_THERE’S NOT A BATHING
SUIT IN RUSSIA_
By Will Rogers
_If you like the following subjects
you will just love this text book._
§ Mary Garden § Aviation § Vodka § Bathing Bareback §
Whiskers, _long ones_ § Propaganda, _all sorts_ §
Free Love § Bombs § Grand Dukes & Princesses § and
_21 other wrong ways to run a country_
[Illustration]
With Illustrations by Herb Roth
1927
New York
Albert & Charles Boni
By Will Rogers
There’s Not a
Bathing Suit
in Russia
_& Other Bare Facts_
[Illustration]
With Illustrations by Herb Roth
1927
New York
Albert & Charles Boni
_Copyright, 1927, by Albert & Charles Boni, Inc._
_Copyright, 1927, by the Curtis Publishing Co._
_Manufactured in the United States of America_
_CONTENTS_
PAGE
INTRODUCTION 7
ONE 23
TWO 35
THREE 57
FOUR 80
FIVE 100
SIX 113
SEVEN 130
EIGHT 140
_ILLUSTRATIONS_
PAGE
If he escaped very fast he is a Grand Duke 9
I thought somebody had loaded me up with
molten lead 27
One woman did get over with a safe, she had
it hid in her bathing cap 39
That is called the mountain region of Holland 43
Lithuania? Why, I never even heard of it 61
My one impression of Russia 67
I didn’t get a shave, figuring I might pass
as a native 75
Everybody said--“They have spies and secret
police all over the place” 83
I didn’t hardly expect Trotzky to make any
faces for me or to turn a few somersaults 91
He has served his term in Siberia under the
Czar 95
They start at the cradle with them in Russia 127
If there is a bathing suit in Russia, somebody
is using it for an overcoat 131
_INTRODUCTION_
_Now there has been more said and written about Russia than there has
been about Honesty in Politics and Farmers’ Relief, and there has been
just as little done about it as about either of those two._
_I should have written earlier about Russia, but everybody was writing,
and I thought I would wait till they all got through; but they are
not going to get through. They just keep on writing about Russia. It
looks like anyone is an amateur in Literature if they havent exhibited
Russia’s horoscope to a picture-reading public._
_More people break into Sunday Editions with an article on Russia than
do by murdering their husbands or swimming the Channel. If you can’t
get into the papers, never did get in, and are about losing hope of
having anything get in, why--here is the greatest tip to ambitious
amateur literary careers--write something on Russia and you will
replace some regular writer that day. Russia is the biggest Country in
the World, and men and Women write authoritative opinions on it that
couldent give you a bird’s-eye view of the Principality of Monaco, and
you can take a handful of green apples and stand on a hill and hit
everybody in Monaco._
_It has always been a source of wonder to me that Patricia Ziegfeld,
Baby Peggy, Paulina Longworth or Nick Altrock have never written a
book on Russia. Some Congressmen come over to Paris to investigate the
Cafés, have four cocktails and a Russian caviar sandwich--which they
dident like, but the rest was doing it--go back home and tell of the
condition as it exists today in Russia._
_Russia has one peculiarity that I don’t think any other country ever
enjoyed--that is, that every female gender that come out of there is
a Princess, and the lowest form of a title in the way of an escaped
male is a Duke, and if he escaped very fast he is a Grand Duke. From
the amount of Titles out of there, one would gather right away that
the sole purpose of the Revolution, proposed and carried out, was not
to assist the downtrodden, as is generally supposed, but to promote
foreign travel among the Princesses and Dukes._
[Illustration: If he escaped very fast he is a Grand Duke.]
_Escaped statistics show that among males, 72 per cent. were Grand
Dukes and the other 28 per cent. just Dukes. Women were all 100 per
cent. Princesses. You spend half your time in Paris listening to some
exiled American telling you hard-luck stories about former Russian
nobility. “The fellow who just opened the Taxi door in front of this
American Rat Trap you are now in was a Grand Duke and, brother, just
two Revolutions removed from the Czar.” They are all kin to the Czar.
“The Girl you mortgaged your hat too as you come in was the Czarina’s
principal Lady in waiting”; also related to the family. The bus boy--he
is the fellow they use so the waiter will have somebody to lay the
blame on--was a Duke, and he would have been Grand if the thing had
lasted. In fact you are in a nest of royal relatives. Telephone girls
were Princesses, Taxi drivers used to be Dukes--all, as I say, related
to the Czar._
_Any man with that many kinfolks, no wonder something happened to
him. I bet if the truth was found out, he organized his own death
personally. If I had some of the kinfolks he was supposed to have had,
I would have hired assassins to exterminate me very early in life. They
tell of one fellow that was very, very near the Czar--perhaps a twin.
Well, he is selling Peanuts on the street. We tried to find him, not
because I was interested in his case, but I wanted some Peanuts. I have
yet to hear of one that was doing well. Yet they bother you for hours,
telling you how polished and highly educated and cultured they were.
