LAUGH IT OFF!
Hawaii Magazine ~ April 1945
By Edgar Rice Burroughs Beginning with this issue, Edgar Rice Burroughs, author and internationally known creator of "Tarzan of the Apes," will write "Laugh It Off" for Hawaii Magazine. Mr. Burroughs' "Laugh It Off" column as originally started shortly after Pearl Harbor at the request of army authorities in the Hawaiian department as a civilian morale booster. 

Mr. Burroughs, whose home is in Tarzana, California, has been stationed in Hawaii for the past five years as an accredited United Press correspondent. ~ Ed.
 

ORDER OF SUCCESSION to the presidency: The death of President Roosevelt posed no question as to his successor. Naturally, it was Vice-President Harry S. Truman; but from there on the order of succession appears to be definitely snafu.

Reasonably confident that, in the event of the death of President Truman, I should not be called upon to succeed, my interest in the subject might understandably have flickered out had it not been for my consuming curiosity and thirst for knowledge that could not possibly be of any use to me or anyone else.

So I consulted the authorities immediately available to me: the Honolulu Advertiser. The Honolulu Star-Bulletin, the World Almanac, and the Encyclopedia Britannica.

The Advertiser gave the order of succession as follows: Secretaries of State, Treasury, War, Attorney General, Postmaster General, Navy, Interior, Agriculture, Commerce, Labor.

Here is the Star Bulletin's guess: Secretaries of State, Navy, Treasury, War, Agriculture, Postmaster General, Attorney General, Interior, Commerce, Labor. Out of ten, they agreed on three. A high percentage of agreement on the part of the Advertiser and the Star-Bulletin, perhaps, but of little value to the searcher after useless knowledge.

The World Almanac ignores the subject entirely, which I think shows excellent judgment. And as far as the Encyclopedia Britannica concerns itself with the matter, I might have more profitably invested my nearly two hundred bucks in Barney Guy's Aloha Gin. My only hope now is my favorite columnist, MISS FIXIT.

But if I didn't learn exactly what I wished to know from the Britannica, I at least got a clew. It lists the Cabinet Members as follows, presumably in the order of their rank: State, Treasury, War, Attorney General, Postmaster General, Navy, Interior, Agriculture, Commerce, Labor, which suggests that Britannica must have consulted the Advertiser.

Here is something else from the Britannica which furnishes food for thought and disputation: ". . . the cabinet, as a collective body, has no legal existence or power. The Constitution contains no provision for a Cabinet . . ." This suggests that almost anyone might succeed Mr. Truman, as the Cabinet is no more official than Slpasy Maxie Rosenbloom.

But then my dear old source of mis-information and confusion, the Encyclopedia Britannica, bobs up with this under GEORGE FRISBEE HOAR (1826-1904): "HIs most important piece of legislation was the Presidential Succession Act of 1886? It does not. So the best we can do is pray that President Truman stays alive until Stassen takes office January 20, 1949.

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ENCYCLOPEDIA BRITANNICA: For years this noble work has consistently disappointed me until it has become evident that its compilers and I do not see eye to eye on what should be in it. In writing a story about Apache Indians, I craved information on the warlike Yaqui of Mexico. The Britannica, at that time, had not heard of them, though it does give them twelve lines in the new edition.

Then, ears ago, a man purporting to be a relative of the famous Central American revolutionist and soldier of fortune, General Christmas, wrote asking me to go down to Honduras, or wherever it was that the general was living, and write his biography. As I had never heard of General Christmas, I thought it might be well to gather some information about him before I met him.

The edition of the Britannica that I then had gave an interesting account of his adventurous life, closing with the date of his death! The latest edition ignores the general completely. The compilers evidently felt that a man who wasn't dead when they said he was did not deserve immortalization.

However, there are a lot of pretty pictures in my new edition.

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1948: Before Willkie dropped out of the Presidential race, I told Harold Stassen that I thought he, Stassen, was too young to run successfully for President, but after Willkie's term expired, I hoped that I would have the opportunity to vote for him.

The last time Admiral Halsey was in Honolulu we were speaking of Stassen, who is Halsey's Flag Lieutenant; and the Admiral told me that Stassen has one of the finest minds of any man he had ever met. And Halsy has met a lot of men with fine minds. He said many other laudatory things about Stassen.

