The Catholic times. [volume] (Columbus, Ohio) 1951-current, 1954-10-15
Just Among Ourselves
Passing Comment Considered or Ineonsidsrsts

The World Series is ovee The captains and the kings
depart Far called, our players melt AWAY. 10, all
our hopes of yesterday are one in Brooklyn or
Detroit But though the tumult and the shouting
has died, there is one lesser breed without the law
that still hangs around as brash and brazen as
ever This is the breed Of the Expert and the Scien
tific Prophet
When the Giants proved giants indeed; when
the Indians, minus war-whoop and paint crept
into their reservation; when all the Dope was mag
nficently upset and spread thin over the Polo
Grounds and Municipal Stadium, did the experts
fold up their lips like the Arabs and sile Idly creep
away? Not on your life!
When the lad with the column and confident
dir explained few weeks back, that pitching would
do the trick, and that, since Cleveland had the
pitching ergo New York was done for, he spoke
as one who knows. Have you beheld him wrapping
the drapery of his statistics about him and lying
down to troubled dreams? Not that you could
notice.
AS Jeeves would say Resilient birds. these ex-
perts." Their pages and pages of preSeries proph-
ecies, backed with all the weight of the Record,
and explained with air that would have been Of
fensive in Solomon on one Of his meatier days,
have all proved TO be so much eyewash But are
they downhearted? MOI
An old time professor Of chemistry used 10 in
struct his laboratory classes before an experiment,
with crystal cearness, and would tell them exactly
what the outcome Of the operation would be. Take
clean dry test-tube," he would say and put into
It ten CO. OF clear mercury 49,. = When the ex-
pertinent failed (as sometimes it did, he would
dictate for the tupiis notebooks: Reasons fail
ure the mercury was not clean; the esttube was
neither clean nor dry ...."
The old chemistry professor at least faced the
failure and tried TO explain il. And likely enough,
his explanation did explain But the Fearless Fore
casters u. Lardner among them do not even recog-
nize the fact that they failed They do not seek to
explain their failure They ignore it.
If the Series had gone according to the predic-
tions, what flood of sefapproval would pour
from the typewriterS of the Expertsl "As told
you in this column three weeks ago Z" 1T was.
of course, foregone conclusion that the Indians,
with a pitching staff Of wide extension and unbe-
lievabe depth would walk away with the champion.
ship. Our readers will recall that said as much,
and called the turn of events with neatness and
exactitude." Just as said, many times over in
our forecast Of this national autumn madness, the
Giants were beaten before they started And so
on, and so forth et patati ct paata.
But when the Series actually dumped the Dope
into the ashcan, there is no humbled nor even a
puzzled attempt to explain just where the Dope
sters went wrong in their calculations. The boys
trying to pat their backs for successful predic
tion, have not even the grace to smile sheepiShly
and murmur something about It's being a couple
of other teams they meant They do not fall
into embarrassed silence. They still! talking,
busiy foreeasting the outcome of future events!
"No regret for auRht that has been" wrote Al
fred Lord Tennyson. He must have been thinking of
the Experts the Prophets, the Know-ItAll Before
ltHappens-Lads These unblushing gentlemen, end
lessly arculae, kind Of Maginot Line, Their
guns all point one way and can't be turned around.
Now, all this reveals very interesting feature
of American life. We dote prophecies. We revel
in polls We want the latest facts about tomorrow.
And when we get the polls, and the prophecies, we
Immediately forget them We do not stone the
prophets for prophesying, because we love that.
We do not stone them when events show them TO
be false prophets we forget what they said. So do
the prophets themselves And We all forget with
lightning quickness,
But il would be refreshing thing to have
busted prophet make at least some concession to
the demands of responsibility II would pleasingly
stir the spirit to hear of them say, 'Well,
was wrong. | failed 10 take into account, when
working out my careful calculation certain variable
factors etc" II would not be such hard thing
10 do Any man can wiggle out OF anything if he
keeps in his vest pocket little outfit cf phrases
about varables, and inconstants and intangibles,
and values, and psychological effects and few
others This outfit can be procured by attending a
university for four years; it is called Scientific
Jargon Jr."
Still, as say, Americans like the irresponsible
prophet And the prophet likes him too It's not bad
to be able to predict a war; or landslide Of votes,
or recessve depression, depressing reces
sion, or a championship for the Pirates,not bad, so
long you are never going TO be made to eat your
words Indeed il is heartening thing for prophet
to know that he is going to be considered an ex
pert, no matter what he predicts and no matter
how badly he misses the mark And this heartening
thing is the unfaling support of our Scientific
Dopes DopeSters They know from the start
that the one thing the American people will never
do is, after the event to put fact and prophecy
side by side and call upon the prophet to explain
what he meant by his silly prediction.
It's only sharpe here and there and never
the American populaee who remembers what the
official said in his old campaign speeches It's only
the whole Party that completely forgets what the
Party Platform is, lis only the eager mass
Of people who dote on prophecies that instantly
forgets, when fact fades out futurity, what the
prophecies actually predicted.
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