The following program is brought to you by CBS News as a special report during the 1964 campaign year.
I don't always do things the proper way as you've observed in newspapers.
There's something good that comes out of everything.
You know, when lightning struck Lady Bird's plane out in Cleveland the other day,
it scared her for a moment, but a lot of good came out of it.
She's willing to start riding with me again now.
I imagine that some of you will be going sightseeing while you're here.
It's a good thing to do in this city.
And if you go by the White House, you'll probably see a sign saying,
this is your White House.
I've never seen that sign. Every time I go by it's removed.
It might be said now that I have the best of both worlds, a Harvard education and a Yale degree.
I have always marveled at the ingenuity of certain members of the fourth estate in creating news.
They even linked my name some time ago with Margot Truman's romantically.
But that was before we had met.
And since she met me, nothing else has appeared.
Politics is a funny business. It's brought to you by Shell Oil Company.
We do everything we can to make this sign stand for excellence in the products and service you'll find at every Shell station.
As a kind of informal check and balance on the potentially grim business of politicking and legislating the laws of the land,
the ribbing and roasting of our political system and its practitioners has always been a popular American pastime.
Apparently, it's one of those inalienable rights not formally spelled out in the Declaration of Independence.
Here tonight, Governor, you are not allowed to refer to politics.
They won't let anyone talk politics in here because this stadium was dedicated to art, sports, and any useful enterprise.
We're here tonight not as candidate Roosevelt, but just as neighbor Roosevelt from the other side of the Rocky Mountain.
Now, this introduction hasn't been very, well, you know, it hasn't been very, perhaps very learned or very flowery.
But remember, you're only a candidate.
As a president, I'll do right by you.
Because I'm certainly wasting no oratory on a prospect.
The wit of Will Rogers was exceptional because it endures.
It was as if he spoke for all the people of all times who had chosen democracy as a political way of life.
He said, I don't make jokes. I just watch the government and report the facts.
I haven't welcomed the governors. I want to welcome them too because that's one thing we do in California is welcome.
We'll welcome anything that comes here.
This is the wisest state in the world.
Here's a state that got $110 million. You know what I mean? On hovers.
Yeah, they grabbed it all. You know, they grabbed it all because they thought the Republicans might get in.
So the Republicans give them that much and they got away with it from the reconstruction finance.
And then, by golly, the Democrats had to make good that much to afraid they'd lose the state the next time.
As a social satirist, Mark Twain, like Will Rogers, felt that political animals and institutions were fair game for his native irreverencies.
Twain once said, suppose you were an idiot and suppose you were a member of Congress. But I repeat myself.
During a benefit performance on the behalf of the John F. Kennedy Center for the Performing Arts,
the American actor Hal Holbrooke, with his highly acclaimed characterization of that great American observer,
brought to life some of Mark Twain's steel-edged wit.
I understand that we're gathered together here to bring culture to Washington.
These are Twain's words.
Well, I think that's nice.
I love Washington, that grand old benevolent national asylum for the helpless.
And anything we can do to raise the cultural mentality of the inmates down there, well,
I'm for it. I don't say we can do it.
No, I don't go that far. I only maintain that Lazarus was raised from the dead.
The 5,000 were fed with 12 loaves of bread.
The Israelites crossed the Red Sea dry shore and thought you can come to Washington.
Perhaps there hasn't been another Twain or Rogers because of the homogenization of America into a single region,
into a kind of continental locality.
Making political hay on the grassroots hustings with local humor has given way to the national wink, the all-American guffaw,
and to perhaps the political himself put the professional humorist out of business.
For even in the earliest days, frontier humor gave the satirist a run for his money.
Reminiscent of this is former Oklahoma Congressman Gassaway's blunt reply to Huey Long's marathon harangue
calling for a redistribution of the wealth as an economic reform.
This is old Gassaway of Oklahoma.
Why that man Huey Long?
We talk about share the wealth plan, you know just as well as I do that if you'd carry out your principle,
it would take more money than there is in the world.
And listen here, you might be a great big kingfish down in Louisiana,
but out in Oklahoma and I dare say most every other state, you're just a common ordinary bull-drawer.
