HEMLOCK'S LOADED PENCIL
Knoll, Erwin
HEMLOCK'S LOADED PENCIL Iherblock's state of the union, by Herbert Block. Simon and Schuster. 224 pp. $6.95. reviewed by Erwin Knoll You couldn't meet a nicer man than Herbert Block —...
...But I was cheered to see that he hasn't changed either—that he hasn't sold out, or joined up, or caved in, or hunkered down after all these years in Washington...
...That is not to say that there is anything going on...
...reviewed by Erwin Knoll You couldn't meet a nicer man than Herbert Block — trustworthy, loyal, helpful, friendly, courteous, kind, diffident to the point of shyness...
...Funny, he seems like such a nice man...
...And though it is not the politically safe or easy thing to do, let me say candidly and clearly that I would not pretend for a moment that everything is absolutely perfect in this great country or this great world of ours...
...Mr...
...I refer to the stories and speculations and rumors printed in the newspapers and broadcast over the air waves which would have you believe that conditions are not good, that we are in deep trouble, that all sorts of terrible things are happening...
...The humane insights that guide his deft and devastating pencil, dismaying his victims and delighting the rest of us, are also at work when he sits down to the typewriter...
...I took down the first one, The Herblock Book (1952), and was distressed to note how little has changed—how many of Herblock's corrupt, incompetent, and oppressive targets are flourishing still...
...Herblock's cartoons need no introduction to readers of The Progressive, which has been gratefully filching them from The Washington Post for more than twenty years...
...Now I respect the right of newsmen and commentators to have their say—false and vicious and slanderous as the things they say so often are...
...The gift for illuminating caricature is present in both modes...
...As you know . . ." You get the idea...
...There he is, gently smiling at us from the dust-jacket of Herblock's State of the Union...
...Suffice it to say that there are more than 300 cartoons in State of the Union, that they deal with virtually every public controversy that has preoccupied the public in the last four years, and that they seem as pertinent and pointed as the day they were first published...
...State of the Union is the sixth Herblock book on my shelf...
...He doesn't make us feel any better, but he helps us to understand...
...Knoll is Washington Editor of The Progressive...
...But watch out—that's a pencil he has in his hand, and the pencil is loaded...
...But I think you are probably as tired as I am of hearing our country and our allies run down by prejudiced people who do not represent the majority of our splendid citizens and who never tell you about the good things that are happening...
...that he still wields the deadliest pen in the business...
...In his running commentary, Herblock puts the bizarre incident into its bizarre context...
...Herblock's secret, I think, is that he manages to stay awake when he reads the papers, and to keep his intelligence alert to the outrages and absurdities to which most of us tend to become inured...
...Those who have missed the previous Herblock books may not know that the man also has a way with words...
...Here, for example, is Herblock's version of how you'll-know-who would have delivered Winston Churchill's famous World War II announcement that "the news from France is very bad . . .": "My fellow citizens: As your Prime Minister—and Prime Minister of all the people—I want to talk to you tonight, in my most sincere manner, about a problem which faces me as the man who holds the highest office in our land...
...His book is worth having if only because it preserves between hard covers such gems as Presidential Press Secretary Ron Ziegler's statement at the time of the invasion of Laos: "The President is aware of what is going on...
Vol. 36 • November 1972 • No. 11
