◊ Was it Herbert Hoover of Grant Hervey who wrote that ‘exotic and erotic poem’ which is displayed in the foyer of the Palace Hotel in Kalgoorlie?
◊ Underneath the poem is the legend that it was penned by Herbert Hoover, later to become President of the United States, who also donated to the hotel the magnificent mirror now in the foyer.
◊ The poem has always been the subject of much speculation among historians, researchers and authors.
◊ It was first published in Arthur Reid’s book ‘Those Were the Days’, printed in 1933, some 40 yrs after Arthur Bayley discovered gold at Coolgardie, but there is no reference to when or where it was first printed.
◊ Goldfields born author Rica Erickson, delved into the archives to find an answer and uncovered some interesting facts.
New Light on an old Poser !!
Arthur Reid was a journalist and so was Grant Hervey. It is significant that in the huge gallery of people assembled in Reid’s book he does not deserve a mention.
The following is a brief outline of the careers of both Hoover and Hervey largely gleaned from the ‘Australian Dictionary of Biography’.
Herbert Clark HOOVER
He was born a Quaker, the son of a blacksmith in the USA in 1874. he became know as a mining engineer, a humanitarian and prominent American Statesman. At the age of 23 in 1897 he was sent to Western Australia to evaluate mines and their prospects. He worked briefly at Coolgardie, Kalgoorlie and Leonora.
Herbert Hoover as a young man.
In 1898 he was the mine superintendent at the Sons of Gwalia Ltd at Leonora but left at the end of the year to marry his fiancee. He then worked in China as a mining engineer. When he became a partner in Bewick, Moreing and Co he returned to WA. He introduced Italian labour at the mines and imposed longer working hours and harsher working conditions on miners.
As before, his stays on the Goldfields were brief, visiting in 1902, 1903, 1905 and 1907. During and after WW1, he organised gigantic food relief projects in Europe, earning him a reputation as a humanitarian which was at odds with his ruthless handling of the miners. From 1929-1933 he was the President of the United States of America and he died in 1964.
Herbert Hoover when President of the USA
His biographer summed him up as follows: ‘Hoover was blunt and laconic with a prodigious capacity for work, a man with high ambition and a prolific writer on serious subjects.’ He also added ‘ almost certainly he did not write to often attributed poem ‘ A Love Poem to a Barmaid in Kalgoorlie.’
Grant Hervey
Hervey was a man if a very different caliber. He was born in 1880 in Casterton, Victoria, the son of Robert and Alice Cochrane and was given the christian names or George Henry. In his youth he worked as a blacksmith. By 1900 he was working as a freelance journalist under the name of ‘Grant Hervey’ and was living in Sydney, Melbourne, Pertand Kalgoorlie. A fellow journalist remarked that Hervey ‘turned out poetry by the square yard’. He sent thundering verses to the ‘Bulletin’ as well as to a number of periodicals. His verse was mediocre, but he beat the drum for Australia and his topics were of the bush, farms, ships, miners and life in jail, but mostly his verses were about women and love.
Grant Hervey as he appeared in the frontispiece of his book ‘Australian Yet.
Hervey would have been in Kalgoorlie about the same time as Hoover, but by 1905 he was in Melbourne and had a brush with the law. He was assaulted by an enraged man who found his wife arm in arm with Hervey. Hervey retaliated by shooting his assailant and was lucky to be acquitted of attempted murder.
In 1913, Hervey published a collections of his verse called ‘Australia Yet’, His photograph in the books shows a very debonair young man but in fact he must have been running short of cash. He was occasionally employed by John Norton of ‘The Truth’ newspaper and in 1914 he offered for payment to provide Norton with intimate evidence against his wife. As a result he was charged with forgery and uttering and sentenced to four years hard labour.
After his release from prison he assumed the name of Madison, and posing as a wealth American he went to Mildura with a scheme of promoting the district which he sought financial backing. He was exposed by a local journalist, C J De Garis as an impostor with a criminal record. Vigilantes tarred and feathered him and ran him out of town. He assailants were convicted but the judge referred to Hervey as a ‘foul and filthy journalist’.
Harvey took his revenge on De Garis by placing poster in Melbourne bank stating he was bankrupt. In 1923, Hervey was again tried for forgery and uttering and sent back to jail. In 1931 he was to spend a further time in jail for forging a telegram.
Hervey was as incorrigible with his love affairs as he was with his writing. He married twice and it is said that the second was bigamous. He died in 1933.
An indication of his propensities for lovemaking lies on the titles of some of his printed verses: Kisses and Sin, My Lady is Waiting for Me, Lips and Stars.
In ‘Girls of the Morning’ he wrote
We have sang our songs of the girls of the night
The belles of the blazing bar
Let us sing now how bright, how pure and white
The girls of the morning are.
Again in ‘The Joy of Life’ he wrote
They may sneer of love in the smoking rooms where hapless Cynics dwell,
But the man who knows not the ‘Sweets of Love’ is a monk in a dead mans cell.
