Congress: a laughing matter

Rogers was a lifelong Democrat. ("I'm not a member of any organized political party. I'm a Democrat.") But he was a conservative and could be evenhanded. On a radio program after President Herbert Hoover's defeat in 1932, with prohibition still the law, Rogers said: "Don't take politics too serious, Mr. Hoover, it is just another American racket. Washington is just a joint and you don't know when it is going to be raided by the opposition gang."

On another program, Rogers imitated the voice of Republican Calvin Coolidge, saying, "The nation is prosperous on the whole, but how much prosperity is there in a hole?" When listeners thought President Coolidge actually had been on the program and uttered those words, Rogers apologized.

Rogers' last radio broadcast before he died in a plane crash near Point Barrow, Alaska, in 1935, was characteristic. He talked about the recent adjournment of the California Legislature and mused: "They just get paid for so many days, and then the money runs out. There ain't nothing will dampen a man's public spirit more than to cut his salary, you know."

Rogers went on about politicians: "A lot of states have tried burnin' down the Capitol to get 'em [it was the Great Depression], but this way that California has got is the best way."

He then talked about a law the California Legislature passed before its recent adjournment. The lawmakers gave American Indians the right to buy liquor, previously denied them. He said he knew how the law had come about. "One old California cowpuncher in some county put that over. He told them we ought to give Indians something back--the land or the liquor--so they compromised on the liquor."

Then came the typical Rogers zinger. "The Indian, he's a ward of the government, but then we all are now. Everybody's an Indian."

What's amazing is how much Twain and Rogers said that still stands up today. Twain lambasted a judicial system with an insanity plea "that would have saved Cain" from punishment. And Rogers, looking with stunned amazement at the amount of money spent by politicians in his time, said: "Politics has got so expensive that it takes lots of money to even get beat with." Whatever would these men make of today's judicial system and the current cost of politics?

COPYRIGHT 1996 News World Communications, Inc.
COPYRIGHT 2008 Gale, Cengage Learning