Langdon Smith

Langdon Smith (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 Martin Gardner.

Biography

According to Lewis Allen Brown's 1909 biographical sketch of Smith,

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 tribes.

Martin Gardner, who consulted Who's Who In America 1906–07 adds that Smith went to school in Louisville, Kentucky, 1864–1872.

On February 12, 1894 Smith married Marie Antionette Wright, described as "a Louisville girl" and soon after went to Cuba, reporting for the New York Herald on the guerilla operations of Antonio Maceo Grajales. He later returned to Cuba, at the outbreak of the Spanish–American War (1898), reporting for the New York Journal. According to Lewis Allen Brown,

One of the first at the front, he was present at all the principal engagements, taking high rank as a war correspondent.

Reporting

In October 1897 Smith, along with fellow sports reporter Danny Smith, was sent by the New York Herald to Carson City, Nevada, where he covered the boxing match between James J. Corbett and English boxer Bob Fitzsimmons.

Smith continued reporting for William Randolph Hearst's Journal 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 McKinley. According to historian W. Joseph Campbell,