August 13, 2025 • 16 mins
The themes in "The Greatest Man in the World" by James Thurber include the nature of heroism and appearances versus reality. Jack Smurch displays bravery and independence but lacks traditional heroic qualities, highlighting a discord between his actions and character. The story also critiques how society and media craft false appearances, questioning who is truly at fault—Jack or those who manipulate his image.
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Transcript
Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
Speaker 1 (00:00):
Looking back on it now from the advantage point of
nineteen fifty, one can only marvel that it hadn't happened.
Long before it did. The United States and the United
States of America had been ever since Kitty Hawk, blindly
constructing the elaborate bitade by which, sooner or later it
must be hoist. It was inevitable that someday there would come,
(00:21):
roaring out of the skies a national hero of insufficient intelligence, background,
and character, successfully to endure the mounting orgies of glory
prepared for aviators who stayed up long time or flew
a great distance. Both Glenburg and Byrd, fortunately for national
decorum and international amnity, have been gentlemen, and so had
(00:43):
our other famous aviators. They wore their laurels gracefully, withstood
the awful weather of publicity, married excellent women, usually of
fine family, and quietly retired to private lives and the
enjoyment of their varying fortunes. No one toward incidents on
a worldwide scaleale marred the perfection of their conduct on
the perilous heights of fame. The exception to the rule was, however,
(01:07):
about to occur, and it did in July nineteen thirty
seven when Jack Pal Smirch aurst while mechanics helper in
a small garage in Westfield, Iowa, flew a second hand,
single motored Breastthaven Dragonfly three monoplane all the way around
the world without stopping. Never before in the history of
(01:27):
aviation had such a flight as Smirch ever been dreamt of.
No one had even taken seriously the weird floating auxiliary
gas tanks invention of the mad New Hampshire professor of astronomy,
doctor Charles Lewis Gresham, upon which Smirch placed full reliance.
When the garage worker, a slightly built, a surly and
prepossessing youth of twenty two, appeared at Roosevelt Field in
(01:51):
early July nineteen thirty seven, slowly chewing a great squid
of scrap tobacco, and announced nobody ain't seen no flying year.
At the the newspapers touched briefly and satirically upon his
projected twenty five thousand mile flight. Aeronautical and automotive experts
dismissed the idea, curtly, implying that it was a hoax,
(02:11):
a publicity stunt. The rusty battered second hand plane simply
wouldn't go. The Gresham auxiliary tanks would not work. He
was simply a cheap joke spyche However, after calling on
a girl in Brooklyn who worked in the flap folding
department of a large paper box factory, a girl whom
he later described as mass suit, Barture climbed nonchalantly into
(02:34):
his ridiculous plane at the dawn of the memoral seventh
of July nineteen thirty seven, a spata curve of tobacco
juice into the still air, and took off, carrying with
him only a gallon of bootleg gin and six pounds
of salami. When the garage boy found it out over
the ocean, the papers were forced to record in all
seriousness that a mad, unknown young man his name was
(02:56):
variously misspelled, had actually set upon the prepossous attempt to
span the world in a rickety one engine contraption, trusting
to the long distance refueling of a crazy schoolmaster. When
nine days later, without having stopped once, the tiny plane
appeared above San Francisco Bay, headed for New York, spluttering
and choking, to be sure, but still magnificently and miraculously
(03:18):
aloft the headlines, which long since crowded everything else off
the front page. Even the shooting of the governor of
Illinois by the Veletti gang swelled to untracedented size, and
the news stories began to run to twenty five and
thirty columns. It was noticeable, however, that the accounts upon
the Ichpoch making flight touched rather lightly upon the aviator himself.
(03:41):
This was not because facts about the hero as a
man were too meager, but because they were too complete.
