Famous Single Poems
over, he had no further use for the paper, and presented it to his son, William Randolph Hearst, who had just graduated from Harvard College. The latter had already shown some journalistic leanings, having been associated with the Harvard Lampoon, and when he started west to demonstrate to the people of California how a newspaper should be run, he took along three members of the Lampoon staff to help him do it. They were Eugene Lent, F. H. Briggs and Ernest L. Thayer. Thayer had been president of the Lampoon during his last three years in college, and was Ivy Orator of his class.
Of course they all had nicknames. "Genie" Lent was to assist with the editorial work; "Fatty" Briggs was to do the cartoons; "Phinnie" Thayer was to conduct a humorous column. Thayer signed his column "Phin," and his most successful contributions to it were a series of ballads begun in the fall of 1887, and continuing every Sunday for two or three months. During the winter his health failed, and he was compelled to return to his home at Worcester, Mass. He continued, however, to write the ballads, and in the spring of 1888 wrote "Casey at the Bat" and sent it on. It was published by the Examiner on Sunday, June 3, 1888, signed, as usual, "Phin." There it is to this day for anybody to see.
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