Notes & Asides: Wm F. Rickenbacker, RIP

Wm F. Rickenbacker, RIP

HE FIRST surfaced for us at national review when he challenged the government of the United States. The Census Bureau had gone to work collecting its data in 1960, and Bill Rickenbacker received what they called the Long Form, designed to elicit detailed information, the better to complete the decennial inquiry into how many Americans were living where, earning what, doing what, living how. Bill looked at the form, put it in his wastebasket, and addressed one of his inimitable letters to the secretary of commerce, whom he addressed as Dear Snoopchief, denouncing the long form as an invasion of his privacy. C. Dickerman Williams, NATIONAL review’s distinguished lawyer, undertook his defense. He lost, was fined $100 and, put on one day’s probation: and at the end of the succeeding decade, tasted finally the fruit of his struggle when the Commerce Department announced that the long form would be completed only by those U.S. citizens who wished to complete it.

About the Author

William F. Buckley Jr.

William F. Buckley Jr. founded National Review magazine in 1955.

Wm F. Rickenbacker, RIP

HE FIRST surfaced for us at national review when he challenged the government of the United States. The Census Bureau had gone to work collecting its data in 1960, and Bill Rickenbacker received what they called the Long Form, designed to elicit detailed information, the better to complete the decennial inquiry into how many Americans were living where, earning what, doing what, living how. Bill looked at the form, put it in his wastebasket, and addressed one of his inimitable letters to the secretary of commerce, whom he addressed as Dear Snoopchief, denouncing the long form as an invasion of his privacy. C. Dickerman Williams, NATIONAL review’s distinguished lawyer, undertook his defense. He lost, was fined $100 and, put on one day’s probation: and at the end of the succeeding decade, tasted finally the fruit of his struggle when the Commerce Department announced that the long form would be completed only by those U.S. citizens who wished to complete it.