![]() ![]() But they are adequate for the ordinary run of society. I do not know if they would come out with credit from thoroughly difficult political situations. He wrote: “There is one thing which America demonstrates invincibly, and of which I had been in doubt up till now: it is that the middle classes can govern a state. During his tour, the aristocratic Tocqueville was impressed by the fact that American Democracy actually worked. A few years later, he published his famous book, Democracy in America (1835). He spent nine months touring towns and cities and taking notes. He was 25 years old when the French government sent him to America to study the prison system. It’s the birthday of writer Alexis de Tocqueville, born in Paris (1805). His character Archy said once, “a louse i used to know told me that millionaires and bums tasted about alike to him.” And, “what is all this mystery about the sphinx that has troubled so many illustrious men no doubt the very same thoughts she thinks are thought every day by some obscure hen.” After using Archy and Mehitabel in columns for 10 years, Marquis made books out of their writing, beginning with archy and mehitabel (1927). His columns were humorous, but had political undertones. Marquis was a champion of the underdog and not a fan of pretension. And Mehitabel was an alley cat with questionable morals who insisted that she was Cleopatra in one of her former lives. Archy was a former free verse poet who “sees life from the underside now.” He wasn’t able to reach the shift key so everything he wrote was in lower case. ORIGINAL TEXT AND AUDIO – 2016 It’s the birthday of newspaper columnist Don Marquis, born in Walnut, Illinois (1878), who created the characters Archy the cockroach and Mehitabel the alley cat. “ On Turning Thirty ” by Jen Levitt from The Off-Season. ![]()
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