel 
 and oiling system. Next year he must have a new radiator and his 
 gears are worn razor sharp. In another year I must get a new 
 engine. 
 
 It will be expensive, but I will get my money's worth. I will 
 still have Pete. I will have him until sometime in the distant future 
 his steering wheel will wear in two and his crank handle will disin- 
 tegrate. Then I will replace them and suddenly find that after all 
 I haven't got Pete. 
 
 He will have vanished, bit by bit just as I myself have van- 
 ished in the last seven years and am a new person, using the old 
 name and signing checks on the bank account of my former self. 
 
 Perhaps when that day comes I may lose interest in Pete and 
 sell him to a museum. But I shall not borrow trouble. 
 
 38
 
 George FitcK Ln)es 
 
 By EDMUND VANCE COOKE 
 
 OUT of the beautiful Middle West in the first decade of the pres- 
 ent century, there sprang to our notice a new and a true hum- 
 orist, by name George Fitch. It is a rubric in the world's calendar 
 when a new humorist is born, for the humorist is a man with a vis- 
 ion. He sees not as other men see, but when he tells his vision to us 
 of the dull eyes, we exclaim, "Of course ! anybody can see that. We 
 have always thought so ourselves, but somehow we forgot to mention 
 it. Show us something else that we have always seen and never 
 knew it." 
 
 The humorist complies and we follow him gladly, laughingly 
 and lovingly, but then comes some one with a solemn face and a stri- 
 dent voice, who speaks a wierd language. And those in authority 
 tell us, "Here is true greatnes's. Observe the melancholy counte- 
 nance! Listen to the tragic tone of the voice! And behold ! you 
 can with difficulty understand the tongue in which he speaks. No 
 one may surely know what he is saying. Is it not sublime?" 
 
 Then we, we turn aside from the humorist whom we love and 
 can understand and we say, "It must even be so. The humorist is 
 too simple, too pleasurable and too easily comprehended. This 
 Other is the worshipful one. Ah, how wonderful must be his 
 thought, how deep his meaning; we comprehend him not at all." 
 
 For my part I am inclined to dispute the authorities flatly. I 
 shall always insist that the master writer is one who is crystal clear, 
 without being commonplace, that comedy is higher than tragedy, 
 that the man who leads me to the abiding joy in life deserves more 
 of my thanks than the one who depresses and confuses me. If this 
 be literary treason, make the most of it. 
 
 That George Fitch came out of the Middle West is also indica- 
 tive. The Middle West is the nursery of our literary orchards. 
 Much of its budded stock is transplanted early, but George Fitch 
 came to full fruition in the soil which gave him birth. Here he was 
 born and bred, here he was educated, here he married and reared his 
 
 * Written as an introduction to "Petey Simmons at Siwash" for Little, 
 Brown & Company, and reprinted at request of Mrs. George Fitch.
 
 THE FITCH FAMILY 
 
 family, here he struggled 
 and here he achieved. Born 
 in the small town of Galva, 
 matriculated and graduated 
 at Knox College, Gales- 
 burg, and doing the bulk 
 of his life-work at Peoria, 
 he may fairly be said to 
 reek of the soil of Illinois. 
 Yet human beings (espec- 
 ially American human be- 
 ings) are so much alike 
 that the appeal of his work 
 runs from horizon to hori- 
 zon. Homeburg might have 
 been in Maine and Siwash 
 in California, or in any 
 place between. 
 
 It is hardly necessary to 
 mention that Knox College 
 is not Siwash and Siwash 
 is not Knox, but that Knox 
 is appreciative of the Si- 
 wash fame is attested by 
 the fact that the real col- 
 lege has a chapter room 
 (planned by the "Betas") 
 as a memorial to the crea- 
 tor of the fictitious college. 
 
