Chapter 12: tells how the Butler should dress. You don’t know what a (2)

Now I know you other members don’t agree with me and think that we should think of our proud traditions and not stoop so low as to have to advertise but I tell you that this day and time is a commercial Age, and we have got to throw our Pride away and let the World know just what we have here.

There is no reason why other People from neighboring States shouldn’t know of our Climate. Why keep it hid? It’s here. We got it. They can’t take it away with them.

Of course, I will admit that we have done a little good in a small way with Picture Post Cards. Five years ago Iowa was a prosperous and satisfied State. They had no idea of leaving. They had shoveled snow for 5 months every year and figured they would always shovel snow 5 months every year. But finally one day a Twenty Dollar Bill come into the State and a Farmer wanted to get change for it, so he started out trying to get it changed and wound up in Long Beach, California.

A fellow selling Roses in January changed it for him, and when the Farmer pulled off his Mittens to count the change he found that it was warm and he didn’t have to put the mittens back on again. That made quite a hit with him and he decided to stay awhile. So he sent a Picture Post Card back with the Picture of a Man Picking Oranges off the trees in January, and told them how fine it was and everybody that read the Post Card, including the Postmaster come on out.

So when they came they sent back Picture Post Cards to all their Friends who liked Oranges, and in time they came too, and so on, each newcomer bringing out just as many more as he could afford Post Cards. Now in the short space of 5 years look what has happened. The whole of the State of Iowa is here. The only ones left back there are the ones who can’t read the Post Cards, or People who don’t care for Oranges, and now I see where they have put in Schools to teach those others to read so that means we will eventually have them all, with the exception of the ones who don’t like Oranges.

Now, as I say, if all of that can be done with just Picture Post Cards, what do you suppose could have been done if the Newspapers of our State had thought to have said something in praise of our Climate? So, Fellow Old Timers, if we can get the grand State of Iowa out here on a Picture Post Card of an Orange Tree, what could we do with some of these other States if we really devoted a little of our time to it!

Why, Oranges are a small time commodity with us. We raise more Beans on one farm here without Irrigating than we do Oranges in the whole State. If we had Picture Post Cards of Bean Fields instead of Orange Fields we could get the whole of Boston here the same as we did with Iowa. You will do even better with Boston than you did with Iowa because everybody there likes Beans. So let’s get busy and let them know what we are doing in the Bean line.

Take the case of Oil. You all know we struck Oil here in Southern California. But did you let anybody else know it? No, you didn’t say a word about it, and as a consequence, a man can’t even find a place to buy an Oil Stock. Now there are lots of People would buy shares and Units, but no, you are so darn MODEST you won’t let the World know what we have.

I would like to have seen what Delaware would have done if they had found this much Oil. They would have sold so much Stock that if the Pacific Ocean had been Oil it wouldn’t have paid back the Buyers.

Look at Real Estate. Here we have the greatest Land and Lots that ever laid out of doors, but do we do anything with them? No! We just set here. We never advertise them; we never boost them. I wish you could see what the State of Delaware would do if they had the same class of lots that we have here. Why they would have Sub-Divisions all over the place. They would have Barbecues, and Drawings, and Scream Stars personally appearing, and men under umbrellas selling each lot. But no, we are too conservative; we like to sit here and let the stuff speak for itself. But I tell you, Fellow Old Timers, you can’t do that nowadays. It’s all right for a State to build up a Reputation for Modesty and be known as always having a good word to say for the other place, but I tell you we have carried it too far for our own good.

Of course I can appreciate you other old Timers’ feelings in the matter. You have been here and helped build it to what it even is today, and you resent these Johnny Newcomers coming in and spoiling all of our old customs and Traditions. I know it is hard to change with the Times. We old Timers who have seen this place grow from what it was 2 and a half years ago to what it is today, must realize these stacks of young fellows coming in here the last two weeks must have the right idea, and we must begin to realize that after all it is the general welfare of the entire community we are after.

So, Fellow Members, if my little speech has been the means of changing just one of you from your Iron Clad rule of Modesty in regard to your Home state, why I will feel that my little efforts will not have been in vain.

So from now on I am for letting the World know of California, even if the rest of the State does disapprove of it, and I sit down amid HISSES from the MODEST Oldtimers.

