Marietta daily leader. (Marietta, Ohio) 1895-1906, 1896-04-24
The Penalty OF Aumor

According to Professor Brander Mat
thews, in an article on THE Penalty
of Humor'' in the May Harper's, moth
ing is paid for with a higher price than
reputation for humor sufficiently
wide to prevent the owner from being
taken seriously.
When the time came for the people
of the thirteen united colonies to pro-
claim to the world that they were free,
and that they held themselves absolved
from all allegiance to the British crown,
and that all political connection be.
tween them and Great Britain was to-
tally dissolved, committee of the
Continental Congress was appointed TO
draw up declaration of independence.
The members of this committee were
Benjamin Franklin, of Pennsylvania,
John Adams, of Massachusetts, Roger
Sherman, of Connecticut, Robert r.
Livingston, of New York, and Thomas
jefferson, of Virginia. Why was it
that their colleagues committed the
writing of the Declaration of Indepen-
dence to Thomas jefferson, and not to
Ben jamin Franklin? The Virginian
was not the most prominent man even
of his own section, and although his
reputation could not fairly be termed
local, it was but little more, while the
name of the Pennsylvania was well
known throughout the whole civilized
world. Franklin was not only the
foremost citizen of Philadelphia, where
the Congress was sitting, he was the
most experienced publicist and the
most accomplished man of letters in all
the thirteen colonies; and he was es-
pecially well equipped for the drawing
up of an appeal to Europe, as he had
but just returned from London, where
he had been pleading the cause of his
countrymen with indomitable courage
and indisputable skill. Yet Franklin
was not asked to write the Declaration
of Independence; and although he and
Adams made few verbal amendments,
the credit of that great state paper be-
longs to Jefferson And why was it
that this responsibility was placed on
jefferson, and not on Franklin?
think the explanation lies in the
fact that Franklin was a humorist.
Not only was Franklin's sturdy COM
nonsense felt to be too plain home
spun for wear in the courts of Europe,
when the thought needed to be attired
in all the lofty rhetoric that the most
feryid enthusiasm could produce, but
also, fear me greatly, his colleagues
were afraid that Franklin would have
his joke. 1t would be good joke, no
doubt-probably very good joke; but
the very best of jokes would not be in
keeping with the stately occasion.
They were acute, those leaders of the
Continental Congress, and they knew
that every man has the defects of his
qualities, and that humorist is likely
to be lacking in reverence, and that
the writer of the Declaration of Inde-
ed the most reverential treatment.
So it was that Benjamin Franklin
had to pay the penalty of humor in the
last century, just as Abraham Lincoln
had to pay it in this century Because
Lincoln was swift to seize upon an in
congruity, and because he sought re-
lief for his abiding melancholy in play
fulness, there were not few who re-
fused to take Linn seriously.
Even after his death there were hon
est folk who held the shrewdest and
loftiest of our statesmen to have been
little better than a buffoon. OF the
three greatest Americans, Franklin,
Washington, and Lincoln, two were
humorists; and it is perhaps his defici-
ency of humor which makes Washing
ton seem more remote from us and less
friendly than either of the others.