JAMES WHITCOMB RILEY, American poet, born (d: 1916); In the days when schoolmarms were intent on seeing to it that schoolboys would grow up hating poetry, they force-fed liberal doses of James Whitcomb Riley, who had gained immense popularity with his series of poems in the Hoosier dialect written under the pseudonym “Benjamin F. Johnson of Boone.” His verses were collected under the title “The Old Swimmin’ Hole” and “’Leven More Poems.” Heck…nowadays that’s qualifies him to run for Vice President, for criminy’s sake! Well, shucks, land’s sakes alive, whaddaya know! It turns out that Old Jimmy Riley acchi’lly liked lovin’ li’l boys ‘bout ‘lebenty-‘leben times more than writin’ poetry. Or, that’s at least what Charles Warren Stoddard, who knew him, claims in his letters and journals.