The Pennsylvania Department

Worthy Tribute to 'Town Poet.' Splendid Audience Fills Carnegie Music Hall To Hear Arthur Burgoyne. Local History is Reviewed. Musical Program Enlivens and Delights Thousands of Admirers. Gazette Times, 8 April 1911.

It was a magnificent tribute that Pittsburgh paid last evening to the veteran Pittsburgh editor and poet, Arthur Gordon Burgoyne. Every seat in Carnegie Music Hall was taken. An audience of exceptional intelligence and refinement listened to the interesting discussion of the facts and incidents of Pittsburgh's history as told by Mr. Burgoyne in his own inimitable way.

The musical program, which was made a delightful part of the evening, was lead by the Philharmonic Society Orchestra, of which Mr. Burgoyne is a member, and which was under the direction of Hans Zwicky as conductor. Miss Henrietta Bowlin, soprano soloist, and an instrumental quartet, consisting of Messrs. Burgoyne and C. N. Boyd, pianists; Wyn B. Morris, violincello, and Theodore Rentz, violin, aided brilliantly to the whole affair.

Just a Family Gathering.
Mr. Burgoyne's reference to the birth of "Father Pitt," which was his own creation, and to the stirring times of Dewey at Manila and "Little Joe Wheeler" at Santiago, together with reminiscenses of political strife of by-gone days was all so intensely local that it made the talk more like a family gathering than a formal lecture.

Charles M. Bregg, dramatic editor of The Gazette Times, introduced Mr. Burgoyne, going into details of the history of Pittsburgh in paying tribute to men of the law, medicine and science, without a single precedent for this tribute to a newspaper man, and then bore evidence of an awakening of the mind to the fact that great men are found even in this profession. Mr. Burgoyne received an ovation and was given the closest attention throughout.

Raised on American Humor.
Mr. Burgoyne said in part:

You have been told in print that I am an Irishman. I am. But do not infer from this that whatever I have done in the way of humorous writing is essentially Irish humor. On the contrary, from my earliest youth, I was fed on American humor. My father, who was an inveterate bibliophile, bought the works of all the American humorists of his day in the English editions, and thus, when I was still a small child, I was enabled to devour the writings of Artemus Ward, Josh Billings, Orpheus C. Kerr and a host of others. In those days the primitive spelling of Josh Billings struck me as the acme of fun. Little did I dream that Andrew Carnegie would be using much the same spelling in this year of our Lord 1911, and that he would have a large and highly respectable following.

When I left Ireland 32 years ago, I had just been released from the guardianship of the Court of Chancery, which I found to be just as great a nuisance as Dickens makes it in "Bleak House." I have an especially vivid recollection of being short of clothes and finding the lord chancellor deaf to my appeals for a new waistcoat. After this I was naturally glad to get away.

Stopped Over in Pittsburgh.

I intended to go to Germany, but to please a friend who was bound for the United States, I came out here with a vague idea of running across to San Francisco and then running back again, either by way of Japan, India and the Suez Canal or else the way I came--I was not sure which. Unfortunately at Pittsburgh my money gave out and I was obliged to write home that circumstances over which I had no control compelled me to make a brief stay here and that I should probably not be able to return for a few weeks. I have not returned yet, and I am not going to. My Americanization is too thorough, and then you see, I am the father of an American family and I always feel as if there were a possible president of the United States in the house and I do not care to waste such opportunities. My president might put me in the cabinet as President Grant did with Carl Schurz, who was never half as much of an American as I am.

After spending two years in teaching private pupils, Mr. Burgoyne secured a public school teacher's certificate. He continued:

Equipped with my certificate, I immediately went after a principalship in the West End, and had my first meeting with the famous Pat Foley, who was chairman of the board of directors. Pat took to me and became especially interested when I told him that I could speak German fluently.

Worked Both Nationalities

"Now, look here, Arthur," said he, "there's a Dutchman on the board that has a big pull in the ward. You go try him with the Dutch and if you can fool him, the job's done."

So I hunted up the German, who kept a little grocery store, and I let him have it in great shape. I talked about Goethe and Schiller and Klopstock and Lessing, all in the finest High Dutch, until the poor man thought I was the greatest thing that ever came out of Heidelberg, and sure enough the job was done. The Irish end of the board elected me as an Irishman and the German end as a German, and the delight of Pat Foley knew no bounds. Until his dying day, Pat never tired of telling that story.

While principal in the West End, and later of the Ralston School, Mr. Burgoyne contributed musical criticisms and other articles to Pittsburgh newspapers. In 1890 he went upon the Times force and has been a full-fledged newspaper man ever since. Mr. Burgoyne then gave the following account of the origin of Coxey's march in 1894:

The general, as they came to call him, was a very harmless individual, who had a comfortable quarrying business at Massillon, O. He used often to drop into my office to tell me the merits of a great scheme he had for the issue of non-interest-bearing government bonds, secured by all the public property in the country. As for organizing a band of tramps to march to Washington, I don't believe he ever dreamed of such a thing.

