Will Rogers' Weekly Articles
THE WEEKLY EXPOSURE
IS ONE JUMP AHEAD OF THE SHERIFF
Now let’s get down to bed rock and find out what has kept us among the elect 8 percent. Just one thing, and that is truth. We are staking the reputation of our periodical on the assumption that nothing in public life (or out of it, for that matter) is any good. Now what we have set out to do is to find the worst. It’s no trouble to pick out the bad but I tell you, readers, when you sit down to pick out the worst, you have to set some task for yourself.
The issue this week will be known as the Lament Number, or Hearts and Flowers Week. The week just passed has been the saddest of any known to all alleged humorists, paragraphers, and stage comedians. When I picked up my morning paper one day recently and read one of the headlines, my wife had to pour water on me for 30 minutes to bring me to. The headline read:
“Henry Ford not to run for President.” Here I had been laying awak nights stacking up Ford jokes and I felt better fortified for the coming campaign than a prize fighter with a rock hidden in his glove.
I had some gags that I had never pulled. I was just nursing them along, until the heat of the campaign come and then I was going to cut loose with them. Well, that announcement just knocked me cuckoo. It was just like taking away a man’s bread and butter. You take a Ford joke away from an article or a monologue and you have just about ripped the backbone out of it. I tell you people, you don’t know what they mean to you until they are taken away.
Then also you must take into consideration that I really wanted him to be president. It was just as big a disappointment to me as it was to millions of you other folks who wanted him. Of course, outside of my personal friendship and admiration for Mr. Ford and his many great qualities, I had (I will admit) a monetary thought in mind, had he been elected, because the more I see of public affairs and public offices, the more I realize that a comedian has a wonderful opportunity if appointed to one of the high presidential appointments.
Comedians always have held those positions and there is no reason why I can’t go in and do as bad as some of the rest.
So you will see this Ford Boom busting a tire has been a double disappointment to me. I think Mr. Ford is wrong when he says “90 percent of the people are satisfied.” 90 percent of the people in this country are not satisfied. It’s just got so that 90 percent of the people in this country don’t give a damn.
Politics ain’t worrying this country one tenth as much as parking space. How to pass one car without meeting another one, gives people in this country more thought in one day, than all the messages delivered to Congress since Washington wore golf breeches.
There is millions of people in this country that know the color of Mary Pickford’s hair, but think the Presidential office is hereditary.1 So Mr. Ford should not mistake apparent prosperity, for satisfaction. There is more mortgages in this country than there is votes. This country right now is operating on a dollar down and a dollar a week.
It ain’t taxes that is hurting this country; it’s interest. Mr. Ford says” “America is on wheels today.” He means “America is on Tick today.” If an automobile manufacturer could make a car so good that he could advertise it as follows: “Will last ’till it’s paid for,” he could put Ford out of business.
The only way to solve the traffic problem of this country is to pass a law that only paid-for cars are allowed to use the highways. That would make traffic so scarce that we could use our Boulevards for children’s play grounds.
No, it’s not politics that is worrying this country; it’s the second payment. The only thing that makes it look bad is that, just before this announcement of Mr. Ford’s, he had held a conference with Mr. Coolidge. Of course a lot of people intimate that he was bought off. Now, speaking editorially I don’t believe that he was. What made it look bad was that, the next day after his visit, the White House ordered a new Lincoln Sedan and Ford delivery truck.
Of course, you give an automobile manufacturer a chance to sell a couple of cars and he will do almost anything within reason. So you couldn’t have blamed him if he had kinder looked out for himself in this transaction.
After all, this running for president is sort of a hazardous business. Statistics have proven that out of 110 million people there is only one gets to be president. It’s what you might call a long shot office, and you can’t condemn a man for not investing in campaign literature.
So, in closing, let us say that the country not only lost a good president but his decision spoiled some of the best jokes I ever had in my life. But there is one gleam of hope on the horizon. While Ford fell down on us comedians our next best standby, Prohibition, furnished more than its quota.
There has been a terrible scandal in Washington. Official Washington is said to have been buying their liquor from the foreign embassys instead of getting it through permits from government warehouses. Now our officials are getting to be a fine sort when we can’t even get them to patronize home industry.
What’s the use having permits to get whiskey out of overloaded government warehouses if our own servants of the people are not going to use those permits. Of course they are excusing themselves now by saying it was just some cordials and fancy drinks, that they had gotten from the foreigners. They say they have gotten their staple liquors through the usual channels right here at home. Liquor sales is probably what maintains some of those embassys. Why, there is countries got embassys over here now, that before prohibition couldn’t even maintain a flag. That’s why America has such poor embassys abroad. We haven’t even got our own buildings. It’s because we have nothing to sell over there to keep them up.
Now, if England would only prohibit tobacco over there, why that would give us a chance to really do something with our embassy worth while. We could bootleg enough tobacco in a year over there to get us as good an embassy as they have over here.
You know foreign nations don’t send diplomats over here any more. They just find the best bartender they have and appoint him.
1For Mary Pickford see WA 25:N 4.