Less direct than Gassaway is the frontier humor still used by two contemporary men of politics.
Republican Senator Thruston Morton of Kentucky, and then former Democratic Congressman Brooks Hayes of Arkansas.
I don't know how they do it around here, but down home when they're winding up they get to bouncing.
So he had long robe hanging from his elbows and he started bouncing.
I said put your hunnid on it, you hit yourself to the evening star,
and a big telephone was in the back of that thing and it rang and that whole bulkhead in that shirt just shook every time it rang.
That's what he said, put your hunnid on it, brrrrr went that phone, shook that whole church,
and a pin yourself to them, brrrrr, and a fader hit yourself to the evening star, brrrrr,
and will somebody answer that damn telephone.
Well, that's politics.
I recall the story of two of my Baptist brethren and I have few institutional loyalties.
I am a Baptist and a Democrat, almost as intense in my loyalty to my Baptist faith as Brother Puckett was
who opposed the consolidation of our church with the Christian church.
He said I'm a Baptist and nobody's going to make a Christian out of me.
And I can say to you that I'm a Democrat and nobody's going to make anything else out of me.
Not to be forgotten as one of the fastest draws on frontier humor was former Vice President Albin Barclay.
Here he is, easily topping Bob Hope.
I want to say that this has been a very tough trip for me because Miss Falkenberg has outglamored me
and Senator Barclay has told all the jokes. I don't know what I was doing on the trip at all.
Oh, Bob, you were absolutely wonderful and you took a ride with the airlift crew, didn't you?
Yes, I sure did and I don't know whether it's a coincidence or not, but I came in with a load of corn.
Solid or liquid?
As the focus of politics centered increasingly in Washington, so did its humor.
No longer did presidents and presidential aspirants rigidly adhere to Tom Corwin's admonishment,
as most of them had done since Washington.
To succeed in public life you must be as solemn as an ass.
And yet it has been said that Adlai Stevenson was too funny for his own good
and Lincoln was savagely criticized as the joking president.
Lincoln, who was the first president to bring humor to the White House, defended his wit, saying,
I laugh because I must not cry.
We asked Brooks Hayes if humor helps or hurts a politician.
I think it can do both. If one isn't careful, he can use it cruelly against an antagonist
and the public reaction would damage him.
If he doesn't use it adroitly so that the point he seeks to make is fortified by his humor,
then it hurts instead of helps.
If on the other hand, with the gentle quality of humor and the creation of a pleasant atmosphere
in which to make his serious points, if he shows skill in this field, it can be a great weapon.
Whether it's advisable or not, almost every major political within memory has used at one time or another
the witty remark, or what he considered to be the witty remark, as a political weapon.
Here are Franklin Roosevelt, Wendell Welke, and even Herbert Hoover.
These Republican leaders have not been content with attacks on me or on my wife or on my sons.
No, not content with that. They now include my little dog, Fowler.
Well, of course, I don't resent attacks and my family don't resent attacks, but Fowler does resent attacks.
I say the greatest myth in America is the brain trust. It takes two things to have a brain trust.
Brain's in a trust and you've only had a trust.
And I would be glad if thinking American people would soberly consider if the Republican elephant,
even though he has made a multitude of mistakes, is not far more sure-footed towards recovery and progress
than the bounding white rabbits of the New Deal.
I recommend that magician's animal as the symbol of the New Deal park.
It travels in uncertain directions at very high speed, and it multiplies rapidly.
Humor can also be used as a friendly, but nevertheless an incisive weapon,
as when John Kennedy turned his wit on Lyndon Johnson when both were senators seeking the Democratic nomination for the presidency in 1960.
It is true that Senator Johnson made a wonderful record in answering those forum calls, and I want to commend him for it.
I was not present on all those occasions. I was not majority leader.
As Lyndon knows, I never criticized. In fact, on every occasion I said that I thought Senator Johnson should not enter the primaries,
that his proper responsibility was his majority leader, and that if he would let Hubert, Wayne, and I settle this matter,
we could come to a clear-cut decision. So I come to you today full of admiration for Senator Johnson,
full of affection for him, strongly in support of him for majority leader, and I'm confident that in that position we're all going to be able to work together. Thank you.
