Awesome Epigrams

After four widely acclaimed books, a vivid CBS-TV interview and a celebrated meeting with President Johnson, Longshoreman-Philosopher Eric Hoffer, 65, has become a hot literary property. So the Manhattan-based Ledger Syndicate asked him to do a newspaper column. His first response to Ledger President John W. Higgins was a resounding no, but he finally relented. An impressive 214 newspapers have now signed up for his weekly column called "Reflections."

Four "Reflections" have appeared to date. Like his books, they deal with what book reviewers call "the human condition" and therefore are not required to be topical. While most columnists are content to get a few facts straight, Hoffer likes to sum up whole civilizations with epigrammatic flourish. In this week's column, he chides U.S. intellectuals. They are "likely to consider any achievement not fathered by words as illegitimate," he writes. "Hence their disdain of things which have come to pass by chance. To the intellectual, America's unforgivable sin is that it has revolutions without revolutionaries, and achieves the momentous in a matter-of-fact way."

Eventually, Hoffer will try his hand at such timely subjects as the coming elections. His political convictions, though, are no secret. "I want to help get Johnson elected," he says. "I have known Johnsons all my life. The greatness of the country is that it can produce so many. If he fails, I fail. If he succeeds, I succeed."

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