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Ebook has 1070 lines and 57852 words, and 22 pages

I Could Just Sorter Nonchalantly Step on the Bride's Train 170

If Mr. Ford Had Been Elected We Would Have Been the Mouthpiece of the Administration 192

He Started at Four or Five Years of Age and Has Worked on New Stunts Every Day of His Life 202

If a Rider Hit on His Head, It Was Me 211

It's a Bigger Thing for Washington Than the Shriners' Convention 216

They Not Only Have to Be Lawyers, But Political Lawyers 219

They Are from Tulsa. I Will Be Right Out 226

I Object to the Senator from Massachusetts' Slurring Remarks 236

"There's a Bellboy at My Hotel and He Just Got It From the Chauffeur of a Prominent Oil-Man" 248

They Rehearsed Their Old Act Here Yesterday 268

"You Wasn't Here and You Know Them as Well as I Do" 278

Well, I Guess You Heard About My Presidential Boom 286

The Deaths from Old Age Among the Delegates Is About Offset by the Birthrate 291

"If They Haven't Got Enough Water in There to Fill the Harbor, We Will Have to Ask the Neighbors to Drain Their Corn Liquor" 322

"If You Don't Get Well and Throw Away Your Crutches I Get Nothing Out of It" 344

INTRODUCTION

William Emporia Allen White was my first thought, on account of his having a middle name, which always sounds Literary, even if its owner is not. Then I had heard he himself had written a Book once, and by now should know what Introductions should not be. Then he went home and announced himself as a Candidate for Governor. So that eliminated him from my thoughts. To have a big broad-minded book have any narrow Political endorsement would mean certain calamity among people who think. To run for Governor is bad enough, But to run for Governor of Kansas and then write an Introduction of my worthy efforts, would simply make the book a laughing stock.

Then my thoughts turned to Arthur Brisbane, I don't know what I could have been eating that my thoughts should have done such a mental somersault. But I guess it was because I had known Arthur for years,--I knew him before William Randolph Hearst started working for him. I approached him on it, and he said, Sorry Will but what I write must point a moral, there must be a lesson in every paragraph; mine must not only be news but it must be instructive news. For instance, I read China will not go to war on rainy days. What does that bit of news mean to the individual that dont think? Nothing! What does it mean to me? It means that a Chinaman would rather get shot than wet. It points a moral to peace: Have all so-called civilized Nations stop wars on rainy days. Then hold all wars in Portland, Oregon where it rains every day, and you will eliminate Wars and have universal Peace.

So he could see no particular Moral in writing an Introduction to my book, unless it was that Books should not depend entirely on their introductions as they do now. So I next thought of my friend Irvin Cobb. I had set next to him at so many Speakers Tables, at banquets, and had always given him any little extras that I might not want. Ice Cream and Sweets and things like that he just loves and ruins them at a Banquet. Well he was going Duck shooting down in Louisiana and said he wouldn't miss one Duck for the pleasure of writing the Introduction to the Encyclopedia Brittanica. So you just let the old fat thing try to get my Ice Cream at another Banquet.

Of course Ring Lardner was one of my very first thoughts, because I knew he could add the little touch of comedy that the book really needed. I went to him and told him that I only wanted something light and airy, maybe just one good joke would do the trick and take away from the serious nature of the Book. He is not only a Humorist but has got plenty money to show that he is. He said before he shook hands with me, What is there in it? I said well this is just a kind of an honorary thing, a kind of courtesy from one Author to another. He then asked me why should he give me a joke for nothing? He could put the joke into his Sunday Newspaper Article; then he could put the joke into his weekly Newspaper Cartoon; then he could sell it to a Musical Comedy and they would tell it so bad it would sound new. Then the Movies would buy it and make a drama out of it; then he would still hold the Phonograph, and broadcasting rights, and after it got well enough known write a Song around it. So he said I would be a fine egg to give you a joke for nothing.

I wish that Spaniard Ibanez, that wrote the 4 Horsemen was over here, I know him well, I had read 5 or 6 of his Books and I was to a big reception given to him in Los Angeles, and during our conversations through an Interpreter he learned I had read so many of his Books. No one else he met there even among the Literary ones had ever read any but the 4 Horsemen, So when he went home he sent me an Autographed Copy which read "To an American Cowboy, the only person in America I found who had read all my Books." The funny thing about it is that he is the only Author I ever read. Now if he was here he would write me an Introduction, But of course it would be in Spanish and nobody could read it, so I would be just as bad off as I am now.

I also know Elinor Glyn, I met her when she was out in California looking around for some one to cast as Paul in "Three Weeks." She sent for me but I had just started on another new Picture. She could have cooked me up a hot Introduction. She would have draped the first few paragraphs with Tiger skins, and described me in such a way that I would have really looked like something. So I just says to myself, why monkey with these writers, why not write my own Introduction? So here goes.

I have known Mr. Rogers for years and have long been familiar with his Literary masterpieces, both in Novels, and in Books of technical knowledge. I think there are few writers of Poetry or prose today who equal him, and I am certain he is surpassed by none.

I say this because I have lived and known the life he has pictured so well in this Book; I spent my late youth in these shaded oak lands where so many of his scenes are so pictorially laid, and he has made me live over again the scenes of my freshman manhood. No writer since the days of Remington can give you such a word picture of the west. That's because he is a westerner himself, and has only an eye for the beautiful things as he and nature alone can describe them. He alone of all our modern writers knows the people of which they write. When he describes a Corset you can feel it pinch. If it's a Sunrise he describes, you reach for an Umbrella. His jugglery of correct words and perfect English sentences is magical, and his spelling is almost uncanny.

