:; u Cs - -.4. r-4:. 0 to -- '' - I. O.-4. % 1 A W,'t, i-, V' '. I... I i Vt; I -;.4. I -1:11* - 1. -4 I k - i i e- '. i.. I, —, I I 7 I I I I THE ILLITERATE DIGEST NoTrHe 140 IX The Illiterate Digest BY WILL ROGERS I. v V g b ALBERT & CHARLES BONI NEW YORK 1924 - -- I __ _ -__ __ Copyright, 1924, by Albert & Charles Boni < * Copyright, 1923, 1924, by McNaught Syndicate, Inc. PRINTED IN THE UNITED STATES OF AMERICA TWO LETTERS AND A DEDICATION Most Books have to have an Excuse by some one for the Author, but this is the only Book ever written that has to have an Alibi for the Title, too. About 4 years ago, out in California, I was writing sayings for the Screen and I called it the Illiterate Digest. Well one day up bobs the following letter from this N. Y. Lawyer. It and the answer are absolutely just as they were exchanged at that time. WILLIAM BEVERLY WINSLOW LAWYER 55 Liberty Street, New York, N. Y. Nov. 5th, 1920. Will Rogers, Esq., c/o Goldwyn Studios, Culver City, Calif. Dear Sir: My client, the Funk & Wagnalls Company, publishers of the "Literary Digest" have requested me 5sJ I TWO LETTERS AND A DEDICATION to write to you in regard to your use of the phrase, "The Illiterate Digest," as a title to a moving picture subject gotten up by you,. the consequence of which may have escaped your consideration. For more than two years past it (my client) has placed upon the moving picture screen a short reel subject carrying the title ",Topics of the Day," selected from the Press of the World by "The Literary Digest." This subject has achieved a wide popularity both because of the character and renown of. "The Literary Digest" and through the expenditure of much time, effort and money by its owners in presenting the subject to the public. "The Literary Digest" is a publication nearly thirty, years old, and from a small beginning has become probably the most influential weekly publication in the world. Itsname and the phrase "Topics of the Day" are fully covered by usage as trademarks as well as by regis. tration as such in the United States Patent Office. During several months past your "title," "The Illiterate Digest" has been repeatedly called to our attention and we are told that the prestige of "The Literary Digest" is being lowered by the subject matter of your film as well as by the title of your film because the public naturally confuse the two subjects. We are also told that exhibitors are being misled by the similarity of titles and that some of them install your subject in the expectation that they 66J -. -- [r6.~ TWO LETTERS AND A DEDICATION are securing "The Literary Digest Topics of the Day." It seems to me self-envident that your title would scarcely have been thought of or adopted had it not been for our magazine and for our film. If this were not the case the title which you use would be without significance to the general public. I have advised the publishers that they may proceed against you through the Federal Trade Commission in Washington calling upon you to there defend yourself against the charge of "unfair competition," because of your simulation of their title, or that they can proceed against you, the producers of your film, its distributors and exhibitors in court for an injunction restraining you from use of the title, "The Illiterate Digest." Before, however, instituting any proceedings in either direction they have suggested that I write directly to you to see if your sense of fairness will not cause you to voluntarily withdraw the use of the objectionable title. Unless I hear favorably from you on or before the first of December, I shalt conclude that you are not willing to accede to this suggestion and will take such steps as I may deem advisable. Yours truly, WBW/als (signed) William Beverly Winslow. TWO LETTERS AND A DEDICATION Los Angeles, Cal., Nov. 15, 1920. MR WM BEVERLY WINSLOW, Dear Sir, Your letter in regard to- my competition with the Literary Digest received and I never felt as swelled up in my life, And am glad you wrote directly to me instead of communicating with my Lawyers, As I have not yet reached that stage of prominence where I was commiting unlawful acts and requireing a Lawyer, Now if the Literary'Digest feels that the competition is to keen for them-to show you my good sportsmanship I will withdraw, In fact I had already quit as the gentlemen who put it out were behind in their payments and my humor kinder waned, in fact after a few weeks of no payments I couldent think of a single joke. And now I want to inform you truly that this is the first that I knew my Title of the Illiterate Digest was an infringement on yours as they mean the direct opposite, If a magazine was published called Yes and another Bird put one out called No I suppose he would be infringeing. But you are a Lawyer and its your business to change the meaning of words, so I lose before I start, Now I have not written for these people in months and they havent put any gags out unless it is some of the old ones still playing. If they are using gags 8s A TWO LETTERS AND A DEDICATION that I wrote on topical things 6 months ago then I must admit that they would be in competition with the ones the Literary Digest Screen uses now. I will gladly furnish you with their address, in case you want to enter suit, And as I have no Lawyer you can take my case too and whatever we get out of them we will split at the usual Lawyer rates of 80-20, the client of course getting the 20, Now' you inform your Editors at once that their most dangerous rival has withdrawn, and that they can go ahead and resume publication, But you inform Your clients that if they ever take up Rope Throwing or chewing gum that I will consider it a direct infringement of my rights and will protect it with one of the best Kosher Lawyers in Oklahoma, Your letter to me telling me I was in competition with the Digest would be just like Harding writing to Cox and telling him he took some of his votes, So long Beverly if you ever come to California, come out to Beverly where I live and see me Illiterately yours WILL ROGERS. When I sent him my answer I read it to some of the Movie Company I was working with at the time and they kept asking me afterwards if I had received an answer. I did not, and I just thought, oh well, there I go and waste a letter on some High E 93 TWO LETTERS AND A DEDICATION Brow Lawyer with no sense of humor. I was sore at myself for writing it. About 6 months later I came back to join the Follies and who should come to call on me but the nicest old Gentleman I had ever met, especially in the law profession. He was the one I had written the letter to, and he had had Photographic Copies made of my letter and had given them around to all his Lawyer friends. So it is to him and his sense of humor, that I dedicate this Volume of deep thought. I might also state that the Literary Digest was broad-minded enough to realize that there was room for both, and I want to thank them for allowing me to announce my Illiteracy publicly. E Io CONTENTS PAGE Two LETTERS AND A DEDICATION... 5 INTRODUCTION........ 17 BREAKING INTO THE WRITING GAME. 27 SETTLING THE CORSET PROBLEM OF THIS COUNTRY......... 39 HOW TO TELL A BUTLER, AND OTHER ETIQUETTE......... 47 DEFENDING MY SOUP PLATE POSITION.. 57 HELPING THE GIRLS WITH THEIR INCOME TAXES............ 69 THE GREATEST DOCUMENT IN AMERICAN LITERATURE........ 77 PROSPECTUS FOR "THE REMODELED CHEWING GUM CORPORATION"..... 87 INSIDE STUFF ON THE TOTAL ECLIPSE.. 99 IT'S TIME SOMEBODY SAID A WORD FOR CALIFORNIA.......... II I PROMOTING THE OCEANLESS ONE-PIECE SUIT 121 WARNING TO JOKERS: LAY OFF THE PRINCE 13 I SPRING Is HERE, WITH POEMS AND BATH TUBS.......... I41 MY FORD AND OTHER POLITICAL SELFSTARTERS...... 151 s WILSON COULD LAUGH AT A JOKE ON HIMSELF.......... 159 CONTENTS PAGE A JOB WITH THE JAMES FAMILY... 171 LET'S TREAT OUR PRESIDENTS LIKE HUMAN BEINGS.......... I8I WHAT WITH FRUIT JUICE AND CONSOMME, IT WAS A WILD PARTY.... 193 WHAT WE NEED Is MORE FRED STONES.203 ONE OIL LAWYER PER BARREL... 217 ANOTHER CONFESSION IN THE OIL SCANDAL 227: THE WHOLE TRUTH AND NOTHING BUT THE TRUTH........ 237 WELL, WHO IS PRUNES?.... 249 POLITICS GETTING READY TO JELL...26I Two LONG-LOST FRIENDS FOUND AT LAST 269 THEY NOMINATED EVERYBODY BUT THE FOUR HORSEMEN.......279 IN THE MIDST OF A 7-YEAR HITCH... 287 "WILL ROGERS, JR." REPORTS THE CONVENTION FOR HIS FATHER, WORN OUT BY LONG SERVICE........ 297 ROPING A CRITIC........ 305 "THE WORLD TOMORROW," AFTER THE MANNER OF GREAT JOURNALISTS *.. 313 SETTLING THE AFFAIRS OF THE WORLD IN MY OWN WAY....... 323 A SKINNY DAKOTA KID WHO MADE GOOD. 333 TAKING THE CURE, BY THE SHORES OF CAT CREEK.......... 345 * With apologies to Arthur Brisbane. 