RESEARCH General Arts

CARL SANDBURG
Writer once considered run for the presidency, document reveals

Andrea Lynn, Humanities Editor
(217) 333-2177; a-lynn@uiuc.edu

11/1/02

Photo by Bill Wiegand Gene Rinkel, curator of the Sandburg Collection at Illinois, has discovered that Carl Sandburg entertained thoughts of running for president of the United States.

CHAMPAIGN, Ill. — As many people learned in school, Carl Sandburg considered himself a "Poet of the People."

But a newly discovered document reveals that he once had other aspirations: For a brief time in 1940, the bard, biographer and balladeer (1878-1967) entertained thoughts of becoming "President of the People" – president of the United States, that is.

The evidence for a "quiet, undercover ‘Sandburg forPresident’ movement" in the GOP, of all
places – he was a Socialist – is found in a transcription of a dictation Sandburg made on Feb. 23, 1940, at the request of Catherine "Kitty" McCarthy, his editor at Harcourt, Brace and Co. Sandburg had revealed the presidential plot to McCarthy, whom he referred to as his "mascot" and his "luck-bringer," in confidence. She thought the scheme should be documented, so she made three copies, one for herself.

McCarthy put "The Document," as she called it, in her safe-deposit box. After her death, the copy and hundreds of other Sandburg materials that she had protected over the years shuttled ignominiously in cardboard boxes among her relatives. A year ago, a Pennsylvania antiques dealer announced that, by a fluke, he had discovered the papers among refuse destined for the local dump.

When the newly discovered treasure trove of Sandburgiana came up at auction on Aug. 26, the Library of the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign, the repository of a large world-class Sandburg collection, purchased more than half of the items. Among the 135 items are "several important and early manuscripts that shed light on the close working relationship between the writer and the editor," said Gene Rinkel, curator of the Sandburg Collection at Illinois.

In the transcription, which McCarthy titled "Private Memories," Sandburg chronicled the efforts of several New Yorkers, beginning in December 1939, to drum up support for his nomination to break "the ‘log jam’ of candidates" in the GOP in 1940. The chief backer, Frederick Payne, a Wall Street broker, tried to convince a popular but worn-out Sandburg that he brought "a certain sort of simplicity and a certain completely fresh approach to our national problems."

In time, the dubious Sandburg would learn that Boston Republicans also were cordial to the idea, as were Henry R. Luce and Sidney James, head of Time Magazine’s editorial office in Chicago. The backers reserved Cooper Union for Feb. 27, 1940, for a Sandburg address on "such public questions as he cared to discuss." The date was no accident: It would be the 80th anniversary of Abraham Lincoln’s Cooper Union speech, which propelled him to nationwide prominence. The president of NBC agreed to "clear the network" for an hour so that a national audience could hear Sandburg speak.

Just days before the event, Sandburg told Payne that he just didn’t have "the physical stamina or the free time" to run. The author of hundreds of poems for children closed his dictation with: "Thus ends the tale of the little balloon which doesn’t even qualify as a trial balloon."