WA57 January 13, 1924
ALL THE NEW YEAR’S MILLIONAIRES
ARE OPTIMISTIC
Now, after gathering all the returns of the New Year’s, I find in hundreds of newspapers all over the United States that they devoted years of space to what some of our rich men think of the business prospects of the coming year. It’s the same old thing every year. It’s got so a working man hates to pick up his paper New Year’s morning, for staring him in the face will be:
“Judge Gary, the head of a Steel Trust, says, ‘I am at heart an optimist, and I look to the coming year with great fortitude.1 I think if everybody buckles down and gives 12 hours of labor for 8 hours pay I can see nothing ahead that will affect the present prosperity of our grand nation.’”
Then Mr. Mellon is quoted and says, as follows: “I am by nature an optimist.2 I never want to feel pessimistic. Because of a presidential election there is some uneasiness. But I look forward to one of the best years financially I have ever had.”
Mr. Ford also says as follows: “There was some loose motion in the body of our political life. But after I made an adjustment on the differential of the Koolidge Kampaign, and tightened up the loose parts with my declaration of where I stood, why things are all oiled up, and going smoothly, unless Hiram Hearst Johnston or McAdoo carelessly thrusts a heavy pedestrian in front of the vehicle.3 But I am at heart an optimist and I have great faith in the coming year. Speaking from a personal business angle, you just can’t imagine how many people want those things—pardon me, I mean buy those things.”
Then will come what Charlie Schwab has to say: “I am at heart an optimist.4 I think the coming year will be the banner year of 1924.”
Then will follow a dozen other rich birds, depending on where the paper is printed and who is the richest man they have in their town. Now these same gags you have to read every New Year’s. They don’t even change the wording. Every New Year holds the same thing in store for them. But they are as sure to make the front page every New Year’s as a screen star is of having her previous husbands all enumerated every time the papers write up her latest divorce.
Why, in the name of common sense, don’t they ask somebody else what they think of the coming year? What those guys think is pretty well established. Sure they are optimistic of the future. If we had their dough we would be optimistic too. I would not only be an optimist for that much Jack, I would even be a vegetarian.
Why don’t they ask me what the New Year has in hiding for me? Well, I want to tell you that it don’t look any too rosy from where I am sitting. With every public man we have elected doing comedy, I tell you I don’t see much of a chance for a comedian to make a living. I am just on the verge of going to work. They can do more funny things naturally, than I can think of to do purposely.
Instead of asking Gary what he thinks, why don’t they ask a farmer. There is 10 million farmers and only one Gary. See what the farmer is paid every year for his optimism. And he has to be an optimist or he wouldn’t still be a farmer. Why don’t they ask Connie Mack what the New Year has lurking for him and his Philadelphia Athletics.5 See if he can rake up any optimism after hearing every afternoon: “Well, we should have won that one.”
So The Exposure hereby and hereon goes on record editorially to try and have a new bunch of names to view on New Year’s, next Jan. 1st. Of course while the backbone of any paper is its editorial policy, why, at the same time, it must have some few news items, and various other departments.
This past couple of weeks foreign news has just swamped us. If it had not been for Magnus Johnston milking a cow in Washington, we not only would have had no milk, but we would have had no local news.6 Magnus milked in a contest for quantity, against Secretary Wallace of the Interior.7 Magnus’ cow had just been milked a few minutes before he started in on her. But that made no difference to him. Where he comes from milking is continuous. Magnus lost the contest. He said he hadn’t milked lately and didn’t have his hand in. Showing you that the United States Senate has already spoiled a darn good milker.
For the convenience of our political readers from now on we will conduct a dairy department in The Exposure. By the way, both of these men milked without washing their hands, to show their constituents that they were dirt farmers.
FOREIGN NEWS
Other foreign news by picture section of our press was that King George’s red bull had taken the prize at a cattle show.8 So, between bulls and blue ribbons and servants the Royalty had a strenuous week.
Speaking of what the War did for Democracy and to stop all future wars, I see where we have the exclusive contract to furnish all ammunition for this and the next five wars in Mexico, with the option to furnish for the following 5, if there are any receptacles left to shoot into. That’s a good idea. If you can’t match a war yourself, why get the contract to furnish the material for some other wars. You know, that’s a great thing. You take a lot of nations and if they were not able to buy ammunition why they just couldn’t go to war. I tell you there is nothing in the world as disheartening to a country as to want to go to war and can’t. So I think we are to be heartily commended for obliging a suffering humanity.
INCREASE IN POPULATION NOTES
LONDON ENGLAND
IMMIGRATION NEWS
Next week we will get out our Midwinter number if the tourists from back East don’t run over us.
1For Elbert H. Gary see WA 3:N 6.
2Andrew William Mellon, American financier with huge interests in coal and iron production, aluminum manufacturing, and banking; United States secretary of the treasury from1921 to 1932.
3For Hiram W. Johnson see WA 14:N 3; for William Randolph Hearst see WA 19:N 2; for William G. McAdoo see WA 25:N 1.
4For Charles Schwab see WA 3:N 6.
5Connie Mack (Cornelius McGillicuddy), professional baseball player; manager of the Philadelphia Athletics from 1901 to 1950.
6For Magnus Johnson see WA 35:N 4.
7Henry Cantwell Wallace, Iowa agricultural editor who served as United States secretary of agriculture from 1921 until his death in 1924.
8For George V see WA 11:N 11.