1I23 ILLUSTRATIONS The Illiterate Digest Office.. Frontispiece PAGE You Are Going to Get the Low-Down on Some of Those Birds Who Are Sending Home the Radish-Seed.......26 They Are Carpeting All the Halls of the Senate So in Case of a Fall There Will Be No Serious Loss......... 31 As I Opened the Door to Let Her in 2 of Our Dogs and 4 Cats Came In...... 46 Birds That Never Can Tell the Servants from the Guests........ 53 I Would Invent a Triangle Shape Slide That Could Be Pushed Under the Plate.. 56 Song Writers Should Be Segregated and Made 5o Sing Their Songs to Each Other 76 Why Can't I Do Something With SecondHand Gum?......... 86 The More Glasses You Used the More Eclipse You Could See...... 98 I Just Happened to Remember That No One Had Said a Word for California... II I Want to Do Something for the Home Town Girl So She Can Stay at Home and Show How and What She Is Made Of... 120 11I31 ILLUSTRATIONS PAGE So I Got Me Some of Those Long-Handled Wooden Hammers and Started in at Polo I30 The Family Wash-Tub Was Dragged Up By the Fire.......... I40 Finally a Warden Knocked at My Dressing Room and Said: "You Die in 5 More Minutes for Kidding Your Country"... I58 I Could Just Sorter Nonchalantly Step on the Bride's Train......... 170 If Mr. Ford Had Been Elected We Would Have Been the Mouthpiece of the Administration......... 192 He Started at Four or Five Years of Age and Has Worked on New Stunts Every Day of His Life....... *.. ~. 202 If a Rider Hit on His Head, It Was Me.. 211 It's a Bigger Thing for Washington Than the Shriners' Convention...... 216 They Not Only Have to Be Lawyers, But Political Lawyers....... 219 They Are from Tulsa. I Will Be Right Out. 2Z6 I Object to the Senator from Massachusetts' Slurring Remarks......... 236 "There's a Bellboy at My Hotel and He Just Got It From the Chauffeur of a Prominent Oil-Man"....... 248 They Rehearsed Their Old Act Here Yesterday................. 268 14 ILLUSTRATIONS PAGE "You Wasn't Here and You Know Them as Well as I Do"........ 278 Well, I Guess You Heard About My Presidential Boom......... 286 The Deaths from Old Age Among the Delegates Is About Offset by the Birthrate.. 29 "If They Haven't Got Enough Water in There to Fill the Harbor, We Will Have to Ask the Neighbors to Drain Their Corn Liquor......... 322 "If You Don't Get Well and Throw Away Your Crutches I Get Nothing Out of It". 344 INTRODUCTION This book should have been long before now on the Bookshelves of every reader of worth while Literature in the English speaking World, in addition to being well worn in our best reference Libraries, and should have been already translated into every known and unknown tongue. What you will immediately ask delayed such an important event? Well the principal reason is it had not been written, and the next is We had no introduction for it. You let:a Book go out without an Alibi by some other writer, and it is practically a commercial suicide.' When the Publishers were all clamoring for a Book from me, and were practically annihilating' (Boy there is a word I never used before iin my life and I hope it fits in, I read it in some War Novel) each other for the Publishing rights and. -a;ssured' profits, they of course felt that through my wide Literary acquaintance,' gained during years of association at the Democratic National Convention, and the late World Series with some E I 7] INTRODUCTION of the best contemporary Writers of modern times, I should through my Literary standing and personal friendship, allow some of Ithem to have the honor of penning the introduction to this Time Table of National Catastrophes. '~ - X.., William Emporia Allen White was my first thought, on account of his having a middle name, which always sounds Literary, even if its owner is not. Then I had- heard he himself had written a Book once, and by now should know what Introductions-should not be. Then he -went home and announced himself as a Candidate for Governor. So that eliminated him from my thoughts. To have a big broadminded book have any narrow Political endorsement would mean certain calamity among people who think. To run for Governor is bad enough, But to run for Governor of Kansas and then write an:Introduction of my worthy efforts, would simply make the book a 'laughing stock. Then my thoughts turned to Arthur Brisbane, I don't know what I could have been eating that my thoughts should have done, such a mental somer. sault. But I guess it was because I had known Arthur for years,-I knew him before William Randolph Hearst started working for him. I ap. I8J INTRODUCTION proached him on it, and he said, Sorry Will but what I write must point a moral, there must be a lesson in every paragraph; mine must not only be news but it must be instructive news. For instance, I read China will not go to war on rainy days. What does that bit of news mean to' the individual that dont think? Nothing I What does it mean to me? It means that a Chinaman would rather get shot than wet. It points a moral to peace: Have all so-called civilized Nations stop wars on rainy days. Then hold all wars in Portland, Oregon where it rains every day, and you will eliminate Wars and have universal Peace. -,^So he could see no particular Moral in writing an Introduction to my book, unless it was that Books should not depend entirely on their introductions as they do now. So I next thought of my friend Irvin Cobb. I had set next to him at so many Speakers Tables, at banquets, and had always given him any little extras that I might not want. Ice Cream and Sweets and things like that he just loves and ruins them at a Banquet. Well he was going Duck shooting down in Louisiana and said he wouldnt miss one Duck for the pleasure of writing the Introduction to the Encyclopedia Brittanica. So you just let the -F'93 .... INTRODUCTIONold fat thing.try to get my Ice Cream at another Banquet. Of course Ring Lardner was one of my very first thoughts, because I knew he could add the little touch of comedy that the book really needed. I went to him and told him that I only wanted something light.and airy, maybe just one good joke would do the trick and take away from the serious nature of the Book. He is not only a Humorist but has got plenty money to show that he is. He said before he shook hands with me, What is there in it? I said well this is just a kind of an honorary thing, a kind of courtesy from one Author to another. He then asked me why should he give me a joke for nothing? He could put the joke into his Sunday Newspaper Article; then he could put the joke into his weekly Newspaper Cartoon;. then he could sell it to a Musical Comedy and they would tell it so bad it would sound new. Then the Movies would buy it and make a drama out of it; then he would still hold the Phonograph, and broadcasting rights, and after it got well enough known write a Song around it. So he said I would be a fine egg to give you a joke for nothing. I wish that Spaniard Ibanez, that wrote the 4 t2o INTRODUCTION Horsemen was over here, I know him well, I had read 5 or 6 of his Books and I was to a big reception given to him in Los Angeles, and during our conversations through an Interpreter he learned I had read so many of his Books. No one else he met there even among the Literary ones had ever read any but the 4 Horsemen,' So when he went home he sent me an Autographed Copy which read "To an American Cowboy, the only person in America I found who had read all my Books." The funny thing about it is that he is the only Author I ever read. Now if he was here he would write me an Introduction, But of course it would be in Spanish and nobody could read it, so I would be just as bad off as I am now. I also know Elinor Glyn, I met her when she was out in California looking around for some one to cast as Paul in "Three Weeks," She sent-for me but I had just started on another new Picture. She could have cooked me' up a' hot Introduction. She would have draped the first few paragraphs with Tiger skins, and described me in such a way that I would have really looked like something. So I just says to myself, why monkey with these writers, why not write my own Introduction? So here goes. 21 INTRODUCTION I have known Mr. Rogers for years and have long been familiar with his Literary masterpieces, both in Novels, and in Books of technical knowledge. I think there are few writers of Poetry or prose today who equal him, and I am certain he is surpassed by none. I say this because I have lived and known the life he has pictured so well in this Book; I spent my late youth in these shaded oak lands where so many of his scenes are so pictorially laid, and he has made me live over again the scenes of my freshman manhood. No writer since the days of Remington can give you such a word picture of the west. That's because he is a westerner himself, and has only an eye for the beautiful things as he and