Well all I know is just what I read in the papers, and what I know when I am there to know it. Now don't let them tell you it hasent been hot here in California the past few weeks. Brother it's been roasting, and we havent got the usual Alabi, "It's the humidity." We havent even got any of that. Course it's been cool in the nights. (That is fairly cool.) I am not going to be too big a liar just for the sake of the State. It's just been hot, that's all. Of course the papers out here can always kill off hundreds with the heat some place back east. But I think the Editors here were so overcome they couldent even get up enough energy to kill any off with a headline back there.
You can publish all the statistics and junk you want but I guess the whole country has been hit pretty hard. But I lay it to the Stock Market crash last fall. Soon as the market gets a little better we will have some cold weather. Yes we are liable to have snow just as soon as the Market gets better.
Say you know what we got out here besides the heat. Well it's a Fish they call it Grunion, (Not Grundy) Grunion.1 At a certain time of the day and year why it washes right up on the bank or beach rather. You can tell where I did all my early swimming. It's just a few inches long and pretty small even in a story. Well people go to the Beaches by the Fordsfull and after a big wave come in why they make a dive and tackle these things with their hands, and the funny part of it is, they know when it's going to happen just like an eclipse. The papers all announce it, "Grunion will appear on such and such a Beach at 9:43 Tuesday night, July 12, 1930. If there is any change in the Grunions' arrival time, like there was in Amos and Andy's, why it will be announced as soon as we hear from them."2 And by golly sure enough at 9:43 on said night, a wave come in and sure enough riding it in was old man Grundy, (I mean Grunion). Well everybody was a Tackle or a halfback, they made a flying tackle at 'em, and when their heads were pried out of the sand, it was found that each hand held two and three ounces of Grunion. So you see California again will get the reputation of being the biggest liars on earth by saying they can catch fish right out on the dry land, and the Rascals won't be lying. They will be telling the truth for the first time in years.
See by the papers that Mr Hoover's western vacation trip has been cut to two weeks in the Rockies, all on account of Hiram Johnston wanting to argue over the Treaty.3 He knew it would pass. But that made no difference to him. So he just kept everybody in Washington during this terrible weather. Course Mr Hoover is not so bad off, as he has fixed him up a Camp out in Virginia some place, and I reckon it's pretty cool there.
But the President should be compelled to leave Washington early in the summer, even if he is forced to miss Johnston. Mind you I believe Hy is sincere about this, but he knew it was going to pass, and all he had to do was to register his opposition, and not drag it out into all this mess. He and Senator Dave Reed had a pretty set to last week.4 Dave told him he could go and see the papers, and learn all that was in them, but that he would not be allowed to show them to anybody else. Well Hy went up in the air, he said he could not conceive on any Senator ever looking at anything and not be able to tell about it. So he certainly bawled Davey out.
To have to read something and then keep it to yourself dident appeal to him in the least. Well we have no monopoly on kicking on the Treaty. England says we got the best of it. That shows they have a sense of humor. And in Japan they are hollering their heads off, they say their Delogation dident bring home enough ships. So if there is that much dissatisfaction, it's like I have always preached, why hold these things? There is always more hatreds formed at any meeting than there is friendships, no matter what they agree too they know they should have done better. The Nations in this world that get along and never have any trouble are the ones that never meet in conference at all.
The minute you confer you find out each other's short comings. But anyhow what difference does it make? The minute a war breaks out Treatys don't mean a thing anyhow. If England went to war tomorrow, do you think this being bound to only a given number of ships would hold good? Say they would break that Treaty the minute they could get some boards and carpenters and start building. Everything is all right when things are going good, but when it's bad, then nothing means anything. You naturally got to look to self preservation.
But who cares about all that? Say did you know they arrested a Girl here in Hollywood the other day? She was driving down our main thoroughfare with nothing on but a heavy tan, not a stich. A Modern Lady Godiva. She dident even have the advantage of long hair. You remember the old original over in Coventry England, (by the way I played there in Vaudeville, many years ago, it tain't far from Shakespeare's old stomping ground,) well that Lady had a horse, and she had a mane longer than the horse's. But this one here the other day had traded her "Cayuse" for a Chevrolet Roadster, and her hair was short. Course this is all from heresay. I would miss it.
I think she come clear for it's awful hard to tell when a woman is nude nowadays and when she is fully clothed. If the worst come to the worst she could always say it was an evening dress. But we do have great time out here, with Women driving nude and fish attacking people right up on dry land, and the heat 120 in the shade. We have lots of fun here. Come on out we will put you in the Movies.
Copyright © 1994, Will Rogers Memorial Archives