The Illiterate Digest

by Will Rogers

ONE OIL LAWYER PER BARREL

The Illiterate Digest has devoted its life work to ferreting out the Persons and things in our National affairs which are not just exactly up to snuff. Now I see where the Senate Investigating Committee has called a recess for 10 days. Scandals were unfolding themselves so fast that the Committee couldn’t get one Bribe straight in their minds before another one would bob up. So they retired to kinder see where they were at.

Now, while that committee may be resting, the Illiterate Digest never rests; we are on the heels of the evildoer 24 hours of every bribing day. I hope by the time this reaches an eager waiting Public that they will have found two Lawyers to conduct this Oil investigation. Just think, America has one hundred and ten million population, 90 percent of which are Lawyers, yet we can’t find two of them who have not worked at some time or another for an Oil company. There has been at least one lawyer engaged for every barrel of Oil that ever come out of the ground.

You might wonder if they pay so much to Lawyers how do they ever make anything out of the Oil? Foolish question. They don’t make anything out of the Oil. They only make money out of the stock they sell. You buy a share of oil stock and for every dollar you pay, 60 percent goes for Lawyers’ fees, 30 percent to over Capitalization, and 10 percent goes to the boring of a Dry Hole.

If a Company just put down Wells for Oil, and then sold the oil legitimately, they would have no use at all for Lawyers. But Oil Men engage their Lawyers nowadays even before they have leased the land or know where they are going to prospect. For the lawyer has to make the lease. It’s not like any other business where the owner and the man who is going to lease can meet and do business. Oh no, Lawyers must do that. Then, if they happen to be leasing from the Government, why they not only have to be Lawyers but have to be Political Lawyers.

Now, I bet a lot of you thought after the Company had got the land leased, that the next thing to do was to hire a Driller to put the Well down. But you are wrong again. You go out and get another Lawyer. You have to have another Lawyer to draw up the contract with the driller.

THEY NOT ONLY HAVE TO BE LAWYERS, BUT POLITICAL LAWYERS.

Then I bet that you think the next step is to wait until you see whether you have Oil or not. Say, don’t make me laugh out loud again. You don’t wait for anything of the kind: you engage another Lawyer to draw up some pretty Oil Stock Paper with nice flowered edges. Looks like a marriage license—only worse. Then you start selling the stock, claiming that the BoHunk Oil Company are putting down a Well on Smith 29, North East 40 of South West 80. Then if they do strike something, they shut it up and claim it was a Duster.

Then they get another Local Lawyer who knows everybody around that neck of the Woods, to go out and buy up or lease all the adjoining land. Then, when they get it all leased, they go back and pick the stopper out of this. Well, double the Capitalization of Stock under the direction of still another Lawyer, and then they are in a position to hire more Lawyers to investigate getting a Lease from Persia, or Jugo-Slavia. This just kinder gives you a rough idea of what all these Lawyers do and why we can’t get any to help prosecute this Oil Scream.

The Illiterate Digest will have to take Editorial attention of the resignation of Sectry Denby. Mr. Denby was requested by the Senate to resign. Now that in itself is a mighty good Omen that he is an unusually able man. Of course, where I think he got in bad was in saying, if he had the same thing to do over again he would do it. It is always bad for any one on trial to say he would do the same thing over again. American People like to have you repent; then they are generous.

But you see lots of times a man gets in wrong just by an ill timed remark. Look at Mr. Doheny’s reported remark that he would “make 100 million out of the Elk Hills lease.” That will go down in History as the highest priced Gag ever pulled. That’s why Mr. Coolidge never gets in bad. If a man will just stay hushed he is hard to find out.

Personally and Editorially, I don’t think Mr. Denby is guilty at all of any wrong-doing that he knew of. But somebody has got to go in this thing, and before it’s all over you are mighty apt to find a few innocent along with all the guilty strewn along by the Pipe Line.

By the way, sometime this Country, just by accident, is going to get some man Sectry of the Navy who has at least received a Picture Post Card of Annapolis, sometime during his career. Josephus Daniels had never been in anything bigger than a Row Boat up to the time he was made Sectry of the Navy. The first Battleship he got on he kept looking for the Paddle Wheels on the side that made it go. He found the Officers in those days had Cocktail and Cordial Glasses with their Table wear. He made them throw them all overboard. He thought they would sink the Ship. What he lacked in seamanship, he made up in morality.

Then came Mr. Denby who had received his Maritime Education by looking at the Detroit River (which is so thick with Booze Boats that you can’t see the Water) naturally his Aquatic viewpoint is rather warped.

I guess Young Theodore Roosevelt comes nearer being an Old Salt than anyone connected with our Ex Oil Owners (The Navy). He did live in Oyster Bay overlooking Long Island Sound, and had to look at the Joy Line cruising, 1$ daily, to Providence. Then he had to Subway under the East River to get to New York. So I guess he is the only Sectry we have that knows just by looking at one, which end of a Battleship is the front.

Judging by the previous experience of some of our sectrys, of various things in our Cabinets, it has always been a source of great anxiety to me just why a Vetenerian has never been appointed either Sectry of War or PostMaster General.

Now by the time this reaches our Scandal loving Public I don’t know who will be left in Washington. The chances are, when I visit the old stamping ground again, I will have to make entirely new acquaintances. But I will always have the feeling, “Well the old Boys were not so bad. They were just unfortunate in getting caught.”

It certainly looks like a tough year. Politicians are so busy trying to hold down their own Jobs that they won’t have any time to look out for anyone else. They will be voting a Bonus to men who lost their livelihood in the great morality Panic of 1924.

Children in future years will ask their Parents, “Father how much did you get in the great Year 1924?”

It’s been a fine thing for Washington. The Hotels are crowded. Every time a Guest registers the Clerk asks him, “I suppose you will be here until you testify.” It’s a bigger thing for Washington than the Shriners’ Convention, because it has all of them, besides a lot more.

If they would all tell the truth the first time they testify they wouldn’t have to testify again like they are doing now, and they would get the thing over a lot quicker. They ought to pass a rule in this Country that in any investigations, if a Man couldn’t tell the truth the first time he shouldn’t be allowed to try again.

Now we have another Scandal in the Veterans’ Bureau. But we are just in such shape that we can’t take care of but one Scandal at a time. If any other small affairs come up during the coming season that look like they might develop into a Scandal I will try to let you know.