Life, 1928-09-06 · page 7 of 44
Life — September 6, 1928 — page 7: what you’re looking at
What you’re looking at
This article by Will Rogers satirizes early political notification practices, suggesting candidates shouldn't be formally notified of their nomination until November 6th (Election Day). Rogers mocks the Republican Party's recent efforts to convert figures like Herbert Hoover into party loyalists. He references specific Republican campaign claims—"stopped the war," "prevented another from starting," "rounded out the stomachs of the destitute"—implying exaggerated boasts about accomplishments. The accompanying cartoon depicts an overturned "Anti-Bunk Corral for Dissatisfied Voters," suggesting Republican messaging deliberately contains false claims to mislead voters. The satire criticizes both early notification ceremonies as unnecessary political theater and the Republican Party's tendency toward propaganda.
📄 Transcribed text from this page (OCR, searchable)
Machine-transcribed from the original scan — historical spelling and the odd misread are preserved.
Our Candidate Refused to Be Notified “They Can Tell Me on November 6th That I Run Third” Ir looks like the papers have been so dogged up with Notifications that we haven't had time to see what else was going on. ~ Our party was figuring on notifying me, and then on second thought they fig- ured it would be better to just let it go and tell me on November the sixth that Thad run third. Ithink sometimes notifications are done too carly and taken too seriously. Of course there is one thing about a notifica- tion and that is it is the last big public function that most political Candidates will ever have. It gives them a chance however to de- clare that they are for the Party platform (whatever that is). Even Smith declared he was for the Democratic platform, which means that he is SOME Declarer. Now we all know that Smith is no more in sympathy with that thing he is supposed to run on than we are in favor of abolishing Free Love in Beverly Hills. by WILL ROGERS And Herbert? Did you ever see a man become more thoroughly Republicanized in the last nine years than he has? Nine years ago he dident know if he was a Republican, Democrat, Bull Mooser or an Elk, or Rotarian. He said he was just an American. But Lord now after reading his accept- ance speech, why the Republican party has practically unaided pertormed the fol. lowing miracles: “Stopped the war,” “pre- vented another from starting,” “rounded out the stomachs of the destitute,” “‘low- ered the taxes to a painless point,” “brought Frigid air to the Farmer's kitchen and put a radio on every plow,” “brought General Motors stock to a point where the holders could even afford to be Democrats,” “made a fisherman out of Coolidge,” “almost captured Sardino,” and “brought Prohibition up to the level of a Noble Experiment.” These are only a few of the accomplish- ments of the great Republican party ac- cording to the learnings of Herb. Now if they can take a smart man like Hoover and make him believe in them like that in a short nine years, what chance has a Boob got escaping when it is brought to his attention what the old party has done? Then right in the midst of things somebody notified Charley Curtis. Now it don’t take much notifying to get Charley started, just a hint would have brought on practically the same results, So who- ever notified Charley got what they de- served (a forty-five minute speech in the hottest sun in Kansas), Then they went to Albany to spring the big surprise on Al and everything went fine. Even the weather was wet. Well that encouraged the Democrats and led to someone paging Joe Robinson with the sad news of what had befell him in the heat of Houston, Joe said no man from Arkansaw had ever refused any- thing, even the Vice Presidency. So as I say the summer has been prac- tically taken up and ruined by nothing regosh! Ul have Co vit fe) - o bigger corral — buscin’ chis comicbooks.com