| OCR Text |
Show ( (. . 4 I EVTK HEARD wp -TYTHAT Is the wittiest re- A ' 7 I Jf'"rA X ' XV"V J. -ftW morous story you ever v VL. f r v , vjl y V x " W V I bave been asking v.- A . j J . ' W vUb this question of a list I s -V, jji ! ' V of public men more JL ' JH X w or less noted as wits CiJEL -liS5?fv jf, M" "-j O and humorists. Per- X 1jO WY V CmMP (hf haps the idea may stimulate -some lit- U J. J nTZ .WTO ZA roiZZrrZ jjj Jj erary hack to make a much more com- VffOr ear m""" - Vj9 v? T""- 18 the v,'ittle3t re" vWi- l t0rt 0r tbe most hu" -fJ morous story you ever Lgk jf heard? JCp'w I I have been asking ITa ' I this question of a list if' of public men more n- or less noted as wits and humorists. Perhaps Per-haps the idea may stimulate -some literary lit-erary hack to make a much more complete com-plete compilation of American humor and supply a want long felt in these days, when readers are being overfed with the lurid, the morbid and the tragic. The memory of practically every ev-ery member and ex-member of our various legislative bodies, federal, state and municipal, stores up some samples of original repartee which doubtless will be lost to posterity unless un-less preserved in printer's ink, says John Elfreth Watkins in the Philadel phia Record. In Washington the man who doubtless doubt-less has the greatest fund of stories of briek repartee In debate on the floor of congress is Speaker Champ Clark. He recalls stinging retorts that have excited not only uproarious laughter, but threats of personal encounter. en-counter. The retort which he considers as perhaps the most effective was made by Senator James Hamilton Lewis when a member of the house. Lewis' opponent had been the aggressor and had been doing all of the vicious digging. dig-ging. Lewis, as usual, was all suavity. The speaker tells the story in this way: "It was one of the finest bits of repartee I ever heard in the house. Lewis and Lemuel T. Quigg of New York were having a cut-and-thrust debate de-bate on the trusts, Lewis assailing and Quigg defending. "At last Quigg made a particularly vicious lunge at Lewis, to which the latter, with the grace and' politeness of Lord Chesterfield, replied: " 'Mr. Speaker, I do not wonder that the gentleman from New York defends de-fends the trusts, for it is written in a very old book that: " ' "The ass knoweth his owner and the ox his master's crib." ' "That ended the debate very suddenly." sud-denly." Speaker Clark gave me also the following fol-lowing sample of repartee, contributed not as one of the wittiest retorts he ever heard, but as that precipitating about the most ridieulous situation he ever witnessed in a legislative body: "Toward the end of his term as speaker of the Missouri house of representatives rep-resentatives Judge J. E. Alexander, aow a member of the national house Df representatives, was solicited for recognition by a large number of members mem-bers standing in the aisle in front of the speaker's desk. At last the Hon. lames T. Moon, a very brilliant member mem-ber from Laclede county, yelled out: " 'Mr. Speaker, I want to know if fou recognize me?' "Speaker Alexander, a' very grave a.nd dignified gentleman, responded: " 'It does seem to me that I have seen that ugly mug somewhere before.' be-fore.' " The immortal wit of the late Senator Sena-tor Jonathan Dolliver is considered by Senator LaFollette to be productive produc-tive of the very best repartee heard an the floor of the senate. "The quickest flash of wit that I recall," re-call," said he, "came after Senator-Warren Senator-Warren of Wyoming had delivered a speech in behalf of protection. AH members of the senate knew that Sen-itor Sen-itor Warren owned sheep ranches in his native state and his earnest appeal ap-peal had already tickled the fancy cf the listeners. "Senator Dolliver followed him and had, begun a discussion of the tariff changes when Senator Warren, anxious anx-ious to join in the sentiment, remarked: I quite agree with the senator on that point. Like himself, I am an agriculturist and' " 'You,' remarked Dolliver, simply, 'are the greatest shepherd since Abraham.' Abra-ham.' "Even senatorial dignity could not withstand this." Representative Fitzgerald of New York, chairman of the appropriations ;ommittee of the house, said that one Df the most effective shafts of repartee repar-tee which he ever heard was hurled ome years ago by a southerner, whose name he does not now recall. "A hot debate was on," said Mr. Fitzgerald, "and a member of the Republican Re-publican party began by assailing congress con-gress generally and Democrats in par- ticular for their failure to act on some '. measure in which he was interested. As the debate waxed warmer the Republican Re-publican member became more and more worked up over the subject. "Finally he charged members of congress generally with idleness. "'Look at the farmer!' he shouted. 'He produces the food upon which we live. The honest laborer, toiling home at eve to his humble supper, fur nishes the motive power for this great civilization. The storekeeper furnishes fur-nishes the storehouse and the weaver the cloth that goes within the storehouse. store-house. All these do their share. Why should we in congress delay? What are we producing?'