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.”
