CHARLES WADDELL CHESNUTT, well known Negro author of thirty years ago, died at his home in Cleveland on November 15 at the age of 74. Mr. Chesnutt was awarded the Spingarn Medal for 1928, an award made annually by the Association for the Advancement of Colored People to a Negro of outstanding achievement. He was one of the leading literary men of the country invited to the dinner celebrating Mark Twain's 70th birthday in 1905. His books included two collections of short stories of Negro life, "The Conjure Woman" and "The Wife of His Youth and Other Stories" as well as "The House Behind the Cedars," "The Colonel's Dream," "The Marrow of Tradition" and a biography of Frederick Douglass. Mr. Chesnutt was for a time associated with Virgil P. Kline, corporation lawyer for the Standard Oil interests, but later gave up the practice of law to become a court reporter.