The Illiterate Digest

by Will Rogers

IN THE MIDST OF A 7 YEAR HITCH

Well, I guess you heard about my Presidential Boom. You know every calamity in the World befell the Democrats while they were here in session the last couple of years. First they started in nominating. The entire first week was taken up with that. They nominated so many Democrats that if it had kept up another day they would have had to go over into the Republican Column. They talked their Delegates and audience to death the first week. No wonder they couldn’t agree there was no two Delegates that could remember the same Candidate.

Well, it ran along week after week and the longer it ran the more confused the Delegates got. They began to get this Convention mixed up with the San Francisco one, because it had been so long since they left home, why, both Conventions seemed about the same distance off. One Delegation got to voting for Cox thinking it was ’Frisco. The Chairman had no more than got that straightened out and explained to them that this was an entirely different year when what does my Native State of Oklahoma do! They woke up the Chairman of their Delegation right quick one day to answer Roll Call and he blurts out, “Oklahoma votes 20 for Robert L. Owen.” Well, the chairman had to explain to them that this was not 1920, and that Mr. Owen was not a Candidate, he was only a Delegate. The Missouri Delegation, when they could not get any two to agree, voted for two days for Champ Clark, until Telegrams commenced to pour in telling them of his demise.

Nebraska voted for Bryan, and got sore when the rest of the Convention thought it was W. J. They said it was a Son or a Brother or something of his. Mississippi and Louisiana started voting for my old friend Pat Harrison and Pat’s Bottle run out, and they found an old Hoffman House Hotel Register, and from that on they just voted for the names on it.

Alabama was the only State that you could absolutely depend on. It seems that years ago Alabama sent a Delegation to some Convention instructed for a Candidate and that when they got there they sold out and voted for another. So they have passed a Law that any time they send a troup away again that they were going to vote for the man they told them to until the Candidate’s body had been duly pronounced dead by the Home Coroner. Well, that knocked any chance of profit out of this trip as far as Alabama was concerned.

La Follette, out in Cleveland, wrote a Platform, held a Convention, nominated himself, and went home. All this happened during the time they were polling the Illinois Delegation here at this Convention.

Women Delegates started in with Bobbed Hair and wound up by being able to sit on it. One Woman sent back home for her washing machine. The Arkansas Delegation started in whittling up the Board floor and whittled their way from the Back of the Hall up to the Speaker’s Platform. There was so many shavings under their Chairs that if a fire had ever broken out in the building, between these shavings and the long Whiskers, why, there would never in the World have been a way to stop it. There was one old long bearded Man from Utah, that when the voting on the Klan got close shook 4 Delegates with half a vote each out from under his Whiskers and decided the issue right there.

All the members of the National Committees had Gold Badges to start in with. The thing had only gone along a few weeks when they commenced to turn green and finally you couldn’t tell whether it was a Badge or a Shamrock.

It’s too bad because all the Delegates here will lose their votes when they go home this Fall. The law plainly states that you must have been a resident of the State for the last 6 months. If they were not thoughtful to register when they come to New York, they will lose their votes entirely.

Lots of the Delegates also had Wives who were Delegates, and this has been the longest time they ever spent together in their lives. I bet you will never see another Man go on a Delegation to a Democratic Convention when his Wife is on one. South Carolina has no Divorces, so of course this Convention gave all their members a chance to get out of the State, claim a residence of 6 months, and be divorced before they get home.

Now, mind you, as I pen these lines this thing is still going on. It’s Monday morning of the third week. I don’t know now who they will nominate. In fact people have lost interest. If they ever do nominate somebody some of the Papers may carry it and you may know it by the time you read this, but I doubt if he will even be nominated by then. If he is, it will be too late to get his name on the Ballot by November, as the racing Forms have already gone to press for the November Classic. I am certainly glad that La Follette entered. That will give Coolidge somebody to run against, anyway.

THE DEATHS FROM OLD AGE AMONG THE DELEGATES IS ABOUT OFFSET BY THE BIRTHRATE.

If they don’t hurry up they will be the only Party in the World that ever nominated a Candidate and got him defeated on the same day.

In number of Population the Convention is holding its own. The deaths from old age among the Delegates is about offset by the Birthrate. Personally I think that the Candidates who will finally be nominated will be born in this Convention.

I have been writing a daily account for the Papers for this seven years’ Hitch. I took it for so much for the job. If I had signed by the word I would be able now to walk by and hiss Rockefeller.

In 1860, the Almanac says, a Democratic Convention was moved from Charleston to Baltimore. There is nobody here in this Convention to verify it, so I doubt if it ever happened. But, anyway, they talked for two Days about moving this one, on account of it being held here in New York where one of the Candidates lives. Well, they got to figuring and there was no Town they could take it to that didn’t have a Candidate who lived there.

Of course their thoughts naturally turned to Claremore, Oklahoma, the best Town between Foyil and Catoosa in Oklahoma. Then when Arizona showed such splendid judgment in putting me in nomination, why of course we couldn’t go there on account of the Galleries there being biased in favor of my nomination. Then they figured they might just as well stay here. Everybody had got used to the place, and if they moved them they would just have to get used to sleeping in strange chairs again, and maybe by a different seating arrangement they might be sleeping next to some one they didn’t even know. It meant really a lot of trouble, anyway, opening up new credit accounts and getting used to a different Climate.

I want the Democrats to just pass this election by without getting beat and then center all their forces on 1928. Cal. will be ineligible then, unless they may pass a Constitutional amendment to elect a President for life—and he is so lucky they are just liable to do it. But if he is out, the Republicans will have to get a new man too. Then it will be an even break.

But go ahead with this Convention and pick him now. In fact I would pick out three or four to run in rotation in 1928, ’32, ’36, and so on, because you will never get Democratic Delegates to give up the best part of their lives by attending another one of these things. If they are wise today down there they will pick Jackie Coogan, for President and Baby Peggy for Vice President.