[Illustration]
_The_
Illiterate Digest
BY
WILL ROGERS
[Illustration]
ALBERT & CHARLES BONI
NEW YORK 1924
_Copyright, 1924, by Albert & Charles Boni_
Copyright, 1923, 1924, by McNaught Syndicate, Inc.
PRINTED IN THE UNITED STATES OF AMERICA
TWO LETTERS AND A DEDICATION
Most Books have to have an Excuse by some one for the Author, but this
is the only Book ever written that has to have an Alibi for the Title,
too. About 4 years ago, out in California, I was writing sayings for
the Screen and I called it the Illiterate Digest. Well one day up bobs
the following letter from this N. Y. Lawyer. It and the answer are
absolutely just as they were exchanged at that time.
WILLIAM BEVERLY WINSLOW LAWYER
55 Liberty Street,
New York, N. Y.
_Nov. 5th, 1920._
Will Rogers, Esq.,
c/o Goldwyn Studios,
Culver City, Calif.
_Dear Sir_:--
_My client, the Funk & Wagnalls Company, publishers of the “Literary
Digest” have requested me to write to you in regard to your use of
the phrase, “The Illiterate Digest,” as a title to a moving picture
subject gotten up by you, the consequence of which may have escaped
your consideration._
_For more than two years past it (my client) has placed upon the
moving picture screen a short reel subject carrying the title “Topics
of the Day” selected from the Press of the World by “The Literary
Digest.” This subject has achieved a wide popularity both because of
the character and renown of “The Literary Digest” and through the
expenditure of much time, effort and money by its owners in presenting
the subject to the public. “The Literary Digest” is a publication
nearly thirty years old, and from a small beginning has become
probably the most influential weekly publication in the world. Its
name and the phrase “Topics of the Day” are fully covered by usage as
trademarks as well as by registration as such in the United States
Patent Office._
_During several months past your “title,” “The Illiterate Digest”
has been repeatedly called to our attention and we are told that the
prestige of “The Literary Digest” is being lowered by the subject
matter of your film as well as by the title of your film because the
public naturally confuse the two subjects. We are also told that
exhibitors are being misled by the similarity of titles and that
some of them install your subject in the expectation that they are
securing “The Literary Digest Topics of the Day.”_
_It seems to me self-evident that your title would scarcely have
been thought of or adopted had it not been for our magazine and for
our film. If this were not the case the title which you use would be
without significance to the general public._
_I have advised the publishers that they may proceed against you
through the Federal Trade Commission in Washington calling upon you
to there defend yourself against the charge of “unfair competition,”
because of your simulation of their title, or that they can proceed
against you, the producers of your film, its distributors and
exhibitors in court for an injunction restraining you from use of the
title, “The Illiterate Digest.”_
_Before, however, instituting any proceedings in either direction they
have suggested that I write directly to you to see if your sense of
fairness will not cause you to voluntarily withdraw the use of the
objectionable title._
_Unless I hear favorably from you on or before the first of December,
I shall conclude that you are not willing to accede to this suggestion
and will take such steps as I may deem advisable._
_Yours truly_,
_WBW/als_
(signed) William Beverly Winslow.
_Los Angeles, Cal.,
Nov. 15, 1920._
MR WM BEVERLY WINSLOW,
_Dear Sir_,
_Your letter in regard to my competition with the Literary Digest
received and I never felt as swelled up in my life, And am glad you
wrote directly to me instead of communicating with my Lawyers, As I
have not yet reached that stage of prominence where I was commiting
unlawful acts and requireing a Lawyer, Now if the Literary Digest
feels that the competition is to keen for them--to show you my good
sportsmanship I will withdraw, In fact I had already quit as the
gentlemen who put it out were behind in their payments and my humor
kinder waned, in fact after a few weeks of no payments I couldent
think of a single joke. And now I want to inform you truly that this
is the first that I knew my Title of the Illiterate Digest was an
infringement on yours as they mean the direct opposite, If a magazine
was published called Yes and another Bird put one out called No I
suppose he would be infringeing. But you are a Lawyer and its your
business to change the meaning of words, so I lose before I start,_
_Now I have not written for these people in months and they havent
put any gags out unless it is some of the old ones still playing.
