by W. C. Fields
Of course my practical mind grasped the basic trouble immediately. I merely advised him to shave down on the first five items and put the savings into bicarbonate of soda.
As a matter of fact, this lad's mistakes reminded me not a little of our own government's budgetary errors. Only too often do they pile up headaches without providing for relief. This will all be changed when I become chief executive of our fair land. To provide funds for a free public headache-powder service, I shall charge Pullman rates to all Congressmen caught sleeping in session.
But to give all you dear, dear folks a graphic example of the miracles a well-balanced budget can achieve, I am going to set down, right before your eyes, a word-for-word first-of-March conversation in the household of the Homer N. Cluffs, a typical American family consisting of one husband, one wife, one three-year-old son and a canary that has just started to molt. The Cluffs were kind enough to allow the W. C. Fields Budgetary Research Foundation to install a dictograph in their cozy little living room. I quote from the record:
Homer: Now, my phlox, my flower, let us look over the budget envelopes and straighten out the month's expenses. Income tax is due in two weeks, you know.
Lucretia: Yes, pet, here are all fourteen envelopes.
Homer: Fine! Now, Income Tax amounts to thirty-seven dollars.
Lucretia: Something is wrong! There's only eleven dollars in Income Tax!
Homer: What? There must be more. All I took was sixteen dollars for those new golf clubs.
Lucretia: Oh, dear! I can't think where it went to—unless I took the money for my last permanent out of this envelope.
It's a Gift (© 1934, Paramount Pictures)
". . . the household of Homer N. Cliffs, a typical American family ..."
Homer: Well, for Pete's sake, why didn't you take it out of Incidentals in the first place?
Lucretia: Now, you know we paid the insurance premium out of Incidentals.
Homer (weakly): Is there an aspirin or an analine-dye tablet in the house?
Lucretia: I'm sorry, dear, we're all out of them.
Homer: Never mind, let's make up Income Tax out of Savings. We'll double Savings next month.
Lucretia: For pity's sake! There's only six dollars in Savings.
Homer: Now, look! The only money I took out of that envelope was eight dollars for the plumber.
Lucretia: I—I guess I must have taken out a teentsy bit for the first installment on my mink coat.
Homer: Teentsy bit! Mink coat! Godfrey Daniel! What do you think the Clothing envelope's for?
"Mink coat! Godfrey Daniel!"
Lucretia: Now, Homer, you must remember that we used Clothing to pay off the Smiths that night we played for a quarter of a cent a point and you went down four tricks doubled and vulnerable.
Homer (hoarsely): I'm going down to the drugstore for some aspirin. Give me a dime out of Medical Attention.
Lucretia: Medical Attention's already gone for Amy's wedding present. But there's a couple of ginger-ale bottles under the sink —take those.
Well, my friends, I think this sprightly little interlude should prove to even the most skeptical that budgeting can help you to pay your income tax painlessly. But —and this is a big but—the mere fact that you can pay your income tax will avail you little unless you are able to sum up what your tax should be. Thusly, I will now plunge into the arithmetical phase of the income-tax problem, as I promised I would.
Many of our most successful citizens have forgotten even the rudiments of arithmetic they learned in school.
Therefore, for the benefit of any of my readers and those who repeat this incident to their friends and any who may be weak in their ciphers, I will run through an exercise in simple addition. To add a realistic touch, I will use as a model the income tax I myself filed last March.
Here is the sum—or something:
Salaries, compensations $7,180
Dividends 2,370
Interest on bank deposits, etc. 1,260
Interest on corporation bonds 3,140
Income from fiduciaries ?
(This last is a knotty technical phrase concerning which you have to see your attorney.)
