Nase Novine, September 23, 1981

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June 24, 1981 , NASE NOVINE --15
PROF. DR VLADISLAV A. TOMOVlC DEPARTMENT OF SOCIOLOGY, BROCK UNIVERSITY,
AND PROF. NICHOLAS KOSANOVICH TESLA MEMORIAL SOCIETY
DR. V. TOMOVlC:
Congressman Blatnik, I would like
to ask you about Lois Adamic, and
old and s trusted friend of yours on
the observance of the 30th An-niversary
of Adamic's death.
Adamic was a prolific American
writer of Slovenian birth, of Yugos-lav
background, who wrote many
books and important articles in the
new country of the U.S.A. His
tragic death in 19D1 is now being
remembered by millions of people
in the U.S., Yugoslavia and many
paits of the world.
Adamic's name is very important
for those of us who now pursue an
interest in literature and especially
when it comes to the people like
Louis who is appropriately called
the father of ethnic literature in
North America; and I am empha-sizing
North America.
My essential notes on Mr. Adamic
showed that you have had personal
knowledge of this great writer first
hand. A humanist and social
worker of sorts which brings me to
the point about your first en-counter
with Louis; your impres-sions
then and what are your
impressions today of this great
man and humanitarian.
JOHN A. BLATNIK:
Doctor Tomovi6, thank you very
much. May I call you Vlado. Vlado
Tomovi6? Before I tell you about
my first meeting with Louis
Adamic let me ask this: Nick, you
are a linguist-expe- rt who speaks
and who has a facility of Italian,
some French, Serbo-Croatia- n and
some Spanish, can you tell us the
proper pronounciation of Adamic's
name. Is it A'damic, in Slovenian
we say Adam'ich, or what is the
correct way to say his name?
NICHOLAS KOSANOVICH:
It is Adam'ich. It is the same as in
Slovenian. One cannot translate or
transliterate a proper noun; it
should be said as in the original
tongue.
JOHN A BLATNIK:
Getting back quickly to the
question I should say that I knew
nothing of Louis Adamic. I had
never heard of him in high school;
that is going to 1927, 1928. I was
graduated in 1929. In my early
youth in the twenties, I loved to
peruse through magazines at night
during the long Minnesota winter
evenings. I would skim through
them and find things that would
catch my eye accidently.
I was a chemistry and math
student. My socio-econom- ic
background is working class. I am
a son of a Slovenian immigrant,
who came from what was then
called Austria-Hungar- y. Many
immigrants and ethnics, thous-ands
an thousands, wanted to be
able to identify their heritage and
roots to better understand the
basis of interest. My mother
worked with the miners and took
care of these young boys who were
boarders. The boarding house was
the social center or background of
their life, which Adamic knew very
well, even in Colorado. Yugoslavs
of all the nationalities: Slovenes,
Serbs, Croats, Montenegrians,
Moslems and Macedonians. A lot
of them worked in the copper
mines of Montana and elsewhere. I
learned that later. At the time I
never heard of this young genius of
a writer, this respected man.
I did learn about a magazine called
the American Mercury. It's not of a
literary bent at all, but accidently
someone told me that it was a
good magazine. I just skimmed
through it and I remembered this
as clearly as I am speaking into
this microphone this evening. It
was about 1929, about a half
centruy ago, fifty two years ago. A
story titled "Bohonk Woman" by
Louis Adamic caught my attention.
Adamic was a very common Slove-nian
name to me because we had a
Ludwig Adamic who played the
concertina as a young boarder in
my house. I enjoyed the concertina
which had the most melifluous
sound. It is such a beautiful sound.
I thought that it was much better
than a button accordion. I never
cared for the piano accordian, but,
I liked the concertina. Ludwig
Adamic and the other Adamic's in
our church parish were Slovenian
and I knew the name to be
Slovenian. I wondered about this
story "Bohonk Woman" — my
immediate reaction was that
someone was going to repeat the
denigration and ridicule of the
immigrant people and especially
women. They were called
'Bohonks' because they were
Slavs. At any rate, I began to read
and it was the most touching and
moving article of understanding
and insight that only an immigrant
like Adamic could be writing about
his mother — about the hard work
of the mothers and wives of these
iron-or- e and lead miners. I think
that this was in Leadville, Colorado
somewhere out west. He showed
in this piece of writing about the
trials and tribulations of the
mothers in immigrant families. It
was as though he had written this
story about my mother and other
mothers of miners' families in
Chisholm, Minnesota who had
kept boarders. These men worked
underground in the iron-or- e mines
of Northern Minnesota. It is very
hard work and I said to myself that
what is inside this man — here,
he's writing about something I
have lived through and experienc-ed
and had seen my mother
experience and the other Yugoslav
mothers had lived through. My
gosh, this is a tough life which
made me interested in him and
began to look for more articles and
stories by him — bit by bit. This
was in 1929.
