The _Illiterate Digest_ will have to take Editorial attention of the
resignation of Sectry Denby. Mr. Denby was requested by the Senate
to resign. Now that in itself is a mighty good Omen that he is an
unusually able man. Of course, where I think he got in bad was in
saying, if he had the same thing to do over again he would do it. It is
always bad for any one on trial to say he would do the same thing over
again. American People like to have you repent; then they are generous.
But you see lots of times a man gets in wrong just by an ill timed
remark. Look at Mr. Doheny’s reported remark that he would “make 100
million out of the Elk Hills lease.” That will go down in History as
the highest priced Gag ever pulled. That’s why Mr. Coolidge never gets
in bad. If a man will just stay hushed he is hard to find out.
Personally and Editorially, I don’t think Mr. Denby is guilty at all
of any wrong-doing that he knew of. But somebody has got to go in
this thing, and before it’s all over you are mighty apt to find a few
innocent along with all the guilty strewn along by the Pipe Line.
By the way, sometime this Country, just by accident, is going to get
some man Sectry of the Navy who has at least received a Picture Post
Card of Annapolis, sometime during his career. Josephus Daniels
had never been in anything bigger than a Row Boat up to the time he
was made Sectry of the Navy. The first Battleship he got on he kept
looking for the Paddle Wheels on the side that made it go. He found
the Officers in those days had Cocktail and Cordial Glasses with
their Table wear. He made them throw them all overboard. He thought
they would sink the Ship. What he lacked in seamanship, he made up in
morality.
Then came Mr. Denby who had received his Maritime Education by looking
at the Detroit River (which is so thick with Booze Boats that you can’t
see the Water) naturally his Aquatic viewpoint is rather warped.
I guess Young Theodore Roosevelt comes nearer being an Old Salt than
anyone connected with our Ex Oil Owners (The Navy). He did live in
Oyster Bay overlooking Long Island Sound, and had to look at the Joy
Line cruising, 1$ daily, to Providence. Then he had to Subway under the
East River to get to New York. So I guess he is the only Sectry we have
that knows just by looking at one, which end of a Battleship is the
front.
Judging by the previous experience of some of our sectrys, of various
things in our Cabinets, it has always been a source of great anxiety
to me just why a Vetenerian has never been appointed either Sectry of
War or PostMaster General.
Now by the time this reaches our Scandal loving Public I don’t know
who will be left in Washington. The chances are, when I visit the old
stamping ground again, I will have to make entirely new acquaintances.
But I will always have the feeling, “Well the old Boys were not so bad.
They were just unfortunate in getting caught.”
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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