Bum Steer

The situation seemed grim. For one thing, it was raining. For another, only three of the 80 persons expected to march on Washington from Baltimore showed up. But the picketers hoisted their signs high and circled the White House for seven hours straight. "Mrs. Kennedy," pleaded the placards, "Won't You Please Clothe Your Horse for Decency?" SINA was on the march.

As explained by President G. Clifford Prout Jr., 32, and gleefully reported in the nation's press, the Society for Indecency to Naked Animals was founded four years ago by his late father, a St. Louis real estate man, who left $400,000 to institute an organization dedicated to the proposition that "all animals should wear clothing for the sake of decency." "It should have been the Society Against Indecency to Naked Animals, of course," explained the junior Prout disarmingly. "but unfortunately my father was a little--well, not quite of sound mind when he drew up the will, and he used the wrong preposition."

Grave Danger. Prout claimed a membership of more than 50,000, and 47 chapters throughout the country, all dedicated to clothing pets in breakaway shorts, pants or wrap-around skirts. How about calls of nature? Easy enough, says SINA; a few weeks of practice, and any animal can learn to lower his pants with his teeth.

Picketer and SINA Vice President Bruce Spencer declared that the major immediate problem is "the grave danger of people seeking vicarious thrills by looking at nude animals. Automobile drivers are constantly getting into wrecks because they find themselves diverted by the sight of a naked cow or bull grazing right beside the highway. For just that reason, we have declared the New Jersey Turnpike a moral disaster area. We feel that people should no more take children to a zoo than to a burlesque show." (Last summer President Prout personally supervised the dressing of animals at the San Francisco Zoo.)

Another Explanation. SINA, however, is not itself free from burlesque. By week's end it developed that G. Clifford Prout Sr. not only did not die in St. Louis; he did not ever live there, or anywhere. As for Junior, he turned out to be a successful writer for the Garry Moore Show. His real professional name: Buck Henry. His real real name: Buck Zuckerman.

His explanation: "It's not fair to say G. Clifford Prout Jr. doesn't exist. A large part of the time that is who I am." A more thorough explanation was to be found in a just-released record, Inside SINA, narrated by, of all people, Vice President Spencer. It is very funny. Sales, while they may never total the original $400,000 with which the society was founded, should at least give SINA the last, best laugh.

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