If they are using gags that I wrote on topical things 6 months ago
then I must admit that they would be in competition with the ones the
Literary Digest Screen uses now. I will gladly furnish you with their
address, in case you want to enter suit, And as I have no Lawyer you
can take my case too and whatever we get out of them we will split at
the usual Lawyer rates of 80-20, the client of course getting the 20,_
_Now you inform your Editors at once that their most dangerous rival
has withdrawn, and that they can go ahead and resume publication, But
you inform Your clients that if they ever take up Rope Throwing or
chewing gum that I will consider it a direct infringement of my rights
and will protect it with one of the best Kosher Lawyers in Oklahoma,_
_Your letter to me telling me I was in competition with the Digest
would be just like Harding writing to Cox and telling him he took some
of his votes,_
_So long Beverly if you ever come to California, come out to Beverly
where I live and see me_
_Illiterately yours_
WILL ROGERS.
When I sent him my answer I read it to some of the Movie Company I was
working with at the time and they kept asking me afterwards if I had
received an answer. I did not, and I just thought, oh well, there I go
and waste a letter on some High Brow Lawyer with no sense of humor. I
was sore at myself for writing it. About 6 months later I came back to
join the Follies and who should come to call on me but the nicest old
Gentleman I had ever met, especially in the law profession. He was the
one I had written the letter to, and he had had Photographic Copies
made of my letter and had given them around to all his Lawyer friends.
So it is to him and his sense of humor, that I dedicate this Volume
of deep thought. I might also state that the Literary Digest was
broad-minded enough to realize that there was room for both, and I want
to thank them for allowing me to announce my Illiteracy publicly.
CONTENTS
PAGE
TWO LETTERS AND A DEDICATION 5
INTRODUCTION 17
BREAKING INTO THE WRITING GAME 27
SETTLING THE CORSET PROBLEM OF THIS COUNTRY 39
HOW TO TELL A BUTLER, AND OTHER ETIQUETTE 47
DEFENDING MY SOUP PLATE POSITION 57
HELPING THE GIRLS WITH THEIR INCOME TAXES 69
THE GREATEST DOCUMENT IN AMERICAN LITERATURE 77
PROSPECTUS FOR “THE REMODELED CHEWING GUM CORPORATION” 87
INSIDE STUFF ON THE TOTAL ECLIPSE 99
IT’S TIME SOMEBODY SAID A WORD FOR CALIFORNIA 111
PROMOTING THE OCEANLESS ONE-PIECE SUIT 121
WARNING TO JOKERS: LAY OFF THE PRINCE 131
SPRING IS HERE, WITH POEMS AND BATH TUBS 141
MY FORD AND OTHER POLITICAL SELF-STARTERS 151
WILSON COULD LAUGH AT A JOKE ON HIMSELF 159
A JOB WITH THE JAMES FAMILY 171
LET’S TREAT OUR PRESIDENTS LIKE HUMAN BEINGS 181
WHAT WITH FRUIT JUICE AND CONSOMME, IT WAS A WILD PARTY 193
WHAT WE NEED IS MORE FRED STONES 203
ONE OIL LAWYER PER BARREL 217
ANOTHER CONFESSION IN THE OIL SCANDAL 227
THE WHOLE TRUTH AND NOTHING BUT THE TRUTH 237
WELL, WHO IS PRUNES? 249
POLITICS GETTING READY TO JELL 261
TWO LONG-LOST FRIENDS FOUND AT LAST 269
THEY NOMINATED EVERYBODY BUT THE FOUR HORSEMEN 279
IN THE MIDST OF A 7-YEAR HITCH 287
“WILL ROGERS, JR.” REPORTS THE CONVENTION FOR HIS
FATHER, WORN OUT BY LONG SERVICE 297
ROPING A CRITIC 305
“THE WORLD TOMORROW,” AFTER THE MANNER OF GREAT
JOURNALISTS[A] 313
SETTLING THE AFFAIRS OF THE WORLD IN MY OWN WAY 323
A SKINNY DAKOTA KID WHO MADE GOOD 333
TAKING THE CURE, BY THE SHORES OF CAT CREEK 345
FOOTNOTES:
[A] With apologies to Arthur Brisbane.