9Frank Billings Kellogg, United States ambassador to England from 1924 to 1925. He later served as United States secretary of state and was a recipient of the Nobel Peace Prize in 1929.
WA58 January 20, 1924
SEND MEXICO OUR WOODEN SHIPS, TOO
COMMERCE. Jack Dempsey has gone to Florida to get accustomed to the association of big sums, in preparation for his forthcoming commercial year.1
SCIENCE. The past week 9 women in various parts of the U. S. shot and killed their husbands. In no line of our modern scientific advancement has progress been more marked than in the marksmanship of our weaker sex. Husbands are being hit in these days and times who in years past were just merely shot at. It is true that woman is the weaker sex physically. But the automatic (with its sprinkling of bullets) has proven to be the great stabilizer between the two sexes. Remington, and Smith and Wesson, have done more to advance the cause of womans’ suffrage than all the arguments of its millions of believers. Man used to be bigger than woman, but now woman carries the difference in her vanity case, neatly oiled and loaded. If you will notice in any of your towns you will find located as near as possible to the Marriage Bureau, a firearms store. In some cases the gun is bought with the License, but in most cases, the pistol is procured the day following the betrothal.
If you see a woman or young girl at a shooting gallery at any of our resorts or amusement places, you will know at once that she is engaged, and is practicing for the inevitable. So The Exposure, after carefully examining the steps made in all scientific lines, awards the palm to the woman’s marksmanship.
Now we must go from the scientific standpoint to the practical side. What has been accomplished by this continuous parade to the cemetery? Has it improved the character of our husbandry? No, it has not. The Exposure believes that the type and stability of husbands were never lower than at this particular era. This rattle of musketry in the homes has made more dead husbands, but has not made any better ones.
Of course, another thing the modern husband will not realize is that the modern woman, in addition to being a wife and a marksman, is also a detective. When you marry nowadays you not only have a helpmate, but you have a little Pinkerton in your home. Wives are finding out things on husbands today that in th old days even their mothers could not find out for them. Of course, in some rare instances, wives have casually mislaid their artillery for a few moments and it has fallen in the hands of their husbands who promptly took advantage of the opportunity and opened fire on the wife. But these cases have been so rare and the direct hits so seldom that it has made it practically a one sided warfare.
I would suggest in the forthcoming war (I don’t know if we have one booked now) but when we do, instead of using the men on our side, just use the women. Have them meet the enemy and marry them. Then give each woman a gun and the war would be over in 24 hours.
Speaking of wars, I have just read the Bok 100 thousand dollar sweepstakes plan.2 Well sir, at first it almost sounded new. I hadn’t read it in 4 years. Just think how things have advanced in price! Here they are giving 100 thousand berries for our old familiar article. Somebody will offer a prize for the best original oration on America, and then some one will bob up with Lincoln’s Gettysburg Address.
Imagine having to pay for a plan to stop wars! At that, this thing if it was properly applied would stop war. Just make every nation read it before they started and by the time they got through it they would be too old to fight. Then go even further make them try to understand it. That would stop them.
I see my old friend Jim Reed of Missouri was the first to spot the thing.3 He can smell a League of Nations Article 2 days before it’s printed. Now some bird is going to get 100,000 for rewriting that, while I have a plan which I will never receive 5 cents for but still it would stop all future wars, and everybody could understand it for it’s only two words, DRAFT WEALTH. Any time big business know that their money is going to be taken away from them and used for war, the same as their clerks and stenographers, you will stop all wars.
Our government has made a wonderful business investment in Mexico. They have sold them a very large quantity of ammunition, which we not only will be paid for, but that will some day be returned to us gratis. So our slogan is, “Why be shot with somebody else’s bullets? Wait and be shot with your own.”
Obregon means well, but Mexican cemeteries are full of presidents who, during their short life, meant well.4
If we must sell them something let’s sell them the wooden ships built during the war. Then let the revolutionists capture them and try to escape in them. That’s the surest way to wipe out the revolution entirely.
So far, The Exposure is the only paper of any magnitude that has not made editorial comment on this small time war being argued out in the Episcopal Church. It’s bad enough to have to expose the political affairs without having to give our version of the Bible. If some of those birds would spend their time following His example instead of trying to figure out His mode of arrival and departure, they would come nearer getting confidence in their church. There is no argument in the world carries the hatred that a religious belief one does. It seems the more learned a man is the less consideration he has for another man’s belief.
Speaking of not believing, I don’t believe that Noah took a pair of every kind of animals into the Ark, for I have seen men, since Prohibition changed their drink, claim that they saw animals that Noah never even heard of. But just because I don’t believe Noah’s African adventure, maybe others do, and besides with my small experience with animals I don’t believe Noah could round up all the animals in one herd without the skunk causing a stampede.
That is no reason why I should go around shouting about it, and be arrested for heresy. I can enjoy a good zoo as well as any one. Whether the animals come here by ark or by subway makes no difference to me. If they are going to argue religion in the church instead of teaching it no wonder you can see more people at a circus than at a church.
1For Jack Dempsey see WA 31:N 1.
2Bok (see WA 32:N 3) awarded his $100,000 American Peace Award from 1924 to Dr. Charles Herbert Levermore, secretary of the New York Peace Society. As part of his peace plan, Levermore urged closer American cooperation with the League of Nations and the World Court.
