Tag Archives: love

Stamps Should Show What’s Inside Letter

Ring Lardner

Sacramento Morning Union/January 9, 1921

About 2 wks. ago I wrote you a letter applying for the position as secy. of state in your cabinet and haven’t rec’d no reply to same but from what I been reading in the papers it looks like you had made it up in your mind to give this positions to either Chas. Hughes or Eli H. Root. Well, W. G., I haven’t nothing to say vs. neither one of these men and believe they would both make you a good man as Eli has held the position before wile Chas. mind should ought to travel right along with yours as he was president himself a whole night.

Speaking about Chas, he reminds me something like a busher on a baseball club. Washington drafted him from the N. Y. State League and all he done was set on the bench till the Senators needed a run and he run for Sweeney and got called out on a close decision and in the mean wile they had signed up another bench warmer and it was back to the bushes for Chas. and when I say bushed I am not makeing no vulgar reference to his disguise.

But laying all jokes to 1 side, what I am getting at is that I wanted a portfolio in your cabinet though I have all ready got a portfolio that I use it to bring my play manuscripts back home in, but no jokeing Gamaliel, wile I said I would prefer secy. of state, why if you have got a man in mind for that position, why I would just as leaf take one of the other places like for inst. post master gen.

Now Gam, I know that some of my enemys will probably tell you that I am not eligible for this portfolio as I once served turn as substitute mail carrier in Nile, Mich., and know something about how the mail service should be ran, but between you and I, Gam, I don’t recall nothing about the ins and outs of the business and as far as technical knowledge is conserned, I would enter the new birth with that blank mind so nessary to a Cabinet member.

How to Handle Xmas Packages.

But I have got some good idears in regards to the improvement of the P. O. dept, and while I think the present incumbants has made a start in the right direction, still I don’t feel like he has grasped all the possibilitys. Like for inst., if another war come up in France and our boys was sent over there and their wifes and mothers mailed xmas presents to them, why instead of dumping all these packages on a ship bound for Honolulu I would open them up at Hoboken and have a rummage sale and send a certain per cent of the receipts back to the wifes and mothers to keep them going till the war dept. got around to sending them part of their last April’s allotment.

But the thing I would get after is our stamp system which it looks to me like it was one of the silliest things connected with the govt. As soon as you promoted me the portfolio I would go right to work and get up some stamps with some sense to them. Like for instance instead of a picture of a boy riding a bicycle on the special delivery stamps, I would have a picture of the Shamrock 3 or a Ford with a wheel off.

It is my idear that the stamps that is used the most oftenest like the 1 and 2 cent stamps should ought to have a picture on them that will give the person to who the letter is addressed some sort of a hint as to what the letter is about, so as if they are not interested they don’t half to open the letter. Of course if you wrote to somebody to inform them of the demice of some relative or friend its O. K. to use one of the present stamps with Washington’s picture or some other party that’s dead.

Stamps to Indicate Contents

But the most of the stamps would half to be brand-new, with photos on them to fit all the different kinds of letters. For inst. I would fix it so that when you wrote a letter that you thought was comical you could buy a stamp with Charley Chaplin’s picture.

When you sent a person the monthly statement of what they owed you, the stamp for it would have a picture of some famous man named Bill, like Bryan or Hart or Sunday or the Kaiser.

If you wrote a letter enclosing some money the stamp would be a picture of some notorious Jack, say Dempsey or Pershing or Barrymore or Jill’s husband.

A invitation to a party would be stamped with a picture of the Haig boys or Mr. Volstead, according to the party.

The regrets would carry a photo of Cox or Ludendorf or a group picture of the Yale football squad.

A invitation to a wedding would have on it a design of a minister holding a $20 tip in his mitt.

Also I would make it compulsory for people that wrote and asked you to dinner to buy one of two styles of stamps, either with a picture of a man in a dress suit or a picture of a man in his own clothes, then they wouldn’t be no argument about what you was suppose to wear.

Love letters would be stamped with a photo of Lillian Gish or Theda Bara according to how much you dast say in them.

After I had ran the dept. a wile and they was a big surprise on hand, I would go a step further than the above and introduce a stamp system which I have always thought it would be ideals, namely to have every letter stamped with the picture of the party who the letter was for and also a picture of the party that wrote it. In this way you wouldn’t half to open practically none of your mail. And suppose you met the mail man on the st. and he recognized you from your picture, why he could say:

Wait a minute, I have got a letter for you and save the trouble of going to your house. As for the picture of the sender, I would have it made a criminal offense for say a concern like the gas Co. to get you to read their mail by stamping it with a picture of Dorothy Dalton.

In the case I found it impossible to carry out my idears in regards to stamps for a wile, I would put in effect a temporary scheme that would be a trouble save, namely I would have the clerks in the P. O. open up all your mail and if they thought they was anything in it you might like to know they would call you up or wait till you dropped in the P. O. some time and tell you about it.

I would also abolish the dead letter office though they tell me it never done such a big business as lately, but I can’t see no reason for haveing it. My idear is that if the person who a letter is addressed to can’t be located, why, send it to some poor family that don’t get many letters.