The usual procedure is, first, to add up the rows of figures farthest to the right. Now, it is plain to even the layman's eye that the four zeros are equal to nothing at all, so we may ignore that row altogether. However, the figures in the second row from the right add up to 25, and that brings us to a very tricky piece of business. The first thing to do, under these conditions, is to write down the 5 neatly, with calm determination, thus:
5
The 2 in the 25 must be disposed of by a process called "carrying," but to understand that, you must know solid geometry; so just take my word for it that you should add it in with the third row of figures. This row, with the 2 included, adds to 9—a dismal number indeed! For the last twenty years I have made it a strict policy to avoid the number 9. It probably all stems back to the summer of 1920, when I played third base for the Germanic-Amerikanisch Brewing Company Nine. Whenever the team traveled out of town for a game, it was a standing rule that the last player into the hotel room at night had to sleep on the floor.
Of course, I realize that my aversion to the figure 9 is not shared by the nation as a whole, but I'm sure that few would begrudge me the whim of changing it to 8 in this case. So our total so far stands at:
85
The column farthest to the left adds up to 13—and I can get a C. P. A. to vouch for it. However, everyone knows that 13 is fast becoming obsolete these days. As a matter of fact, apartment buildings and office blocks don't even have thirteenth floors any more. But a Fields is nothing if not magnanimous, so let's throw in the 3, at least. Thus our final total turns out to be:
$385
Of course, I realize that it is not easy for my dear pupils to understand, at first glance, all the mammoth complications by which I arrived at this interesting figure. However, the boys down at the Internal Revenue office have had long experience with my remarkable mathematical prowess, and they will doubtless follow me in short order.
It might be apropos to mention here that Federal finances closely resemble personal income taxes, and are added up much the same as I have just demonstrated. The only difference is that in the case of Federal figures, a great many zeroes are added to the end of each item. I do not hesitate to proclaim myself one of the craftiest adders in the country (and if a President can do nothing else, he must be able to add and add). I also have an uncanny knack of describing circles, so I am sure I could outzero any other candidate—with the possible exception of F. D. R. himself.
"However, the boys down at the Internal Revenue office have had long experience with my remarkable mathematical prowess, and they will doubtless follow me in short order."
My Little Chickadee (© 1940, Universal Pictures)
Well, we must be getting on to multiplication—an extremely important subject. In fact, the government gives prizes of $400 exemptions for multiplication. . . . But pardon me for a moment—there goes the doorbell. My little son Warner looking out the window informs me: "That man is here again."
Ah, it's the Internal Revenue inspector. "How do you do, Inspector. . . . You say they're asking for me down at the Collector of Internal Revenue's office? Well, I suppose I can spare an hour or so, if they're really in a bad tangle. . . . What's that? You say 'come quietly'? Why, Inspector, you cut me to the core! (Oh, Mrs. Fields, don't wait up for me tonight, dear. I may not be home for a year or two.)"
"You say they're asking for me down at the Collector of Internal Revenue's office?"
The Bank Dick (© 1940, Universal Pictures)
Chapter 4
"Fields, a Man of Firm Resolve"
Ziegfeld Follies of 1919 (University of Texas)
When Whitey (a childhood nickname) made up his mind on a subject, he was immovable. This was especially so concerning his comedy. He had been in show business most of his life and quite reasonably
felt he knew more about humor and reaching an audience than did all of his writers and directors combined. Often when disputes arose, he would retire to his dressing room and bring an entire production to a costly halt. Once, after a particularly heated dispute, he returned home and shut himself off from the numerous emissaries sent by the studio. After a few days, Samuel Goldwyn (then president of M.G.M.) himself arrived. The stunned butler, hesitant about snubbing one of the most powerful men in Hollywood, went to Fields for specific instructions. "Give him an evasive answer," replied the inscrutable Fields. "Be evasive. Tell him to go — himself!"
Running Wild (© 1927, Paramount Pictures)
CAMPAIGN resolutions are nothing more than overgrown New Year's resolutions: they are thrown together hastily at the last minute, with never a thought as to how they may be gracefully broken.
Now, I am a candidate with years of experience in the making and breaking of New Year's resolutions, and what I can accomplish with those, I can certainly accomplish with campaign resolutions.
