Evening star., 1925-11-29
WILL ROGERS HUMOR
PLEASES I'm CONCERT
Satirical Blasts at Everything, In
cluding Traffic Light, Please
Large Audience.

An audience of several thousand
persons enjoyed the first appearance
here of VIII Rogers in concert" at
the Washington Auditorium last
night. As Mr.. Rogers himself said,
1t was difficult to classify him in his
new role.
If l was one of these high-class
folks, they'd call me a lecturer, or if
| was d politician the'd say l had a
message to deliver" said Mr.. Rog-
ers, but as it is, it's mighty hard to
tell just what my job should be call
ed" What Mr.. Rogers proceeded TO
do" was entertaining in the ex-
treme, for he told the clever political
jokes that have made him famous,
and at the end twirled his fascinating
lartats with even more skill than he
seemed to possess in the Ziegfeld days.
During the evening MIR. Rogers
touched upon the majority OF sub
jects of national and even interna-
tional interest, emitting only for lack
of time the Prince of Wales and Ma
Ferguson. He told entertainingly of
his first and only flight in an air
plane with Col. Mitchell. when he said
that he kept his eyes glued on one
particular cloud in the sky and felt
as though, had the Washington Monu-
ment been equipped with handles
when the plane encircled il, one pas
senger wuold have used them. He
won storms of laughter with his com
ments on the President, the Senate
and the French debt commission and
the college student problem. 1t was
when he touched in detail upon
Washington traffic laws and the fact
that Congress was to handle the
municipal bathing beach problem that
the audience grew almost hysterical.
Mr.. Rogers drew graphic picture
Of the one little automatic traffic sig
nal that Washington traffic possesses
at New Hampshire avenue and Eight
eenth street. and announced that
when he had an open date he was
going to come back to Washington
and give benefit performance to
raise a sufficient amount to donate "A
mate" for this lonely light, even If
they had to hunt hard for a place to
put It, With his shrewd humor and
gum-Chewing nonchalanCe VIII Rog-
erS proved an overwhelming success
as concert artist"
Quite incidental TO Mr.. Rogers two
acts We're the selections of the De
Reszke Singers. a really fine quartet
nf young Americans trained by Oscar
Seagle and Jean De Reszke. With
the exception of the basso. Sigurd
I\tiSDll. liIt 'luGi ltI NHfi'' liz &'e'AAi'
this year as last. The new basso is
Howard Kellogg.
The other three singers are Hard
esty Johnson and Erwyn Mutch.
tenors, and Floyd Townsley. baritone.
Their program was similar to that
of last year, substituting several pop
ular favoritcS for a madrigal and as
encores. OF the opening group per-
haps the most beautiful selection was
Sullivaus The Long Day Closes, -
while Tschaikowsky style in singing
the ridiculous nursery rhyme Little
Tommy Tucker" was a delightful bit
OF musical humor. Loves Old Sweet
Song was the encore. In the sec
ond group MendelSsohn's "On Wings
Of Song" arranged for quartet, was
substituted for a madrigal by Will
liam Byrd and the enCores We're Bruno
Huhns popular "Invictus" a comical
song, His Name Was Alexander. "
The 'Winter Serenade" by Saint
Saens and a Spanish folk song ar
ranged by BaZan We're effective.
In the last group of sea Chanties
and negro spirituels the singers We're
Ht their best. Particularly well re-
ceived We're ''Shenandoah" and Lis
ten to de Lambs.
1t was certainly a successful though
an extremely lengthy concert that
Mrs. Wilson-Greene presented.