ILLUSTRATIONS
The Illiterate Digest Office _Frontispiece_
PAGE
You Are Going to Get the Low-Down on Some of Those Birds
Who Are Sending Home the Radish-Seed 26
They Are Carpeting All the Halls of the Senate So in Case
of a Fall There Will Be No Serious Loss 31
As I Opened the Door to Let Her in 2 of Our Dogs and 4 Cats
Came In 46
Birds That Never Can Tell the Servants from the Guests 53
I Would Invent a Triangle Shape Slide That Could Be Pushed
Under the Plate 56
Song Writers Should Be Segregated and Made to Sing Their
Songs to Each Other 76
Why Can’t I Do Something With Second-Hand Gum? 86
The More Glasses You Used the More Eclipse You Could See 98
I Just Happened to Remember That No One Had Said a Word
for California 110
I Want to Do Something for the Home Town Girl So She Can
Stay at Home and Show How and What She Is Made Of 120
So I Got Me Some of Those Long-Handled Wooden Hammers and
Started in at Polo 130
The Family Wash-Tub Was Dragged Up By the Fire 140
Finally a Warden Knocked at My Dressing Room and Said:
“You Die in 5 More Minutes for Kidding Your Country” 158
I Could Just Sorter Nonchalantly Step on the Bride’s
Train 170
If Mr. Ford Had Been Elected We Would
Have Been the Mouthpiece of the Administration 192
He Started at Four or Five Years of Age and Has Worked on
New Stunts Every Day of His Life 202
If a Rider Hit on His Head, It Was Me 211
It’s a Bigger Thing for Washington Than the Shriners’
Convention 216
They Not Only Have to Be Lawyers, But Political Lawyers 219
They Are from Tulsa. I Will Be Right Out 226
I Object to the Senator from Massachusetts’ Slurring
Remarks 236
“There’s a Bellboy at My Hotel and He Just Got It From the
Chauffeur of a Prominent Oil-Man” 248
They Rehearsed Their Old Act Here Yesterday 268
“You Wasn’t Here and You Know Them as Well as I Do” 278
Well, I Guess You Heard About My Presidential Boom 286
The Deaths from Old Age Among the Delegates Is About
Offset by the Birthrate 291
“If They Haven’t Got Enough Water in There to Fill the
Harbor, We Will Have to Ask the Neighbors to Drain Their
Corn Liquor” 322
“If You Don’t Get Well and Throw Away Your Crutches I Get
Nothing Out of It” 344
INTRODUCTION
This book should have been long before now on the Bookshelves of every
reader of worth while Literature in the English speaking World, in
addition to being well worn in our best reference Libraries, and should
have been already translated into every known and unknown tongue. What
you will immediately ask delayed such an important event? Well the
principal reason is it had not been written, and the next is We had no
introduction for it. You let a Book go out without an Alibi by some
other writer, and it is practically a commercial suicide. When the
Publishers were all clamoring for a Book from me, and were practically
annihilating (Boy there is a word I never used before in my life and
I hope it fits in, I read it in some War Novel) each other for the
Publishing rights and assured profits, they of course felt that through
my wide Literary acquaintance, gained during years of association at
the Democratic National Convention, and the late World Series with
some of the best contemporary Writers of modern times, I should
through my Literary standing and personal friendship, allow some of
them to have the honor of penning the introduction to this Time Table
of National Catastrophes.
William Emporia Allen White was my first thought, on account of his
having a middle name, which always sounds Literary, even if its owner
is not. Then I had heard he himself had written a Book once, and by
now should know what Introductions should not be. Then he went home
and announced himself as a Candidate for Governor. So that eliminated
him from my thoughts. To have a big broad-minded book have any narrow
Political endorsement would mean certain calamity among people who
think. To run for Governor is bad enough, But to run for Governor of
Kansas and then write an Introduction of my worthy efforts, would
simply make the book a laughing stock.
Then my thoughts turned to Arthur Brisbane, I don’t know what I could
have been eating that my thoughts should have done such a mental
somersault. But I guess it was because I had known Arthur for years,--I
knew him before William Randolph Hearst started working for him. I
approached him on it, and he said, Sorry Will but what I write must
point a moral, there must be a lesson in every paragraph; mine must
not only be news but it must be instructive news. For instance, I read
China will not go to war on rainy days. What does that bit of news mean
to the individual that dont think? Nothing! What does it mean to me? It
means that a Chinaman would rather get shot than wet. It points a moral
to peace: Have all so-called civilized Nations stop wars on rainy days.
Then hold all wars in Portland, Oregon where it rains every day, and
you will eliminate Wars and have universal Peace.
So he could see no particular Moral in writing an Introduction to my
book, unless it was that Books should not depend entirely on their
introductions as they do now. So I next thought of my friend Irvin
Cobb. I had set next to him at so many Speakers Tables, at banquets,
and had always given him any little extras that I might not want. Ice
Cream and Sweets and things like that he just loves and ruins them at a
Banquet. Well he was going Duck shooting down in Louisiana and said he
wouldn’t miss one Duck for the pleasure of writing the Introduction to
the Encyclopedia Brittanica. So you just let the old fat thing try to
get my Ice Cream at another Banquet.
