The Illiterate Digest

by Will Rogers

WHAT WE NEED IS MORE FRED STONES

Now I am not going to tell you any jokes today as jokes are not good for you to read every day. You will have to look to the Washington dispatches from Congress for your humor.

A Comedian is not supposed to be serious nor to know much. As long as he is silly enough to get laughs, why, people let it go at that. But I claim you have to have a serious streak in you or you can’t see the funny side in the other fellow. Last Sunday night a Young Girl who had made a big hit in the Salvation Army preaching on the Street in New York, decided to go out and give religious Lectures of her own. So on her first appearance I was asked by her to introduce her. She said she would rather have me than a Preacher, or a Politician, or any one else. Well, I could understand being picked in preference to a Politician, as that is one Class us Comedians have it on for public respect, but to be chosen in preference to a Preacher was something new and novel.

The meeting was held in a Theatre, as you have to fool some New Yorkers to get them in to hear a Sermon. Well, it took no great stretch of imagination to say something good for the Salvation Army, which, by the way, lots of People think was made by the late war. Why, the Salvation Army was just as great 10 years ago as it is today—not so big, but just as great. Ask any down-and-out fellow and he will tell you he knew of the good of the Salvation Army long before he ever heard there was a Kaiser.

Well, it seems like a Coincidence that, as I was trying to say something in a serious way for the first time before a New York Audience, why, away out in Butte, Montana, the best friend I have was going up to a Minister with a Bible in his hand and asking him if he didn’t think “the Lord would recognize a Comedian.”

So that is why you will get this Story and no jokes today.

Now a great many people, knowing my regard and friendship for Fred Stone, asked me if I was surprised. No, I was not. It was the shortest jump, from his life to a religious one, that any man ever made.

But it was a BIG thing to do, and I am certainly pleased that he did it, for it will have a tremendous influence for good, not only on the people of our profession but on every one who reads about it. When you consider that the biggest and highest salaried and busiest Man we have in our profession can stop and give some of his time to religion, it is a lesson to the rest of us. Now, it has been my good fortune to have been very close friends with Fred for years. I have lived in his home and spend all my spare time there while playing in New York. We Rope and Ride and play together all the time. He has two wonderful homes on Long Island, one all fixed up like a Western Ranch with lots of Horses and a Polo field of his own on his place.

Then I am asked why he did this do I suppose. He did it because from childhood he had been raised up by the Dearest old Mother and Father you ever saw. That Christian teaching which she put into his head as a little Kid, when he started out doing a Tight Rope walking act in a little Circus, is just coming out. He was brought up to do right and never knew anything else. Just to watch him with his Mother and Father today you will understand he didn’t have to go far to see a Preacher.

Then he has the most ideal home life. His every thought is for his Family. His Wife is of the profession, and I have often heard my Wife say that Mrs. Stone is the most wonderful and devoted Mother she ever saw (and Women have a way of knowing those things).

And three lovely Daughters, the oldest, Dorothy, 18, who is with him in his show and is as talented as her Father and Mother. And so are the others. All are being trained for a Stage career. So you see he don’t think so bad of the Stage.

He is the best loved Actor on the Stage today. He plays to the highest type audience of any Musical Show. He is the only Musical comedy comedian that has Matinees packed with Children, for none of our other Musical Comedy Comedians has ever been able to please the Children and the grown ups too. He is as great a Pantomimist on the stage as Chaplin is on the screen.

Now, people must not get the idea that this is a remote case in our Business. It is, of course, on account of the prominence of the man that we have heard so much of it, and if he had known that it would be broadcasted in this way it would have been the only thing to make him hesitate. No one can say that Fred Stone was ever a publicity seeker. He is too sincere in all he does for that. I think if all Churches in communities where Theatrical people live were canvassed you would find there are as many of them in attendance as any other line of people. And when you come to Charity and trying to help some one who is in need, you will find them, not only holding their own, but far in the lead of any other class.

This could not have come at a more opportune time as Preachers all over are telling us that there is a gradual weaning away from the Church. If this will only make people think just for a little it will have done worlds of good.

I have sometimes wondered if the Preachers themselves have not something to do with this. You hear or read a sermon nowadays and the biggest part of it is taken up by knocking or trying to prove the falseness of some other denomination. They say that the Catholics are Damned, that the Jews’ religion is all wrong, or that the Christian Scientists are a fake, or that the Protestants are all out of step.

Now just suppose, for a change, they preached to you about the Lord and not about the other fellow’s Church, for every man’s religion is good. There is none of it bad. We are all trying to arrive at the same place according to our own conscience and teachings. It don’t matter which Road you take.

