Berton Braley, Commerical Poet; C. Baker

In 1923, the Honolulu Star-Bulletin called him' 'the most widely read American poet of today." The Brooklyn Eagle declared him "the most prolific verse writer in America today." 1 His obituary in the New York Times reported that he had written "verses by the thousands, short stories by the hun dreds and books by the score." A news paper in Portland, Oregon, added: " ... let anyone say 'Berton Braley,' in the average crowd of regular Americans and it's dollars to doughnuts that he'll poll a larger number of hands than any of the well known old masters .... "2 Braley began his brilliant career as a reporter in Butte, Montana-first for the Inter-Mountain, then for the Evening News. There, he was able to observe the gold and silver miners working in the' 'mile-high-and mile-deep" city. This experience cultivated a respect for the working world and for human achievement that would shine throughout his writings. His poem "The Power Plant" begins: Mr. Baker is a patented inventor and writer living in Moundsville, West Virginia. His work has appeared in Liberty magazine.

Whirr! Whirr! Whirr! Whirr! The mighty dynamos hum and purr, And the blue flames crackle and glow and burn Where the brushes touch and the magnets tum.3 He was definitely a contrast to the "cul tured" writers of his day. Both his writing and his actions reflected his belief that anything is possible. His "educators," after all, had told him that it would be "impossible" and "unprecedent ed" to play football and to finish three and a half years of high school in only two years, but he did.4 He sold ten "Mining Camp Ballads" to the Saturday Evening Post in 1909 and decided to leave Butte for the major leagues of writing. He moved to New York City and became a full-time freelancer. Over the years, his work also appeared in Coal Age, Engineering Journal, Forbes, Atlantic Monthly, American Machinist, Nation's Business, Iron Age, The Century, and "nearly every major popular magazine of his day."5 For three years the Newspaper Enterprise Association circulated "Berton Braley's Daily Poem." He reported on World War I for Collier's and even wrote poems about the World Series.

Artistic Commercialism Unlike many artists, Braley had no ob jections to making money for his work. He never forgot that working people make it possible for artists to be artists. He com574 mented in his biography, Pegasus Pulls a Hack: Memoirs of a Modern Minstrel: I have been called a "prostitute" by several critics and amateur poets-never by a professional. . . . I honestly believe that sound commercialism is the best test of true value in art. People work hard for their money and if they won't part with it for your product the chances are that your product hasn't sufficient value. An artist or writer hasn't any monopoly. . . . If the public response to his artistry is lacking, he'd do well to spend more time analyzing what's the matter with his work, and less time figuring what's the matter with the public.... Genius doesn't starve. 6 Few artists of any kind have respected their public as much as he respected his.

Braley also remembered that the. source of wealth was not just labor, but the human mind. In "Enchanted Machines," he wrote: Enchanted, in fact, with the only true magicThe magic that lives in the Brain, By which man has banished his drudgery tragic, The sweat and the toil and the strain, The magic that, seeking new visions, new courses, Knows not what "Impossible" means, The magic that harnesses infinite forces And builds these Enchanted Machines! He also sang of' 'The Thinker," "Adven turers of Science," and "The Electrician. " The mind was the source of his success. Braley looked at the world the same way that his heroes did. He was a keen observer with an Ayn Rand-like ability to see great ness in things which appeared to be simple and dull. He wrote about "The Telephone Directory" : What is there seeming duller than this book, This stolid volume of prosaic print? And yet it is a glass through which we look On wonderland and marvels without stint.

