there are not a half dozen Boys in this Country that can do more
tricks than he can. He learned in 12 years what it’s taken me 40 to
learn. Hired Rinks to stay open after their seasons closed and paid
Instructors for three years to perfect him in fancy Ice Skating. He
learned Bareback Riding for a Circus Act, and every kind of Wild West
trick riding. Bucking Horses he learned to ride after he was 43, just
when at that age most Riders are quitting. He Bull Dogged a Steer at
Cheyenne and had never done it before in his life. Now that takes
nerve. I wouldn’t jump off a horse on a steer even if he promised to
lay down. He is a good Polo Player; we had a team composed of the late
Vernon Castle, who, by the way was a good Horseman and a nervy fellow,
Leo Corrello, Fred and Myself. Well, in our Clown games we all took it
as a joke, but Fred took it serious. He wanted to know the thing from
every angle.
Now to me I didn’t care whether I hit the Ball or not. I knew it would
be laying there when I come back. But not so with Fred. Well, there
was a lot of falls and spills. The audience who watched us play every
Sunday got to learn that in a spill if the falling Rider hit on his
feet it was Fred Stone. If he hit on his head it was me. We would both
be equally safe.
He is one of the best shots in the Country, has practiced for years
with Annie Oakley, the Greatest shot this Country ever saw. He hunted
big Game with his Brother-in-Law, Rex Beach, in Alaska. Went to
Greenland to Lassoo, not shoot, Polar Bears, hunted Mountain Lions in
Arizona, and Bears wherever he could hear of one.
Now that he has taken up religion and the Bible, he wont have to ask a
Preacher to advise him long. Preachers will be coming to him, for he
don’t half do anything. So when he comes back, and Sunday comes, and I
go down to Rope and Ride and play, if he wants to knock off and go to
Church I don’t think I will mind, and if they will let ME in, I may go
too.
ONE OIL LAWYER PER BARREL
[Illustration: IT’S A BIGGER THING FOR WASHINGTON THAN THE SHRINER’S
CONVENTION.]
ONE OIL LAWYER PER BARREL
The _Illiterate Digest_ has devoted its life work to ferreting out the
Persons and things in our National affairs which are not just exactly
up to snuff. Now I see where the Senate Investigating Committee has
called a recess for 10 days. Scandals were unfolding themselves so
fast that the Committee couldn’t get one Bribe straight in their minds
before another one would bob up. So they retired to kinder see where
they were at.
Now, while that committee may be resting, the _Illiterate Digest_ never
rests; we are on the heels of the evildoer 24 hours of every bribing
day. I hope by the time this reaches an eager waiting Public that they
will have found two Lawyers to conduct this Oil investigation. Just
think, America has one hundred and ten million population, 90 percent
of which are Lawyers, yet we can’t find two of them who have not worked
at some time or another for an Oil company. There has been at least one
lawyer engaged for every barrel of Oil that ever come out of the ground.
You might wonder if they pay so much to Lawyers how do they ever make
anything out of the Oil? Foolish question. They don’t make anything out
of the Oil. They only make money out of the stock they sell. You buy a
share of oil stock and for every dollar you pay, 60 percent goes for
Lawyers’ fees, 30 percent to over Capitalization, and 10 percent goes
to the boring of a Dry Hole.
If a Company just put down Wells for Oil, and then sold the oil
legitimately, they would have no use at all for Lawyers. But Oil Men
engage their Lawyers nowadays even before they have leased the land or
know where they are going to prospect. For the lawyer has to make the
lease. It’s not like any other business where the owner and the man
who is going to lease can meet and do business. Oh no, Lawyers must do
that. Then, if they happen to be leasing from the Government, why they
not only have to be Lawyers but have to be Political Lawyers.
Now, I bet a lot of you thought after the Company had got the land
leased, that the next thing to do was to hire a Driller to put the Well
down. But you are wrong again. You go out and get another Lawyer. You
have to have another Lawyer to draw up the contract with the driller.
[Illustration: THEY NOT ONLY HAVE TO BE LAWYERS, BUT POLITICAL
LAWYERS.]
Then I bet that you think the next step is to wait until you see
whether you have Oil or not. Say, don’t make me laugh out loud again.
You don’t wait for anything of the kind: you engage another Lawyer to
draw up some pretty Oil Stock Paper with nice flowered edges. Looks
like a marriage license--only worse. Then you start selling the stock,
claiming that the BoHunk Oil Company are putting down a Well on Smith
29, North East 40 of South West 80. Then if they do strike something,
they shut it up and claim it was a Duster.
Then they get another Local Lawyer who knows everybody around that
neck of the Woods, to go out and buy up or lease all the adjoining
land. Then, when they get it all leased, they go back and pick the
stopper out of this. Well, double the Capitalization of Stock under
the direction of still another Lawyer, and then they are in a position
to hire more Lawyers to investigate getting a Lease from Persia, or
Jugo-Slavia. This just kinder gives you a rough idea of what all these
Lawyers do and why we can’t get any to help prosecute this Oil Scream.
The _Illiterate Digest_ will have to take Editorial attention of the
resignation of Sectry Denby. Mr. Denby was requested by the Senate
to resign. Now that in itself is a mighty good Omen that he is an
unusually able man. Of course, where I think he got in bad was in
saying, if he had the same thing to do over again he would do it. It is
always bad for any one on trial to say he would do the same thing over
again. American People like to have you repent; then they are generous.
But you see lots of times a man gets in wrong just by an ill timed
remark. Look at Mr. Doheny’s reported remark that he would “make 100
million out of the Elk Hills lease.” That will go down in History as
the highest priced Gag ever pulled. That’s why Mr. Coolidge never gets
in bad. If a man will just stay hushed he is hard to find out.
Personally and Editorially, I don’t think Mr. Denby is guilty at all
of any wrong-doing that he knew of. But somebody has got to go in
this thing, and before it’s all over you are mighty apt to find a few
innocent along with all the guilty strewn along by the Pipe Line.
By the way, sometime this Country, just by accident, is going to get
some man Sectry of the Navy who has at least received a Picture Post
Card of Annapolis, sometime during his career. Josephus Daniels
had never been in anything bigger than a Row Boat up to the time he
was made Sectry of the Navy. The first Battleship he got on he kept
looking for the Paddle Wheels on the side that made it go. He found
the Officers in those days had Cocktail and Cordial Glasses with
their Table wear. He made them throw them all overboard. He thought
they would sink the Ship. What he lacked in seamanship, he made up in
morality.
Then came Mr. Denby who had received his Maritime Education by looking
at the Detroit River (which is so thick with Booze Boats that you can’t
see the Water) naturally his Aquatic viewpoint is rather warped.
I guess Young Theodore Roosevelt comes nearer being an Old Salt than
anyone connected with our Ex Oil Owners (The Navy). He did live in
Oyster Bay overlooking Long Island Sound, and had to look at the Joy
Line cruising, 1$ daily, to Providence. Then he had to Subway under the
East River to get to New York. So I guess he is the only Sectry we have
that knows just by looking at one, which end of a Battleship is the
front.
Judging by the previous experience of some of our sectrys, of various
things in our Cabinets, it has always been a source of great anxiety
to me just why a Vetenerian has never been appointed either Sectry of
War or PostMaster General.
Now by the time this reaches our Scandal loving Public I don’t know
who will be left in Washington. The chances are, when I visit the old
stamping ground again, I will have to make entirely new acquaintances.
But I will always have the feeling, “Well the old Boys were not so bad.
They were just unfortunate in getting caught.”
It certainly looks like a tough year. Politicians are so busy trying
to hold down their own Jobs that they won’t have any time to look out
for anyone else. They will be voting a Bonus to men who lost their
livelihood in the great morality Panic of 1924.
Children in future years will ask their Parents, “Father how much did
you get in the great Year 1924?”
It’s been a fine thing for Washington. The Hotels are crowded. Every
time a Guest registers the Clerk asks him, “I suppose you will be
here until you testify.” It’s a bigger thing for Washington than the
Shriners’ Convention, because it has all of them, besides a lot more.
If they would all tell the truth the first time they testify they
wouldn’t have to testify again like they are doing now, and they would
get the thing over a lot quicker. They ought to pass a rule in this
Country that in any investigations, if a Man couldn’t tell the truth
the first time he shouldn’t be allowed to try again.
Now we have another Scandal in the Veterans’ Bureau. But we are just
in such shape that we can’t take care of but one Scandal at a time. If
any other small affairs come up during the coming season that look like
they might develop into a Scandal I will try to let you know.
ANOTHER HOT CONFESSION IN THE OIL SCANDAL
[Illustration: THEY ARE FROM TULSA. I WILL BE RIGHT OUT.]
ANOTHER HOT CONFESSION IN THE OIL SCANDAL
I wish this Oil Scandal would hurry up and be settled as it is very
hard for one writing on affairs of our Country to tell, in writing of
our Officials, whether to speak of them as Secretary So and So, or
Ex-Secretary So and So. Up to now I claim a very unique distinction. I
am the only Person I know of that has not been mentioned as receiving
something in the nature of a Fee from some Big Corporation. But I
am going to get in early and tell just what I received so when my
name comes up later on people will say: “Well there is a Man who has
accepted Fees but he was honest about them and come to the front and
told it.” As I can’t get to Washington to testify I want to tell
through the Digest, for which I am Scandal Correspondent, just what
happened to me. If I was in Washington I probably couldn’t get to
testify as there is so many ahead of me that it will take years for
just the People who work for the Government to tell who gave them
something.
I know a Man that went to Washington to testify as to money he had
received and there was 29 Cabinet and Ex Cabinet Members in line
ahead of him so he had to just write it and send it in. Now this
whole thing was a strictly Republican affair until Mr. Doheny (who
never lets Politics interfere with his Business) appeared before the
Commission, and when it looked like he was the only Oil be-spattered
sheep in the Democratic Fold, he just kicked over an Oil Can and hiding
behind it were a flock of Democrats that reached almost as far back as
Jefferson’s Administration.
Personally I am glad that he did unearth members of both Parties for if
this thing had gone through showing no one but Republicans, it would
have cast a reflection on the shrewdness of the Democratic Party. In
other words they would have looked rather dumb to be standing around
with all these Oily Shekels falling all around them and not opening
their Pockets to catch a few. For the American people are a very
generous people and will forgive almost any weakness, with the possible
exception of stupidity.
But to get back to my confession for I want to be set right before the
people by the time we meet in Madison Square Garden in June to select
the worst man. Mine starts out like a Fairy Story.
Once upon a time, I had just gone to work for Florenz Ziegfeld, Jr.,
and was playing in what was called Ziegfeld’s Midnight Frolic, on the
Roof of the Amsterdam Theatre, New York. Prohibition and my Jokes were
equally responsible in closing the place up. Now my home is (as I think
I mentioned before) Claremore, Oklahoma, (The home of the best Curative
Waters in the World) and, by the way, one of the best towns in the
World to live in if any of you are thinking about making a change.
Well, after I had finished my little 15 minutes of annoyance in the
Frolic one night, one of the Waiters (for instead of having Ushers to
hand you a Programme, they had Waiters to hand you a drink, and I tell
you, you can’t beat some of the old customs). Well this well tipped
Waiter come to my dressing room, which I used to hang my ropes in,
and said, “There is a Party of folks out front at one of the Tables
from Oklahoma, and they want you to come out and see them.” I asked
what place in Oklahoma did they come from, and he said, “I don’t know
but they certainly got the Dough; they have ordered everything in the
place but the Kitchen Stove.” I said, “They are from Tulsa. I will be
right out.”
