Sadakichi Hartmann Papers
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http://oac.cdlib.org/findaid/ark:/13030/tf7s2007q4 No online items Guide to the Sadakichi Hartmann Papers Compiled by John Batchelor; machine-readable finding aid created by Apex Data Services Special Collections & Archives The UCR Libraries P.O. Box 5900 University of California Riverside, California 92517-5900 Phone: 951-827-3233 Fax: 951-827-4673 Email: [email protected] URL: http://library.ucr.edu/?view=collections/spcol © 1999 The Regents of the University of California. All rights reserved. Guide to the Sadakichi Hartmann 068 1 Papers Descriptive Summary Title: Sadakichi Hartmann papers Date (inclusive): circa early 20th century, undated Date (bulk): circa early 20th century Collection Number: 068 Creator: Hartmann, Sadakichi Extent: 84.0 linear feet (108 document boxes, multiple containers) Repository: Rivera Library. Special Collections Department. Riverside, California 92517-5900 Abstract: Sadakichi Hartmann (1867-1944) was a writer, poet, dramatist, and critic during the early 20th century. Hartmann was an important figure in early modernism and had a diverse social circle that included Walt Whitman, Ezra Pound, and John Barrymore. This collection includes Hartmann's published works, unpublished manuscripts, correspondence, photographs, pastels, paintings, and diaries. Languages: The collection is in English. Access This collection is open for research. Publication Rights Copyright has not been assigned to the University of California, Riverside Libraries, Special Collections & Archives. All requests for permission to publish or quote from manuscripts must be submitted in writing to the Head of Special Collections & Archives. Permission for publication is given on behalf of the Regents of the University of California as the owner of the physical items and is not intended to include or imply permission of the copyright holder, which must also be obtained by the researcher. Preferred Citation [Identification of item]. Sadakichi Hartmann papers, Collection 068. University of California, Riverside Libraries, Special Collections & Archives, University of California, Riverside. Processing History Compiled by John Batchelor, edited by Clifford Wurfel, with an introduction by Harry Lawton. Completed in 1980. Collection Scope and Content Summary Sadakichi Hartmann (1867-1944) was a writer, poet, dramatist, and critic during the early 20th century. Hartmann was an important figure in early modernism and had a diverse social circle that included Walt Whitman, Ezra Pound, and John Barrymore. This collection includes Hartmann's published works, unpublished manuscripts, correspondence, photographs, pastels, paintings, and diaries. A portion of this collection remains unprocessed. Please contact Special Collections & Archives for additional information regarding this material. Introduction (Historical Background) "The clapboard shanty known as "Catclaw Siding" is gone now, torn down many years ago, but in the summer of 1954 it stood on the desert flats of Morongo Indian Reservation, paint mostly worn away, wind rushing through its broken windowpanes. I was then a newspaper reporter, pursuing a story, and I badly wanted into the shack to see what secrets it contained. Ten years before it had been the last home of Sadakichi Hartmann (1867-1944), an almost forgotten American literary figure from the Mauve Decade. I studied the shack, carefully jotting down descriptive notes for my story. Then I walked away from it and knocked on the door of a nearby adobe house. The door was opened by a hauntingly beautiful woman with coal-black hair framing an olive-hued face. She listened suspiciously as I explained that I was a reporter and wanted to do a story on her late father, Sadakichi Hartmann. Then she slammed the door in my face. That was my introduction to Wistaria Hartmann Linton, who was to become a close friend and future collaborator with Professor George Knox and me in research on her father. Some weeks before Gene Fowler had published Minutes of the Last Meeting, a popular memoir detailing the escapades of John Barrymore, W. C. Fields, and other Hollywood celebrities during their last years. The most memorable character in his book was Sadakichi Hartmann, whom he called "the magnificent charlatan." Fowler portrayed Hartmann as an ancient relic of the earliest Bohemian days of Greenwich Village--now down on his luck, cadging drinks off Barrymore and various cronies for whom he performed as a witty and sarcastic court jester. There was much that was accurate in Fowler's Guide to the Sadakichi Hartmann 068 2 Papers portrayal of the half-Japanese, half-German writer, poet, dramatist, and critic. There was also much that was hearsay with no basis in fact. Fowler had a gift for telling a good story that would amuse readers, and he enjoyed making a good story better whenever possible. He embroidered