Of course Ring Lardner was one of my very first thoughts, because I
knew he could add the little touch of comedy that the book really
needed. I went to him and told him that I only wanted something light
and airy, maybe just one good joke would do the trick and take away
from the serious nature of the Book. He is not only a Humorist but has
got plenty money to show that he is. He said before he shook hands with
me, What is there in it? I said well this is just a kind of an honorary
thing, a kind of courtesy from one Author to another. He then asked
me why should he give me a joke for nothing? He could put the joke
into his Sunday Newspaper Article; then he could put the joke into his
weekly Newspaper Cartoon; then he could sell it to a Musical Comedy and
they would tell it so bad it would sound new. Then the Movies would buy
it and make a drama out of it; then he would still hold the Phonograph,
and broadcasting rights, and after it got well enough known write a
Song around it. So he said I would be a fine egg to give you a joke for
nothing.
I wish that Spaniard Ibanez, that wrote the 4 Horsemen was over here,
I know him well, I had read 5 or 6 of his Books and I was to a big
reception given to him in Los Angeles, and during our conversations
through an Interpreter he learned I had read so many of his Books. No
one else he met there even among the Literary ones had ever read any
but the 4 Horsemen, So when he went home he sent me an Autographed
Copy which read “To an American Cowboy, the only person in America I
found who had read all my Books.” The funny thing about it is that he
is the only Author I ever read. Now if he was here he would write me
an Introduction, But of course it would be in Spanish and nobody could
read it, so I would be just as bad off as I am now.
I also know Elinor Glyn, I met her when she was out in California
looking around for some one to cast as Paul in “Three Weeks.” She sent
for me but I had just started on another new Picture. She could have
cooked me up a hot Introduction. She would have draped the first few
paragraphs with Tiger skins, and described me in such a way that I
would have really looked like something. So I just says to myself, why
monkey with these writers, why not write my own Introduction? So here
goes.
I have known Mr. Rogers for years and have long been familiar with
his Literary masterpieces, both in Novels, and in Books of technical
knowledge. I think there are few writers of Poetry or prose today who
equal him, and I am certain he is surpassed by none.
I say this because I have lived and known the life he has pictured so
well in this Book; I spent my late youth in these shaded oak lands
where so many of his scenes are so pictorially laid, and he has made
me live over again the scenes of my freshman manhood. No writer since
the days of Remington can give you such a word picture of the west.
That’s because he is a westerner himself, and has only an eye for the
beautiful things as he and nature alone can describe them. He alone
of all our modern writers knows the people of which they write. When
he describes a Corset you can feel it pinch. If it’s a Sunrise he
describes, you reach for an Umbrella. His jugglery of correct words
and perfect English sentences is magical, and his spelling is almost
uncanny.
The words, _Illiterate Digest_, which appear upon the title page of
this book, has been generally compared to Don Quixote and to the
Pickwick Papers, while E. M. Vogue places its author somewhere between
Cervantes and LeSage. However, considerable the influence of Cervantes
and Dickens may have been, the first in the matter of structure,
the other in background, humor, and detail of characterization, the
predominating and distinguishing quality of this Author’s work is
undeniably foreign to both and quite peculiar to itself. Something
that for want of a better term might be called the quality of American
Soul, any reader familiar as I know you all to be with the works of
Dostoieffsky, Turgenev, or even Tolstoi, will grasp the deeper meaning
of a work like this. Some consider the Author a realist, who has drawn
with meticulous detail a picture of contemporary life, others more
observing see in him a great symbolist.
He always remembers that it is dangerous to jest with laughter. This
man in writing this has done a service to all thinking mankind. It is a
revelation, as an omen of a freer future. Belinsky, the great Russian
Critic to whom Mr. Rogers had read the manuscript, said “it looked like
another Ben Hur to him.”
So now Mr. Cobb, and Mr. Lardner, and all you introduction writers,
what do I want with you? There is not a one of you could have said the
things of me that I have said, because you Guys dont know what books to
look in to get all that big league stuff out of,
Yours for Arts sake,
WILLIAM PENN ADAIR ROGERS
(_boy that is my real name, let some Literary Guy
top that_)
P. S. I got enough Introduction left over to write another Introduction
if I had anything to write another book about.
