WHAT WITH FRUIT JUICE AND CONSOMME, IT WAS A WILD PARTY
The Illiterate Digest is a weekly publication, devoted to straight reading matter. We have no picture section and I doubt if we will appeal to over 1%, of the Public as the success of a Publication is based nowadays on the amount of Pictures and Advertising that they have in them. Of course, all our news comes by Radio. But The Digest is a tried and operating Paper. In fact we are old timers in the field. This is our 4th issue and we have just bought out and combined The Weekly Blowout, a paper that was sponsoring Mr. Ford’s Detour to the White House. After his famous announcement that 90 per cent of the People in this Country were satisfied, why, The Blowout couldn’t withstand such untruth. Had Mr. Ford gone through and been elected why The Blowout would have become the mouthpiece of the Administration. So, while not crowing over the misfortune of a Competitor, we were able to procure the Title of said Paper as soon as it had lost the chances of getting our Government run as Mr. Ford would have run it on a “Tighten a Bolt as it Goes By” system. Now The Digest and Blowout combined, is looking for some other likely Candidate to boost. We have even got down to such sore straits that a Populist would not be overlooked.
The Digest has some real inside Hollywood dirt to dish up to you. For fear some competitor will get in and publish it first I will tell just what happened at a Wild Party that was given tonight at the home of the Editor of this very Gem of Truth. And what makes it worse the head of our Industry that was hired and supposed to keep the Scandal from our doorsteps, was the main Guest, Will Hays (the only man in the history of Industry that was ever hired for a job without him or the People that hired him knowing what he was hired for, yet still made so good they couldn’t replace him). Will Hays, the man who made Harding President, and the Movies (partly) behave.
Well my Wife and I, aided and encouraged by Daughter Mary decided to put on a Wild Party. Hollywood had been getting all the Publicity and selling all the Real Estate through their Scandal, and here was Beverly Hills who could put it on just as Wild as they could, and we couldn’t seem to get anywhere. So we looked around to find some Guest that would be well enough known, so that when we carried him home he would be recognized.
We thought of Will Hays. So about 6.30 P. M. who should come staggering in from across the street from the Hotel but our Guest. His brother was to have come with him, but the Brother is a Lawyer from Sullivan, Indiana, and not having had the experience and capacity of Will he had gone completely out earlier in the evening while being entertained by The Womans’ Federation of Churches.
Well, Will was so loaded that he had on a dress suit. It was the first one that had ever been in our House, so Bill Jr. and Jim, who had just come in from Public School and refilled their Flasks commenced to laugh at the Suit, and we put a sheet over the Chairs so that he wouldn’t get it dirty.
But by this time he was feeling so good he didn’t care anyway, for the Industry had bought it for him—and about this time another Guest who lives right near fell into the door before we knew it. That was Miss Pauline Frederick.
She was all primed for a real old prolonged Rough House. She had brought the stuff along with her. She had under her arm a big bag of knitting. She was knitting a Blanket for one of my Polo Ponies. So we all staggered around there till one of the children thought of introducing Miss Frederick and Will.
Then, to make the Party real devilish I was to go and get another man’s wife while he was away at work. She lived next door, so I sneaked out while my Wife wasn’t looking and dashed right into the home of the young Mrs. Cornelius Vanderbilt Jrs. She slipped on something and we both complimented each other on account of her Husband having to be at the office getting out his Newspaper. She asked if the Party was to be so wild that she should take her Gun. I said, “Sure, let’s do it right.” So we blew back just as they are ready to get real wild and start eating.
By this time Jim and Bill are becoming reconciled to Hays’ suit and start playing Baseball in the House. Hollywood can’t put on anything wilder than that. Hays by this time is feeling so good he is telling a story complimenting a Democrat.
We all start off with a Fruit Cocktail and everybody commenced to loosen up and tell their right Salaries. Then comes some Consomme and I can tell you this old mixing of drinks is getting in its work. Daughter Mary started doing a Wild dance in the Living Room until Jim laid her out with a Baseball Bat. Then Hays got to telling what his Boy could do, and the party just went from one Debauch into another.
Will told us of his trip to England with Ambassador Harvey. He said he went for pleasure, and I tried to get him to really tell what he went for. I think it was to get the Prince of Wales to come out for Coolidge.
Between drinks of Broiled Chicken I tried to find out if he was going to be the Campaign Manager for Mr. Coolidge. But he seemed to think it was such a sure fire thing, that they would waste some less expensive man. I kinder sobered up for a minute and asked him what he thought they would do in this investigation into the Tea Pot Dome Oil Lease. He said he didn’t think they could show where Sinclair ever gave Sectry Fall anything. He knew Sinclair was too smooth a giver for that.
I asked him what he thinks of us sending Warships to Mexico. So he tells me what a hard time they had getting down there. Washington wired to the nearest one to go down and it runs on the rocks before they got through reading the telegram. You know our Navigators now depend on Radio to tell them where they are.
The Navy hasn’t had a Compass in three years. They start on a trip and the radio operator tunes in and gets Paul Whiteman’s Orchestra playing somewhere, and when he comes to he is in a lifeboat. Bedtime stories have put 9 ships to sleep.
Then I asked him who we were going to protect down there, he said, why the Oil Men. I asked him who protects the Mexican Sheep Herder in this Country if somebody interferes with his Industry, and if Mexico had a Navy could she send it up here to protect him. He said No. So the moral of this is, Be an Oil Man not a Sheep Herder, and be sure to be born in a Country that has a Navy.
By this time we are all so full we have to leave the table, and the noise of moving chairs is something deafening.
It’s now eight thirty and the neighbors can see the light in our house and begin to phone in about it to the Police. Miss Fredericks’ Yarn runs out, and she begins to yawn. Jim, Mary and Bill being younger and less unaccustomed to the revelry, had to be literally carried to their beds. Scandal was running rampant, while my wife was getting them off. That left Bill and I with the two Women. I says, “What will we do, Bill,” and he says, “Oh, I am in for anything.” So I just up and said, “Let’s go down to the barn and look at the Horses.” So out we staggered at 9 o’clock in the night in the heart of Beverly Hills. Bill Hays, a man that is a leader in the Presbyterian Church—but it only shows you when this old Movie Spirit gets in you, you will do anything.
I lasso four or five horses and bring them out and show them to Bill, but he is all excited talking to the Ladies. They wanted to take a ride, but I didn’t want to carry this thing too far. So we go back to the house and I finally get them into their Coats and Hats and walk them home.
My Wife and I we figure the walk will do them good. So when we come back and get in the house why it’s actually 9:15.
So I hope by the aid of Bill to put old Beverley Hills on the map as a Wild Town. Bill says to me, “Will, if the Woman’s Club ever finds this out they will stop your pictures”. I says “That’s a good joke on the Woman’s Club, my Pictures have never started.”
I know all the papers will have this so I just want to beat them to it.