Men of Letters
Nollson, John
John Nollson MEN OF LETTERS Papers filed in the Federal District Court will be the first shot fired in what promises to be a drawn-out battle to eradicate one of the most invidious forms of...
...rises from 12 to 6 + 6 7) Harris, HHS rises from 6 to 7 +1 8) Hufstedler, Education rises from 4 to 8 +4 9) Klutznik, Commerce drops from 2 to 9 -7 10) Landrieu, HUD drops from 7 to 10 -3 11) Marshall, Labor drops from 10 to 11 -1 12) Miller, Treasury rises from 13 to 12 +1 13) Muskie, State drops from 11 to 13 -2 This rearrangement is revealing...
...Not one member of the outgoing Carter cabinet had a surname beginning with a letter drawn from the second half of the alphabet...
...As everyone knows, there are thirteen cabinet departments in the executive branch of the federal government...
...Put simply, there is no correlation between a cabinet member's standing by first letter of his department and his ranking by first letter of his surname...
...Can something be done about this structural discrimination...
...The evidence of history is not very encouraging...
...The plaintiffs have an impressive case, but the defendants are quick to point out that, since there are only thirteen cabinet posts, at least half the letters of the alphabet will go unrepresented...
...President Carter's appointments made things worse, not better...
...Indeed, only three letters account for fully six departments...
...Accordingly, we can establish a prima facie case that the Carter adminstration was guilty of alphabetical discrimination...
...As for appointees, they might be drawn from among those with hyphenated surnames...
...But this is too complicated...
...Will the inevitable mid-term purge narrow the gap...
...fully five of the names, which is to say five-thirteenths or 38.46 percent, are drawn from the second half of the alphabet...
...Only then can title and surname be properly matched to insure that those who appear in the latter part of the telephone directory are not subjected to pain, anguish, and public humiliation...
...As for Brown, he is the only other Carter appointee who even came close...
...John Nollson MEN OF LETTERS Papers filed in the Federal District Court will be the first shot fired in what promises to be a drawn-out battle to eradicate one of the most invidious forms of discrimination -alphabetism...
...Indeed, only Bergland comes close to a one-to-one relation...
...The removal of an A, a B, and a C should have been an opportunity for the more disadvantaged letters, but it didn't happen...
...Fortunately, the Reagan administration has moved to correct this, but not all that much...
...When the incoming cabinet is tabulated by alphabetical standing, the following pattern emerges: 1) Baldridge, Commerce 2) Bell, Education 3) Block, Agriculture 4) Donovan, Labor 5) Edwards, Energy 6) Haig, State 7) Lewis, Transportation 8) Pierce, Housing and Urban Development 9) Regan, Treasury 10) Schweiker, Health and Human Services 11) Smith, Justice 12) Watt, Interior 13) Weinberger, Defense This is not unimpressive...
...Meanwhile, the gap between the D of Defense and the W of Weinberger bespeaks an obvious alphabetical spread...
...And it must be pointed out that, as of this writing, there is but one cabinet appointee who has the desired one-to-one correspondence with his department-Edwards of Energy...
...Though they are usually listed by age, a different pattern is revealed when they are listed in alphabetical order: 1) Agriculture 2) Commerce 3) Defense 4) Education 5) Energy 6) Health and Human Services (HHS) 7) Housing and Urban Development (HUD) 8) Interior 9) Justice 10) Labor 11) State 12) Transportation 13) Treasury Though there are thirteen departments, only ten letters are represented...
...If his name were Aergland, he would appear first on both lists...
...Yes, it's a fact: These thirteen people originated exclusively in the first half of the alphabet...
...Some suggest a straightforward doubling up by changing, let us say, the title of Secretary of Agriculture to Secretary of Agronomy and Beefraising...
...The alphabetical ax really fell during President Carter's famous July Massacre of 1979- Dismissed then were Adams, Brock, Califano, and Schlesinger...
...Common sense tells us that there will be no justice until there are twenty-six cabinet departments, each beginning with a different letter...
...The facts are indisputable...
...Though it has not been much noticed, there has been a conscious attempt to shrink the alphabetical base of federal appointments, so that today large numbers of letters have been totally excluded...
...Only four units of hierarchical elevation are recorded, whereas the aggregate drop in rankings is 26...
...In fact, when the cabinet is arranged in the alphabetical order derived from the surnames of the appointees, the list is scrambled, all the better to conceal what is really going on: REVISED GAIN APPOINTEE NUMERICAL OR STANDARD LOSS 1) Andrus, Interior rises from 8 to 1 +7 2) Bergland, Agriculture drops from 1 to 2 -1 3) Brown, Defense stays in 3rd place 0 4) Civiletti, Justice rises from 9 to 4 +5 5) Duncan, Energy stays in 5th place 0 6) Goldschmidt, Transp...
...Accordingly, the court is about to issue its order, establishing the following departments and naming the following appointees: 1) Secretary of Aquaculture: Alan A Ida 2) Secretary of Breadbaking: Barry Bosworth 3) Secretary of Carpentry: Cathy Crosby 4) Secretary of Dentistry: David Dellinger 5) Secretary of Earthmoving: Edwin Edwards 6) Secretary of Fireworks: Farrah Fawcett 7) Secretary of Greetings: George Gobel 8) Secretary of Husbandry: Hollywood Henderson 9) Secretary of Innkeeping: Indianapolis Indiana 10) Secretary of Jaywalking: John Jefferson 11) Secretary of Knitting: Karlyn Keene 12) Secretary of Logarithms: Laurence Luckinbill 13) Secretary of Menshevism: Malcolm Muggeridge 14) Secretary of Nitpicking: Norman Norrel 15) Secretary of Orthodontia: Ole Olson 16) Secretary of Printmaking: Peter Peyser 17) Secretary of Quartz: Quentin Quip 18) Secretary of Rumbleseats: Richard Richards 19) Secretary of Stowaways: Stephen Stills 20) Secretaries of Truckstops: Tanya Tucker, Tina Turner 21) Secretary of Undulation: Ulrich Ulam 22) Secretary of Videodiscs: Vivian Vance 23) Secretary of Whittling: William Walton 24) Secretary of Xerography: Kopy Kat 25) Secretary of Yachting: Yancey Yardley 26) Secretary of Zoology: Edward Albee The diphthongs will just have to wait their turn...
Vol. 14 • April 1981 • No. 4