BREAKING INTO THE WRITING GAME
[Illustration: YOU ARE GOING TO GET THE LOW-DOWN ON SOME OF THOSE BIRDS
WHO ARE SENDING HOME THE RADISH-SEED.]
BREAKING INTO THE WRITING GAME
Everybody is writing something nowadays. It used to be just the
Literary or Newspaper men who were supposed to know what they were
writing about that did all the writing. But nowadays all a man goes
into office for is so he can try to find out something and then write
it when he comes out.
Now being in Ziegfeld Follies for almost a solid year in New York has
given me an inside track on some of our biggest men in this country who
I meet nightly at the stage door.
So I am breaking out in a rash here. I will cite an example to prove
to you what you are going to get. Not long ago there was a mess of
Governors here from various Provinces. And a good friend of mine
brought back to the stage and dressing room Governor Allen of Kansas.
Well, I stood him in the wings and he was supposed to be looking at my
act, but he wasn’t. He was watching what really is the Backbone of our
Show. He anyway heard some of my Gags about our Government and all who
are elected to help missrun it.
So at the finish of my act I dragged him out on the stage and
introduced him to the audience. He made a mighty pretty little speech
and said he enjoyed Will’s Impertinences, and got a big laugh on that.
Said I was the only man in America who was able to tell the truth about
our Men and Affairs.
When he finished I explained to the audience why I was able to tell the
truth. It is because I have never mixed up in Politics. So you all are
going from time to time to get the real Low Down on some of those Birds
who are sending home the Radish Seed.
You know the more you read and observe about this Politics thing, you
got to admit that each party is worse than the other. The one that’s
out always looks the best. My only solution would be to keep ’em both
out one term and hire my good friend Henry Ford to run the whole thing
and give him a commission on what he saves us. Put his factory in with
the government and instead of Seeds every spring mail out those Things
of his.
Mail Newberry one every morning Special Delivery.
Speaking of Henry Ford, I see where Uncle Henry has a new Rule in force
out in his Factory where they paste those Knick Knacks together. Every
man working there has to have his breath smelled every morning. That,
of course, seems like a pretty strict Rule to put in force in a So
called Free Country, and it has come in for a lot of criticism in the
papers, but the way I look at it, it is absolutely necessary. Should
a man go to work in there who had had a few strong shots of some of
our National Drinks of today, he would blow his breath on one of those
FOB’S, and blow all the bolts right out of it.
Now Mr. Ford is a very smart man and in passing these rigid rules I
bet you he knows where to stop. I bet you that he won’t instruct his
Salesmen to be so strict with a Purchaser. In fact his salesmen smell
of your breath when you come in to buy one and if it shows no signs of
drink they don’t try to sell you. He is smart enough to know a sober
man would never buy one. Mind you, all this smelling of breath is
done, not on the Company’s time, but on the time of the Workers. Some
men have to get up at 4 o’clock in the Morning to get their breath
examined so they can get to work at 8. Imagine a line of 50 thousand
all waiting to blow at a single individual TESTER! Think what he must
be with all those Italian workmen passing by him. He is just 180 pounds
of Garlic by night.
The University of Michigan is putting in a Chair in their Faculty
devoted to the Art of Breath Detecting. But there is always a way to
defeat any reform. Drinkers will learn to hold their breath like a
Diver.
I tell you Folks, all Politics is Apple Sauce.
The President gave a Luncheon for the visiting Governors, where they
discussed but didn’t TRY Prohibition.
It was the consensus of opinion of all their speeches that there was
a lot of drinking going on and that if it wasn’t stopped by January
that they would hold another meeting and try and get rid of some of the
stuff.
Senator Curtis proposed a bill this week to stop Bootlegging in the
Senate, making it unlawful for any member to be caught selling to
another member while on Government property. While the bill was being
read a Government employe fell just outside the Senate door and broke
a Bottle of Pre-War Stuff (made just before last week’s Turkish War).
Now they are carpeting all the halls with a heavy material so in case
of a fall there will be no serious loss.
[Illustration: THEY ARE CARPETING ALL THE HALLS OF THE SENATE SO IN
CASE OF A FALL THERE WILL BE NO SERIOUS LOSS.]
Well, New Years is coming and I suppose we will have to hear and read
all those big men’s New Year greetings, such men as Schwab and Gary and
Rockefeller and all of them. Saying the same old Apple Sauce. That they
are Optimistic of the coming year and everybody must put their shoulder
to the wheel, and produce more and they predict a great year. Say, if
we had those Birds’ Dough we could all be just as optimistic as they
are. But it’s a good Joke and it’s got in the papers every year and I
suppose always will.
