Kup's Chicago - Irv Kupcinet [114]
Louella Parsons: “Hope and his shoulder have separated after 35 years.”
The Christian Science Monitor: “It never really happened.”
Cartoonist Bill Mauldin told of two American Indian GIs discussing the war from their foxholes during an air raid:
“The way I figure,” said one to another, “when they smoked the pipe of peace in 1918 – nobody inhaled!”
This Is War?
On one occasion Admiral William (“Bull”) Halsey issued an order to a lieutenant, who replied, “But, sir, that’s contrary to Navy regulations.” Feigning surprise, Halsey asked the lieutenant to show him the rule in the book on Navy regulations. The lieutenant returned shortly, thumbed to the page governing the order Halsey had issued, and said, “There it is, sir.” Whereupon the admiral seized the book, ripped out all its pages, placed the book-covers over his head and replied:
“From now on, I am Navy regulations.”
During the war, a group of German prisoners being landed in Tunisia pulled up alongside a British destroyer, awaiting further orders. The haughty Nazis, noticing that the English sailors were gazing at them from their ship, suddenly began hurling a stream of invective toward them.
First, they swore at the King. Then they cursed the Queen. Next they loosed a vitriolic blast against Winston Churchill. They even heaped insults on the Duke of Windsor. But through it all, the British boys merely looked at them with amusement. Finally, one Nazi shouted, “The verdammte Ainglish – no spirit!” and spat into the water.
” ‘Ere you!” shouted one of the Englishmen. “Mind ‘ose ocean you’re spittin’ in!”
Carlos P. Romulo, hero of the Philippines, may be small in stature (five three), but he has a gigantic sense of humor. Witness this story related by one of his friends, Bob Payton:
Payton was questioning Romulo about the Leyte invasion during World War II and asked if the stories were true about General Douglas MacArthur’s wading ashore in water up to his knees, with Romulo right behind.
“Don’t believe everything you read,” replied Romulo with a smile. “If the water had been up to General MacArthur’s knees-it would have been over my head!”
That’s Politics
In discussing the problem of trying simply and definitely to say “no” to becoming a candidate for the Democratic nomination for President, Adlai Stevenson told the story of a vicar in a small British town who also had trouble making himself understood. The vicar’s wife died suddenly, and he wired his bishop in London:
“Wife died. Please send substitute for weekend!”
It is former Chicago alderman Robert Merriam’s story: A candidate in Arkansas was making a house-to-house canvass for votes, but in one home a housewife didn’t permit the candidate even to take off his hat before she began berating him.
“You scoundrel, you cheat, you double-crosser!” she exclaimed. “I’ll never vote for you. Get out of my house – louse!”
Retreating under the onslaught, the politico took refuge in his parked car. There he drew out from his file of voters the card bearing the woman’s name and marked it: “Doubtful.”
Publisher Bill Hearst was recalling the 1936 election in which his father, the late William Randolph Hearst, went all-out for the Republicans’ Alf Landon – who, in his overwhelming defeat by FDR, carried only two States. A few nights after the election, Bill and his brother Randolph wandered into New York’s legendary Club 18, where quick-witted Jack White, the emcee, spotted them. “Well,” announced White, “here come Maine and Vermont!”
Rabbi Maurice Eisendrath of New York, winner of the 1961 Gandhi Peace Prize, told of presenting a Torah, the Holy Scriptures of Judaism, to President Kennedy. After the ceremony, Labor Secretary Arthur Goldberg kidded the President about accepting the Torah “without wearing a hat.”
“You forget,” said Mr. Kennedy. “I’m reformed.”
Illinois Senator Paul Douglas, who once led a famous inquiry into government ethics and wrote a book about his findings, was asked to define ethics. He replied by telling of a merchant in New York who was asked the same question