The Press: Rube in the Sun

Rube Goldberg, who draws the screwiest comic strips in the U. S. (Boob McNutt, Lala Palooza), and the stodgy New York Sun have one thing in common: conservatism in politics. Last week the Sun hired Rube as its political cartoonist, first one it has had in 18 years.

First thing Rube did was to ask the Sun for hints on editorial policy. He was given a list of orthodox Republican likes and dislikes, touched up with a heavily jocular postcript: “Dear Rube: We also in theory favor truth and beauty and oppose rape and cannibalism.”

Rube adjusted himself quickly to his new profession. His first cartoon showed Franklin Roosevelt holding a stopwatch over Industry struggling to escape from a straitjacket. Caption: EVEN HOUDINI COULDN’T DO THIS ONE. Nos. 2 and 3 were equally unfunny, but Rube promised his fans that the Sun would soon publish his design for an apparatus to collect War debts.

Highly pleased with Rube’s beginning, the Sun saw even in his screwy imagination a kind of stability. Said Business Manager Edwin Samson Friendly: “Rube’s a very substantial citizen . . . not like a lot of these other guys that can be funny one day and off the next.”