nature alone can describe them. He alone of all our modern writers knows the people of which they write. When he describes a Corset you can feel it pinch. If it's a Sunrise he describes, you reach for an Umbrella. His jugglery of correct words and perfect English sentences is magical, and his spelling is almost'uncanny. The words, Illiterate Digest, which appear upon the title page of this book, has been generally compared to Don Quixote and to the Pickwick Papers, 22 INTRODUCTION while E. M. Vogue places its author somewhere between Cervantes and LeSage, However, considerable the influence of Cervantes and Dickens may have been, the first in the matter of structure, the other in background, humor, and detail of characterization, the predominating and distinguishing quality of this Author's work is undeniably foreign to both and quite peculiar to itself. Something that for want of a better term might be called the quality of American Soul, any reader familiar as I know you all to be with the works of Dostoieffsky, Turgei nev, or even Tolstoi, will grasp the deeper meaning of a work like this. Some consider the Author a realist, who has drawn with meticulous detail a picture of contemporary life, others more observing see in him a great symbolist. He always remembers that it is dangerous to jest with laughter. This; man in writing this has done a service to all thinking mankind. It is a revelation, as an omen of a freer future. Belinsky, the great Russian Critic to whom Mr. Rogers had read the manuscript, said "it looked like another Ben Hur to him." So now Mr. Cobb, and Mr. Lardner, and all you introduction writers, what do I want with you?:23 INTRODUCTION There is not a one of you could have said the things of me that I have said, because you Guys dont know what books to look in to get all that big league stuff out of, Yours for Arts sake, WILLIAM PENN ADAIR ROGERS (boy that is my real name, let some Literary Guy top that) P. S. I got enough Introduction left over to write another Introduction if I had anything to write another book about. cE24 J BREAKING INTO THE WRITING GAME YOU ARE GOING TO GET THE LOW-DOWN ON SOME OF THOSE BIRDS WHO AUR SENDING HOME THE RADISH-SEED. BREAKING INTO THE WRITING GAME EVERYBODY is writing something nowadays. It used to be just the Literary or Newspaper men who were supposed to know what they were writing about that did all the writing. But nowadays all a man goes into office for is so he can try to find out something and then write it when he comes out. Now being in Ziegfeld Follies for almost a solid year in New York has given me an inside track on some of our biggest men in this country who I meet nightly at the stage door. So I am breaking out in a rash here. I will cite an example to prove to you what you are going to get. Not long ago there was a mess of Governors here from various Provinces. And a good friend of mine brought back to the stage and dressing room Governor Allen of Kansas. Well, I stood him in the wings and he was supposed to be looking at my act, but he wasn't. He was watching what really is the Backbone of our Show. He anyway heard some of r 27 WILL ROGERS' my Gags about our Government and all who are elected to help missrun it. So at the finish of my act I dragged him out on the stage and introduced him to the audience. He made a mighty pretty little speech and said he enjoyed Will's Impertinences, and got a big laugh on that. Said I was the only man in America who was able to tell the truth about our Men and Affairs. When he finished I explained to the audience why I was able to tell the truth. It is because I have never mixed up in Politics. So you all are going from time to time to get the real Low Down on some of those Birds who are sending home the Radish Seed. You know the more you read and observe about this Politics thing, you got to admit that each party is worse than the other. The one that's out always looks the best. My only solution would be to keep 'em both out one term and hire my good friend Henry Ford to run the whole thing and give him a commission on what he saves us. Put his factory in with the government and instead of Seeds every spring mail out those Things of his. Mail Newberry one every morning Special De. livery. 8 28 ILLITERATE DIGEST Speaking of Henry Ford, I see where Uncle Henry has a new Rule in force out in his Factory where they paste those Knick Knacks together. Every man working there has to have his breath smelled every morning. That, of course, seems like a pretty strict Rule to put in force in a So called Free Country, and it has come in for a lot of criticism in the papers, but the way I look at it, it is absolutely necessary. Should a man go to work in there who had had a few strong shots of some of our National Drinks of today, he would blow his breath on one of those FOB'S, and blow all the bolts right out of. it. Now Mr. Ford is a very smart man and in passing these rigid rules I bet you he knows where to stop. I bet you that he won't instruct his Salesmen to be so strict with a Purchaser. In fact his salesmen smell of your breath when you come in to buy one and if it shows no signs of drink they don't try to sell you. He is smart enough to know a sober man would never buy one. Mind you, all this smelling of breath is done, not on the Company's time, but on the time of the Workers. Some men have to get up at 4 o'clock in the Morning to get their breath examined so they can get to work at 8. Imagine a r 293 WILL ROGERS' line of 50 thousand all waiting to blow at a single individual TESTER I Think what he must be with all those Italian workmen passing by him. He is just I80 pounds of Garlic by night. The University of Michigan is putting in a Chair in their Faculty devoted to the Art of Breath Detecting. But there is always a way to defeat any reform. Drinkers will learn to hold their breath like a Diver. I tell you Folks, all Politics is Apple Sauce. The President gave a Luncheon for the visiting Governors, where they discussed but didn't TRY Prohibition. It was the consensus of opinion of all their speeches that there was a lot of drinking going on and that if it wasn't stopped by January that they would hold another meeting and try and get rid of some of the stuff. Senator Curtis proposed a bill this week to stop Bootlegging in the Senate, making it unlawful for any member to be caught selling to another member while on Government property. While the bill was being read a Government employe fell just outside the Senate door and broke a Bottle of Pre-War Stuff (made just before last week's Turkish War). Now 1 30 J -_ I — ijl I' -cl-Mtlk~ ARE CARPETING ALL THE HALLS OF THE SENATE SO IN CASE OF A FALL THERE WILL BE NO SERIOUS LOSS. WILL ROGERS'.......they are carpeting all the halls with a- heavy material;so in case of a' fall there will be no serious loss. WVell, New Years'is coming and I suppose we will have to hear and read all those big men's New Year greetings, such men as Schwab and Gary and Rockefeller and all of them. Saying the same old Apple Sauce.' That they are Optimistic of the coming-year and everybody must put their shoulder to the wheel, and produce more and they predict a great year.,Say, if we had those Birds' Dough We could all be just as optimistic as they are. But it's a good Joke and it's got in the papers every year and I suppose always will. Now the Ku Klux is coming into New York and kinder got it in for the Jewish People. Now they are wrong; I am against that. If the Jewish People here in New York City-hadn't jumped in and made themselves good fellows and helped us celebrate our Christmas, the thing would have fell flat. They sold us every Present. The Ku Klux couldn't get much of a2 footing here in New York. If there was some man they wanted to take out and Tar and Feather they wouldn't know where he lived. People move so often here their own folks don't know where they live. '32 ILLITERATE DIGEST And even if they found out the Elevator man in the Apartment wouldn't let 'em up. See where there is bills up in Congress now to change the Constitution all around, elect the President in a different way and have Congress meet at a different time. It seems the men who drew up this thing years ago didn't know much and we are just now getting a bunch of real fellows who can take that old Parchment and fix it up like it should have been all these years. It seems it's just been luck that's got us by so far. Now when they get the Constitution all fixed up they. are going to start in on the io Commandments, just as soon as they find somebody in Washington who has read them. See where they are talking about another Conference over here. The Social Season in Washington must be lagging. Well, I think they ought to have it. These Conferences don't really do