THE TSINUMMOC LINE

...This business of standing on the head as a substitute for thinking results in quite a rush of blood to the brain and produces some queer viewpoints...

...These references to Stalin and Communism have become little verbal genuflections, like "if it please the Lord"—but in reverse, of course...

...and we will all automatically clutch our windpipes and drop dead...

...We are indebted to Mr...

...And you don't get dizzy going around the curves...

...In a real sense anything that contributes to the public welfare may be considered anti-Communist...

...I just don't think the old boy rates it...

...And as long as we know that it's one fight and remember what that fight is, we'll always win...

...I don't have any notion that this will be done but I just toss out the idea as a minor contribution to National Unity...

...The course is a straight one, the fight is one fight and always the same fight...

...then he thumbs the edges of the pages to see if any are stuck together...

...And if it became accepted that we must be against anything and everything the Communists profess to be for, of course that pathetic little organ the Daily Worker would become the most influential paper in the country...

...When they pretend to represent liberty we don't need to scuttle the lady with the torch and say, "Nice to have known you...

...Those principles are so good and so basic that they provide a measuring stick for all government...

...At this point they will need only to say "Build...

...just to keep from laughing himself to pieces...

...If it had been, it would soon have found itself carrying a political line as out of date as cocked hats and powdered wigs and would have been poking around ever since trying to latch on to something else...

...At this, another aide clears his throat and says, "About all that being-for-the-people stuff, Chief—I think we've got them there...

...The Constitution does not merely say that this is an "anti-monarchy...

...But the old man does not answer...

...He glances through them casually at first, then goes over them more intently, following the lines with his finger...

...while an opponent of the bill, speaking with equal authority, insists that nothing would make Stalin happier than to see the same bill passed...

...He's not that good...

...They are downright disrespectful...

...There is nothing more—no references at all to the Great Leader and Hero of His People...

...Where do I come in...

...We could let it go at that...

...It might be a good idea if all our speakers agreed that what Stalin wants is whatever he can get, and that nothing would make him happier than to see us so fearfully concerned about his pleasure or displeasure that we made complete fools of ourselves...

...Stalin has finally been made unhappy...

...But that line about what would make him happy keeps bobbing up in speeches and debates on everything from foreign policy to the desirability of building a new comfort station in the local park...

...Not even much mention of Communism...

...and we will tear down our houses, "Speak...

...I think we ought to be a little smarter than that...

...Enough...

...I've never been close enough to the Kremlin to know whether its old walls are rocked by merriment, but I know what makes me happy and unhappy...

...These speeches are all wrong...

...Just this talk about driving ahead with American programs, world programs, economic and defense programs for the people —always the people...

...The Tsinummoc Line" is one of the finest chapters in The Herblock Book...

...not a panicky weaving from side to side and extreme to extreme, perpetually in flight from the claws of God-Knows-What into the jaws of God-Knows-What-Else...

...And we don't need to let anybody else make us do it to ourselves...

...Or, as it used to be put in the election campaigns, he had "voted with [Party-liner former Rep...

...I'm willing to give the devil his due, but it doesn't seem to me that this dictator belongs in the deity class even in the Powers-of-Darkness department...

...I've drawn a number of smiling Joes in cartoons about policies that might reasonably influence our prospects or Communist chances in the world...

...And must reading for everybody...

...It may be that each great nation must in time decline and that all the glory of the world must pass, but we don't need to do it to ourselves...

...And where it used to be said of official follies that the gods must laugh, we now say in one way or another that Stalin smiles...

...Zag-Zigging Along The Tsinummoc Line By Herblock EDITOR'S NOTE: Herbert Block, known to and admired by millions of Americans as Herblock the cartoonist, recently produced a superb book in which a wise and witty com* mentary on our times is illustrated with some 400 of his best cartoons...

...A clear violation of international copyright...

...The tendency to substitute Old Joe for the Old Nick, and the hastening to justify the most commonplace and necessary items by explaining that they are in some way anti-Communist, might not be of much consequence in itself...

...The Herblock Book is reviewed in this issue...

...He now looks up at a nervous aide, gestures toward the papers, and asks in a hoarse voice, "Where's the rest of it...

...If there is anyone who thinks the Communists dp not or would not take full advantage of those who would play this little game of opposites with them, I can only say that he must have more faith in the sincerity and the integrity of the Communists than I have...

...Block, a friend and fan of The Progressive's, and his publishers...

...S., perhaps we could hear more in the speeches about what people want—people here, people in Asia, and in the Middle East—about what would make them happy and us happy...

...That sort of thing would put us in the position of an obstinate dog, stubbornly disobeying commands...

...There are a number who seem to think that instead of following an American line we should take the Tsinummoc Line—that's Communist, of course, spelled backward...

...It's big enough and strong enough for that...

...It's the principles of the Declaration and the Bill of Rights against the field...

...You don't have to follow a tortuous, twisting line—forward or in reverse...