Now the Ku Klux is coming into New York and kinder got it in for the
Jewish People. Now they are wrong; I am against that. If the Jewish
People here in New York City hadn’t jumped in and made themselves good
fellows and helped us celebrate our Christmas, the thing would have
fell flat. They sold us every Present.
The Ku Klux couldn’t get much of a footing here in New York. If there
was some man they wanted to take out and Tar and Feather they wouldn’t
know where he lived. People move so often here their own folks don’t
know where they live.
And even if they found out the Elevator man in the Apartment wouldn’t
let ’em up.
See where there is bills up in Congress now to change the Constitution
all around, elect the President in a different way and have Congress
meet at a different time. It seems the men who drew up this thing
years ago didn’t know much and we are just now getting a bunch of real
fellows who can take that old Parchment and fix it up like it should
have been all these years. It seems it’s just been luck that’s got us
by so far. Now when they get the Constitution all fixed up they are
going to start in on the 10 Commandments, just as soon as they find
somebody in Washington who has read them.
See where they are talking about another Conference over here. The
Social Season in Washington must be lagging.
Well, I think they ought to have it. These Conferences don’t really do
any harm and they give certain Delegates pleasure. Of course nothing
they ever pass on is ever carried out. (Except in Greece, where
they are all carried out.) But each Nation gets a certain amount of
Publicity out of it, and us masses that read of it get a certain amount
of amusement out of it.
Borah himself admits he don’t know what it’s for or what they should
do. But it looks like a good Conference season and there is no reason
why we shouldn’t get in on one.
BESIDES, DID YOU EVER REALIZE THIS COUNTRY IS 4 CONFERENCES BEHIND NOW?
I want to apologize and set my many readers straight as to why I am
blossoming out as an infliction on you all.
It seems a prominent newspaper syndicate had Lloyd George signed up for
a pack of his Memoirs. Well, after the late election Lloyd couldn’t
seem to remember anything, so they sent for me to fill in the space
where he would have had his junk.
You see, they wanted me in the first place, but George came along
and offered to work cheaper, and also to give his to charity. That
benevolence on his part was of course before England gave him his two
weeks’ notice.
Now I am also not to be outdone by an ex-Prime Minister donating my
receipts from my Prolific Tongue to a needy charity. The total share of
this goes to the civilization of three young heathens, Rogers by name,
and part Cherokee Indians by breeding.
Now, by wasting seven minutes, if you are a good reader--and ten to
twelve if you read slow--on me, you are really doing a charitable act
yourself by preventing these three miniature bandits from growing up
in ignorance. So please help a man with not only one little Megan, but
three little Megans.
A great many people may think that this is the first venture of such a
conservative paper as the _Illiterate Digest_ in using something of a
semi-humorous nature, but that is by no means the case. I am following
the Kaiser, who rewrote his life after it was too late. I realize what
a tough job I have, succeeding a man who to be funny only had to relate
the facts.
Please don’t consider these as my memoirs. I am not passing out of the
picture, as men generally are who write those things.
SETTLING THE CORSET PROBLEM OF THIS COUNTRY
(_An After Dinner speech made at a Banquet of the Corset Manufacturers
of America at the Waldorf-Astoria, New York._)
SETTLING THE CORSET PROBLEM OF THIS COUNTRY
Since I last wrote you all there has been an awful lot of fashion Shows
and all their By Products held here in New York. All the out of Town
buyers from all over have been here. So, on behalf of New York City,
I had to help welcome them at their various Banquets. There was the
retail Milliners’ big fashion show at the Astor Ball Room where they
showed 500 Hats and me. Some of the hats were just as funny looking as
I was.
Well, I settled the Hat and Dress business to the satisfaction of
everybody but the Milliners. So the next night at the Commodore Hotel I
mingled with those Princes of Brigands, the Leather and Shoe men, and
later I want to tell all you people just how they operate. For we never
paid more for our Shoes and were nearer barefooted than we are today,
so don’t think that I am bought off this week by those Pasteboard
Highbinders: it’s only that I want to talk to the Ladies today.
During this reign of Indigestion I was called on to speak at a big
Banquet at the Waldorf to the Corset Manufacturers. Now that only shows
you what a degrading thing this after Dinner speaking is. I want to get
out of it in a few weeks and back to the Movies.
