Horseplay

A gridiron calls for red meat. Raw politics are red meat for journalists. Were Washington full of statesmen, the Capital newsgatherers' Gridiron Club would lead a meagre existence. Last week's Gridiron dinner, though it was the second in three months, was a bountiful feast.

As usual, the President and his aids were on hand, and legislators aplenty. John D. Rockefeller Jr., Tsar Kenesaw Mountain Landis of professional baseball, President E. H. H. Simmons of the New York Stock Exchange, General Pershing and notable sundries provided the lay relief which is necessary to save a Gridiron dinner from becoming mere facetious shop talk among mutually bored familiars.

When the Gridiron sputtered, there came first a Latin-American revolution. A careful count revealed no casualties, the sole result being the inauguration of two men named Brown as the new Gridiron president. Ultimately it became clear that only one Brown, by name Ashmun Norris of the Providence Journal, was president. The other, Harry Jay Brown of the Salt Lake Tribune, was vice president.

The 69th Congress was sent to eternal rest and President Coolidge was addressed in a solo parody:

Oh, boy, I'm lucky; I'll say I'm lucky. This is my lucky day.

The current Senate's "investigating" record was defended by a testy, strutting Cyrano de Bergerac. "A great nose," the clown trumpeted through his own, "indicates a great Senate. . . . This convexity, this pimple of curiosity, this wart of circumspection, is indeed worthy of jest. I say these things about the Senate's nose lightly enough myself, but I shall allow none other to utter them."

A mock band of sightseers was conducted through a Navy yard to see keels being laid--paper keels.

The "sailors" sang:

Then blow, ye critics, blow; A-sailing we will go; The merest hint of a nice blue-print Will drive the foe away. . .

Senator Charles Linza McNary of Oregon and Rperesentative Gilbert N. Haugen of Iowa, co-authors of "the best advertised piece of literature in modern times," were obliged to stand, in person, while impersonators chanted "The Corn Belt Is Getting On Its Ear." A verse: Don't forget it's getting late

Out in the new-mown hay,

Think of 1928

Out in the new-mown hay.

For when Dawes is coming down the track

And Lowden pats the farmer's back,

Someone may slide off the stack

Out in the new-mown hay.

We have waited long enough

Out in the new-mown hay.

Now it's time to do your stuff

Out in the new-mown hay.

For although you've got the farmer's goat

From Ioway to Minnesote

Don't forget that fanners vote--

Out in the new-mown hay.

The President's henchman, Frank Waterman Stearns, was re-named "the Colonel House of Boston." Prohibition Chief Lincoln C. Andrews saw himself tending bar to a furtive, thirsty Uncle Sam. Very few Gridiron perennials were dragged out but Coolidge Silence got its time-honored mention, as did the Coolidge electrical horse. The latter, however, was rechristened "Old Dynamo, by Tom Edison out of Electric Socket."

Political atmosphere in Washington can often be gauged, inversely, by the success of Gridiron skits. At last week's horseplay, the least laughter resulted when the scribes tried to joke about Secretary Kellogg's application of the Monroe Doctrine to oil wells.