Now I am doubly certain that I shall make no mistake in voting for Stassen in 1948. Neither will you. I don't know why I have dragged this paragraph in by the tail, other than that I seem to have Presidents on the brain today. And who hasn't.

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PRESIDENT TRUMAN: Since he was nominated for the vice presidency it has become the fashion to belittle him. He takes office with two strikes on him.

I was studying a newspaper portrait of him yesterday. His is a strong, intelligent, pleasant face. It is the face of a man one might intuitively like and trust. All my life I have been a Republican, but I cut that portrait out of the Advertiser and pinned it on my wall, something I have never done with the portrait of any other president.

I think that I was motivated by great hope and by a determination to think and speak only the best of my president unless he proved himself undeserving of my loyalty. What I alone think and speak is without value or force, but what hundred and thirty odd millions of us think and speak might conceivably determine the future of our nation and the world by influencing the head of the most powerful nation the world has ever known. I hope and believe that many others think as I do and that the President will find that he has the backing of a united America.

 
LAUGH IT OFF!
Hawaii Magazine ~ May 1945
By Edgar Rice Burroughs

JAPANESE EXCLUSION LEAGUE: They are at it again on the West Coast, but this time it at least makes a little sense -- somebody is going to make some money out of it. I hazard a guess that Arthur J. Ritchie, a Seattle promoter, who is engineering the move, at least won't lose any money. It is reported that he charges a $10 initiation fee and $1 a month dues. And there appear to be a lot of suckers in Seattle along with a dearth of genuine Americans.

I hold no brief for the AJAs. I have never understood the Japanese, and it is only human nature to be suspicious of things one does not understand. But I am impelled to fight for them, as I should be impelled to fight for any American who might become the victim of witch hunters. And I shall continue to fight for them as long as they maintain the splendid record of citizenship and loyalty that the vast majority have shown both before and since the beginning of the war.

Why are they to have their citizenship taken away from them and be deported, as this league proposes? Obviously because they are descended from citizens of a nation with which we are at war. All right. Let's carry the thing to its logical conclusion and take away the citizenship of the descendants of all immigrants from countries with which we have been at war. That would be only fair, and we Americans are supposed to be fair. We brag about it. 

In addition to Japan, we have been at war in the past or are now at war with the following countries: England, Mexico, Spain, The Philippines, Germany, Austria, Hungary, Albania, Bulgaria, Burma, Croatia, Italy, Manchukuo, National Government of China, Rumania, Slovakia, and Thailand.
There wouldn't be many people left in the dear old U.S.A. I'd lose my citizenship and be deported to England. Where would they send you? Silly, isn't it?

Of course it can't and won't be done, but Arthur J. Ritchie will clean up a lot of dough. Barnum was right.

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JUNGLES: For the past thirty-three years I have spent a great deal of my time in jungles, for I found gold in them thar jungles. Well, if not gold, at least three meals a day. I found my jungles with a minimum of effort, discomfort, and expense -- mostly in my imagination. There is where I have found best jungles. The real thing has been disillusioning.

I have hunted them down in Panama, New Caledonia, Fiji, Samoa, The Gilberts, The Marshalls, and Oahu. Don't laugh. Col. W.C. Saffarrans hs one of the nicest little jungles you ever saw over at Kaaawa on Windward Oahu, where he trains jungle fighters. But they were all disappointing. Tarzan would have a hell of a time swinging from limb to limb in any of them, and as for racing through the middle terraces -- phooney!

Even the coconut palms were disappointing. I have probably seen millions of them, close up and while flying low over many South Pacific islands and I am here to state without fear of contradiction that we have the most beautiful grove of coconut palms right here in Honolulu. It is on the grounds of the Niumalu Hotel at Waikiki. To the Aeolian music of their fronds I fall asleep at night, or watch them gently swaying, black against a full moon. Then, from twenty feet above, they drop a five pound coconut on my roof. Doggone! Something is always taking the poetry out of life.

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SEVENTY YEARS AGO -- 1875: (The Honolulu Advertiser): "From the Medical Times. Many persons eat far too much flesh. . . Too much animal food is unduly stimulating and renders children restless and quarrelsome, young men sensual and Philistine, and elderly men gouty and dyspeptic."

