Walt Kelly, cartoonist and author
of the widely heralded comic strip, POGO, may have best said it. And since I have no words of my own, I share
these.
We have met the enemy
and he is us."
Perhaps more than any
other words written by Kelly, it perfectly sums up his attitude towards the
foibles of mankind and the nature of the human condition.
The quote was a
parody of a message sent in 1813 from U.S. Navy Commodore Oliver Hazard Perry to Army General William Henry Harrison after his victory in the Battle of Lake Erie, stating, "We have met
the enemy, and they are ours." It first appeared in a lengthier form in
"A Word to the Fore", the foreword of the book The Pogo Papers, first
published in 1953. Since the strips reprinted in Papers included the first appearances of Mole
and Simple J. Malarkey, beginning Kelly's attacks on McCarthyism,
Kelly used the foreword to defend his actions:
“Traces
of nobility, gentleness and courage persist in all people, do what we will to
stamp out the trend. So, too, do those characteristics which are ugly. It is
just unfortunate that in the clumsy hands of a cartoonist all traits become
ridiculous, leading to a certain amount of self-conscious expostulation and the
desire to join battle. There is no need to sally forth, for it remains true
that those things which make us human are, curiously enough, always close at
hand. Resolve then, that on this very ground, with small flags waving and tinny
blasts on tiny trumpets, we shall meet the enemy, and not only may he be ours,
he may be us. Forward!”—Walt Kelly, June 1953
So, there you
have it. We have elected a new
President. Can we change from being
“enemies” to being friends. We should
find that out very soon.
Credits: Except for the first and last paragraph of
this post, the material and cartoon were in the Wikipedia biographical sketch
of Walt Kelly.
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