The Birmingham age-herald., 1906-06-17
cooLIpeE's JOKE REACTED.
Sam Blythe an Expensive Man to Get
 Funny With.

day, ana IL spattered all over the country at cost to the perpetrator of five cents a spatter
 Sam Blythe, Washington correspondent. satrist. humorist and Gridiron club man, was presiding at a dinner at which Cool dge was one of the speakers. At the close of a learned and exhaustive dis course on the tariff, Mir Coolidge, who used to play third base at Harvard, be- gan to have fun with the toastmaster We all know" said Mir. Coolidge. that the diplomats and statesmen at Washing ton never really get off the jokes that | they are quoted as uttering by our friend Blythe. because we know that Blythe reads his jokes in the almanacs and then | puts them in the mouths of the helpless | statesmen. He uses modern almanacs, | too, with the contents of which every | body is familiar, and so everybody is onto 1 the game. So, for the benefit of the statesmen and of MT. Blythe himself. I | have collected set of rare old almanacs. | the most recent of which bears the date | 1S5O which I wish to present to him to- | night
 Whereupon Mir Coolidge with much | formality not lacking in grace, handed to MT. Blythe yellow and musty volume. Chapter IT., as MT Blythe would call it. The morning after the dinner Sam Blythe began to look up the record of Louis Coolidge 10 ulScONerf IT pOSSlDle, something evil in his past or present. He learned that Coolidge was patron of
 clipping bureau to which he paid five cents for every newspaper clipping con- taining his name.
 Chapter III.-Samuel Blythe, with re- fined cruelty, went through the almanacs which Coolidge had given him at the
 dinner He classified the jokes by dec ades, beginning with the 1Sl0-lS20 period oI yoI i,, the Coolidge pigeonhole of his statesmens
 anecdote cabinet
 Gnterval of four days waited by MT. Blythe on rebate matter.)
 Chapter IV.-Mr. Blythe overtaxes the
 mails with some good stories told by Louis A. Coolidge of Washington. Chapter V.-Mr. Coolidge gets twenty clippings in one day from his bureau | with bill for Sl. The clippings all have | the Washington date line, but are from papers all the way from Maine to Texas. | Here are some samples.
 Louis A Coolidge. one of the best story | tellers In Washington, got off new one | today that put everybody in the House | lobby into a roar. When is a door not a | door?' asked Coolidge. with a merry | twinkle in his eye. Seventeen congress- | men gave 1t up. When it's Jar he | added. keeping a straight face the while.' Louis Coolidge. one of the best known wags at the capital, was the life | of a distinguished group of diplomats l and senators in the cafe of the Airing | ton one day last week. Why does | hen cross the road? he asked with straight face, but with wicked. roguish | look in his eye. Several of his hearers essayed the answer, but nobody got it right. TO get on the other side said Mir Coolidge with a gravity that was kill ing"
 Louis A. Coolidge. a raconteur without whom Washington would be dull indeed, split the sides of a score Of western senators the other night with new horse story. There was a man out in Indiana said MT Coolidge, who had a theory that he could save expense by feeding his horse on shavings. And it was good theory too, but IS soon as the horse got used to eating the shavings he up and ded.'
 "I,ouis A. Coolidge, whose fund of new and witty tales is apparently inexhaust- ible. was corralled the other day by the entire Kentucky delegation and compelled to tell them story. After little mod est hesitancy MT. Coolidge sprang this new one: "A single man said to a married friend that he had been told that mar | ried man lived longer than a single one whereupon his companion said that 1t only seemed longer.
 ..Wheneyer a visitor to the capital sees a proup of statesmen holding their sides he may be pretty sure that Louis A. Coolidge Is in their midst telling one of his ,nimitahle stories. Only the other day he conyulsed the Corean minister by the brand new one illustrating the hotel and | the cafe life of Washington: A crusty old gentleman, having dined on Pennsyl- vania avenue was about to leave with ont tipping the waiter, who asked him. nolitely. if he hand't forgotten some thing. The old gentleman made sure that | he had his hat and cane. and then after replving that he had not forgotten any | thing walked out
 "It's a saying among the old-timers of washington's official life that if man has the blues he should see Louis A. Coolidge, and the advice Is good, as shown by this merry quip which he got off spontaneously the other day in the | treasury department for the amusement | of a group of officials: A carpenter told | a new apprentice to sharpen all the tools, | and at the end of the day asked him if he had finished the job. The lad replied | that he had done everything but the saw but that he hadn't had time to get | all the gaps out of that.
 Chapter VI-At the end of the first week MT. Coolidge Is paying out $6 day | at the clipping bureau for his name at | tached to the Jokes out of the almanacs | he had given to Mir. Blythe at the dinner. | He goes to Mir. Blythe and begs for | mercy. but is told in an icy. unfeeling way that Mir. Blythe has only got down | to 1915 and that period of thirty-fve ! years remains to be covered.