I just watched a PBS documentary on Will Rogers. And WOW, is he timely. Of particular interest to the occupy Wall Street movement would be a radio broadcast in October 1931, in which h he dispensed with jokes and discussed seriously the problems that were going on. He was directly preceding a talk from President Hoover in which the latter was going to tout some of his policy. This broadcast is known >>as the “Bacon, Beans, and Limousines” speech. [You can watch/listen to this at http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kyfvamwM4Yo very moving. There is not a word he says that is not applicable to today.] He began by pointing out that 17 million people were out of work. He said that people shouldn’t be worrying about prohibition when the neighbor’s children did not have food to eat. He pointed out that a few years ago people worried about whether the poor could get a drink, now “we fixed it so they cannot even get anything to eat.” Speaking of jobless and hungry, he says that the unemployed and hungriest of men have contributed in some way to the wealth of every millionaire in America. He says there is as much money as there ever was, it’s just in fewer hands.
Other sayings:
· Every time Congress makes a joke it’s a law and every time they make a law it’s a joke.
· He referred to a president who “didn’t do nothin’ but that’s what we wanted done.”
· Broadcasting over NBC, when he was announcing the station, “NBC—No Body Cares…Whatever you say tonight you can come back tomorrow night and deny it in case anybody remembers.”
· When he nominated Henry Ford for president he mentioned that some people said he didn’t know enough history, but “What we need is a man who can make history, not one who can recite it.” [Hmmm, maybe some of these Republican candidates could use that line.]
· It takes nerve to be a Democrat, but it takes money to be a Republican.
· If there’s anything that we do worse than any other nation, it’s to try to manage someone else’s affairs.
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