The last thing I expected to do in the serene silence of the DePauw University Library Archives was laugh.
My mission seemed far from humorous. I was poring over old letters and documents in the university’s Max Ehrmann collection. That Terre Haute-born writer — the guy who wrote the ultimate peace poem, “Desiderata” — was a DePauw grad, and the school maintains a well-stocked archive of his personal notes, photos and correspondences. The Tribune-Star chose to add Ehrmann to its Terre Haute’s Top 40 list of people, places and things that are unique to our city or connect the outside world to this town.
After jotting down quotations and trivia from Ehrmann’s life, I came across a batch of letters to and from famous folks like authors Jack London and Upton Sinclair, and historian Charles Beard. Also inside those neatly kept files were correspondences with Ehrmann’s fellow Terre Haute icons — labor leader Eugene Debs, songwriter Paul Dresser and social novelist Theodore Dreiser.
It sounded like pretty dry stuff until I took a peek at Max’s notes to Debs and Dreiser.
The men already were nationally and internationally famous when they shared letters with Ehrmann, and he’d gained a bit of literary notoriety himself. Debs and Dreiser also shared a rare trait — the ability to get under Max Ehrmann’s skin. Yes, both figures tested the poet’s oft-quoted advice, “As far as possible, without surrender, be on good terms with all persons.”
He was human. And, after all, Ehrmann originally wrote that poem about contentment to help himself, “because it counsels those virtues I felt most in need of.”
Debs and Ehrmann shared a long, mutual admiration. In a 1907 letter, Debs agreed with a glowing story Ehrmann had written about him for the Terre Haute Spectator. Max noted that Debs earned greater praise elsewhere in the world than in his hometown. Debs said the same fate befell Ehrmann, and wrote, “It seems strange that your beautiful and poetic work should be so much more readily recognized and fittingly acknowledged by strangers in far-distant cities than by your neighbors and townspeople.”
But in 1919, when Debs spoke out against World War I, Ehrmann disagreed sternly with the most famous American socialist. Ehrmann said, “I fear he has ceased to believe in democracy” and denounced Debs’ support for the International Workers of the World, whose “platform is violence and revolution.”
Ehrmann even asked an editor of a New York publication to withdraw another story he’d written about Debs.
As pointed as that clash of opinions became, Dreiser truly could push Ehrmann’s buttons.
The year was 1934. Unlike Dreiser, who left Terre Haute to pursue his literary career and never made a meaningful return, Ehrmann chose to stay here and craft his poetry. Given his literary status, Ehrmann wound up serving on a committee aiming to create a bronze or granite statue honoring Dreiser’s brother, the late Paul Dresser. To put it mildly, Dreiser was less than gracious toward Ehrmann and his fellow volunteers on the Dresser Memorial Association.
The group had spent several years trying to raise $50,000 to complete the project where eastbound U.S. 40 crosses the west bank of the Wabash River. Approximately $30,000 had been raised and was invested in a bank, the letters showed. In a curt note to Ehrmann, Dreiser said he’d asked a New York banker to calculate the interest on that money over the years, and deduced that it would total around $49,000. Dreiser insinuated the association was profiting from his brother’s fame, and implied that he should receive a portion.
Ehrmann was incensed.
In the margin of Dreiser’s note, he wrote, “I did not answer this insulting letter.”
Later, though, Ehrmann apparently calmed down enough to craft a three-page response to the not-so-lovable Dreiser. Max insisted the committee had no plans to change its objectives or fund raising. Ehrmann offered the novelist — whose explicit novels earned critical acclaim but offended many in his hometown — an analogy to explain his refusal to cede to Dreiser’s demands.
Ehrmann wrote, “An illustration might be that when you were in midcourse on ‘An American Tragedy,’ it was suggested that you destroy your work and start something else.” (Max was essentially telling Dreiser to wad up his greatest contribution to literature.) Ehrmann also insisted that “nobody gets any salary, there are no rake-offs or till-tappings.”
Then, Max added this classic comeback, “I have put so much time into this association that, more than once, I have wished that your brother might have written ‘On the Banks of the Ohio’ instead of ‘the Wabash.’”
He concluded the letter with some carefully muted praise of Dreiser’s courageous push for social reform, and a footnote.
I’ve enclosed a copy of “Desiderata,” Ehrmann told Dreiser.
Something tells me that, upon reading Max’s note, Dreiser found it hard to “be cheerful,” and to “strive to be happy.”
Mark Bennett can be reached at (812) 231-4377 or mark.bennett@tribstar.com.
Mark Bennett Opinion
Mark Bennett: Even world-renowned peace poet Max Ehrmann had spirit tested by fellow Terre Haute icons
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