Would Engage Best Talent.

Another thing I would do is stop people like congressmens whose names is Harry and Thos. From putting a Frank on their mail. Of coarse the mail ain’t worth 2 cts. when you get it, but if they are going to gum up the mail box with their speeches and packages of prune seed they should ought to pay of it.

I would also try and make jobs in my dept. so attractive that the best kind of people of both sexes would want them. I would give my employs some kind of social life like for inst. A party once a wk. where we would play some games they would be interested in like post office. And I would insist on all post offices everywhere staying open all day Sunday so as when the next amendment goes in effect they will be some place for the public to hang out between church.

I wished you would give me whirl at this portfolio, W. G., as the more I think of it I like it even better than secy. of state because stepping into some men’s shoes like following Nora Bayes on vaudeville bill, but this will be like going on after Geo. Devine the Juggler, but any way if I don’t hear from you one way or the other in a few days I will think they must be something wrong with the postal service.

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Ring Exchanges Snappy Chatter With the President

Ring Lardner

Muskegon Chronicle/April 2, 1927

To the Editor:

Since the news leeked out that I had been to Washington the mails has been flooded with a couple of letters wanting to know did I meet the President. Yes friends, we both had that honor and the meeting took place in the executive offices on one of the days when he received whatever newspapermen is able to be up by 4 p.m.

The doors is throwed open at given signal and all the correspondents rushes in and stands around his desk and he stands up and reads off a few replies to queries that has been wrote in to him and wile he is reading any correspondent has got the privilege of interrupting him to ask extra questions provide it they don’t care if they get a answer. The day I was there he might just as well of said mah jongg as soon as we had him surrounded. When meeting was over Mr. Watkins of the Indianapolis Star says for me to lag behind like usual and he made the introductions and we shook hands and the President says I have heard your name a good many times and I wanted to say horse a piece but I just give him one of my smiles and says I had heard of him too. He laughed till you could of heard a pin drop. So when I left before he had a chance to ask me to supper, as I all ready was dated up.

Starved to Death in Safety Zone.

The date was with a stage actress who I had kind of bragged around that I knowed her and promised some of the Washington folks that I would introduce her to them and the arrangements was that they would wait for me down to Harvey’s restaurant and I would bring her there. Will state at this point that the lady in question was Miss Dale Winter who is starring in a music show. Well anyways I could not find Miss Winter and the folks who was waiting for us got kind of hysterical and one of them name Jack O’Brien made the remark that if Winter comes will Ring be far behind. This is said to of created a furor in Harvey’s and spoiled several people’s supper.

One thing I noticed about Washington is that the taxi drivers is pretty near all boys that failed to get overseas during the war but is about ½ seas over now and still trying to do their bit and if they don’t knock off at least one pedestrian per trip they don’t charge for the ride. The boys was telling me about a congressman from Humperdinck county, Wisconsin, who they had all been trying to get but couldn’t seem to do no more than graze him till finely they hired a policeman to tell him about the safety zones in the middle of the street and he stepped into one of them one night and they kept him there till he starved to death. Personally I was too smart to walk anywhere and all I got was strained ligaments from trying to work the foot brake from the back seat.

Senators Nearly Get Trapped in Senate

Another chance a pedestrian takes is on acct. of the bootleggers being jealous of each other and every time one of them sees another other, which you can’t hardly help, why they’s a mutual shooting affray. But the boys has generally always been trying their own stuff and being ½ blind are just as libel to hit you or I. A few years ago it seems they happened to hit a senator but lucky for him the bullet struck his head and he got off with a abrasion and anyways he was from Vermont which somebody has nicknamed the granite state.

I kind of expected that everybody in town would be speaking in code but was able to understand practically everything that was said up to 2 or 3 a.m. I figured that the newspaper men being right there, on the grounds, why they would have a better inside in the situation but they was very few names I didn’t hear favorably mentioned for the president’s chair, speaking of which they will half to make it a couch or you can count me out. One correspondent even said he heard that Cox was going to run again. He didn’t explain the use of the adverb.

Spent one pleasant p.m. out to the Central High School where the athletic director is Doc White that used to pitch and sing baritone for the White Sox. Doc’s high school baseball team was having their work out and will state that it is good thing for Philadelphia that they ain’t in the National League.

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Some Advice to Women

Annie Laurie

The Western Sentinel/April 23, 1909

A well known and extremely clever woman made a speech at the Women’s Wage Earner’s Convention the other day, and in that speech she said not once but many times that the one thing important for working women to do was to range themselves together to fight the tyrant man.

What on earth are women who say things like that thinking about?

Women wage earners are paid salaries to do their work—not to be women.

The man who wants a competent stenographer doesn’t care whether that stenographer is black, white, green or yellow; old or young, man or woman. Half the time he really doesn’t know. All he knows is that his work is well done, in which case the stenographer gets a good salary and holds on to a good position.

Or that the work is ill done; in which case the stenographer gets a poor salary and will lose the position the very first time there’s chance to employ someone more competent.