Reporters who had been rushed out to Iowa when Schmergy's
plane was first sighted over the little French coast town
of Silimer to dig up the story of the great
man's life had promptly discovered that the short story of
his life could not be printed. His mother, a sullen
(04:01):
short order cook in a shack restaurant on the edge
of a tourist camping ground near Westfield, made all inquiries
to her son with an angry add a hell with
them aholpi draions. His father appeared to be in jail
somewhere for stealing these spotlights and lap robes from a
tourist automobile. His younger brother, a weak minded lad but
had recently escaped from Preston, Iowa Reformatory, and was already
(04:24):
wanted in several Western towns of the theft of money
order blanks from post offices. These alarming discoveries were still
piling up at the very time that Pal's Smirch, the
greatest hero of the twentieth century, bleared eyed and dead
for sleep, half starved, was piloting his crazy junkiep high
above the region in which the lamentable story of his
private life was being unearthed. He was head off in
(04:46):
New York and a greater glory than any man of
his time had ever known. The necessity for printing some
of the account in the papers of the young man's
career and personality had led to a remarkable predicament. It was,
of course impossible to re facts for a tomatuous popular
feeling in favor of the young hero had sprung up
like a grass fire when he was just halfway across
Europe on his flight around the globe. He was therefore
(05:09):
described as a modest chab taciturn blonde, popular with his friends,
popular with the girls. The only available snapshot of Smirche,
taken at the wheel of a phony automobile and a
cheap photo studio at an amusement park was touched up
so the little vulgarian looked quite handsome. His twisted leer
was smoothed into a pleasant smile. The truth was, in
(05:30):
its way, kept from the youth's ecstatic compatriots. They did
not dream that the Smirch family was despised and feared
by the neighbours in the obscure Iowa town, nor that
the hero himself, because of numerous unsavory exploits, had come
to be regarded in Westfield as a nuisance and a menace.
He had, as the reporters discovered, once knife the principle
(05:51):
of his high school, not mortally to be sure that
he had knifed him, and on another occasion, surprised in
the act of stealing altar cloth from a church, he
had bashed the sacrisan over the head with a pot
of Easter lilies. For each of these offenses he had
served his sentence in the reformatory. Inwardly, the authorities, both
in New York and in Washington, trades and an understanding
(06:14):
providence might, however, orfall. Such a thing seemed to bring
disaster to the rusty, battered plane and its illustrious pilot,
whose unheard our flight had aroused the civilized world into
hosannas of hysterical praise. The authorities were convinced that the
character of the renowned aviator was such that the limelight
evagulation was bound to reveal him to all the world
(06:36):
as a congenital hooligan, mentally and morally unequipped to deal
with the own prestigious fame that his efforts gaimed him.
I trust, said the Secretary of State of one of
the many secret cabinet meetings called to consider the national Dinamma.
I trust that his mother's prayer will be answered, by
which he referred to missus Emm. Smirch's wish that their
(06:57):
son might be drowned. It was, how hoover too late
for that Smirch had leaped the Atlantic and then the Pacific,
as if there were just me and mill ponds. At
three minutes after two o'clock on the afternoon of the
seventeenth of July nineteen thirty seven, the garage boy bought
his idiotic plane into Roosevelt Field for a perfect three
point landing. It had of course been out of the
(07:21):
question to arrange a modest reception for the greatest flyer
in the history of the world. He was received at
Roosevelt Field with such elaborate and pretentious ceremonies as rocked
the world. Fortunately, however, the worn and spent hero promptly
swooned and had to be removed bodily from his plane,
and was spirited for the field without having opened his
mouth once. Thus he did not jeopardize the dignity of
(07:44):
his first reception, a reception. Thus he did not jeopardize
the dignity of this reception, a reception illumined by the
presence of the Secretaries of War and the Navy, Mayor
Michael J. Moriarty of New York, the Premier of Canada,
Governor's Finnemon Groves Feely and Critchfield, and a brilliant way
of European diplomats. Smirch did not invad come in time
(08:06):
to take part of the gigantic hullabaloo arranged at the
City Hall for the next day. He was rushed to
a secluded nursing home and confined to bed. It was
nine days before he was able to get up, or,
to be more exactly, before he was permitted to get up. Meanwhile,
the greatest minds in the country in solemn assembly, had
arranged a secret conference of city, state, and government officials,
(08:26):
which Smirch was to attend for the purpose of being
instructed in the ethics and behavior of heroism. On the
day that the little mechanic was finally allowed to get
up and dress, and for the first time in two weeks,
took a great chew of tobacco, he was permitted to
receive the newspaperman this by way of testing them out.
Smirch did not wait for a question. Use gas, he said,
(08:49):
and the Times Man wins. Use gas can tell the
cockard wood did. I put one over on Limburg's a year,
and I made an airs and them two frogs. The
two froggs was a reference to a pair of gallant
French flyers who, in attempting to flight only halfway around
the world, had two weeks before unhappily been lost at sea.