...Beyond the fact that this is hardly a fitting role for the greatest nation in the world, there is the point that a dog which could be counted on to disobey could still be directed...

...The people who engage in it are not capable of free-will action but only of reaction...

...And I'm not cheered by this tendency to consider everything in terms of whether it might please a tyrant...

...Vito] Marcantonio...

...And if we must consider Stalin in all things, let us visualize him reading the first batch of these public addresses...

...When the Communists try to take over the word "democracy," I don't think we need to kiss it a sad good-by...

...It's not unusual now for a legislator speaking on behalf of some domestic bill to assert knowingly that nothing would make Stalin happier than to see the bill defeated...

...This kind of perverted reasoning represents reaction in the literal sense of the word...

...They would undoubtedly feel happier and safer if we changed the name of Washington, D. C, to Wocsom, and elected as President anybody named Nilats...

...They are less like men than like mice-in-a-maze, and are bounded by mental iron curtains no less than their Communist counterparts...

...and we will be dumb, "Breathe...

...It carries on the original ideals and puts them into working form...

...It's nice to know where you want to go and to head straight for it...

...When he reaches the end he frowns and turns the pages over to see if there is something on the reverse sides that he has missed...

...As a substitute for this preoccupation with Mr...

...And worse than that, they give him the feeling that in the struggle for the world he has somer how lost the initiative...

...But perhaps it is a minor symptom of something that's really dangerous...

...It's possible that he doesn't even know what's good for himself anyhow...

...And we don't need to tear up the Bill of Rights because the Communists profess to defend it...

...If any considerable number of these predictions are accurate, Stalin must certainly be the most mirthful man in the world, shaking like pudding in a vibrating mar chine, and ready to cry, "Hold...

...and I don't think it's out of place to use Stalin as a symbol of the opposition forces that stand to profit by our mistakes...

...That is the notion that a purely negative policy of "anti-Communism" can of itself take the place of positive, prc»-democratic, pro-people, pro-freedom policies, and— the final delirious twist—the idea that anything the Communists profess to be for we must be against...

...Pursued to its final illogical conclusion—and some have already arrived there—this means that whenever the Communists claim to be for anything beneficial then we must immediately and automatically be against it...

...The Declaration of Independence started off with -an assertion of basic human rights and a concept of what government should be, and then proceeded to measure the rule of George III against them...

...Because it's the fight of all the people of the world...

...You don't have to zig then because somebody says "Zag...

...But there is something sad about this injection of Stalin and Communism into speeches on all subjects...

...The aide, obviously in something of a sweat, explains that this is all there is—the agents went over the complete texts and checked three times...

...And where the one must learn the Party-line recommendations to know what he is for, the other must study its recommendations just as diligently to find out what he is against...

...THERE IS so much talk these days about what Stalin would like, what Stalin would not like, and what would make Stalin happiest of all, that a stranger who came in late might suppose we were all trying to decide what to give a rich uncle for Christmas...

...It sounds a little as if the speaker feels obliged to testify that he is in good standing as a patriotic citizen and entitled to have his say...

...When we can be counted on to oppose anything the Communists say they're for, we will then have the boys in the Kremlin just about where they want us...

...I don't buy that Tsinummoc Line, backward or forward...

...The Beacon Press, for permission to reprint it here...

...Not just antinmonarchy now, anti-emperor another time, anti-Fascist one year, anti-Communist later...

...He is staring down at the papers and looking a little stunned...

...When those -documents were drawn up, the course was set for the country and the battle lines were drawn for all the fighting to come...

...You don't have to drive your car into a ditch every time somebody else hauls out a road map and hints he might go a piece in the same direction...

...It's democratic freedom against all comers, foreign and domestic, from whatever sides, in whatever combinations, and by whatever labels...

...as if there is something perhaps a little unworthy and suspect about the idea of doing anything right and good and in the public interest just for those reasons alone...

...This country was not founded on purely negative anti-George-the-ThirdVism...

...as if he feels that we are so obsessed by a single fear that no other emotion can move us...

...Incidentally, if Marcantonio had been re-elected and if complete opposition to his voting record had become the criterion for electing other Congressmen, he might easily have become the most potent man in the legislative body just by the power to administer the kiss of death...

...One of these was expressed by a spokesman for the real-estate lobby a couple of years ago when he accused Senator Taft of running along with the Communists because the Senator advocated a modest amount of public housing...

...If he could be depended on to go out at the words "Come here" and to stay in at the words "Go out," he would be pretty much under control, even though he might go around laughing fit to kill himself, slapping other dogs on the back and telling them that he's driving the Marster crazy...

...How else would you know what to unthink...

...A deadpan examination of his records showed that on a number of occasions his position had indeed paralleled, the "Party Line," although obviously through no sympathy for Communism...

...or zag because somebody else says "Zig...

...Then ankle to ankle, men, and backward into the fray...

...Their line has all the same corkscrew twists—in reverse, naturally, but arriving at the same totalitarian end...