56 Years Later, One Charles M. Schulz Quote Is Aging Better Than Any Peanuts Fan Could Imagine
Ambrose Tardive is an editor on ScreenRant's Comics team. Over the past two years, he has developed into the internet's foremost authority on The Far Side. Outside of his work for ScreenRant, Ambrose works as an Adjunct English Instructor.
Peanuts creator Charles Schulz passed away 26 years ago, shortly after ending his legendary comic strip, which had run for half a century. Today, Schulz's characters are still as beloved as ever, and the author still has wisdom to share. In fact, something he wrote over fifty years ago, now, hits harder than ever. The thing is, though, it never appeared in a Peanuts cartoon.
That's right. Schulz's greatest bit of advice didn't come from the mouth of Charlie Brown, or from Lucy cosplaying as a psychiatrist, or creative perfectionist and self-aware cartoon character Schroeder. It wasn't a line in Snoopy's "Great American Novel." It came from the typewriter of Charles M. Schulz, printed on Peanuts letterhead.
Jean Schulz, Charles' widow, writes an amazing blog for the Schulz Museum website, and in a 2019 post, she shared a copy of a response Charles Schulz sent to a piece of fan mail. This particular letter came from a middle school student, who asked Schulz what the qualities of a good American citizen were.
This was in 1970. The answer Schulz gave was striking. 56 years later, it feels prescient, but really, it highlights the "more things change, more they stay the same" nature of American politics.
Charles Schulz Called For "Faith In Democracy" Back In 1970 And It Hits Harder Than Ever Today
"Retain faith in our democracy," Charles Schulz wrote to a young fan named Joel in 1970. And keep your head on a swivel, because there are people in America who couldn't care less about democracy as an ideal, but they still speak in democratic and patriotic language. "Sometimes it is the very people who cry out the loudest in favor of getting back to what they call 'American Virtues'," Schulz warned," who lack this faith in our country."
The Peanuts creator got real with Joel. Even in 1970, it was getting harder and harder to say what a good citizen was, but Charles Schulz had some thoughts on what made a bad citizen. This is especially notable when considering that Schulz deliberately stayed as nonpartisan as possible as a public figure, and strove to make Peanuts as timeless as he could at all times. Charles Schulz's biography even noted that he thoroughly disliked Doonesbury, the first comic strip to win the Pulitzer Prize, because of its "political commentary."
Which makes this letter from 1970 a rare glimpse at Schulz's politics behind-the-scenes. There is a clear humanist, progressive vibe to Peanuts, for readers who are paying attention, but the strip was never didactic. It was never overtly politicized. For better or worse. The things about Charles Schulz's political and social beliefs that can be inferred from Peanuts are in line with what he said in response to the "what makes a good citizen?" prompt.
Charles Schulz Kept Politics Out Of Peanuts, But He Still Had Strong Ideas About Being A Citizen
"Retain faith in our democracy." Think about that. Charles Schulz felt it was worth saying to a 5th grader back in 1970. That is two years before Watergate, which is looked back on as the moment that shattered Americans' faith in their government, the start of a slippery slope to losing belief in the efficacy of democracy. Schulz's answer suggests America was already teetering on the precipice of this crisis of faith, and that the 56 years since have been the crisis playing out.
That's a lot to unpack from a brief response to a fan letter. Readers can imagine Charles Schulz dashing off his letter to Joel quickly, or they can picture him sitting at his desk for a while, struggling to find the right words. Either way, his words are likely more resonant than the Peanuts writer/artist would have expected, or would have hoped, back in 1970, wherever he might have landed on the political spectrum.
- TV Show(s)
- The Snoopy Show, Peanuts by Schulz
- First Film
- The Peanuts Movie
- Cast
- Christopher Shea, Kathy Steinberg, Bill Melendez, Sally Dryer, Peter Robbins, Noah Schnapp, Hadley Belle Miller, Mariel Sheets, Lisa DeFaria, Venus Omega Schultheis
- Created by
- Charles M. Schulz
- Movie(s)
- The Peanuts Movie, A Charlie Brown Christmas, A Boy Named Charlie Brown, Charlie Brown's All Stars!, A Charlie Brown Thanksgiving, It's the Great Pumpkin, Charlie Brown, It's the Easter Beagle, Charlie Brown
- Character(s)
- Charlie Brown, Snoopy, Lucy van Pelt, Linus van Pelt, Sally Brown, Pig-Pen, Marcie (Peanuts), Peppermint Patty, Woodstock
KioskNews shows a cleaned-up reading view extracted from the publisher’s page — the original always lives on their site, not ours.