 Like so many other writ- 
 ers, George Fitch came up 
 through the stress and 
 grind of daily newspaper 
 work. He won his spurs 
 on the Galesburg dailies, 
 and the Council Bluffs 
 Nonpareil and the Peoria 
 Transcript, and he never 
 entirely forsook the news- 
 paper field, for even at the 
 last his Vest Pocket Essays 
 
 40
 
 MRS. FITCH AND CHILDREN 
 
 were appearing daily in hundreds of newspapers. But he was 
 more than a newspaper-man, more than a magazinist, more than 
 a maker of books. No recluse and no cynic, he lived life in all its 
 
 phases. He was a cit- 
 
 u TK'W' TK izen who felt his citi ~ 
 
 zenship and he took a 
 keen interest in his 
 city, his State, his 
 country, just as every 
 American should. Be- 
 cause he thought he 
 ought to do his part, 
 he served a term in the 
 Illinois legislature, 
 fighting for better government, though he could ill afford the time 
 from his literary labors. 
 
 Best of all his accomplishments, he was an ideal father, a tried 
 and true chum to his children who obeyed him because they loved 
 him. To build forts and castles in the sand-pile, to model ships and 
 comic characters the neighbors came for blocks to see, to tell won- 
 derful and funnily fearful bed-time stories, were not the least of 
 George Fitch's accomplishments, nor the least to be envied and de- 
 sired. 
 
 These glimpses may give you an inkling of how spirited a pub- 
 licist, how companionable a 
 father and husband, how hon- 
 ored a citizen, how well- 
 rounded a character was 
 George Fitch the man, aside 
 from the fame and accom- 
 plishment of George Fitch the 
 author. 
 
 But no such brief and hur- 
 ried recital of a few tangible 
 and intangible facts can give 
 any adequate sense of the 
 bright spirit George Fitch 
 was to those who knew him. 
 Why do I say was? Am I 
 asking you to believe that George Fitch is contained in the brief 
 years which elapsed between his first breath and his last sigh? 
 
 41 
 
 THE LITTLE FITCHES 
 Mary, 11; Elinor, 9; Janet, 6
 
 That George Fitch was born June 7th, 1877, may be necessary 
 to record, but why? Why figures? All of us know that he was 
 born, and born into a world which needed him, which still needs him, 
 which still loves him. What else matters? 
 
 That George Fitch died August 9th, 1915, I refuse to believe. 
 I pick up "At Good Old Siwash," "Sizing up Uncle Sam," "Home- 
 burg Memories," or any of the books or articles and in the first sen- 
 tence I can hear him speak. I close my eyes and I can see him, along 
 with a dozen or a hundred other good fellows, none of whom are 
 within reach of my hand-shake at this moment, but they are some- 
 where else and by thinking of them, I bring them to my conscious- 
 ness. 
 
 Among them, George Fitch comes to me in a variety of ways, 
 but chiefly he throws his arm across my shoulder and peers down 
 with me at something worth reading. If it is very good, he looks up 
 appreciatively and that dry, wide smile crosses his face and dies 
 slowly. 
 
 He does not laugh aloud, nor would I call it a very contagious 
 smile, but it is George's smile and that is enough. Why does he 
 come to me thus and throw his arm across my shoulder? He is not 
 a very demonstrative chap, for he is just sensitive enough to be a 
 trifle reserved. His writings tell you that, I think. No matter how 
 tumultuous his fun, he always knows just when to stop it, and in 
 real life, I never saw him tumultuous. To my mind, the reason he 
 comes to me in this manner, or the reason that memory, or my sub- 
 conscious self brings him to me in this manner is that the attitude is 
 characteristic of him, of his literary rather than his physical self. 
 Surely in reading him, you feel the comradeship of him. You feel 
 the touch of his hand upon your shoulder. You see the slow flash of 
 his smile as you lower the book to throw back your head and laugh 
 deliciously at his humor. He thinks it is good, too ? More, he knows 
 it is good, for he worked hard upon it, but he is not the least bit con- 
 ceited or vain about it. No one ever took success less self-con- 
 sciously than George Fitch. He worked hard for it; he had always 
 worked hard to do good work just to do good work! and he was 
 still working hard up to the last. He felt that he was just begin- 
 ning. Everybody else felt the same way. Good as his "stuff" was, 
 the big work, the sustained work, the life work, was to come. 
 