any harm and they give certain Delegates pleasure. Of course nothing they ever pass on is ever carried out. (Except in Greece, where they are all carried out.) But each Nation gets a certain amount of Publicity out of it, and us masses that read of it get a certain amount of amusement out of it. 1331 WILL ROGERS' -~ Borah himself admits he don't know what it's for or what they should do. But it looks like a good Conference season and there is no reason why we shouldn't get in on one. BESIDES, DID YOU EVER REALIZE THIS COUNTRY IS 4 CONFERENCES BEHIND NOW? I want to apologize and set my many readers straight as to why I am blossoming out as an infliction on you all. It seems a prominent newspaper syndicate had Lloyd George signed up for a pack of his Memoirs. Well, after the late election Lloyd couldn't seem to remember anything, so they sent for me to fill in the space where he would have had hisjunk. You see, they wanted me in the first place, but George came along and offered to work cheaper, and also to give his to charity. That benevolence on his part was of course before England gave him his two weeks' notice., Now I am also not to be outdone by an ex-Prime Minister donating my receipts from my Prolific Tongue to a needy charity. The total share of this goes to the civilization of three young heathens, Rogers by name, and part Cherokee Indians by breeding. C341 .ILLITERATE DIGEST Now, by wasting seven minutes, if you are a good reader-and ten to twelve if you read slow-on me, you are really doing a charitable act yourself by preventing these three miniature bandits from growing up in ignorance. So please help a man with not only one little Megan, but three little Megans. A great many people may think that this is the first venture of such a conservative paper as the Illiterate Digest in using something of a semi-humorous nature, but that is by no means the case. I am following the Kaiser, who rewrote his life after it was too late. I realize what a tough job I have, succeeding a man who to be funny only had to relate the facts. Please don't consider these as my memoirs. I am not passing out of the picture, as men generally ar% who write those things. 1 35 SETTLING THE CORSET PROBLEM OF THIS COUNTRY (An After Dinner speech made at a Banquet of the Corset Manufacturers of America at the Waldorf-Astoria, New York.) SETTLING THE CORSET PROBLEM OF THIS COUNTRY INCE I last wrote you all there has been an awful lot of fashion Shows and all their By Products held here in New York. All the out of Town buyers from all over have been here. So, on behalf of New York City, I had to help welcome them at their various Banquets. There was the retail Milliners' big fashion show at the Astor Ball Room where they showed 500 Hats and me. Some of the hats were just as funny looking as I was. Well, I settled the Hat and Dress business to the satisfaction of everybody but the Milliners. So the next night at the Commodore Hotel I mingled with those Princes of Brigands, the Leather and Shoe men, and later I want to tell all you people just how they operate. For we never paid more for our Shoes and were nearer barefooted than we are today, so don't think that I am bought off this week by those Pasteboard Highbinders: it's only that I want to talk to the Ladies today. During this reign of Indigestion I was called on [:39 -WILL ROGERS' -- to speak at a big Banquet at the Waldorf to the Corset Manufacturers. Now that only shows you what a degrading thing this after Dinner speaking is. I want to get out of it in a few weeks and back to the Movies. This speaking calls on a fellow to learn something about articles that a self-respecting man has no business knowing about. 'So that's why I am going to get away. If a Man is called on to tell in a Public Banquet room what he knows about Corsets, there is no telling what other Ladies' wearing apparel he might be called on to discuss. So me back to the Morals of Hollywood before it's too late. I was, at that, mighty glad to appear at a dinner given by an essential Industry. Just imagine, if you can, if the flesh of this Country were allowed to wander around promiscuously! Why, there ain't no telling where it would wind up. There has got to be a gathering or a get-together place for everything in this world, so, when our human Bodies get beyond our control, why we have to call on some mechanical force to help assemble them and bring back what might be called the semblance of a human frame. These Corset Builders, while they might not do a whole lot to help civilization, are a tremendous aid 1:40 ILLITERATE DIGEST to the Eyesight. They have got what you would call a Herculean task as they really have to improve on nature. The same problem confronts them that does the people that run the Subways in New York City. They both have to get so many pounds of human flesh into a given radius. The subway does it by having strong men to push and shove until they can just close the door with only the last man's foot out. But the Corset Carpenters arrive at the same thing by a series of strings. They have what is known as the Back Lace. This is known as a One Man Corset. Now the Front Lace can be operated without a confederate. By judiciously holding your breath and with a conservative intake on the Diaphragm you arrange yourself inside this. Then you tie the strings to the door knob and slowly back away. When your speedometer says you have arrived at exactly 36, why, haul in your lines and tie off. We have also the Side Lace that is made in case you are very fleshy, and need two accomplices to help you congregate yourself. You stand in the middle and they pull from both sides. This acts something in the nature of a vise. This style has L4I' WILL ROGERS' been known to operate so successful that the victims' buttons have popped off their shoes. Of course, the fear of every fleshy Lady is the broken Corset String. I sat next to a catastrophe of this nature once. We didn't know it at first, the deluge seemed so gradual, fill finally the Gentleman on the opposite side of her and myself were gradually pushed off our Chairs. To show you what a wonderful thing this Corseting is, that Lady had come to the Dinner before the broken string episode in a small Roadster. She was delivered home in a Bus. They have also worked out a second line of control, or a place to park an extra string on the back. You can change a,string now while you wait, and they have demountable strings. Now, of course, not as many women wear Corsets as used to but what they have lost in women they have made up with men. When corsets were a dollar a pair they used to be as alike as two Fords. A clerk just looked you over, decided on your circumference and wheel base and handed you out one. They come in long Boxes and you were in doubt at first if it was a Corset or a Casket. Nowadays with the Wraparound and the Dia, - 42 J ILLITERATE DIGEST phragm-Control, and all those things a Corset Manufacturer uses more rubber than a Tire Co. Imagine me being asked to talk at a Corset Dinner, anyway; Me, who has been six years with Ziegfeld Follies and not a Corset in the Show. Men have gone down in History for shaping the destinies of Nations, but I tell you this set of Corset Architects shape the Destinies of Women and that is a lot more important than some of the shaping that has been done on a lot of Nations that I can name off hand. Another thing makes me so strong for them, if it wasn't for the Corset Ads in Magazines men would never look at a Magazine. [43 HOW TO TELL A BUTLER, AND OTHER ETIQUETTE VAR-G VOQ -rHC~R / 1 I WOIN N~rj /f AS I OPENED THE DOOR TO LET HER IN4 2 OF OUR DOGS AND 4 CATS CAME IN HOW TO TELL A BUTLER, AND OTHER ETIQUETTE S OMEBODY must have seen me out in Public; I think it was Emily Post, for she sent me a book on ETIQUETTE that she had written herself. It has 700 pages in it. You wouldn't think there was that much Etiquette, would you I Well, I hadn't read far when I found that I was wrong on most every line of the whole Book. Now, you wouldn't think a Person could live under fairly civilized conditions (as I imagined I was doing) and be so dumb as to not have at least one of these forms of Etiquette right. Well, when I got through reading it, I felt like I had been a heathen all my life. But after I got to noticing other people I met I didn't feel so bad. Some of them didn't know much more about it than I did. So I predict that her Book and all the other things you read now on Etiquette are going to fall on fertile soil. Now take, for instance, being in47 1 WILL ROGERS' troduced, or introducing someone; that is the first thing in the Book. I didn't know up to then that inflection of the voice was such a big factor in introductions. She says that the prominence of the party being introduced