PROMOTING THE OCEANLESS ONE PIECE SUIT

PROMOTING THE OCEANLESS ONE PIECE SUIT

Everybody at some time in life feels a call within Him or Her, as the gender may be, to try and Promote something or other, that is to form a Company and sell Stock. We have all bought so much and been stung so often that we want to try the side where the Money comes in, instead of going out.

One-third of the people in the United States promote, while the other two-thirds Provide. There are more commissions paid out to Stock Salesmen than are ever collected by Stock Buyers. So, after living honest for years, the thing naturally becomes monotonous and we feel a hankering to Promote.

Now, I had reached that stage in life where I had thought maybe I would get by clear to the end without Promoting something and sticking my Friends. But the old Bug has bit me; the old Make-it-easy-without-working has got me. So I am now branching out as a Promotor, Throwing the Rope, Chewing Gum, Acting a Fool in the Movies, Robbing Ziegfeld, and Writing for a Living. All these are side lines from now on. I am now a Promotor. A Promotor is a man who would rather stick a Friend than to sell Henry Ford a Synagogue.

Of course my proposition is different. (Did you ever hear one of them pull that Gag before?)

My proposition is of Interest to every Town of any size in America. I am forming Clubs, called Swimming or Bathing Clubs, or any Aquatic name. A great many Towns have been denied the privilege of having these Clubs, heretofore, as they were not situated near any Body of Water. Now I have been to all the prominent Beaches in the East, and this summer have had a chance to study the various Water Resorts of California.

I have paid particular attention to the Habits and procedure of Club Members and their Guests and I think I can do the same for the Non-irrigated Portion of this Country as is being enjoyed by the Tidal Wave region.

I come into your Town and start promoting (we will call it a swimming or Beach Club). I sell memberships for, we will say, the nominal sum of 500 dollars a piece. That makes it high enough to keep out the substantial people who really after all are rather old-fashioned, and allows us to take into our Club some of our most prominent Bootleggers, Oil Magnates, who have worked their way up from the bottom in the last year, and just the people of the Town who do things--in other words, the ones who belong.

We build the Club House (a rather long rambling affair) on some ground which we can get at a nominal figure (as I will explain the value of Citizens like we will have being located in their midst, and what our Club will do for the surrounding Land). Now, the great advantage that my Clubs will have over the present ones in our Beach Cities is that we will build ours right in the heart of the Town, so the Tired Business Man can reach it even for Lunch, whereas in other places they have to go miles to reach a Beach Club. We will have a Uniformed man at the door to meet the Cars, as nothing impresses the newly rich so much as Gold Braid.

Our Cafe prices will be high enough so that if a Member takes a friend any other place he will be considered rather a short Sport. Each member will have his Private Locker (including a Corkscrew), where he can change to his bathing Suit. There will be a wide Veranda under awnings where Members may dine in their Suits, and other Tables which are not protected from the Rays of the Sun, where the more Hardy Members may sit and acquire a Tan.

Of course one item of expense in connection with these Clubs which will require me to expend quite a tidy sum is having Ocean Sand transported to these Towns and then by Truck to the center of the City.

This sand must be spread very, very thick, as the principal pastime of the Members and Guests will be to lay right down in it and try and cover each other entirely up. Oh, it’s a ripping experience that you in the inland Cities have missed, if you have never tried it.

Mind you, this 500 dollars which I receive per each will not all be profit as I will be called upon to purchase a Medicine Ball or so. That is a Beach Sport that only the most Athletic and reckless of our Membership would dare enter into--tossing this ferocious Ball from one to the other. I have seen a Game of it last, if there were Female Spectators, as long as three or four minutes.

Then, for the more skilled, there is Baseball on the Beach which is played with a Rubber Tennis Ball. I have seen men graduate from that right into some of our best Tea and Cake Hounds.

We will have beautifully striped Umbrellas placed at intervals over the Beach for those who become fatigued in parading. When there is a big crowd and you have to walk by everybody in your Bathing Suit it tires one more than the uninitiated would think. And we’ll have a Life Guard (perhaps a Native of Honolulu if we can procure one). At any rate, we will get the most sunburned one we can, for the less fortunate ones to compare their Tan with. He will be provided with Smelling Salts, and other restoratives in case a Wife should unexpectedly discover her own Husband with some other One Piece Suit Female Companion.