Well I hid what few dollars I had down in my Sock, and went out to
see them. It was Mr. Harry Sinclair. I had never heard of him before,
for he hadn’t bought Zev or the Teapot Dome up to then. But we soon
felt like we knew each other, on account of him being from Tulsa (a
Residential Suburb of Claremore where we park our millionaires to keep
them from getting under our feet). He knew my Father who had been a
member of the Constitutional Convention, which drafted the Charter of
Oklahoma.
Well, this Mr. Sinclair was an awful nice fellow. We hit it off pretty
good. We kinder consoled each other, on account of being so far from
home, and trying to eke out an existence from these shrewd New Yorkers.
He took a fatherly interest in me, and asked, “Now, Will, you are
working here but what are you doing with your money?” So I told him
just what I was doing with it, that the last three months’ wages had
gone to paying a Doctor and a Nurse, for assisting us in accumulating
another Baby, and that the three months previous to that my wages had
gone to making the first payment on a second hand Overland car, and
that the year still previous to that I had bought a Baby Buggy and a
Victrola.
Well, he seemed mighty pleased that I was putting my money into such
staple commodities. So I asked him what he was doing with his. He said,
“I struck Oil, but Oil is no good unless its Capitalized.”
Well, that was news to me. I thought you could just sell the Oil
itself. But I learned that you can get twice as much for the Capital as
you can for the Oil.
So then he asked me the names of my Private Herd. I told him I had gone
to a great deal of trouble and thought in naming them and after months
of research among pretty and odd names of Novels and Poems, I had
decided to name the Children, Bill, Mary and Jim.
Well, he had never heard of anything more original. The names I thought
struck him very odd, as he wrote all three of them down on the back of
an Envelope. So I left the Table as I didn’t want to be there when the
Waiter presented his check. For I had seen several Casualties from this
same cause.
I never thought much more about it. I went home and told my Wife about
meeting him, and what do you think happened! In a couple of days here
comes three official letters addressed to Bill, Mary and Jim, and they
had enclosed a Share each of Sinclair Oil Stock _free_. Well we thought
that was a mighty fine thing for him to do to be so thoughtful of our
little Tribe. I accepted it in as good faith as McAdoo did his Fee.
I don’t know if the Senate investigating Committee will get around
to them soon or not. Of course they will have to get through before
Election for the whole thing will be a total loss after election. All
I have to say is that the Children were Private Citizens and did not
promise to use any influence in any way. Of course, I, as the Father
and Guardian of the Children, will be apt to come in for considerable
criticism, and I may go so far as to lose any chance I may have as
being named as a Presidential possibility.
Now I hate this for the Children’s sake that all this must come out
for it is liable to put a stigma on their names that they will be two
Campaigns living down. One thing, of course, will be in their favor
when it all does come out and that is that it was sent openly through
the mails. It was not delivered in a Suit Case.
They have had these shares for years and have also received at various
times a Dollar or so Interest on said Stock. When this Expose came out
Bill and Mary were for resigning and sending in their Stock, so they
could show that they were not connected with the Corporation, but Jim,
the youngest, who has a touch of Republicanism in him, why, he said,
“No, let’s stick until they throw us out. Let them prove we took these
Stocks for some other reason than Charity!”
What makes it look bad is, that my Wife wrote a note and thanked him.
But the children did not sign the Note. So when he is called upon
to testify he will have her Note but it won’t have the Children’s
Signature on it. Of course he can say it was tore off, or that his Wife
has that part of it, or some other equally good reason. But I want the
Public to be lenient with both him and the Children, for as past events
have proven they haven’t done a thing for him to warrant them getting
those Stocks. So I honestly believe he meant no harm when he gave them.
As for Mr. Doheny giving me or mine anything, we live right near him
here in Beverly Hills. His son did promise me a key, so I wouldn’t have
to ride clear around his Estate when out horseback riding, but I never
got it yet.
THE WHOLE TRUTH AND NOTHING BUT THE TRUTH
[Illustration: I OBJECT TO THE SENATOR FROM MASSACHUSETTS’ SLURRING
REMARKS.]
Comedy Drama
Entitled
THE WHOLE TRUTH AND NOTHING BUT THE TRUTH
PLACE--Washington, D. C.
TIME--From 1924 to 1930.
SCENE--One of the 40 Investigating Rooms of the U. S. Senate.
CAST OF CHARACTERS--Everybody that ever worked for, or just Worked the
United States.
HERO--Senator Walsh, assisted by Lenroot and accomplices.
VILLAINS--Entire list of Who’s Who in America.
_The Scene opens on a greasy Monday morning with_ JOHN F. MAJOR _being
quizzed by_ SENATOR WALSH.
SENATOR WALSH
Do you work for a Man that runs a Newspaper?
MR. MAJOR
I draw a salary from him.
SENATOR WALSH
What right have you to send Telegrams to a Man in Palm Beach if you are
only working for him?
MR. MAJOR
I couldn’t get him on the Telephone.
SENATOR WALSH
What did you tell him in your Telegrams?
MR. MAJOR
What was going on in Washington.
SENATOR WALSH
What did he tell you in his Telegrams to you?
MR. MAJOR
What was going on in Palm Beach.
SENATOR WALSH
What was going on at the time in Washington?
MR. MAJOR
Why the Senate Committee was investigating somebody.
SENATOR WALSH
Who were they investigating?
MR. MAJOR
They didn’t know themselves.
SENATOR WALSH
What did he say was going on in Palm Beach?
MR. MAJOR
I am ashamed to tell you.
SENATOR WALSH
Who were these Telegrams from in Palm Beach?
MR. MAJOR
I can’t remember.
SENATOR WALSH
Did you lease a Wire from Palm Beach to Washington?
MR. MAJOR
I can’t remember.
SENATOR WALSH
Why did you lease the Wire?
MR. MAJOR
So we could say we had a Wire to Palm Beach. It was good advertising.
SENATOR WALSH
Who operated this wire?
MR. MAJOR
A Telegraph Operator.
SENATOR WALSH
What was his name?
MR. MAJOR
I think it was Jones, or Smith; maybe it was Brown.
SENATOR WALSH
Who operated the wire from Palm Beach?
MR. MAJOR
Johnny.
SENATOR WALSH
Johnny who?
MR. MAJOR
Johnny Johnnnny.
SENATOR WALSH
Did the operator on this end work at the White House also?
MR. MAJOR
Yes he was the Waiter there.
SENATOR WALSH
Did he work there during the Republican or Democratic Administration?
SENATOR LODGE
Mr. Committee, I object to that question. This is not a Partisan
affair; I refuse to have the honor and the glory of the Great
Republican Party dragged into a thing where up to now their fair name
has never been.
SENATOR CARAWAY
Mr. Committee, I object to the Senator from Massachusetts’ slurring
remarks of the Democratic Party; a Party which has housed such
illustrious names as Jefferson, Cleveland, Akron, Youngstown, Bryan,
McAdoo, and sometimes Jim Reed.
MR. MAJOR
Senator Walsh have you got a Cigarette on you?
SENATOR WALSH
No I just got some cubebs here.
MR. MAJOR
Never mind I will go across the Street and get some. See you next time
I am called.
SENATOR WALSH
Gentlemen, I think the Committee should retire for a week to consider
the Testimony of the Gentleman who has just testified.
SENATOR LENROOT
But Mr. Chairman, Mr. Doheny’s Yacht is waiting to take him on a Cruise
of the Mediterranean, and I don’t think it’s fair to keep him waiting.
SENATOR WHEELER
Mr. Chairman, I make a motion, that the Committee make a motion, that
Attorney General Daugherty resign.
SENATOR LODGE
Mr. Chairman, I object. His motion is out of order. I had a motion
before the Committee asking the Committee asking the Committee to make
a motion, to ask him to stay. Now, by all the rules of Parliamentary
motion making, mine anti-dates his. And I will stake a Reputation on
it that goes back to the first class Passengers that landed from that
Mother Ship of mine the Mayflower, who have so gloriously populated the
fair state of Massachusetts.
SENATOR ROBINSON
Mr. Chairman, I object. The fair state of Arkansas houses one direct
descendant of that Plymouth Rock Expedition. And I protest when the
Gentleman from Massachusetts claims the entire Cargo of that ill-fated
Voyage. Never as long as I represent the majority constituency of my
Glorious state will I stand by and hear the ozone swept Ozarks spoken
of disparagingly, especially by that Moron State of Massachusetts.
SENATOR WILLIS
Gentlemen, I don’t think that Mr. Daugherty should be let out without a
trial.
SENATOR WHEELER
Why, he has had three year’s trial already. His trial is what’s letting
him out.
SENATOR WALSH
Who will we call next?
DOORTENDER
Why just get a Census return, and call anybody’s name on it; they are
waiting outside.
SENATOR LA FOLLETTE
Why don’t you call somebody unexpectedly, and maybe in their confusion
they will tell the truth accidentally.
SENATOR LENROOT
Who said anything about wanting the truth?
SENATOR HEFLIN
I want to ask the Committee why they called on Mr. Fall at his hotel in
private.
SENATOR WALSH
We wanted to see where he got the hundred thousand. We may retire
ourselves some day.
SENATOR HEFLIN
Why didn’t you tell at the time that you went to see him?
SENATOR WALSH
Wait a minute, who is running this investigation? Am I supposed to ask
the questions, or to answer them?
SENATOR LENROOT
Where is Sinclair?
MR. ZEVERLY
(whose running name is Zev.)
My Client, Mr. Sinclair has gone to the races and it will be impossible
for him to appear until after the season is over.
SENATOR WALSH
Well how about McLane? Can we get him?
SENATOR CARAWAY
You can get him by Telegraph, I guess. Everybody else has.
SENATOR WALSH
Well, where is Detective William J. Burns? He was supposed to testify
here today.
DOORTENDER
Mr. Chairman, I met him on the Street and he couldn’t find the Capitol
Building.
SENATOR MOSES
I make a motion that we examine the Income Tax and see what Mr. Doheny
contributed to the Democratic Campaign Fund.
SENATOR JIM REED
I object. Senator Moses is a Republican and he is only throwing a smoke
Screen to try and hide his Party behind it. This is not a Partisan
question and I object to politics being dragged into it in any way.
Let’s handle this thing in a dignified way, and don’t let Politics
play any part. As it was the Republicans that did it, I am in favor of
justice being served.
DOORTENDER
Mr. Forbes is here and wants to testify.
ENTIRE SENATE
“My Lord, Is he in this, too?”
P. S.--This play to be continued until somebody tells the truth.
WELL, WHO IS PRUNES?
[Illustration: “THERE’S A BELLBOY AT MY HOTEL AND HE JUST GOT IT FROM
THE CHAUFFEUR OF A PROMINENT OIL-MAN.”]
WELL, WHO IS PRUNES?
2nd Episode of the great Dramatic Serial,
THE TRUTH, NOTHING BUT THE TRUTH, SO HELP ME GOD.
_Same scene as the first Episode--the Third Degree Room of the Grand
Jury of the United States Senate._ MR. SENATOR WALSH _leading question
asker of a body of men noted for their inquisitiveness_.
DOORTENDER OF THIS TORTURE CHAMBER
Who will we call first today?
SENATOR WALSH
Call the Editorial Writer of that newspaper.
DOORMAN
But, Mr. Walsh, we just called him yesterday.
SENATOR WALSH
I know we did but call him again. A whole lot is happening in this
country between yesterday and today. Now Mr. Bennett who was it that
you referred to as the Principal in those wires to Palm Beach?
MR. BENNETT
Why, Senator Curtis.
SENATOR HEFLIN
Curses on the Luck. I thought it was Coolidge.
SENATOR HARRISON
Wish it had of been Coolidge. It’s no novelty to get a Senator in Wrong.
SENATOR WALSH
What did you confer with Curtis about?
MR. BENNETT
About the Editorial Policy of our Paper.