3For Jim Reed see WA 6:N 6.
4Alvaro Obergón, president of Mexico from 1920 to 1924 and in 1928.
WA59 January 27, 1924
WEEKLY EXPOSURE DISHES UP THE NEWS
It’s awful hard to find any news. A thing that struck me very forcedly is that Mr. Ford is being editorially complimented in Republican papers, which before the late Coolidge announcement, he couldn’t even get an advertisement in. Now I have read, as I say, these papers and I will just give you the news as I see it.
POLAR NEWS (any one of you figuring on touring the arctic this summer don’t overlook this feature). “The U. S. Government is going to send an expedition to the North Pole by Air.” That’s nothing new. That’s the way Cook went—by air.1
“Scientists figure that there might be another country undiscovered up there.” Wouldn’t it be great if we could just find another nation. That would give us another entry in the next war.
And just think of the loans we could make them. I bet you if they do find anybody up there, they will find a Californian among them, subdividing the land and selling it out in lots.
They are going to try to make the trip in the Shenandoah, one of those Zeppelins.2 Well, maybe it can fly up there in that Northern Altitude. None of them have ever been able to fly very long down here. This one flew from Lakehurst, N. J. to St. Louis. That’s mighty poor recommendation to start out on. Lots of guys have made the trip from New Jersey to St. Louis that I would hate to trust with important news to carry to the North Pole. A dirigible is one thing America has never had to retire for old age.
Of course, The Exposure is not speaking from a scientific standpoint. It is looking at it purely from the taxpayers’ angle. Our experience in the frozen North consists of playing one week in Duluth, Minn. in the month of September. The audience had on light mittens and two suits each of woolen underwear. They hadn’t really dressed for the winter yet. There was only one snowplough working on the streets.
Oh, yes, I did get up to Edmonton, Canada, one time. That’s just a thousand miles further North than Cook got. After six o’clock dinner at night we went to a ball game, a double header. Then we come back to theater and gave a show. After the theater, we came out and sit around waiting for it to get dark enough to go to bed.
So if The Exposure don’t seem to get overly excited over this Expedition, why it’s because I am afraid they will find some other nation up there, and I can’t see any good of discovering ’em.
Find the guy that discovered Europe, and see if you can get anybody to get enthused over him. We had better let these Eskimos alone, they might turn out to be another Europe.
Well, that was all the Polar News I could find, so if our Polar department fell down this week, it’s just because there is nothing doing North of 98.
CONTINENTAL NEWS. I see by the papers that they say “Germany is going insane.” I wish you would name me a nation that is competent of judging insanity.
Russia. “Russia wants us to recognize them.” Our government say they won’t recognize them. We will sell them something but we won’t let on that we know them. Russia wants us to recognize them, so they can send over an Embassy. Then they can get in on this bootlegging.
Russia should take a tip from Mexico. Mexico got along fine the last few years till we started to recognize them, and immediately they broke out into another Revolution.
RURAL AND DOMESTIC NOTES. There is a good deal in the papers about giving my native state of Oklahoma back to the Indians. Now I am Cherokee Indian and very proud of it, but I doubt if you can get them to accept it—not in its present state.
When the white folks come in and took Oklahoma from us, they spoiled a mighty happy hunting ground, just to give Sinclair a racing stable, and Walton a barbecue.3
Washington, D. C. papers say: “Congress is deadlocked and can’t act.” I think that is the greatest blessing that could befall this country.
It’s a poor day now when you don’t read in the papers of some presidential candidate flopping over to Coolidge. There is only one way to stop Coolidge now. That is to have Bryan come out in favor of him.4
Some of these presidential candidates who are resigning in favor of Mr. Coolidge are taking their supporters with them—both of them.
Coolidge is the first president to discover that what the American people want is to be let alone.
If the Republicans can just keep from doing something from now until next fall they will walk in.
The only chance the Democrats have is to try and get the Republicans to pass some bills. The more bills the Republicans pass the more chance the Democrats will have. Of course, this is the time of year when a presidential candidate can be bought off mighty cheap. Catch him just when he is figuring out what his campaign literature will come to.
They are having quite an argument over Mr. Mellon’s Tax Bill.5 Mellon wants to cut the surtax on the rich, and leave it as is on the poor, as there is more poor than rich. I suppose the majority will win.
“White House in Washington declared unsafe,” says a dispatch from Washington. That was before Ford’s declaration. I imagine it feels safer now. There is nothing will bolster up a political house like votes.
New York. John D. Rockefeller says: “Love is the greatest thing in the world.”6 You take a few words of affection and try and trade them to him for few gallons of oil, and you will discover just how great love is.
Washington, D. C. (Dairy Department). Magnus Johnston says he is “going to use common sense in the Senate.”7 That’s what they all say when they start in. But if nobody don’t understand you, why, you naturally have to switch.
East Orange, N. J. (Local Notes). “Scientists say that the next war will be fought with electricity.” I am glad to hear this as it means it will be a light war. Now the editor of The Exposure will admit that that last was a very low candle power joke. But when you take into consideration that we deal in facts and not in humor, why that wasn’t so bad, at that.
I see by the papers that they are going to do away with all the nuisance taxes. That means that a man can get a marriage license for nothing.