The factory girl who gets fired for being late to work is fired not because she’s a girl, but because she’s late.

There is and should be no such thing as sex in business.
A business woman who wants to succeed never says anything about her headache or her backache or her home troubles to the man who pays her salary. She isn’t a woman to him, she’s an employee, and if she has any self-respect at all, that’s what she wants to be.

The fact is, men in business are not tyrannical enough to women in business.

The average man is so much kinder to his woman stenographer than he is to his male clerks that the idea of calling him a tyrant in his dealings with women is a joke.

Business men put up with enough silly incompetence from women to make them out a title clear to the name of martyr, and not to the name of tyrant.

It’s all wrong, the whole woman in business proposition; all wrong.

Women ought not to have to be in business at all. But as long as they do have to be in business then they must attend to business and expect to be treated like paid employees, and not like personal friends.

If women would “range themselves together” to do the work they are paid to do, and let it go at that, there would “conventions” and in their listening to speeches about the “tyrant man” who pays them the money that buys their bread and butter.

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Marriage Avoider Basks in the Miami Sun

Damon Runyon

Patriot News/December 18, 1937

Miami Beach, Florida, Dec. 17.- George Ade says if he had it all to do over again, he probably would get married.

This statement may be taken as in the nature of an important confession from the man who for many years ranked as perhaps the most eligible bachelor in the United States.

He was young, rich, healthy, handsome and famous in the days when his name generally led the list of the male matrimonial desirables of the land.

He was tall, slender, romantic looking. He was a celebrated writer of stories and plays. He was a nifty dresser. He had a fine background. He was the type that attracted attention. The ladies said “00-00” when he went by. He was everything you would think a gal would want in marriage.

Skillful or Lucky?

But Mr. Ade never married. It is conceivable that many a snare and pitfall of matrimonial intent was planted along his path of single blessedness as he journeyed through his twenties, thirties, forties, fifties and even sixties, yet he side-stepped them with amazing skill.

Other gentlemen who were unable to avoid the traps used to eye Mr. Ade’s unhampered ease, and freedom from double responsibilities, with great envy. Some said he was just plain lucky. Mr. Ade himself is not so sure about that as he pointed for the seventy-second year mark, which he will reach next February.

“It’s all right being a bachelor when you are a young bachelor,” he said to other day, “but it’s a tough life when you get to be an old bachelor and find yourself pretty much alone. You have to marry a club then for company. Yes, I guess if I had it all to do over again, and know what I know now, and could find somebody who would have me, I’d probably get married.”

We looked Mr. Ade up in his winter home on Miami Beach. He has lived for the past six winters in a modest little rented house that reflects none of the magnificence of his permanent home, which is a beautiful farm at Brook, Indiana. The number of the house is 1313, showing that Mr. Ade is not superstitious about thirteen, anyway.

Movies and Prize Fights

He lives there alone. He has a housekeeper and a chauffeur. He keeps up his writing, goes to all the movies, big, little, good, bad, or indifferent, and to the race track when the horses are running. He attends the local prize fights, and visits with rich neighbors on the beach from Chicago, like Mr. Johnny Hertz.

In general, Mr. Ade leads a fairly active life. His still luxuriant hair is snowy white. His once towering frame is but slightly stooped. He remains a fine figure of a man, and looks better now, physically, than at any time in the past several years.

Mr. Ade first rose to fame as one of the greatest humorists this country has ever produced when he was writing a daily column for a Chicago newspaper years ago. The column was called “Stories of the Streets and of the Town,” and it saw the birth of “Artie,” “Doc Horne,” “Pinky Marsh,” and “Fables in Slang.”

From Fables to Plays

The last were so enormously popular that Mr. Ade quit daily columning after seven years and did one “Fable” a week for a New York syndicate. That left him with a lot of time on his hands and he turned to writing plays. He wrote “The Sultan of Sulu,” “The College Widow,” “The County Chairman,” “The Fair Co-Ed,” and others, and made a raft of money.

That was when the newspapers used to talk about his matrimonial eligibility, and hook his name up with that of almost every gal he as much as looked at, including various theatrical stars, though these latter hook-ups were mainly the product of the genius of the press agents for the plays Mr. Ade wrote, and the author was just a defenseless bystander.

“But why did you never marry?” we asked.

“Well,” Mr. Ade said, with more levity than a serious subject like matrimony warrants, “in a time when I might have contemplated matrimony, a marriage license cost $2, and I never had the money. By the time I got the $2, I had lost the idea of marriage.

“Kindly be serious,” we said.

“All right,” he said. “I suppose I lived in hall bedrooms too long, and got too thoroughly undomesticated. On top of that, maybe no woman would have had me.”

We did not ask if he ever tried to find out. That would have been a little personal. Of course even now Mr. Ade cannot be considered utterly beyond matrimonial salvage, but we rather inferred that the prospect is somewhat remote, at least at the moment.

However, you never can tell what the Dade county climate will do to, or perhaps we should say for, a man.

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