At the luxury hotel where I lead the Sybaritic life no one is going to get restless, quarrelsome, sensual, Philistine, gouty, or dyspeptic because of too much animal food. And now Judge Samuel I. Rosenman tells President Truman that we shall have to prepare for shorter rations so that we can fee the rest of the world. Well, I'm for it. The rest of the world can have all of my canned peas and carrots.

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CRYSTAL BALL COVERED WITH MASHED POTATO: Forty Years ago -- 1905 (also from The Advertiser): "The Legislature renamed Waikiki road Kalakaua avenue, but no one has ever called it that yet -- and no one ever will. The change attempted by the Legislature was the most absurd act of the session except that of rechristening the Capitol by the un-American name of Iolani Hale." And now we call it Iolani PALACE!

At long last a Territorial Legislature has been vindicated. So cheer up, boys. In forty years you may be appreciated.

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GAMBLING: Nearly every day we read of a bunch of poor boobs being arrested and fined for trying to get a little pleasure and relaxation while passing through this vale of tears. They are usually found in CHA3, Aala Park, or some Alley, seldom if ever in the homes of doctors, lawyers, policemen, merchants, the lousy rich, or War Correspondents. Yet gambling goes on in thousands of such homes every evening -- bridge, poker, rummy, cribbage, and so on ad infinitum. To say nothing of dominoes in those dens of iniquity -- our better clubs -- during the lunch hour.

Why not leave the poor guys alone? There is nothing criminal or vicious about gambling, and it's a lot of fun. Especially when you win. Nor can it be stopped any more than prostitution or breathing can be stopped while life remains in men -- and women.

If the boys who gamble in CHA3, Aala Park, or some alley would move their games to Diamond Head Circle or Kahal . . .! Ouch! Who threw that?

LAUGH IT OFF!
Hawaii Magazine ~ June 1945
By Edgar Rice Burroughs

ANCIENT HISTORY: Wrote the first Laugh It Off column December 12, 1941, at the request of Brig. Gen. (then Colonel) Kendall J. Fielder, A. C. of S. G-2. It was fun writing the column until its readers stopped furnishing all the material. Then it became work; and work, for me, is no fun.

The column appeared in both THE ADVERTISER and THE STAR-BULLETIN for several days. Then I phoned Raymond Coll, Editor of THE ADVERTISER, and discovered, according to my diary that "He is far from enthusiastic about my column." The STAR-BULLETIN must have felt they had to run it or get in Dutch with the Colonel. But they didn't lose any money on it, as I was writing it "for free," as my favorite columnist puts it: and they charged me 10 cents a copy for back numbers. I once bought seventeen for a Navy commander who was trying to improve his mind. 

Now I am writing for George Luter, who never pays for anything, I guess I am justa fall guy for these get-rich-quick fellows, as I used to write for SCRIPTS late, beloved Rob Wagner, who never paid for anything either.

There are two reasons why I do it: I like to write and there is always the chance that it may make me famous.

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DRUNKS: When you see a service man walking high-wide-and-handsome, or being lovingly lifted into a Black Maria, an inert lump of misguided whoopee, you notice it; and the chances are that you don't pay any attention to the thousands of other servicemen who crowd our streets as sober as judges.

Out of curiosity, I used to patrol with MPs and SPs down around Smith, Hotel, River, and Beretania Streets and Aala Park. And the thing  that impressed me most was the minuscule percentage of drunks among all those hundreds and hundreds of young men. I venture the guess that the percentage is much higher on the campuses of many colleges in peace times.

One afternoon between four and five o'clock I toured downtown Honolulu with Col. Frank Steer in his command car. The Provost Marshal was looking for bad little boys. We saw a few who could not have successfully negotiated a tightrope, but we saw only one man completely pickled and spiflicated and down on his back. And he was a civilian.

It is possible that there would be even less drunkenness in Honolulu if the bars could serve liquor  from 8 a.m. until curfew. As it now is, many men try to pour in all they can during the short time that liquor is available. If they could drink it leisurely, perhaps they would not drink too much. It might be worth an experiment.

By the way, just how sober are judges? I must remember to ask Miss Fixit.