There will be Life Lines across the sands, so the more fore-sighted of the members can find their way during the afternoon back and forth to their Lockers.

Now, I think I have enumerated all that is required to successfully operate one of these Beach Clubs. Of course, most of them heretofore have had Water but in all my experience (which runs over a term of years) I have never seen a Member willfully enter this Water. Years ago at one of the Eastern Beaches they claim a man went into the water, but this has never been verified, and so far as the ladies go, there hasn’t been a swell Bathing Suit wet since Kellermann retired.

Now you see my scheme. I have laid it before you. Nobody ever thought of it because they were not a close observer like I have been. They just naturally thought Water was required, but it is the most unnecessary thing connected with a Beach Club. Of course, Showers are provided for those who do not care to sleep with sand in their bed.

Just think of a Club right at your door where you can run down and change Clothes and display your figure without having to go to Palm Beach or Del Monte! Besides, I am showing you how you can display it to the People who you want to see it--not to a lot of strangers. Show it right where it will do you the most good.

If I had thought of this sooner and we had had one in my home of Claremore, Oklahoma (home of best Radium Water in the World) and I could have paraded up and down with my shape, I would have been able to settle down a lot earlier.

I tell you my scheme is a boost for home Talent. Many a Girl, if she could have shown off properly at home, would have never had to leave there. Now, if you think my scheme is crazy, you go to the Ocean where there is a Beach to parade on and see how many ever go in swimming where there is nothing but Swimming Water.

No sir, the Sand and the Clothes are the thing--not the Water. So I will put my scheme over, not only for the selfish motive of making money, but because I want to do something for the home Town Girl who hasn’t the money to go to Narragansett Pier to be properly appreciated, but can stay at home and show how and what she is made of.

WARNING TO JOKERS: LAY OFF THE PRINCE

WARNING TO JOKERS: LAY OFF THE PRINCE

I want hereby, and hereon, to publicly issue a protest to my fellow Writers, and Comedians, against the use of Cartoons, Editorials, Paragraphs, Free Verse, or any form of Public Notice, Jibing, or Poking Fun or attempting to be Funny, at the Expense of the Prince of Wales, falling off his Horse.

My reasons are two fold, first on account of it being passé, and secondly on account of the happenings of the past week to my own Immediate Person. Now everything is funny as long as it is happening to somebody Else, but when it happens to you, why it seems to lose some of its Humor, and if it keeps on happening, why the entire laughter kinder Fades out of it.

Last year in New York it was one of my sure fire subjects to remark about the Prince of Wales staking himself out a six foot Claim in some part of England. And I remember one choice morsel of Gossip I had was that I was going to get appointed as Ambassador to England so I could go riding with the Prince and be able to rope his Horse and bring him Back to him. And another was, “I see where the Prince of Wales fell off his Horse again today. But that ain’t News any more. If he stayed on That Would Be News.” Well that always knocked the audience right back on their Flasks.

Now in those days, which was a Year ago, that was very Komical both to me and the audience. But of course now it has finally reached the Comic Strip Cartoons, really earlier than a joke generally does, and even the Editorial Writers are commenting on it, in what they term a lighter vein. Now an Editorial Writer is the last man in the World to find anything out, so you will see how old and out of date it must be to refer to now.

But all this has nothing to do with my real Reason. I always have a few old Ponies for me and the Children to play around with, so somebody said, “Will, why don’t you play Polo? Anybody that can ride can play Polo.” And me, like a Fool, believed him. Why that is as absurd as saying anybody that can walk would make a good Golf Player, or anybody that looks good in a Bathing Suit will make a good swimmer.

Now I want it distinctly understood that I did not take up Polo for any Social Prestige, or to make myself pointed out as a Man about Town. If I was the Champion Polo Player of the World, I still couldn’t drink a Cup of Tea without using the saucer. And another reason I always hesitated on taking up the Game was account of the White Breeches. I had always been reared to believe that White Breeches should be concealed beneath Black or Gray ones--at least in Public.

The people that think riding a Horse is all there is to Polo, are the same people that think Curls are all there is to Mary Pickford. I can also walk, but I can’t sweep a Golf Ball into one of those Holes with a Broom.

