Decatur Daily Democrat, Volume 28, Number 171, Decatur, Adams County, 21 July 1930 — Page 3

i here’s Money in Poetry By KONRAD BERCOVICI (Famous Author and Poet)

y the tranwtlantic steamer a stoutish man of about fifty, bald-headed and blue*f—,l extended a hand as big as a ham and introduced himself: f W '••Levine is my name. What is yours? lam in the silk business; what is I ■ >our business- z , L 9 ' I mumbled that my business was of no importance. After dinner, when the col'll was brought in. the purserand the captain of the boat greeted me and sat trie for a few moments. I introduced my companion, who, being overawed that )f ,i ai OJ f should be on friendly terms with me, asked again: ivH did you say'your buaino* was?’ 1 'I III w( , r WM V c r y vague. Puzzled, Mr. laevine looked at me with suspicion. i l ' i‘ I 'ur' later h*'ine tapped tne familiarly on the shoulder. »" | •'<mid out what you are. They tell me you're a writer. Why the hell didn’t you >U- ■> I ir 1 ' nothing to be ..shamed of I That’s happened even in mv family. Good night.” I! m<* w • 1u “

■ fallowin*: day Mr. Levine uptnsmlndto tell me H , ory Os bis l‘>« luß,eud ” f ' eggid h'm H* , t ..a better to Ket through ■ it V.'be-i u tnan has made H' n . mind !•> te,l you the story H IS- i'te tb‘ re 13 n ° e3Cap,J H e I„„eer you make him wait ■, I e mva.-doii tne more ornate H Mory will he and the K ri . untrue Nothing is so Krmv ar the Invented romance ■ unlmaclnative people. ■ After dinner I ent up on HcL. sat d«»n <>n a ,halr beside ■tn ano said: ■ ••You r anted to te I tne some--1,, Oo ahead Levine, let's Kv” ■ Lenue h> nine d and hawed. ■ "To make a long story short. ■«u this way I’m going to ■up to nuts, as they say. ■op i begin with. Kantro- ■’ I witz, who Is also In the II * silk business, is an old ■end of mine who came ■ America about the same ■me 1 came, twenty years ago. ■ r were loth in the same bual■sa Sometimes there was a ■ttle competition between us ■otMtinies we worked band 'n t In the main, we were Hends Sometimes we had a fttle light, a little squabble, a Ittle quarrel; but when 1 bought we had parted forever. [Mtrnwitz buys a little prooriy up in the Bronx and lets me Mr that 'here Is another lot Bside It which can be had for le same price he had paid and re build the same kind of Base, so it should cost cheaper, be architect and everything Ise and we remain frends for»er again for a long time. He as what he has, I have what I «ve and the families are fiends and everything Is ail igbt. "When the time comes and Ilk Is good one of his sons, the Idest one. as soon as he has Infshed high school goes into his alder's business. A-one all round, and falls in love with i Irl of ths neighborhood, and ets married to her, moves over o Washington Heights, and is iolng very fine. The oldest boy If Kantrowltz is the spit image »f bis father. What his father had done at twenty he does at twenty What his father has lone at forty he will do at forty. * regular fellow. The kind >f 1 son a man wishes to have not l atranger. But the other son. Izzy—with him it’s not so good, "hat's happened was that when luy was twelve or thirteen fears old and was still in school toey printed tn the school paper * poem written by Izzy himself, which was called ’lndian Wind.' Ar.! so Kantrowltz goes around ,Dd shows it to everybody that son is a poet, and frames it “Hl hangs it up in the office. >°u could not talk to KantroWl,z for five minutes without he •hould show you the poem of his framed and hung up on the ®* ll I came to talk business. ’ showed me Izzy’s picture. ' n< ! It made the older son good angry. What if he hadn’t •ritten poetry, wasn’t he a good I0D? I! >at’b all very nice and fine °r a hoy thirteen years old, and °* °rn In this country, who ,e s poems that get printed in e papers; the whole neighborrelAb !" t ’ r ° Ud Os hlm lle 18 » Bnl ,. ,y a| ready. But the boy " le ’ high school, and the fae ‘ “ ints he should come into . ’ “'* l " es ‘ 8 ' " n d >wy wouldn’t hear about ft. Then It is poe t S ° gC ° d Pe wantß “> be a aidJi?’ for a year or 80 we ddn t k n ° W n0,,1in 8 “b°ut it and t) know how much KantroQ J * a " Wolrled “nd 8 H the B in the family. Kantro-

