May 3: Day of Deliverance

May 3 may be just another day to you, but in my household it will henceforth be celebrated with patriotic fervor and religious devotion as a combination Fourth of July, Bastille Day, Christmas, Passover and New Year’s. The welcome mat will be in front of the door, and no true believer will be turned away. There will be hymns of thanksgiving, the American Flag will fly proudly on the lawn, a name band will provide music for dancing in the garden, champagne will flow freely, luscious and exotic viands will be served and, at night, provided I can arrange for a permit (and the Beverly Hills Chief of Police is a good friend of mine), there will be a spectacular display of fireworks and a twenty-one-gun salute. In addition, if there is sufficient public demand, I shall make an important speech on the historical significance of the day. R. S. V. P.

If the reason for this promised Hollywood orgy escapes you, let me give you the background. In January, shortly after Wayne Lyman Morse threw his hat into the ring for the Democratic nomination, national review asked me to follow his campaign and write a preconvention summary of it: and I accepted the assignment with a sort of horrified fascination. For there were, as I saw it, two terrifying possibilities confronting us—both, God be praised, remote, but in this frightening world we must be prepared for anything—either of which could doom the United States of America. One, of course, would be the unleashing of an atomic attack on our shores by the USSR; the second would be the election of the Man from Oregon as President of the Republic. I doubted that King Solomon, in all his wisdom, could have decided which of the two would be the more catastrophic. Even I, at the time at least, was unable to make up my mind.

MR

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Morrie Ryskind

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May 3 may be just another day to you, but in my household it will henceforth be celebrated with patriotic fervor and religious devotion as a combination Fourth of July, Bastille Day, Christmas, Passover and New Year’s. The welcome mat will be in front of the door, and no true believer will be turned away. There will be hymns of thanksgiving, the American Flag will fly proudly on the lawn, a name band will provide music for dancing in the garden, champagne will flow freely, luscious and exotic viands will be served and, at night, provided I can arrange for a permit (and the Beverly Hills Chief of Police is a good friend of mine), there will be a spectacular display of fireworks and a twenty-one-gun salute. In addition, if there is sufficient public demand, I shall make an important speech on the historical significance of the day. R. S. V. P.

If the reason for this promised Hollywood orgy escapes you, let me give you the background. In January, shortly after Wayne Lyman Morse threw his hat into the ring for the Democratic nomination, national review asked me to follow his campaign and write a preconvention summary of it: and I accepted the assignment with a sort of horrified fascination. For there were, as I saw it, two terrifying possibilities confronting us—both, God be praised, remote, but in this frightening world we must be prepared for anything—either of which could doom the United States of America. One, of course, would be the unleashing of an atomic attack on our shores by the USSR; the second would be the election of the Man from Oregon as President of the Republic. I doubted that King Solomon, in all his wisdom, could have decided which of the two would be the more catastrophic. Even I, at the time at least, was unable to make up my mind.