So I got me some of those long handled wooden Hammers and started in at Polo. You know some men like to have their Fields harrowed and plowed, and I had not played Polo two days until I was offered a job to come over and Play on their Ground as they wanted it dug up. Finally I got so every once in a while I would hit the Ball. But it seemed like every time I hit the Ball it would get mad and go off in an opposite direction.

Well, finally I got to playing in Practice Games, more for the Comedy I would cause than through any good I might do my side. If the Purple and Whites had a Game I might wear a Purple Jersey, but in reality I would be playing with the Whites.

Then come a Polo Tournament held at Coronado Beach. So as I was scheduled to play in one of the Minor League, or Small Time events, I go down and one day we are having a Friendly practice Game with a few looking on. Three of us beginners all bump together, Mind you, we are all three on the same side. We knock our Horses down, I fall on my head and of course, am not hurt.

The Referee called an Unusual Foul. He said I had fouled by running over two of my own side. Well, the next day was the Big game; we were to play the 11th Cavalry from Monterey. They sure were a fine bunch of Boys, and hard Riders. Things were going along Pretty Good until along about the 3rd Act, I was on a new Pony who suddenly reared up and Fell Back on Me. There he was, a laying right across my Intermission. My Head was out on one side and my Feet on the other; that was all you could see. When he got up I knew for the first time how the Prince must have felt.

Well, everything goes K.O. for two more periods. I am on a Friend’s Horse and coming lickerty split down the field, when for no Reason at all the horse crosses his front legs and starts turning Somersaults. They picked me up just south of Santa Barbara.

The crowd all said, “Oh that’s Will Rogers the Comedian. He just does that for laughs.” The Papers next day all said, “Comedian Spills off Horse Twice at Polo Game.”

Now I will admit there was not quite the same Publicity given to all my various Falls as to those of the Prince. But the hurt was just as bad. Everybody that reads about it had been kidding me about being the Local Prince of Wales of America. But what I want to know from some of these Newspaper Riders is what I am supposed to do in case the Horse falls.

Are the Prince and I supposed to fall With the Horse, or are we supposed to stay up there in the air until he gets Up, and comes back up under us? Every fall that the Prince has had has been caused by a falling Horse, not by being thrown From one. In the future the Prince and I will personally pay in the papers for the extra two lines that will announce that “the Horse going down had something to do with our going off.”

England is all worked up over his numerous Falls, but up to now no one has manifested much interest in any of mine, only for laughing purposes. At least none of the prominent Washington Politicians have asked me to cease my Riding. I want some concern paid to my welfare. In my falls I am not fortunate enough to spill any Royal Blood, but it’s my Blood, and it’s all I got. It’s kinder funny but no matter how common our blood is, we hate to Lose any of it.

I saw a Picture in the Paper last summer where the Prince was on one of his Horses and its name was Will Rogers. Now I got all swelled Up when I saw he had a Horse named for me, but maybe that was the one that has been doing all this high and lofty Tumbling. As a suggestion, if our respective Countries want to do something to protect our Welfare, the best thing I can suggest would be to get us some Horses that can stand up, for the Prince and I both have to take every Precaution to protect our Looks. It would be terrible if his face was marred. And I certainly don’t want anything to happen to Mine to make it look Better. My living depends on it, just as it Is.

The only thing that makes me sore is that I haven’t got the nerve to do some of the riding stunts that the Prince goes after. He goes over Jumps that I wouldn’t have the nerve to climb over on foot. Then if he gets a fall a lot of us alleged Humorists (who would be afraid to lead one of his horses to water with a 20 foot Halter rope) start in rewriting original Jokes about the Prince’s Horsemanship.

I saw a Picture of one of his Falls, where the Horse had fallen trying for a Water Jump. Why that Jump was so wide, that I bet we haven’t got a Joke Writer in this country could swim across it, and not over two could row over it.

I am not overly strong for Royalty, but if I had to have one of Them over me I don’t know of one that I would rather have than this same Bird, and most of this Admiration has been won by his Horsemanship, not by the Lack of it.