(09:10):
The Times Man was bold enough at this point to
sketch out for Smirch the accepted formula for interviews in
cases of this kind. He explained that there should be
no arrogant statements belittling the achievements of other heroes, particularly
the heroes of foreign nations. Now I hear that, says Smirch,
I didnt see I did it, and I'm talcom bad at,
(09:31):
and he did talk about it. None of this extraordinary
interview was, of course printed. On the contrary, the newspapers,
already under the discipline direction of a secret directorate created
for the occasion and composed of statesmen and editors, gave
out to a panting and relentless world that Jackie, as
he had been arbitrarily nicknamed, would consent to say only
(09:54):
that he was very happy, and that anyone could have
done what he did. My achievement has been slightly exaggerated,
the times Man's article had in protest, with a modest smile.
These newspaper stories were kept from the hero, a restriction
which did not serve to abate the rising malevolence of
his temper. The situation was indeed extremely grave for Pal's
(10:17):
Smirch was, as he kept insisting, rare and a goal
he could not much longer be kept from a nation
clamorous to lionize him. It was the most desperate crisis
the United States of America had faced since the sinking
of the Lusitania. On the afternoon of the twenty seventh
of July, Smirch was spirited away to a conference room
(10:38):
in which there were gathered mayors, governors and government officials,
behavioral psychologists and editors. He gave them each a limp moist,
poor and briefly unlovely grin hag app, he said. When
Smirch was seated, the Mayor of New York arose, and,
with obvious pessimism, attempted to explain what he must say
and how he must act when presented to the world,
(10:59):
ending his talk with a high tribute to the hero's
courage and integrity. The mayor was followed by the Governor
Fannerman of New York, who, after a touching declaration of faith,
introduced Cameron Spottiswood, the second Secretary of the American Embassy
in Paris, the gentleman selected to coach Smirch in the
amenities of public ceremonies. Sitting in a chair with a
(11:20):
soiled yellow tie in his hand and his shirt open
at the throat, unshaved, and smoking a royal cigarette, Jack
Smirch listened with a leer on his lips. Ma get you,
MA get you, He cut in nastily. You are men
act like a softer here. You are men to act
like baby face Limburger, We're nutsha etchy. Everyone took in
(11:41):
his breath sharply. There was a sigh and a hiss.
Mister Limburg began. A United States Senator purple with rage,
and mister Bird Smirch, who was panting his nails with
a jackknife, cut in again.
Speaker 2 (11:55):
Bird.
Speaker 1 (11:56):
He exclaimed, Ah, for Gold's sake, that big somebody shut
off his blasphemies with a sharp word. A newcomer had
entered the room. Everyone stood up except Smurg, who, still
busy with his nails, did not even glance up. Mister Smurge,
said somebody sternly. The President of the United States. It
(12:17):
had been thought that the presence of the Chief Executive
might have a chastening effect upon the young hero, and
the former had been, thanks to the remarkable corporation of
the press, secretly brought to the obscure confidence room. A
great painful silence fell. Smirch looked up and waved a
hand at the President. How you coming, he asked, and
(12:39):
began rolling a fresh cigarette. The silence deepened somebody coughed
in a strained way. Jesus howl Innnen, said Smurge. He
loosened two more buttons on his shirt, revealing a hairy
chest and the tattooed words sally enclosed in a stenciled heart.
The great and important men in the room, faced by
the most serious crisis in recent American history, exchanged worried frowns.
(13:05):
Nobody seemed to know how to proceed. Oh, come on,
come on, said Smirge. Let's get a hill out of here.
When I start cutting in onto parties, sir, and when
they're going to be in it ha ha. He rubbed
his thumb and forefinger together meaningly. Money, exclaimed the state senator,
shocked and pale. Ye money, said Powell, flipping his cigarette
(13:26):
out of the window. And big money. He began rolling
a fresh cigarette. Big money, he replied, Frowning over the
rice paper. He tilted back in his chair and leered
at each gentleman separately. The lier of an animal that
knows its power, the leer of a leopard loose in
a bird and dog shop.
Speaker 2 (13:46):
Oh, for Gold's sake, let's get some priests. Where's cooler,
he said, I haven't cooped up plenty for three weeks.
Smirch shoot up and walked over to an open window,
where he stood staring down into the street nine floors below.
A faint shouting of newsboys floated up to him.