America is following slowly in the footsteps of England. We have a liberal party. Ours is whichever one is in power.
Headlines in papers say: “Europe criticizes U. S.” If memory serves me right we haven’t complimented them lately ourselves.
They say hot air rises. And I guess it does. An airplane flying over the Capitol the other day caught fire from outside sources.
1Frederick Albert Cook, American physician and arctic explorer. On his return in 1909 from a two-year arctic expedition, he announced he had reached the North Pole on April 21,1908. The claim was denounced and rejected on grounds of insufficient evidence.
2The Shenandoah, the first rigid airship used by the United States Navy, had been scheduled to make the first aerial flight to the North Pole in early 1924, but mechanical difficulties and concern over the general reliability of dirigibles caused the project to be canceled.
3Harry Ford Sinclair, American oil producer who was involved in the Teapot Dome oil lease scandal during the Harding administration. For Jack Walton see WA 7:N 1.
4For William Jennings Bryan see WA 5:N 7.
5For Andrew W. Mellon see WA 57:N 2.
6For John D. Rockefeller, Sr., see WA 3:N 6.
7For Magnus Johnson see WA 35:N 4.
WA60 February 3, 1924
PUTTING BEVERLY HILLS ON THE MAP
After his famous announcement that 90 per cent of the people in this country were satisfied, why, The Blowout couldn’t withstand such untruth. Had Mr. Ford gone through and been elected The Blowout would have become the mouthpiece of the administration. So, while not crowing over the misfortune of a competitor, we were able to procure the title of said paper as soon as it had lost the chance of getting our government run as Mr. Ford would have run it on a “Tighten a bolt as it goes by” system. Now The Exposure and Blowout combined, is looking for some other likely candidate to boost. We have even got down to such sore straits that a populist would not be overlooked.
BEVERLY HILLS IS SHOCKED BY PARTY
The Exposure has some real inside Hollywood dirt to dish up to you this week. For fear some competitor will get in and publish it first I will tell just what happened at a wild party that was given tonight at the home of the editor of this very gem of truth. And what makes it worse the head of our industry that was hired and supposed to keep the scandal from our doorsteps, was the main guest, Will Hays, (the only man in the history of industry that was ever hired for a job without him or the people that hired him knowing what he was hired for, yet still made so good they couldn’t replace him).1 Will Hays, the man who made Harding president, and the movies (partly) behave.
Well my wife and I, aided and encouraged by daughter Mary decided to put on a wild party. Hollywood had been getting all the publicity and selling all the real estate through their scandal, and here was Beverly Hills who could put it on just as wild as they could, and we couldn’t seem to get anywhere. So we looked around to find some guest that would be well enough known, so that when we carried him home he would be recognized.
We thought of Will Hays. So about 6:30 p.m. who should come staggering in from across the street from the hotel but our guest. His brother was to have come with him, but the brother is a lawyer from Sullivan, Indiana, and not having had the experience and capacity of Will he had gone completely out earlier in the evening while being entertained by the Woman’s Federation of Churches.2
WEARING DRESS SUIT
But by this time he was feeling so good he didn’t care anyway, for the industry had bought it for him, and about this time another guest who lives right near fell into the door before we knew it. That was Miss Pauline Frederick.3
She was all primed for a real, old prolonged rough house. She had brought the stuff along with her. She had under her arm a big bag of knitting. She was knitting a blanket for one of my polo ponies. So we all staggered around there till one of the children thought of introducing Miss Frederick and Will.
Then, to make the party real devilish, I was to go and get another man’s wife while he was away at work. She lived next door so I sneaked out while my wife wasn’t looking and dashed right into the home of the young Mrs. Cornelius Vanderbilt Jrs.4 She slipped on something and we both complimented each other on account of her husband having to be at the office getting out his newspaper. She asked if the party was to be so wild, that she should take her gun. I said “Sure, let’s do it right.” So we blew back just as they are ready to get real wild and start eating. By this time Jim and Bill are becoming reconciled to Hays’ suit and start playing baseball in the house. Hollywood can’t put on anything wilder than that. Hays by this time is feeling so good he is telling a story complimenting a Democrat.
We all start off with a fruit cocktail and everybody commenced to loosen up and tell their right salaries. Then comes some consommé and I can tell you this old mixing of drinks is getting in its work. Daughter Mary started doing a wild dance in the living room until Jim laid her out with a baseball bat. Then Hays got to telling what his boy would do and the party just went from one debauch into another.
TOLD ABOUT TRIP
Between drinks of broiled chicken I tried to find out if he was going to be the campaign manager for Mr. Coolidge. But he seemed to think it was such a sure fire thing, that they would waste some less expensive man. I kinder sobered up for a minute and asked him what he thought they would do in this investigation into the Tea Pot Dome Oil Lease. He said he didn’t think they could show where Sinclair ever gave Secretary Fall anything.7 He knew Sinclair was too smooth a giver for that.
I asked him what he thinks of us sending warships to Mexico. So he tells me what a hard time they had down there. Washington wired to the nearest one to go down and it runs on the rocks before they got through reading the telegram. You know our navigators now depend on radio to tell them where they are.
