LET’S TREAT OUR PRESIDENTS LIKE HUMAN BEINGS
As I am writing this away out here in California days before you read it, it’s Sunday and everybody’s thoughts and sympathies are with a train rushing clear across our Country, passing sorrowfully through little Towns with Just Folks standing bareheaded paying their respects to Just Folks going back to Marion to stay with Just Folks.
He goes to his resting place a Martyr, a martyr to the Boneheadedness of Reception Committees. You wouldn’t ask your hired man to do in one week the amount of real physical work that each Committee asked him to do on one day. Imagine three long Speeches in one day in Seattle at different places, and Parade for two hours in the hot Sun with his hat off most of the time, besides a thousand other things he was asked to do.
Just suppose for instance you had a Guest coming to visit you. Would you start in having him entertain the Neighbors the minute he got in the House, and then keep every minute of his time occupied till train time, and then turn him over to the next bunch? Why, no, you wouldn’t think of such a thing. The first thing you think of when a friend comes from a long Journey is to have him rest, but because it is your President he don’t need any. So when the next Congress meets they should pass a law to shoot all Reception Committees, or teach them consideration for other People.
If Jack Dempsey had left Washington and undertaken this same strain, when he got back Uncle Joe Cannon could have licked him.
Any of you who have slept, or tried to, on a Train at Night and got into a Town early in the morning, you know you don’t feel like speaking or Parading. You want to go to a Hotel and go to bed. Now can you imagine the President’s case? Every morning at 6 A. M. to be awakened by a Band (it wouldn’t be so bad if it was a good Band) and you look out and there is the Town’s best Citizens in Antique Hats, ready to show you the Fire House, the new Aqueduct, the High School, and City Hall. The smell of the Moth Balls from the long tail Coats of the Committee morning after morning, would give a man some kind of disease.
Now, every man on that Committee was nearly tired out at night and took a vacation the next day, but the President must go right on the same thing the next day, only worse, for every Town was trying to outdo the other. It’s not only a hardship on the People you are entertaining but hard on everybody participating.
One Town will have a Flag composed of 5 thousand children, assembled and standing in the Hot sun for hours, not only spoiling their whole day but subjecting them to every known contagious disease. The next Town to be original will get 10 thousand Children to make up their Flag, and Make Their Parade 10 Miles as the Last One Only Paraded 5, even if they have to exhaust their Guest to do it.
Then, of course, he is always asked to speak out in the open. They have 60 acre Fields and put seats around them and call ’em Stadiums, and expect a man to talk in them. Anyone who has ever spoken outdoors knows what outdoor speaking does to your voice. The Town with the cheapest land and most Concrete can have the largest Stadium.
I have always claimed that Parades should be classed as a Nuisance and participants should be subject to a term in prison. They stop more work, inconvenience more People, stop more traffic, cause more accidents, entail more expense, and commit and cause I don’t remember the other hundred misdemeanors. And what good are they? Half of them going along you don’t know who they are, or what they are for. Even the People in them hate ’em. The most popular joke I had after the War in New York when the Boys were coming back and parading every day was, “If we really wanted to honor our Boys, why didn’t we let them sit on the reviewing stands and make the people march those 15 miles?” They didn’t want to parade, they wanted to go home and rest. But they wouldn’t discharge a Soldier as long as they could find a new Street in a Town that he hadn’t marched down, yet.
Of course, keep Circus Parades, for they really give enjoyment not only to kids but us old ones, too. As a remedy for this parading I would suggest that each Town set aside one Street, away out where there is nothing to interfere and give them that as Parade Street; then when some fellow or gang wants to try out a new Uniform or honor somebody, why let them parade up and down there just as long as they want to. If you think Parading is popular just see how many would go over there to see it. Parades nowadays think they are drawing a crowd when it’s only people trying to get across the street to their business, not to see you Parade at all. So just set them aside a Street—that will stop it. The minute a Parader sees that no one is watching him he will stop and in that way you will eliminate all Parades.
I was on the Reception Committee of the Movie Industry that was to have met the President here in Los Angeles. Well, just as an example of what I said about the others, they decided that it might be showing partiality if they took him to any one Studio, so they decided to take him to all of them. In that way they could take up his entire time. Now, no one knew whether he wanted to go to any of them or not; we were deciding for him. Can you imagine being a Guest of the City of Carnegie, Pa., and the Committee showing you through all the Steel mills in Town?
Now, President Harding was quite an admirer of the Movies so I imagine he liked sausage, too. But Chicago didn’t rush him off to the Packing Houses the minute he got there, to see it made.
According to his itinerary here, he was allowed 15 minutes to call on an Aunt whom he hadn’t seen in years that lived here. That was to be his only relaxation while here. We were waiting to see how long Frisco’s Parade would run so we could run ours longer.
Now, as just an example of the trip, he loved Golf (and as the later sad events have proven) it was good for him; it was the very Recreation needed. But do you think these Committees let him do it? No Sir, he only got out three times on the entire trip. I offered a suggestion here when they were making the arrangements, but like everything coming from a Comedian it was considered not practical. I wanted to let the Reception Committee go ahead and rent the Suits and be at the Station looking Funny just like these others he was used to day after day, but instead of dragging him off where he didn’t know where he was going, why just say, “Mr. President, we have engaged a room at the Central Hotel. Here’s a Ford Car at your disposal. Here’s a Card to any Golf Course in our Town. Now we know you are tired, so you just make yourself at home these few days; do just as you please, we have no plans for you at all.”
Well, my plan wasn’t adopted; it was too late. But if it had been even partly tried in all the Towns on this trip we would have all been happy and had him with us today. The first Town that ever does do that with their visiting Guests and treat them as if Human, they will soon be wondering where all their popularity comes from.
You may have read in the Papers last year that the Diplomatic Relations were strained between President Harding and some of my Jokes on the Administration. Now, I want to say that nothing was farther from the truth. That was simply newspaper stuff. It was reported that he couldn’t stand Jokes about the Administration. Why, he had a great sense of Humor and could stand all the jokes ever told about him or his Policies. The first time I met him Will Hays introduced me to him in the White House and he repeated to me a lot of jokes that I had told away before.
And I told him then: “Now Mr. Harding, I don’t want you to think I am hard on you—all. You know I told some pretty hard ones on the Democrats when they were in; in fact I think I told funnier ones on the Democrats, as they were doing funnier things.” I explained to him that it would not be fair to the Democrats to kid them while they were down, but the minute they get their head above Water again I will take a whack at them.
I met Will Hays just before I left New York in June and he said, “Will, I had lunch with the President last week and he had me tell him all your new stuff on the Administration.”
No, I don’t think I ever hurt any man’s feelings by my little gags. I know I never wilfully did it. When I have to do that to make a living I will quit. I may not have always said just what they would have liked me to say but they knew it was meant in good nature.
I never go to Detroit that I don’t spend an entire day out with Henry Ford and I don’t suppose there is a man living (barring the owners) that have told any more jokes on him than I have.
I liked President Harding. You see I had met him, and I don’t believe any man could meet him and talk to him and not like him. Why, I said after first meeting him, “I thought I would be scared when they took me in but he made me feel just like talking to some good old prosperous Ranchman out home.” That’s why I can understand him wanting to meet as many people personally as possible, for to meet him meant another friend.
I only hope our Future Presidents can be gifted with his Sense of Humor and Justice.
He was a mighty good friend to us Theatrical People; he was a good friend to ALL kinds of People.
For he had the right dope after all. Everybody is JUST FOLKS.
HE WAS A REAL HONEST-TO-GOD-MAN.