Speaker 1 (14:03):
He made out his name. How dog, he cried, grinning
and ecstatic. He leaned out over the sill. You tell em, babies,
he shouted down, How did a dog? In the tense
little knot of men standing behind him, a quick, mad
impulse flared up. An unspoken word of appeal of command
(14:23):
seemed to ring through the room, yet it was deadly silence.
Charles K. L's Brand, the secretary to the Mayor of
New York City, happened to be standing nearest Smirch. He
looked inquiringly at the President of the United States. The President,
pale grim nodded shortly. Brand, a tall, powerfully built man
(14:46):
wants a tackle at Rutger's, stepped forward, seized the greatest
man in the world by his left shoulder and the
seat of his pants, and pushed him out of the window.
My god, he's fallen out of the window, cried a
quick witted editor. Get me out of here, cried the President.
Several men sprang to his side as he walked hurriedly
escorted out of a door towards the side entrance of
(15:08):
the building. The editor of the Associated Press took charge,
Being used to such things crisply, He ordered certain men
to leave, others to stay, and quickly outlined the story
which all the papers were to agree on. He sent
two men down to the street to handle that end
of the tragedy, commanded a senator to sob, and two
congressmen to go into pieces nervously. In a word, he
(15:31):
skillfully set these stags to the gigantic task which was
to follow the task of breaking to a grief stricken
world the sad story of the untimely accidental death of
its most illustrious and spectacular figure. The funeral was, as
you know, the most elaborate, the finest, the solemnst and
(15:52):
the saddest ever held in the United States of America.
The monument in Arlington Cemetery, with his clean white shaft
of marble and the simple device of a tiny plane
carved on its base, is a place for pilgrims in
deep reverence to visit. The nations of the world paid
lofty tributes to little Jackie Smirch, America's greatest hero. At
(16:14):
a given hour, there were two minutes of silence throughout
the nation. Even the inhabitants of the small, bewildered town
of Westfield, Iowa, observed the touching ceremony agents of the
Department of Justice sort of that one of them was
especially as signed to stand grimly in the doorway of
a little shack restaurant on the edge of the tourist's
(16:34):
camping ground just outside the town. There, under his stern scrutiny,
Missus Emmer Smirch bowed her head above two Hamburg estates
sizzling on her grill. Bowed her head and turned away
so that the secret service man could not see the twisted,
strangely familiar leer on her lips.
Looking back on it now from the advantage point of
nineteen fifty, one can only marvel that it hadn't happened.
Long before it did. The United States and the United
States of America had been ever since Kitty Hawk, blindly
constructing the elaborate bitade by which, sooner or later it
must be hoist. It was inevitable that someday there would come,
(00:21):
roaring out of the skies a national hero of insufficient intelligence, background,
and character, successfully to endure the mounting orgies of glory
prepared for aviators who stayed up long time or flew
a great distance. Both Glenburg and Byrd, fortunately for national
decorum and international amnity, have been gentlemen, and so had
(00:43):
our other famous aviators. They wore their laurels gracefully, withstood
the awful weather of publicity, married excellent women, usually of
fine family, and quietly retired to private lives and the
enjoyment of their varying fortunes. No one toward incidents on
a worldwide scaleale marred the perfection of their conduct on
the perilous heights of fame. The exception to the rule was, however,
(01:07):
about to occur, and it did in July nineteen thirty
seven when Jack Pal Smirch aurst while mechanics helper in
a small garage in Westfield, Iowa, flew a second hand,
single motored Breastthaven Dragonfly three monoplane all the way around
the world without stopping. Never before in the history of
(01:27):
aviation had such a flight as Smirch ever been dreamt of.
No one had even taken seriously the weird floating auxiliary
gas tanks invention of the mad New Hampshire professor of astronomy,
doctor Charles Lewis Gresham, upon which Smirch placed full reliance.
When the garage worker, a slightly built, a surly and
prepossessing youth of twenty two, appeared at Roosevelt Field in
(01:51):
early July nineteen thirty seven, slowly chewing a great squid
of scrap tobacco, and announced nobody ain't seen no flying year.