The Navy hasn’t had a compass in three years. They start on a trip and the radio operator tunes in and gets Paul Whiteman’s orchestra playing somewhere, and when he comes too he is in a life boat.8 Bedtime stories have put 9 ships to sleep.
Then I asked him who we were going to protect down there, he said, why the oil men. I asked him who protects the Mexican sheep herder in this country if somebody interferes with his industry, and if Mexico had a Navy would she send it up here to protect him. He said no. So the moral of this is, be an oil man not a sheep herder, and be sure to be born in a country that has a Navy.
By this time we are all so full we have to leave the table, and the noise of moving chairs is something deafening.
GETS RIGHT LATE
I lassoed four or five horses and bring them out and show them to Bill, but he is still all excited talking to the ladies. They wanted to take a ride, but I didn’t want to carry this thing too far. So we go back to the house and I finally get them into their coats and hats and walk them home.
My wife and I we figure the walk will do them good. So when we come back and get in the house why it’s actually 9:15.
So I hope by the aid of Bill to put old Beverly Hills on the map as a wild town. Bill says to me, “Will, if the Woman’s Club ever finds this out they will stop your pictures.” I says, “That’s a good joke on the Woman’s Club, my pictures have never started.”
1For Will H. Hays see WA 21:N 6.
2Hinkle Cain Hays, younger brother of Will H. Hays and an attorney in Hays’ hometown of Sullivan, Indiana.
3Pauline Frederick, American leading lady of silent films and early talkies.
4Rachel Littleton Vanderbilt, wife of American journalist and railroad heir Cornelius Vanderbilt, Jr., whom she married in 1920 and divorced in 1927.
5For George Harvey see WA 1:N 8.
6For the Prince of Wales see WA 17:N 9.
7Albert Bacon Fall, United States secretary of the interior from 1921 to 1923. While in office, Fall secretly leased naval oil reserves at Teapot Dome, Wyoming, and Elk Hills, California, to oilmen Harry Sinclair (see WA 59:N 4) and Edward Laurence Doheny. Fall was convicted of bribery and sentenced to one year in prison and fined $100,000.
8Paul Whiteman, American bandleader who became famous in the 1920s for pioneering the “sweet style” as opposed to the traditional “classic style” jazz music.
WA61 February 10, 1924
WANTED: A WET NURSE FOR THE
OIL INDUSTRY
Tea started one war we had, but nobody ever thought that a Tea Pot would boil over enough to scald some of our most honorable financiers. The only lamentable thing about it, as I am writing now, is that the U. S. Senate is investigating it. Statistics have proven that the surest way to get anything out of the public mind and never to hear of it again is to have a Senate Committee appointed to look into it.
You read where they go in session, and then you never hear any more of them unless one of them dies. Then it may come out that he held an appointment on this certain Committee. Now if they had turned this thing over to some Justice of the Peace, and give him power to act, with no appeal, why we would be reading this morning what millionaire so and so had served in his cell from the outside for breakfast.
Now I see only one way out of this lamentable scandal—that is to do as the movies did, appoint a Will Hays to wet nurse the oil industry, and see if he can keep their nose clean.2 When you come to think of it there is a great similarity between the two industries. Both of them, with the exception of bootlegging, are the newest industry we have. Neither one is a public necessity. We got along great a few years ago without either. But the minute something shows its head in the movies that smacks of scandal, why a howl goes up like a pet coon.
The great criticism of the movies is that people are suddenly thrown into possessions of money who were never accustomed to handle it before, and that they lose their heads. Did you ever think of oil people? Why they are rich so quick they are millionaires before they have time to get the grease off their hands. They jump from a Ford to a Rolls Royce so fast that they try cranking the Rolls through force of habit.
So you take the two industries, scandal for scandal, and bribe for bribe! The Editorial writer of The Exposure after reading over back files of old newspapers, finds that oil has blackened the reputation of 99 percent more people than movies. Just the other day right here in our fair and untarnished city of Hollywood, didn’t one of our week end oil magnates go into a café in our midst and publicly and for no reason take a wallop at our poor little inoffensive Charlie Chaplin?3 Who had never harmed a soul in a single reel in his life.
And then Charlie, when taunted almost to a point of generosity (which is the furthest he can be taunted) to use the modern slang of our day, arose, busted him on the nose and, while the magnate was arising, Charlie took two bows.
Now this man sells oil stock. Well, all I got to say is that any man that Chaplin can lick, his stock ain’t worth much.
Now, what I propose is for the Women’s Clubs to take action the minute a thing like this happens, and have that particular brand of oil banished. Let each state act separately, and if a man is suspected (make it like the movies, he don’t have to be convicted) why, get busy at once and don’t allow any of his oil to be publicly sold. For if there is one thing that we want to inculcate into the minds of the youths of this country it is that honesty and fair dealing with our own government is the foundation of this nation.
Our history honors many names whose morals would not stand the acid test, but our history honors no man who betrayed, or attempted to have betrayed a government trust. I don’t want the patriotism of my children endangered, by driving around in a car that is propelled by gasoline manufactured from profits derived from tampering with the integrity of those noble officials whom we trust with not only our lives but our oil.
I have never been a mother, but I wish that I had so that I could get right up in club meetings and declare what the coming generation are endangered with.
Now mind you I am not against the good work that club women are doing for the public good. I am only in favor of them carrying it further and embracing some industry where it will do even more good.