SENATOR WALSH
Well what does the Editorial Policy of any Paper amount to? You don’t
suppose anybody reads those things do you? Why one Ad is worth more to
a paper than 40 Editorials. That will be all for you Mr. Bennett.
SENATOR CARAWAY
Just a minute before you go. Who was Peaches in those Telegrams?
MR. BENNETT
I don’t remember.
SENATOR ROBINSON
Yes, and who was Prunes? I hope it referred to no Democrat.
SENATOR WALSH
Call Mr. Curtis.
SENATOR WALSH
Senator Curtis, will you tell the Grand Jury in your own way just what
happened between you and this Editorial Writer of the Washington _Post_.
MR. CURTIS
Yes Sir.
SENATOR WALSH
What was it?
MR. CURTIS
Nothing.
SENATOR WALSH
You mean you didn’t confer with this Gentleman?
MR. CURTIS
I did not.
SENATOR WALSH
But you know him?
MR. CURTIS
Never saw him in my life.
SENATOR WALSH
But you have heard of him?
MR. CURTIS
Never in my life.
SENATOR WALSH
But you know of the Washington _Post_?
MR. CURTIS
Yes sir, I have heard it.
SENATOR WALSH
Heard it? What do you mean you heard it?
MR. CURTIS
I have heard Sousa’s Band play it many a time.
SENATOR WALSH
Play what?
MR. CURTIS
Washington’s Post.
SENATOR WALSH
It’s not a tune; it’s a Newspaper. You talk like a Congressman. Where
are you from?
MR. CURTIS
Kansas.
SENATOR WALSH
That will be all.
SENATOR CARAWAY
Just a minute, Mr. Curtis, Who is Peaches?
MR. CURTIS
I don’t know unless it’s Jim Reed.
SENATOR HEFLIN
Just a minute. I object to the Republican Senator’s slur on the fair
name of the Democratic Party. This Investigation is supposed to be Non
Sectarian, and I object to having Politics dragged in, just to make a
Republican Holiday.
SENATOR ROBINSON
And I want to know who Prunes was.
MR. CURTIS
You mean you want to know who Prunes IS.
SENATOR LENROOT
Mr. Walsh, and Gentlemen of the Vigilance Committee there is a Bell Boy
over at my Hotel and he just got it from the chauffeur of a Prominent
Oil Man, that Major Leonard Wood’s Son had just heard that his Father
was offered the Nomination for the Presidency 3 and a Half years ago,
if he would appoint Mr. Jake Hamon Secretary of the Interior. Now that
is a very serious charge, and one that I think this Committee should
look into at once. Public affairs have come to a fine Climax when a Man
in this Country offers to make another one President. I tell you it is
undermining the confidence of the Great American People and when you do
that you shake the very Bulwarks of the American Constitution. I think
a Subpœna should be issued for Mr. Wood’s Son at once and if this is so
I am for a swift and speedy trial for the Culprits.
SENATOR WALSH
I am for calling Mr. Wood himself. There’s one thing that this
Committee has proven that it won’t take, and that is Hear Say Evidence.
So call Mr. Wood himself.
MR. MOSES
(The Senator one, Not the Apostle One)
But, Mr. Walsh, Mr. Wood is in the Philippines.
SENATOR WALSH
I thought he was home. Haven’t they got their Independence yet?
MR. MOSES
No, Mr. Coolidge wouldn’t give it to them.
SENATOR WALSH
What’s the matter? Have they struck oil, too?
MR. MOSES
No, Mr. Coolidge told them that a Nation that would not support Wood’s
Administration certainly would not be able to support one of their own.
SENATOR HEFLIN
Well, how did America get Independence? They didn’t support Wood.
SENATOR REED
Who said we had any independence?
SENATOR LODGE
(The Confucius of Nahant)
I object to having the President of these United States’ name dragged
into this thing. I think when a Man occupies the exalted position that
he does that his name should not be degraded by having it mentioned in
The Senate. Now I know that he is doing the best he can. I have known
him ever since he got prominent enough for me to know. In the eight
months that I have known him, I have found him to be patient, honest,
and a Man who would not knowingly rob a single Filipino of his Liberty.
This is simply a Political trick to drag his name into this Philippine
muddle.
SENATOR HEFLIN
Yes but he sent the Filipinos the Wire didn’t he! And it’s wires that
we are here to investigate ain’t it?
SENATOR HARRISON
Does the exalted Senator from Massachusetts recall that during the
late Democratic Administration, he himself during the talk on European
Affairs mentioned not only once, but twice, the name of the then
President, Mr. Wilson? Now he don’t want us to mention his President.
SENATOR HEFLIN
Well it’s funny to me that a Country can’t get their Liberty, when
they have advanced far enough to have the Champion Bantamweight Prize
Fighter of the World. I know Countries that have their Liberty, when
they can’t even produce a good Golf Player and that’s the lowest form
of Civilization.
SENATOR CARAWAY
I would like to ask Mr. Lodge if he knows who Peaches is.
SENATOR LODGE
I do not. It’s the only subject I ever admitted being ignorant on.
SENATOR ROBINSON
Well, I want to know who Prunes IS.
SENATOR LODGE
You mean who Prunes AM, don’t you?
SENATOR ROBINSON
Darn it; that man is a bear on Grammar.
SENATOR WALSH
I think the committee should adjourn until we can get Mr. Wood himself.
DOORMAN
Excuse me, Mr. Walsh, but there is a Gentleman out here who wants to
testify in regard to the Doheny and Sinclair leases. What can I tell
him?
SENATOR WALSH
Oh, yes, I had forgotten about those. Tell him as soon as we get this
Wood for President affair settled, and Jack Dempsey’s mysterious
sickness, and Babe Ruth’s collapse, that we will be able to get to that
Oil Lease thing again.
SENATOR COPELAND
Mr. Walsh, I was in New York last night and I heard Mr. Vanderlip make
a Speech to the Rotary Club of Coney Island, and he said, “I have it
on absolutely reliable authority that George Washington never crossed
the Delaware. That fellow you see in the Picture in the middle of the
Boat was a fellow doubling for him, and if I am called I will be glad
to give this information that I possess to the Senate Investigating
Committee.”
SENATOR WALSH
Mr. Secretary, call Mr. Vanderlip at once.
MR. LENROOT
Let’s not call him until tomorrow, Mr. Walsh, as he will make another
speech tonight perhaps on what he discovered about Lincoln. So we can
quiz him on both men at once.
MR. CARAWAY
Well, before we adjourn, I want to know who Peaches is.
MR. ROBINSON
Well, I want to know who Prunes WERE.
POLITICS GETTING READY TO JELL
POLITICS GETTING READY TO JELL
The _Illiterate Digest_, after reviewing the news, finds that Politics
is sure at the point when it is about to jell. My old friend Jim Reed
from the smelly banks of the Kaw River has broke out again. If you have
done anything against the welfare or conventions of the United States,
and everybody has passed their various opinions on you, and you think
you have been roasted to a dark bay, why, until Jim Reed breaks out on
you, you haven’t been called anything.
Well, it was kinder funny Jim was to make a Washington Day speech.
Naturally everyone supposed it to be on George Washington, but it was
the only speech ever made on Washington’s Birthday that didn’t have a
word about Washington. He didn’t even mention his name. I don’t know
that McAdoo, Denby, Daugherty, Doheny, and others will consider it much
Flattery, but it will go down in History as being the only time they
ever replaced Washington.
Reed wouldn’t have been any good making a speech on Washington,
anyway. He would have been expected to compliment him and I doubt if
he could think of anything George had ever done that really was worth
while.
Vanderlip made a speech at the Rotary Club of Ossining, New York, that
astonished the United States. Now that speech didn’t astonish me near
as much as the knowledge that Ossining _had_ a Rotary Club. For the
sake of the unfingerprinted ones, I will state that Ossining is the
Town where Sing Sing is permanently located. Now if Ossining has a
Rotary Club they certainly had to take in some Lay Members from this
Musically named Institution.
But when you come to think of it, just think what a Distinguished
Rotary Club they could have at that. Rotary is composed of one of the
best of each line of work or business. Just think what a competitive
thing it would be trying to find in Ossining the leading Burglar
sojourning with them at the time, or the most representative Pickpocket
to represent them in the Club. And Bankers! Mr. Vanderlip must have
felt right at home up there. There are more Bankers in Ossining than
any Town of its size in the United States.
A two year residence is necessary to be able to join the Rotary. Can
you imagine them questioning members of Sing Sing, “Have you been a
resident of this Town for two years?” and the answer would be, “Yes
Sir, constantly.”
So, as I say, it was not the things Mr. Vanderlip said that attracted
the unusual attention. It was the distinguished audience that he
delivered it to. Just to show you the difference: Appearing before the
Rotary Club of Sing Sing he caused a commotion by his Speech. He took
the same Act down to Washington and nobody would listen to him. It
shows you have to have an intelligent audience. Up in Sing Sing they
got what he was talking about but down in Washington it went right over
their heads.
I know, for last winter while playing in New York I was asked to go
over to a big Charity affair given by the 400 of 5th Avenue. I thought
I had a pretty good line of Gags, as there was quite a lot happening
every day of Public interest. So I go over and start in telling them
what I had read in the Papers and nobody even cracked a smile, much
less laughed. So I just kept on trying remarks on every subject that
had been in the papers since Bryan last got a Hair cut. But it was
about one of the worst Flops I ever encountered, and I have had some
beauts in my time.
Well, of course, I felt terrible about it, so just by a coincidence on
the very next night I had promised to go up to Ossining and do an act
for (at that time it wasn’t called the Rotary Club). I think then they
called it Inmates. There was no show--just me alone went up to add to
the hardships of Prison Life. Well I never knew I had as many friends
in the World. I knew everybody up there. I was twice as much at home as
I had been on 5th Avenue the night before. So now I know why Vanderlip
picked out Ossining for his Annual February Oration.
I started in on those same Jokes on up-to-date things that had flopped
so completely at the Millionaire’s Charity affair. Why, say, they just
started right in dying laughing at them. I was sorry Ziegfeld wasn’t
there, as I would have got a raise in salary if he had heard how my act
went. I don’t care what I talked about they knew all about it.
Ordinarily, I only do about 15 or 20 minutes but up there I did an
Hour and a Quarter. I was so tickled I offered to take all the whole
audience of 12 hundred down to the Follies and pay their way in to
see our Show. Now you know I must feel pretty good with myself, when
I offer to spend my Dough like that. A lot of people would be kinder
sore at the 400 because they didn’t laugh like these 12 hundred did,
but I am not. I don’t blame them. If I had their money I wouldn’t read
either. So I can understand very readily why Vanderlip’s act didn’t go
so big in Washington as it did in Ossining.
Of course Van and I use just the opposite methods in our Stage
performances. Every Gag I tell must be based on truth. No matter how
much I may exaggerate it, it must have a certain amount of Truth.
Vanderlip bases his Gags on Rumor.
Now Rumor travels Faster, but it don’t stay put as long as Truth.
I will, however, give him credit for one thing. While here lately
everybody is telling what he has heard, and all about this and that
rumor, why, he thought of by far the best ones I have heard up to now.
That’s no small accomplishment I tell you, in this year of Rumors, to
be able to say at the end of it: “Well, I told the best ones.”
His were so good that before his audience got through applauding
at Sing Sing (or rather Ossining) why, they had him on the stand at
Washington. That’s the first time a Theatrical troup ever jumped from
Ossining to Washington.
They even put him on ahead of Fall, Sinclair, and all the Headliners.
TWO LONG LOST FRIENDS FOUND AT LAST
[Illustration: THEY REHEARSED THEIR OLD ACT HERE YESTERDAY.]