determines the sound of the voice, as she says for instance, "Are you there?" and then on finding out you are there she says, "Is it raining?" Now the inflection that you use on asking any one if they are there, is the same inflection that you are to use on introducing Mr. Gothis, if he is the more prominent of the two. Then for the other person, who Mr. Gothis probably got his from, why, you use the "Is it raining?" inflection. You see, a fellow has to know a whole lot more than you think he does before he can properly introduce people to each other. First he has to be up on his Dunn and Bradstreet to tell which of the two is the more prominent. Second, he has to be an Elocutionist so he will know just where to bestow the inflection. Well, I studied on that introduction Chapter till I thought I had it down pat. So I finally got a chance to try it out. My wife had invited a few 1 48 J ILLITERATE DIGEST friends for Dinner, and as she hadn't finished cooking it before they come, I had to meet them and introduce them to each other. Well, I studied for half an hour before they come, trying to figure out which one was the most prominent so I could give her the "Are you there?" inflection. It was hard to figure out because any one of them couldn't be very prominent and be coming to our House for Dinner. So I thought, well, I will just give them both the "Is it raining?" inflection. Then I happened to remember that the Husband of one of them had just bought a Drug Store, so I figured that I better give her the benefit of the "Are you there?" inflection, for if Prohibition stays in effect it's only a matter of days till her Husband will be prominent. So,, when they arrived I was remembering my opening Chapter of my Etiquette on Introductions. When the first one come I was all right; I didn't have to introduce her to anyone. I just opened our front door in answer to the Bell which didn't work. But I was peeping through the Curtains, and as I opened the door to let her in 2 of our Dogs and 4 Cats come in. 1 49 1 WILL ROGERS' - ~ -- Well, while I was shooing them out, apologizing, and trying to make her believe it was unusual for them to do such a thing, now there I was! This Emily Post wrote 700 pages on Etiquette, but not a line on what to do in an emergency to remove Dogs and Cats and still be Nonchalant. The second Lady arrived just as this Dog and Cat Pound of ours was emptying. She was the new Prescription Store Owner's Wife and was to get the "Are you there?" inflection. Her name was (I will call her Smith, but that was not her name). She don't want it to get out that she knows us. Well, I had studied that Book thoroughly but those animals entering our Parlor had kinder upset me. So I said, "Mrs. Smith, Are you there? I want you to meet Mrs. Jones. Is it raining?" Well, these Women looked at me like I was crazy. It was a silly thing to say. Mrs. Smith was there of course, or I couldn't have introduced her, and asking Mrs. Jones if it was raining was most uncalled for, because I had just looked out myself and, besides, any one that ever lived in California knows it won't rain again till next year. But that didn't discourage me. I kept right on 50 3 ILLITERATE DIGEST learning and from now on I am just mangy with Etiquette. Why, just the other day, I heard what I had always considered up to then a well behaved Woman, introduce one Gentleman friend to another and she said, "Allow me to present." Now anybody that's ever read the first 5 lines in the book knows that the word Present is never used only on formal occasions. You should always say "May I introduce" on all informal occasions. There was a Woman who, to look at her, you would never have thought she could possibly be so rude and uncultured as to have made a mistake like that. It just spoiled her for me. I don't care how many nice things she may do in the future, she just don't belong. Rule 2, Chapter 5-: "No Gentleman under any circumstances chews Gum in Public." Now that kinder knocked me for a Goal, for I had been Chewing Gum before some of the best families in this Country. But from now on it is out. I am going to live according to the Book. Chapter 6-: "Gentleman should not walk along the Street with their Cane or Stick striking the picket 15I .WILL ROGERS' fence. Such habits should be curbed in the nursery." Now that 'rule didn't hit me so hard for I am not lame and I don't carry a Cane yet, and furthermore, there is no Picket fences in California. If they had enough pickets to make a fence they would take them and build another Bungalow and rent it. Outside of eating with a sharp knife, there is no rule in the Book that lays you liable to as much criticism as the following: "Whether in a private Car, a Taxi, or a carriage, a lady must never sit on a Gentleman's left, because according to European Etiquette a Lady 'on the left' is no lady." I thought at first when I read that it was a misprint, and meant a Lady should never sit on a Gentleman's Lap, instead of Left. But now I find that it really was Left. So I guess you can go ahead and sit on the lap. It don't say not to. But don't sit on his Left, or you can never hope to enter smart society. Then it says "the Owner of the car should always occupy the right hand side 'of the rear seat." No matter how many payments he has to make on it, that is considered his seat. Chapter 7 is given over entirely to The Opera. What to wear, when to applaud —it tells everything F 52J P1' NO O3ANKEM') of1~ NPI P I I I, BIRDS THAT NEVER CAN TELL THE SERVANTS FROM THE GUESTS. &=-t- x, f"', N -#,:4. 'i )K e- II 1,'!` - ',,., N WILL ROGERS' but how to enjoy the thing. The fellow that figures out how to enjoy the Opera in a foreign tohgue, without kidding himself or fourflushing, has a fortune in store for him. Chapter I2 tells how the Butler should dress. You don't know what a relief it was to me to find that news. I rever had one, but if I do I will know what to costume him in. The Book says: "At six o'clock the Butler puts on his dress Suit. The Butler's suit differs from that of a Gentleman by having no braid on- his trousers." Now all you Birds that never could tell the Servants from the Guests, except somebody called one of them a Butler and the other a Gentleman, you can't tell them 'that way. More than likely the Butler is the Gentleman of the two. But I can tell the Butler. He has no 'braid on his trousers. Now, all got to do is find out how to tell the Gentleman. If you see people walking around looking down at your trousers, in the future, you will know they are looking to see if the braid is left off. [54] I DEFENDING MY SOUP PLATE POSITION I WOULD INVENT A TRIANGLE SHAPE SLIDE THAT COULD BE PUSHED UNDER 'MHE PLATE DEFENDING MY SOUP PLATE POSITION A COUPLE of weeks ago in my weekly Hamburger, I had the following, "If Mrs. J. W. Davis ever gets into the White House we will have a mistress to preside whom no titled European visitor can embarrass by doing the right thing first. She will never tip her Soup plate even if she can't get it all." Now comes along an old friend of mine, Percy Hammond, a Theatrical Critic on a New York Paper (Pardon me, Percy, for having to tell them whom you are, but my readers are mostly provincial). He takes up a couple of columns, part of which follows: "For years I have been tipping my Soup plate, but never until Mr. Rogers instructed me, did I know that I was performing a Social error. Consultation with the polished and urbane head waiters of the Middle West, where I spent my boyhood, taught me, I believed, to eat Soup. One wonders if Mr. Rogers has given as much thought to soup as he has to the Lariat. Perhaps he does not know, -1:57 WILL ROGERS' being recently from Oklahoma, that in many promiinent eastern Dining rooms one may tip ones Soup plate, without losing his social standing. I regard Mr. Rogers' interference as prairie, impudent and unofficial. The Stewards of the Dutch Treat Club assure me that it is proper to tip one's plate, provided (and here is the subtlety that escapes Mr. Rogers), provided that one tips one's Soup plate from and not toward. "Mr. Rogers might well observe the modesty in such matters that adorns Mr. Tom Mix his fellow ex-cowman. Mr. Mix, telling of a dinner given in lis honor at the Hotel Astor, said, 'I et for two hours and didn't recognize a thing I et except an olive.'" Them are Percy's very words. Now Percy (you notice I call you Percy, because if I kept saying, "Mr. Hammond, Mr. Hammond," all through my Article it might possibly appear too formal), Percy, I thought you were a Theatrical Critic. Now I find you are only a Soup Critic. Instead of going, as is customary, from soup to nuts, you have gone from Nuts to soup. Now, Percy, I have just read your Article on "my ignorance of Etiquette" (I don't know