The People: A Time to Grump

Spring, having come late, remained capricious. Rain and ice, in many states, interrupted the fitful interludes of sun; almost nowhere was it very warm for May. But weather was not the only anomaly of which Americans were aware.

There was the pervasive prosperity (at Birmingham High School, in Encino, Calif., not a single bicycle could be found among the students' chrome-crusted motorcycles, scooters and stereo-equipped cars). Yet the stock market was jittery.

The latest Consumer Price Index showed another overall rise for April—four-tenths of 1 % —making the February-April 1966 increase the highest for the period in 15 years. Yet to a vast majority of the people with more money than ever to spend, the increase had little impact.

Education has never been so accessible. Yet the specter of failing to get into college was more real than ever, and even more fearsome yet in the light of the draft.

Culture in all its forms touched more minds than ever before. Yet the bestselling novel (Valley of the Dolls) was a story of three aggressive show-business females who rate their men as either strong and unholdable, or weak and discardable.

Batman to Viet Nam. But the greatest anomaly, the biggest dichotomy in the American spirit, was caused by the complex, confusing war in Viet Nam.

Most references to the war bring a doleful shrug or headshake. "Nobody feels he can do anything about it," said a Washingtonian, "so it comes out as a kind of reluctant support." Professional opinion samplers documented the confusion. A survey by social scientists from the University of Chicago and Stanford University found that most Americans still share a visceral instinct that the U.S. should not withdraw. How ever, said Western Pollster Don Muchmore, "there is a complete lack of belief that we can win. People wish we'd never gotten in, but say we've got to continue to help South Viet Nam." The Gallup poll reported that between January and April the proportion of those queried who approve Johnson's Viet Nam policy decreased from 56% to 54%, while those who disapprove increased from 26% to 31% .

Frustration needs an outlet, and one new form of instant escapism surfaced at Atlanta's Emory University. There the current movement is to organize an "aggression day" on which students can pelt one another with mudpies and bags of water regardless of ideology and for no reason whatever. Not the least significant expression of the nation's mixed-up mood was a bumper sticker with the slogan: SEND BATMAN TO VIET NAM. There was also a new button that proclaimed:

Watch out

I am a

GRUMP

This entitles me to take

a stand for or against

anything or anybody