SCENE: an eclipse. Enter President HOOSES, disguised as a wolf in sheep’s clothing, walking on water. Everything immediately gets very dark.
HOOSES (sheepishly): Suffer the microphone to come unto me. (A mike is suffered).—Be of good cheer; it is I. (Laughter). Woe unto you that laugh now! for you shall mourn and weep. (Mourning and weeping). Why are ye fearful, O ye of little faith? Why reason ye, because ye have no bread? Man shall not live by bread alone. (Enter, disguised as himself, NORMAN THOMAS, asleep, wearing a halo). Get thee behind me, socialism, Are there not twelve hours in the day? He that hath cheeks to turn, let him turn. (Enter Governor BOOSEVELT, disguised as a sheep in wolf’s clothing, swimming in beer.)
BOOSEVELT (wolfishly): I am the light of the world.
A VOICE: Let’s go!
HOOSES: Blessed are the poor in spirit, for they shall inherit the pot of gold at the end of every rainbow. Blessed are they that agitate, for they shall be clubbed. Blessed are the prosperous, for they shall be around the corner. Blessed are they which do hunger and thirst, for they shall obtain unemployment. Blessed are the meek, for they shall be filled with hooey. Blessed are the bull and bear, for they shall lie down together. Blessed are the pieceworkers, for they shall be torn piecemeal. Blessed are they which are persecuted for bonus’ sake, for theirs is the kingdom of tear gas.
A VOICE: We want Waters!
HOOSES: Love thine enemas. Bless them that goose you. (Offering a bayonet): Take, eat, this is my body.
NORMAN THOMAS (asleep): B-r-r-r . . .
HOOSES: And now to facts.—The trouble with trouble is, that trouble is troublesome. If trouble were not troublesome, we should not have troublous times. If we should not have troublous times, we did not need to worry. If we did not need to worry, our pockets were not so full.
THE GHOST OF GEORGE ABRAHAM: Full of what?
THE VOICE OF AL CAPONE: Neither do men put new wine in old bottles.
HOOSES: Full of hands. Our reconstruction program, involving as it does the unascertainable principle that a depression is the indirect result of direct economic causes, cannot but succeed in seriously mitigating a situation which would otherwise prove ambidextrous to every left-handed right-thinking moron. I therefore sacredly assert, on the one hand, that the time is now ripe for this great nation to evade an issue; and, on the other hand, as an immediate and an eventual solution of this vast country’s difficulties, I timidly and confidently propose to fill hands with work by emptying pockets of hands.
A VOICE: Burp.
BOOSEVELT (taking the mike): We hold these truths to be self-evident; that all men are created people, and all people are created feeble, and all feeble are created minded, and all minded are created equal. And the sequel to equal being opportunity, it is obvious that opportunity knocks but once and then it boosts. Nothing can really be done unless you and me are willing to fearlessly confront one another with each other; believing, with the common man, that as long as people are men America is the land of opportunity. (Three Bronx cheers by a common man named Smith.)
THE GHOST OF JEFFERSON THOMAS: One card.
HOOSES (taking the mike): Verily, verily, I say unto you: the kingdom of Wall Street is like to a bottle of iodine, which a man took.
SOMEBODY (sotto voice): Thank god we had Bell-Ans!
HOOSES: Cast ye the unprofitable servant into outer darkness. For unto everyone that hath shall be given, and he shall have abundance; but from him that hath not shall be taken away even that which he hath. The foxes have nests and the birds have holes. By their fruits we shall know them. What therefore I have put together let no man join asunder. For there is nothing hid which shall not be manifested; neither was anything kept secret, but that it should come from abroad.
A VOICE: Kruger & Toll.
THE GHOST OF WASHINGTON LINCOLN: I pass.
BOOSEVELT (seizing the mike, shouts): Ladies and gentlemen of the invisible audience—follow me and I will make you stinking drunk! (Piously): Andrew Jackson who art in heaven, I take this country to be wringing wet. My party will, abolish the still, on election as it was in convention. Take us away our income tax, and forgive us our Judge Seaburys as we do not forgive our Mayor Walkers. And lead us right into the White House, and deliver to us boodle; do not even the republicans the same?
SOMEBODY: So what.
NORMAN THOMAS (drowsily): Verily, verily, verily, verily, verily, I say unto you: throw your vote away and follow me.
THE VOICE OF RUDY VALLEE: But you want lovin’ and I want love.
HOOSES (taking the mike): O faithless and perverse generation, the harvest truly is plenteous, but the labourers are few. (To the ladies): Take heed that no man deceive you, for many shall come in my name. (To the children): Of such is the kingdom of Wall Street. (To the men): Except foolish virgins become as a camel entering a needle’s eye, ye positively shall not have a chicken in every garage. (A cock crows.) Amen. (Thunder and lightning.)
A VOICE (hysterical): Pigs is risen!
From Americana, November 1932.