 No one will ever know just how big that life work was to be, 
 but it ranged all the way from a book on English cathedrals to stor- 
 ies of boy psychology, from historical adventure in the Middle West 
 
 42
 
 to studies of ancient Rome. Nor were these mere haphazard dreams. 
 Some of the material was already gathered, some of the plots were 
 planned and the dream people had begun to live in them. He was a 
 systematic worker and knew the direction he was going. 
 
 And now, just because that bigger work isn't coming, that's the 
 only way I feel or believe that George Fitch is dead. I always re- 
 call him as living. I see him in so many places, on sea and land, at 
 home and abroad, and he is always the same, always quiet, but al- 
 ways companionable, in every crowd. I hear him- talk and whether 
 he talks to me alone or to cheering audiences, I find no difference in 
 him. He talks well and he is always looking ahead. He is nearly 
 always humorous, but always more than that. I think no one would 
 ever accuse him of being what is known as a "funny man." He 
 seemed never to make any bid for laughter. Most speakers, espec- 
 ially most humorous speakers, have some mannerisms which run 
 along with their words to help make them effective. It may be a 
 trick of expression, of gesture, of vocal inflection, but George Fitch 
 used none of these. He spoke directly and neither by the twinkle 
 of an eye in advance, nor the suggestion of an over-pause at the end 
 of a sentence led you to believe that he had any idea the speech was 
 humorous. His humor was as sincere as most men's logic. 
 
 I can close my eyes at this moment and see and hear him do 
 this. Why should I believe that he is dead? True, his letters have 
 not reached me of late, but then we were both careless that way, 
 except when something definite was afoot. True, he has not been 
 to see me lately, but then neither have I been to see him. Usually 
 we met because the blessed fates brought us together. True, too, I 
 have not seen his newer writings. As I said before, that is almost 
 the only reason that I fear that what they say is true, that George 
 Fitch is no more. 
 
 But then, I close my eyes again and there he is ! How can he 
 be no more, I ask you, when I can see him, aye, can feel him, as any 
 one may feel him who will read him ? As for the big work, let it go. 
 His work is big enough. It is a big thing to have effected as much 
 good cheer as is in the writings of George Fitch. Not humor only, 
 not sentiment merely, not only that clean, keen appeal to the best 
 side of human nature, but that lovableness in laughter which lurks in 
 all he does and is. Yes, I still insist upon the present tense. I will 
 not say George Fitch was. George Fitch is. 
 
 13
 
 EDNA FERBER There's nothing to say about George Fitch ex- 
 cept that he was just as sane and sweet and lovable as everything 
 he wrote. 
 
 HENRY J. FORMAN, Collier's Weekly To ray thinking George 
 Fitch was one of the most courteous, simple hearted, and gallant of 
 writing men. He was a fine American humorist, but, depend upon 
 it, he was even a finer American man. 
 
 S. E. KISER, Chicago Herald Possessed of modesty that was 
 not assumed for the purpose of making it appear that he was eccen- 
 tric, George Fitch was an exemplification of the fact that it is possi- 
 ble to be a genius and a gentleman. 
 
 MEREDITH NICHOLSON He was the kind of man one loves at 
 sight. I have rarely known anyone who appealed to me as he did. 
 There was an infinite sweetness and gentleness in him, and he was 
 so clean of soul, so fine and manly a character. 
 
 EDWARD W. BOK It seems to me that he had just begun his 
 work, and the world of readers needed his inimitable wit so much. 
 I looked upon him as one of the few writers of true humor of the 
 day, and was so happy to have him at work for us. 
 
 CARL VROOMAN My all too brief acquaintance with him was a 
 joy from the beginning. His fresh and unspoiled individuality 
 shone out in his every action and spoken word as it did in his writ- 
 ings. There are few men of whom I have ever been able to say that 
 they were lovable, and George was one of these few. Little as we 
 have been together, I counted him among my choicest and best loved 
 friends. 
 
 WILL LEVINGTON COMFORT I loved him loved to be with 
 him. We could not talk long a strange shyness came over us as 
 if we would have to talk years if we ever began right. But there 
 were volumes of unspoken things which we felt. 
 
