FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE
Brisbane,
Australia - (Special - Dingoes, Koalas and Emus of this vicinity will gather
tomorrow night in the shade of a boola bone tree to draft plans to welcome Pogo
Possum, American candidate for President, to this sunny land of
"down-under."
One prominent Emu, manufacturer of false Ostrich
feathers, claimed that the denizens of Australia and the Anzac regions are one
hundred per cent for the marsupial candidate. "I am not a marsupial
myself," said the Emu, "although I have been invited to join and my
mother's father had a little pouch, but I can guarantee that many of our
prominent denizens are simply delighted that Pogo has decided to stump this
country for the "down under" vote. Denizens from all over will be
gathering in New South Wales and you can bet they will vote to a man for the
candidate from up-over. One very important denizen, a platypus by trade, has guaranteed
to deliver the monotreme vote."
Pressed on whether the other marsupials will
welcome the opossum candidate as one of their own, the Emu declared that so far
as he was concerned the election is in the bag. "We are divided on just one
point," he pointed out. "There is some feeling on the part of a small
Kangaroo group that Pogo will not be the first to stump the country."
At this, and old man Kangaroo spoke up and
claimed that there is no such thing as a small Kangaroo group. "A small
Kangaroo is a Wallaby," he insisted, "and is an interloper from New
Zealand. Any Kangaroo group would have to be a LARGE Kangaroo group. And as for
stumping the country, NOBODY has ever stumped the Aussies."
A delegate from New Zealand, thereupon, threw
dirt into the pouch of a placid old lady Kangaroo and fighting broke out among
the Echidnas who claimed that they single-handedly had stumped the entire state
of Queensland in a stumping contest in 1932.
Order is expected to be restored in time for the
happy welcoming party.
(Copyright 1956, Walt Kelly)
