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358 THIS DIFFICULT INDIVIDUAL
the "mad poet" would be even more damning than his famous
Oriental rug.
Anderson also mentioned that John Kasper had supported
Pound for President in 1956. New York subways were plastered
with "Pound for President" stickers, which greatly upset Walter
Winchell, but despite his obvious vote-getting propensities, both
major parties ignored this popular figure.
Anderson commented in this column, "When Pound added the
Chinese classics to his intellectual activities, Assistant Attorney
General William Tompkins raised an official eyebrow." Apparently
Tompkins had "official eyebrows" at the age of four, when Pound
began translating the Chinese classics.
No study of magnanimity would be complete without quoting an
editorial from The Nation, April 19, 1958: "It will be a triumph
of democracy if we set Pound free, not because he is a martyr, but
because a sick and vicious old man—even if he were not the
brilliant poet he is, with a luminous side that all but transcends his
faults—has his rights too. In Italy, he may yet write a few more
beautiful pieces, and in that cracked but crystal mirror of his hold
up to us once more the image of a civilization that too often drives
its best creators into self-exile and political horror."
In this touching demonstration of liberal magnanimity, The
Nation makes a stirring plea for "a sick and vicious old man."