A Geezer Named Seidlitz

Last January, Hearst's King Features Syndicate decided to run an advertisement in Editor & Publisher for Westbrook Pegler's column. It began digging around for quotable puffs, had trouble finding any. Few people had ever said anything good about Pegler, who so seldom has anything good to say about anyone else. Finally, at the syndicate's prodding, Pegler remembered that "an old geezer named 'Seidlitz"--meaning, as everybody knew, of course, Literary Critic Henry Seidel Canby--had once cast him a few pearls of praise.

Digging out an eleven-year-old copy of the Saturday Review of Literature, the syndicate found that Canby had indeed lauded the "homely genius" of Peg's style, had even called him "that most hard-hitting and expressive of contemporary American journalists," and had gone on to quote two paragraphs from a Pegler column. The syndicate promptly slapped Canby's encomium into its ad. Just as promptly, Canby objected: "This [article] has been quoted without my permission and without the permission of the Saturday Review, where it is copyrighted."

Last week ex-Admirer Canby was formally admitted to the Pegler gallery of melted waxworks. Wrote Peg: "Henry Seidel Canby [is] an antediluvian crud who has been mewling away about the art of writing for the last 2,000 years, and pompously presuming to toss compliments to his betters, such as and specifically me." Still feigning an inability to remember 70-year-old Canby's name, Pegler called him "Mr. Canfield," "doc," "the old boy" and "gramp." Concluded Pegler: "If the old goat wants to get tough . . . what does he mean quoting my piece without permission? I am copyrighted too."

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