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GROUSE: We civilians have co-operated pretty loyally with the military ever since the sneak blitz. Little by little restrictions have been modified -- all but the censoring of our mail. I think most of us have deplored that more than anything else, because it is so extremely un-American. If it is done solely for military security, then it is O.K. But does it accomplish that purpose? Every month hundreds and hundreds of service people and civilians are flown from POA to the mainland. They get there quicker than the mail does, and the stories they carry over in their memories cannot be censored. So why censor the mail?

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TRICKS: Now the Japs had better watch out. While General MacArthur has been pulling baffling strategical tricks on them for nearly three and a half years, they ain't seen nuthin' yet to what the General should be able to pull out of his hat since Brigadier General Kendall J. Fielder has been down there in Manila conferring with him. Fielder is a member in good standing of the Society of American Magicians, and is as full of tricks as a papaya is full of seeds. I know, because I play bridge with him occasionally.

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TRAITOR: I am just in receipt of the April 2nd issue of "In Fact, An Antidote for Falsehood in the Daily Press. George Feldes, Editor. Bear with me while I quote in full one of the articles appearing in this antidote for falsehood.

WRITER AIDS NAZIS
Writing in The Honolulu Advertiser, Edgar Rice Burroughs, creator of Tarzan, as imbecile a piece of fiction as ever appealed to morons, not only attacks our ally Russia, but suggests that as soon as America is through with the Japanese it would be a good thing to fight Russia.

Technically this is not treason. The U.S. Govt. in its pamphlet "Divide and Conquer" exposes all those engaged in attacking one of our allies -- Britain, China, Russia -- as aiding the enemy. Mr. Burroughs was investigated by certain of his colleagues who have aided the OWI.

It is evident that Mr. Seldes, as a journalist, is right on his toes every minute. My article appeared in The Advertiser October 21, 1942, and Mr. Seldes, always on the ball, discovered it about two years and six months later.

But either Mr. Seldes never saw the article or he is afflicted with ideological astigmatism, for I did not suggest that it would be a good thing to fight Russia at any time. That statement is an unequivocal lie. As a matter of fact, I said many nice things about Russia.

He says "Technically this is not treason." I say that technically his article is libel. But he need not fear a libel suit. For several reasons. One is that after reading one copy of In Fact which is full of hate and abuse and nothing constructive, I conclude that Mr. Seldes is an American Communist. And what, coming from any one else, would be an insult, adds up to a compliment if coming from an American Communist. Another reason is that I should have to go to New York, the whole proceedings would cost a great deal of money, and about all I could hope to get out of it would be an apology and several soiled collars.

It is rather stupid of Mr. Seldes to imply that Tarzan readers are morons. He has insulted several millions of Americans, many in the army forces, who have loved the Tarzan books.

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V-E DAY: Of course that didn't make it final, but I think that it gave us all a terrific lift that we shall never forget. It meant the saving of lives in Europe and the shortening of the war in the Far East, which will also mean the saving of lives. It brought V-J Day nearer. It brought total peace nearer after long years of total war.

The Nips say that they will fight for a hundred years. Yamato said that he would dictate the peace in Washington. You can't always believe the Nips. As a matter of fact, it is axiomatic that you can't ever believe them. But if they do fight for a hundred years, the United Nations will have to string along with them. Some of us are going to be pretty well along in years before we celebrate V-J Day in 2045.

I have it from a usually unreliable source (myself) that the war with Japan will end in 1950. I have stuck to that prophecy for three years so that I would be agreeably surprised when it ended sooner.

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THE ROCK: I hate to disagree with my favorite columnist, but I like that term. It connotes affection. It demonstrates close friendship, just as calling your best friend an old louse does. Then, too, it describes Oahu. It is a rock.

But for those to whom it connotes something distasteful I have a word. I recently spent two and a half months in California. I love California. My home, that famous wide-place-in-the-road, Tarzana, is in Southern California. For two and a half months I nearly froze in Southern California and for four days in Northern California, waiting for a plane, I did freeze.

But that is not all. I couldn't buy shoes because I had no points, or whatever they call them. I had to have different colored points for different colored foods, and then the markets didn't have the foods I wanted. It is all a damn nuisance. Nearly everything you want is rationed. The only bright spot in the gloom of their existence over there is that liquor isn't rationed. You can buy all you want. You can even get prewar Scotch or Bourbon. I was almost tempted to learn to drink.

