A Sandburg Stumper

[Rob Wick]

Of course, Steve is correct. It was in the two-volume Abraham Lincoln: A New Portrait.

Emanuel Hertz is one of those people, like Otto Eisenschiml, that just cries out for a biographer. The amount of dislike that Hertz engendered in the Lincoln community is legend.

In January of 1929, Hertz sent Sandburg a fawning three-page letter after Abraham Lincoln: The Prairie Years came out. He used more whitewash in the letter than appeared on Tom Sawyer's fence. To his credit, Hertz waited until November of 1929 before he sent another letter asking Sandburg if Hertz should publish a book on the many pamphlets that Hertz had collected, and then asked Sandburg if he would write Hertz a letter of introduction to Alfred Harcourt (Sandburg's publisher) to see if he would be interested in publishing it. Evidently Sandburg declined, because the book was published by Horace Liveright.

Sandburg did agree to Hertz's request that he write the preface for the book. As one might expect of a man as busy as Sandburg was, it took a while for him to put together the piece. On August 6, 1931, Hertz wrote Sandburg the following:

I have now had the opportunity of carefully reading the Preface which you were good enough to prepare, and I find that in your good nature you have dedicated practically all of the article to the author of the book and made little or no comment on the book itself. The article will probably serve your purpose, should you conclude to use it when you are ready to publish your book about the different "characters" you have met; but I fear that in justice to the book itself, when a Foreword or Preface is written, the author and his family should not be glorified, but be entirely forgotten.

Sandburg, in an understandable fit of pique, wrote two letters to Hertz on August 9. I'm not sure if only one or both were sent, but here are the complete texts of both.

In my estimation, this is the first letter that Sandburg wrote:
Your letter is here. Tell Liveright that publication of the praface I have done is without my consent or permission. When I have gone thru the complete proofs of the book I shall write a lavish, conventional piece, in accord with the wish of yourself and the judgement of Liveright, of which people will say, "Oh yeah." If the second piece is not up to requirements and shows that I am still off key from the chorale of the theme, it will be your privilege to again sit in with Liveright and give me your combined judgement.

In what I feel is a second letter that Sandburg composed (which he misdated as 1921) he writes:
Whatever else may happen you must not publish the preface I wrote. Your misgivings about it are such that if I could possibly have believed they would be as you express them, I surely would not have given three days of a hot summer to work on the job. Also if I had not submitted the piece to others who have only friendliness and admiration for you, I would not have committed it to you, for inclusion in the book.

This would not be the first time Sandburg and Hertz crossed paths. After Abraham Lincoln: The War Years appeared. Hertz was selected by Arthur Cole, editor of the Mississippi Valley Historical Review, to review it, which angered a number of people in the Lincoln community. The following is from my article in the Illinois Historical Journal on the friendship between Sandburg and James G. Randall. Randall had written a review of The War Years.

While Randall wrote a fair review, another would bemuse Sandburg and anger both Randall and Angle. Arthur C. Cole, editor of the Mississippi Valley Historical Review assigned Emanuel Hertz, whose reputation among Lincoln scholars was far worse than Sandburg’s, to review the book. Angle fired off a letter to Sandburg, which prompted a reply dated March 21, 1940. “The news that little manny is executing gyrations in a journal of professional historians is not astonishing tho it is slightly surprising,” Sandburg said. “That this journal should pan THE WAR YEARS as it likewise did THE PRAIRIE YEARS is not so peculiar. But that an irresponsible reprobate, so widely known as such, should do the job, is one more laugh in this whimsical and temperamental realm of Lincolniana. That the irony of it should not occur to those responsible for it is a token and symptom of something.”*
Randall, in a letter written on March 28, told Angle that he felt exactly the same way. He was shocked by “Cole’s somewhat amazing selection of Hertz to review Sandburg.” Randall, in an attempt to rationalize Cole’s decision, wrote “Sandburg himself being no scholar, he does not rate being reviewed by a scholar; ergo Hertz might as well be chosen as anybody. Of course this is hooey. I simply cannot understand Cole’s action.”

The preface would eventually be written by Nicholas Murray Butler. While doing my research I never did find a copy of Sandburg's preface. Great job, guys.

Best
Rob