Some politicians turn to humorous self-criticism, and by so doing hope to disarm their critics.
Thank you very much, Mr. Chairman, my fellow Americans, my fellow Democrats,
my fellow voters, my fellow commentators. It's wonderful to be here with you tonight.
But did we really need all of these lights on?
Looking out at all of you, I think of my own position as a member of the cabinet,
and I look out at all of you as not members of the cabinet, and people who don't meet with the cabinet, and therefore eligible to be vice president.
Well...
After that announcement last week, everybody, an awful lot of people came up and said,
do you have any statement about it? Are you glad? Are you sad?
I was going to say that I thought maybe it was critical, but I was going to say that I thought that Dean Rusk was premature in eliminating...
I mean that Lyndon Johnson was premature in eliminating Dean Rusk, but I then sent a note to the various other cabinet members
and said that my one great regret was having taken so many other nice fellows over the side with me.
Because everything a president does is important. Everything he or anyone connected with him does is more interesting,
and if it's funny, it's twice as funny. But perhaps not to Mrs. Harry S. Truman.
Oh dear.
Unplanned humor can come at any time. Sometimes it can be converted into extra political points.
A president who has run for office perhaps and won on a program which bears little recognition of the facts,
which is my polite way of referring to Mr. Nixon, and he refers to me impolitely.
I think that our chances...
That never happens in the vice presidency, and I understand because everything is in perfect order.
They don't get the both, but it's well organized.
I'm now going to have to give a new speech.
You all know Pat Hillings, don't you?
Politics is a funny business. We'll return in a moment.
These are the tracks of the Santa Fe stretching west through Arizona.
Indian country here, the land of the Navajo. Near at hand, the petrified forest, tree trunks 160 million years old,
long since turned to stone. Up ahead, the fantastic rocks of Oak Creek Canyon.
Now our tracks turn south, curving through the mountains, past the old ghost towns.
Finally, the tracks unwind, 24 miles straight as a rifle shot. Now the tracks are cleared, not for a train,
but for an automobile. In a moment, engineers of the Shell Oil Company will send this car down these straight rails
in an unusual demonstration of gasoline mileage. Top quality gasolines are blends of various ingredients.
Each is there for a reason. We're about to demonstrate a mileage ingredient called platformate.
First we try Super Shell, but with platformate left out, one gallon. We start and let her go.
No hills and no traffic to affect mileage, and no driver. Let's see how far we get without platformate.
Half hour later, out of fuel, coasting to a stop.
Let's mark the spot, go back to the beginning, and try Super Shell with platformate.
One gallon, same Ford Galaxy, same speed. If platformate really works, we ought to go farther.
Here's where we stopped before, but with platformate, we keep right on going, more than a mile farther.
That's why we blend platformate into Super Shell. We do everything we can at Shell to make our sign stand for excellence
in the products we bring you, in the service we give you, at Shell stations everywhere.
In contrast to the unexpected, most politicals welcome the opportunity to tailor humor to special audiences.
Here's Stevenson before a fashion group, and Eisenhower at a religious function, and a certain Senator Kaye.
I can't recall the name of it, but I remember a Greek comedy, an ancient Greek comedy.
The women who said that until the men stopped making war, they wouldn't have any more babies.
They said, no peace, no babies. You know, that's why they gave me an idea in the present state of the world.
And then, and just then I opened the morning paper in New York and I saw a whole lot of advertisements of the new women's fashion.
And I...
This was the year the sack dress was introduced.
And I said to myself, I have it. This is the most successful of all of the Russian scufflebees and propaganda moves.
The source of the sack is Moscow.
To spread discontent, irritation, antagonism, hostility among us. This will be Khrushchev's greatest triumph.
This isn't even subliminal, this is non-linear.
So I said, here's an idea. Here is a slogan for the democratic women.
They can make a real contribution to peace in the world. Let them say, peace for the sack.
The problem prompts me to cite the case of a tormented man in a troublesome time in Ireland's history,
who, feeling the need to relieve his conscience, sought out his local pastor.
Having been admitted to the priest's study, the man said, Father, I had just killed a man.
