Show by JOHN DICKINSON bherman S WALT WHITMAN the good gray poet corn ing into his own at last new york city anyway seems to be scrambling hard to overtake hla fame the authors club has decided upon a ten foot bronze stat ne and jo davedson Dav ldson has been corn to make it anyone who feels so inclined can contribute to the cost shut not your doors to me proud libraries 1 wrote W hitman in one of his poems libraries have been known to do that and now comes forward the new aorl public library with an exhibition of in aid of the statue project it Is the first time any library has honored the poet with a special exhibition the consists of books editions of all sorts translations into foreign languages newspapers and magazines to which he contributed manuscripts paintings busts caricatures books about him and a great variety of other material illustrative of the life and work of new borks greatest poet the exhibition hibi tion has been assembled and ar ranged by alfred goldsmith the whit man biographer the editions on view are thus summarized here Is shown franklin evans W hitman s first volume a puerile tern perance melodrama sean copies of the famous first edition of leaves of grass the second edition with the well known 1 I greet you at the beginning of a great career from emer son spread upon the Is fully displayed as aro the barlous quaint blind tooled bindings of the third edition passage to india Is the original manuscript this poem vaa as he thit which ex pressed his deepest self alie osgood of 1881 2 alch caused such a furor because of legal prosecution Is shown as well as the rees welsh edition which paid the author the largest royalty checks of his career A rarely seen volume Is memoranda during the war of which less than one hundred copies were printed the edition which whitman himself thought his most hand some one was the autographed pocket book edition of hut ton ie irs after bis deatle in 1892 his collected works were published de auvo by put nam in lan highly volumes the deathbed edition was I 1 bound for hitman just before his death in order that he might make a farewell present to his friends the display of editions closes the latest issued a year ago the ushe edition the committee on sculpture in eludes prof george S II ellman chair man and mrs clarry payne whitney aymar embury otto II 11 kahn clarles de kay guy egleston and prof emory hollow ay chairman of the walt whitman memorial committee professor II ellman has this to say about the selection of mr davedson Dav ldson s model for the memorial no formal competition was held but designs were submitted by six sculptors atho requested that their works be considered at the recent meeting of alie sculpture committee mr davidsons design was declared the most fitting and arrangements were begun with him looking to the completion of the worl mr davedson Dav ldson took as his theme Whit mans song of the open boad the long brown path before me lead ing wherever I 1 choose ills idea Is to have the statue raised slightly above its surroundings on a sort of hillock suggesting an open road on the ground in front of the statue lie visualizes a big stone blab upon which would be set in bronze the first stanza of the song ot the open road when completed the statue will be in bronze and of heroic size probably ten feet or more in height here are lines from the song of the open road which show that mr davidsons idea for a statue Is a happy one afoot and lighthearted light hearted I 1 take to the open road healthy tree the world before me the lone brown path before me lead ins wherever I 1 choose henceforth I 1 ask not good fortune I 1 myself am good fortune henceforth I 1 whimper no more postpone no more need nothing done with ind or complaints libraries querulous criticisms strong and content I 1 travel the open road from this hour X ordain myself loosed 0 limits and imaginary lines oolong where I 1 list my own master total and absolute listening to others considering well what they say pausing searching receiving contemplating gently but with undeniable will divesting myself of the holds that would hold me I 1 inhale great great draughts of space the east and the west are mine and the north and the south are mine Ca merado I 1 give you my hand I 1 I 1 my love more precious than money 3 give you myself before preaching or law will you give me yours eItT will you come travel with roe shall we sack by each other as long as we live foreigners insist that it was walt whitman who put ua on the literary map and keeps us there however that may be john burroughs ably expressed the american view point of a generation ago pretty closely when he wrote this who goes chere hankering gross mystical nude hankering like the great elk in the forest at springtime gross as nature Is gross mystical as boehme or and so far as the conceal ments and disguises of the conventional man and the usual adornments of polite verse are concerned as nude as adam in paradise indeed it was the nudity of walt whitman s verse both in r to its subject matter and hi mode of treatment of it that BO astor dished when it did not repel hla read era ha boldly stripped away everi thing conventional and artificial aroi man clothes customs etc and treated him as ho Is arl barlly in and of himself and in hi relation to the universe and wit equal boldness he stripped away were to him the artificial adjuncts c poetry rhyme measure and all ati stock language and forma of th schools and planted himself upon spontaneous rhythm of language lang an the inherently poetto in the comroe and universal walt whitman 1819 1892 was bor on long island and was educated 1 the public schools of new york an brooklyn on hla fathers aldo he wa english and on his mothers side II 11 0 land dutch ills maternal grandmont grand mott er was a ue learned palal ing and carpentering and also taugh school he began his writing in with conventional stories next h was editor of the brooklyn eigl after a leisurely tour of middle wes and southern states he joined the stai of the new orleans crescent A later he established in brooklyn th freeman a short lived organ of th free sollers from 1851 to 1854 h was busied with building and sell in houses and in 1855 appeared leave of grass for which he set most c the type himself leading citizen preachers lecturers and the gener public combined in denouncing him a a revolutionary abandoned ary unredeemed pagan arec literary charlatan and so on A lato at 1881 the massachusetts at thorl lles objected to its sale on tb ground that it was immoral from 1862 to whitman waa volunteer war nurse in the army ho petals of washington it Is said the he visited and administered to OC sick and wounded union and confect erate out of these experiences cam drum taps and other vo umas his labors as a nurse brouet on a serious illness from which h never ered in he was give a clerkship in alie interior department dep artmen but was discharged by the sec who objected to the adamac lc pa sages in leaves of grass lie wa given a new place under the attorney general and held it until a stroke paralysis in 1873 compelled his r tl rement he went to camden N J where he lived till his death marc 26 1892 walt whitman anticipating abusov criticism said he was willing to wa to be understood by the growth of th taste of himself Is the long wal overt |