Editorial Policy. This being the second week of the life of “The Expo- sure,” we feel called upon to say a few words in commemoration of our second issue of this little gem of truth. In the first place, we want to thank our readers who have made it possible for us to get out this second spasm. I have looked up the statistics of the newspaper business and I find that 92 percent perish after the first issue. The Sheriff takes the place of the sub- scriber when the bills come in after one edition. So we are among the 8 percent when we are able to go to bat the second inning.
Now let’s get down to bed rock and find out what has kept us among the elect 8 percent. Just one thing, and that is truth. We are staking the rep- utation of our periodical on the assumption that nothing in public life (or out of it, for that matter) is any good. Now what we have set out to do is to find the worst. It’s no trouble to pick out the bad but I tell you, readers, when you sit down to pick out the worst, you have to set some task for yourself.
The issue this week will be known as the Lament Number, or Hearts and Flowers Week. The week just passed has been the saddest of any known
to all alleged humorists, paragraphers, and stage comedians. When I picked up my morning paper one day recently and read one of the headlines, my wife had to pour water on me for 30 minutes to bring me to. The headline read:
“Henry Ford not to run for President.” Here I had been laying awake nights stacking up Ford jokes and I felt better fortified for the coming cam- paign than a prize fighter with a rock hidden in his glove.
I had some gags that I had never pulled. I was just nursing them along, until the heat of the campaign come and then I was going to cut loose with them. Well, that announcement just knocked me cuckoo. It was just like taking away a man’s bread and butter. You take a Ford joke away from an article or a monologue and you have just about ripped the backbone out of it. I tell you people, you don’t know what they mean to you until they are taken away.
Then also you must take into consideration that I really wanted him to be president. It was just as big a disappointment to me as it was to millions of you other folks who wanted him. Of course, outside of my personal friendship and admiration for Mr. Ford and his many great qualities, I had (I will admit) a monetary thought in mind, had he been elected, because the more I see of public affairs and public offices, the more I realize that a comedian has a wonderful opportunity if appointed to one of the high pres- idential appointments.
Comedians always have held those positions and there is no reason why I can’t go in and do as bad as some of the rest.
So you will see this Ford Boom busting a tire has been a double dis- appointment to me. I think Mr. Ford is wrong when he says “90 percent of the people are satisfied.” 90 percent of the people in this country are not sat- isfied. It’s just got so that 90 percent of the people in this country don’t give a damn.
Politics ain’t worrying this country one tenth as much as parking space. How to pass one car without meeting another one, gives people in this country more thought in one day, than all the messages delivered to Con- gress since Washington wore golf breeches.
There is millions of people in this country that know the color of Mary Pickford’s hair, but think the Presidential office is hereditary.1So Mr. Ford
should not mistake apparent prosperity, for satisfaction. There is more mort- gages in this country than there is votes. This country right now is operat- ing on a dollar down and a dollar a week.
It ain’t taxes that is hurting this country; it’s interest. Mr. Ford says” “America is on wheels today.” He means “America is on Tick today.” If an automobile manufacturer could make a car so good that he could advertise it as follows: “Will last ’till it’s paid for,” he could put Ford out of business.
The only way to solve the traffic problem of this country is to pass a law that only paid-for cars are allowed to use the highways. That would make traffic so scarce that we could use our Boulevards for children’s play grounds.
No, it’s not politics that is worrying this country; it’s the second pay- ment. The only thing that makes it look bad is that, just before this an- nouncement of Mr. Ford’s, he had held a conference with Mr. Coolidge. Of course a lot of people intimate that he was bought off. Now, speaking edi- torially I don’t believe that he was. What made it look bad was that, the next day after his visit, the White House ordered a new Lincoln Sedan and Ford delivery truck.
Of course, you give an automobile manufacturer a chance to sell a cou- ple of cars and he will do almost anything within reason. So you couldn’t have blamed him if he had kinder looked out for himself in this transaction. After all, this running for president is sort of a hazardous business. Sta- tistics have proven that out of 110 million people there is only one gets to be president. It’s what you might call a long shot office, and you can’t con- demn a man for not investing in campaign literature.
So, in closing, let us say that the country not only lost a good president but his decision spoiled some of the best jokes I ever had in my life. But there is one gleam of hope on the horizon. While Ford fell down on us co- medians our next best standby, Prohibition, furnished more than its quota. There has been a terrible scandal in Washington. Official Washington is said to have been buying their liquor from the foreign embassys instead of getting it through permits from government warehouses. Now our offi- cials are getting to be a fine sort when we can’t even get them to patronize home industry.
What’s the use having permits to get whiskey out of overloaded gov- ernment warehouses if our own servants of the people are not going to use those permits. Of course they are excusing themselves now by saying it was just some cordials and fancy drinks, that they had gotten from the for- eigners. They say they have gotten their staple liquors through the usual channels right here at home. Liquor sales is probably what maintains some of those embassys. Why, there is countries got embassys over here now, that before prohibition couldn’t even maintain a flag. That’s why America has such poor embassys abroad. We haven’t even got our own buildings. It’s because we have nothing to sell over there to keep them up.
Now, if England would only prohibit tobacco over there, why that would give us a chance to really do something with our embassy worth while. We could bootleg enough tobacco in a year over there to get us as good an embassy as they have over here.
You know foreign nations don’t send diplomats over here any more. They just find the best bartender they have and appoint him.