TWO LONG LOST FRIENDS FOUND AT LAST
Well, sir, I have a real Message for my readers. It looked like it
would be just the ordinary Article with no flavor or Backbone or Truth,
and with no real underlying news or wisdom, that is, nothing that the
people would be glad to know and read. As I say, that is the kind of
Article I thought it would be. But as I picked up the morning Papers,
why, I read who was in our midst out here in Sunny California. Well,
sir, it struck me like a thunderbolt here was news which my public had
been longing for for years and here I had found it out!
Well, I says to myself, this is too good to keep, for here people had
been wondering all this time for just what I knew now. I kinder hated
to leave the East on account of thinking I would be out of touch with
some of our National Characters but I find that sooner or later they
all arrive out here and start in fighting off Real Estate men the same
as shooing away Mosquitoes on Long Island.
Well, who should blow in but two of our old long-lost friends, and I
know that even ’Frisco (who is jealous of any one being here) will be
glad to hear they are here well and hearty, and rehearsed their old Act
here yesterday and people enjoyed them just as much as they did in the
old days.
Both of these Boys were on the big time and were well known all around
the Circuit, and any time they took the Platform standing by the side
of a Pitcher of ice water and a glass, why, it just meant 6 columns
starting on the front page and ending among the want ads. I bet you
hadn’t heard of them in years and will thank me for resurrecting this
information for you.
I can’t keep it any longer. I did want to keep it till the finish of
this to tell you but I must tell you now who they are--William J. Bryan
and Billy Sunday!
Neither did I, but _they are_, and looking fine.
You know, if you have lost any one, look out here, because sooner or
later they will come here to visit relatives, for anybody that has
relatives comes here so he can write back to other relatives.
They are both just resting here (so is everybody else). Mr. Bryan is
waiting till he finds out where the next Democratic Convention will
be held, and then be there ready to knock any aspiring Presidential
Candidate on the head the minute it shows above the mob.
The only way they will ever fool W. J. is some presidential year decide
not to run any one. Then it will be a good joke on him; he will have no
one to object to.
Of course, now we don’t hear much of Democratic Candidates, as both
sides are busy watching to see what Cal. will do. When he first become
President there seemed to be quite a Sentiment to nominate him again
for Vice President.
Everybody was wondering how he would come out of the Coal strike
situation, and figured his political life or death depended on how he
decided, so he just fools everybody by appointing some other man to
settle it. Now, no other President had ever been smart enough to think
of a thing like that; they tried to do it themselves, so I think he
will go a long ways. He figured, why should I get in wrong when I can
get some man to do it for me, so he just looked around until he found
some other fellow who had a political future.
He said, “Gifford, you go get in wrong with which ever side you decide
against.” Now, the minute a Crisis comes up, all he has to do is to
remember some Republican name and appoint him to settle it for him.
Now the only Crisis that Mr. Coolidge can possibly get into, himself,
is running out of Republicans to appoint. In that case he would have to
appoint a Democrat which would bring on a worse Crisis than the one he
appointed him to settle.
But I am not here to talk about Cal. and what he is doing. I am here
to tell you of these two long lost Prodigals that I discovered in the
wilds of this Village. They were preaching in a Pulpit. I guess that’s
why no one had seen them for so long. Both these Boys, in the good old
days used to talk in a Tent. Now you can always attract a crowd in a
Tent, for they figure that it might be a Circus. Come to think of it,
their Acts were similar; either one of them could take a Dictionary and
sink an enemy with words at 40 paces.
Bryan’s speeches have been the only thing to look forward to at
a Democratic Convention for years. He has sent more Presidential
Candidates home without a Reception Committee meeting them than any
Monologist living. He can take a batch of words and scramble them
together and leaven them properly with a hunk of Oratory and knock the
White House door knob right out of a Candidate’s hand.
Bryan has made more Political speeches than Germany has Marks. He
kissed, when they were Babies, every man and woman in the United States
who is now up to the age of 45. He has juggled the destinies of America
more than any two Presidents because he has the choosing or rejecting
of them.
His career has varied from Non-intoxication to Evolution; his hobbies
have jumped from Grape juice to Monkeys. He tries to prove that we did
not descend from the Monkey, but he unfortunately picked a time when
the actions of our people prove that we did. He, undoubtedly, is one of
our greatest minds and in most of his Theories he has been just too far
ahead of the mob.
He preached Prohibition at a time when it meant Political Suicide for
himself. I bet the next Democratic Candidate for President, no matter
how strong he may think he is, would rather have the support of W. J.
Bryan than any doubtful State in the Union.
Now that brings to us his accomplice, Willie Sunday, who I discovered
staggering from one of our Local Pulpits last Sunday. To some of you
who can’t or don’t wish to remember, Billy passed out just as Andy
Volstead made his entrance. Now Barnum invented the Tent, but Billy
Sunday filled it. He can get more people into a tent than an Iowa
Picnic at Long Beach, California.
He is the only man in Ecclesiastical or Biblical history that ever
had to train physically, for a sermon. He brought more converts to
Prohibition before the 18th Amendment come in, than the 18th Amendment
has converted to Prohibition since it went in.
He is the first preacher to specialize on Liquor. While Bryan’s
oratorical wrath in the later years has been hurled at Darwin, Billy
Sunday picks his opponent with a carelessness that is almost reckless.
I suppose that he has had more mortal worldly combats with the Devil
himself than any man living. He has challenged the Devil publicly more
times than Wills, the Negro, has Jack Dempsey. People have been going
for years to hear Billy, just figuring that if they didn’t go that
night it might be the very night the Devil would hear what Billy was
calling him and come up, and they might miss what would happen.
I don’t know this Devil myself but if he heard Billy say these things
and didn’t come up and call him for it, I think less of him than Billy
does. Of course, the Devil may be just good natured, and figure, well,
he can’t hurt _ME_, and if he can get anything out of it why let him go
ahead.
Now, of course, you can get a fellow wrong. Billy used to lay all the
drinking on to this Devil, and claimed that if we had Prohibition we
could lick this Devil. Now we got Prohibition, I don’t think he can
legitimately lay the present drinking onto the Devil.
Course, from this I don’t want you to think I am taking sides in this
thing. I don’t know either one personally. But, as I say, there is a
chance that they both may have each other wrong. As I say, Billy must
have something on the Devil or he wouldn’t dare to call him what he
does, especially if the Devil can hear him, and I tell you the Devil
must be pretty low if he don’t answer him, that is, if he hears him.
I have always figured that the reason that the Devil didn’t arise and
respond was Billy’s slang was too much for him. But Billy sure did do
a lot of good in the old days, and no matter if you didn’t like his
style of sermon, you sure didn’t get a chance to do any sleeping.
So I hope we can keep them both out here with us, and help to get some
of our population’s mind on the Church on Sunday instead of being
continually looking for lots.
THEY NOMINATED EVERYBODY BUT THE FOUR HORSEMEN
[Illustration: “YOU WASN’T HERE AND YOU KNOW THEM AS WELL AS I DO.”]
THEY NOMINATED EVERYBODY BUT THE FOUR HORSEMEN
As I pen you these few lines, the Democratic National Convention is
still going on; going on to where, nobody knows. But it has to end some
time for even a Delegate can only stand just so much Oratory.
All the first week was taken up with seconding the nomination of McAdoo
and Al Smith.
It looked like they were going to run out of people to do it, and they
would have to second each other.
I wish you could have been there and heard what great men we have in
this Country. We started out with 16 men for President. Here is what
each one of them was.--“The only Man who can carry the Democratic
Party to a Glorious Victory in November. Whose every act has been an
inspiration to his fellow men. Not only loved in his Home State but in
every State.” Well, there was six continuous days of that.
Then the Ku Klux Klan argument come along, and really it was welcome
even in New York. Just to get people’s mind off that continuous, “The
Man I am about to name to you.”
One day and up to two thirty in the Night they fought and argued the
Klan. It was the most exciting and Dramatic night I ever saw in my life.
After 11 hundred Delegates voted and recounted and voted the thing
stood only about one vote apart, in fact a fraction of a vote, due to
North Carolina, instead of having an election and naming 24 Delegates,
just letting the whole State come as Delegates and giving each one the
usual Volstead Ratio, Half of one percent of a Vote.
Alaska voted one Klu Klux away up there. Can you imagine a man in all
that Snow and Cold with nothing on but a thin white Sheet and Pillow
Slip?
My old Friend W. J. Bryan made one of his characteristic speeches. He
said that if they split the Democratic Party with this Klan issue that
another great Party would arise to take its place. Some guy up in the
Gallery started Booing him. He just stopped and waited a minute until
the heckler quit, then he said: “But no great leader of any Party has
ever come from the Gallery.” After that they laid off him.
Ex-Secretary of War Baker made a Speech on the League of Nations and
spoke of the 4 Horsemen of the Apocalypse, meaning I suppose, Borah, La
Follette, Johnson and Brookhart.
I arrived late one morning, well only about 15 minutes late, and they
had nominated five men for president already. I asked a Man in the
Press stand who they were and he said, “You wasn’t here and you know
them as well as I do.”
I had a friend who wanted to be nominated but all the nominating
speakers were so given out that he had to let it go until next
Election, that is in case they ever have another one.
If the one who is nominated can only swing the votes of the ones who
were defeated he will give Mr. Coolidge a tight race.
Talk about Presidential Timber. Why, man, they had whole Lumber yards
of it here.
There was so many being Nominated that some of the Men making the
nominating Speeches had never even met the man they were nominating.
I know they had not from the way they talked about them.
Every time the speaker nominated somebody, why the Band would strike
up what they thought was an appropriate tune. The bird nominated Gov.
Brown of New Hampshire kept talking and referring to “The Old Granite
State. That Glorious old Granite State.” When he finished the Band
played “Rock of Ages”. There was granite for you.
They nominated from a list of all Democrats. They drew them out the
night before the convention.
Some Man named Stuart from Illinois got up to nominate somebody, and we
knew we would hear something about Lincoln being born in Illinois, and
sure enough we did. He kept quoting Lincoln’s famous remark about, “God
must have loved the common people because he made so many of them.”
Well this Bird kept talking about his man being for the common people,
and he flopped terribly. You are not going to get people’s votes
nowadays by calling them common. Lincoln might have said it but I bet
you it was not until after he was elected.
The fellow that nominated Charley Bryan from Nebraska was the only
truthful one. He said, “I am going to nominate a Politician,” You know
nobody at these things dare mention Politician. Matchless leader or
successor to Jefferson are about as low as they ever mention. This
fellow told how Bryan had lowered the price of Gasoline in Nebraska.
And a crowd of people was seen to leave the hall. I think it was John
D. Rockefeller and his Bible Class.
In the Charley Bryan demonstration staged by Nebraska, Florida joined
in out of brotherly love.
When Bryan was presented the Band played “Way down Yonder in the Corn
Field.”
When Jimmy Cox was Nominated the band played, “Should Old Acquaintance
Be Forgot.” Jimmy Cox is a mighty fine man, But I don’t know of any
quicker way in the World to be forgotten in this Country than to be
defeated for President. A Man can leave the Country and people will
always remember that he went some place. But if he is defeated for
President they can’t remember that he ever did anything.
Smith’s Demonstration lasted one hour and a Half. McAdoo’s almost as
long. But most of them just managed to last through a verse and one
chorus by the Band.
Matthews of New Jersey nominated Gov. Silzer also of New Jersey. He
made a plea for him on the ground that he came from the same state that
President Wilson did. That don’t mean anything. Look I come from the
same state that Harry Sinclair did. Yet I couldn’t find an Oil Well
without a search warrant.
His principal plea for Silzer was on the Highways of New Jersey. So if
people west of the Mississippi and down south want a President who will
keep the Roads of New Jersey up in good shape you can’t do better than
have him.