They seem to know what temperature to drink their wine at, but most of
them don’t know how to make a dollar to buy the wine._
_Now if that is all any of them can do, how was it they thought they
could run a tremendous country like Russia? A fellow will seek his
level, I don’t care where you are. If opening Taxi doors in front of
Vodka Joints and helping a waiter break dishes is as high as their
ability will carry them in eight years, it shows they should have been
doing that all the time. All those good years they had in Russia was
not due to any of their own efforts._
_If the present Republican régime was thrown over, and were all
banished from the District of Columbia, none are going to open any
Taxicab doors for anybody but themselves. They might not get into
anything as big as the White House or Czar’s Palace, but they will have
one big enough that the help problem will bother. Even the Congressmen
may not be able to plant their own Gardens with Government seed and
mail letters for nothing. Yet you won’t see any of them have to resort
to peddling goobers on anybody’s street. They can even pull the Cabinet
Chairs out from under that band of accomplices who plot against us once
a week; they will hit the floor, but they will come back up out of it
with nothing hurt but their political pride. They can always dig up
enough for the next Campaign fund._
_Of course, at times they may wish, like the deposed Russian Noblemen,
for the old régime back, and mull over the good old days when they used
to sit around the old White House hearth and laughingly discuss the
League of Nations and Philippine Independence; but they will always be
able to seek their level. Revolution, in the way of Democrats uprising
and buying enough votes to depose us, might be sorter disconcerting
for the time being; but they never would have to worry about where
those Flapjacks and Maple sirup was coming from._
_Now, I may be hard-hearted, but I just couldent seem to work myself
up into any great frenzy of tears over the old Dukes and Princesses.
They carry a lot of long, high-sounding names, but mighty little
sympathy. They can converse in a lot of languages, but they’re not
strong on making a living in any of them. They have spent a lifetime
trying to learn how to dance in a Ballroom, but they have never learned
it good enough to get paid for it. The old American is there with
the uncouthness, but he never comes in on a pass. His rudeness is
unintentional and not studied._
_I bet you if I had met a Russian in Paris and he had said, “I was
a poor Peasant in Russia before the War; I never had anything in my
life; I always had to work very hard; I never in all my life even saw
the Czar; I had no culture, either then or now, no refinement, no
education; I was just struggling along”--say, I could have taken that
kind of a Russian out in Paris and told them about him and collected
him a million Francs. People would have gone crazy over him, he would
have been such a novelty. Of course there is no such one. If there
was, he is perhaps President of a Bank in Paris, or else he is perhaps
Premier a day or so every once in a while. No, Sir; the poor ability of
many of the Russians that come out of there has really been more of a
boost for the Revolution than any other one thing._
_Well, when I saw they were not going to quit writing about Russia,
why, I am going to get busy and write the most novel thing on Russia
that was ever written. I have had a research made, and there has never
been a book on Russia that tells you what I am going to tell you, and
there has been more ink wasted on Russia and Prohibition than any other
two subjects in the world, both equally unsettleable._
_Now here is the novelty and truth of my Book on Russia:_
_I am the only person that ever wrote on Russia that admits he don’t
know a thing about it._
_And on the other hand, I know just as much about Russia as anybody
that ever wrote about it._
_Nobody knows anything about Russia._
_I have read dozens of books and hundreds of Articles by various
people, such as “The Real Russia, by one who spent five years in a
Moscow jail”; “My ten years banishment in Siberia, by a real Russian”;
“The Heart of Russia”; “Russia as I know it, by a House Detective”; and
millions of others. Now how is anybody going to find anything out about
Russia by spending five years in a Moscow jail? Or ten years in Siberia
wouldent give you any too good a line on the financial or economic
future of the Empire._
_Now just stop and think a minute. Suppose somebody come to you
tomorrow and said, “Tell us about America.” Now how could you tell ’em
about America, in an Article, a Book, or a dozen volumes, or a thousand
volumes? It’s too big; nobody could tell about it. Suppose somebody
tried to write on The Heart of America. Why, Lord, we can’t even keep
track of the toe of Maine or the heel of California, much less the
heart! Now if nobody could write a composite Article on America, how
are they going to do it on Russia, a country that is so much bigger
than us that we would rattle around in it like an idea in Congress?_
_I have even read all I could find that Lenin and Trotzky said about
Russia, and it don’t give me any better idea than Mutt and Jeff._
_Just get this size and composition of Russia and her people and see
how anybody could tell you anything about Russia: It’s the largest
continuous domain in the World; it covers nearly one-sixth of the
total surface of the earth; there is over one hundred different
Nationalities live inside the Soviet Union. Get the statistics of these
nationalities; it reads like a New York Telephone Directory--70,000,000
great Russians; 3,000,000 Jews in the western part of the Union;
1,000,000 Germans on the Volga; 500,000 Greeks along the northern
coast of the Black Sea; Moldavians, Bessarabians, Georgians; 500,000
Armenians; 1,000,000 Persians; Ossentines, Ingushes, Circassians,
Abkhasians, Checkenians. Why, there is 5,000,000 Tartars! Boy, what a
sauce that is alone! And eighty other races that even the census man
hasent got to yet._
_Talk about the Lost Tribe of Israel! Say, they could have been in
Russia all this time and never be lost at all, and still nobody would
have found them._
_Now scramble all that together and let somebody think they can
diagnose it. Russia is the boarding-house hash of Nations. Hash, Russia
and flivvers are three things nobody has ever been able to catalogue
the contents._
_Trying to tell what Russia is is like trying to tell the difference
between a Conservative Republican and a Progressive Democrat. If you
are a visiting Communist, or have Communistic leanings, why, naturally
you will write of it from their accomplishment point of view, and are
liable to--accidentally--leave out any little defects you might have
seen._
_Then on the other hand, if you are not the least bit in sympathy with
any part of their program, why, you naturally are not liable to let
yourself see anything that has any merit in it. So, if you are looking
for me to solve the Russian Problem, you are not going to get it done.