575 He combined this with the quick-wittedness of a Johnny Carson. He participated in a limerick contest in 1925 with 200 versifiers at the Roosevelt Hotel in New York. He was given the first line and won first prize with this effort: There was an old fellow named Bryan, Whose voice was forevermore cryin' Do you think that my shape Was derived from an ape? Well, I think Charlie Darwin was lyin'.7 And all of his writings demonstrated a thor ough knowledge of the language that would amaze any English teacher. He knew that the beneficiaries of a free market system were the people and that the beneficiaries of the New Deal would be the bureaucrats. His poem "Business is Busi ness" finishes with: "'Business is Busi ness,' the BigMan said, / 'And that business is to serve.'" His New Deal Ditties were published in 1936 and included poems like "The Little Tin Gods" (in Washington) and "Three Little Bureaucrats," written in a Menckenesque tone. In "Fresh Every Hour, " he wrote about a problem which has plagued almost every democracy in history: Election promises, glibly spoken, Are easily made-and easily broken.

They're frail and fragile and slightly brittle, So.why complain if they crack a little? Unfortunately, his "ditties" emphasized the negative case against socialism more than the positive case for capitalism. Verse and Virtue Even in his sixties, Braley remained pro lific. He worked for an advertising agency until 1952. He summarized: "I've done greeting cards, mottoes, calendars, and bridge scores. I've written verse for about every type of trade journal there is, sung of machine tools, electric toasters, coal break ers, Mergenthalers, vacuum cleaners, ships and shoes and sealing wax. "8 He liked the " 'free' in freelancing' '9 and made the most 576 THE FREEMAN-AUGUST 1996 of that freedom. In 1955, he estimated his output at "11,000 verses, several hundred short stories, and many articles .... " 10 Berton Braley was a dedicated philoso pher of freedom. He was fascinated by the Industrial Revolution and understood its implications. He equally understood the impracticality and the immorality of social istic programs like the New Deal. He held his highest regards for the individual who displayed the virtues of courage, honesty, fruitfulness, and perseverance-whether the person was a farmer, a pioneer, an en gineer, a waiter, an industrialist like Henry Ford, or a doctor" At a War Hospital." In his poem "Why Not?", he asked: The spirit of man is not wrapped in the shroud, Why shouldn't the soul of a mortal be proud?

D 1. Berton Braley, Virtues in Verse, ed. Linda Tania Abrams (Milpitas, Cal.: The Alantean Press, 1993), p. viii. 2. Ibid. 3. Ibid., p. 4. Subsequent quotations of Braley's verse are also from Virtues in Verse. 4. Ibid., p. 111. 5. Ibid., p. ix. 6. Ibid., pp. 128, 147. 7. "Berton Braley, Poet Dies at 83," New York Times, January 27, 1966. 8. Ibid. 9. Braley, p. 160. 10. New York Times. by Ludwig von Mises Fourth revised edition, with a new introduction by Bettina Bien Greaves In this seminal work, one of the most brilliant thinkers of our time examines the basic principles that underlie the entire scope of human action. Revolutionary when it first appeared, controversial to this day, Human Action represents the culmination of Ludwig von Mises' lifelong quest to present economic theory as a true science. Considered by many to be the counterweight of Marx's Das Kapital,Human Action is the magnum opus of a genius.

Ludwig von Mises (1881-1973) was the most celebrated advocate of capitalism and critic of socialism of his time. He was the acknowledged dean of the "Austrian" school of economics and the teacher of F. A. Hayek and many other influential economists and social scientists. Mises is now universally acknowledged as one of the fountainheads of the worldwide movement toward individual liberty. Published by The Foundation for Economic Education, Inc. Irvington-on-Hudson,NY 10533 ISBN 1-57246-021-0 Hardcover $49.95 Available in bookstoresnationally,or call (800) 452-3518 • Fax: (914) 591-8910 THEFREEMAN IDEASON LIBERTY Jolm Locke Natural Rights to Life, Liberty,and Property by Jim Powell A number of times throughout history, tyranny has stimulated breakthrough thinkingabout liberty. This was certainly the case in England with the mid-seventeenth century era of repression, rebellion, and civil war. There was a tremendous outpour ing of political pamphlets and tracts. By far the most influential writings emerged from the pen of scholar John Locke.