Suppose you heard a Preacher say, “I don’t care if you join my Church or the other fellow’s across the street. I don’t claim mine to be better or worse than any other. But get with somebody and try and do better.” Hunt out and talk about the good that is in the other fellow’s Church, not the bad, and you will do away with all this religious hatred you hear so much of nowadays. Then you will not only have one Fred Stone but Millions of them.

Besides, it’s not that we need more people just to join Churches. It’s that we need more Fred Stones, either in or out of a Church. For this Man’s life is an object lesson to every Young Man or Boy starting out on a career in any line of business. Sincerity put him where he is. He never faked. No man his age in America has worked harder and been more conscientious.

Another coincidence that happened applies directly to this case. I was called on to testify in Court if I thought a certain Team of Popular performers were UNIQUE AND EXTRAORDINARY. The whole case was based on those two words. Now those two words mean a terrible lot. They mean you must do something that no one else can do. So, regardless of the popularity of the two performers and with all due regard for all that others can do, I said they were not.

And I claim that the only one I know of in our entire profession who I could rightly claim was unique and Extraordinary is this man that went into a store and asked for a Bible. Went out and studied it according to his best knowledge. (Which, by the way, is not so much as Book learning goes. As Fred and I have figured up once. He got as far as the fourth reader while I only reached the third. So that is why I think we always hit it off together so well, neither was liable to use a word which the other couldn’t understand.)

Fred Stone can do more things and do them well than any man in or out of the Show Business or the Movies.

Why can he?

He is 49 years old and has spent 45 years practicing. Now, we have not another man in America that has done that. He started at 4 or 5 years of age and has worked on new stunts every day of his life and still does. He always wanted to have something new for the people every year. We have performers that have specialized on one thing that are great, but not a one that can do the variety of things that he can. And the wonderful part is it is clean wholesome entertainment that you are glad to have your children see. So the clean does pay after all in any line of business.

He was the originator of the present style of eccentric Dancing on the Stage. In his dances he dances not only with his feet but also his Body and face show you what he is trying to convey. The greatest compliment I ever heard paid a dancer was said about him by another great dancer, “Why Fred Stone can dance in a Barrel where you can’t see his feet and still be a greater dancer to look at than the rest of them out of one.”

A corking good all-around Acrobat. He practiced for years just to get a perfect One Hand Stand and never used it—just wanted to learn it. He is one of the best Actor Ball Players. Boxed for years with Corbett, who has always said that Fred could have been Champion at his weight.

Here’s a little tip for you, too. He can lick more men single handed, if they start something with him, than can any Hero in the Movies where they are trained to fall.

IF A RIDER HIT ON HIS HEAD, IT WAS ME.

He took up Fancy Rope throwing after he was 37 years old and today there are not a half dozen Boys in this Country that can do more tricks than he can. He learned in 12 years what it’s taken me 40 to learn. Hired Rinks to stay open after their seasons closed and paid Instructors for three years to perfect him in fancy Ice Skating. He learned Bareback Riding for a Circus Act, and every kind of Wild West trick riding. Bucking Horses he learned to ride after he was 43, just when at that age most Riders are quitting. He Bull Dogged a Steer at Cheyenne and had never done it before in his life. Now that takes nerve. I wouldn’t jump off a horse on a steer even if he promised to lay down. He is a good Polo Player; we had a team composed of the late Vernon Castle, who, by the way was a good Horseman and a nervy fellow, Leo Corrello, Fred and Myself. Well, in our Clown games we all took it as a joke, but Fred took it serious. He wanted to know the thing from every angle.

Now to me I didn’t care whether I hit the Ball or not. I knew it would be laying there when I come back. But not so with Fred. Well, there was a lot of falls and spills. The audience who watched us play every Sunday got to learn that in a spill if the falling Rider hit on his feet it was Fred Stone. If he hit on his head it was me. We would both be equally safe.

He is one of the best shots in the Country, has practiced for years with Annie Oakley, the Greatest shot this Country ever saw. He hunted big Game with his Brother-in-Law, Rex Beach, in Alaska. Went to Greenland to Lassoo, not shoot, Polar Bears, hunted Mountain Lions in Arizona, and Bears wherever he could hear of one.

Now that he has taken up religion and the Bible, he wont have to ask a Preacher to advise him long. Preachers will be coming to him, for he don’t half do anything. So when he comes back, and Sunday comes, and I go down to Rope and Ride and play, if he wants to knock off and go to Church I don’t think I will mind, and if they will let ME in, I may go too.