Letter to Helen Keller from Carl Sandburg (October 10, 1929)

Transcription

THE CHICAGO DAILY NEWS
DAILY NEWS PLAZA, CHICAGO

400 WEST MADISON STREET

October 10, 1929

Dear Miss Keller:

Since your good letter came to my hands I have read not only that but also your book "Midstream." So it has been the biggest Helen Keller summer I have ever had. I have written three notes which are to run in my Notebook in The Chicago Daily News during the month of publication. These will be clipped and sent on to you, for whatever they are worth of your time.

I tried to read your letter out loud to my family and some friends at dinner one evening in my home. As I got into the last three paragraphs of your letter I knew all of a sudden that if I went on reading it I would be crying, and knowing this, I stopped reading and said, "I won't read the rest of the letter. You can read it for yourselves if you want to. All she says is that we are dumb and understand all living things that are dumb."

I have an impression that you are not acquainted with my Potatoe (sic) Face Blind Man. He is the leading character in two books Rootabaga Stories and Rootabaga Pigeons, which I wrote for young people, meaning by young people those who are children and those grownups who keep something of the child heart. If you do not have these books I should love to send them to you, for there are pages which travel somewhat as my heart and mind would have if I had gone blind, which twice in my life came near happening. On some trip to New York I shall phone and ask whether I can come out and bring my guitar and songs. I am a vaudevillian too. Perhaps you know my panoramic, tumultous, transcontinental "The American Songbag."

May luck stars be over you.

Faithfully yours,
[Signature]
Carl Sandburg