Now a Congressman could do it in twenty minutes and a Senator in ten,
but it stuck me. But I tell you what I am going to do--I am just going
to be like a prisoner at the bar when some wise, old good-natured Judge
who wants to get the facts asks, “Will you please tell the Court in
your own way and your own language just what happened on the entire
night of June the twelfth?” Now that’s what I am going to do. I am just
going to tell you everything I saw and what happened here in Russia in
the last few weeks._
_THERE’S NOT A BATHING SUIT IN RUSSIA_
I
I was passing through Paris and looking for a good show and somebody
suggested the House of Deputies. It’s a Satire on our Congress, so
that will set you laughing right there. It was the best thing I ever
saw in Europe in the way of entertainment. A man on one Party was
trying to make a speech and the Socialists and the Labor Members on
the other--who were in the minority, but they sure wasent when it come
to making noise. This old Boy had no more chance of being heard than a
Republican vote has being counted in a Tammany election.
They would get up and run at each other and shake their fists. You
would think the whole thing would be murder. But they don’t really
fight any oftener than Dempsey. I could take this same troupe to
America and rent the Hippodrome and I can get them enough money to pay
their debts. New York would go crazy over a show like that. Over home
we couldent understand how people could be so mad at each other and
even live in the same country.
This last fellow, Poincaré, had the right idea. The minute they put
him in he made a motion that the Chamber adjourn for the rest of the
summer. So they couldent throw him out till they met again. That
assured him of a few weeks Steady work. After I come out of this
show, I had a date to eat Dinner with Morris Gest, the Miracle Man
and organizer of the late Russian invasion to America. Morris is just
soaked full of Art, and I wanted to see at close range just how a
real artistic temperament acted. I like Morris with or without Art;
everybody likes Morris.
I have known him since away back in the old Hammerstein’s Victoria,
which had nothing to do with Art--it was entertainment. He had just
come out of Russia--he and Ashton Stevens, of Chicago, the only
Dramatic Critic that ever learned William Randolph Hearst to play the
Banjo. They had been in looking over this year’s Art crop and they
claimed it looked like a bumper year. Balieff--you all knowed Balieff,
the best bald-headed Comedian that ever stepped out from behind plush
curtains. You have laughed and admired his artistic show for years, the
Chauv Surrey, or Sworee, or something like that. He is a real Artist,
this Balieff.
Well, we went to one of those Russian layouts that have littered up
Paris. Everywhere there used to be a coal cellar there is a Russian
Restaurant now. They asked me if I had ever had a taste of Vodka, and
they poured out a little small glass of what I thought was water. It
was the most innocent-looking thing I ever saw.
Then all said just drink it all down at one swig; nobody can sip Vodka.
Well, I had no idea what the stuff was, and for a second I thought
somebody had loaded me up with molten lead, and I hollered for water.
Now over in Europe the water is in quart bottles, and here was this
Vodka in another quart bottle, and it looks exactly like water; and
this Clown Balieff, thinking quick, immediately grabbed the Vodka and
loaded up the glass again; and me thinking it was the water, and my
throat a-burning, why, I gulped it down quick, and here I was just
twice as bad off as I had been. If I could have seen which one to hit
I would have swung on him, but they already were blurred. Lord, what
quick results that stuff delivers!
I asked, “Where do they get this white Iodine?” They informed me then
that that was Russia’s national dissipation. Why, that old white corn
down South would be branch water compared to this stuff. Jack Brandy
and White Mule would be used as a chaser where this stuff come from.
How they can concentrate so much insensibility into one prescription
is almost a chemical wonder. This Balieff, the native of that land of
boots and blood, then related to me the recipe, which reads as follows:
One half bushel of old Potato peelings; fourteen ears of Russian corn,
or maise, Cob and stalk included; four top and soles of worn Russian
boots; five grams of Giant Powder; three Bombs chopped up fine. Mix all
this in a washtub full of Vulgar River water, add two Revolutions and
serve.
[Illustration: I thought somebody had loaded me up with molten lead.]
Well, I will tell you how these two accidental shots acted on me. We
dident know where to go, and Gest suggested that we go up to the Opera;
that it was Mary Garden’s last night singing there. Well, it was too
late. They had been turning people away since the day before. But you
can’t stick Morry, so we waited till the time the show was over and we
went into Mary’s dressing room. Her and Morry and all these others were
great friends. I had never had the pleasure of meeting her, but she
had been responsible for me going on the Concert tour; for she ribbed
Charley Wagner up to it, as they were old Pals. So when I come in with
them, Mary rushed right over and threw her arms around me and kissed
me, and to show you how this Vodka was working, I wouldent push her
away; in fact I dident even get mad at her. ’Course, there is not much
use going on with the story. About the only moral I can get out of it
is, take two swigs of Vodka and then start hunting Mary Garden.
