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

secretary of the club asked for copy
of the speech for permanent record
he was informed that it had been
given out in advance through q press
association. There was nothing else
to do but to make it available to all
correspondents.
At one of the few dinners given by
the club during our active participa-
ton in the World war speech made
by President Wilson was released for
publication several days after its de-
! livery on account of the national i'm
portance of what he had said.
Wilson, while at the White House,
was frequent subject of Gridiron
satire and often was present when
skits having to do with his policies
were enacted. He took the badinage
in all good nature.
William Jennings Bryan, who for
actual time in national office has been
the subject of more Gridiron fun
making than any other American
public man, always takes good natur-
edly the grilling applied to him and
sometimes contributes a pre-arranged
part.
Once when he was secretary of
state it was announced beforehand
that on account of a prior engage
ment Bryan couldn't attend one Of
the dinners to which he had been
invited. But when the dinner be-
gan there was seen sitting on the left
of the presiding officer a person who
looked like Bryan.
Later in the evening the real Bryan
came in.
81 am tired of this man Hanford
(the actor who on prior occasions had
taken part in skits as "Bryan"O i'm
personating me-" the secretary Of
state exclaimed.
Owe tried to impersonate all the
great actors of the time," Hanford
replied, ''and I certainly can't ignore
you."
Hanna was among the most popular
of all the more or less regular guests
the Gridiron club has had at its din
ners. When he first appeared at one,
he had just come into national prom
inence and was made the subject of
satiric skit. When he arose to speak
he said:
81 know many members of the
Gridiron club. l have met most of
you on the tented felds-and in the
barrooms of New York" .....
There is nothing that a guest can
do at Gridiron club which will hit
so well as to hand its members a
."come back" with punch in it, and
there is little that sets so badly as
fulsome talk about the power of the
press, the Importance of the Fourth
Estate and other pointless fattery.
President Never Caricatured
Often man of national aspiration
but not we'll known nationally can
render himself a tremendous service
by demonstrating at a Cridiron club
dinner that he has 'the goods"
Though no report of what they say is
made, it has often happened that such
man has earned the serious. atten-
ton of the newspaper world by such
a demonstration. This was so very
largely with John A. Johnson, the
popular Democratic governor of Min
nesota, who in 1908 aspired to pres
idential nomination. At Gridiron
dinner he made a surprising speech,
filed with rich humor and sound phi
losophy-it is said by some members
to have been the finest surprise
among many that have occurred at
| the dinners. But for his untimely
death johnson might have become
president and the unquoted speech
: might have been of great help to him.
While many men as Gridiron
guests have displayed talents of
which they were not suspected, the
reverse of a pleasing surprise occa-
sionally has occurred. Sometimes a
speaker has ignored the fve-minute
rule, which applies to all except the
President of the United States, and
given forth laborious addresses that
were wholly unsuited to the occasion.
The president also is never imperson-
ated, and is the only American public
man who is thus held to be above di-
rect and personal caricature. His pol
icies and current expressions, how
ever, are held always to be fit SUBJ
jects of satire. ~