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Carl Sandburg
1878-1967"Fellow Citizens"
(1916)
- I drank musty ale at the Illinois Athletic Club with
- the millionaire manufacturer of Green River butter
- one night
- And his face had the shining light of an old-time Quaker,
- he spoke of a beautiful daughter, and I knew he had
- a peace and a happiness up his sleeve somewhere.
- Then I heard Jim Kirch make a speech to the Advertising
- Association on the trade resources of South America.
- And the way he lighted a three-for-a-nickel stogie and
- cocked it at an angle regardless of the manners of
- our best people,
- I knew he had a clutch on a real happiness even though
- some of the reporters on his newspaper say he is
- the living double of Jack London's Sea Wolf.
- In the mayor's office the mayor himself told me he was
- happy though it is a hard job to satisfy all the office-
- seekers and eat all the dinners he is asked to eat.
- Down in Gilpin Place, near Hull House, was a man with
- his jaw wrapped for a bad toothache,
- And he had it all over the butter millionaire, Jim Kirch
- and the mayor when it came to happiness.
- He is a maker of accordions and guitars and not only
- makes them from start to finish, but plays them
- after he makes them.
- And he had a guitar of mahogany with a walnut bottom
- he offered for seven dollars and a half if I wanted it,
- And another just like it, only smaller, for six dollars,
- though he never mentioned the price till I asked him,
- And he stated the price in a sorry way, as though the
- music and the make of an instrument count for a
- million times more than the price in money.
- I thought he had a real soul and knew a lot about God.
- There was light in his eyes of one who has conquered
- sorrow in so far as sorrow is conquerable or worth
- conquering.
- Anyway he is the only Chicago citizen I was jealous of
- that day.
- He played a dance they play in some parts of Italy
- when the harvest of grapes is over and the wine
- presses are ready for work.
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