Here, only gasoline and liquor are rationed. Steaks and roasts and bacon and butter grow on every tree. There, the restaurants serve you a great slab of butter about the size of a 3 cent stamp. And cigarettes! Do you like Juleps? Were you there, you would have to, or roll your own.

Some people don't know when they are well off.

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HOUSING: It seems that manpower shortage will hold up Honolulu's housing program. With 3,000,000 federal civilian employees, 300,000 at least of whom have been reported as unnecessary, we might find enough in Honolulu to build a house or two.
 

 
LAUGH IT OFF!
Hawaii Magazine ~ July-August 1945
By Edgar Rice Burroughs

COMMON MAN: Here are some of the definitions of common as given by Webster: Without distinction, below the ordinary standard, second rate, inferior, unrefined, mediocre, cheap, commonplace, plebeian, ordinary, vulgar. So that is what our leaders think of us!

The Japs are taught that they are descended from the gods and are, therefore, themselves gods. The German leaders insist that all Germans are supermen. The Japs try ot act as they think gods would act toward lesser mortals. The German superman tries to act like a superman. While this is hell on everybody else, it is excellent for Jap and German morale. They get to believing that they are really gods and supermen. 

If, over a sufficient period of time, it is impressed upon Americans by their leaders that they are inferior, mediocre, cheap, and the rest of it, Americans must become just those things. They will be able to produce nothing that is other than inferior, mediocre, and cheap.

The term common man is an insult to all of us who do not hold office, as I assume that office holders form the preferred, superior class, for the appellation is ordinarily voiced by office holders only. Maybe it is intended to apply only to the rich or to the intelligentsia. In any case it smacks of caste and is un-American.

I wish that they would call us something else. Why not just Americans? To us at least the proudest title that could be conferred upon us. 

I am going to form a Nuts To The Common Man Society, the members of which will be pledged never to vote for a politician who calls us without distinction, below the ordinary standard, second rate, inferior, unrefined, mediocre, cheap, commonplace, plebeian, ordinary, and vulgar.

Come on, Americans! Join the NTTCMS. The line forms on the right. Don't crowd.

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NOISE: That is what much modern music connotes for many of us. On the wall of my study at home was a quotation from Schopenhauer: A man's ability to endure noise is in inverse ratio to his intelligence.

Substitute modern music for the word noise and the quotation is brought up to date. Contact with the peoples of primitive races leads me to suspect that music is the lowest form of art, originating merely in a desire to make loud noises. The first "musicians" formed a ring, jumped up and down and howled. Later, they added drums. This was a triumph, as a strong man could make a hell of a lot of noise on a big drum.

As civilization advanced, melody, harmony, and rhythm replaced noise for the sake of noise, and things looked pretty good for civilization. There were even those who thought that civilization had come to stay. But now look at the damned thing. It is on the skids, as evidenced by the millions who appear to enjoy the modern dance band and the juke box. The final step will be the ring of "musicians" jumping up and down and howling.

Good night, sweet civilization!

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RADIO: I have a radio. When conditions are right I can sometimes get KGU or KGMB. These more than fulfill any crying need for radio that I feel. Once a year, I listen to the World Series broadcasts; and I used always to to tune in on Joe Louis' fights. I should like also to listen to Jack Benny, Charlie McCarthy, and Information Please; but I never think of them until it is too late.

But V-E Day I listened from 7:00 a.m. until noon, with time out only for a sketchy breakfast. What impressed me most was the broadcast of the King of England. His voice was strong and resonant. I recalled the nervous affliction that he had to overcome in order to broadcast at all, and had. The King and our late President should prove a beacon of hope to every handicapped man and woman in the world. But it takes will power and guts.

 
LAUGH IT OFF!
Hawaii Magazine ~ January 1946
By Edgar Rice Burroughs

COLONIES: It now looks as though we were going to renege on our implied promise to demand eventual independence for colonies of our allies. In some instances independence might be desirable from the standpoint of the people involved. I can think of one power that has been notably greedy in its exploitation of its colonies; but there are others whose rule, after initial blunders, has been far more humanitarian and intelligent than the natives ever had under their native rulers. I refer to Great Britain and The Netherlands.

