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318:"Langdon Smith, the war correspondent and writer, died on Wednesday, at his home in Brooklyn, New York. No New York newspaper man was better known than Smith, who could describe, equally well, a battle or a baseball game, says the New York Post. But the thing that he wrote which will live the longest -- because it is worth while—is his poem "Evolution," which has been reprinted all over the country."
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176:, that were well received at the time. Gardner was unable to verify any of this and doubts the novel and poems existed, except perhaps for a single poem, "Bessie McCall of Suicide Hall", which was reprinted in a 1907 issue of "Pandex of the Press". "Bessie McCall" was mentioned in an article on Smith in
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of April 21, 1939 by one Hype Igoe. "Suicide Hall" was a saloon at 295 Bowery run by John McGurk from 1895 to 1902, when suicides by young prostitutes there forced him out of business. The building that had housed "Suicide Hall" was not demolished until 2005. The complete text of "Bessie McCall" is
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of 1 January 1901 fell from the newspaper's complex of fourteen high-speed presses. The first issue was rushed by automobile across pavements slippery with mud and rain to a waiting express train, reserved especially for the occasion. The newspaper was folded into an engraved silver case and carried
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were written in 1895 and published in the New York Herald where he was then employed. Four years later, when a member of the New York
Journal staff, he wrote several more. These he laid aside for a while and then, from time to time, added a stanza until it was completed. Whether the editorial
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that he is best remembered. Skilled as a war correspondent, himself a veteran Indian fighter, a technical writer of sports, possessed of a mentality too great to be handicapped through lack of university training, he thought for himself upon life and death, of the past and future, and in
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Langdon Smith was born in
Kentucky Jan. 4, 1858 ... In boyhood he served in the Comanche and Apache wars as a trooper, his letters descriptive of these campaigns winning him his first newspaper position. Later he acted as a war correspondent during the extended fighting with the Sioux
33:(4 January 1858 – 8 April 1908) was an American journalist and writer. His most well-known work is the poem "Evolution", which begins with the line "When you were a tadpole and I was a fish". The line later became the title of an essay about this "one-poem poet" written by
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as a featured writer, identified by his byline. Judging from the articles he published, he seems to have begun as a featured sports writer, with such articles as "Cock Fight Draws Out
Millionaires" Beginning about 1904 his byline begins to appear frequently in the
275:"A work of such merit, however, could not be lost. Mr. Smith received thousands of congratulatory letters from all parts of the world, accompanied by requests for copies of the poem which were exceedingly difficult to secure until reprinted in April, 1906, in
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aboard by
Langdon Smith, a young reporter known for his vivid prose style. At speeds that reached eighty miles an hour, the special train raced through the darkness to Washington, D.C., and Smith's rendezvous with the president, William McKinley."
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Aside from his journalism Smith's only known work is the romantic poem "Evolution", sometimes sub-titled or mistakenly called "A Tadpole and a Fish". The poem became very popular even before his death. It has been reprinted many times since.
223:"Their lives and affections linked as they were, in his poetic fancy at least, since the beginning of time seemed to have created between them in reality a bond too close to survive a parting."
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after the war. He was involved in at least one "scoop" for which Hearst papers became notorious, delivering the first newspaper copy of the 20th century to
President
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His grief-stricken wife committed suicide on June 10 of the same year after having tried to do so on April 25. Lewis Allen Browne in his preface to
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department failed to appreciate the poem, or the foreman of the composing room needed something with which to fill out a page is not known, but
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On
February 12, 1894 Smith married Marie Antionette Wright, described as "a Louisville girl" and soon after went to Cuba, reporting for the
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on investigative articles such as "New York's
Smiling Army of Factory Girls", "A Night With a Tenderloin 'Cop'", "A Day in the
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Although Smith's most famous work is the poem "Evolution", according to Brown, Smith also wrote short stories, and a novel,
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One of the first at the front, he was present at all the principal engagements, taking high rank as a war correspondent.