if that Etiquette thing is spelled right, or not; if it is not it will give you a chance for another EsrJ ILLITERATE DIGEST Article on my bad spelling). Now you do not have to write Articles on my lack of Etiquette, my ig. norance, my bad English, or a thousand and one other defects. All the people that I ever met or any one who ever read one of my articles know that. That would be just like saying W. J. Bryan was in Politics just for Chatauqua Purposes. It's too well known to even comment on. Besides, I admit it. Percy, I am just an old country boy in a big town trying to get along, I have been eating Pretty regular, and the reason I have been is because I have stayed an old country boy. Now I wrote that Article, and technically I admit I may have been wrong, but the Newspapers paid me a lot of money for it, and I never had a complaint. And by the way, I will get the same this week for writing about you that I did about Soup. Now both Articles may be wrong, But if you can show me how I can get any more money by writing them right, why I will split with you. Now you took my soup article apart to see what made it float. I will see if we can't find some SMALL technicalities in your Literary Masterpiece. You say I came recently from Oklahoma, while You come from the Middle West and "by E159:] - WILL ROGERS' consultation with the Head Waiters have learned the proper way to eat soup." I thought Oklahoma was in the Middle West. Your knowledge of Geography is worse than my Etiquette. You say you learned to eat Soup from a Head Waiter in the Middle West. Well, I admit my ignorance again; I never saw a head waiter eat Soup. Down in Oklahoma (probably near Siberia.). where I come from, we wouldn't let a head waiter eat at our Table, even if we had a head waiter, which we haven't. If I remember right I think it was my Mother taught me what little she knew of how I should eat, because if we had had to wait until we sent and got a head waiter to show us, we would have all starved to death. If a head waiter taught you to eat soup, Percy, I suppose you were sent to Bordens to learn how to drink Milk. Then you state, "The Stewards of the Dutch Treat Club assure me that it is proper to tip one's plate." Now if you had learned properly from the great social Head Waiters of the urbane Middle West, why did you have to consult the Stewards of the Dutch Treat Club? Could it be that after arriving in N. Y. you couldn't rely on the information of the polished Head waiters of your phantom [6o.] ILLITERATE DIGEST Middle West? Now I was in the Dutch Treat Club once, but just as a Guest of Honor at a Luncheon, and of course had no chance to get into any intimate conversations with the Stewards. At that time, the place did not impress me as being where one might learn the last word in Etiquette. And as for your saying that "anything of subtlety would escape me," that I also admit. I attribute it to my Dumbness. But as for me being too Dumb to get the idea of "the Soup plate being tipped away and not toward one," that's not Etiquette; that's just Self Protection. As bad as you plate tippers want all you can get, you don't want it in your lap. Custom makes manners, and while I know that it is permissible to tip plates, I still say that it is not a universal custom. Manners are nothing more than common sense, and a person has no more right to try and get every drop of soup out of his plate than he has to take a piece of bread and try and harvest all the Gravy in his plate. If you are that hungry, they ought to feed you out of a Nose Bag. So, "prairie impudence" or no "prairie impudence," I claim there are lots of them that don't do it, even if it is permissible (Head Waiters and Dutch Stewards to the C6 i WILL ROGERS',,., '.,,. -. contrary). It's permissible to get drunk but we still have a few that don't. Now, Percy; suppose they all did as is permitted. Picture a big dinner with everybody with their soup plates all balanced up on edge, with one hand holding, them up and the other hand with the spoon rounding up what little soup was left. They would resemble a lot of plate jugglers instead of Dinner Guests. Why. if that was the universal custom, I would invent a triangle shape slide that could be pushed under the plate, so it would permit you to have one hand free, in case you were sitting next to your own wife, or if by chance you might want to use your napkin. According to your hungry plan, every Guest practically handcuffs himself during the latter end of the soup course. He is absolutely helpless. So don't ask head waiters and stewards what to do, Percy, look around yourself You will find hundreds of them that are satisfied with just what Soup they can get on the level. Why I bet you are a fellow Percy, if you took Castor Oil, you would want to lick the spoon. You know, Percy, I might know more about Etiquette than you think I do. I wrote a review on Emily Post's Book on Etiquette, and it was reJ 62 j ILLITERATE DIGEST copied in the Literary Digest (and by the way it did not mention the Digest's namn4 and it is unusual for them to re-copy anything unless they are mentioned in the article). Now have you or any of your Mid-Western head waiters, or retinue of Stewards, ever been asked to write a criticism on such an authoritative work as that? So you see I am somewhat of a Critic myself. I am the Hammond of the etiquette Book business. Another thing, Percy, I spoke of a particular case; I mentioned Mrs. Davis. Well, I happened to see the Lady in question eat soup, and she did not try and corral the whole output. She perhaps knew it was permissible, still, she did not seem eager to take advantage of it. Now, you speak of my friend, Tom Mix, where he says, "he et two hours and did not recognize anything he et but an olive." Now, that is bad Grammar, even I will admit, but it's mighty good eating. Don't you kinder envy him, that he has lived his life physically so that now he can eat for two hours. I bet you that you would trade your knowledge of the English language now for his constitution. Tipping that soup plate at all your meals for years is what L 63 J - ' -WILL ROGERS' put that front on you, Perc. Leave some, that's why I am trying to prove to you it's permissible to tip the plate, but it's bad physically. The fact that Tom has done something to be given a dinner for, should make him immune from attacks from the Press Table. Vice Dawes, the profanity end of Coolidge's Campaign, just went through New York last week cussing everything, and everybody, a Hell'n Maria'ing all over the place. But he has other qualities to offset his cussing, so personally I don't think this word, "et" on Mix's part will seriously affect the drawing power of his pictures. You see, Percy, Tom said, "et," but you know better than him what to say. Still, if a Western Picture was to be made to amuse the entire World, I would trust Tom's judgment to yours. You know, Percy, everybody is ignorant, only on different subjects. So, Perc, you string with the High Brows, but I am going to stick to the Low Brows, because I know I am at home with them. For remember, if it was not for us Low Brows, you high brows would have no one to discuss. But God love you, Percy, and if you ever want to leave them and come back to us E 64 ILLITERATE DIGEST where you started, we will all be glad to welcome you, even if you do feel like you are slumming. You must remember, Perc, that the question of the World today is, not how to eat soup, but how to get soup to eat. [65 J HELPING THE GIRLS WITH THEIR INCOME TAXES HELPING THE GIRLS WITH THEIR INCOME TAXES WELL, I haven't had much time lately to dope out many new jokes. I have been helping the Girls in the Follies make out their Income Tax. A vital question come up, do Presents come under the heading of Salary? You know that's a mighty big item with us. When I say Us, I don't mean Me, as no one has given me anything yet, but I stick around in case a few crumbs drop. I have been looking for a bribe from some of our prominent men to keep their name out of my act, but the only ones who even speak to me are the ones I mention. So I guess about the only way you can get a Man sore nowadays is to ignore him. One Girl wanted to charge off Taxi Cab fares to and from the Theatre. I told her she couldn't do that. She said, "Well, how am I to get there?' I said, "Well, as far as the Government is concerned, you can come on the Subway." She said, "Oh! What is the Subway?" [ 69 ] WILL ROGERS' Another Girl who has been with the various Follies for ten years wanted to know what She could charge off for Depreciation. And she was absolutely right because if, after being with them for that long, and you haven't married at least one Millionaire, you certainly have a legitimate claim for Depreciation. I reminded