 VACHEL LINDSAY When last I was in the East, George was 
 passing through New York and came to see me, and that was our 
 last meeting. We had a most fraternal time and I think I shall 
 remember him by that call and I hope our paths will cross again, 
 in some further places now hid by the dimness. And I remember 
 him most of all in your own home where all was most happy, with 
 his children on his knees. We had fine hours together there. 
 
 MRS. KELLOGG FAIRBANKS It is impossible for me to realize 
 that that wonderfully vital and bright spirit is gone, and 1 feel that 
 the whole country is the poorer for it.
 
 He who attempts to write an appreciation of the life and char- 
 acter of George Fitch is forcibly impressed with the poverty of the 
 English language. One almost wishes for a fourth degree of com- 
 parison with which to describe adequately the nobleness of character 
 of this man Sigma Delta Chi's most beloved member of whom 
 Franklin P. Adams, of the New York Tribune, wrote: "Never in 
 the world a sweeter, saner, more generous and lovable human being." 
 
 George Fitch, one of the best known of the younger school of 
 American humorists, died in Berkeley, Cal., August 9, 1915, having 
 failed to rally from an operation for appendicitis performed two days 
 before. He had been visiting his sister, Miss R. Louise Fitch, and 
 planned to visit the Panama-Pacific exposition at San Francisco, 
 and to attend the annual convention of the American Press Humor- 
 ists' Association. He was born June 5, 1877, at Galva, 111., and was 
 the son of Elmer Eli and Rachel (Helgesen) Fitch. In 1897 he was 
 graduated from Knox College at Galesburg, 111., where he not only 
 made a good record as a student but also obtained the inspiration for 
 his famous "Siwash" tales. 
 
 Mr. Fitch began his newspaper career in 1897 on the Galesburg 
 Evening Mail and then went to edit the Galva News. After a ses- 
 sion at Madison, 111., he served from 1902 to 1905 as a special writer 
 on the Council Bluffs (la.) Nonpareil, and began to specialize in 
 humorous paragraphs that made him famous locally. His last news- 
 paper was the Peoria (111.) Herald-Transcript, where he was botli 
 managing editor and feature writer, and where his fame became 
 more than local. In 1912 he was elected to the Illinois House of 
 Representatives. It was in September, 1911, that Mr. Fitch joined 
 the staff of the Adams Newspaper Service, where he created his 
 "Vest Pocket Essays," which have probably given him his greatest 
 popularity as a humorist, and which have appeared in approxi- 
 mately 150 newspapers a day ever since. He was married October 
 5, 1905, to Miss Clara Gattrell Lynn, of Kansas City, Mo., who sur- 
 vives him, with three little girls. 
 
 Members of Sigma Delta Chi who attended the May, 1914, con- 
 vention at Ann Arbor will always remember the speech that Mr. 
 Fitch made in which he told the story of his life. Those who had 
 the good fortune to have heard that talk know that it was his gen- 
 uineness that made him such a beloved man. As Edgar A. Guest, of 
 Detroit, said: "To have known George Fitch was to have known 
 how splendid may be man." 
 
 From "The Quill" for October, 1915 
 
 45
 
 VICTOR MURDOCH Altogether I did not spend probably as 
 much as twelve hours with him during all the time I have known 
 him, but every minute of that time was vibrant and vivid with un- 
 derstanding the keen attuning that makes all common activity so 
 material and understanding so high and fine, and belief in the in- 
 finite so restfully certain. It makes my thought poor to give it 
 words, but I know he lives, as fine, as clean, as pure and bright 
 somewhere as here. 
 
 MEDILL McCoRMicx Of all of my friends who are gone, there 
 live in my memory vivid, vital, dear personalities a woman a good 
 deal older than myself, Richard Mansfield, and George. I never 
 think of him (and that is often) without poignant affection. 
 
 LEONARD H. ROBBINS He possessed all the qualities that made 
 Mark Twain ; and he had more a fineness that Clemens lacked. It 
 is very hard for us to understand why he had to go away from a 
 career so surely made, a success so cleanly won, and a world that 
 needed him so badly. 
 
