Nature Lover in Manhattan

A strange and wonderful part of the nickel's worth that readers of the New York World-Telegram get each day is a garrulous nature column on the editorial page called "News outside the Door." Its 75-year-old author, J. Otis Swift, who has been writing it 24 years, is convinced that he accounts for 100,000 of the Telly's 387,087 readers. Last week, at Manhattan's Cornish Arms Hotel, white-shocked, sprightly J. Otis Swift was guest of honor at the 23rd Annual Ball and Reunion of the Yosian Brotherhood of Nature Philosophers, of which he is World Leader.

Swift founded the Yosians (rhymes with O'Ryans) as a walking club in 1922. The name is an adaptation of his own. Josiah, which means "Jehovah supports." A pantheist by belief, and an Episcopalian to please his wife, he sees mother nature as "Jehovah in His maternal capacity" healing her children. The first Yosians were readers who wrote in to ask if they might tag along when he took hikes" to hunt material for his column. The dozen nervous nature lovers who first showed up grew into a traipsing mob of 500. The unwieldy crowds have long since been formed into 50 or so sub-walks under lay Yosians, but the founder's own weekend walks have remained the big attraction. Nowadays he hits the woodsy trails in New York's parks or just beyond the subway's end with about 75 followers.

Swift has cut his ten and 20-mile hikes to strolls of three miles, to match his age. He walks backwards, up & down hill, warned by his solicitous brethren as he approaches obstacles, and keeping up an endless commentary on plants, rocks, insects, animals, and human nature.

Says he: "If people can forget themselves and their worries for one day a week, that's good!" About every four years he has brought out a small folder, reaffirming his faith. The last one (in 1940) was headlined: "Yosians Walk on Weekends into the Land of the Soul." Most of the 150,000 members who sign up are, says Swift, lonely, middleaged, ordinary people. Frequently Swift is guest of honor at an all-Yosian wedding.

The Counter-Revolution. Controversial subjects such as politics and religion are forbidden on Yosian ambles. Members are "of all races, colors and creeds, a sort of walking democracy ... a meeting of the minds as the bodies relax." But there have been troublemakers. Just before the U.S. entered World War II, says Swift, "the Communists made my life hell." It may have been because Swift had broken his own rule and was indulging in subtle counter-revolutionary propaganda, using analogies from nature (ant life, etc.).

Swift's daily column undoubtedly appeals to many who do not read it with the seriousness that its author intends. His style, shot through with admittedly made-up mythology, is mystical, flossy, archaic. ("Beside the watery mere where pussywillows are growing frowsy, the twilight concert of the hylas is in full swing... .") But Swift is above criticism. He wants to pass away with his hiking boots on, just as an 84-year-old disciple did recently. "That," he says ecstatically, "is the way to die."

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