Well, that begin to give me a whole lot of encouragement. I had never
been able to get near Mary Garden before. So I started in by asking,
“Where is this country that can manafacture such explosives in liquid
form? Mebbe they got something that goes with it. Any Nation that’s
ingenious can’t be confined to one good idea.”
They said, “It’s Russia, Bud; it’s Russia.”
Now if there is one thing that is a worry to us, it is too much
drinking going on over home. I thought up to this that we had the world
beat on the collecting of unique articles and scrambling them together
and selling the combination under the nom de plume of a livable
beverage. But if I can get this Vodka stuff, I will be able to cut the
drinking down one-half and mebbe three-fourths. One tiny sip of this
Vodka poison and it will do the same amount of material damage to mind
and body that an American strives for for hours.
I am--and I think every prohibitionist is--for anything that will cut
our drinking down and get it over with as soon as possible. If we must
sin, let’s sin quick and don’t let it be a long, lingering sinning. So
I asked them, “Where do you get a Veesay to this Utopia?”
Now that is the whole story to Vodka. The recipe I have is only
problematical. Nobody in the world knows what it is made out of, and
the reason I tell you this is that the story of Vodka is the story of
Russia. Nobody knows what Russia is made out of, or what it is liable
to cause its inhabitants to do next.
Well, I sure did want to go somewhere where I wouldent be continually
reminded that “On the right you will see the Fountains of Versailles”;
or “That is the Houses of Parliament, where all the laws of England are
made”; or “That is the dome of St. Peter’s.”
I asked Morry Gest, “Do they have rubber neck wagons up there?” He
answered in the negative. I think it’s negative when you say no, ain’t
it?
Ashton Stevens then pulled the best Gag of the entire tour: “You know,
Will, you are just about the poorest dressed Actor I know; in fact that
assertion takes in people that are not Actors. Well, as bad as you look
when and if you get to Russia, for once in your life you will be the
best dressed man in the biggest country in the world.”
Well, I went right over to London and made application for one of
those famous Veesays. Russia has an Embassy in London; it’s a kind
of an unofficial one. They recognize Russia just enough to sell
’em something. It’s a sorter “You can stay as long as we are doing
business, but socially we have lost your address.” In other words, they
hate ’em at heart but love ’em financially.
It’s pretty hard to get into Russia. Your application has to be sent
to Moscow and be approved or rejected. I had a nice chat with the
fellow who put in my application and then hopped out for Geneva to see
the Preliminary Disarmament Conference. It had been then going a few
days and I figured that everybody’s Navy would be scrapped; that the
Airships would be beat into windmills, poison gases would be turned
into fertalizing Nitrates, and that every Army would be released to
join Jazz bands.
They are still over there, and they all have to be personally armed
before they will go in and confer with each other. Again I ask, will
we please stop anybody going anywhere to confer with anybody unless
it’s his Doctor? And then he is just losing time. The only time we ever
attract any attention at a conference is when we don’t go. There has
been more talk about us and the League of Nations through being out of
it than there ever would have been in the World if we were in it. You
know yourself that you have gone to a lot of things that afterwards you
had wished you hadent gone too. Nobody can ever get in wrong by not
attending anything. But every time you go you take a chance either of
getting in wrong or being misunderstood.
Well, after prowling around Switzerland, Italy, Spain and France and
all of them, Mary Garden come into my mind again; and naturally that
brought up Vodka, for if it hadent been for that Vodka I would never
known what Mary Garden perfume smelled like on the original. So I wires
over to London to see what has happened to the application for the
Veesay. They wire back collect that it is laying right there and that
all I have to do is to come and get it and start getting in Russia.
II
Well, I fly back over to London. By this time I have done so much
flying that if I was in the Army I would be like Colonel Mitchell. I
would be thrown out for not staying on the ground more. When I got to
the Embassy there was a bunch of about ten young American Bolsheviki’s
signing up their passports. They had come from various colleges over
home and were going to Russia by boat; a couple of girls among them,
and two gentlemen who’s ancestors come from below the Mason and Dixon
Line. So if you hear of your washwoman or cook advocating: “Is I am a
communist? I ain’t nothing else but. I believes in everything dividing
up. Says which?” Well, you will then realize that communism has
penetrated the black belt.
These two boys may turn out to be the Lenin and Trotzky of Birmingham.
They will have every Crap shooter on Octavus Roy Cohen’s beat sharing
his winnings with the losers. We may see the time when your Gin will be
everybody’s gin. They were going up by boat. I don’t want any more boat
than is absolutely necessary at any time. So I was going in by Airship.
I had been aviating so much around Europe that to go anywhere on a
train seems too much like walking to me.
I left London one morning about 9:30. Flew over some of the prettiest
country before striking out across the Channel. Looked over the edge of
the plane all the way across the Channel, watching crowds of American
Women swimming it. One old Lady was a great Grandmother and she had
three generations of daughters swimming it with her. You could see
crowds of men standing on the shore waiting for a smooth sea to cross
it in a boat.
