FINALLY A WARDEN KNOCKED AT MY DRESSING ROOM AND SAID: “YOU DIE IN 5 MORE MINUTES FOR KIDDING YOUR COUNTRY.”
WILSON COULD LAUGH AT A JOKE ON HIMSELF
Some of the most glowing and deserved tributes ever paid to the memory of an American have been paid to our past President Woodrow Wilson. They have been paid by learned men of this and all Nations, who knew what to say and how to express their feelings. They spoke of their close association and personal contact with him. Now I want to add my little mite even though it be of no importance.
I want to speak and tell of him as I knew him for he was my friend. We of the stage know that our audiences are our best friends, and he was the greatest Audience of any Public Man we ever had. I want to tell of him as I knew him across the footlights. A great many Actors and Professional people have appeared before him, on various occasions in wonderful high class endeavors. But I don’t think that any person met him across the footlights in exactly the personal way that I did on five different occasions.
Every other Performer or Actor did before him exactly what they had done before other audiences on the night previous, but I gave a great deal of time and thought to an Act for him, most of which would never be used again and had never been used before. Owing to the style of Act I used, my stuff depended a great deal on what had happened that particular day or week. It just seemed by an odd chance for me every time I played before President Wilson that on that particular day there had been something of great importance that he had just been dealing with. For you must remember that each day was a day of great stress with him. He had no easy days. So when I could go into a Theatre and get laughs out of our President by poking fun at some turn in our National affairs, I don’t mind telling you it was the happiest moments of my entire career on the stage.
The first time I shall never forget, for it was the most impressive and for me the most nervous one of them all. The Friars Club of New York one of the biggest Theatrical Social Clubs in New York had decided to make a whirlwind Tour of the principal Cities of the East all in one week. We played a different City every night. We made a one night stand out of Chicago and New York. We were billed for Baltimore but not for Washington. President Wilson came over from Washington to see the performance. It was the first time in Theatrical History that the President of the United States came over to Baltimore just to see a Comedy.
It was just at the time we were having our little Set Too, with Mexico, and when we were at the height of our Note Exchanging career with Germany and Austria. The house was packed with the Elite of Baltimore.
The Show was going great. It was a collection of clever Skits, written mostly by our stage’s greatest Man, George M. Cohan, and even down to the minor bits was played by Stars with big Reputations. I was the least known member of the entire Aggregation, doing my little specialty with a Rope and telling Jokes on National affairs, just a very ordinary little Vaudeville act by chance sandwiched in among this great array.
I was on late, and as the show went along I would walk out of the Stage door and out on the Street and try to kill the time and nervousness until it was time to dress and go on. I had never told Jokes even to a President, much less about one, especially to his face. Well, I am not kidding you when I tell you that I was scared to death. I am always nervous. I never saw an Audience that I ever faced with any confidence. For no man can ever tell how a given Audience will ever take anything.