The herald and news. [volume] (Newberry S.C.) 1903-1937, 1922-06-20

authority of the speaker. In plan
ming their defensive battles, they Of
ten met together at dinner, where
they soon learned that ridicule ard
satire were of more avail shan formal
protest or solemn assertation, Out
of those meetings grew he Grldlron
club. which from its beginning has
been only a dining and fun-rlaking
organization.
In the early days the membership
was limited to a maximum CT 49, but
even at that it was difficult 10 keep
the club fully membered; for Wash
ington correspondents we're not so
numerous as at present .ni some
would not participats. Now me ac-
tive membership is limited 20 so and
to be invited to join the club IS
among the highest honors within his
profession which a Washington cor
respondent can attain.
Neither well-planned fun-making
as dinner feature nor the particular
kind that has made the Gridiron club
world-famous was an invention" of
members of the organization. The
Clover club of Philadelphia antedated
the Gridiron as fun-making dining
cluo, and the Gridiron's peculiar va
riety of skits was originated by an
outsider. At dinner given, the club
in it's early days by R. F. Crowell, the
first rehearsed, stage-like stunts were
enacted, most of them being satires
on the club members. The club took
over the idea and applied it in the
main to public men and public al
fairs. For the last 80 years or more
each of it's formal dinners, one usual
ly in early winter and the last in late
winter or early spring, has been
planned like show for theater per-
formance. All the skits have been
written or otherwise devised by club
members, who also with one or two
exceptions have been the sole per-
formers. The only outside assistance
called in has to do chiefly with the
costuming.
Every president since Cleveland
has been the subject of Gridiron BAN
ter and every one since Cleveland has
been a guest of the club. President
Cleveland would never attend a Grid
iron dinner and he was inclined to
resent some of the satiric structures
applied to his policies at cluo dinners.
Harrison was the first president to
attend a Gridiron dinner, and on the
occasion in question he surprised the
organization by showing that he could
meet its members on their own
ground. After subjecting him to the
usual amount of badinage, he was
called on to speak. 1t happened that
only a few days before he had ad-
ed convention of patent lawyers
and inventors.
"This is the second time this
week." he remarked as he rose, "that
l have been called on to open a con-
gress of American inventors" His
speech was one of the best ever de-
lvered at Gridiron dinner. After he
concluded a member went over to
Perry S. Heath, who was Harrison's
confidential correspondent, and de-
clared: 81 didn't know it was in him."
"Oh, he's all right on his feet" Heath
replied. cts only when he sits down
that he falls down.
When Bryan Met Bryan
That was in 1892. Theodore Roose-
welt, as Civil Service Commissioner,
attended his first Gridiron dinner in
1890 and fttinglly it would seem was
the subject of a skit on that occasion.
He made witty speech, and the i'm
preston he made may have had much
to do with his future. Of all men
Roosevelt has been the source to date
of most Gridiron Copy lis career
and activities were such that for
more than quarter of century
thee was scarcely Gridiron dinner
at which he could be ignored. It was
Roosevelt who in 1908 helped to pro-
duce one of the few unplanned Grid
, iron sensations which, despite tiae rule
against quoting speakers, got into the
news. 1t was at the time of che con-
troversy over his summary action
with regard to the negro troopers, in
volved in the Brownsville riots. A
clever skit had to do with the
Brownsville affair Senator Joseph
B. Foraker, who was the guest of the
club and a speaker at the dinner,
+ook occasion to make an attack on