 WILLIAM ALLEN WHITE I had come to be very fond of George 
 Fitch and his loss affected me like the loss of a brother. I have felt 
 lonesomer in the world since he left. 
 
 GEORGE MATTHEW ADAMS It all seems so unreal, but it is a 
 great comfort as one thinks about it all, that George did not leave 
 anything but the finest that was in him and that his friends will long 
 live off of this rich heritage. 
 
 MARK SULLIVAN, in Collier's Weekly George Fitch died the 
 other day. Magazine subscribers knew him as the author of the 
 Siwash stories and of playful bits of American humor. Newspaper 
 readers all over the country knew him as the source of the "Vest- 
 Pocket Essays" which could be read while the taste of the last swal- 
 low of breakfast coffee lingered. Back in his home town of Peoria 
 citizens knew him as an editor of a daily paper and a member of the 
 Illinois legislature who put a good heart as well as a good head into 
 the service of the people. Acquaintances knew him as a young man 
 with a taste for cruising up and down middle-western rivers ; but 
 many of us will want to remember him as a successful writer who 
 remained unaffected who, in a day when too many authors adopt 
 codes of special-privilege morals, kept his work out of intellectual 
 marshes and for himself preferred the clean air of decent altitudes. 
 
 EDW. H. BUTLER, in the Buffalo News For a half dozen years 
 George Fitch has been the nation's foremost humorist. His fun was 
 
 46
 
 more typically American than the product of any other man and 
 back of his laughing lines was a wholesome philosophy that made 
 life sweet for some who found it bitter. 
 
 To a greater degree than any man we know he fulfilled life's 
 mission which he himself always declared! to be: "To do one thing 
 worth while and do it better than any other person can do it." 
 
 His Siwash College stories portrayed college pranks in a whole- 
 some way, robbed them of college caste and gave to each character 
 the lovable qualities of the real college youth. His motor boat stor- 
 ies amused thousands and his Homeburg tales were intensely human 
 to people familiar with small community life. 
 
 Unlike most men buried in books, George Fitch found time to 
 be an aggressively good citizen. As editor of the Peoria Transcript, 
 he conducted and aided some of Illinois' most memorable fights for 
 good government. His campaigns were without bitterness and with- 
 out sting, but he employed, to great advantage, his wonderful power 
 to make a joke carry the truth. 
 
 The death of George Fitch is untimely he was not yet forty 
 years of age. The world has not enough men of his kind. 
 
 T. K. HEDRICK, in the Chicago Daily News While the states 
 are taking stock of their great men, Illinois should not forget the late 
 George Fitch, gentle and lovable humorist, inimitable story teller, 
 cheerful and kindly reformer and faithful friend to thousands. Prob- 
 ably no Illinoisan has brought more cheer and hopefulness into more 
 lives than "good old George" rest his soul! and in many ways he 
 qualifies for any hall of fame that Illinois may elect to establish. 
 
 KIN HUBBARD (Abe Martin) In these days of coarse fun and 
 far-fetched nonsense George Fitch could ill be spared from the 
 dwindling ranks of real American humorists, of which he was per- 
 haps the most shining prospect. 
 
 A. A. BOYDEN, the American Magazine I first remember 
 George Fitch when he came to Knox Academy. Later he joined the 
 same fraternity I belonged to, so I felt as if I knew him pretty well. 
 But the interesting point is that I did not know him at all. It was 
 not until ten or twelve years later when he first became contributor 
 to the American Magazine that I got any sense of what an extraor- 
 dinary person he was. And it was not I, but Mr. Siddall, one of 
 my associates, who started George in the American Magazine. Ver- 
 ily a prophet is not without honor, etc. George Fitch's pictures of 
 the small towns of the middle west ought to live along with John 
 
 47
 
 McCutcheon's "Bird Center" cartoons. All of us who are natives of 
 these same small towns will always take off our hats to these two 
 geniuses. 
 
