Life — May 31, 1928 — page 6: what you’re looking at

Machine-transcribed from the original scan — historical spelling and the odd misread are preserved.

4 LIFE WILL ROGERS FOR PRESIDENT A Keynote Speech by Jupce Ben B. LinpseEy I Hearticy agree with Lire—that our present politics, as represented by the two old political parties, is mostly the bunk. Politics! In times past it has meant statesmen—Clay and Webster, Lincoln and Douglas, Blaine and Cleveland, Roosevelt and Wilson. Political parties then made real issues. They appealed to courage. They were championed by men who owned their own souls. Men who were unafraid. Then we had TWO parties. Now we have ONE. Only one. I challenge the leaders of either to define the difference between the two. The candidates of both parties are almost always gentlemen of respectability. But if they want to fight for the right to be themselves instead of office boys, they must fight alone. Generally, they do not choose to fight. Is it pleasant for Americans to know that their Chief Magistrate is no more than a Chief Clerk, who sits at a desk in the outer office and attends to the hand- shaking? The party platforms sound all the platitudes. The political campaign is an orgy of flag-waving bunk. The candidates vie with each other in the great contest as to who can shout the loudest for “Heaven, Home and Mother,” “The Sanctity of the Ho-o-me,” “The virtues of our Christian Peepul The Constitu- tion and the Flag,” and—of course —"The enforcement of the Lawww.” Under the militant sign of the flap- doodling Eagle and the glorious mem- ories of Abraham Lincoln, the election usually slides through to the usual triumph of the Grand Old Party. If a cog slips and the Eagle loses its scream, you can be sure that the slip has been ordered in advance. So—I am for a new party—to oppose the one party we now have. For, having only one party, how can we have any real issues? How can we have anything but dodges and evasions, platitudes and generalities, truckling and cowardice? If the people are to have the real truth in this campaign, there must be a SEC- OND party to meet the double-headed bi-partisan ONE. And there must be a real man to lead it! He must be the most popular presiden- tial possibility in the United States. And that is Will Rogers—of course. Why is Will so popular? Not so much because he makes us laugh, but because he really knows us and he knows what he is talking about. And most of all he knows the politicians. He is mighty kind to them in his kidding. But he is dead on to them—and they know it. I have seen them laughing their fool heads off at Will's jokes, but all the time they were anxious because they know that every- thing Will says is true; and the truth hurts, especially in politics. Recently I heard Will deliver his famous lecture (he doesn’t call it that) on politics and politicians. And if there is any issue, personality or question, na- tional or international, that he does not know more about than most of the states- men, in or out of Congress, I want some- body to tell me what it is. It is the man that knows what Rogers knows, and isn’t afraid to say it, that is needed in the White House. Will Rogers will make the people laugh. But what is more important, he will make them think. And it takes a real man to do that in these days when the real joke seems to be about oil, and Sinclair and Fall and Teapot Dome. It is high time that we quit taking such serious matters as jokes. They will be serious enough when Will gets through with the enemy, in the hilarious campaign just ahead of us, The people trust Will. They believe in him. "they love him as they did Lincoln —the only other superhuman and super- humorous President. For with human- ity and humor there always go just the good old homely virtues. And the good old homely virtues, of which Will as plenty, were the chief asset of our Andrew Jacksons and those pioneers who made great statesmen and Presidents. In_ their self-made manhood they hadn’t as much “book learnin’” as Will confesses to. But they had what this country needs: genuine honesty; freedom from cant, hypocrisy and sham; the cour- age of true independence. And above all, they had that God-given quality of un- ashamed simplicity that enables a man to be the friend of Cowboys and Kings —to earn the trust and the confidence of all people. It is great to know that another of that vanishing type still exists: Will Rogers, of the United States of the World—the invincible candidate for the Presidency of the United States of America. Ben B. Lindsey. Berw nation tional Wi Fo ing 0 tion i ison S the s: citize! troub the b Sin in str didate the 1 folio’ his cc begin forem Bunk Ev recent popul tor th and | repres In Roger ina | comicbooks.com