Word: smithsonian
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...City, called the President the "Roy Riegels* of American politics." Pint-sized Billy Rose, showman turned columnist, suggested W. C. Fields as presidential timber: "If we're going to have a comedian in the White House, let's have a good one." In Wash ington's Smithsonian Institution, a mysterious scratch disfigured the face of the Chief Executive's portrait...
Just ending, too, was an eight-year dig by the Smithsonian Institution in Mexico's state of Veracruz. In hilly, jungle country, not far from the Gulf Coast, lived a people far older than the Zapotecs, probably older than the Mayas. Archeologists call their culture "Olmec"; but as people they have no name, no whispering mention in legend. The Smithsonian calls them the "La Venta people," after the place where their most impressive monuments were found...
...most part, Smithsonian scientists stuck to "description," that amiable super-hobby which leads learned men to scour the earth for rarities. Working always on a shoestring, they explored the West, dug up dinosaurs, collected insects, mollusks, birds, minerals...
Blameless Labor. Among the more recent publications of the Smithsonian are reports on the catfish of Venezuela and the songs of the Chitimacha Indians of Louisiana. Every detail of nature, Smithsonian men insist, is worth attention for itself alone...
Some outside scientists, planning for the atomic age, smile at the old Smithsonian. But others are slightly envious. Smithsonian researchers do not have to teach. Their work, though it often proves useful, need have no practical applications. And out of their blameless labors will come no demons, no man-made plagues, no bombs or poisons for the world to exorcise...