This speaking calls on a fellow to learn something about articles that
a self-respecting man has no business knowing about. So that’s why I am
going to get away. If a Man is called on to tell in a Public Banquet
room what he knows about Corsets, there is no telling what other
Ladies’ wearing apparel he might be called on to discuss. So me back to
the Morals of Hollywood before it’s too late.
I was, at that, mighty glad to appear at a dinner given by an essential
Industry. Just imagine, if you can, if the flesh of this Country
were allowed to wander around promiscuously! Why, there ain’t no
telling where it would wind up. There has got to be a gathering or a
get-together place for everything in this world, so, when our human
Bodies get beyond our control, why we have to call on some mechanical
force to help assemble them and bring back what might be called the
semblance of a human frame.
These Corset Builders, while they might not do a whole lot to help
civilization, are a tremendous aid to the Eyesight. They have got
what you would call a Herculean task as they really have to improve on
nature. The same problem confronts them that does the people that run
the Subways in New York City. They both have to get so many pounds of
human flesh into a given radius. The subway does it by having strong
men to push and shove until they can just close the door with only the
last man’s foot out. But the Corset Carpenters arrive at the same thing
by a series of strings.
They have what is known as the Back Lace. This is known as a One Man
Corset.
Now the Front Lace can be operated without a confederate. By
judiciously holding your breath and with a conservative intake on the
Diaphragm you arrange yourself inside this. Then you tie the strings to
the door knob and slowly back away. When your speedometer says you have
arrived at exactly 36, why, haul in your lines and tie off.
We have also the Side Lace that is made in case you are very fleshy,
and need two accomplices to help you congregate yourself. You stand in
the middle and they pull from both sides. This acts something in the
nature of a vise. This style has been known to operate so successful
that the victims’ buttons have popped off their shoes.
Of course, the fear of every fleshy Lady is the broken Corset String.
I sat next to a catastrophe of this nature once. We didn’t know it
at first, the deluge seemed so gradual, till finally the Gentleman
on the opposite side of her and myself were gradually pushed off our
Chairs. To show you what a wonderful thing this Corseting is, that Lady
had come to the Dinner before the broken string episode in a small
Roadster. She was delivered home in a Bus.
They have also worked out a second line of control, or a place to park
an extra string on the back. You can change a string now while you
wait, and they have demountable strings.
Now, of course, not as many women wear Corsets as used to but what
they have lost in women they have made up with men. When corsets were
a dollar a pair they used to be as alike as two Fords. A clerk just
looked you over, decided on your circumference and wheel base and
handed you out one. They come in long Boxes and you were in doubt at
first if it was a Corset or a Casket.
Nowadays with the Wraparound and the Diaphragm-Control, and all those
things a Corset Manufacturer uses more rubber than a Tire Co.
Imagine me being asked to talk at a Corset Dinner, anyway; Me, who has
been six years with Ziegfeld Follies and not a Corset in the Show.
Men have gone down in History for shaping the destinies of Nations, but
I tell you this set of Corset Architects shape the Destinies of Women
and that is a lot more important than some of the shaping that has been
done on a lot of Nations that I can name off hand. Another thing makes
me so strong for them, if it wasn’t for the Corset Ads in Magazines men
would never look at a Magazine.
HOW TO TELL A BUTLER, AND OTHER ETIQUETTE
[Illustration: AS I OPENED THE DOOR TO LET HER IN 2 OF OUR DOGS AND 4
CATS CAME IN]
HOW TO TELL A BUTLER, AND OTHER ETIQUETTE
Somebody must have seen me out in Public; I think it was Emily Post,
for she sent me a book on ETIQUETTE that she had written herself.
It has 700 pages in it. You wouldn’t think there was that much
Etiquette, would you! Well, I hadn’t read far when I found that I was
wrong on most every line of the whole Book.
Now, you wouldn’t think a Person could live under fairly civilized
conditions (as I imagined I was doing) and be so dumb as to not have at
least one of these forms of Etiquette right. Well, when I got through
reading it, I felt like I had been a heathen all my life. But after I
got to noticing other people I met I didn’t feel so bad. Some of them
didn’t know much more about it than I did.
So I predict that her Book and all the other things you read now on
Etiquette are going to fall on fertile soil. Now take, for instance,
being introduced, or introducing someone; that is the first thing in
the Book. I didn’t know up to then that inflection of the voice was
such a big factor in introductions.
She says that the prominence of the party being introduced determines
the sound of the voice, as she says for instance, “Are you there?” and
then on finding out you are there she says, “Is it raining?”