One woman of Irish and Jewish parentage, but who had become a
naturalized American last year, was swimming over and back without
touching. Another American woman of Peruvian parentage on both her
Father and Mother’s side was training on the shore at Dover at Pole
vaulting--she was going to jump the Channel. There was two or three
Ladies of recent American Citizenship who were on the plane with us;
but we come down when we reached the beach and their husbands made
them get out and swim across--told them they would meet them on the
other side. One of the Ladies said she couldent do that; she had tried
it before and dident make it, and she knew that she couldent do it.
She was right away accused of being masculine, when in reality it was
discovered that she was an offspring of generations of pure American
stock.
The funniest sight of all I saw looking over that day was one old lady
swimming in and towing her husband over on her back. There was one
traffic cop out in the middle--well, what you would call a copess. She
was just treading water and playing around out there, directing the
other swimmers. Every few days somebody would row out and leave her
some provisions. She was of Eskimo parentage, but when we took over
Alaska she was in that deal and become an American.
The English customs authorities have to be very careful. When the
first American contingent came to land--Miss Ederle--they held her for
an hour till they could go through every pocket of her bathing suit,
looking for Cigars, Cigarettes, Spiritious liquors and perfumes. A
girl the other day got away pretty lucky. When she got about a mile
from shore she dropped the smuggled goods and then swam back out there
the next day and dived down and got them. The English authorities are
pretty particular that way; it’s hard for swimmers to smuggle in much.
One woman did get over with a safe. She had it hid in her bathing cap.
[Illustration: One woman did get over with a safe, she had it hid in
her bathing cap.]
This swimming has not only called for a new definition in the
Dictionary describing which is the weaker sex but it has brought on a
great deal more than that. It has demonstrated just how close together
England and France are, and that’s what’s hurting them. Neither one of
them wants to be close to each other. If we could have given some
kind of demonstration that would have proved that they were really
further apart in mileage than they are, why, both Nations would have
hailed it as a God-given discovery. But this bringing them closer
together has got them more sore at America than ever. We can do more
things that get us in wrong unintentionally than any Nation in the
world. So it looks like the next war between France and England will
be fought in bathing suits. The way women are showing up men swimmers,
it’s not monkey glands men need, but fish glands.
Well, after we had waved good-by to the swimmers, why, we turned up
along the coast of France and Belgium and landed at Ostend. That’s
a regular junction point of Airships. They hollered: “Change planes
for Cologne, Vienna, Paris, Constantinople and all points south! This
plane goes to Rotterdam, Amsterdam. Change there for Berlin, Warsaw
and Copenhagen.” It reminded me of the old Frisco depot in Monett,
Missouri, when we used to pull in there after shipping cattle to St.
Louis to Strahorn, Hutton and Evans. You remember the train splits
three ways. One goes to Kansas, one to Arkansas; and the same one goes
right on down through Oklahoma, to Claremore, the principal stop.
Well, there at Ostend they had--and do at all these airship places--a
regular little Harvey eating house, where you can go in and wrestle
with the food and the language. Planes was dropping and going out from
everywheres. We had about twenty minutes, and I crawled back in this
old Aerial Barge of ours and we breezed along on up the coast. It was
mighty inspiring. We passed The Hague, looked over and saw the old
Peace Palace, where they were going to meet to stop all wars. It’s
turned into an ammunition factory and Army drill hall.
Flying over Holland in an Airship is the only real way to see it,
’cause if you are down on the level--and if you are in Holland you will
be standing on the level--Holland’s highest point is eight feet six and
a third inches above sea level. That is called the mountain region
of Holland, that’s where they do their skiing and winter sports. Mind
you, it’s the prettiest little country you ever saw in your life. Just
look down and see those hundreds of canals and boats going along all of
them. Your farm is not fenced off from your neighbor’s; there is just a
canal between you and him. You either visit by boat or holler over. If
your next-farm neighbor starts to walk over to you some night, he may
get there, but he will arrive wet. There is no road-contracting graft
in Holland, no road commissions. All roads come under the heading of
Harbor and Dock Commissions. If there is a flivver in Holland, it has
oars on it instead of wheels.
[Illustration: That is called the mountain region of Holland.]
She sure is a pretty dairying Country. Those old big black cows with
a white bandage around their stomachs don’t seem to mind at all. You
don’t have to brand your cattle and your herd will never get mixed up
with your neighbor’s unless they develop web feet or grow a rudder in
place of a tail.
That windmill Gag that every Artist always pictures with Holland has
been kinder exaggerated. Higgins, Texas, has got more Windmills than
all Holland, and what I did see looked like they were sorter tired out;
they wasent doing much; they just seemed to be like a lot of things all
over Europe--they was just trying to get by on tradition. They wasent
what I could call turning out 100 per cent production. I had always
thought they were located by a little white house. Say, there is not
a little white house in Holland. There’s not even a Big white house
there. It’s the only country in the world where there is absolutely
only one color, and a paint man would starve to death trying to sell
any other. It’s a kind of red, or a dark bay. So don’t you believe
Pictures any more. What makes everything look white is because it is so
clean and neat and nice.
Looked for the old Kaiser out in the yard chopping wood some place,
but everybody was burning coal that I could see. Guess the old Boy was
setting in the house, brooding over making the wrong jump out of the
King row.
