It Must Be Fun to Know All the Answers

By CHARLES M. GUTHRIE

of the Minneapolis Tribune editorial page staff

published by the StarTribune

September 17, 1955

   THE FELLOW you are apt to envy on first acquaintance is the lad who knows everything.  Here is the positive and forceful character you wish you were.  Here is the man who can discuss anything from the impact of nuclear fission on the world to the mating habits of the mud turtle.  If you are in a funk over a domestic scene that has blighted breakfast he can give you the lowdown on that greatest of enigmas--women.

   He has fixed opinions on juvenile delinquency, censorship, the farm problem, the Cold War, school shortages and sourdough biscuits.  He never lacks a pat answer.  To him no problems are insoluble.

   DELINQUENCY?  Well, the reason we have so much of it is that we're letting the kids run the show.  Parents and teachers have gone soft.  Junior needs to have his knuckles rapped.  Even more he needs to have the old man work him over in the woodshed.  Then watch him get into line.

   Delinquency is tied closely to the schools where, says the man-who-knows-everything, a lot of wooly-headed theorists have taken over and are teaching the kids stuff ranging from folk dancing to trumpet tooting.  They spend more time integrating Junior into the group than teaching him the three Rs.

   All this bleating about crowded classrooms is poppycock, too.  Why, back in the old home town when the man-who-knows-everything was in school they had from 60 to 80 kids in one classroom.  And there were two grades to a room, with one class reciting while the other studied.  There wasn't any sobbing then about crowded classrooms.  When kids got through eighth grade they knew how to read, too.  Also they could spell "separate" and "receive" and add without using their fingers.  You betcha, boy, we need to return to fundamentals.

   CENSORSHIP?  All the huffing and puffing about it is just so much guff.  All we have to do is weed out the dirty stuff.  Anybody with an ounce of brains knows obscenity when he sees it.  Objectionable literature is objectionable literature, whether it's in comic books or in Shakespeare or Hemingway.  The man-who-knows-everything would root it out of libraries, homes, book stores and newsstands.  The excuse  the modern authors employ for writing this tripe, that it's realism, is pretty thin.  Reality is bad enough as it is without having to read it.

   THE COLD WAR?  Don't let those Russians fool you, boy.  Don't be taken in by thier now folksy attitude and their pie-in-the-sky promises, the man-who-knows-everything warns.  Those babies haven't lost sight of their original objective, world domination.  Summit conferences and embassy parties are a waste of time.  The way to deal with the Russians and Red Chinese is to be tough.  Larrup 'em with a few bombs next time they get off base.  Show 'em we mean business and we'll have  peace.

   The farm problem would be no problem at all, says Mr. Positive, if congress had any backbone.  The way to get rid of surpluses is to wipe out those support prices.  When wheat got down to two-bits a bushel the farmers would quit growing the stuff.

   THOSE WHO envy the man-who-knows-everything at first usually do not envy him long.  He may sometimes be right and he often is an engaging and stimulating fellow.  But his certainties pall.  He frequently talks arrant nonsense and is sometimes a bore, one of those fellows who tortures the obvious with persistent, pontifical solemnity.

   We are going to have this sort of thing in abundance as the political campaign progresses and candidates and party workers froth up.  In politics it is almost unavoidable.  However he may be racked by doubt about the issues, the aspirant for office cannot merely promise, when elected, to study them and do what he thinks best.  He must accentuate the positive.  Even while straddling he fence he must promise solutions.  Right or wrong, he must have answers.
 
   ALTHOUGH aware that the man-who-knows-everything is seldom remotely akin to the man who is well informed, I confess some admiration for Mr. Know It All.  His extrovertish propensities awe me.  He is a stranger to uncertainty.  Contradictions leave him undismayed.  Once on his course he does not look back.
   Wallowing as I do in doubt, I feel that being positive would be pleasant.  Usually all I am certain of is that motherhood is a sacred trust and that you should be kind to animals.

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