In both India and the Netherland East Indies, the native rulers were autocrats with the power of life and death over their subjects. IN Java and Sumatra , the petty kings and sultans owned all the land and all the people, and they worked both wholly for their own enrichment. They were cruel and tyrannical beyond words.

There is little reason to expect that, after a few years of independence, these same conditions would not return. Leave that to the politicians. The kings and sultans were only politicians with royal titles. Thousands of years of indoctrination cannot be expunged in a matter of a hundred years. These people would revert to type.

Consider the Germans. They have been in close contact with civilization for a thousand years, yet at the first opportunity they revert to savagery.

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ANIMALS: Stories of remarkable behavior of animals appear regularly in our magazines. Loving animals, I eat them up -- the stories, not the animals. As a rule they put a hell of a strain on my credulity, but the trouble is that I want to believe them.

I have seen a lot of animals, domestic and wild; but I have never seen any animal do any of the remarkable things attributed to them in these stories.

I once had a kitten and a bull calf who were boon companions. When the calf lay down, the kitten would curl up between his forelegs. But there is nothing remarkable in that, as friendships between animals of different species is quite common. And I once saw a horse with a well developed sense of humor. He would stand close on the off side of the horse I was saddling, looking quite innocent; then, after I had carefully adjusted the saddle blanket and stooped down to pick up the saddle, he would yank the blanket off onto the ground. When I looked up, he would be standing looking straight ahead with that same innocent expression. He was also the only horse I ever saw who developed and played a game. He would pick up a stick, toss it as high into the air as he could, and then catch it again in his teeth. It was not much of a game, but after all it was a game -- a game of skill.

If, after a long life during which I have been much with animals, these were the only two deviations from normal behavior that I have observed, my slight skepticism in the matter of the aforesaid stories is understandable.

But in Reader's Digest (April 1945) the solar plexus blow has been delivered to my credulity. It came from an article condensed from Nature Magazine, in which it was stated that in different parts of Texas two mare mules had adopted and nursed Brahma calves.

Of course I know that almost anything can happen in Texas and often does; but even in Texas mare mules can neither conceive nor bear foals, which precludes their nursing Brahma calves or anything else.

Not having seen everything in the world, I was loath to depend upon my own judgment in this matter; so I called up a professor  zoology at the University of Hawaii. He quite agreed with me that mare mules are infertile.

And now my pleasure in the cute little series of stories about our animals that I have so much enjoyed in the Reader's Digest will be denied me. I shall no longer be able to kid myself into believing them. Doggone!

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PEDESTRIANS: As we have the worst and least considerate drivers in the world in Honolulu, we also have the worst and least considerate walkers on our narrow sidewalks. People who habitually walk on the left hand side of the walks would be tagged and fined. People who gather in groups in the center of a sidewalk to have a homey visit with friends should have their heads examined. The worst offenders are fat ladies with protruding behinds.
 

 

LAUGH IT OFF
Hawaii Magazine ~ March 10, 1946
By Edgar Rice Burroughs

FEUDAL ESTATES: The Proletariat is getting all hot and bothered abut the landed aristocracy here owning most of The Rock. If I owned a principality here I should want to hang on to it and to hell with the proletariat. That is human nature.

But here is an angle that is usually ignored, anyway by the landed aristocracy. An artist, a composer, a writer or an inventor may create something that never existed before, something that even God did not think of; but he and his descendants may own and profit by his creation for only a limited number of years.

But in the matter of land, God beat the landed aristocracy to it and created the land. It is necessary for the very existence of man -- for his food and for a place to live. So if, after fifty-eight years, I have to toss my copyrights into the pot and go sit on the sidewalk with a tin cup and a handful of pencils, why shouldn't the landed aristocracy have to do the same thing with something they did not create?

I'll tell you. From time immemorial it has been the landed aristocracy that has made the laws. In my next incarnation I hope ot be a landed aristocrat. In the meantime I'll settle for a place on the sidewalk in front of the Alexander Young Hotel, under an awning. And I suppose I'll find that The Big Five have cornered all the tin cups and lead pencils. 

NOTE: This column was written for HAWAII several months ago before Mr. Burroughs returned home to Tarzana, California. -ED.