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Cora's Box

JOSEPH KATZ

'' AUTHOR Crane Goods Released bv State" was the headline.
/—A    That article in the Florida Times-Democrat was a UPI

A )\ report of an unusual ceremony which had taken place in
Tallahassee the day before. Earlier, Florida's executive cabinet
had voted unanimously to present a large group of papers and
other things once owned by Stephen and Cora Crane to Columbia
University for preservation and availability to the scholarly com¬
munity. On July 2, 1974, Governor Reuben Askew and Comp¬
troller Fred O. Dickinson took time at a cabinet meeting to make
the formal presentation to Kenneth A. Lohf, Librarian for Rare
Books and A'lanuscripts, while Lillian B. Gilkes and I served as
witnesses. The three of us, each in a different way, expressed grati¬
tude for what surely is an action without precedent: officials of a
state had deliberated calmly and at length, and concluded that the
course of humanistic knowledge would be served best by deposit¬
ing important material with a private institution located in another
state. There was a luncheon following the cabinet meeting; and
when we three were asked to talk again our leitmotif still was that
significant point.

Back for a moment to the headline which announced this event
the next day. The word "goods" in reference to long-lost re¬
sources for the study of a great author and his consort might seem