The Press: Rose, Palaverer

Columnist Billy Rose had been hearing from his indignant readers. Some of them, he confided, didn't like having such serious subjects as Palestine "discussed by a Broadway clown with breakaway suspenders and a nose that lights up. They suggested I let the Deep Thinkers do the deep thinking and confine my writings to razzle-dazzle and razzmatazz."

Rose retorted in the unabashed and irreverent prose that has won him more newspaper clients than most pundits have. "It's true ... I blow an occasional soap bubble while on the soap box. But what's wrong with that? . . . I've often heard more sensible talk in a barber shop than I've read in a week's issue of the Congressional Record. . . .

"I know there's a big temptation when you get a little white space to become deafened by the thunder of your own thoughts. I've seen it happen to a lot of guys, and I'm not saying it can't happen to me. . . . Nineteen columns out of 20 I expect to be peddling that ever-lovin' popcorn and doing my old soft shoe dance. But every so often, when I feel like hollering, I'm going to stand up on my hind legs and holler. I'm not saying my palaverings rate being carved on the pyramids.

But I think Ole Massa Billy has as much equipment for palavering as most of the practicing experts—a typewriter, a byline, and a heck of a nerve."