South Bend news-times. (South Bend, Ind.) 1913-1938, 1914-12-17
Statesmen Real
and Near.
By Fred c. Kelly

WASHINGTON. Dec II. Young
Joseph p. Tumulty with his rosy
cheeks and his guileless expression
such as one rarely sees except on
Easter cards, is the practical joker
OF the present administration. his
JOB of secretary TO the president of
course takes up good bit of his
time, and yet not SO much that he
hasn't little time left in which TO
think up practical jokes. He plays
prankS on all manner of celebrated
tolk, from Pres't Wilson on down.
One of the largest persons Tumuity
ever played a joke on was sen. Ollie
James of Kentucky, who weighs about
the same as the average draft horse
and whose bulk alone would brighten
eft almost any other joker except
Tumulty. The joke on Sen. James
worked even better than Tumulty in
tended it should, and the result was
that James came all the way from
Kentucky to Washington to see what
was up. In view of Sen. James size
the joke may be regarded as about the
most successful Tumulty ever attempt
cd, for it was equivalent to fetching
an entire delegation of ordinary-sized
little human shrimps from Kentucky
to Washington.
When you stop TO think that MAX
ing one little man so even d block
out Of his way would be a fair joke,
and how many times you must multi
ply one man and one block to get
result the size OF ollie James going
nearly l zoe miles, you begin TO realize
what a good practical joke this one
was. You see, if we multiply 1000
miles by 400 pounds, or whatever it
is that Ollie weighs. we get 100000
pound miles. Now by dividing
Well, anyway, if you don't care to
work out fascinating little mathe-
NAUTICAL problems like that. it seems
that there was man named Wilson
running for an office out in Kentucky,
and Sen. James was against him. So
one of the Kentucky papers came out
with the head line: Sen. James De
uounces Wilson"
Tumulty saw this. clipped out the
heading and mailed il TO ollie James,
along with a note i'm which he told
him that Pres't Wilson was deeply
hurt that he should be denounced by
such large senator James had not
seen the headline in the paper and did
not know what it referred to, so in
due course Tumulty got telegram
from the behemoth senator which
said: Il am on my way TO Washing
ton to explain"
IT was too late then to head him
or anu lilt NNAA way NAAN NtAitAN
jostling into the white house all out
of breath and painting like one Of the
great motor moving-vans of modern
commerce. soon Tumulty's little joke
was all explained. and our largest
United States senator returned 10 blue
grass s)il with a light heart.
The chances are that before the
day was over Tumulty had perpetrat-
ed another Joke He AVERAGES little
better than one joke per diem. His
favorite method of putting over
ioke is by collaborating with Mr.
Alexander Graham Bell's popular tol-
ephone invention. TumulJy viii teie-
phone 20 some prominent man, mi
tate some other man. and thus start
all manner of complications. ono
night he called up a great friend and
admirer of Sec'y Bryan. passed him
self off as newspaper correspond
ent. and among other things asked
him: Are YOU handling Bryan now %
Get that HANDLING" Bryan-just as
If Bryan were a race horse.
Not long ago a certain prominent
democrat was called 20 his front door
at ESQ a. m.. e. tind an able bodied
policeman standing there blinking at
him.
Each asked the other what was
wanted. and il came out that the
notice officer had received a telephone
message 10 come 10 that dwelling
place on a quick run. The phone
message was just one of Tumulty's
Jokes.
At the theater one night Tumulty
saw "a nice. large Velvety society
woman in the audience. with a par
ticularly conyincing hat surmounted
10y a big yellow feather. In another
part of the thCater was a man in
evening 4~oss who amused Joe be-
cauce of the solemn way ia which he
manipulated his Adams apple Joe
thought the man with the Adam :
apple and the woman with the ni-