A guy from Utah talked so long and loud that all of us couldn’t see how
it could be anybody in the world he was nominating but Brigham Young
that Matchless Father. But at the finish he crossed by saying he was
seconding McAdoo’s nomination.
You could never tell until one got through who he was going to name.
They would pull the name last. That would be the only surprise they had.
Quinn of Minnesota throwed the biggest scare into the Convention. He
praised his man so high that everybody in the hall knew it couldn’t be
anybody but La Follette but he fooled us all by seconding Smith. In his
talk he never spoke of anything east of St. Paul and in Smith’s travels
he has never been west of Syracuse. So you see for yourself how hard it
was to follow who they were going to name.
IN THE MIDST OF A 7 YEAR HITCH
[Illustration: WELL, I GUESS YOU HEARD ABOUT MY PRESIDENTIAL BOOM.]
IN THE MIDST OF A 7 YEAR HITCH
Well, I guess you heard about my Presidential Boom. You know every
calamity in the World befell the Democrats while they were here in
session the last couple of years. First they started in nominating.
The entire first week was taken up with that. They nominated so many
Democrats that if it had kept up another day they would have had to
go over into the Republican Column. They talked their Delegates and
audience to death the first week. No wonder they couldn’t agree there
was no two Delegates that could remember the same Candidate.
Well, it ran along week after week and the longer it ran the more
confused the Delegates got. They began to get this Convention mixed up
with the San Francisco one, because it had been so long since they left
home, why, both Conventions seemed about the same distance off. One
Delegation got to voting for Cox thinking it was ’Frisco. The Chairman
had no more than got that straightened out and explained to them that
this was an entirely different year when what does my Native State of
Oklahoma do! They woke up the Chairman of their Delegation right quick
one day to answer Roll Call and he blurts out, “Oklahoma votes 20 for
Robert L. Owen.” Well, the chairman had to explain to them that this
was not 1920, and that Mr. Owen was not a Candidate, he was only a
Delegate. The Missouri Delegation, when they could not get any two to
agree, voted for two days for Champ Clark, until Telegrams commenced to
pour in telling them of his demise.
Nebraska voted for Bryan, and got sore when the rest of the Convention
thought it was W. J. They said it was a Son or a Brother or something
of his. Mississippi and Louisiana started voting for my old friend Pat
Harrison and Pat’s Bottle run out, and they found an old Hoffman House
Hotel Register, and from that on they just voted for the names on it.
Alabama was the only State that you could absolutely depend on. It
seems that years ago Alabama sent a Delegation to some Convention
instructed for a Candidate and that when they got there they sold out
and voted for another. So they have passed a Law that any time they
send a troup away again that they were going to vote for the man they
told them to until the Candidate’s body had been duly pronounced dead
by the Home Coroner. Well, that knocked any chance of profit out of
this trip as far as Alabama was concerned.
La Follette, out in Cleveland, wrote a Platform, held a Convention,
nominated himself, and went home. All this happened during the time
they were polling the Illinois Delegation here at this Convention.
Women Delegates started in with Bobbed Hair and wound up by being
able to sit on it. One Woman sent back home for her washing machine.
The Arkansas Delegation started in whittling up the Board floor and
whittled their way from the Back of the Hall up to the Speaker’s
Platform. There was so many shavings under their Chairs that if a fire
had ever broken out in the building, between these shavings and the
long Whiskers, why, there would never in the World have been a way to
stop it. There was one old long bearded Man from Utah, that when the
voting on the Klan got close shook 4 Delegates with half a vote each
out from under his Whiskers and decided the issue right there.
All the members of the National Committees had Gold Badges to start in
with. The thing had only gone along a few weeks when they commenced to
turn green and finally you couldn’t tell whether it was a Badge or a
Shamrock.
It’s too bad because all the Delegates here will lose their votes when
they go home this Fall. The law plainly states that you must have
been a resident of the State for the last 6 months. If they were not
thoughtful to register when they come to New York, they will lose their
votes entirely.
Lots of the Delegates also had Wives who were Delegates, and this has
been the longest time they ever spent together in their lives. I bet
you will never see another Man go on a Delegation to a Democratic
Convention when his Wife is on one. South Carolina has no Divorces, so
of course this Convention gave all their members a chance to get out of
the State, claim a residence of 6 months, and be divorced before they
get home.
Now, mind you, as I pen these lines this thing is still going on.
It’s Monday morning of the third week. I don’t know now who they will
nominate. In fact people have lost interest. If they ever do nominate
somebody some of the Papers may carry it and you may know it by
the time you read this, but I doubt if he will even be nominated by
then. If he is, it will be too late to get his name on the Ballot
by November, as the racing Forms have already gone to press for the
November Classic. I am certainly glad that La Follette entered. That
will give Coolidge somebody to run against, anyway.
[Illustration: THE DEATHS FROM OLD AGE AMONG THE DELEGATES IS ABOUT
OFFSET BY THE BIRTHRATE.]
If they don’t hurry up they will be the only Party in the World that
ever nominated a Candidate and got him defeated on the same day.
In number of Population the Convention is holding its own. The deaths
from old age among the Delegates is about offset by the Birthrate.
Personally I think that the Candidates who will finally be nominated
will be born in this Convention.
I have been writing a daily account for the Papers for this seven
years’ Hitch. I took it for so much for the job. If I had signed by the
word I would be able now to walk by and hiss Rockefeller.
In 1860, the Almanac says, a Democratic Convention was moved from
Charleston to Baltimore. There is nobody here in this Convention to
verify it, so I doubt if it ever happened. But, anyway, they talked
for two Days about moving this one, on account of it being held here
in New York where one of the Candidates lives. Well, they got to
figuring and there was no Town they could take it to that didn’t have a
Candidate who lived there.
Of course their thoughts naturally turned to Claremore, Oklahoma, the
best Town between Foyil and Catoosa in Oklahoma. Then when Arizona
showed such splendid judgment in putting me in nomination, why of
course we couldn’t go there on account of the Galleries there being
biased in favor of my nomination. Then they figured they might just as
well stay here. Everybody had got used to the place, and if they moved
them they would just have to get used to sleeping in strange chairs
again, and maybe by a different seating arrangement they might be
sleeping next to some one they didn’t even know. It meant really a lot
of trouble, anyway, opening up new credit accounts and getting used to
a different Climate.
I want the Democrats to just pass this election by without getting beat
and then center all their forces on 1928. Cal. will be ineligible then,
unless they may pass a Constitutional amendment to elect a President
for life--and he is so lucky they are just liable to do it. But if he
is out, the Republicans will have to get a new man too. Then it will be
an even break.
But go ahead with this Convention and pick him now. In fact I would
pick out three or four to run in rotation in 1928, ’32, ’36, and so on,
because you will never get Democratic Delegates to give up the best
part of their lives by attending another one of these things. If they
are wise today down there they will pick Jackie Coogan, for President
and Baby Peggy for Vice President.
“WILL ROGERS JR.” REPORTS THE CONVENTION FOR HIS FATHER, WORN OUT BY
LONG SERVICE
(_Mr. Rogers’ articles on the Convention attracted more attention than
perhaps any other humorous political articles. This one, in particular,
brought him comments from all over the country._--THE PUBLISHERS.)
“WILL ROGERS JR.” REPORTS THE CONVENTION FOR HIS FATHER, WORN OUT BY
LONG SERVICE
Will Rogers Jr. attended the convention to take up the duties of
reporter to replace his venerable old father.
By WILL ROGERS JR.
Papa called us all in last night and made his last will and testament,
he called it. He said he had carried his work on just as long as he
could and he realized that he was unable, on account of his old age,
to go further with it. He put in the will that I being the oldest was
to take up his life’s work, that of reporting the Democratic National
Convention.
He herded us all and told us of how he had given all the best years
of his life to this and out of respect to his name and memory that we
children should carry on. And that our children were to do likewise and
that we should raise them to always know that their mission through
life would be to keep reporting the progress of the Democratic
National Convention at New York. And it was in the will that if we
didn’t we would forfeit any claim to any royalties that might still
be coming due from books that he had written on the early life of the
convention.
Mama wants to send him to the Old Men and Old Women’s Home for
Survivors of this Convention, but he won’t go. Poor Mama is worried
about him. He won’t talk rational. He just keeps saying, “Alabama” and
“for what purpose does the gentleman arise,” and “if we can’t elect
our candidate we will see that you don’t get yours” and “unfit” and
“release.” We don’t know what it all means.
Now, Mr. Editor, I am only a little boy and I am not much of a
reporter, but Papa told us we didn’t have to be very good; that all we
must practice was endurance. But you will, Mr. Editor, please take my
story, won’t you for Mama’s sake, for she knew how poor Papa hated to
give up and how proud he will be if I can only keep his life’s work
going?
Mama got our Dad’s old press badge and patched it up so it would stick
together and I went down today. The hall was full of all those feeble
people and it looked kinder like a church; everybody was sleeping. All
but one man, who was standing and reading aloud out of a geography the
names of States that are situated in the Western Hemisphere and that
don’t belong to Canada.
Papa had given me an old worn and torn paper with a list on it that he
had used to mark off the numbers on when this convention started. He
told me to always keep it for comparisons. Also that a museum had tried
to buy it from him. I go to school and our teacher had told us what
a wonderful country this is we live in, and how it had stuck so well
together and, sure enough, when this man kept reading these names and
figures, why, on Dad’s old paper were a lot of the same ones.
I kept waiting for him to call out the name “Wisconsin” that Dad had,
but this fellow didn’t have it on his, and according to Dad’s old paper
we at that time had California and anybody knows that Japan has owned
California for years. On Dad’s old paper they still had the Philippine
Islands, which is now Japan’s Naval Base. But as for the candidates,
the names were just the same. None of them had dropped out. Their
sons were carrying on their father’s life work too, trying to hold
what votes they had. Saulsbury Jr. had six. Underwood Jr. had a few
more than what was on Dad’s paper, as the State of Alabama had more
population and had naturally increased its number of delegates.
An old man sat by me and I got to talking to him and he seemed to want
to be friendly and talk of his early life. He said his name was Coogan.
“Jackie Coogan,” I think he said, and that he used to be in some old
fashioned things called moving pictures, and that he could remember as
a child when this started that men used to be wakened up and have to
call out the numbers when their States were called. But now they have
little phonographs and every time a State is called, why the phonograph
says “Two and nine eighths for Smith Jr. and one and sixty-five fifths
for McAdoo Jr.” and so on.
A man has a hammer and he couldn’t keep them awake with it any longer
so they adjourned, and the attendants wheeled them all out. It was only
about three o’clock in the afternoon and they were to be back again at
nine. I went home to tell Pop what had happened and to write my story.
He said, “It’s looking better, son; they are adjourning earlier and
starting later. Maybe the miracle will happen,” and his old eyes began
to gleam as he seemed to vision the end of his glorious dream.
Then I told him very enthusiastically, “Oh, yes, Pop, it looks great
because a man with a family name of Brennan got up, and one named
Cramer, and said they would adjourn and hold a conference of leaders
and would have something to report by tonight.”
Well, I wish you could have seen my poor old Dad. He went into spasms.
He pulled his hair. He raved. None of us could do anything with him. He
had been all right before I had mentioned this leader and conference
business. He then said:
“Son, those same men’s fathers started holding those conferences
forty years ago. Going to report something to the convention tonight?
That is exactly what is the matter with this convention now, it’s
those conferences. If they had let the delegates confer instead of
the leaders, why, your poor old father could have spent a life of
usefulness instead of one listening to a man read off numbers, which we
all knew better than he did.
“Son, if it’s the Taggarts and Rockwells and Macks and Cramers and all
of them that are conferring, you will die, like your poor old father,
right at your post, listening for something to happen.”