He always remembers that it is dangerous to jest with laughter. This man in writing this has done a service to all thinking mankind. It is a revelation, as an omen of a freer future. Belinsky, the great Russian Critic to whom Mr. Rogers had read the manuscript, said "it looked like another Ben Hur to him."

So now Mr. Cobb, and Mr. Lardner, and all you introduction writers, what do I want with you? There is not a one of you could have said the things of me that I have said, because you Guys dont know what books to look in to get all that big league stuff out of,

Yours for Arts sake,

WILLIAM PENN ADAIR ROGERS

P. S. I got enough Introduction left over to write another Introduction if I had anything to write another book about.

BREAKING INTO THE WRITING GAME

BREAKING INTO THE WRITING GAME

Everybody is writing something nowadays. It used to be just the Literary or Newspaper men who were supposed to know what they were writing about that did all the writing. But nowadays all a man goes into office for is so he can try to find out something and then write it when he comes out.

Now being in Ziegfeld Follies for almost a solid year in New York has given me an inside track on some of our biggest men in this country who I meet nightly at the stage door.

So I am breaking out in a rash here. I will cite an example to prove to you what you are going to get. Not long ago there was a mess of Governors here from various Provinces. And a good friend of mine brought back to the stage and dressing room Governor Allen of Kansas. Well, I stood him in the wings and he was supposed to be looking at my act, but he wasn't. He was watching what really is the Backbone of our Show. He anyway heard some of my Gags about our Government and all who are elected to help missrun it.

So at the finish of my act I dragged him out on the stage and introduced him to the audience. He made a mighty pretty little speech and said he enjoyed Will's Impertinences, and got a big laugh on that. Said I was the only man in America who was able to tell the truth about our Men and Affairs.

When he finished I explained to the audience why I was able to tell the truth. It is because I have never mixed up in Politics. So you all are going from time to time to get the real Low Down on some of those Birds who are sending home the Radish Seed.

You know the more you read and observe about this Politics thing, you got to admit that each party is worse than the other. The one that's out always looks the best. My only solution would be to keep 'em both out one term and hire my good friend Henry Ford to run the whole thing and give him a commission on what he saves us. Put his factory in with the government and instead of Seeds every spring mail out those Things of his.

Mail Newberry one every morning Special Delivery.

Speaking of Henry Ford, I see where Uncle Henry has a new Rule in force out in his Factory where they paste those Knick Knacks together. Every man working there has to have his breath smelled every morning. That, of course, seems like a pretty strict Rule to put in force in a So called Free Country, and it has come in for a lot of criticism in the papers, but the way I look at it, it is absolutely necessary. Should a man go to work in there who had had a few strong shots of some of our National Drinks of today, he would blow his breath on one of those FOB'S, and blow all the bolts right out of it.

Now Mr. Ford is a very smart man and in passing these rigid rules I bet you he knows where to stop. I bet you that he won't instruct his Salesmen to be so strict with a Purchaser. In fact his salesmen smell of your breath when you come in to buy one and if it shows no signs of drink they don't try to sell you. He is smart enough to know a sober man would never buy one. Mind you, all this smelling of breath is done, not on the Company's time, but on the time of the Workers. Some men have to get up at 4 o'clock in the Morning to get their breath examined so they can get to work at 8. Imagine a line of 50 thousand all waiting to blow at a single individual TESTER! Think what he must be with all those Italian workmen passing by him. He is just 180 pounds of Garlic by night.

The University of Michigan is putting in a Chair in their Faculty devoted to the Art of Breath Detecting. But there is always a way to defeat any reform. Drinkers will learn to hold their breath like a Diver.

I tell you Folks, all Politics is Apple Sauce.

The President gave a Luncheon for the visiting Governors, where they discussed but didn't TRY Prohibition.

It was the consensus of opinion of all their speeches that there was a lot of drinking going on and that if it wasn't stopped by January that they would hold another meeting and try and get rid of some of the stuff.

Senator Curtis proposed a bill this week to stop Bootlegging in the Senate, making it unlawful for any member to be caught selling to another member while on Government property. While the bill was being read a Government employe fell just outside the Senate door and broke a Bottle of Pre-War Stuff . Now they are carpeting all the halls with a heavy material so in case of a fall there will be no serious loss.

Well, New Years is coming and I suppose we will have to hear and read all those big men's New Year greetings, such men as Schwab and Gary and Rockefeller and all of them. Saying the same old Apple Sauce. That they are Optimistic of the coming year and everybody must put their shoulder to the wheel, and produce more and they predict a great year. Say, if we had those Birds' Dough we could all be just as optimistic as they are. But it's a good Joke and it's got in the papers every year and I suppose always will.

Now the Ku Klux is coming into New York and kinder got it in for the Jewish People. Now they are wrong; I am against that. If the Jewish People here in New York City hadn't jumped in and made themselves good fellows and helped us celebrate our Christmas, the thing would have fell flat. They sold us every Present.

The Ku Klux couldn't get much of a footing here in New York. If there was some man they wanted to take out and Tar and Feather they wouldn't know where he lived. People move so often here their own folks don't know where they live.

And even if they found out the Elevator man in the Apartment wouldn't let 'em up.

See where there is bills up in Congress now to change the Constitution all around, elect the President in a different way and have Congress meet at a different time. It seems the men who drew up this thing years ago didn't know much and we are just now getting a bunch of real fellows who can take that old Parchment and fix it up like it should have been all these years. It seems it's just been luck that's got us by so far. Now when they get the Constitution all fixed up they are going to start in on the 10 Commandments, just as soon as they find somebody in Washington who has read them.

See where they are talking about another Conference over here. The Social Season in Washington must be lagging.

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