Kup's Chicago - Irv Kupcinet [48]
As Hecht and quite a few others had demonstrated, however, a creative genius on a Chicago news staff did not always make for editorial tranquility. In Sandburg’s case, nothing demonstrated this more than the way he handled an assignment to cover a bitter national labor convention in Minneapolis. Disorder had been expected at the meeting. And the first day, right on schedule, all the wire stories told of a near-riot on the floor of the convention. Eagerly, Daily News editors awaited Sandburg’s exclusive firsthand report. None arrived. There were further disorders the second and third days, and on the fourth day several delegates were wounded in a general gun battle on the convention floor. Still no copy from Sandburg. Finally, in desperation, managing editor Henry Justin Smith telegraphed his correspondent:
“Dear Sandburg: Please come home. Smith.”
Hours later came Sandburg’s reply:
“Dear Smith: Can’t leave now. Everything too exciting. Sandburg.”
Long one of America’s most popular and active senior citizens, Sandburg has only recently begun to curtail (slightly) his travel and lecture schedule. He waited until he had passed his eightieth birthday. He still likes to visit Chicago, and comes here often from the Flat Rock, North Carolina, farm where he lives with his wife, Paula, the sister of photographer Edward Steichen. His stamina never ceases to surprise me.
I remember one night in the Pump Room, after the local premiere of the play The World of Carl Sandburg, when he and Bette Davis and Gary Merrill of the cast sat up with several of us long after midnight. Thinking Sandburg must be tired, the rest of us didn’t dance, but remained in the booth talking. This did not last long.
“Maybe nobody else is going to dance,” said Carl, “but I am.” Whereupon the white-haired poet offered a hand to Chicagoan Donna Workman and took dozens of spirited turns around the floor.
Another time, in New York, Carl was invited out to dinner by ex-Chicago bookman Bill Targ, now editor in chief of The World Publishing Company. Bill expected Sandburg to suggest some small, quiet restaurant. Instead, he was surprised to hear the poet reply, “How about 21?”
Once at the night club, Targ suggested that they occupy an inconspicuous corner table, which well-known people often prefer in the interest of privacy. But Sandburg shook his head mischievously.
“I’d rather sit up near the entrance,” he said. “Then we can watch the celebrities.”
Almost every honor Carl Sandburg could wish for has come to him – including the preservation of his birthplace in Galesburg as a shrine. Quite a few schools have been named for him, and he has been awarded two Pulitzer Prizes. Only the Nobel Prize for Literature remains to be captured – and a few years ago when it was awarded to Ernest Hemingway, Hemingway himself said publicly that it should have gone to Sandburg. Someone asked Sandburg how he felt about it. “Shucks,” he answered, “it makes no difference.”
Then, with humor that has endeared him to all who have known him, Carl added, “Twenty years from now some fellows will be sitting around and one of them will ask, ‘Say, did Sandburg ever get the Nobel prize?’ And another will answer, ‘Sure, he got it in 1954 – Hemingway presented it to him.’”
Either way, the Chicago area can still establish its claim to the prize. For “Papa” Hemingway grew up in Oak Park, one of our oldest and largest suburbs. (Oak Park, incidentally, has also been the home of Edgar Rice Burroughs, creator of Tarzan,