witz Is a proud man. a self-made man, and keeps a secret what K not so nice in his family. But when the boy got to be eighteen, nineteen years old and was still doing nothing except writing poetry, I had to look at him because he was coming every night to my house to read to my Margaret his poems. So I says to him one day : “ ’lzzy, what’s going to te the end of It7 When are you going into y business’ Poetry is no business for a Kantrowltz. You got to consider the family!’ "So Izzy looks at me as If I had called his father names. and he shrugged his shoulders as it what I said was talking maybe Chinese; and when he goes away, my daughter asks me what bur’ness have 1 got to talk tc Izzy like that, and she tells me Izzy is a great poet. So I says to her that I knew that already. that 1 saw the poem that got printed in the school magazine years ago. but what, had that got to do with business’ And a boy ’That comes round to my house. I want 1 should know what he is doing. Loafers should come into my house yet! "So a week passes, and another week, and Kantrowltz comes up to my office one day, and I can see he is very worded So I says to him: " ‘How’s business. Kantrowitz.?' "Kantrowltz says business Is all right. So I ask him how was the health’ And ne says that was all right, too. I wondered what could be worrying him Finally, he tells me it's about Izzy. That a boy like this could happen tn his family—with the best of examples al wavs before him! His father and brother 'n business, all his family in business. and everybody in business, and he should just loaf, and does nothing 1 talk to him and I talk to him. he says, and it’s like talking to the wall. And what would the end be. he asks me. with tears in his eyes. "So I consoled fm and said don’t worry; It would all come out ail right, with a father like you and a brother. ... I know Izzy is not a bad boy. “All the time I wanted to tell him that the fault is really with Kantrowltz. for he had turned the boy’s mind by showing the poem and hanging it up in his office, so that he got a swelled head and thinks that he Is better than everybody. But even If I didn’t tell him. Kantrowltz understood that that was what 1 meant, so he said: “ ‘I know it was my own fault But I was so proud. How should I know what is going to happen’ How should 1 know that he will not want to do what I will tell him and write poetry forever!' “ ‘Don't worry.’ 1 told him. "things will come out all right. Izzy is of good family and blood is thicker than water. There ain’t been any poet In your family yet?’ I ask. " ‘No.’ says Kantrowltz. 'Have you ever heard of such a thing in my family? No bankrupts and no poets.’ "That evening when I came home and found Izzy sitting near my daughter on a couch and reading to her poetry from a paper I got very angry, and I said to him that he had no business worrying his father and mother and shame his family and loaf and write poetry and that I was the best friend of the family and wouldn't have said a word but he had no business »o sit near my Margaret on a couch and read poetry to her. And I gave it to him good and hard. First he should go and make a man f himself, and then yon should talk to my daughter. So Izzy gets angry, and my Margaret talks to me as she has never talked before —says she Is in America, and not In Russia.

DECATUR DAILY DEMOCRAT MONDAY, JULY 21, 1930.

So 1 .said to my Margun t that for women it was al) right; if she wanted to read poetry or do anything honest she wanted, it was all right, but for a boy whose family was in business L was a ruination. So he shouldn’t come any more to our house. “I thought I knew my Margaret. that she wouldn’t see him because she wouldn’t do what her father didn't want her to do. And everything was all right. But we are in America. Women got independent even from their families that supports them. Os course for women that work Independence is O.K. But it j turned out O.K. as you will hear later; even if 1 almost died, and it is even the reason I took a trip to the old country. “But you should have seen Kantrowltz then. He worried more in a week than his father had worried in a lifetime. And his father was the kind that spoke politics and carried tne world on his shoulders. He worried more about that boy’s future than he did about business. He would sit in my office and cry like a baby. His boy was no good! His son *was getting worse from year to year. And already he was twenty-one. with no thought of anything at all. and happy only when a poem of his got printed somewheres in the magazines. "Margaret used to read It to me when it appeared, and when she read it. it sounded all right, but it was always about flowers and rivers and such things, so I said to her one day: x “ 'Look. In five years that he writes poetry, show me what he has done. There is maybe two pages ’n a magazine. Was that enough work for a man in five years’ Nobody has nothing against a man writing poetry . . . but after business, when you got a little time. Nobody could write poetry eight hours a day. and even the Socialists say a man got to work eight hours a day.’ "So she sighs and looks at me as if to say 'you know nothing,' and from then on she stops showing me his poetry, and I stop talking about him. And Kantrowltz just loses his head that such a misfortune should happen in his house; that one of his sons shouldn’t want to do anything serious. And it breaks my heart. To all the worries a man got in business there should yet come such a thing in America. Poetry! zz < ND then one day Kan- /\ trowltz comes into my * • office, and I could see right away from how he acted that he was very happy. The biggest order couldn’t have made him so nappy. No. And so I think what could have happened to him! lam in conference with my salesmen, but I stop the conference and I call him aside and say: •‘ ‘What is ft, Kantrowltz? Tell me quick. I’m dying.’ "Bi t he was so excited be could hardly talk, and finally he says: “ 'You were right, Levine. You weie right. My Izzy has come to his senses. Blood is thicker than water. This morning he took a position with the A.G.B. Silk Company, and he is going on the road in a week! That boy has saved my life! And Kantrowltz cries like a baby. "It made me very happy. I couldn’t tell you how happy It made ne. The biggest order of silk couldn’t have done It, A man jot feelings even if he is in business, you know. And so I tel] Kantrowltz I have a big conference on, but the conference could wait for to-morrow. And the two of us went down town and we had a good bottle of wine over it. and we hadn’t been so happy together tn a long time,

