Sandburg’s 1918 advice to the press

Bill Knight column for 7-23, 24 or 25, 2020

Reading the 101-year-old “Chicago Race Riots” by Illinois’ Carl Sandburg – who died 53 years ago this week – is a shocking work of journalism. The 82-page book shows racism we feel isn’t new and provokes thoughts about today’s press.

Another piece by the newspaperman (whose Pulitzers were for poetry and history) offers recommendations for journalists’ preparation – timely as many colleges are sacrificing arts and sciences to stress vocational efforts.

In an in-house magazine for Scripps' Newspapers in 1918, Sandburg listed “Books the newspaperman ought to read.”

Starting in journalism in 1904 with a column for his hometown daily in Galesburg, Sandburg in 1906 moved to Chicago, where he wrote for local magazines; in 1907 he went to Milwaukee and worked as a reporter and as a political organizer. He returned to Chicago in 1912, working for a few papers until landing at Scripps’ ad-free Day Book newspaper. It folded in 1917, but not long after, the Chicago Daily News hired him.

Sandburg “offered a counterpoint to those who would advocate a passive approach in reporting and to those who would let entertaining chatter and diversionary gossip masquerade as worthy content,” says Duane Stoltzfus in “Freedom from Advertising: E.W. Scripps’s Chicago Experiment.”

“His approach required finding the larger meaning in a news story,” Stoltzfus said.

For Scripps, Sandburg wrote, “The bookworm lives with books: the newspaperman lives with events. The newspaperman in a way is a book-maker. Language is his handy tool. He needs a few good books to live with rather than many to idle with.”

Sandburg suggested 10 readings to prepare journalists:

Henri Barbusse was a French novelist and pacifist who wrote about World War I. Sandburg wrote, “In the book written by Barbusse, ‘Under Fire,’ is the humility of the true reporter, the eyewitness whose honesty enables the reader to feel that he sees vividly where the reporter saw vividly.”

Letters and speeches of Abraham Lincoln. “Newspapermen touch and handle the public mind more closely than any other group of workers,” Sandburg wrote. “Newspapermen have it as a responsibility, to tell the people what is going on in the world.

Walt Whitman’s “Leaves of Grass.” A free-verse poet, Whitman was also a newspaperman. Sandburg wrote, “Young reporters and certain romantic oldsters get the habit of thinking there are women in Paris, Vienna or Moscow more wicked and mysterious than any women to be found in Toledo, Des Moines or Pasadena. That the people in our hometown are as important, complex and interesting as any people 1,000 miles away or 1,000 years ago is the feeling and viewpoint Whitman gives.”

The Bible. “Like newspapers, the Bible is full of contradictions,” he wrote. “It has more prophecies of new things upon the Earth than any other book. The Bible is pre-eminently a reporter’s book, the work of many reporters.”

Friedrich von Bernhardi was a Prussian general who wrote 1911’s “Germany and the Next War,” advocating a policy of aggression. Sandburg wrote, “The technique of conquest [and] the justification of autocratic militarism are voiced here authentically and convincingly. He is worth dipping into, for assurance as to what democracy is not.”

Victor Hugo’s “Les Miserables.” Hugo was a French author and social-justice activist. Sandburg wrote, “ ‘Les Miserables’ has the solemn frenzy of the agitator. Never is he sorry for the People.”

Henry David Thoreau’s “A Week on the Concord River.” Thoreau was an author and abolitionist who advocated civil disobedience. Sandburg wrote, “Monotony kills. Thoreau could sit right up to monotony and make it do tricks.”

The Industrial Relations Report came from Congress’ 1912 Commission on Industrial Relations after years of labor upheaval. Its definitive report was an 11-volume document written by commission head Frank Walsh. Sandburg wrote, “The combination [of all these recommendations] would not be the all-around equal of the material which may be mined from the report. Read the words of dreamers, men who have pictures in their heads of a reorganized industrial world, what they say about getting bread, peace and land for everybody.”

Epictetus’ “Enchiridion.” A 1st century Greek philosopher, Epictetus embraced the “Stoic” perspective, endorsing simplicity and concluding that external events are beyond human control, so people should strive to be masters of their own fate when possible, care for others, and accept whatever happens when fate determines otherwise. “In the midst of the contending currents of democracy we must be wise to the other fellow,” Sandburg commented.

Auguste Rodin’s “Art.” A French sculptor, Rodin was the father of modern sculpture, remembered for “The Thinker.” Sandburg wrote, “Art is anything you do that you don’t have to do in order to get by.”

“Much is required of us newspapermen if we would really understand the people,” added Sandburg, whose 1918 passport application stated, “I am a newspaper man.”