one of the Girls that she had neglected to include two of her Alimony allowances. She said, "Do I have to put them all in?" I said, "Why, certainly you do." The Girl said, "Well, how did the Government keep track of them? I couldn't." One Girl charged off a non-providing Husband under the heading of Bad Debts. We charged off all Cigarettes smoked in Public under the heading, Advertising. One Sweetheart who paid for a Girl's Dinner every night, went thoroughly broke in Wall Street by trying to corner Canned Tomatoes in the late Piggledy-Wiggledy uprising. We figured up what the dinners would be for the rest of the year and charged him off as a Total Loss. And right here I want to say what an honest bunch these Girls are. They dornt want to beat 70:1 ILLITERATE DIGEST the Government out of a thing. One Girl who had been away for a few weeks last winter to Palm Beach left a Husband in the good hands of her Girl Chum. When she returned the Girl Chum gave her a Two Thousand Dollar Bracelet. Now she wanted to include this Item in her Tax and we couldn't figure out where to put it. Finally we decided it was Rents, so we put it in, "For Rent, of -One Husband, two Thousand Dollars." Of course while the girls had these tremendous salaries I was able to help on account of my technical knowledge of them (as I dress with their Chauffeurs), and on account of my equal knowledge of making out an Income Tax, with any man in the World. As none of us know a thing about it. Look what I saved them on Bathing Suits! I had them all claim they bought various Suits. And I defy even a Congressional Investigating Committee (and you certainly can't pick any more useless Body of men than they are), I defy them to say that a Bathing Suit on a Beautiful Girl don't come under the heading of Legitimate Advertising. Now, as I say, these Girls all wanted to do what was right as they could afford to but this Income Tax has not acted that way with the Men. The 7I'3 WILL ROGERS' Income Tax has made more Liars out of the American people than Golf has. Even when you make one out on the level, you don't know when it's through if you are a Crook or a Martyr. Of course, people are getting smarter nowadays; they are letting Lawyers, instead of their conscience, be their Guide. There is some talk of lowering it, and they will have to. People are not making enough to pay it. And, by the way, the only way they will ever stop Bootlegging, too, is to make them pay an Income Tax. (At present it is a Tax exempt Industry.) Income Tax has stopped every other Industry, so there is no reason why it won't stop Bootlegging. Of course, some of our more thrifty Girls have followed the example of their Male Tax Dodging friends and Incorporated (as the rate is lower on Corporations). Wall Street attended to that little matter when they were drawing the Tax Bill up in Washington. These Girls had to do that, the same as men, to protect their Salaries. Of course, the big Gamble in buying into these Individual Corporations is the Lucky chance that she might make one or more L72:1 ILLITERATE DIGEST wealthy marriages during the year. When of course, her being Incorporated, all she gets comes under the heading of Income, and you, as a Stockholder, get your Pro Rata Share. If she lands a big one you have struck Oil. Then, on the other hand, she may marry for love. In that case you have brought in a Duster. For example, down on the Exchange you will find the Anastasia Reed, incorporated, along with General Motors and Blue Jay Corn Plasters. At the end of the year, the Stockholders, after adding up the Salary along with the accumulated Alimony, can either declare a dividend, or vote a Dinner and put the Undivided profits back into the growing Concern. Now, I can't tell you the name but I was lucky enough to land 5 shares just before a Blonde Corporation married a Multi-Millionaire who was over 70 years of age. Us Stockholders have figured out at our last meeting that if he dies when we think he will (and we have no reason to believe otherwise, unless the Poison acts as a Monkey Gland) why, just those 5 shares will make me independent for life. I don't want to use this space as an ad, but I 733 WILL ROGERS' have been able for a small monetary fee to tip off my friends just what stock to buy. You see I am in a position to judge as I watch who is in the front row every night and I can just tell when Mendelssohn's Spring Song will start percolating for some particular Corporation. Now, at the present time, there is every night in the front row a Millionaire Oklahoma Oil Magnate and a Bootlegger, both angling for the same Corporation. If this Bootlegging person lands her, why her Stockholders are- made for life, but if the Oil Magnate comes through (for sometimes these female Corporations are swayed by sentiment), why the stock won't be worth within a thousand Percent of what it will be if the Bootheel Party lands. Now, take me personally; this Income Tax thing don't bother me at all. You are allowed 200 dollars for each Child, and my Children and my Income are just coming out even now. 1 74 THE GREATEST DOCUMENT IN AMERICAN LITERATURE 014 13UrTrbtf-iOws WU -t) KtLLI A ON 0H,SHCe Ibot A At~e Cf$lAP~t;_ Sq-rkll OUR. 1BOLO4.rNA L(T~TL LE1ON4 WITH A NitCC ~13r PLAVORej) wrtT AN' A BIT OF Vl/~rlr~A C(ZCpC- OATS AN ) ANAY Nice (rfECt4 moSS, HAN' <14 AW4 SHC- SQQCeEz-Dt O~UoN4 BREW4 46N MAWMIE 'EM ALL CO0frT-HereWt1At Ot-AH A~ 5H'Ii~~A APPL4E SAUCE. Wl1AIHAMMp*IE -7 - I I OBJECT TO THE SENATOR FROM MASSACHUSETTS' SLURRING REMARKS& N v4 Comedy Drama Entitled THE WHOLE TRUTH AND NOTHING BUT THE TRUTH PLACE-Washington, D. C. TIME-From I924 to I930. 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. C237 WILL ROGERS' 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? 12383 ILLITERATE DIGEST 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. 239 WILL ROGERS' 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 House also? at the White 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 240 ILLITERATE DIGEST 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 ta 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 askF2411 WILL ROGERS' ing 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. r 242 2 ILLITERATE DIGEST 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? i:243 WILL ROGERS' 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 E244 ILLITERATE DIGEST 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. 245 WELL, WHO IS PRUNES? lll- -".-.1 ~I1I1. ~ L-~~~Y.^-~-1..- _~_____A..__ _; SOMe' FELO'4 dSAY 1 SOME ONCE -OL'O - --- --- -- - --— 1111- -1 -~LI__ "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.:249J WILL ROGERS' 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. o250 - ILLITERATE DIGEST 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? E251J WILL ROGERS' 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 Sena. tor's slur on the fair name of the Democratic Party. This Investigation is supposed to be Non Sectarian, 252 ILLITERATE DIGEST 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 Subpoena 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. 253J WILL ROGERS' 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? -E254 ILLITERATE DIGEST 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.:2551 WILL ROGERS' 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 E2563' ILLITERATE DIGEST 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. 2573 - WILL ROGERS' MR. CARAWAY Well, before we adjourn, I want to know who Peaches is. MR. ROBINSON Well, I want to know who Prunes WERE. C2S8 1 POLITICS GETTING READY TO JELL POLITICS GETTING READY TO JELL HE 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 [26I WILL ROGERS' 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. [ 262 ILLITERATE DIGEST 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 aI pretty good line of Gags, as there was quite a lot happening every day of Public interest. So I go oyer apd 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 C[263 WILL ROGERS' - -l -., i i L.........ii1 I 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 showjust 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 [ 264 J ILLITERATE DIGEST of i2 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 I2 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 C265 WILL ROGERS' 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. 