So please, Mr. Editor, take this story, and tomorrow, when I come home
to dear old Dad, I will make him feel good. I won’t tell him they are
going to hold another conference.
ROPING A CRITIC
ROPING A CRITIC
Prologue--These critics have been interviewing Actors (and us other
people that appear on the stage) for years. And none of the interviews
have ever been right, cause they never told the truth. Course they
couldn’t tell the truth about a lot of us, if they had he would have
put us out of business. But they tried to be so kind to us and tell all
the noble deeds that at the finish we had lost more friends than we had
gained by the interview.
Now there is nothing interesting in an Actor but his act and you can
get it at the box office price. This season you won’t even have to form
in line. If you can get a party of three to go with you you can get a
rate.
But I figured there was something interesting about a Critic. Why,
there are scientists that spend a life time studying a Toad.
Now, I might not find out as much as these Toad experts but I am going
to look one of these Critics over at short range for about an hour--as
Actors have got plenty of time--we are not bowing much nowadays.
So I picked out the Male of the Species as they are not as venomous as
the females. I picked out Ashton Stevens, principally on account of him
being frail of statue and because I had seen his name one time on an
Ash Can for endorsing a Wintergarden Show.
Act I. DRESSING ROOM COLONIAL THEATER.--Enter Stevens made up as
Critic. Gray suit, leather buttons, Black Felt Hat on upside down (same
one Dick Little used to wear), middle finger of each hand calloused
from knocking Actors. Smoking Pipe which is against all Theater rules,
but on account of being critic managers can’t say anything. The smoking
really wasn’t as bad as the Tobacco.
I started in to interview him and he started in like an Actor by lying.
So I stopped him right there and said: “Say, this is not a theatrical
interview. I am representing the Public and I want the real dope on
Critics.”
Q--Where were you born? Even a Critic has to be born.
A--I was born in San Francisco in 18--.
Q--Never mind when you were born--the reading public can tell by your
jokes how old you are. Why were you born?
A--No answer.
Q--Well, if you can’t think of a reason neither can I, so we will let
that question go. Did Frisco ever find out that you were born there?
A--Yes.
Q--Is that why you left there?
A--No answer.
Q--When did you first show symptoms of becoming a Critic?
A--When I had lost my job at everything else.
Q--Didn’t you tell your folks and didn’t they have anything done for
you to cure this?
A--I was afraid to tell them.
Q--Who gave you your first job Criticing?
A--William Randolph Hearst.
Q--Why did he give it to you?
A--He heard me play the Banjo.
Q--He heard you play the Banjo and gave you a job as a Critic. I
suppose if he saw me throw a rope he would make me a Society Editor?
A--Oh, but it is not for my Banjoing that he keeps me now, its for my
writings.
Q--Oh, he has forgot that you taught him to play the Banjo--that’s why
you still work for him?
A--No, its my writings. You see he took me from Frisco to New York and
put me on the New York Journal.
Q--Now you say he took you there as Critic. Don’t you really think he
might have been getting a little rusty on the Banjo and needed it tuned?
A--No, I stayed there 4 years.
Q--What happened at the end of 4 years, did you all run out of Tunes,
or did you break the Banjo or what?
A--No; then he promoted me to Chicago.
Q--You felt that you had taught him all you knew. Did you bring the
Banjo out here with you?
A--Oh, yes I have it; I will bring it over now and Show you how I play.
Q--Never mind bringing it over now or any other time. We will drop the
Banjo until some time you feel you want a change of jobs. You can take
it over to Medill McCormicks and teach him. He could at least amuse the
other Senators with it and perhaps make you Editor of the Tribune. Now
to get back to Criticing. What makes a Dramatic Critic?
A--Two Free Seats a Night on the Isle.
Q--Is it true that it is the only business in the World with absolutely
no qualifications?
A--Yes; next to being a comedian with a Ziegfeld Show its the only
thing that requires no training.
Q--Is it true that Dyspepsia is necessary to being a Critic?
A--Yes; its more prevalent now since the Movies come in.
Q--Don’t you think that Prohibition has lowered the Standard of
Dramatic Criticism?
A--Yes; among those that didn’t look ahead and supply, I think that to
be true.
Q--They still train on Scotch, don’t they?
A--Well, they are not as well trained as they used to be.
Q--Don’t you find a great many people that think they are Critics?
A--Yes, but I find very few that get paid for it.
Q--Do you believe in constructive Criticism?
A--No; I believe in entertaining Criticism.
Q--Do you get many letters kicking on your opinion?
A--Oh, yes; quite a few.
Q--In that way you can tell just how many read it, can’t you? I read
where three out of four of every newspaper started failed. What
percentage of dramatic Criticisms do you think is responsible for this
failure?
A--I don’t know; I was never on a failing paper.
Q--That’s pretty good; that’s a Nifty. Now you Critics having never
tried it, you don’t realize just how hard it is to be an Actor?
A--Yes, the more plays we see the more we realize it.
Q--Now, you say you have worked for Mr. Hearst twenty-five years for
teaching him the Banjo. What instrument did Brisbane teach him and do
you think I could interest him in a Base Drum? I hammer a mean Blues on
one of those things.
A--You might snare him with that. It takes two heads to make a drum.
* * * * *
Now, Dear Readers--both of you--if this little interview has made you
feel more kindly toward the Dramatic Critics, and has brought their
overworked profession to the high standards to which I have tried to
honestly picture them, my work will not have been in vain.
“THE WORLD TOMORROW,” AFTER THE MANNER OF GREAT JOURNALISTS.
“THE WORLD TOMORROW,” AFTER THE MANNER OF GREAT JOURNALISTS.[B]
Now for the last few months I have been writing and I have become
ambitious and want to do “Bigger and Better things.” I realize that
my writings up to now have only appealed to the Morons. (That’s not
Mormon misspelled. It’s _Morons_, just as it’s spelled.) So I have been
a close Student and admirer of some of our great editorial writers and
I have tried to study their style and, beginning with this article, I
am changing my entire method of Literature and I hereby bid Adieu to
my Half-Wit Audience. (As a writer’s Writings never appeal to a higher
grade of intelligence than the Writer himself.) So, from now on, I am
going to give these learned and heavy thinkers a run for their Laurels.
I am out to make the front Page. My Column will be called The World
Tomorrow, not only commenting on the news of Today but predicting what
the morrow will bring forth.
A Race Horse, In Memorandum, beats the great Zev, the International
Favorite and My Own thrown in for good measure. That news will
perhaps interest 40 million Human Beings, and 2,000 Bookmakers,
while the news of the unearthing of a Prehistoric Skull at Santa
Barbara, California, linking us up with the Neanderthal Age will
only be appreciated by a small Majority of us thinking People. Some
anthropologists, however, consider the extinct Neanderthal Man as a
separate Species (Homo Neanderthalenis) intermediate between the Java
Man (or Pithecanthropus). According to Linneaus, Humanity comprises
four races: the Whites, having a light colored skin, belonging to the
Caucasian race; the Blacks, the completest possible negation of White;
the Republicans, form of genus Homo ape in his earliest Prehistoric
State; and, last of the four Races the Democrat. The Democrat doubtless
originated in the eastern Hemisphere. The main structural characters
distinguishing him are his gait, the modification of the feet for
walking instead of prehension, and the great Toe being non-opposable,
and, most of all, the enormous development of the brain, and smooth
rounded Skull.
But what cares the man of today for the Neanderthal Age! He is of the
Speculative Age. If he can get 10 Dollars down on the Nose of a winner
at about 15 to one, he don’t care if we descend from Goat or Ape.
As Demosthenes, the Great William Jennings Bryan of his time, so aptly
put it when he casually met Confucius, the originator of Mah-Jong
on Epsom Downs: “Good Afternoon, countryman, art thee risking a few
Shekels on thy favorite Crow Bait in this Race?” And Confucius pulled
the following Nifty which has been handed down through the Ages, and
made him the Philosopher or Shanghai:
“No, Demosthenes, Betting is a form of unintelligence. So long as we
have betting, we will know we have the ignorant with us.”
That little remark of Confucius was well said, and the fact that we had
40 million interested in the Race, and only a handful interested in the
Neanderthal Man, proves we have a long way to go yet until Civilization
is thoroughly reached.
* * * * *
The Crown Prince of Germany is to be allowed to return, proving that
War don’t pay. You only have to go back into History a short way to
the Trojan Wars. What happened to Priam the King of Troy when Prince
Paris his Heir and Son was born? Eros, Goddess of Discord, threw out
a Golden Apple to the most beautiful, and Juno, Minerva and Venus all
claimed it. Paris was to decide. He gave the Apple to Venus. Helen of
Troy, the most beautiful Woman in Sparta, got jealous of Paris and that
culminated in the War of Troy. Troy was besieged for 9 years. This
Trojan War alone should prove to the greedy Interests that War don’t
pay. And Sons born of Kings don’t pay. A law should be passed that all
offspring of Royal Birth should be of the feminine Gender.
* * * * *
An American army airman flies at the rate of 258 miles an hour. What
does this astounding feat mean to the World? What did Napoleon say at
Austerlitz in 1805, just after the battle of Ulm, and after the Old
Corsican had rushed his troops from Cologne? He said, “An army travels
on its Stomach.”
Look at the progress that has been made in the mode of Transportation
from the Napoleon days to this! I don’t know exactly how far a man
could travel in a day on his Stomach. If he had a good Stomach and
was an Apt Traveler he might make pretty good headway. There was no
way in reckoning speed in those days as there was no way of fixing a
speedometer on a Soldier’s Stomach, but if you take a Soldier going
away from the Enemy, and if his Stomach held out, he certainly ought to
have had the abdominal record of his time.
But has Congress heeded what the Airship is doing? No, they go ahead
building Battleships which will be as useless as a shipping board.
Transportation advances but our Lawmakers are still traveling on their
Stomach.
* * * * *
Lloyd George goes home to England after inviting us to join in the
Salvation of Europe. You have only to turn to Hugo’s Oration on
Voltaire to find out if we should meddle in the selfish affairs of
European Turmoil. Hugo said: “Before going further, let us come to an
understanding, Gentlemen, upon the word Abyss. There are good abysses:
such are the abysses in which evil is engulfed. Rabelais warned royalty
in Gargantua. Moliere warned the people at Tartuffe.” That proves right
there to any thinking person that we should not meddle in the affairs
of these envious Nations. The more Trouble you get them out of, the
more they get into. No, the time has come when this Country has got to
bank up our own fires for a cold morning. Just remember Cicero’s words
speaking at Glasgow in regard to America’s participation in the World’s
War: “La premiere femme du monde la tete montee en se couchant.” Those
who want to adjust Europe’s Carburetor should remember Horace Greeley’s
immortal Gag: “Go west, young man, _Not_ east.”
* * * * *
A Lady in Chicago is arrested for killing a casual acquaintance. That’s
news. If she had killed her Husband or Lover that would be commonplace.
But friends are seldom killed. What does the 8th chapter, second verse,
of the first Book of Matthew teach us? That verse should be enough to
teach us that friendship should be trusted. We will never have true
civilization until we have learned to recognize the rights of others.
* * * * *
Judge Gary, the head of the great Steel Corporation, eats only the
white of a soft boiled egg for breakfast. Which should be a lesson
to some of you who think you have to eat the whole egg to subsist.
We should look and learn from our Men who have Done Things. Read
Einstein’s Theory on what constitutes over-gorging. He says: “Light
rays, if obstructed, have an observed constant velocity irrespective of
the relative velocity between the observer.” That should show even the
ignorant when they have enough.
* * * * *
A little Girl in Brooklyn started to school and forgot her books and
had to go home for them. There you have a bit of news that is valuable.
We are at that age when we are rushing headlong and paying no attention
to small details. It’s only the big things of life that interest us.
