“WILL ROGERS JR.” REPORTS THE CONVENTION FOR HIS FATHER, WORN OUT BY LONG SERVICE
Will Rogers Jr. attended the convention to take up the duties of reporter to replace his venerable old father.
By WILL ROGERS JR.
Papa called us all in last night and made his last will and testament, he called it. He said he had carried his work on just as long as he could and he realized that he was unable, on account of his old age, to go further with it. He put in the will that I being the oldest was to take up his life’s work, that of reporting the Democratic National Convention.
He herded us all and told us of how he had given all the best years of his life to this and out of respect to his name and memory that we children should carry on. And that our children were to do likewise and that we should raise them to always know that their mission through life would be to keep reporting the progress of the Democratic National Convention at New York. And it was in the will that if we didn’t we would forfeit any claim to any royalties that might still be coming due from books that he had written on the early life of the convention.
Mama wants to send him to the Old Men and Old Women’s Home for Survivors of this Convention, but he won’t go. Poor Mama is worried about him. He won’t talk rational. He just keeps saying, “Alabama” and “for what purpose does the gentleman arise,” and “if we can’t elect our candidate we will see that you don’t get yours” and “unfit” and “release.” We don’t know what it all means.
Now, Mr. Editor, I am only a little boy and I am not much of a reporter, but Papa told us we didn’t have to be very good; that all we must practice was endurance. But you will, Mr. Editor, please take my story, won’t you for Mama’s sake, for she knew how poor Papa hated to give up and how proud he will be if I can only keep his life’s work going?
Mama got our Dad’s old press badge and patched it up so it would stick together and I went down today. The hall was full of all those feeble people and it looked kinder like a church; everybody was sleeping. All but one man, who was standing and reading aloud out of a geography the names of States that are situated in the Western Hemisphere and that don’t belong to Canada.
Papa had given me an old worn and torn paper with a list on it that he had used to mark off the numbers on when this convention started. He told me to always keep it for comparisons. Also that a museum had tried to buy it from him. I go to school and our teacher had told us what a wonderful country this is we live in, and how it had stuck so well together and, sure enough, when this man kept reading these names and figures, why, on Dad’s old paper were a lot of the same ones.
I kept waiting for him to call out the name “Wisconsin” that Dad had, but this fellow didn’t have it on his, and according to Dad’s old paper we at that time had California and anybody knows that Japan has owned California for years. On Dad’s old paper they still had the Philippine Islands, which is now Japan’s Naval Base. But as for the candidates, the names were just the same. None of them had dropped out. Their sons were carrying on their father’s life work too, trying to hold what votes they had. Saulsbury Jr. had six. Underwood Jr. had a few more than what was on Dad’s paper, as the State of Alabama had more population and had naturally increased its number of delegates.
An old man sat by me and I got to talking to him and he seemed to want to be friendly and talk of his early life. He said his name was Coogan. “Jackie Coogan,” I think he said, and that he used to be in some old fashioned things called moving pictures, and that he could remember as a child when this started that men used to be wakened up and have to call out the numbers when their States were called. But now they have little phonographs and every time a State is called, why the phonograph says “Two and nine eighths for Smith Jr. and one and sixty-five fifths for McAdoo Jr.” and so on.
A man has a hammer and he couldn’t keep them awake with it any longer so they adjourned, and the attendants wheeled them all out. It was only about three o’clock in the afternoon and they were to be back again at nine. I went home to tell Pop what had happened and to write my story. He said, “It’s looking better, son; they are adjourning earlier and starting later. Maybe the miracle will happen,” and his old eyes began to gleam as he seemed to vision the end of his glorious dream.
Then I told him very enthusiastically, “Oh, yes, Pop, it looks great because a man with a family name of Brennan got up, and one named Cramer, and said they would adjourn and hold a conference of leaders and would have something to report by tonight.”
Well, I wish you could have seen my poor old Dad. He went into spasms. He pulled his hair. He raved. None of us could do anything with him. He had been all right before I had mentioned this leader and conference business. He then said:
“Son, those same men’s fathers started holding those conferences forty years ago. Going to report something to the convention tonight? That is exactly what is the matter with this convention now, it’s those conferences. If they had let the delegates confer instead of the leaders, why, your poor old father could have spent a life of usefulness instead of one listening to a man read off numbers, which we all knew better than he did.
“Son, if it’s the Taggarts and Rockwells and Macks and Cramers and all of them that are conferring, you will die, like your poor old father, right at your post, listening for something to happen.”
So please, Mr. Editor, take this story, and tomorrow, when I come home to dear old Dad, I will make him feel good. I won’t tell him they are going to hold another conference.