From my long months of study on the question of New Year's resolutions I have come to many important conclusions. In the first place, as I mentioned above, too many of us are inclined to put off New Year's resolutions until 11 a.m. New Year's morning, when we wake up in white tie and tails, and mumble "a hair off'n the dog that bit me." This is a sad mistake. Remorse runs rampant at such a time, and we are liable to consign ourselves to all sorts of extravagant penances, such as hying ourselves to monasteries in Tibet or Afghanistan, or spending our remaining days in Brooklyn to atone for numerous things.
I myself was the victim of the 11 a.m. Menace several years ago. The evening preceding January first, I was invited to a party by a couple who intended to get married (which they did, but not to each other). I awoke New Year's Day to find a full-grown goat in bed beside me; worse than that, my head felt as though a manhole cover were resting on it. Imagine my surprise and chagrin when I reached up and found that there was a manhole cover resting on my head! You could have knocked me down with a cricket racquet, or club (or whatever they use) or a slapstick bass fiddle or— but why quibble? Right then and there I swore that I would never again poison my system with a maraschino cherry. Of course, it wasn't two weeks before I slipped. Hoodwinked, yes. I thought it was a seedless grape. I washed it down with some snake-bite remedy that Grandpa always kept in a downstairs closet.
That is why, my friends, I am making this desperate plea that the citizens of our nation avoid making reckless resolutions. This plea is particuraly directed to the Little Women of America, bless their dear souls. I love every one of them (the California Anti-Heartbalm Law will be in effect by the time this is printed). According to figures—those who follow the game closely will know what I mean—over 80% of reckless resolutions made by American husbands occur at a moment when the wife is standing over the bed with a putter in her hand, giving advice and making certain demands.
"I awoke New Year's Day to find a full-grown goat in bed beside me."
My Little Chickadee (© 1940, Universal Pictures)
Of course, I fully sympathize with the good intentions of the fair sex in this matter. But too often they do not realize what hardships these—shall we say "forced"—resolutions are going to mean to their husbands, the stronger or more formidable sex, if I may coin a phrase.
For instance, one day just last October (it may have been November; however, it was prior to the first flurry) I was hurrying to a florist friend for a bunch of goldenrod to send my mother-in-law (the poor dear was suffering with a stubborn case of hay fever). As I strolled along at a spry clip, my shoelace chanced to come undone. I stopped in at the neighborhood taproom to tie it. Once in the taproom my attention was drawn to a medium-sized, middle-aged chap who was stumbling about with his eyes tightly closed. His yelps of pain when he barked his shins on chairs and tables distressed me sorely.
"Can't that poor fellow open his eyes?" I asked the proprietor.
"Certainly he could—if he wanted to," answered that worthy, gruffly. "But last New Year's he promised his wife that he'd never look at a drop of whiskey again as long as he lived, and Dave's the kind of a chap who keeps his word!"
"... a bunch of goldenrod to send to my mother-in-law (the poor dear was suffering with a stubborn case of hay fever)"
(Early 1940's)
Now, Dave was doubtless a man of strong character whose rigid childhood training had inculcated in him a respect for New Year's resolutions that he never out-grew. It is interesting to note that I myself had just such training in my youth. I remember a beautiful and inspiring little poem my mother used to recite to us children each New Year's Eve before we went to bed. It went thus:
Let's make a resolution true,
And firm and good and healthful, too,
But we must promise when we make it,
That we shall never, never—
(I can't remember the last two words but the whole poem was beautifully written in Spencerian hand.)
All through my grammar-school years these lovely lines had a great influence on me, and I can remember that once I even made a resolution that I would no longer spend my Sunday-school-offering nickel at the candy store. I kept this up for seven months, but finally my pocket became so full of nickels that I could not play Run Sheep Run with the other boys. The whole incident rather knocked my faith in resolutions into a cocked hat (though I admit I seldom wore one—never found a hat store that kept them in stock. They always had to send to Philadelphia for them and could never guarantee delivery). And for the next few years I made only a few infinitesimal resolutions, just so I'd have something to give up in Lent.