The waft of dreams is the golden hair that shines on a woman head
And i know no joy like a girls glad kiss when the sun is sinking red.
When you read the following verse compare its rhythms and sentiments to the previous verse. Some lines attributed to Hoover as reminiscent to Hervey’s.
The question now remains, who wrote these lines? Could it be that Hervey sent his verses to Reid for perusal and that a scrawled signature was miss read? The names Hoover and Hervey as somewhat alike. Or was Hervey in need of cash and setting up another forgery?
To a Kalgoorlie Barmaid
Do you ever dream, my sweetheart, of a twilight long ago,
Of a park in old Kalgoorlie, where the bougainvilleas grow,
Where the moonbeams on the pathways trace a shimmering brocade,
And the overhanging peppers form a lovers’ promenade?
Where in soft cascades of cadence from a garden close at hand,
Came the murmurous, mellow music of a sweet, orchestral band.
Years have flown since then, my sweetheart, fleet as orchard blooms in May,
But the hour that fills my dreaming, was it only yesterday?
Stood we two a space in silence, while the summer sun slipped down,
And the grey dove dusk, with drooping pinions, wrapt the mining town,
Then you raised your tender glances darkly, dreamily to mine,
And my pulses clashed like symbols in a rhapsody divine.
And the pent-up fires of longing loosed their prison’s weak control,
And in wild, hot words came rushing from my burning soul.
Wild hot words that spoke of passion, hitherto but half expressed,
And I clasped you close, my sweetheart, kissed you, strained you to my breast.
While the starlight-spangled heavens rolled around us where we stood,
And a tide of bliss kept surging through the current of our blood.
And I spent my soul in kisses, crushed upon your scarlet mouth,
Oh! My red-lipped, sun browned sweetheart, dark-eyed daughter of the south.
It was well that fate should part us, it was well my path should lead,
Back to slopes of high endeavor, aye, and was it well, indeed.
You have wed some southern squatter, learned long since his every whim,
Soothed his sorrows, borne his troubles, sung your sweetest songs for him.
I have fought my fight and triumphed, on the map I’ve writ my name,
But I prize one hour of loving, more than fifty years of fame.
It was but a summer madness that possessed us, men will hold,
And the yellow moon bewitched me with its wizardry of gold.
Let them say it, dear, but oft-times in the dusk I close my eyes
And in dreams drift back to where the stars rain splendor from the skies,
To a park in far Kalgoorlie, where the golden wattles grow,
Where you kissed me in the twilight of a summer long ago.
And I clasp you close, my sweetheart, while each throbbing pulse is thrilled,
By a low and mournful music that shall never more be stilled.
The editor of WA Bush Poets makes the following comments:
The story goes that Hoover had a brief passionate liaison with a barmaid. My doubts are due to –
- Hoover was not known at all for writing poetry, far from it, he was reported to have been an abysmal failure at literature – He almost did not pass his degree due to this, it was only the intervention of his geology professor that got him through. He is not known to have written any other poetry.
- The poem refers to the bougainvilleas in the garden. In 1897-98 when Hoover was in Kalgoorlie there would not have been any bougainvilleas or “peppers” big enough to sit under, (It’s very doubtful if there had been any at all – they are not plants that 1890s West Australians would have even been aware of ) – The town had only been in existence since 1893 when gold was first discovered there. It was, at that time just emerging from a mining camp into a proper town with all of its infrastructure (pavements, roads, etc, let alone any ornamental plants or “garden close at hand”. If there was any garden, it would have been for growing vegetables, not ornamental plants.
- The Palace hotel was only built in 1897. There were no public gardens at that time. – There were also no “golden wattles” in Kalgoorlie. There was no water – any trees would have been long cut down to provide fuel for cooking and heating or for supporting the underground workings. By around 1900, trees were being cut from over 100km from Kalgoorlie – there were none close, they had all been cut down.
- “Southern Squatter” – the term “squatter” was not in common use in Western Australia – This is a NSW concept – Also, if the term is used relative to Kalgoorlie, it doesn’t make a lot of sense, for at the time, there was nothing south of Kalgoorlie except some mining and the small port town of Esperance which at that time had no agricultural or pastoral significance.
- The style and poetic tools used in this poem are the hallmarks of a poet of some expertise, Hoover was far from that .
It has a consistency of rhythm that the vast majority of “amateur” poets find difficult to achieve, the use of alliteration, (eg. “the murmerous, mellow music” or “cascades of cadence” ) is a feature which “amateur” poets are unlikely to be accomplished in, as are various examples of syntax variations (eg “Stood we two a space in silence” ), use of metaphors (eg “And the grey dove dusk, with drooping pinions”) - Hoover had been bought up as a Quaker, he was engaged to be married (which he did almost immediately he returned home), and, bearing in mind the morals of the time, it is highly unlikely that he would have had a liaison with a barmaid.
What do you think??? My own opinion is definitely in ‘Hervey’ camp but I would love to know what other think.
Moya Sharp
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