The public is always after the stage and screen for some unfortunate happening, but can you imagine for a minute Sir Harry Lauder sending a hundred thousand dollars to a man, by way of a suit case.4 We of the screen are supposed to be very careless of our English, but never have I heard one of us mistake $68,000.00 for 6 or 8 cows.
The very day that all this testimony came out in the papers, there was in the same paper a picture showing a Negro with one of those truth machines fastened on his wrist, they are supposed to make you tell the truth, or rather to tell when you are lying. They had brought this Negro out of jail where he had been sentenced for 99 years. Now if he admitted that he killed the party he would get life. It meant either life or 99 years with him and they waste all this time on him, when that very day in Washington here were guys testifying with nothing on their wrists but silk shirts. God bless America for a sense of humor.
If they had ever taken one of those truth machines to that investigation there would have been more Americans sailing for Europe than went during the war. One good thing about these investigations in high quarters, they always give the party a chance to come back a second time so he can explain how he was misunderstood at the first one.
Now I am in favor, as I say, of appointing a keeper for them like we have. I would just off hand suggest William J. Bryan, or Dr. Percy Stickney Grant.5 What they most need is some one whose reputation is above reproach, and some one who will add a certain dignity to the oil business which is sadly lacking now. Now I think Bryan would be the best of the two as it would get his mind off this business of descending from a monkey. Then he could not only add a certain prestige to what has degraded into a greasy industry, but he could also advise them when and with whom to place their bribes where they would not be apt to creep out.
Now there is all this talk about making this a campaign issue. I think that is a good thing. We have no issue. This looked like the only campaign in history with no issue. Just think of what a dull election we would have with no issue. The only resemblance to an issue we have had up to now was tax reduction. And both parties claimed that. The Republicans claim they thought of it first, and the Democrats claim they needed it worst. So now the campaign cry is, “Have you a little scandal in your party.” Of course it would be a cinch issue but some of the fellows are Democrats, so that kinder complicates matters.
But I can sympathize with their industry. I can remember when the movies looked bad and it was thought we would never be able to show our heads again. So if they can just get a Will Hays to chaperon them back into decency again, we may yet be able to save some of our oil for what is left of our Navy.
1For the Teapot Dome scandal see WA 60:N 7.
2For Will H. Hays see WA 21:N 6.
3For Charlie Chaplin see WA 11:N 8.
4For Harry Lauder see WA 50:N 3.
5For William Jennings Bryan see WA 5:N 7; for Percy Stickney Grant see WA 8:N 2.
WA62 February 17, 1924
WILSON COULD LAUGH
AT A JOKE ON HIMSELF
I want to speak and tell of him as I knew him, for he was my friend. We of the stage know that our audiences are our best friends, and he was the greatest audience of any public man we ever had. I want to tell of him as I knew him across the footlights. A great many actors and professional people have appeared before him, on various occasions in wonderful high class endeavors, but I don’t think that any person met him across the footlights in exactly the personal way that I did on five different occasions.
Every other performer or actor did before him exactly what they had done before other audiences on the night previous. But I gave a great deal of time and thought to an act for him, most of which would never be used again, and had never been used before. Owing to the style of act I used, my stuff depended a great deal on what had happened that particular day or week. It just seemed by an odd chance for me every time I played before President Wilson that on that particular day there had been something of great importance that he had just been dealing with, for you must remember that each day was a day of great stress with him. He had no easy days. So when I could go into a theater and get laughs out of our president, by poking fun at some turn in our national affairs, I don’t mind telling you it was the happiest moments of my entire career on the stage.
The first time I shall never forget, for it was the most impressive and for me the most nervous one of them all. The Friars Club of New York, one of the biggest theatrical social clubs in New York, had decided to make a whirlwind tour of the principal cities of the East all in one week. We played a different city every night. We made a one night stand out of Chicago and New York. We were billed for Baltimore but not for Washington. President Wilson came over from Washington to see the performance. It was the first time in theatrical history that the president of the United States coming clear over to Baltimore just to see a comedy show.
It was just at the time that we were having our little set too, with Mexico, and when we were at the height of our note exchanging career with Germany and Austria. The house was packed with the elite of Baltimore.
The show was going great. It was a collection of clever skits, written mostly by our stage’s greatest man George M. Cohan, and even down to the minor bits was played by stars with big reputations.2 I was the least known member of the entire aggregation, doing my little specialty with a rope, and telling jokes on national affairs, just a very ordinary little vaudeville act by chance sandwiched in among this great array.
I was on late, and as the show went along I would walk out of the stage door and out on the street and try to kill time and nervousness until it was time to dress and go on. I had never told jokes even to a president, much less about one, especially to his face. Well, I am not kidding you when I tell you that I was scared to death. I am always nervous. I never saw an audience that I ever faced with any confidence, for no man can ever tell how a given audience will ever take anything.
But here I was, nothing but a very ordinary Oklahoma cowpuncher who had learned to spin a rope a little and who had learned to read the daily papers a little, going out before the aristocracy of Baltimore, and the president of the United States, and kid about some of the policies with which he was shaping the destinies of nations.
How was I to know but what the audience would rise up in mass and resent it. I had never heard, and I don’t think any one else had ever heard of a president being joked personally in a public theater about the policies of his administration.