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was first published: that of
September 22, 1895. He also notes that Brown's information was taken from the
528:"Husband Dead, Wife Kills Self. Grief Drives Mrs. Langdon Smith to Suicide -- Second Attempt Successful."
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of June 1909." Tributes to him on his death invariably emphasize the poem. According to a notice in the
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first appeared in its entirety in the center of a page of want advertisements in the New York
Journal."
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on April 9, 1908, page 6, and that Brown does not add any new information to these sources.
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sometime before 1906, and posthumously published in illustrated and annotated book form as
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545:. Based on a lecture by scientist Ntinos C. Myrianthopoulos. Retrieved August 30, 2006.
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In
October 1897 Smith, along with fellow sports reporter Danny Smith, was sent by the
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When You Were a Tadpole and I was a Fish and other Speculations about This and That
506:"Forgotten Street Scenes. Back to the Bowery. The end of McGurk's Suicide Hall."
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The first few stanzas of the poem "Evolution" were written and published in the
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In his biographical sketch of Smith Lewis Allen Brown describes it as follows:
423:"Introduction. Yellow Journalism: Puncturing the Myths, Defining the Legacies"
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in 1895. It was worked upon for many years and later published in full in the
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The Pandex of the Press, Series II, Vol VI, No. 6, December 1907, p. 739
409:"Corbett Satisfied. Likes Nevada Better Than He Thought He Should."
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According to Lewis Allen Brown's 1909 biographical sketch of Smith,
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adds that Smith went to school in Louisville, Kentucky, 1864–1872.
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Evolution. A Fantasy. 'When you were a tadpole and I was a fish.
366:, Fall 1962; Reprinted with an update in Gardner's 2009 book,
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of July 23, 1910 it was "printed in full and illustrated in
141:"Ten seconds into the century, the first issue of the
492:"Lost Lights of the Tenderloin. 5. John H. M'Gurk."
360:(1962), "When You Were a Tadpole and I was a Fish",
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Gardner claims to have located the precise issue of
83:. He later returned to Cuba, at the outbreak of the
325:is reprinted, with hyperlinks and comments, on the
150:In the early years of the century he wrote for the
400:Boston: John W. Luce and Company, MCMIX, p. iii.
581:Wikiquote page on Langdon Smith's "Evolution"
137:. According to historian W. Joseph Campbell,
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208:Smith died at his home, 148 Midwood Street,
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633:(1909) – Downloadable in several formats
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295:article and an obituary published in
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554:"Queries and Answers From Readers".
516:"Evolution : A Fantasy" (1909)
683:19th-century American male writers
543:The Philosophic Origins of Science
396:Lewis Allen Brown ed. and intro.,
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571:, Friday, April 17, 1908, page 2.
279:, edited by Mr. Frank A. Munsey."
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653:19th-century American novelists
596:Works by or about Langdon Smith
567:Langdon Smith and "Evolution".
413:February 18, 1893, p. 1 col. 3.
44:Frontispiece to "Evolution" in
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304:The New York Times Book Review
293:Who's Who In America 1906-1907
125:Smith continued reporting for
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532:Thursday June 11, 1908, p. 4.
312:Ocala (Florida) Evening Star
302:According to a statement in
68:Who's Who In America 1906–07
648:19th-century American poets
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556:New York Times Book Review
261:"The first few stanzas of
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198:Evolution : A Fantasy
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436:January 19, 1903 page 12.
204:Death and wife's suicide
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127:William Randolph Hearst
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541:The Cosmos Club (1999)
494:New York Evening World
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153:New York Evening World
93:. According to Brown,
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458:New York Sunday World
446:New York Sunday World
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163:Sunday World Magazine
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631:Evolution. A Fantasy
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249:voiced his beliefs."
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112:Carson City, Nevada
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518:Google Book Search
372:New York, New York
363:The Antioch Review
210:Flatbush, New York
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323:Evolution
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