Rogers-Brisbane Version

Millions of U. S. Citizens read last week Funnyman Will Rogers' account of the opening of Britain's Parliament (see above). Wrote Mr. Rogers:

". . . But get this one. I think the King furnished his quota of humor with the following :

'My relations with China are friendly and I have despatched warships there to express my good feeling. . . . ' This shows why Kings don't have jesters any more. They don't need 'em."

Some U. S. citizens realized that labored Funnyman Rogers had manufactured his jest by putting words in the mouth of George V. R. I., which His Majesty had not spoken.

The nearest the King-Emperor came to Mr. Rogers' words was when His Majesty said:

"My relations with the foreign powers continue to be friendly. . . . My Government felt it necessary to despatch to the Far East a sufficient force to protect the lives of my British and Indian subjects against mob violence and armed attacks. . . . But . . . my Government has caused proposals to be made to the Chinese authorities which should convince public opinion in China and throughout the world that it is the desire of the British people to remove all real grievances, to renew pur treaties on an equitable basis and to place our future relations with the Chinese people on a footing of friendship and good-will." Some U. S. citizens read the daily newspapers carefully, and, knowing that Mr. Rogers was laboring hard over his wit, excused his deliberate misquotation.

Hearst Editor Arthur Brisbane has no time to read all the despatches carefully. He swallowed Mr. Rogers' misquotation hook, line and sinker, as did many another. Soon Hearst Editor Brisbane wrote:

"William Rogers says kings have no jesters now, because they don't need them. In his speech at the opening of Parliament, King George said, 'My relations with China are friendly and I have despatched warships there to express my good feelings.'

"That sounds like saying, 'My relations with .the rats are friendly, and I have put poison in the kitchen to prove it.'" All this was a very good joke. It meant that 95% of the U. S. citizens who heard about the King's speech at all got a totally false impression--and, perhaps, a good laugh, a titter or a heehaw.