About four years later he came to
Hibbing, Minnesota to lecture and
it was the most thrilling for me and
my principal E. R. Stevens who
was very well known on the iron
range in northern Minnesota and in
my home town. He took me to the
lecture. He said, "I want you to
hear your countryman talk about
what he thinks about America". He
just inspired me so much and filled
me with a flood of emotions. This
young writer from Europe, Loius
Adamid, a Yugoslavian had to
come over here to tell us who were
born here about our heritage. I met
him personally that night and
shook hands with him. We didn't
know each other too well then, it
was in 1933. Well, years after I
went to the CCC camps (Civilian
Conservation Corps) and read his
book Dynamite which came out
shortly after. It inspired me be-cou- se
I had a background from my
parents in workers strikes on the
range. We had the Molly Maguires
in our midst. The Molly Maguires
who were secretly organized to
fight against the mine owners.
I am from a working class
background, although I wasn't a
physical or industrial worker. As a
student I learned about the violent
period of labour strife — the Sacco
Vanzetti case and many others. At
any rate, the yeras passed and I
worked my way through the
University of Minnesota teaching. I
went to State Teachers' College
with a big dream of becoming a
medical biochemist (a medical
researcher) at that time. As an
educator, I became an assistant to
the superintendent of Schools in
Duluth, Minnesota, who was of
Finn ancestry. He was in charge of
all the rural schools in St. Louis
country, the second largest county
in the U.S. It was one of the finest
rural school systems and Lampi or
Lumpi, the superintendent, would
say that there were more Finns in
the area than any place in the U.S.
They are wonderful people; they
became great supporters of us
politically, because we grew up
together with their sons. John
Segibacki and Tallman were great
buddies of mine as I think back.
Being with Lampi, who was a great
scholar and a great intellect and
also a literary minded man, helped
me to learn a lot. I was not like
him. I was too preoccupied with
the scientific aspects of things,
like chemistry. One day Lampi told
me that he got a note from
Adamic and the he was coming to
Duluth and we were to meet him.
The superintendent of schools of
St. Louis County and I were to
meet Adamic in Duluth, Min-nesota.
This is about 1938; it was
five years later and I had an
opportunity to read a lot about
Adamic in the meantime. During
the month of August was trying for
Adamic, because he suffered from
asthma, as many people do. The
north shore of Lake Superior was
famous for asthmatics. It was a
resort area and known as the
hayfever capital of the U.S. The
cool breezes off Lake Superior are
very comfortable. Louis Adamic
would spend a whole month up
there
_
all alone in a little cabin.
Arthur Lampi and I would drive up
there at least once a week,
sometimes twice a week, and visit
him and take him out to dinner.
Now I will begin with my personal
impressions which was a long
period of personal association or
relationship with some inter-ruptions
due to commitments we
both had in our daily lives. I
noticed my first impression of him
was that he was rather thin, pale
and tired. He hardly slept at night; I
didi not know it at the time, but he
worked and typed during most of
the night. He slept at unusual
hours and had a peculiar work
schedule. An old box was used as
a waste basket and it was full of
carbon sheets of paper. I said to
Adamic looking at the waste
basket, "Mr. Adamic, what's all
that?" He replied "that's in Slove-nian,"
he spoke Slovenian fluently
— "ask me in Slovenian". I asked
in Slovenian, "What are you doing
with all those papers under there?"
He replied, "John, listen, it's my
life's blood in that wastebasket,
that is where one rejects a piece of
writing until it is proper for me." I
then realized an old saying —
"Some people die a thousand
deaths, and we but once. " He had a
feeling for people and humanity
and he wanted to be their feelings,
desires, thoughts and anxieties
and would put himself through the
wringer-s- o to say — to write the
pieces, episodes, vignettes and the
stories which he pieced together
and spliced into books about the
different characters he had met in
the different parts of the U.S.
NICHOLAS KOSANOVICH:
would like to raiie some
questions relative to the literary
genre of Louis Adamic and his
expertise. I think that there is a
literary legacy that he inherited
from the literature of the Slovenian
people and those who had ex-pressed
it in a rich and beautiful
manner namery France Presern and
Ivan Cankar. Did you have the
opportunity to discuss these great
people with Adamic?
As a young man, I heard of this
because of the proximity of the
province of Lika to Slovenia and
my father and uncle talk about
these matters. They came from this
province in Croatia. They would
talk about Kranjska Kobasica
(Slovenian sausage); they talked
about many culinary and cultural
things. I heard the name of Ivan
Cankar and as I grew up I would try
to find something about these
people and read whatever I could.
Thanks to Louis Adamic for
helping many of us find out the
sources of material for this great
literature of his people who
number only approximately about
two million today. Can you give us
some idea if he was influenced by
Slovenian literature and language
in the history of your people?
