Richmond daily register. (Richmond, Madison County, Ky.) 1917-1978, 1921-01-21
WILL NIGHT RIDE IF
THEY CAN'T JOY RIDE
Irwin Cobb Says of kentuckians
in Address to Kentucky So
ciety at New York

New York, Jan. 21-Irvin S. Cobt
told 600 Kentuckian last night of his
pride in hailing from that state
which, he said, "may be deprived OF
it's joyriding with the advent of the
blue laws, but will never do ava!
with its night riding" He was the
guest of honor at a dinner Of the
Kentuckians in the Hotel Plaza.
Mr.. Cobb told a story of man
who boasted to his friends that hehad
been call over and had seen every
thing" A stranger, overhearing his
boast, asked him whether he ever had
delirium tremens. The man said he
had not. "Well, then, stranger
was the reply, "you amt been no
where and you amt never seen any
thing" A person who has never
been to Kentucky "ain't never been
nowhere and amt never seen moth
ng," said Mr.. Cobb.
Evan Shelby, president of the Ken
lucky Society, was the chairman. IN
introducing Mr. Cobb, he said that the
author was another product Of the
state Of which the natives could boast
he others being tobacco, horses and
Gstilleries.
~ might spend a congenial half
lour telling the members of the Ken
lucky Society what they mean in the
civic, social and economic life Of
5his great city to which they have
been transplanted-of what a gap
would be left in New York, big as she
is, were those who sit here tonight
suddenly removed from their midst .
said the author.
"But all this you know without my
recalling it to you. Lack of scf-ap-
)reciation was never fault of a true
Nentuckian. Some are, l may say,
almost passionately addicted to them
selves.
"There is a legend that Kcntuck
ians are greater of stature than the
citizens of any other state, with the
exception of Tennessee. / think this
impression is due to the fact that ev-
cry time a kentucllian remember
where he came from he rears back so
Far he seems at least eighteen inchea
taller than he really is. We are c
he breeds that can strut sitting
down.
"Unaccustomed as | now am t.
public drinking, | find that guests al
public dinner do not bear with
speaker so kindly as they did in the
days before wine, women and song
were succeeded by Bevo, your own
wife and congregational singing.
'But there is one subject touching
which feel that am on safe ground
and that is the subject of Kentucky
Boneheads may make her bone dr%,
Her mint patches may lanquiSh vainly
for the Kentucky julcp, which or gin
ated before the revolution and which
some people think had d good deal to
With bringing it on.
"Her distilleries may be converted
into fertilizer works, her corner tav-
erns may turn into delicatcssen shops,
ler ColOnels no longer be full Of corn
and her corn destined never again to
bring cheer to her Colonels.
Tobacco trust, following the exam
pie of its prototype of tht insect
world, the tobacco worm, may cut
town the second of her great crops
% the vanishing point, where no
longer the head of Columbia will be
about the fragrant incense
of hurley leaf, but all the same to Us,
she'll forever be the state where the
sun shines the brightest-the state
which we love and which tonight VIC
Toast in sparkling vichy.
"Why shouldn't the Kentuckians be
proud. Kentucky in the sisterhood of
states enjoys a peculiar and an unap-
proachable place. If she is deplora-
bly, high in illiteracy let us remember
that in the great world war she was
one of the foremost among those
states which led all the rest in the
physical fitness and the willingness to
serve of her manhood; thereby dupli-
eating her unparalleled record in the
SOS, when Kentucky gauged on per-
centage of the division of sentiment
among her own people gave, in pro-
portion to her Union population more
f0 tho 4
and in proportion to her Confederate
population, more volunteers to the
South than did Florida; sending to
both armies more recruited troops
than she had enrolled voters.
We may not lead the nation in fl