Confidential File

Deep South Deep in Literary Criticism

Two
weeks ago a nursery book entitled "The Rabbits' Wedding" was hastily
removed from Alabama's public library shelves as "pure integrationist
propaganda" because it linked in matrimony a white rabbit and a black
rabbit.

Now, "The Three Little Pigs" is under attack in Florida.

Segregationists
there charged in yesterday's papers that the porkers are undermining
Southern culture. "One of the pigs is white, another black, and the
third a black and white 'mulatto,'" they pointed out in righteous
indignation.

Their spokesman, David Hawthorn, also declared,
"The book shows the white pig getting destroyed by the wolf, but the
black pig survives."

Since it's apparent that there's going to
be a wholesale burning of nursery rhymes below the Mason Dixon Line, I
can see a lucrative field for authors who want to revamp Mother Goose
to fit the southern literary market.

And being a boy always interested in a fast buck, here's my first offering, entitled: "The Three Little Pigs in Dixie."

Once
upon a time, in a sleepy village on the banks of the Mississippi, lived
three little pigs — a white pig, a mulatto pig (which was "passing"),
and a black pig.

Each set out to seek his fortune.

The little white pig was walking along a bayou when he met a man with a bundle of straw, and he said to him:

"'Pears to me you all could give me that straw so's I could build me a house."

The
man gave the little white pig his bundle of straw, and the little white
pig built his house of straw in one of the better residential districts
of the town.

The little "passing" pig was walking along Bourbon Street when he met a man with a bag of furze.

"Reckon you could spare that furze, mister?" he asked. "I'm fixin' to build me a house."

At Ease, Beauregard

The
man gave the "passing" pig his furze, and the "passing" pig built his
house of furze next door to the little white pig's house of straw
(which was all right, because what the little white didn't know didn't
hurt him).

The little black pig was walking past the town statue erected to the memory of Gen. Pierre Gustave Toutant Beauregard when he met a man with a load of bricks.

"I knows what you gonna say," the man sighed wearily. "Go ahead. Take 'em."

The
little black pig took them and built himself a sturdy house of brick
right across the street from the little white pig's house of straw and
the little "passing" pig's house of furze.

Then came the wolf!

"Little pig, little pig, let me come in," he demanded.

"No, no, by the hair on my chiny chin chin," answered the little white pig.

"Then
I'll huff, and I'll puff, and I'll blow your house in," snorted the
wolf. He huffed and he puffed and he huffed, but he house straw didn't
budge.

Slinking next door to the little "passing" pig's house of
furze, the wolf went through the same bit. But not even one furze
fluttered.

Then the wolf moved across the street to the little
black pig's sturdy house of brick, huffed once, blew down the house and
ate the little black pig.

Just then, Relman Morin, of the
Associated Press, who happened to be down there to cover the story,
walked up to the wolf with notebook and pencil in hand.

"Tell
me, wolf," he asked, "how is it possible that you couldn't blow down
the little white pig's house of straw, but you could blow down the
little black pig's sturdy house of bricks?"

"Mister, folks 'round here don't take kindly to nosey Northerners askin' questions," the wolf snorted.

With that, the wolf ate up Relmarr Morin — notebook, pencil and all. And evahbody lived happily eveh after.

(Author's note: In a subsequent article, I will delve into the knotty problem of Little Miss Muffett. That spider that sat down beside her? Black, you know.)

The Good Old Days: How to Reckon Them

I've got a fresh perspective for the worn cliche about "the good old days."

It's not prompted by pleasant recurring memories of my childhood.

Those, I don't have. At least, I haven't had any lately.

Besides, the good old days I'm talking about predate my fascination of the horse-drawn ice cream wagons by many years.

I'm
going back to the days when Indian war parties would come hell-bent out
of the hills and loose volleys of poison arrows into wagon trains of
settlers pushing west.

And, the era when epidemics of disease would flare and spread unchecked, leaving whole communities numb in mourning.

And,
the time when women afflicted with twitch were dragged from their
colonial bungalows by superstitious neighbors and hanged as witches.

Those days held a lot of grief and fear and fatalistic resignation.

But I question whether the dangers, real and fancied, were a fraction of what they are at this moment.

On
my desk I have a copy of a private memorandum which was circulated to a
select group of individuals in our town on Friday, May 22, of this year.

It was written by an intelligent, respected man in our society: Dr. Stafford L. Warren, dean, School of Medicine, UCLA.

These are its contents:

"MEMORANDUM TO THE FACULTY OF THE SCHOOL OF MEDICINE:

"While
it may sound foolish and the chances of anything happening are
fantastically small, it might be well to keep in mind the fact of Mr.
Khrushchev's deadline of the end of this month, and not forget that the
next two week ends and the days in between are days of some risk of
sudden attack.

"I am stimulated to send this reminder because of
the sudden change in Mr. Khrushchev's attitude about the fine outcomes
which he predicts for the Geneva talks.

"This is not unlike the psychological situation just prior to Pearl Harbor.

"I
suggest no action other than that each of you should think a bit about
what you would do if such were to happen, and what your
responsibilities to the Medical Center and Civil Defense Medical Plan
might be and should be."

I don't know what your initial reaction to Dr. Warren's memorandum is, but I know what mine was.

I
was sorry that the doctor had taken the time to dictate it. I smelled
an unreal fear — the kind of fear which, reproduced on a mass basis,
could only lead to trouble.

Jumping at shadows can be dangerous.
You can only become so afraid — so jumpy — before you reach the point
where you've got to do something.

On second consideration,
however, I wondered whether the doctor wasn't being a little more
logical about the situation than I was.

Ostriches, not people, stick their heads in the sand at signs of possible danger.

He Sure Had Me Scared

I
guess Dr. Warren was taking the same clinical approach that a city
health officer would use if he discovered a case of typhoid in his area
of jurisdiction. He would prepare for the worst by taking the best
preventive measures within his power.

But the question in any
matter where mass panic could develop is just to what extent the public
should be informed of the potential dangers.

There's a thin line between keeping your associates informed and creating unnecessary hysteria.

I realize now that the doctor didn't cross it.

But, for a minute there, he sure had me scared.