For instance, the little Girl was only interested in getting to the
School, not in what she had when she got there. If we only stopped
to realize that it is really after all the little things that count,
why, we would be a wiser and more contented race. People that can’t
remember should remember what Socrates said to Plato on the subject of
forgetfulness. He said: “Where then I wonder shall we find Justice and
Injustice in it? With which have we contemplated? Has it simultaneously
made its entrance?”
* * * * *
A Professor of Columbia University won a prize by writing a Book in 15
hours. That’s a good thing. The quicker the Authors write them the
quicker they can get to some useful work. But if Pascal were on earth
today and heard of that feat he would say: “That’s fine, Professor, but
what did you do with the other 10 Hours?”
* * * * *
It takes two and a half Tons of Marks to buy a Stein of Beer in Berlin.
Before the War you could have bought two and a half Tons of Beer for a
Mark. What does Wall Street think of that? It shows you that selfish
Interests can’t rule the People, when they make up their mind to rebel.
* * * * *
P.S. You see I have an Encyclopedia, too.
FOOTNOTES:
[B] With apologies to Arthur Brisbane.
SETTLING THE AFFAIRS OF THE WORLD IN MY OWN WAY
[Illustration: “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.”]
SETTLING THE AFFAIRS OF THE WORLD IN MY OWN WAY
Well, they brought our Soldiers back from Germany. Would have brought
them back sooner but we didn’t have anybody in Washington who knew
where they were. We had to leave ’em over there so they could get the
Mail that was sent to them during the war. Had to leave ’em over there
anyway; two of them hadn’t married yet.
Since I wrote you last, an awful lot has happened at the Studio in
Washington, D. C. You know out where they make the Movies, the place we
make them is called the Studio. We are a great deal alike in lots of
respects. We make what we think will be two kinds of Pictures, Comedy
and Drama, or sad ones. Now you take the Capitol at Washington, that’s
the biggest Studio in the World. We call ours, Pictures, when they are
turned out. They call theirs Laws, or Bills. It’s all the same thing.
We often make what we think is Drama, but when it is shown it is
received by the audience as Comedy. So the uncertainty is about equal
both places.
The way to judge a good Comedy is by how long it will last and have
people talk about it. Now Congress has turned out some that have lived
for years and people are still laughing about them, and as for Sad
productions, they have turned out some that for sadness make “Over the
Hills” look like a roaring farce.
Girls win a little State Popularity Contest that is conducted by some
Newspaper; then they are put into the Movies to entertain 110 million
people who they never saw or know anything about. Now that’s the same
way with the Capitol Comedy Company of Washington. They win a State
Popularity Contest backed by a Newspaper and are sent to Washington to
turn out Laws for 110 million people they never saw.
They have what they call Congress, or the Lower House. That compares to
what we call the Scenario Department. That’s where somebody gets the
idea of what he thinks will make a good Comedy Bill or Law, and they
argue around and put it into shape.
Then it is passed along, printed, or shot, or Photographed, as we call
it; then it reaches the Senate or the Cutting and Titling Department.
Now, in our Movie Studios we have what we call Gag Men whose sole
business is to just furnish some little Gag, or Amendment as they call
it, which will get a laugh or perhaps change the whole thing around.
Now the Senate has what is considered the best and highest priced Gag
Men that can be collected anywhere. Why, they put in so many little
gags or amendments that the poor Author of the thing don’t know his own
story.
They consider if a man can sit there in the Studio in Washington and
just put in one funny amendment in each Bill, or production, that will
change it from what it originally meant, why, he is considered to have
earned his pay. Take for Instance the Prohibition Production that was
introduced in the Congress or Scenario Department as a Comedy.
Well, when it came up in the Senate, one of the Gag or Title Men says,
“I got an Idea; instead of this just being a joke, and doing away
with the Saloons and Bar Rooms, why I will put in a Title here that
will do away with everything.” So they sent around to all the Bars in
Washington and got a Quorum and released what was to be a harmless
little Comedy--made over into a Tragedy.
Then they put out a Production called the Non-Taxable Bond, or “Let the
Little Fellow Pay.” Well it had a certain Vogue for a while with the
Rich. But it flopped terribly in the cheaper priced Houses.
Another one they put out a lot of you will remember was called the
Income or Sur-Tax. It was released under the Title of, “Inherit your
money and your Sur-Tax is Lighter.”
The main Character in this one was a working man on salary, with no
Capital investment to fall back on, paying more on his income than
the fellow who has his original Capital and draws his money just from
interest. That Production has been hissed in some of the best houses.
They started to put on a Big one that everybody in America was looking
forward to and wanted them to produce called, “The Birth Of the Bonus,”
or “How Could You Forget so Soon!” But on account of Finances they
couldn’t produce that and the “Non-Taxable Bond Production” both, so
they let the Bonus one go.
They have been working on two dandies. One is called, “Refund, Refund,
I am always refunding You.” It’s principally for British Trade.
Then they got a Dandy Comedy; well, it’s really a serial as they put it
on every year. Everybody in the whole Studio is interested in it and
get a share of it. It’s really their yearly Bonus in addition to their
Salary. It’s called, “Rivers and Harbors,” or, “I’LL GET MINE.”
They got some of the funniest Scenes in there where they take 56
million Dollars of the People’s money and they promise to make a lot of
Streams wide enough to fish in. Now I saw a Pre-Release of it and here
are some of the Real Titles. In Virginia, their Gag Senator has thought
of a River called the MATTIPONI. In North Carolina, their Title writer,
Overman, thought of a name, the CONTENTNEA CREEK. But the funniest
Title in the whole Production is the CALOOSEHATCHIE, in Florida. It’s
located right in the fairway of a Golf Course and Congress must move it
or in two years it will be filled up with Golf Balls.
Then they have a scene applying for funds to dredge TOMBIGBEE CREEK,
and the BIG SUNFLOWER, in Mississippi. Well, that’s money well spent
to do that, as they may find some of the missing population.
And there’s the CLATSKANIE in Oregon. Now what I am wondering is how
our Navy is to make the Jump from the Harbor of Tombigbee to the
Docks in Oregon on the Clatskanie. Of course, that’s a different
appropriation or production, and will be arranged later.
Now I am off my Senators from Oklahoma, especially Robert Owen, who is
a part Cherokee Indian like myself (and as proud of it as I am). Now I
got names right there on my farm where I was born that are funny, too,
and Owen don’t do a thing to get me a Harbor on the VERDIGRIS river at
OOLAGAH in what used to be the District of COOWEESCOOWEE (before we
spoiled the best Territory in the World to make a State).
Right across the river from me lives JIM TICK-EATER. Now suppose a
foreign fleet should come up there. We can’t ask those Turtles and
Water Moccasins to move out without Government sanction. If they
haven’t got enough water in there to fill the harbor (we are only
18 miles from NOWATER, Oklahoma), why, we will have to ask all the
Neighbors to drain their Corn Liquor from their stills in there for a
couple of days. Then we could float the Leviathan.
Of course I don’t get anything done for my Harbor because my River
really _exists_.
Now, Folks, why patronise California-made Productions? The Capitol
Comedy Co. of Washington, D. C., have never had a failure. They are
every one, 100 percent funny, or 100 percent Sad.
They are making some changes in their cast down there and later I will
tell you about that. Also something about the Director.
So long, Folks, I will meet you at the Naval Manœuvers on CONTENTNEA
CREEK next year.
A SKINNY DAKOTA KID WHO MADE GOOD
A SKINNY DAKOTA KID WHO MADE GOOD
Out of the west came a little skinny runt kid, born out in the hills of
South Dakota. On Sundays the Cowpunchers and Ranchers would meet and
have Cow Pony races. On account of his being small he was lifted up and
a surcingle was strapped around over his legs and around the horse.
He was taken to the starting line on a straightaway and was “lapped
and tapped” off. He had the nerve and he seemed to have the head. So
they cut the surcingle and he got so he could sit up there on one of
those postage stamp things they call a Jockey’s saddle. He kept riding
around these little Country Shooting Gallery meets, and Merry-Go-Round
Gatherings, until he finally got good enough to go to a real race track
at New Orleans. There he saw more Horses in one race than he had ever
seen at one track before.
His first race he ran 2nd. Then he said to himself, “Why run second?
Why not run first?” And he did. They began to notice that this kid
really _savied_ a Horse. He spoke their language. Horses seemed to
know when the kid was up. He carried a Bat (Jockey’s term for a whip)
but he never seemed to use it. Other Jocks would come down the stretch
whipping a Horse out when the best he could finish would be 4th or 5th.
But not this kid. When he couldn’t get in the money he never punished
them. He hand rode them. He could get more out of a Horse with his
hands than another Jock could get with the old Battery up both sleeves.
He got to be recognized as one of the best, and he passed from one
Stable to another until he landed with the biggest, a real Trainer and
a Real Sportsman-Owner. How many thousands of People in every line
come to New York every year that want to make good, get ahead and be
recognized! They come by the millions. How many, if anything happened
to them, would get even a passing Notice in the busy and overcrowded
New York Press. If some Millionaire died, the best he could get would
be a column. Then perhaps it wouldn’t be read through by a dozen.
But what blazoned across the front pages of every Metropolitan daily
a few days ago, in bigger headlines than a Presidential Nomination,
bigger than the Prince of Wales will get on his arrival? In a race at
Saratoga Springs, N. Y., a Horse had fallen and carried down with him
a little skinny Kid (that had slept in his youth not in a 5th Avenue
Mansion but in Box Stalls all over the Country with Horses, the Horses
he knew how to ride and the Horses that loved to run their best for
him).
Here was the Headline: “SANDE IS HURT. He may never ride again.” They
don’t have to give even his first name; few know it. They don’t have to
explain who he is. They don’t have to tell which Rockefeller or Morgan
it was. It was just Sande. There is only one. Our Sande! The boy who
had carried America’s colors to Victory over England’s great Papyrus
and their Premier Jockey Steve Donohue.
The Ambulance rushes on the track and picks him up; it is followed by
hundreds afoot, running. The entire grand stands of people rush to the
temporary Track Hospital to see how Sande is, and hoping and praying
that it’s not serious. He revives long enough to tell his Wife he is
all right. Game kid that. Then he faints again. Mrs. Vanderbilt and
the elite of Society are assisting and doing all they can to help. A
personal Physician to a President of the United States is working
over him. He could not have shown any more anxiety over the President
than he did over this kid. When the thousands of pleasure seekers and
excitement hunters rushed from the stands and saw them lifting that
frail lifeless looking form from the track Ambulance there was not one
that wouldn’t have given an Arm off their body if they had thought it
would save his Life, and that goes for Touts, and Grooms, and Swipes,
as well as the Public.
Some western people who don’t know are always saying Easterners have
no Heart, everything is for themselves and the Dough. Say, don’t tell
me that! Geography don’t change Human Nature. If you are Right, people
are for you whether it’s in Africa or Siberia. A wire was sent by
Mr. Widener, a millionaire Racing Official, to Dr. Russell the great
Specialist of Roosevelt Hospital, New York, “Come at once. Spare
no expense. SANDE is Hurt!” That’s all Secretary Slemp could do if
President Coolidge was hurt.
Mr. Sinclair withdrew all Horses from the remaining Races. He would
withdraw them for Life if he knew it would restore this Kid who worked
for him, back to normal again.
Now what made this One Hundred and Ten Pounds (half portion of physical
manhood) beloved by not only the racing Public but by the masses who
never bet a cent on a Horse race in their lives? The same thing that
will make a man great in any line--his absolute HONESTY. The racing
public are very fickle and when they lose they are apt to lay blame on
almost any quarter. But win or lose, they knew it was not Sande. To
have insinuated to one of them that he ever pulled a Horse, would have
been taking your Life in your hands. What do you suppose he could have
gotten out of some bunch of betting Crooks to have pulled Zev in the
big International Race? Why, enough to retire on and never have to take
another chance with his Life by riding. He could have done it on the
back stretch and no one would have ever known.