266j TWO LONG LOST FRIEiNDS FOUJND AT LAST cJ"1 LECTURil ~ M~ET1N IvT TWO LONG LOST FRIENDS FOUND AT LAST W ELL, 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. L269 - - WILL ROGERS' Well, who should blow in but two of our old longlost 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. Bothb 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 - 270 ILLITERATE DIGEST 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 E27I WILL ROGERS' 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 272 J ILLITERATE DIGEST 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. r27311 WILL ROGERS' 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 I8th Amendment come in, than the I8th 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 L 274J ILLITERATE DIGEST 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 E 275 WILL ROGERS' 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. ' 276 3 THEY NOMINATED EVERYBODY BUT THE FOUR HORSEMEN "YOU WASN'T HERE AND YOU KNOW THEM AS WELL AS I DO." THEY NOMINATED EVERYBODY BUT THE FOUR HORSEMEN S 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 I6 men for President. Here is what eacn 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 C 279 J WILL ROGERS' 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 I i 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 -:280] ILLITERATE DIGEST the League of Nations and spoke of the 4 Horse. men 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 whd 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. L28I WILL ROGERS' 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 conven-. tion. 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 282 ILLITERATE DIGEST Bryan had lowered the price of Gasoline in Ne. braska. 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. - 283 WILL ROGERS' 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. L 284 IN THE MIDST OF A 7 YEAR HITCH __ ___ h-i -—:; -- s --- -------— ~-e _ --- --- iK I ) iriy WELL, I GUESS YOU HEARD ABOUT MY PRESIDENTIAL BOOM. IN THE MIDST OF A 7 YEAR HITCH W ELL, 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 dif287 7 WILL ROGERS' ferent year when what does my Native State of Oklahoma doI 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 288 J ILLITERATE DIGEST 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. C289' WILL ROGERS' 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 ' 29o0 THE DEATHS FROM OLD AGE AMONG THE DELEGATES IS ABOUT OFFSET BY THE BIRTHRATE..ma "-I K.-''"' 'WILL ROGERS' 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. 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 860, 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, r 292 ILLITERATE DIGEST 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 I928. 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 r 293 WILL ROGERS' 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 I928, '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. C 294 3 "WILL ROGERS JR." REPORTS THE CONVENTION FOR HIS FATHER, WORN OUT BY LONG SERVICE (Mr. Rogers' articles on the Convention attracted more attentiot 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 CONNVENTION FOR HIS FATHER, WORN OUT BY LONG SERVICE W n ILL 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 he to keep reporting E2971 WILL ROGERS' 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 t 298 ILLITERATE DIGEST 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,: 299 J * - WILL ROGERS'' 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..3~00 ILLITERATE DIGEST 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." C30I J WILL ROGERS' 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. E 302 1 ROPING A CRITIC ROPING A CRITIC PROLOGUE-These critics have been interviewing Actors (and us other people that ap. pear on the stage) for years. And none of the interviews have ever been right, cause they never told the truth. Course they couldh'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 [ 305 j WILL ROGERS' 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 i8-.:3061 ILLITERATE DIGEST 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 becom. ing 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. 1 307 J WILL ROGERS',..,.... - 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? 308 3 ILLITERATE DIGEST 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 train. ing. 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. 1:309 J - ''-WILL ROGERS' 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. E3Io "THE WORLD TOMORROW," AFTER THE MANNER OF GREAT JOURNALISTS. "THE WORLD TOMORROW," AFTER THE MANNER OF GREAT JOURNALISTS.* 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. *With apologies to Arthur Brisbane.:33 13 WILL ROGERS' 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 nonopposable, and, most of all, the enormous development of the brain, and smooth rounded Skull. But what cares the man of today for the Nean1:3141 ILLITERATE DIGEST derthal 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 C3153 WILL ROGERS' 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 of258 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 r3161 ILLITERATE DIGEST 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 L3I73 WILL ROGERS' 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 preniiere 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 E3 I81 ILLITERATE DIGEST 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 I 5 hours. That's a good E 3 I'9 WILL ROGERS' 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. r320 3 SETTLING THE AFFAIRS OF THE WORLD IN MY OWN WAY ii ~_- -.-d~~r r -~-= "IF THEY HAVEN'T GOT ENOUGH WATER IN THERE TO FILL THE HARBOR, WE HAVE TO ASK THE NEIGHBORS TO DRAIN THEIR CORN LIQUOR." SETTLING THE AFFAIRS OF THE WORLD IN MY OWN WAY xLL, they brought our Soldiers back VXJ 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, 3233 WILL ROGERS' -. - 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 I I 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 I Io 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 Pho324: ILLITERATE DIGEST tographed, 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 E3251 WILL ROGERS' 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 NonTaxable 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 I" 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 E3261 ILLITERATE DIGEST 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:327 WILL ROGERS' 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 TICKEATER. 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 i 8 miles from NOWATER, Oklahoma), why, we will have to ask all the Neighbors to drain their Corn Liquor from J3283 ILLITERATE DIGEST 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, 1oo percent funny, or Ioo 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 Manceuvers on CONTENTNEA CREEK next year. C329 A SKINNY DAKOTA KID WHO MADE GOOD A SKINNY DAKOTA KID WHO MADE GOOD UT 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 MerryGo-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 E 333 1 WILL ROGERS' 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 [334: ILLITERATE DIGEST 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 Sandel 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 C335 WILL ROGERS' 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 l 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. r3361 ILLITERATE DIGEST -.. 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 Pro337 1 . - WILL ROGERS' fession 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. 1:3381 ILLITERATE DIGEST 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 1:339: WILL ROGERS' 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 '340 ILLITERATE DIGEST 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 he might have gone down as just "Abe." I:341: TAKING THE CURE, BY THE SHORES OF CAT CREEK "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 OW, 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 Iocated in the Town near the ranch where I was born and raised. t 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 [ 345 *. WILL ROGERS' 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. - 3463 ILLITERATE DIGEST 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 litdle 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 murk ders 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 E1347:1 WILL ROGERS' 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 I2 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 I900 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 9o5 miles north of Sen[348 3 ILLITERATE DIGEST ator 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 6o 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 L349J WILL ROGERS' 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 L350s ILLITERATE DIGEST practically Tongue tied and couldn't speak out in private much less in Public. Well, after I2 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 Moun. tain Railroad, not often, but every few days. THE END I., i' THE UNIVERSITY OF MICHIGAN -GRADUATE, LIBRARY A ~UNIVERSITY OF MICHIGAN 3 9015 00274 3402 ii4 I - 4-4 I I