Lots of women have it in for him because he has not married, But with all of them making a silly play for him, I admire his Judgment as much as his Horsemanship. So here is an appeal to my fellow Jokesters: If you want to kid somebody on their Riding go to Central Park, don’t go to England unless, as I say, you have some Solution for a man staying up while the Horse is going Down.

P. S. I only had one thing to be thankful for in my falls. I practically Ruined the only Pair of White Breeches I had, of course, it’s all right with the Prince--he can wear his Daddy’s. But from now on I will get to play in Chaps.

SPRING IS HERE, WITH POEMS AND BATH TUBS

SPRING IS HERE, WITH POEMS AND BATH TUBS

Well, there has been quite a bit happened since I last communed with you. Spring is coming; I can tell by the Poetry and the Real Estate ads. A Poet exists all year just to get his Poem published in the Spring. Then when he sees it in print he starts getting next Spring’s verse all ready. These early Spring Real Estate ads read, “This House is located on the shady banks of a Beautiful stream.” Say, if there is a beautiful stream anywhere now the Rail Road runs along it and all you have to do is to get run over by a freight train to reach this beautiful stream.

A favorite ad is, “Beautiful Home in heart of the most exclusive Residential District, 5 Master Bedrooms and 9 baths; Owner going to Europe.” Now let’s just take that ad out and dissect it and see what it is.

In a Real Estate man’s eye, the most exclusive part of the City is wherever he has a House to sell. The Dog Pound may be on one side and the City Incinerator on the other but it’s still exclusive. And it is, too, for it will be the only house in the world so situated.

Five Master Bedrooms! Now, they get that Master junk from English ads where the man may be the master. Still, I don’t know why they call all the rooms his. Over here they call them Master Bedrooms but the Wife will pick out the Poorest one for him, and keep the other 4 Good ones for Company.

Now, to the ordinary man on reading that Ad of 9 Baths, that would be an insult to his cleanliness. A Man would have to be awful Busy to support that many Baths, unless, of course, he neglected some of them. The ad might better have read, “Buy our home and live in a Bath Tub.” The biggest part of City homes nowadays have more Baths than Beds. So, while they can’t always ask their Company to stay all night as they have no place to put them, they can at least ask them to Bathe. So, when you are invited out now, you can always be assured of your private Bath, but you must leave before Bedtime.

When you visit a friend’s newly finished Home you will be shown through all the Bath rooms, but when you leave you couldn’t, to save your soul, tell where the dining room was. They seem to kinder want to camouflage or hide that nowadays. There is such little eating being done in the Homes now that a dining room is almost a lost art. Breakfast is being served in bed, Dinner at the Cabaret with dancing attached, and Lunch--no up-to-date Man would think of going anywhere but to his Clubs for lunch. Besides, didn’t he hear a funny one and must get to the Club to bore his alleged friends with it? He will talk everybody’s left ear off all day and come home and bite his Wife’s off if she asks him to tell her the news.

And then they have such an enlightening custom nowadays. Every body of men who can think of a name have a Club. And is not Congressman Blindbridle, who has just returned from a free Government trip to Bermuda, going to deliver a Message at today’s Luncheon on “Americanism, Or what we owe to the Flag?”

Now, as the dining room space has been eliminated to make room for an additional Bath, most of the eating, if one happens to be entertaining at home, is done Off The Lap. This custom of slow starvation has shown vast improvement of late. Instead of the Napkins being of Paper, why, they have been supplanted by almost-linen ones with beautiful hemstitching. That’s to try and get your mind off the lack of nourishment. As I say, the Napkin is hand sewn but the Lettuce Sandwiches still come from the Delicatessen.

Why, in the good old days, they couldn’t have fed you on your lap ’cause you couldn’t have held all they would give you. Now you have to feel for it to find it.

But the Husband does come home some time during the Day or Night, for is not the overhead on his outlay of Baths going on all the time, and shouldn’t he be getting home to get some good out of some of them?

It’s not the high cost of Living that is driving us to the Poor House,--It’s the high Cost of bathing. The big question today is not what are you going to pay for your plot of ground, but what kind of fixtures are you going to put in your legion of Bath Rooms. Manufacturers of Porcelain and Tile have Supplanted the Pocket Flask as our principal commodity.

The interest on unpaid-for Bath Rooms would pay our National Debt.