Amsterdam was the next stop--changed planes for Berlin. Everybody got
out and had a few Sandwiches and a couple of steins of Holland Gin.
Into a German plane and out over Germany. Say, they was farming too.
Little long strips of land laid out instead of having it all in one
big field. They do that so they can rotate the crops on the different
pieces. Forests, the most beautiful forests, all out in rows. Every
time they cut down a tree it looks like they planted two in its place.
Every time we cut one down, the fellow that cuts it down sets down to
have a smoke and celebrate. He throws his cigarette away and burns up
the rest of the forest.
We hit Berlin at 5:30 that afternoon. Just think! Left London at 9:30,
had these stops, seen all these wonderful countries and was clear over
in Berlin in time for a drive around the city and dinner. I was going
to stop in Berlin on my way back out of Russia, so at two o’clock in
the morning, or night, I left for Russia. You go to By Königsberg.
Well, I had been in planes in the daytime, but driving away out there
in a taxi alone and crawling into an airship in the night-time is no
particular relief to a Comedian. This was a big German Junker. Not only
had two engines and two propellers but three, one big one in front and
two others as assistants.
Well, when a German outfit say they are going to leave at two o’clock,
don’t you get there at one minute past two. If you do, you will just
hear the propeller buzzing around up in the air. She was dark as we
left. We had about twelve on board. She gets light pretty quick and
early up there; and seeing the lights down the streets as we flew
over the city and out across country, day soon begin to break and the
fog and clouds in the low places made you think every minute you were
flying right out over the ocean, and these clouds looked like big
waves. There was a regular light line miles apart that was a big light
revolving with different colors and no matter how dark, the pilot could
see where he was going.
But she was light within less than a hour. They had a wireless or
radio on there, getting weather conditions ahead of them. We got into
Königsberg about eight o’clock, went in and had breakfast and come out,
and there was a German Fokker. It was the one we were to make the long
hop from there to Moscow in. It was piloted by the funniest looking old
chuckleheaded, shave-haired Russian boy that dident look like he was
over twenty. But say, Bub, that clown could sure rein that thing around
and make it say Uncle and play dead and roll over. He was an Aviator.
It dident do my nerve any good when they pointed our plane out to me,
for it had only one engine. You know, there is some confidence attached
when you know there is a sort of bevy of engines, and if one goes
wrong, why, some of the others will keep percolating. But I looked at
this one and thought: “Sister, if you stop on us, we are just smeared
over the landscape of Western Russia.”
A single Engine looks awful scarce after just emerging from one of
those Pullman-looking layouts. She looked to me like she was naked.
Now a while ago I said that was the plane that we were going to Russia
in. I was mistaken--that was the plane that I was going to Russia in,
for I constituted Russia’s sole aerial immigration that day. Well, in
one way, I am generous. If I am going to drop, I don’t want to have the
pleasure all to myself; I want to share it with somebody. You never
want company till danger comes--then you like to look around and see
that somebody is sorter with you.
The plane really could seat about five passengers. There was just room
for one, the Pilot, out in front; and the Mechanic was in the sort of a
compartment with me. As I got in I commenced to think of all the jokes
I had told about Russia. And then I remembered that people had remarked
to me they dident know why I had been given a passport into Russia,
when it was so hard to get one. Well, come to think of it, I dident
either. Then I thought, “Mebbe they know about some of the jokes and
this Aerial Cossack is about heading right off to Siberia with me.” I
commenced to think what kind of an act I could do for my fellow exiles
away off up there. I dident know a word of Russian, and this lad in
the compartment with me, or the Pilot either, dident know a word of
American--not even English.
This littlier plane seemed mighty small and jumpy to me. But this old
Russian boy pulled the slack out of his reins, kinder clucked to her,
and I want to tell you she left there right now.
We headed off for what the ticket said was to be Russia, but he could
have been going toward South Africa as far as I could tell anything
about it.
Now this is 8:30 in the morning, and--barring accidents--this same
old wash boiler is scheduled to breeze into Moscow at 6:30 that same
afternoon, with only one stop, and that was to be at Smolensk. I could
tell the way he started out that no matter where he might be headed
for, he was certainly going to do no loitering up in that air. He just
give her her head, and dident seem to pull up for rivers, Railroad
crossings or mountains. Sitting in there kinder give me time to think
things over, or, as the novelist calls it, soliquizing: Just why was a
bonehead like me breezing off into Russia, or off into anywhere else?
What was the matter with the Verdigris bottoms down in old Rogers
County, Oklahoma? Why, there I used to be scared to climb up as high as
the barn loft unless they was a load of hay being pitched in. I could
understand a man flying out of Russia, but not in there.
Well, we are just vaulting from cloud to cloud and the Country is
looking mighty nice down below, but not good enough to fall on. I
dident know where this Smolensk was, or what time we was supposed to
get there. You know, I think that what worried me more than anything
else was being somewhere and not being able to talk to anybody. I
wouldent have minded having a wreck if I could just have asked him on
the way down “How fast are we falling?” or any little casual remark,
just so he would have got it. It wasent the height as much as it was
keeping my mouth shut a whole day.