At the the newspapers touched briefly and satirically upon his
projected twenty five thousand mile flight. Aeronautical and automotive experts
dismissed the idea, curtly, implying that it was a hoax,
(02:11):
a publicity stunt. The rusty battered second hand plane simply
wouldn't go. The Gresham auxiliary tanks would not work. He
was simply a cheap joke spyche However, after calling on
a girl in Brooklyn who worked in the flap folding
department of a large paper box factory, a girl whom
he later described as mass suit, Barture climbed nonchalantly into
(02:34):
his ridiculous plane at the dawn of the memoral seventh
of July nineteen thirty seven, a spata curve of tobacco
juice into the still air, and took off, carrying with
him only a gallon of bootleg gin and six pounds
of salami. When the garage boy found it out over
the ocean, the papers were forced to record in all
seriousness that a mad, unknown young man his name was
(02:56):
variously misspelled, had actually set upon the prepossous attempt to
span the world in a rickety one engine contraption, trusting
to the long distance refueling of a crazy schoolmaster. When
nine days later, without having stopped once, the tiny plane
appeared above San Francisco Bay, headed for New York, spluttering
and choking, to be sure, but still magnificently and miraculously
(03:18):
aloft the headlines, which long since crowded everything else off
the front page. Even the shooting of the governor of
Illinois by the Veletti gang swelled to untracedented size, and
the news stories began to run to twenty five and
thirty columns. It was noticeable, however, that the accounts upon
the Ichpoch making flight touched rather lightly upon the aviator himself.
(03:41):
This was not because facts about the hero as a
man were too meager, but because they were too complete.
Reporters who had been rushed out to Iowa when Schmergy's
plane was first sighted over the little French coast town
of Silimer to dig up the story of the great
man's life had promptly discovered that the short story of
his life could not be printed. His mother, a sullen
(04:01):
short order cook in a shack restaurant on the edge
of a tourist camping ground near Westfield, made all inquiries
to her son with an angry add a hell with
them aholpi draions. His father appeared to be in jail
somewhere for stealing these spotlights and lap robes from a
tourist automobile. His younger brother, a weak minded lad but
had recently escaped from Preston, Iowa Reformatory, and was already
(04:24):
wanted in several Western towns of the theft of money
order blanks from post offices. These alarming discoveries were still
piling up at the very time that Pal's Smirch, the
greatest hero of the twentieth century, bleared eyed and dead
for sleep, half starved, was piloting his crazy junkiep high
above the region in which the lamentable story of his
private life was being unearthed. He was head off in
(04:46):
New York and a greater glory than any man of
his time had ever known. The necessity for printing some
of the account in the papers of the young man's
career and personality had led to a remarkable predicament. It was,
of course impossible to re facts for a tomatuous popular
feeling in favor of the young hero had sprung up
like a grass fire when he was just halfway across
Europe on his flight around the globe. He was therefore
(05:09):
described as a modest chab taciturn blonde, popular with his friends,
popular with the girls. The only available snapshot of Smirche,
taken at the wheel of a phony automobile and a
cheap photo studio at an amusement park was touched up
so the little vulgarian looked quite handsome. His twisted leer
was smoothed into a pleasant smile. The truth was, in
(05:30):
its way, kept from the youth's ecstatic compatriots. They did
not dream that the Smirch family was despised and feared
by the neighbours in the obscure Iowa town, nor that
the hero himself, because of numerous unsavory exploits, had come
to be regarded in Westfield as a nuisance and a menace.
He had, as the reporters discovered, once knife the principle
(05:51):
of his high school, not mortally to be sure that
he had knifed him, and on another occasion, surprised in
the act of stealing altar cloth from a church, he
had bashed the sacrisan over the head with a pot
of Easter lilies. For each of these offenses he had
served his sentence in the reformatory. Inwardly, the authorities, both
in New York and in Washington, trades and an understanding
(06:14):
providence might, however, orfall. Such a thing seemed to bring
disaster to the rusty, battered plane and its illustrious pilot,
whose unheard our flight had aroused the civilized world into
hosannas of hysterical praise. The authorities were convinced that the
character of the renowned aviator was such that the limelight
evagulation was bound to reveal him to all the world
(06:36):
as a congenital hooligan, mentally and morally unequipped to deal
with the own prestigious fame that his efforts gaimed him.
I trust, said the Secretary of State of one of
the many secret cabinet meetings called to consider the national Dinamma.