To which the priest replied, this is neither the time nor the place for discussing politics.
Now I may be a little confused because the representative, the senior senator of the state in which I now abide,
which has had the greatest population explosion in the history of these great 50 states,
as we know in so far as having, not as we consider, but therefore the distinguished body of the public forum
that we know as the United States Senate has in turn not yet, and we, I think, there shall be done in so far as we, the group of senators.
Maybe H.L. Mencken had a Danny Kay-like political in mind when he chomped out,
his speech reminds me of a series of wet sponges.
The press conference, formal or informal, has become one of the best sources of high political humor.
Here is incumbent Republican Kenneth Keating of New York, obliquely commenting on Robert Kennedy's decision
to oppose him for the U.S. Senate, and John F. Kennedy at his press conference best.
Well, ladies and gentlemen, we all know what we're here for,
and I want to announce at the outset that I will not be a candidate for the United States Senate from Massachusetts.
President, do you think that Mrs. Murphy should have to take into her home a lodger whom she does not want,
regardless of her reasons, or would you accept a change in the Civil Rights Bill to accept small boarding houses like Mrs. Murphy?
The question would be, it seems to me, Miss Grave, whether Mrs. Murphy had a substantial impact on interstate commerce.
And last, and some would have at least, the sacred cow of the press must also expect to be gored occasionally.
Harry Truman had a wonderful time making a broadcaster who predicted a dewy victory in 1948, E. Crow.
I had my sandwich and glass of buttermilk and went to bed at 6.30.
And along about 12 o'clock, I happened to wake up for some reason, and the radio was turned on on the National Broadcasting Company.
And Mr. Kelton Barn and Mr. Harkness were reporting the situation as it then developed.
And Mr. Kelton Barn was saying, while the President is a million votes ahead in the popular vote, we have yet to hear from him.
And we are very sure that when the country vote comes in, Mr. Truman will be defeated by another hundred votes.
And more recently, here's Barry Goldwater treating the press lightly.
This happens to be my first public address since San Francisco, and I'll be very interested to read the newspaper accounts.
I won't say that the papers misquote me, but I sometimes wonder where Christianity would be today if some of those reporters had been Matthew, Mark, Luke, and John.
Like such other abstract qualities as beauty or truth, humor is hard to define.
There are standards of excellence, though, and everyone is not entitled to his own opinion.
If you get the joke and someone else doesn't, the chances are it's because you understand and he doesn't.
It's not because you both understand and disagree on what's funny.
Tonight you've seen more Democrats than Republicans.
We hesitate to say that Democrats are funnier than Republicans for fear of offending both parties.
It couldn't be considered a partisan statement, though, because there's some doubt about whether a politician ought to be funny.
On the one hand, the destructive nature of humor often seems to lessen the importance of a situation and thus lessen the importance of a person being funny.
On the other hand, there is a tendency for Americans to think of politicians as some part fraud and fake,
and the politician who admits to this human frailty by letting down the barrier with a little joke wins approval.
At its best, humor goes behind the facade of oratory and political pretense, lighting the situation with universally recognizable truth.
When we all see the truth and see everyone else seeing it, it produces a warm, friendly, fellow feeling, which may be man's best emotion.
As Brooks Hayes said, humor could become a great cohesive force in this year, 1964, when bitterness may be engendered on a larger scale than ever before.
Tonight we take an editorial stand. We're for humor.
seperti
Politics is a funny business has been brought to you by Shell Oil Company.
We do everything we can to make this sign stand for excellence in the products and service
you'll find at every Shell station.
Next Wednesday, CBS News will present The Presidency, A Splendid Misery, a special one-hour
program about the office of the President of the United States.
Frederick March will narrate this special feature of the CBS News election year coverage.
An all-star cast of distinguished performers will speak the actual historic words written
and spoken by many of the 35 men who have held the nation's highest office.
That's next Wednesday when CBS News presents The Presidency, A Splendid Misery.
Politics is a funny business was brought to you by CBS News as a special report during
the 1964 campaign year.
Watch for the premiere of World War I, television's first complete account of the holocaust that
changed the face of Europe.
Starting next Tuesday on the CBS television network.