An O'Brien Prize Story —■ — — —— — — - -—. rsar-ass —-- There were no poets or bankrupts in the Kantrowltz family—but then!

Biff - - ■ Map 1 8 x r /"r s ww r V v

talking about the old country and about people we knew and about everything. We hadn’t done so bad in this country. We have made money. Everything was all right. And our children were all right. There was nothing to worry about and blood was thicker than water. “I went home and told the good news to my wife. But when .Margaret, my daughter, hears that Izzy has come to his senses and is going on the road she begins to cry and cry as if she had heard the worst news. So you never can understand women, I think to myself. Nobody ever did. So how should I know what she cries about? But 1 knew she did not cry for happiness. I knew that. There is a great difference. So I let her alone and think maybe she cries because he goes on the road and she wouldn’t see him no more as often. For I know that she did meet him even if I had ordered the contrary. Girls are independent in this country, and a father that knows gives an order and then closes the eyes when he isn’t obeyed. U MONTH later Izzy comes hack from the road. “He Is a new man. He has cut his hair short. His clothes are pressed. The A.G.B. silk people are very satisfied with him. I called them up on the telephone and asked them how ft goes with him. So I think to myself now if he should come to talk to my Margaret I won’t say anything; for I »n---derstood that Margaret didn’t dislike him. But what do yon think happens. When he comes to talk to her, she wouldn’t speak to him. She Is angry that he should be no more a poet! Women got political rights but they are as foolish as ever. They don’t want bread, they want jewelry . . . poetry. "So he goes back on the road, and his father is very happy, and tells me that the boy learned in two months the business better than anybody could 'have learned it in ten years. Why not? Silk was in the Kantrowitz family for two hundred years The boy knew silk just as somebody coming from a family of musicians knows music. He was just born with it. He didn’t have to go to school to learn it and know the difference between silk and cotton. But I say nothing, and the father is happy, and everything ig all

“What is the matter with you children? Izzv! Again? You forget you are a married man. Izzy, again poetry! What’s to become of you? ’

right. Kantrowltz was crazy about the boy. About poetry that was not in the family 1 understand he should have made such a noise and hang up the picture on the wall. But about silk! How could a Kantrowltz not know silk? "Meanwhile every morning as I go out of my house I see letters coming from the road to my Margaret, so I say nothing. The boy goes back and forth on the road. Each time he comes back, he sees Margaret. Sometimes she talks to him one way and sometimes she talks to him another way, hot, cold, but I say nothing. Watch and see. I always believe blood is thicker than water. And there ain't been no poet yet in my family neither. "Meanwhile his brother, who has been partners with the father. has gone into business for himself. Izzy comes home and goes into partnership with his father. And his father, you couldn’t talk to him, he was so proud of Izzy. He spoiled that boy twenty-four hours a day. He was afraid Izzy would go back to poetry. "Now there comes out a new kind of silk, and every wholesaler in town gets the sample. Izzy looks at that piece of silk, and touches it and smells It and caresses it. You ain’t never seen sweh things the boy did with that piece of silk! The wholesaler had given it a name —I don't know what —but Izzy looks at the silk and smells it, and presses it *o his cheeks and to his lips like he was crazy, and then he says again: “ ‘lndian Wind!' and his eyes were sparkling, and his face was red just like he was drunk from touching that piece of silk. Just like that. ‘ln'dian Wind!’ “And when he sends an order he asks that they should print 'lndian Wind’’ all around the selvages of the silk, and pack it in a special kind of tinted silk paper. * “And ‘lndian Wind’ becomes such a craze that the women would have nothing but 'lndian Wind’ and wouldn't buy silk that didn't have marked around it ’lndian Wind.' even if it was exactly the same. And the orders fly to Kantrowltz, until it

