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I'm Glad I'm A Little Guy

The author reflects on the advantages of being a small statured man. He recounts being called a "little man from a little country" by Andrei Vishinsky during a UN debate, but argues that little men have the advantage of being underestimated at first and surprising others with what they achieve. The author believes small size is not a barrier to effectiveness, citing many influential historical figures who were short in stature like Napoleon. He is ultimately glad to be a little fellow.

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Fai Lanel
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1K views2 pages

I'm Glad I'm A Little Guy

The author reflects on the advantages of being a small statured man. He recounts being called a "little man from a little country" by Andrei Vishinsky during a UN debate, but argues that little men have the advantage of being underestimated at first and surprising others with what they achieve. The author believes small size is not a barrier to effectiveness, citing many influential historical figures who were short in stature like Napoleon. He is ultimately glad to be a little fellow.

Uploaded by

Fai Lanel
Copyright
© © All Rights Reserved
We take content rights seriously. If you suspect this is your content, claim it here.
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Download as DOCX, PDF, TXT or read online on Scribd
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I’M GLAD I’M A LITTLE GUY

by

Carlos P. Romulo

5 One day in a United Nations session in Paris, I found myself in a heated debate with Andrei
Vishinsky, chief of the Soviet delegation. I had strongly disagreed with a proposal he made. Suddenly,
Mr. Vishinsky insulted me. “You are just a little man from a little country,” he said.

For him that answered the argument. My county compared with his, is just a dot on the map.
And I stand only five feet, four inches in my shoes.

4 Even in my home, I’m a little fellow. My four sons all look down at me from a vantage of two or
three inches. Even my wife is an inch or so higher than I am when she is wearing high heels. Once when
she was interviewed after our marriage, she made the modest remark, “I prefer to glow faintly in my
husband’s shadow.” An acquaintance jested that this didn’t leave her much room to glow in.

My small stature has often been made conspicuous in my relations with famous people. During
World War II, I was aide-de-camp to General MacArthur who towered eight inches above me. We went
ashore together during the Leyte landing, and the first reports stated: “General MacArthur waded
ashore in waist deep water. General Romulo was at his side.” A columnist wanted to know if this was
true, pointing out that if the general was waist-deep in water I would have drowned.

3 In my lifetime I have given much thought to the problem of littleness and bigness. And I want to
say that I’m glad to be a little fellow.

That may surprise you. Many little fellows feel a sense of inferiority because of their stature. I
must confess that in younger days I once experimented with wearing elevated shoes. But the lifts made
me uncomfortable—physically and mentally. They made me feel I was trying to appear something I was
not. I threw the shoes away.

These shoes were weakening one of my great natural advantages which is this: the little fellow is
generally underrated in the beginning. Because he is small, little is expected of him. Then when he does
something well, people are surprised and impress. In their minds, he has done a great deed.

I first became aware of this when I was on the debating team at Columbia University. My
smallness made me seem more like a schoolboy than a college student. Right from the start, the
audience was rooting for me. To them, I was the underdog, and most people love to see the weaker
party come through.

It has been that way all my life. What little I do has often seemed surprising because people
were expecting so little of me.

We little fellows have another advantage. We usually have a special gift for making friends.
People feel protective over us. They find it easy to confide in us. Most of us learn in life that friendliness
is as great a force as physical strength.
Small size is not barrier to personal effectiveness. Many of the greatest men in history were not
tall. Beethoven and Admiral Nelson were both five feet four inches. But they were giants like the poet
John Keats and the philosopher Immanuel Kant, who stood a bare five feet high. Saint Francis Xavier,
one of the History’s most inspiring religious men, was reported to be only four feet and six inches tall.

Then, of course, you have the most celebrated short man of them all, Napoleon I. Napoleon
proved to the world what a great man he really was. Today, a period in history is called Napoleonic era
in his honor.

I mentioned that Mr. Vishinsky insulted me because I dared to criticize Russia. But that did not
mean that I did not answer him back. I bounded to my feet and told the assembly that Mr. Vishinsky was
correct in his description of me. But I added:

“It is the duty of the little Davids here to fling pebbles of truth between the eyes of blustering
Goliaths – and make them behave.”

Mr. Vishinsky frowned and said nothing.

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