The Hispanist in the American Historical Association

Extract

The following address was presented at the luncheon meeting of the Conference on Latin American History of the American Historical Association in Philadelphia on December 29, 1963.

Before you bombard with the china and charge with the cutlery, know that I have taken counsel with my peers. My topic I put to them with a plea that they give me a judgment of my theme, or some notion of the tack I should take. “Singularly barren, your theme,” came the first response. Said the next: “You ask for a tack; I suggest a sledge hammer.” Awesome, though, was this: “If you say what ought to be said, you will be crucified; and if you don’t, can you be pleased with that?” “If you can do it undetected, slide off the subject,” advised a wily one. Another, though he discounted them, had heard rumbles, womblings I take to spring from the viscera, not the head. The secretaries of our academy assure me, however, that these infirmities, already affecting the skin, often break out in a rash upon their records.