Now, mind you, I am not against this modern accomplishment, or extravagance, of ours. I realize that these Manufacturers of Fixtures have advanced their Art to the point where they are practically modern Michael Angelos. Where, in the old days, an Elephant Hook was almost necessary for a Wife to drag her Husband toward anything that looked like Water, today those Interior Bath Decorators can almost make one of those things inviting enough to get in without flinching.

But, in doing so, they have destroyed an American Institution, and ruined the only Calendar that a Child ever had. That was the Saturday Night Bath. Nowadays a Child just grows up in ignorance. From the Cradle to the Altar he don’t know what day of the week it is. In those good old days he knew that the next morning after that weekly Ear washing he was going to Sunday School. Now he has not only eliminated the Bath on Saturday but has practically eliminated the Sunday School, for neither he nor his Parents know when Sunday comes.

But, in those days, that old Kitchen Stove was kept hot after supper. And not only the Tea Kettle was filled but other Pots and Pans, and the Family Wash Tub was dragged up by the Fire, and you went out to the Well and helped your Pa draw some Water to mix with that hot. While you was doing that, your Ma, if you stayed Lucky and had a Ma up to then, was a getting out all the clean Clothes and a fixing the Buttons, and a laying out the schedule of who was to be first. And She was the only one could tell just how much hot Water to put in to make it right. And if anybody had to feel of the hot water and get burned it was always her, not you, and she found dirt behind, and in, your Ears that all the highfaluting Fixtures in the World can’t find today.

Now that was an event. It meant something. It brought you closer together. But now bathing is so common there’s No Kick To It. It’s just _Bla!!_

The Romans started this Bath Gag; now look what become of them. They used to have the most beautiful Baths, kind of a Municipal Bath, where they all met and strolled around and draped themselves on Marble Slabs. It was a kinder Society event. It compared to our modern Receptions. I have seen some beautiful Paintings of them, but I have yet to see a Scene where a Roman was in the Water. But they did look, oh, just too cunning, sunning themselves out on the Concrete Banks of those Pools. It must have been like visiting our modern Beaches, where no one can swim but the Life Guard, and they don’t know that he can as he has never been called on to go in. But, like the Romans, our Girls can arrange themselves in the most bewitching shapes out on the sand, which, after all, must be much more comfortable than the Asphalt that those little Cæsars had to spread themselves over.

I tell you if Baths keep on multiplying in the modern Home as they have lately it won’t be 5 Years till a Bath Tub will be as necessary in a home as a Cocktail Shaker.

If two members of the same household have to use the same Bath, it is referred to now as a Community Tub.

Statistics have proven that there are 25 Bath Tubs sold to every Bible.

And fifty to every Dictionary, and 389 to every Encyclopedia.

Proving that, while we may be neglecting the Interior, we are looking after the exterior.

If the Father of our Country, George Washington, was Tutankhamened tomorrow, and, after being aroused from his Tomb, was told that the American People today spend two Billion Dollars yearly on Bathing Material, he would say, “WHAT GOT ’EM SO DIRTY?”

MR. FORD AND OTHER POLITICAL SELF-STARTERS

MR. FORD AND OTHER POLITICAL SELF-STARTERS

Well, there has been quite a stir in the Political News. The big news was the Ford for President talk, made more important by Mr. Hearst announcing that he would back him if he run on an independent Ticket. It only shows you what both of the old line Parties are degenerating into. Nobody wants to associate with either one of them.

I think that it will be the biggest boost Mr. Ford will have that he don’t belong to either Party. It’s getting so if a man wants to stand well socially he can’t afford to be seen with either the Democrats or the Republicans.

I expect, if it was left to a vote right now by all the people, Mr. Ford would be voted for by more people than any other man. But, if it come to a question of counting those votes, I doubt if he even run third. For, with all the mechanical improvements they have in the way of adding machines, and counting machines, they can’t seem to invent anything to take the place of the old Political mode of counting--two for me and one for you.

More men have been elected between Sundown and Sunup, than ever were elected between Sunup and Sundown.

Our public men are speaking every day on something, but they ain’t saying anything. But when Mr. Harding said that, in case of another war that capital would be drafted the same as men, he put over a thought that, if carried out, would do more to stop Wars than all the International Courts and Leagues of Nations in the World.