. "Instantly the southerner was on his feet, courteously requesting recognition. recogni-tion. After gaining permission to speak he turned to the excited Republican Repub-lican and said: " T will enlighten the gentleman if he so desires.' " 'I do,' said the Republican. " 'Then,' said the southerner, 'I will teli the gentleman on the other side of the chamber that congress produces pro-duces more talk per capita than any organization in the world.' " Sereno E. Payne, ranking minority member of the ways and means committee, com-mittee, recalls this as the quickest retort re-tort he ever heard in congress. "Many years ago Representative Springer of Illinois was debating on the floor of the house. During the course of hie speech he made several remarks of a rather variant nature without apparently realizing the blunder blun-der that he was making. After he had talked about ten minutes Tom Reed arose and interrupted him. " 'The gentleman from Illinois,' said Reed, 'has made three distinct statements state-ments of a contradictory nature. I would like to remark that any one of the three could be used to disprove the others.' "Springer, taken aback, thanked .Reed, who sat down. He delivered rather a flowery effort, in which he expressed his satisfaction at having been brought to book by Reed. "Then he concluded: " 'And I will eay, Mr. Speaker, in words that have been used before, I would rather be right than be president.' presi-dent.' "Reed did not arise, but smiled sardonically. sar-donically. " 'No danger of your being either,' he yelled across the aisle. Senator Boise Penrose of Pennsylvania, Pennsyl-vania, who has himself been the hero of many debates, also regards Tom Reed as his beau ideal of the man with the lightning retort. "One of Reed's sharpest shafts was flung during the debate on the Wilson tariff," said Senator Penrose. "The argument had been bitter and the fight against the measure had been determined. When the bill finally passed the house a group of Wilson's friends, among them William Jennings Bryan, picked him up on their shoulders shoul-ders and carried him about the chamber. cham-ber. "Tom Reed had been watching the proceeding in a saturnine sort of way. When Wilson and his triumphant bearers reached the center doors of the chamber Reed lifted up his raucous rau-cous voice and shouted: " 'You may carry him out now, while you have the chance. The people of the United States will ram hi ... j uuu (JUL next November." "And it turned out to be as Reed had prophesied." "What clings to my mind as one of the most amusing incidents ever witnessed in debate," said Senator John Sharp Williams of Mississippi '.'grew out of not exactly a retort but a Speech that was delivered by' the late Senator Robert Taylor. of Tennes see. In this address the senator using his pose of preternatural solemnity, sol-emnity, announced that he had list ened in a state bordering on stupefaction stupe-faction to the splendid tributes which had been paid to various American Industries. In-dustries. "Then he turned toward Senator Heyburn of Idaho, whose speech in behalf of a duty on cattle and hogs had been lengthy and earnest. " 'But chiefly,' said Senator Taylor, 'was I impressed by the orotund syllables syl-lables which issued from the esophagus esopha-gus of the senior senator from Idaho as in accents of Homeric rhythm he poured forth his defense of the American Ameri-can hog.' "The picture, coupled with Senator Heyburn's dignity, was so utterly ri diculous tnat it tooK tne senate several sev-eral minutes fully to recover its gravity." "One of the quickest flashes of repartee which I have heard in a long time," said Senator William Alden Smith of Michigan, "occurred while Senator Penrose of Pennsylvania and Senator Simmons of North Carolina v.tre recently debating the tariff In a desultory sort of way. "Senator Simmons had announced with great earnestness that he was going to vote for free lumber. "Senator Penrose, with a courteon gesture, congratulated his opponent on his versatility. " 'I did not grasp the senator's remark,' re-mark,' said Senator Simmons. " 'I made the polite observation," explained ex-plained Senator Penrose, 'that the senator sen-ator shows all of the earnestness in his argument for the removal of the duty on lumber that he showed at the last session, when he insisted the duty on lumber be retained. The senator is a man of talent." " "I think that the story told by Mr. Strickland Gillilan at the seventh annual an-nual dinner of the Indiana Society of Chicago is as good a one as I ever heard," said Dr. Harvey W. Wiley, the pure food champion, who is a raconteur racon-teur of note. "The combination of the classical and the cockney is certainly enough to tickle anyone. "A cockney was chosen for a prominent promi-nent part in one of .the historical pageants pag-eants during the week when George' last of England was jumped into the king row. The cockney had been selected, se-lected, purely because of his figure, as the one to personate ope of the ancient an-cient Roman invaders of the tripartite little island. He knew none of the Roman invaders by sight or by proxy. He had never heard of them. They did not move in his seat. Yet he was invested with a short, thin, sleeveless tunic, thinner fleshings, tin greaves, ditto helmet, sandals and a large spear. After walking about the streets of London some hours thus clad, this bally blighter was weary and footsore and ashamed. At last there came a chance to rest, while some hitch in the proceedings was unhitched. un-hitched. Just at .that moment a bitter bit-ter wind blew from the channel and chilled his scantily clad' form. He stood shivering in his finery when an old lady, literal minded and deeply interested in historical pageantry, approached ap-proached him and said: "'Are you Appius Claudius?' "'No, blimy; I'm un'appy as 'ell!'" |