"The whole incident rather knocked my faith in resolutions into a cocked hat"
(© 1940, Universal Pictures)
But soon even these began to irk me—so I finally devised a perfect plan for making resolutions, one which has stood me in good stead ever since.
In any event, if my gentle readers wish to take advantage of this simple plan, full directions are given herewith:
Early in November the prospective resolutioner should set aside an evening, settle himself in an easy chair before a fire of eucalyptus logs and, whilst sipping a cup of Iron Mountain Elixir and Exhilarator, write down carefully all the luxuries of life he can forego without endangering his peace of mind or health. For instance, tripe, pedicures, snuff, hair singes, cello lessons, croquet, flinch, etc. When he has finally decided on which he wishes to give up, he should telephone his solicitor and direct him to draw up a statement that will leave a few loopholes in case the strain grows too great on his nerves or impairs his health during the fatal ensuing twelve months.
The following is a contract I had drawn up in 1931, two months after the head of a certain studio kicked me below the spine and yelled at the top of his voice, "Git!" I have always considered this document a meticulous model of jurisprudence and foresight:
"I, W. C. Fields, being of sound mind and body, agree that during the year of 1932 I will cease and desist from eating spun sugar except under the following circumstances : (1) If said spun sugar is forced upon me by a person or persons unknown, professional bartenders included. (2) If abovementioned spun sugar is disguised beyond reasonable recognition. (3) If spun sugar in question is the only means of sustenance available due to special and extraordinary circumstances, etc., ad libitum, I to be the judge."
This resolution I never had the slightest trouble with, and that is because I left myself beaucoup —meaning plenty (we are not all up on foreign languages)—of legal leeway.
I will take full advantage of such technicalities in making and breaking all my campaign resolutions. For instance, just now I am framing a very important resolution, namely, that I will lower the income tax and decrease government running expenses (assuming, of .course, that there will be any such thing as income when I become President, and that the government will be running). Now, it is obvious that I could not lower the income tax without increasing government runn
ing expenses, because printing up revised income-tax forms would cost a fortune. Therefore, when I eventually break this resolution, it will be looked upon by the American public as a patriotic action.
The truth is—and this is the most daring statement I have ever made except where and when only circumstances altered my opinion for reasons best known to myself— the whole custom of New Year's resolutions — as well as Presidential resolutions — is based on an insidious fault of logic!
There, now, you have it—the whole unvarnished. And the amazing thing about it is that the fault is an extremely simple one, but for thousands of years—may I add, many thousands of years?—mankind has entirely overlooked it. It has remained for one heroic individual of peerless ingenuity to put his mind to the problem and uncover the seemingly intangible solution. I speak modestly of W. C. Fields. I wish you could all see my face as I blushingly pen these lines.
I quote from my own work titled. "Inquiry into Self-imposed Tortures" (the Malay States bought practically the whole edition): "Ninety-three per cent of New Year's resolutions fail because they are based on frustration. Tell a person he must no longer eat pomegranates, and he'll be a nervous wreck until he does eat them. Pomegranates au rum, a la Papa."
A good illustration of this was the case of a friend of mine whom we shall call A. His name began with M, but we'll still call him A, just to keep it scientific. A was in the habit of walking to work, and his path took him through the municipal zoo. He had walked through the zoo many thousand times and felt au fait (okey-dokey ) on all occasions—until the fatal day when he saw a freshly-painted sign on the bars of the lions' cage: hands off! He began to fret, to feel jumpy and ill-natured. He stood it for three months, and then one Thursday morning, shortly after St. Swithin's Day, he stalked straight up to the hands off! sign and grabbed the bar's of the cage firmly. Immediately his frustration disappeared completely—and two seconds later, to the tune of angry snorts and roars, so did his hands. The hands off! sign had been correct. That's the price that one man paid to get rid of his frustration—and he says it was worth it. "Would you like to play cards?" a friend one day a little later chided him. "Yes, deal me a couple of hands," was his curt rejoinder.