 HENRY M. PINDELL, Peoria Journal A number of well-mean- 
 ing commentators have essayed to pay George Fitch a kindly compli- 
 ment in statements to the effect that the Fitch wit was "always with- 
 out a sting." George did have a quality of humor, which he used 
 copiously in his fiction, that was stingless and kindly. Humor is 
 essentially gentle and playful, but George Fitch was more than a 
 writer of humor, he was one of the keenest satirists of his time. 
 And when he shot a shaft at some sham or evil that needed punctur- 
 ing he shot a stinger and it stung as it was meant to. There is no 
 contemporary American who excels George Fitch as a master of 
 keen, penetrating sarcasm. 
 
 WILLIAM HAWLEY SMITH, Peoria I need not say that the pass- 
 ing of George Fitch leaves a void in my heart which will long stay 
 unfilled. Next to Bill Nye, I counted him the greatest among mod- 
 ern humorists. He could puncture a sham and leave the shammer 
 alive and purged of his sin to the extent he would go and sin no 
 more. And such is the mission of a real humorist. Such was George. 
 
 JAMES WHITCOMB RILEY Even while we smiled and laughed 
 with him, he left us, hushed as though awaiting the gladness of his 
 return. Only heaven is the brighter now. Indianapolis, August 21, 
 1915. 
 
 "On the death of its charter member, George Fitch, the Society 
 of Midland Authors has suffered a grievous loss. He was loved for 
 himself and for his work ; for his high attitude toward life, which 
 was filled with sweetness and expectancy, and for his humor, which 
 was without bitterness. 
 
 "Charged by the society with the expression of its sentiments, 
 the undersigned herewith convey to Mrs. Fitch, the brother and sis- 
 ter sympathy of all its members. 
 
 "BERT LESTON TAYLOR 
 "ELLA \V. PEATTIE 
 "CLARA E. LAUGHLIN 
 "H. C. CHATFIELD-TAYLOR" 
 
 48
 
 One Fitck Memorial at Knox 
 
 When George Fitch died in August, 1915, Knox College lost one 
 of her most widely known and most loyal alumni. From more than 
 one of his old college associates came the suggestion that some ap- 
 propriate memorial should be established at the institution which 
 was the inspiration of his early literary ambitions, and in close con- 
 nection with the student life upon which he has drawn so liberally 
 for his Siwash stories. 
 
 George Fitch's interest in his college and its undergraduate life 
 did not cease with his own graduation in 1897, but increased with 
 the yeajjs. It was an interest that was positive and substantial. He 
 entered with enthusiasm into the plans for a larger and greater 
 Knox. In June, 1914, he accepted the presidency of the Knox 
 Alumni Association, intent upon furthering in every possible way 
 the interest of his Alma Mater. One very definite purpose was the 
 development of the Knox College Library, a purpose which found 
 expression in his purchase and donation of a collection of books 
 dealing principally with American history. 
 
 Therefore, when the further suggestion was made that the Fitch 
 Memorial at Knox might appropriately take the form of an endow- 
 ment of $50,000 for the College Library, the idea received immed- 
 iate and general approval, as well as the endorsement of Mrs. Fitch. 
 
 The Knox students were the first to respond. In less than a 
 week the four college classes subscribed nearly $10,000 as a foun- 
 dation for the fund. Subsequent subscriptions by members of the 
 faculty and others secured by the students among their friends have 
 brought this amount to $15,000. The Knox Alumni Association has 
 undertaken the completion of the fund. 
 
 49
 
 George Fitcn 
 
 By WILLIAM ALLEN WHITE 
 
 "He came and laughed and went his way, 
 Lending something to the day 
 
 That flashed as with a mystic light 
 Something wise and kind and gay. 
 
 So when he went into the night 
 Out beyond our mortal sight, 
 Lo ! he left us with his clay 
 God's joy flashing from the height." 
 
 50
 
 ,nox College and me Alumni 1 Association 
 ; 3 : : : Galesburg. Illinois 
 
 William E. Simonds and M. Max Goodsill 
 
 Entered as Second Class Matter at tne Post Office at 
 Calesburg, Illinois