Author of Coxey's March.

The real author of the idea was a bright newspaper correspondent at Massillon, who early in the year sent out a story to the effect that on Easter Sunday the unemployed would assemble at Massillon and form an army, with Coxey as their leader, to make a demonstration against the national capital. The tale took and was copied far and wide, with the result that on Easter Sunday there assembled at Massillon an army, not of idle workingmen, but of star newspaper correspondents greedy for sensational copy.

Then a miracle came to pass. Coxey was literally carried away. A few tramps were pressed into service and the march began. On the road more tramps joined the column. At the towns along the route the people, amused by the circus-like character of the expedition, provided camping quarters and fed the army. Freakish adventurers hastened to enlist. Doctor Cyclone Kirkland of Pittsburgh became the prophet of the outfit and a uniformed foreigner, who called himself the Unknown, and who was said to be an Austrian baron, became Coxey's aide-de-camp and occupied himself with discipline and maneuvers. Coxey, Cyclone, the Unknown and other notables visited my office on the way to Washington and also on the pathetic march back. Coxey later relapsed into his original status as a quiet business man. The Unknown committed suicide. Cyclone still is with us and amuses himself by running alternately for governor of Pennsylvania and president of the United States. He has for years been promising me that when he becomes president, he will establish a department of journalism and make me the secretary, and I don't doubt but that he means to keep his word.

Birth of Father Pitt.

On November 5, 1895, [sic] Father Pitt was born. He was my offspring. Previously the only figure used to represent our city pictorially was that of a classic young female known as Miss Pittsburgh. This namby-pamby creature palled on me and I introduced my new creation, Father Pitt, to the world. Pa Pitt instantly leaped into popularity and he has since become so familiar a figure that many people fancy he must have existed from the beginning of things in our city; but as I tell you, he is only 16 years old and he owes his paternity to me. I am his father and consequently I have a sort of title, young as I am, to consider myself the grandfather of the community.

Mr. Burgoyne thus described his meeting with John D. Rockefeller, the Standard Oil magnate.

In 1905 the Press Humorists met at Cleveland and I had the honor of being elected vice president of the association that year. Among the outings planned for us was a visit to the estate of John D. Rockefeller in the outskirts of the city. Entrance was not easy to obtain, for up to that time Mr. Rockefeller had been holding aloof from the world, and above all, he fought shy of newspaper men. He was like a sphinx and his aloofness helped to intensify public prejudice against him. However, Mr. Rose of the Cleveland Plain Dealer managed somehow to obtain permission for our party to drive through the Rockefeller grounds, and so we set off in automobiles, with the mayor, Tom L. Johnson, leading the procession. All speed regulations were suspended by Tom L., and we flew through the town at about 60 miles an hour.

Meeting with Rockefeller.

At the entrance to the grounds we were met by Mr. Rockefeller's steward, who took the party in charge. After a long drive over beautiful roadways we reached the mansion. Nearby was a golf ground from which two elderly gentlemen advanced to meet us. One of these, a fat, ruddy-faced man with no coat on, was Mr. Rockefeller's physician. The other was Mr. Rockefeller himself. I had been accustomed to see John D. represented as a cadaverous-looking person, with hollow jaws and cavernous eyes, and I was astounded to find him in the flesh a sturdy, broad-chested old gentleman, whose appearance gave the lie to all the tales about his physical misery. He wore an immaculate golfing costume, and looked as if he had just stepped out of a bandbox. Evidently he had made up his mind to throw off reserve for the first time in his life, for he greeted us effusively and proceeded even to fraternize with Tom Johnson, with whom for years he had been at daggers' points. He showed us his trees and with his own hands picked sprays from his candleberry bushes and pinned them on the breasts of the ladies of the party.

While this was going on a photographer from a Cleveland newspaper was dodging about in the bushes trying to get the first authentic newspaper picture of the old millionaire. Noticing this, one of the men spoke up and asked the old gentleman if he had any objection to being photographed.

"Not at all," he said. "Come on over to my favorite oak and we'll all be taken together."

A Millionaire's Family.

And so we did, the old gentleman himself arranging the group. The man who took that picture made a small fortune out of it. He had it copyrighted and sold it to newspapers and other publications all over the world. One of the most important journals in Paris, Les Annales, reproduced it with a remarkable caption. In the middle is John D. and close by myself and my good wife and Tom Johnson and a whole string of my brother jokesmiths. And what do you think the French editor put under it. "Le milliardaire Americain entoure des membres de sa Famille." The American multi-millionaire surrounded by the members of his family.

We elected John D. a member of our organization and there was so much fun over the incident that it placed the old man in a new and pleasant light before the world. And I think this was just what he wanted. Ever since he has been on the best possible terms with the newspaper men.