Horton hears a flushing sound

To the tune of “Green Eggs and Ham”

I am Suess/No excuse/I am Suess

Do you like/Yellow Japs and Blacks?/I do not like them

I am Suess/I have no excuse

Would you like them/Here or there?

I would not like/Them anywhere

I am Suess/No excuse/I am Suess

In my day/I was a racist

Maybe not today/But someday

I am Suess/No excuse/Racist Suess

Yes, to our surprise, shock and embarrassment, one of our childhood heroes, Dr. Suess (in reality, Theodor Seuss Geisel) turns out to have a dark past, one that has caught up with him. Kind of like Horton hears a flushing sound.

And, perhaps to your surprise, Your Favorite Columnist, who despises Political Correctness, condemns Cancel Culture and fights for unfettered free speech, finds the critics are right — up to a point. 

There are six Dr. Seuss titles, among some 60 books, that were found to be offensive. (Geisel also wrote under the names Theo LeSieg and Rosetta Stone. No doubt the harriers are tearing through those volumes.)

The six titles — which will doubtlessly increase in value as they are suppressed — are “If I Ran the Zoo,” “McElligot’s Pool,” “On Beyond Zebra,” “Scrambled Eggs Super!,” “The Cat’s Quizzer” and my childhood favorite, “And to Think That I Saw It on Mulberry Street,” offensive for the image of an Asian person with a queue, in a conical hat, holding chopsticks, eating from a bowl. Another troublesome depiction was of very dark Africans with exaggerated lips wearing grass skirts.

Clearly, he should have stuck to animals, like cats in hats.

Within hours of the controversy exploding, AP reported 10 of the 20 books on Amazon’s best-seller list were — you guessed it — Dr. Seuss.

The so-called slights in the six books are indeed slight.

But that is not true for some of Geisel’s earlier works, which are painful. He did some advertising work and cartoons for a humor magazine that are pretty awful.

And here we have to separate the author of the children’s book from the earlier artist. 

Here is an example of his vile, earlier work.

So — who knew? Not many. Not Michelle Obama, who as First Lady read from Dr. Seuss on National Read Across America Day, celebrated on March 2 — Geisel’s birthday.

This week, when President Biden announced the day, he gutlessly omitted mention of Seuss/Geisel, making the illustrator a nonperson.

And that’s where we draw the line: You condemn the bad things he did earlier, but still celebrate his later achievements, which included “The Sneetches,” that promoted racial equality.

Removing the six titles was done by Dr. Suess Enterprises, the company that controls the late author’s works. (Geisel died in 1991.) The company acts in the name of the author and my guess is that Geisel, a liberal his whole life, would not want to hurt anyone’s feelings. Times and attitudes change.

You must judge Seuss in his time, and in his totality, and that’s true for Christopher Columbus, George Washington, Thomas Jefferson and Kate Smith.

So remove the six offending titles, but celebrate the rest. Don’t pretend Dr. Seuss never existed.

Because, while imperfect, he did.