almost put everybody else in the

business out of the business. “This is the same silk as the other,’ I explain io cutomers. But they don't want nothing only 'lndian Wind.’ And then Kantrowitz becomes very proud and shows to everybody that comes in the office that first poem which was still hanging on the wall with the name ‘lndian Wind.’ And when I come to see him, he tells me : “ ‘Levine, you were right. Such a boy I got!' “And I gave the man right You got to be straight. When the man is right he is right even when it hurts your business. < ND so Izzy begins to come a little more often “ “to the house. Business grows. Kantrowltz and Son were making lots of money. He and Margaret go out, and ne spends money like water. 1 say nothing. Sometimes they were happy, sometimes they were not. One day they come home and say they got married. Just like that. They wanted no wedding, no ceremony. That boy was always a little peculiar, even if he was a success in business. It made me very happy and it saved me a lot of money, because the father of the girl pays the expenses of the wedding. And for business reasons I would have had to give a wedding supper of five hundrerd plates at ten dollars apiece. Count it up, please. And in this country you never know when a child of yours marries what the family is. And here I have known Izzy since he was a little boy and he was such a great success and had turned out to be A-one with such a mind like his. calling a silk ‘lndian Wind.’ With such Ideas he had! And we were all very happy.’’ "The season over, people from the silk mills began to come around with new samples. I am very busy picking the new sarnies; and when Kantrowltz comes in I can see from his face that he is not so very happy. “ ‘What is it?” 1 ask him. “ ‘lt’s my Izzy,’ he answers. ‘He ain’t come to the office In three days.’

" 'For why?’ I asks him. “ ‘I telephone and telephone, and he answers that he is very ; busy at home and that I should | leave him alone; that he is too busy to come to the office. Le vine,’ Kantrowltz tells me. 'he is your son also a little, now. What can you do?' "I came home and I didn’t tell my wife nothing; for what’s the ; use of worrying her! “But when a man has got an l only daughter and nothing else I in the world except his business ; and he is no more young, I can j assure you whatever I ate that night was poison. What does Izzy mean by not coming to the office for three days and answering his own father that ha has no time? No time for business! How is that possible? “So I ask my wife wh> thcr she has seen Margaret, and she said that she had telephoned her up and asked her to come, and Margaret said she was busy; not to disturb her. So I remembered my Margaret was never satisfied that Izzy should not be a poet any more, and my blood got cold. You never can tel] with women. “So after dinner I couldn't hold out no more, so I said to my wife that 1 had to go somewhere very important to a lodge meeting and I get into the first taxi and go down to Washington Square where they live In the taxi 1 think and think what could it be; and wonder why they should have chosen to live in such a place. There are nicer houses in Washington Heights and still nicer ones in the Bronx. Why should they live in Washington Square? Even if he was in business, still he was a little peculiar, and Margaret, even if she was my daughter, she. too. had crazy ideas in the head. So I get out of the taxi and ring the bell with my heart so heavy as if I was going to visit a sick relative or going to a creditors’ meeting of a bankrupt firm. When the maid opens the door and I come in. my heart becomes twenty times heavier than it already was; for there sits Izzy at a table and across from him Fits my Margaret, and Izzy has i got long hair and smokes a pipe, and the ‘able is

PAGE THREE

I just fuU of books. And the I whole house was not like the < home of a business man Tbe . furniture was different Full ocouches and candlesticks Whv candlesticks when there Is electricity and not like in the old country? " ’Just a minute. Pop.’ Izzy tells me. and he reads poetrv from a book and gets terribly ex cited because Margaret does not agree. When Izzy gets through. Margaret says: “ ’Just a minute, Papa Sit down a minute. And she reads another p< em to me from a book "So 1 can see that the sickness has again come upon them, and I wonder that this can be a daughter of mine and a son of Kantrowltz that 1 have known so well for 'so many years I saw ruin before me! If a hole should hive opened before me I should have jumped in Thay paid no attention to me at all. as if I didn’t exist. Izzy takes | out another book and reads ■ Margaret takes out another book land reads back. And they fight and quarrel about things I don t understand at all And he smokes a pipe and she smokes >• cigarette. And I feel lam going to die My heart sinks. Then can hold out no longer, so I get up and cry: " ’What is the matter with you children? Izzy! Again’ You forget you are a married man. Izzy, again poetry! What’s t<y become of you’' < ND so Izzy look at me ZW as if I was the greatest “ * dumb-bell ever lived on | God’s earth Then he smiles at me, and picks up a book, and ' can tel) yon that in one moment al) my happiness comes back with a rush Between the leaveof the book were pieces of sam pie silk, and they were looking through poetry books to find an other name as good as ’lndian Wind' for the new silks! So you see poetry pays in business But yon got to he an American boy and know how to make use of it . . and not like them old country poets that starved in garrets. "Dut I got verv sick, and the doctor orders a rest. So I think I will visit my people in the old country. “So why didn't you tell me that you are a writer? That's nothing to be ashamed of.” © McClure Newspaper Syndicate