IV. Editor, Thinker, Colleague

Each of us youngsters who gravitated to NATIONAL REVIEW in the Sixties and early Seventies arrived with his ideology on his sleeve and quickly attached himself, limpetlike, to one or another of the Pantheon: Free-Market Libertarian Gold- bug latched onto Bill Rickenbacker; Young GOP Firebrand dogged Bill Rusher’s heels; Perpetually Appalled Neo-Burkean Traditionalist was distressed to learn that Dr. Kirk never left Mecosta, wherever that was. A lanky youth or so even affected red ball-point pens and a Buckley drawl.

Perhaps because he was uncomfortable with, or in, tidy categories, no one gravitated immediately to Mr. Burnham. The “Mr.” was never insisted upon; it was tacitly understood by every new kid on the block. At some point—say, after a casual chat about Americans’ lack of a semi-formal mode of address comparable to the British use of a man’s last name only (“Pray continue, Watson”)—you came to realize that it was henceforth okay to call him Jim.

CS

About the Author

C. H. Simonds

Each of us youngsters who gravitated to NATIONAL REVIEW in the Sixties and early Seventies arrived with his ideology on his sleeve and quickly attached himself, limpetlike, to one or another of the Pantheon: Free-Market Libertarian Gold- bug latched onto Bill Rickenbacker; Young GOP Firebrand dogged Bill Rusher’s heels; Perpetually Appalled Neo-Burkean Traditionalist was distressed to learn that Dr. Kirk never left Mecosta, wherever that was. A lanky youth or so even affected red ball-point pens and a Buckley drawl.

Perhaps because he was uncomfortable with, or in, tidy categories, no one gravitated immediately to Mr. Burnham. The “Mr.” was never insisted upon; it was tacitly understood by every new kid on the block. At some point—say, after a casual chat about Americans’ lack of a semi-formal mode of address comparable to the British use of a man’s last name only (“Pray continue, Watson”)—you came to realize that it was henceforth okay to call him Jim.