BARBERS AND COLONELS

Hereafter in Kentucky no more barbers will be elevated to the rank and dignity of Colonel. That is the decision of Governor Ruby Lafoon on discovering that he had unwittingly made a New York barber a Kentucky Colonel in gracious but indiscreet response to the request of a New York friend.

Well, that is that, and we suppose that there is nothing to be done about it, but we regret this Blue Grass attitude which seems to smack of a top lofty and undemocratic spirit.

The matter as it has now been reported will probably be interpreted by barbers everywhere as a deliberate snub to their profession. Kentucky's Governor having learned that a tonsorial artist is on his list of Colonels "will see to it that no other follower of the craft receives an appointment." That is a cut worse than any plunderingly made by an incompetent barber.

The barbers of the nation however, should not take the implications of this statement too much to heart. They should remember that they are practitioners of an ancient and honorable craft, one that enjoys the tradition of having served as a forerunner of modern surgery. Their professional traditions are immeasurably older than those of the Kentucky colonels.

Our own idea of the incongruity of Mr. Lafoon's recent appointment of the New York barber is based not on the latter's vocation but on the conspicuous fact that the only reason for the appointment was that the barber had just become a father. It strikes us that, while a good barber might make a very good Colonel, the theory that such a common experience as paternity fits a man for service as a Colonel is rather grotesquely unsound. In this appointment Mr. Lafoon apparently stumbled over both feet. But on his apologetic announcement of "no more barbers" he has in our opinion stuck one foot in his mouth.