I trust that his mother's prayer will be answered, by
which he referred to missus Emm. Smirch's wish that their
(06:57):
son might be drowned. It was, how hoover too late
for that Smirch had leaped the Atlantic and then the Pacific,
as if there were just me and mill ponds. At
three minutes after two o'clock on the afternoon of the
seventeenth of July nineteen thirty seven, the garage boy bought
his idiotic plane into Roosevelt Field for a perfect three
point landing. It had of course been out of the
(07:21):
question to arrange a modest reception for the greatest flyer
in the history of the world. He was received at
Roosevelt Field with such elaborate and pretentious ceremonies as rocked
the world. Fortunately, however, the worn and spent hero promptly
swooned and had to be removed bodily from his plane,
and was spirited for the field without having opened his
mouth once. Thus he did not jeopardize the dignity of
(07:44):
his first reception, a reception. Thus he did not jeopardize
the dignity of this reception, a reception illumined by the
presence of the Secretaries of War and the Navy, Mayor
Michael J. Moriarty of New York, the Premier of Canada,
Governor's Finnemon Groves Feely and Critchfield, and a brilliant way
of European diplomats. Smirch did not invad come in time
(08:06):
to take part of the gigantic hullabaloo arranged at the
City Hall for the next day. He was rushed to
a secluded nursing home and confined to bed. It was
nine days before he was able to get up, or,
to be more exactly, before he was permitted to get up. Meanwhile,
the greatest minds in the country in solemn assembly, had
arranged a secret conference of city, state, and government officials,
(08:26):
which Smirch was to attend for the purpose of being
instructed in the ethics and behavior of heroism. On the
day that the little mechanic was finally allowed to get
up and dress, and for the first time in two weeks,
took a great chew of tobacco, he was permitted to
receive the newspaperman this by way of testing them out.
Smirch did not wait for a question. Use gas, he said,
(08:49):
and the Times Man wins. Use gas can tell the
cockard wood did. I put one over on Limburg's a year,
and I made an airs and them two frogs. The
two froggs was a reference to a pair of gallant
French flyers who, in attempting to flight only halfway around
the world, had two weeks before unhappily been lost at sea.
(09:10):
The Times Man was bold enough at this point to
sketch out for Smirch the accepted formula for interviews in
cases of this kind. He explained that there should be
no arrogant statements belittling the achievements of other heroes, particularly
the heroes of foreign nations. Now I hear that, says Smirch,
I didnt see I did it, and I'm talcom bad at,
(09:31):
and he did talk about it. None of this extraordinary
interview was, of course printed. On the contrary, the newspapers,
already under the discipline direction of a secret directorate created
for the occasion and composed of statesmen and editors, gave
out to a panting and relentless world that Jackie, as
he had been arbitrarily nicknamed, would consent to say only
(09:54):
that he was very happy, and that anyone could have
done what he did. My achievement has been slightly exaggerated,
the times Man's article had in protest, with a modest smile.
These newspaper stories were kept from the hero, a restriction
which did not serve to abate the rising malevolence of
his temper. The situation was indeed extremely grave for Pal's
(10:17):
Smirch was, as he kept insisting, rare and a goal
he could not much longer be kept from a nation
clamorous to lionize him. It was the most desperate crisis
the United States of America had faced since the sinking
of the Lusitania. On the afternoon of the twenty seventh
of July, Smirch was spirited away to a conference room
(10:38):
in which there were gathered mayors, governors and government officials,
behavioral psychologists and editors. He gave them each a limp moist,
poor and briefly unlovely grin hag app, he said. When
Smirch was seated, the Mayor of New York arose, and,
with obvious pessimism, attempted to explain what he must say
and how he must act when presented to the world,
(10:59):
ending his talk with a high tribute to the hero's
courage and integrity. The mayor was followed by the Governor
Fannerman of New York, who, after a touching declaration of faith,
introduced Cameron Spottiswood, the second Secretary of the American Embassy
in Paris, the gentleman selected to coach Smirch in the
amenities of public ceremonies. Sitting in a chair with a
(11:20):
soiled yellow tie in his hand and his shirt open
at the throat, unshaved, and smoking a royal cigarette, Jack
Smirch listened with a leer on his lips. Ma get you,
MA get you, He cut in nastily. You are men
act like a softer here. You are men to act
like baby face Limburger, We're nutsha etchy. Everyone took in
(11:41):
his breath sharply. There was a sigh and a hiss.
Mister Limburg began. A United States Senator purple with rage,
and mister Bird Smirch, who was panting his nails with
a jackknife, cut in again.