JOHN A BLATNIK:
Niko, I cannot do justice to that
very important but very difficult
subject. You know it much better
than I do. I knew the cultural and
literary background of Cankar and
the large input of literature in
poetry and song. I knew the
peasant or farm life well. I knew
that the workers were morally and
politically strong and was very
puzzled why such an agrarian
people, the Slovenians from a
rather primitive agrarian society
were able to utilize literally every
square centimeter of earth and
make out a living for such large
families - raising rutabagas, turni-ps,
cabbage, potatoes and maybe
meat once a week or once a month,
if they were lucky enough. It was
puzzling! It was a difficult life after
World War I. I went to Yugoslavia
in 1922 and that is why Adamic was
somewhat interested in me. I knew
quite a tib about what he was
talking about, about his homeland
I also wondered why my parents
settled in such a cold tough
country like northern Minnesota.
Adamic used to say that people
needed to work in America and
went where they could get jobs.
When I saw them in the steel mills
in Pittsburgh and in Yougstown.
Ohio, and in Gary, Indiana, and
when I saw them in the slaughter
houses of Chicago and South St.
Paul, and when I saw them on the
ranches and in the copper mines
and in the lead mines of Colorado
and Montana, I then knew that they
needed employment to live. We
used to joke about Minnesota; we
used to call it Amerikanska Siberia.
"The frozen wasteland of northern
Minnesota is as cold as Canada,"
Dr. Tomovid. It is right on the
Canadian border. These men
worked underground for $1.00 a
day like my father did in those early
days. He had said that he knew
these Yugoslavs needed jobs, but
my God, they sure must have
needed them badly to work in such
forsaken places and under such
inhuman conditions. The trauma of
strikes and Pinkerton thugs and
police attacking the workers in
order to prevent the organization of
unions. Nick, but, you know well
the history of eastern Pennsylvania
and its violence against the miners
by the company thugs. I know so
well the strikes we had in the iron
ore mines. Louis Adamic was
trying to get us to understand our
heritage and to be proud of our
ancestry. This was more important
to him than the aesthetic aspects
of literature. The form of his prose
was beautiful in the most natural
manner and didn't need artificial
embellishment. It was the
language of the people he knew. It
didn't concern him if you were a
Serb, Croat, Montenegrin, Bosni-an,
Lidanin or Macedonian. He
looked upon them as Yugoslavs
with equalimity and bereft of
chaouvinism. Some misguided
Italians used to call the Yugoslavs
'Bohonks' and the Poles, 'Polak' in
a very derogatory manner. The
Italians were called 'dago' which
was just as derisive. This was the
divide and conquer method of the
ruling WASPS. How can one forget
the great culture that came out of
Italy, the artists, sculptors, writers
and scientists. Adamic taught us
to understand and respect all
cultures and peoples and to be
proud of your own.
We had boys — I'll mention
names; Leo Nakey, a very intel-ligent
man, a Finn who became a
prominent doctor at the famous
Mayo Clinic, who changed his
name to Dr. Nash. We had other
Yugoslavs who changed their
names, you know, shortened them
and "Americanized" them. Louis
Adamic wanted us to retain our
ethnic identity and our names and
to be very proud of that. That was
the greatest lesson that I had
learned from him at that time.
Later, it developed into a theme,
then a life style and a philosophy
of life that influenced me. The hard
physical work of our parents who
were born under austere condit-ions,
agricultural conditins, with a
low standard of living in Slovenia
or in oter parts of Yugoslavia;
coming to work mostly by hand in
the steel mills, railroad, digging
iron ore and coal by hand. The
same as the Finns, the Swedes and
Norwegians worked as lumber-jacks
in the forests of the north
country gave us an advantage to
appreciate education. The treee
education that was available
enabled us to leap forward from the
semi-literat- e and illiterate con-dition
of our parents to literacy in
one generation and one lifetime.
An intellectual strata came into
being in my generation. So, now
we have a Dr. Pluth, one of the top
cardilogist-surgeon- s at the Mayo
Clinic and Vita Penikuo and many
others. Louis Adamic would
preach that in one generation with
educational opportunity, one could
go back to his homeland and carry
the message of opportunity
through education and to wake upa
the latent talent of youngsters. In
'this way, they would be able to
raise their standard of living and
also build a bridge or two way
passage between America and
Yugoslavia.
Louis Adamic hid influenced me
to where I resigned as a State
Senator and volunteered to fight
with the peasants and workers
against the Germans during World
Wir II. I was behind the lines as
Cnief of Mission for our Armed
forces in Slovenia and Croatia
Ughting with these people. It was a
tremendous experience.
After I came back from the War, I
saw Louis Adamic. We were in
touch by phone and I was to see
him later, personally. I followed his
trip throug California and he called
me once or twice and sent me
carbon copies of about six or eight
letters. "Dr. Vlado Tomovich, we
had to type in those days; we had
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