(4 of 9)
But his rage is usually supplanted by a mood of hilarity and revivified cunning. When the pro-Republican Pittsburgh Press protested that his venal, pompous and reactionary politico, Senator Jack S. Phogbound, was a calculated libel on the reputation of the U.S. Senate, Capp had a soft and devilish answer. He replied that he knew nothing of politics but what he read in the Pittsburgh Press, that Phogbound had been suggested by that newspaper's editorial attacks on Democratic politicians, and that he was not only hurt but genuinely amazed to find the Press damning instead of applauding his creation.
The Bosom of the Masses. Critics, carping or constructive, loom very small, however, in Capp's public. Millions feel that he can do no wrong. He has not only been clutched to the bosom of the masses but has been nominated as a genius by fragments of the intelligentsia. Britain's Princess Elizabeth is a "slobbering" Abner fan; so are Novelist John Steinbeck, Comedian Harpo Marx, Lawyer Morris Ernst and NSRB Boss W. Stuart Symington.
Catchwords and phrases from Li'l Abner such as "amoozin but confoozin," "as any fool can plainly see," "natcherly" and both "sob" and "gulp" used as spoken expletives, have become immovably anchored in American idiom. His Shmoos and Kigmies are as easily identifiable to most Americans as cantaloupes and cows.
Capp has created something very like a national festival—Sadie Hawkins Day—which on Nov. 18 will be celebrated for the 14th time on campuses from coast to coast. Chicago will be the epicenter of this year's celebrations. Capp himself will crown the winner of a Sadie Hawkins Chase. To qualify for the final scramble, adolescents of both sexes, in "full Dogpatch regalia," will first race on a treadmill.
The Sad Part. All this wealth, recognition and acclaim is in dramatic contrast to the record of Capp's earlier years. Li'l Abner's creator, who was born Alfred Gerald Caplin in New Haven, Conn., in 1909 (he shortened his name to Capp in signing the strip, changed it legally in 1949), grew up amid a ferocious struggle with poverty. His father, Otto Caplin—a glib, cheerful, optimistic man who studied law at Yale, had a dilettante's interest in art and nursed continual schemes for making his fortune—managed to eke out only the barest living. It was largely his mother's courage and resourcefulness that kept the family a going concern.
Mrs. Caplin led her four children in an endless tactical retreat from one shabby rented house to the next. She worked out complicated trade agreements with butchers and merchants, refused to deal with a grocer who would not hire one of her three sons, and charmed bakers into parting with stale bread. She summoned up an awesome queenliness when facing unpaid and threatening landlords. There were times when she went out, late at night, and rummaged through neighbors' ash barrels for fragments of usable coal.