Now you inform your Editors at once that their most dangerous rival has withdrawn, and that they can go ahead and resume publication, But you inform Your clients that if they ever take up Rope Throwing or chewing gum that I will consider it a direct infringement of my rights and will protect it with one of the best Kosher Lawyers in Oklahoma,
Your letter to me telling me I was in competition with the Digest would be just like Harding writing to Cox and telling him he took some of his votes,
So long Beverly if you ever come to California, come out to Beverly where I live and see me
Illiterately yours
Will Rogers.
When I sent him my answer I read it to some of the Movie Company I was working with at the time and they kept asking me afterwards if I had received an answer. I did not, and I just thought, oh well, there I go and waste a letter on some High Brow Lawyer with no sense of humor. I was sore at myself for writing it. About 6 months later I came back to join the Follies and who should come to call on me but the nicest old Gentleman I had ever met, especially in the law profession. He was the one I had written the letter to, and he had had Photographic Copies made of my letter and had given them around to all his Lawyer friends.
So it is to him and his sense of humor, that I dedicate this Volume of deep thought. I might also state that the Literary Digest was broad-minded enough to realize that there was room for both, and I want to thank them for allowing me to announce my Illiteracy publicly.
CONTENTS
| Page | |
| Two Letters and a Dedication | [5] |
| Introduction | [17] |
| Breaking Into the Writing Game | [27] |
| Settling the Corset Problem of This Country | [39] |
| How to Tell a Butler, And Other Etiquette | [47] |
| Defending My Soup Plate Position | [57] |
| Helping the Girls With Their Income Taxes | [69] |
| The Greatest Document in American Literature | [77] |
| Prospectus for “The Remodeled Chewing Gum Corporation” | [87] |
| Inside Stuff on the Total Eclipse | [99] |
| It’s Time Somebody Said a Word for California | [111] |
| Promoting the Oceanless One-Piece Suit | [121] |
| Warning to Jokers: Lay Off the Prince | [131] |
| Spring Is Here, With Poems and Bath Tubs | [141] |
| My Ford and Other Political Self-Starters | [151] |
| Wilson Could Laugh at a Joke on Himself | [159] |
| A Job With the James Family | [171] |
| Let’s Treat Our Presidents Like Human Beings | [181] |
| What With Fruit Juice and Consomme, It Was a Wild Party | [193] |
| What We Need Is More Fred Stones | [203] |
| One Oil Lawyer Per Barrel | [217] |
| Another Confession in the Oil Scandal | [227] |
| The Whole Truth and Nothing But the Truth | [237] |
| Well, Who Is Prunes? | [249] |
| Politics Getting Ready to Jell | [261] |
| Two Long-Lost Friends Found at Last | [269] |
| They Nominated Everybody But The Four Horsemen | [279] |
| In the Midst of a 7-Year Hitch | [287] |
| “Will Rogers, Jr.” Reports the Convention For His Father, Worn Out By Long Service | [297] |
| Roping a Critic | [305] |
| “The World Tomorrow,” After the Manner of Great Journalists[A] | [313] |
| Settling the Affairs of the World in My Own Way | [323] |
| A Skinny Dakota Kid Who Made Good | [333] |
| Taking the Cure, By the Shores of Cat Creek | [345] |
FOOTNOTES:
[A] With apologies to Arthur Brisbane.