Then I dident know whether I would be any better off for talk after
I did land there. You know, the thing that impressed me more away
up there, away over in Russia, was this: Here I am, for no apparent
reason, able to fly from London, England, to Moscow, Russia, in two
days, part of it over a country that we laugh at and look on as
backward and primitive; and here we have hundreds of business men in
Seattle, San Francisco, Los Angeles, Chicago, New Orleans, Talala, and
hundreds of Cities like those that want to get somewhere, mebbe on
account of illness, or thousands of other reasons, and the best they
can get there is just like their forefathers got two generations before
them. We do more talking progress than we do progressing.
You should jump into an Airship in New York in the morning, go to a
show in Denver that night and on to Los Angeles, with enough daylight
to spare, the second day to see Mary Pickford’s home, buy a lot and
cuss the climate before bedtime. Just think of being in something that
would go by Chicago without having to stay over all day and change
depots. Look at the lives it would save there, passing over where
nobody could shoot you.
No, sir, air is the thing--get people used to getting up into it. The
next war is going to be all in the air. Nobody ain’t going to hand you
a pair of putties and a Helmet in the next war. They are going to slip
a throttle of an airship into your hands and say, “Go aloft and see if
you are lucky enough to come down of your own accord or will somebody
have to bring you down.” It will be as big a disgrace ten years from
now not to know how to run an airship as it is now not to know how to
run a flivver. The day of the old General on the gray horse, standing
up on a little mound, waving his sword telling the other boys where to
go--that’s museum stuff. In the next war the guy that can grab him a
single-seater and go up and lay behind a cloud and tell the boys where
to go is the real coming general.
There will be a great change of public statues in a few years. The
fellow standing there with an old Musket will have to share honor with
the statue swung down from the clouds on wires, representing a fellow
shooting through his propeller with a machine gun.
And I am mighty glad that Henry Ford took it up. Now you know that Ford
wouldent leave the ground and take to the air unless things looked
pretty good to him up there. What Borah is to Politics and fantastical
things like that, why, Ford is to practical business needs. So keep one
eye on that old Boy. He knows more than what a Ford car is made out of.
I knew he had gone about as far as he could go on the ground unless you
breed more people.
So if either party want an issue that you won’t have to be ashamed
of, or stand astraddle of, why, shout Airships--commercial, Private,
Government, Army, Navy; and even the air department can do with another
one. Listen and America won’t have to sit all day in a day coach to get
a hundred miles. And say, these trips over here cost you just about
what they would by first-class fare on the trains when you consider
sleepers and all. It’s not expensive traveling.
III
Well, I must get back up in the air again and quit monkeying my time
away trying to advise. We are flying along, and all at once I feel the
old Overland stage a-kinder doing like she was circling. I couldent
imagine what that was for. I dident know we had to fly around any
corners or sharp turns in going from one place to another, unless they
was fixing the road and he had to detour. Then I felt her nose heading
down like a bronc when he starts to swallow his head.
I looked out to see if there was going to be a traffic accident or what
we was dodging, and below was a little town along a river. He kept
circling and getting lower, and there I could see right under us then
an aviation field. You could see other planes down there. Well, the
main thing you got to watch in an Aviator is how he gets down. All of
them have got up, but few can get down right. This bird could have lit
on an egg and never broke it. We skimmed along like a flat rock on the
water and he brought her up short and nice like a real hand reins a
good horse.
We piled out and I noticed these old Hombres getting out their
passports and I started reaching for mine. That’s the one thing you
want to carry in your hand anywhere in Europe. It might be a forged one
and no good, but they just seem to get a pleasure out of having you
dig for it. Well, the officer that took it started in yapping about
something, and I told him he was fooling away his time and wasting some
kind of mighty good language on me; that I dident even know what the
language was, much less the words; that I spoke only English, and that
up to only two syllables. He went off and dug up another one that knew
a little of it. There was a lot of Soldiers and a lot of activity there.
This new one said to me, “You have no Veesay.” In other words, I dident
have an O.K. on my passport.
Well, that sho threw a scare into me. Here I have come all the way here
and gone to all that trouble, and now there is something the matter
with it. I grabbed at it and showed him what damage the Russians had
done to it in London for quite a few dollars.
“Yes, Russia; but no Lithuania.”
“Lithuania? Lithuania? Why, I never even heard of it, much less getting
a passport to it! Where is it? Where are we anyway? I thought I was
going to Russia.”
[Illustration: Lithuania? Why, I never even heard of it.]
Well, they soon made it known to me that I had better have done some
studying on Geography since the Versailles Peace Conference--that
really wasent a Peace Conference; it was just a map remodeling. Say,
but I want to tell you they had them a Country, all right, from the
looks of all the officers running around there. I saw one of them
kinder looking out toward his little army and getting them ready to
call into action. At first when I saw them around there I thought they
were making a Picture; it looked just like Hollywood. I soon found it
was on the level.
“You should have Veesay.” I had to tell them that I dident even know I
was flying over their country much less landing in it. It seems that
this was not a regular stop; this Aviator has had to come down for
something. They called a general war conference to see what to do with
this American who had dropped in on them without a calling card. They
then decided to phone down to the town, which was Kovno, and is the
Capital.