upon many of the legends that had clung to Sadakichi Hartmann, dismissed the old man's real achievements as drunken boasts, and conducted only superficial research into his subject's past. The book was an instant best-seller and cause-célèbre that summer in the San Gorgonio Pass. Many long-time residents of the two Pass communities of Banning and Beaumont had known Hartmann--if only as an eccentric and mysterious figure with aristocratic manners who prowled their streets in a heavy overcoat, rumpled white hair poking from under a felt hat. In 1923, Hartmann had moved his family to Beaumont, and from that base he had made periodic forays to Hollywood, working on films, writing movie criticism, and joining the John Barrymore crowd as a drinking companion. In 1938, then in his 70's, Sadakichi had built his old-age shack, "Catclaw Siding" as he called it, on land owned by a Cahuilla cattlerancher, Walter Linton, who was then married to his daughter, Wistaria. Now ten years after his death everyone in the San Gorgonio Pass was reading about him in Fowler's book. I had never heard of Sadakichi Hartmann when the book came out. I found the book entertaining, accepted all of Fowler's tales at face value, and liked Sadakichi's mocking tongue and indomitable spirit. I was surprised to find those reader's of the book who had known Sadakichi best angry at Fowler's portrait. I believe the first criticism I heard about the book came from Mrs. George Lardner, Beaumont Librarian, who enjoyed discussing literature and often had invited Hartmann to her home for lunch. "I have yet to meet anyone who knew Sadakichi well who isn't disgusted by Fowler's book," she told me. Dr. Guy Bogart of Beaumont was also indignant. "He was a poseur, yes," admitted Bogart, "but a charlatan, no! If you read Fowler's book you'll see only a drunken moocher--the seedy old man Fowler met in his declining years. Yet Sadakichi was a rare personality, who never surrendered his ideals or artistic integrity for a moment." I was puzzled by the fact that most of those local people who had known Sadakichi agreed Fowler had captured much of the man's personality--yet they still considered the book an injustice. No one denied that Hartmann drank a lot, no one denied that he lived off a string of patrons, no one denied that much of his behavior was outrageous. Yet most of those who had any personal relationship with Sadakichi professed admiration and respect for him. For that matter, it was clear that Fowler had also admired Hartmann, perhaps even envied his strange charisma. As newspaper bureau chief for the Riverside Press-Enterprise Co. in the San Gorgonio Pass, I immediately saw the potential for an interesting feature story. I had particularly wanted to interview Mrs. Linton about her reactions to the book. But the door had slammed shut on me. Several days later, Ruth Little, a local newspaper writer and friend of Wistaria, persuaded her to talk with me. During an afternoon, I learned some of the reasons for Wistaria's reluctance to grant an interview. During the years of WWII, Hartmann's family had almost been interned because of his German-Japanese heritage. Many townspeople had ostracized the Hartmann family and circulated rumors that Sadakichi was a spy. Both the FBI and County Sheriff's Department had hounded the family with endless questions, and sheriff's deputies in patrol cars often followed family members when they left home. Some of Hartmann's children had been embarassed by his unconventionality and flamboyant Bohemianism. They were the children of his second marriage to Lillian Bonham, and none of them had known their father at the peak of his career in New York at the turn of the century, when he had made and spent money freely. Instead, they had grown up in the midst of the Depression in the middle-class atmosphere of San Gorgonio Pass--with a father who boasted of past triumphs and didn't care what the neighbors thought of him. Fowler's book with its suggestion that Hartmann was a charlatan evoked mostly bad memories. Even so, Mrs. Linton admitted that she had laughed at parts of the book: "Some of it seemed so much like Dad!" "Catclaw Siding" had been closed since Sadakichi's death in 1944. Now Mrs. Linton agreed to let me look inside the shack. She turned a key in the padlock and we entered. A rain-stained "History of Modern Painting" at which mice had nibbled lay on the splintered floor. Rotted floorboards exposed bare sand beneath. In a corner of the shack was a battered grey trunk--Sadakichi's manuscript trunk. I lifted the lid, sifted through the papers, and was stunned by its contents. Inside were piles of unpublished manuscripts, published articles, short stories, and poetry, and immense bundles of correspondence. I picked up one of the letters and read the name Ezra Pound. There were letters from George Santayana, Benjamin de Casseres, Douglas Fairbanks. The trunk was a bookman's dream.