Smart bombs

I recently ran across a William Allen White editorial from July 28, 1922, that was courageous for its time. White, editor of the Emporia (Kan.) Daily Gazette, focused on reactions to the news that some black residents of Westfield, N.J., had formed a golf club and built a nine-hole course. It seems many people back then found that funny. “Why would ‘Negroes’ want to play golf?”

Here’s how it ends:

“The anthropological conceit of the white man is ponderous, unbelievable, vastly amusing to the gods. Why should not the black man play golf if his economic status gives him leisure in golf? Why should he not have a motor car and a country house if he can afford it? Why giggle at the normal activities of men whose skin differs from their own?

“Something of the same psychological reason is behind the fact that we middle-class people make merry over the fact that the worker in the mines and shops and furnaces wears a silk shirt or rents a house with a bath or rides to work in a car. Why shouldn’t he? Is he an elephant doing stunts? Is he a horse playing the piano? What’s the joke if he develops the same desires and aspirations that we do, and who, in God’s name, are we, anyway?”

And here’s an excerpt from a New York Times editorial from 1915 addressing those pesky women who wanted the right to vote.

“There are old reasons enough against woman suffrage, and it would be futile to cite them now. Men’s minds are made up. At this time of all times the poetizing and enfeebling of the practical instincts, experience, and capability of the State by the admission of women as voters would be a perilous venture.”

Wow! Those people back then sure were misguided. Imagine ridiculing people who have the same hopes and aspirations as everyone else. Or blocking their path to equal rights.

News to me. Headline at S-R’s Web site on Tuesday: “President appeals to Muslims.”

The Transparency 500. The Washington State Grange’s never-ending quest to remove political party sway from election primaries has reached its absurd conclusion: all races should be nonpartisan.

This is like removing labels from beer bottles. Sure, you’d figure out your favorite eventually, but you’re going to end up with a huge headache.

I certainly agree that placing a “D” or “R” by a candidate’s name isn’t a tell-all sign, but that’s only because the labeling doesn’t go far enough. Candidates should be outfitted like NASCAR drivers, with patches from their major contributors and beneficiaries sewn onto their clothes.

Pay no attention to that party behind me. The campaigns ads for Senate candidate Mike McGavick and U.S. House candidate Larry Grant both note that they are “problem-solvers” whose experiences as business executives will serve to elevate them above the partisan fray.

McGavick is a Republican running in Democratic-leaning Washington state. Grant is a Democrat running in Republican-leaning Idaho.

Looks like they both zeroed in on their first problem.