Now the inflection that you use on asking any one if they are there,
is the same inflection that you are to use on introducing Mr. Gothis,
if he is the more prominent of the two. Then for the other person, who
Mr. Gothis probably got his from, why, you use the “Is it raining?”
inflection.
You see, a fellow has to know a whole lot more than you think he does
before he can properly introduce people to each other. First he has to
be up on his Dunn and Bradstreet to tell which of the two is the more
prominent. Second, he has to be an Elocutionist so he will know just
where to bestow the inflection.
Well, I studied on that introduction Chapter till I thought I had it
down pat. So I finally got a chance to try it out. My wife had invited
a few friends for Dinner, and as she hadn’t finished cooking it before
they come, I had to meet them and introduce them to each other.
Well, I studied for half an hour before they come, trying to figure
out which one was the most prominent so I could give her the “Are you
there?” inflection. It was hard to figure out because any one of them
couldn’t be very prominent and be coming to our House for Dinner.
So I thought, well, I will just give them both the “Is it raining?”
inflection.
Then I happened to remember that the Husband of one of them had just
bought a Drug Store, so I figured that I better give her the benefit
of the “Are you there?” inflection, for if Prohibition stays in effect
it’s only a matter of days till her Husband will be prominent.
So, when they arrived I was remembering my opening Chapter of my
Etiquette on Introductions. When the first one come I was all right; I
didn’t have to introduce her to anyone. I just opened our front door
in answer to the Bell which didn’t work. But I was peeping through the
Curtains, and as I opened the door to let her in 2 of our Dogs and 4
Cats come in.
Well, while I was shooing them out, apologizing, and trying to make her
believe it was unusual for them to do such a thing, now there I was!
This Emily Post wrote 700 pages on Etiquette, but not a line on what to
do in an emergency to remove Dogs and Cats and still be Nonchalant.
The second Lady arrived just as this Dog and Cat Pound of ours was
emptying. She was the new Prescription Store Owner’s Wife and was to
get the “Are you there?” inflection. Her name was (I will call her
Smith, but that was not her name). She don’t want it to get out that
she knows us.
Well, I had studied that Book thoroughly but those animals entering our
Parlor had kinder upset me. So I said, “Mrs. Smith, Are you there? I
want you to meet Mrs. Jones. Is it raining?”
Well, these Women looked at me like I was crazy. It was a silly thing
to say. Mrs. Smith was there of course, or I couldn’t have introduced
her, and asking Mrs. Jones if it was raining was most uncalled for,
because I had just looked out myself and, besides, any one that ever
lived in California knows it won’t rain again till next year.
But that didn’t discourage me. I kept right on learning and from now
on I am just mangy with Etiquette.
Why, just the other day, I heard what I had always considered up to
then a well behaved Woman, introduce one Gentleman friend to another
and she said, “Allow me to present.”
Now anybody that’s ever read the first 5 lines in the book knows that
the word Present is never used only on formal occasions. You should
always say “May I introduce” on all informal occasions. There was a
Woman who, to look at her, you would never have thought she could
possibly be so rude and uncultured as to have made a mistake like that.
It just spoiled her for me. I don’t care how many nice things she may
do in the future, she just don’t belong.
Rule 2, Chapter 5--: “No Gentleman under any circumstances chews Gum in
Public.” Now that kinder knocked me for a Goal, for I had been Chewing
Gum before some of the best families in this Country. But from now on
it is out. I am going to live according to the Book.
Chapter 6--: “Gentleman should not walk along the Street with their
Cane or Stick striking the picket fence. Such habits should be curbed
in the nursery.”
Now that rule didn’t hit me so hard for I am not lame and I don’t carry
a Cane yet, and furthermore, there is no Picket fences in California.
If they had enough pickets to make a fence they would take them and
build another Bungalow and rent it.
Outside of eating with a sharp knife, there is no rule in the Book
that lays you liable to as much criticism as the following: “Whether
in a private Car, a Taxi, or a carriage, a lady must never sit on a
Gentleman’s left, because according to European Etiquette a Lady ‘on
the left’ is no lady.”
I thought at first when I read that it was a misprint, and meant a Lady
should never sit on a Gentleman’s Lap, instead of Left. But now I find
that it really was Left. So I guess you can go ahead and sit on the
lap. It don’t say not to. But don’t sit on his Left, or you can never
hope to enter smart society.
Then it says “the Owner of the car should always occupy the right hand
side of the rear seat.” No matter how many payments he has to make on
it, that is considered his seat.