Speaker 2 (11:55):
Bird.
Speaker 1 (11:56):
He exclaimed, Ah, for Gold's sake, that big somebody shut
off his blasphemies with a sharp word. A newcomer had
entered the room. Everyone stood up except Smurg, who, still
busy with his nails, did not even glance up. Mister Smurge,
said somebody sternly. The President of the United States. It
(12:17):
had been thought that the presence of the Chief Executive
might have a chastening effect upon the young hero, and
the former had been, thanks to the remarkable corporation of
the press, secretly brought to the obscure confidence room. A
great painful silence fell. Smirch looked up and waved a
hand at the President. How you coming, he asked, and
(12:39):
began rolling a fresh cigarette. The silence deepened somebody coughed
in a strained way. Jesus howl Innnen, said Smurge. He
loosened two more buttons on his shirt, revealing a hairy
chest and the tattooed words sally enclosed in a stenciled heart.
The great and important men in the room, faced by
the most serious crisis in recent American history, exchanged worried frowns.
(13:05):
Nobody seemed to know how to proceed. Oh, come on,
come on, said Smirge. Let's get a hill out of here.
When I start cutting in onto parties, sir, and when
they're going to be in it ha ha. He rubbed
his thumb and forefinger together meaningly. Money, exclaimed the state senator,
shocked and pale. Ye money, said Powell, flipping his cigarette
(13:26):
out of the window. And big money. He began rolling
a fresh cigarette. Big money, he replied, Frowning over the
rice paper. He tilted back in his chair and leered
at each gentleman separately. The lier of an animal that
knows its power, the leer of a leopard loose in
a bird and dog shop.
Speaker 2 (13:46):
Oh, for Gold's sake, let's get some priests. Where's cooler,
he said, I haven't cooped up plenty for three weeks.
Smirch shoot up and walked over to an open window,
where he stood staring down into the street nine floors below.
A faint shouting of newsboys floated up to him.
Speaker 1 (14:03):
He made out his name. How dog, he cried, grinning
and ecstatic. He leaned out over the sill. You tell em, babies,
he shouted down, How did a dog? In the tense
little knot of men standing behind him, a quick, mad
impulse flared up. An unspoken word of appeal of command
(14:23):
seemed to ring through the room, yet it was deadly silence.
Charles K. L's Brand, the secretary to the Mayor of
New York City, happened to be standing nearest Smirch. He
looked inquiringly at the President of the United States. The President,
pale grim nodded shortly. Brand, a tall, powerfully built man
(14:46):
wants a tackle at Rutger's, stepped forward, seized the greatest
man in the world by his left shoulder and the
seat of his pants, and pushed him out of the window.
My god, he's fallen out of the window, cried a
quick witted editor. Get me out of here, cried the President.
Several men sprang to his side as he walked hurriedly
escorted out of a door towards the side entrance of
(15:08):
the building. The editor of the Associated Press took charge,
Being used to such things crisply, He ordered certain men
to leave, others to stay, and quickly outlined the story
which all the papers were to agree on. He sent
two men down to the street to handle that end
of the tragedy, commanded a senator to sob, and two
congressmen to go into pieces nervously. In a word, he
(15:31):
skillfully set these stags to the gigantic task which was
to follow the task of breaking to a grief stricken
world the sad story of the untimely accidental death of
its most illustrious and spectacular figure. The funeral was, as
you know, the most elaborate, the finest, the solemnst and
(15:52):
the saddest ever held in the United States of America.
The monument in Arlington Cemetery, with his clean white shaft
of marble and the simple device of a tiny plane
carved on its base, is a place for pilgrims in
deep reverence to visit. The nations of the world paid
lofty tributes to little Jackie Smirch, America's greatest hero. At
(16:14):
a given hour, there were two minutes of silence throughout
the nation. Even the inhabitants of the small, bewildered town
of Westfield, Iowa, observed the touching ceremony agents of the
Department of Justice sort of that one of them was
especially as signed to stand grimly in the doorway of
a little shack restaurant on the edge of the tourist's
(16:34):
camping ground just outside the town. There, under his stern scrutiny,
Missus Emmer Smirch bowed her head above two Hamburg estates
sizzling on her grill. Bowed her head and turned away
so that the secret service man could not see the twisted,
strangely familiar leer on her lips.
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