Ability is all right but if it is not backed up by Honesty and Public
confidence you will never be a Sande. A man that don’t love a Horse,
there is something the matter with him. If he has no sympathy for the
man that does love Horses then there is something worse the matter
with him. The best a Man can do is to arrive at the top of his chosen
profession. I have always maintained that one Profession is deserving
of as much honor as another provided it is honorable.
Through some unknown process of reasoning we have certain things that
are called Arts, and to be connected with them raises you above your
fellow Man. Say, how do they get that way? If a Man happens to take up
Painting and becomes only a mediocre painter, why should he be classed
above the Bricklayer who has excelled every other Bricklayer? The
Bricklayer is a true Artist in his line or he could not have reached
the top. The Painter has not been acclaimed the best in his line hence
the Bricklayer is superior. Competition is just as keen in either line.
In fact there are more good bricklayers than Painters. If you are the
best Taxi Driver you are as much an Artist as Kreisler. You save lives
by your skilful driving. That’s a meritorious profession, is it not?
A Writer calls himself a Literary Man or an Artist. There are thousands
of them, and all, simply because they write, are termed Artists. Is
there a Sande among them? Caruso was great, but he had only to show
ability. He didn’t have to demonstrate any honesty. Nobody tried to
keep him from singing his best by bribery.
Now if you think the Racing Public and millions of well wishers are
hoping for this Kid’s recovery, what about the Horses? They knew him
better than the Humans did. Why, that Horse would have broke his own
neck rather than hurt Sande. Who is going to ride him in the next race
and make him win and not whip him?--not Sande. Who is going to sit on
him just where he will be the easiest to carry? Not Sande. Who is going
to lean over and whisper in his ear and tell him when to go his best?
Not Sande. Who is going to carry a Bat and not use it? Not Sande. Who
is going to watch the hand on that starting Barrier and have him headed
the right way just when the starter springs it? Not Sande. No, the
Horses are the ones who are going to miss him.
If we could speak their language like he can, here are a few
conversations that you will hear through the cracks in the Box Stalls:
“Gee, I can’t run; I don’t seem to get any help. I wish Sande were
back.”
A three year old replies, “I wish there was something we could do. If
they would just let us go up to the Hospital and talk to him he would
savy,” “I wish we had him here in a Box Stall. I would stand up the
rest of my life and give him my bed. I would fix him some Clean Hay to
lay on. He don’t want those White Caps and Aprons running around. He
wants to lay on a Horse Blanket, and have his busted Leg wrapped up
with Bandages like he knows how to use on ours. I bet they ain’t even
got Absorbine up there. That Kid would rather have a Bran Mash than all
that Goo they will feed him with up there.”
The Old Stake Horse 4 stalls down the line overhears and replies:
“Sure, I bet they have one of them Bone Specialists. What that Kid
needs is a good Vet.”
The old Selling Plater butts in: “Sure, we could cheer him up if he
was here. Them Foreigners up there don’t speak his Tongue. That kid is
part Horse. Remember how he used to kid wid us when he would be working
us out at daylight when the rest of the Star Jocks was in feathers.
One morning I told him if he didn’t quit waking me up so early in the
morning I was going to buck him off. He got right back at me; he said,
‘If you do I will get you left at the Post your next race.’ Gee, he
sure did throw a scare into me. And, say, you couldn’t loaf on that
Bird either. He knew when you was loafing and when you was trying. I
throwed up my tail one hot day to make him think I was all through. He
give me one cut with the Bat and I dropped that tail and left there so
fast I could have run over Man of War. Gee, those were great days; Do
youse reckon Zev knows anything about it? I hope they don’t tell him;
it would break his heart. He sure did love that kid.”
Patient readers, Lincoln went down in History as “HONEST Abe,” BUT HE
NEVER WAS A JOCKEY. If he had been a Jockey be might have gone down as
just “Abe.”
TAKING THE CURE, BY THE SHORES OF CAT CREEK
[Illustration: “IF YOU DON’T GET WELL AND THROW AWAY YOUR CRUTCHES I
GET NOTHING OUT OF IT.”]
TAKING THE CURE, BY THE SHORES OF CAT CREEK
Now, in my more or less checkered career before the more or less
checkered Public, I have been asked to publicly indorse everything from
Chewing Gum, Face Beautifiers, Patent Cocktail Shakers, Ma Junk Sets,
even Corsets, Cigarettes, and Chewing Tobacco, all of which I didn’t
use or know anything about. But I always refused.
You never heard me boosting for anything, for I never saw anything made
that the fellow across the street didn’t make something just as good.
But, at last, I have found something that I absolutely know no one else
has something just as good as, for an all-seeing Nature put this where
it is and it’s the only one he had, and by a coincidence it is located
in the Town near the ranch where I was born and raised.
So I hereby and hereon come out unequivocally (I think that’s the way
you spell it) in favor of a place that has the water that I _know_
will cure you. You might ask, cure me of what? Why, cure you of
anything--just name your disease and dive in.
Claremore, Oklahoma, is the birthplace of this Aladdin of health
waters. Some misguided Soul named it RADIUM WATER, but Radium will
never see the day that it is worth mentioning in the same breath as
this Magic Water. Why, to the afflicted and to all suffering Humanity,
a Jug of this Water is worth a wheelbarrow full of Radium. Still, even
under the handicap of a cheap name, this liquid Godsend has really
cured thousands.
Now you may say, “Oh you boost it because you live there,” but I don’t
want you to think so little of me that you would think I would misguide
a sick person, just for the monetary gain to my Home Town. We don’t
need you that bad. The city is on a self supporting basis without
Patients, just by shipping the Water to Hot Springs, Ark., Hot Springs,
Va., West Baden, Ind., and Saratoga, N. Y.
Now, as to a few of the Ignorant who might still be in the dark as to
where the Home of this Fountain of Youth is located, I will tell you. I
shouldn’t waste my time on such Low Brows, but unfortunately they get
sick and need assistance the same as the 95 Million others who already
know where Claremore is located.
It is located, this Mecca of the ill, about 17 hundred miles west of
New York, (either City or State, depends on which ever one you happen
to be in). You bear a little south of west, after leaving New York,
till you reach Sol McClellan’s place, which is just on the outskirts of
Claremore. Before you get into the City proper, if you remember about
500 miles back, you passed another Town. Well, that was St. Louis, most
of which is in Illinois.
Now, if you are in the North, and happen to get something the matter
with you, we are 847 and a half miles South by West from Gary, Indiana.
We have cured hundreds of people from Chicago, Ill. from Gun shot
wounds inflicted in attempted murders and robberies. There is only one
way to avoid being robbed of anything in Chicago and that is not to
have anything.
If you are from Minneapolis, our Radium Water guarantees to cure you of
everything but your Swedish accent. If you are from St. Paul, we can
cure you of everything but your ingrown hatred for Minneapolis.
I will admit that these waters have quite a peculiar odor as they have
a proportion of Sulphur and other unknown ingredients, but visitors
from Kansas City, who are used to a Stock Yard breeze, take this
wonderful water home as a Perfume.
Approaching this City from the North, don’t get it confused with
Oolagah, Oklahoma, my original Birthplace, which is 12 miles to the
north, as both towns have Post Offices.
From the west, if you are afflicted and you are sure to be or you
wouldn’t have gone out there, why Claremore is just 1900 miles due east
of Mojarve, California, one of the few Towns which Los Angeles has
not voted into their Cafeteria. You come east till you reach an Oil
Station at a road crossing. This oil station is run by a man named St.
Clair. You will see a lot of men pitching Horseshoes. Well, that is the
Post Office of Tulsa, Oklahoma, and the men are Millionaires pitching
Horseshoes for Oil Wells or for each other’s wives.
You should, by this description, have the place pretty well located in
your minds. Now, if you are living in the South and are afflicted with
a Cotton Crop under a Republican Administration, or with the Klu Klux,
or with the Hook Worm, we guarantee to rid you of either or all of
these in a course of 24 Baths.
Claremore is located just 905 miles north of Senator Pat Harrison’s
Mint Bed in Mississippi. In coming from the Gulf Country some have got
off the road and had to pass through Dallas, Texas, but have found out
their mistake and got back on the main road at Ft. Worth before losing
all they had. You easily can tell Ft. Worth. A fellow will be standing
down in front of the Drug Store making a speech.
Now, before reaching Claremore, you will pass, even though it’s in the
middle of the day, a place where you think it’s night and you won’t
know what is the matter. Well, that’s Muskogee, Oklahoma, and this
darkness is caused by the Color scheme of the population, so put on
your headlights and go on in. This Muskogee is really a parking space
for cars entering Claremore. Of course, if you want to drive on into
the Town of Claremore proper, its only 60 miles through the suburbs
from here.
The City is located on Cat Creek, and instead of having a lot of
Streets like most Towns and Cities, we have combined on one street. In
that way no Street is overlooked.
You might wonder how we discovered this Blarney Stone of Waters. In the
early days, us old timers there, always considered these Wells more
as an Odor than as a Cure. But one day a man come in there who had
been raised in Kansas and he had heard in a roundabout way of people
bathing, although he had never taken one. So, by mistake, he got into
this Radium Water.
He was a one armed man--he had lost an Arm in a rush to get into a
Chautauqua Tent in Kansas to hear Bryan speak on Man Vs. Monkey. Well
he tried this Bath and it didn’t kill him and he noticed that he was
beginning to sprout a new arm where he had lost the old one, so he kept
on with the Baths and it’s to him that we owe the discovery of this
wonderful curative Water. Also he was the Pioneer of Bathers of Kansas,
as now they tell me it’s no uncommon thing to have a Tub in most of
their larger towns.
Now, it has been discovered that you can carry a thing too far and
overdo it, so we don’t want you there too long. A man come there once
entirely Legless and stayed a week too long and went away a Centipede.
I want to offer here my personal Testimonial of what it did to me.
You see, after this Kansas Guy started it, why, us old Timers moved
our bathing from the River into a Tub. Now, at that time, I was
practically Tongue tied and couldn’t speak out in private much less in
Public. Well, after 12 baths, I was able to go to New York and make
after dinner speeches. I stopped in Washington on the way and saw how
our Government was run and that gave me something funny to speak about.
So, in thanking the Water, I also want to thank the Government for
making the whole thing possible. Now, had I taken 24 baths I would have
been a Politician, so you see I stopped just in time.
The only thing I get out of this is I have the “Thrown Away Crutch
Privilege.” If you don’t get well and throw away your Invalid Chair or
crutches I get nothing out of it, so that is why we give you a square
deal. If you are not cured, I don’t get your Crutches. There is no
other resort in the World that works on that small a margin.
W. J. Bryan drank one drink of this Water and turned against Liquor.
Senator La Follette drank two drinks of it and turned against
everything. So remember Claremore, The Carlsbad of America, where the
’Frisco Railroad crosses the Iron Mountain Railroad, not often, but
every few days.
THE END
* * * * *
Transcriber’s note
Spelling and punctuation have been retained as published.
Inconsistencies in hyphenation have been standardized.
The use of italics on the title of _Illiterate Digest_ has been
standardized where applicable.
The following printer errors have been changed.
=CHANGED FROM TO=
Page 15: ““Drain Their Corn Liquor” ““Drain Their Corn Liquor””
Page 122: “siutated near any Body” “situated near any Body”
Page 229: “were equally responsbile” “were equally responsible”
Page 272: “appointed him to settle” “appointed him to settle.”
Page 317: “record of his time” “record of his time.”