Burlesque

Charles Gates Dawes rushed into the vice presidency on March 4, 1925, with a crackling, headline-snatching lecture to the Senate on its antiquated rules of procedure. Calvin Coolidge grew red in the face as he listened to that outburst.

Last week in the same manner Gen. Dawes rushed out of the vice presidency with a farewell speech in which he swung his arms, shot his cuffs and shouted that he took back nothing he had said about the Senate rules. This time it was Charles Curtis and his little vice presidential speech that the Dawesian diatribe dwarfed. But where embarrassment was four years ago, there was only laughter this time. It was a self-burlesque, a Dawesian jape.