Of the three things to prevent wars, League of Nations, International Court, and this Drafting of Capital, this last one is so far ahead of the others there is no comparison. When that Wall Street Millionaire knows that you are not only going to come into his office and take his Secretary and Clerks but that you come in to get his Dough, say Boy, there wouldn’t be any war. You will hear the question: “Yes, but how could you do it?”

Say, you take a Boy’s life, don’t you? When you take Boys away you take everything they have in the World, that is, their life. You send them to war and part of that life you don’t use you let him come back with it. Perhaps you may use all of it. Well, that’s the way to do with wealth. Take all he has, give him a bare living the same as you do the Soldier. Give him the same allowance as the Soldier--all of us that stay home. The Government should own everything we have, use what it needs to conduct the whole expenses of the war and give back what is left, if there is any, the same as you give back to the Boy what he has left.

There can be no Profiteering. The Government owns everything till the war is over. Every Man, Woman and Child, from Henry Ford and John D. down, get their Dollar and a Quarter a day the same as the Soldier. The only way a man could profiteer in war like that would be to raise more Children.

If any man went before the People on a platform of that kind and put it over, he could remain President till his Whiskers got so long he could make a fortune just picking the lost Golf Balls out of them. But, no, it will never get anywhere. The rich will say it ain’t practical, and the poor will never get a chance to find out if it is or not.

Lincoln made a wonderful speech under similar conditions one time: “That this Nation under God, shall have a new Birth of Freedom, and that Government of the people, by the People, for the People, shall not perish from this earth.”

Now, every time a Politician gets in a speech, he digs up this Gettysburg quotation. He recites it every Decoration day and practices the opposite the other 364 days.

If our Government is by the people, how is it the Candidate with the most votes by the people, going into a Presidential Convention never got nominated?

Now, Lincoln meant well, but he only succeeded in supplying an applause line for every Political Speaker who was stuck for a finish.

And that’s the way with Mr. Harding; he certainly meant well, for I can imagine his feelings after having to mingle for the last 2 years with some of our War Millionaires who are hanging around Washington, just laying off between Wars.

And, in after Years, so will this speech of Mr. Harding’s be quoted, but the minute the fellow gets through quoting it he will go sign a War Contract for Cost Plus 10 percent.

In our Decoration day speechmaking Mr. Taft spoke at some unveiling of a Monument in Cincinnati. He made an Alibi for the Supreme Court. I don’t know what prompted him to tell the dead what the Court was doing, unless it was some man who had died of old age waiting for a decision from that August Body.

We can always depend on Judge Gary for a weekly laugh in his speeches. But lately he had the prize wheeze of his career. He had his accomplices make an investigation of the Steel Industry, and they turned in a report that it was much more beneficial to man to work 12 hours a day than 8. They made this report so alluring that it is apt to make people who read it decide to stay the extra 4 hours on their jobs, just through the Health and enjoyment they get out of it. I never knew Steel work was so easy till I read that report. Why, the advantages they enumerated in this report would almost make a Bootlegger trade jobs with a Steel Worker. But here is the kick. Judge Gary got up to read this report before the stock holders who had made it out. He read for one hour in favor of a 12 hour day. Then he was so exhausted they had to carry him out, and Charley Schwab had to go on reading the sheet.

Now, if the Judge couldn’t work an hour, how did he expect his workers to do 12 every day?

After Schwab read for 2 hours the audience was carried out.

It was the greatest boost for the 12 hour day I ever heard of. I am thinking of going out there and working for them, but, if it is such a pleasure to work 12 hours, I am going to try and get them to let me work 18, at least, for I don’t believe I would get enough pleasure out of just 12.

So if you don’t hear of me next week, you will know I just enjoyed myself to death in Judge Gary’s Steel Mills in Pittsburgh.

WILSON COULD LAUGH AT A JOKE ON HIMSELF

WILSON COULD LAUGH AT A JOKE ON HIMSELF

Some of the most glowing and deserved tributes ever paid to the memory of an American have been paid to our past President Woodrow Wilson. They have been paid by learned men of this and all Nations, who knew what to say and how to express their feelings. They spoke of their close association and personal contact with him. Now I want to add my little mite even though it be of no importance.

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