Well, down in town they called the House of Parliament or Congress
together to devise ways and means to deal with such an unusual case. So
instead of phoning back, why, they sent a soldier back on a Bicycle. It
was quite a ways out of town. He had the news that I was to buy $3.50.
I gave them a Russian ten-ruble piece--that’s about five dollars in
our money. A ruble is worth fifty cents in Russia and about two cents
outside of there. They wasent any too anxious to take it, but they did,
and went off for change, when I told them that that was all right; just
keep the change and let the Army have a drink on me.
If I had just thought and told them I was a friend of President
Wilson’s, I would have got by, because he is the one that laid all
these countries out. It was one of those Self-Determination of small
Nations. No man ever lived that had more noble ideas than Mr. Wilson,
and any time a committee would come to him with ten names signed on an
application, and tell him that they wanted a Country, why, he would
give them one. If they dident know exactly where they wanted it, and
couldent decide, why, the League would give it to them off of Russia.
Different little Nations gnawed so much off the edge of Russia that on
the map it looks like a piece of pie that somebody with every other
tooth out has bit into. Right up above them is another troop called
the Lats, of Latvia, then several others. They are all pretty fine
little Nations. But it’s a pretty tough struggle to get a new Country
started, though they are all making a pretty good fight. This one had
a mighty nifty-looking little army. All had on nice neat uniforms,
and the Officers looked great. Made the Red Army in Russia look like a
burlesque for appearance. So I am going to send the League of Nations a
bill for $3.50 for finding one of their Countries for them.
Say, here is a little inside Diplomatic stuff too. There was a French
plane up there among them, and this Frenchman was showing them how to
do it.
Well, I gathered up my two Russians and we hooked up the traces,
clucked to the old Fokker and we was off somewhere else--I dident know
where. But I warned them in my best pantomime not to be hunting around
for any other new Countries, but to find Russia. If it wasent big
enough to find, why, we better go down and borrow a map.
Well, all this delay had kinder set us back in time, and this old
Bolsheviki Boy just looked like he took a string and tied his gas
throttle right down to the floor. She was wide open, and we started in
hunting Russia. The clip we was going at I knew we couldent land in any
little Country. We was going so fast we would have gone plumb through
it before we could have come down to earth. So I knew then it must be
Russia, for it was the only country in the world that could furnish
that much ground to whiz over. All I was scared about was that we would
wind up at Vladivostok or in Japan.
Now in going into Russia I think I am just like the majority of
people--we don’t know or have any idea what it is like. My one
impression of Russia is a sleigh going through a forest, with deep snow
on the ground, pulled by a horse with a big high Yoke up over his neck
and the wolves jumping up biting at the horse’s throat, and some others
trying to devour the inmates of the sleigh. Now that is the picture
that I have had uppermost in my mind of Russia all my life, and I bet a
lot of you have the same. We always associate that picture with Russia,
just like we always associate the Delaware River with the picture of
Washington standing up in the middle of the boat, with the ice all
around, not rowing himself but telling the other boys which way to
row. He was a natural Commander. I have often wondered what he would
have been doing if they had had to swim the river.
So, after thinking of that picture and the wolves, I believe that is
why I took the airplane in there. I felt pretty safe up there from the
wolves. The way we was going, any old wolf would sure have had trouble
jumping up and snapping at us. If he had ever jumped up at us, he would
have hit the fellow in the plane on the same route next day.
We was flying nice and low and you could see all the people out in
the fields working--well, not exactly all the people, but the ones
that were women. Then every time we would pass over a little town or
village you would see a kind of a market place, and all the men would
be gathered; or you would see them driving in or out of town in little
wagons with one horse.
I think the men are pretty good that way in Russia. They make mighty
good husbands. If the wives raise anything, why, the Husbands are
perfectly willing to take it to town and sell it.
[Illustration: My one impression of Russia.]
It’s not a bad arrangement, at that. You know a lot of these countries
have got things that I would like to see put in over in Cuckooland.
If women can go out and swim all the Channels they can find, why,
they certainly ought to be able to pitch some hay. So I can’t think
of a better arrangement than these Russians have for all parties
concerned--that is, as long as the wife raises something. The women in
Russia cultivate the land and the men cultivate their whiskers. The men
are the best farmers--they have never been known to have a bad whisker
crop. No such thing as a failure. When in doubt, raise whiskers.
All the western part of Russia is level, with slight rolling hills.
Very few farmhouses are off to themselves; they are in sorter a little
bunch. The houses are low, built of logs, and have straw-covered roofs.
The houses and the stables are all built into one, generally in a
square shape. It’s a beautiful country to look at. And grass? Oh, Boy,
I just thought if some of my old Western ranchmen could see all that
big fine grass going to waste--millions of acres and very little stock
on it, with plenty of water. There was quite a few herds of goats, a
good many horses, and cattle, mostly milk stock. Everything fat and fine.
And here is one thing I want to tell you too before I forget it:
Even in Moscow, where the old fellow that is driving his Droshky--or
whatever it is they call those old kind of one-horse-buggy things--may
look like he hadent had anything to eat in a week, but I tell you his
horse is sure fat. They got the fattest, best-looking horses there I
ever saw--never saw a poor one.