THEY ARE FROM TULSA. I WILL BE RIGHT OUT.
ANOTHER HOT CONFESSION IN THE OIL SCANDAL
I wish this Oil Scandal would hurry up and be settled as it is very hard for one writing on affairs of our Country to tell, in writing of our Officials, whether to speak of them as Secretary So and So, or Ex-Secretary So and So. Up to now I claim a very unique distinction. I am the only Person I know of that has not been mentioned as receiving something in the nature of a Fee from some Big Corporation. But I am going to get in early and tell just what I received so when my name comes up later on people will say: “Well there is a Man who has accepted Fees but he was honest about them and come to the front and told it.” As I can’t get to Washington to testify I want to tell through the Digest, for which I am Scandal Correspondent, just what happened to me. If I was in Washington I probably couldn’t get to testify as there is so many ahead of me that it will take years for just the People who work for the Government to tell who gave them something.
I know a Man that went to Washington to testify as to money he had received and there was 29 Cabinet and Ex Cabinet Members in line ahead of him so he had to just write it and send it in. Now this whole thing was a strictly Republican affair until Mr. Doheny (who never lets Politics interfere with his Business) appeared before the Commission, and when it looked like he was the only Oil be-spattered sheep in the Democratic Fold, he just kicked over an Oil Can and hiding behind it were a flock of Democrats that reached almost as far back as Jefferson’s Administration.
Personally I am glad that he did unearth members of both Parties for if this thing had gone through showing no one but Republicans, it would have cast a reflection on the shrewdness of the Democratic Party. In other words they would have looked rather dumb to be standing around with all these Oily Shekels falling all around them and not opening their Pockets to catch a few. For the American people are a very generous people and will forgive almost any weakness, with the possible exception of stupidity.
But to get back to my confession for I want to be set right before the people by the time we meet in Madison Square Garden in June to select the worst man. Mine starts out like a Fairy Story.
Once upon a time, I had just gone to work for Florenz Ziegfeld, Jr., and was playing in what was called Ziegfeld’s Midnight Frolic, on the Roof of the Amsterdam Theatre, New York. Prohibition and my Jokes were equally responsible in closing the place up. Now my home is (as I think I mentioned before) Claremore, Oklahoma, (The home of the best Curative Waters in the World) and, by the way, one of the best towns in the World to live in if any of you are thinking about making a change.
Well, after I had finished my little 15 minutes of annoyance in the Frolic one night, one of the Waiters (for instead of having Ushers to hand you a Programme, they had Waiters to hand you a drink, and I tell you, you can’t beat some of the old customs). Well this well tipped Waiter come to my dressing room, which I used to hang my ropes in, and said, “There is a Party of folks out front at one of the Tables from Oklahoma, and they want you to come out and see them.” I asked what place in Oklahoma did they come from, and he said, “I don’t know but they certainly got the Dough; they have ordered everything in the place but the Kitchen Stove.” I said, “They are from Tulsa. I will be right out.”
Well I hid what few dollars I had down in my Sock, and went out to see them. It was Mr. Harry Sinclair. I had never heard of him before, for he hadn’t bought Zev or the Teapot Dome up to then. But we soon felt like we knew each other, on account of him being from Tulsa (a Residential Suburb of Claremore where we park our millionaires to keep them from getting under our feet). He knew my Father who had been a member of the Constitutional Convention, which drafted the Charter of Oklahoma.
Well, this Mr. Sinclair was an awful nice fellow. We hit it off pretty good. We kinder consoled each other, on account of being so far from home, and trying to eke out an existence from these shrewd New Yorkers. He took a fatherly interest in me, and asked, “Now, Will, you are working here but what are you doing with your money?” So I told him just what I was doing with it, that the last three months’ wages had gone to paying a Doctor and a Nurse, for assisting us in accumulating another Baby, and that the three months previous to that my wages had gone to making the first payment on a second hand Overland car, and that the year still previous to that I had bought a Baby Buggy and a Victrola.