The nearer the time come the worse scared I got, George Cohan, and Willie Collier and Frank Tinney and others, knowing how I felt, would pat me on the back and tell me, “Why he is just a human being; go on out and do your stuff.”3 Well if some body had come through that dressing room and hollered “Train for Claremore, Oklahoma leaving at once” I would have been on it. This all may sound strange but any who have had the experience know, that a Presidential appearance in a theater, especially outside Washington, D. C., is a very rare and unique feeling even to the audience. They are keyed up almost as much as the actors.
At the time of his entrance into the house, everybody stood up and there were plain clothes men all over the place, back stage and behind his box. How was I to know but what one of them might not take a shot at me if I said anything about him personally?
Finally a warden knocked at my dressing room door and said, “You die in 5 more minutes for kidding your country.” They just literally shoved me out on the stage.
Now, by a stroke of what I call good fortune, (for I will keep them always) I have a copy of the entire acts that I did for President Wilson on the five times I worked for him. My first remark in Baltimore was, “I am kinder nervous here tonight.” Now that is not an especially bright remark, and I don’t hope to go down in history on the strength of it, but it was so apparent to the audience that I was speaking the truth that they laughed heartily at it. After all, we all love honesty.
Then I said “I shouldn’t be nervous, for this is really my second presidential appearance. The first time was when Bryan spoke in our town once, and I was to follow his speech and do my little roping act.”4 Well, I heard them laughing, so I took a sly glance at the President’s box and sure enough he was laughing just as big as any one. So I went on, “As I say, I was to follow him, but he spoke so long that it was so dark when he finished they couldn’t see my roping.” That went over great, so I said “I wonder what ever become of him?” That was all right, it got over, but still I had made no direct reference to the president.
Now Pershing was in Mexico at the time, and there was a lot in the papers for and against the invasion.5 I said, “I see where they have captured Villa. Yes, they got him in the morning editions and then the afternoon ones let him get away.”6 Now everybody in the house before they would laugh looked at the president, to see how he was going to take it. Well, he started laughing and they all followed suit.
“Villa raided Columbus, New Mexico. We had a man on guard that night at the post. But to show you how crooked this Villa is, he sneaked up on the opposite side.” “We chased him over the line 5 miles, but run into a lot of government red tape and had to come back.” “There is some talk of getting a machine gun if we can borrow one.” “The one we have now they are using to train our army with in Plattsburg, if we go to war we will just about have to go to the trouble of getting another gun.”
Now mind you, he was being rode on all sides for lack of preparations, yet he sat there and led that entire audience in laughing at the ones on himself.
At that time there was talk of forming an Army of 2 hundred thousand men. So I said, “We are going to have an army of 2 hundred thousand men. Mr. Ford makes 3 hundred thousand cars every year. I think, Mr. President, we ought to at least have a man to every car.” “See where they got Villa hemmed in between the Atlantic and Pacific. Now all we got to do is to stop up both ends.” “Pershing located him at a town called, Los Quas Ka Jasbo. Now all we have to do is to locate Los Quas Ka Jasbo.” “I see by a headline that Villa escapes net and fleas. We will never catch him then. Any Mexican that can escape fleas is beyond catching.” “But we are doing better toward preparedness now, as one of my Senators from Oklahoma has sent home a double portion of garden seed.”
After various other ones on Mexico I started in on European affairs which at that time was long before we entered the war. “We are facing another crisis tonight, but our president here has had so many of them lately that he can just lay right down and sleep beside one of those things.”
Then I first pulled the one which I am proud to say he afterwards repeated to various friends as the best one told on him during the war. I said “President Wilson is getting along fine now to what he was a few months ago. Do you realize, people, that at one time in our negotiations with Germany that he was 5 notes behind.”
How he did laugh at that! Well, due to him being a good fellow and setting a real example, I had the proudest and most successful night I ever had on the stage. I had lots of gags on other subjects but the ones on him were the heartiest laughs with him, and so it was on all the other occasions I played for him. He come back stage at intermission and chatted and shook hands with all.
Some time I would like to tell of things he laughed at during the most serious stages of the great war. Just think there were hundreds of millions of human beings interested directly in that terrible war, and yet out of all of them he stands, 5 years after it’s over, as the greatest man connected with it. What he stood for and died for, will be striven after for years.
But it will take time for with all our advancement and boasted civilization, it’s hard to stamp out selfishness and greed. For after all, nations are nothing but individuals, and you can’t stop even brothers from fighting sometimes. But he helped it along a lot. And what a wonderful cause to have laid down your life for! The world lost a friend. The theater lost its greatest supporter. And I lost the most distinguished person who ever laughed at my little nonsensical jokes, I looked forward to it every year.
Now I have only to look back on it as my greatest memory.
1Former President Wilson died on February 3, 1924, at age seventy seven.
2For George M. Cohan see WA 35:N 8.
3William Collier, American comedian and playwright who appeared in On the Quiet, his own Never Say Die, and other leading plays of the day. For Frank Tinney see WA 13:N 8.
4For William Jennings Bryan see WA 5:N 7.
5For John J. Pershing see WA 4:N 10.
6For Pancho Villa see WA 34:Nn 1, 5.