The NEW BERN
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VOLUME 10
NEW BERN, N. C., FRIDAY, OCTOBER 20, 1967
NUMBER 30
Our thanks to S. M. Csam)
Jones for mailing us a column
by Will Rogers, written as a
follow up to an earlier column
in which the famous humorist
kidded Congress for granting
New Bern a $260,000 Post
Office.
It was back in the days of
the Great Depression, and
Rogers had suggested that our
home town Congressman,
Charles L.Abernethy,Sr.,pull>
ed a fast one in getting such
a huge (at that Ume) outlay
of money for a city as small
and Inconspidous as ours.
Will, killed with Wiley Post
in a plane crash while the two
were crossing Alaska, didn’t
live to see it, but eventually
New Bern’s combination Post
Office, Federal Courthouse and
Custom House actually proved
Inadequate for Uncle Sam’s re
quirements.
Anyhow, the wisecracking
columnist, whose most remem
bered words, “I never met a
man I didn’t like,” are carved
on his memorial stone, dis
covered after the first column
appeared all over the ' world
that an aroused New Bernian
can be an exceedingly indignant
critter.
’’Well sir I like to be con
fused about a town or place,
and ask about it,” wrote Will.
’’For every guy that lives with
in coon dog sound will send in
his historical version of the
place.
’’New Bern, N. C. (or is it
Just South Carolina?) Well I
wrote a few weeks ago about
em getting a Post Office cost
ing $260,000. Well that wlU
house an awful lot of chain
letters and oil prospectuses,
and I figured the boys had had
something on the Democrats in
Washington, and reached in and
got quite a whack of loot money.
"And I complimented their
Congressman. I figured ihathe
was a man that A1 Capone
could use some time. But
now after cotton sacks Ml of
mall, I find I have libelled
New Bern'. (Either North or
South Carolina its an old his
torical town, and if I printed
all these letters it would be
more historical, for its got
more different kinds of early
history than Greta Garbo.)
’’There is two things you
musent stir up, one is a gentle
looking old Jersey bull, and the
other is a southern historian.
Now I am not belittling em,
for I come from below that
corn pone and chitlin belt my
self.
"But every one of us write
our own history. If it sounds
better the way we want it than
the way it mi^t have been
why that don’t stop us anymore
than an amber light. So don’t
send me any more historical
sketches of New Bern. All I
want to know was it settled by
Columbus and the Italians,
Columbus and the Spaniards
or A1 Smith and Pocohontas.
"Governor William Tryon,
who was called by my people
(the Cherokees) "The wolf of
Carolina,” wellifhemistreated
the Cherokees he goes rl^t
in the dog house with Andrew
Jackson with me. One his
torian says he took all the
money and built a palace there.
This looks like this old boy
left some descendants there.
"Now lets see what the next
(Continue on pftge 8) .
NEW BERN-CRAVEN COUNTY
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HE KIDDED US—Back in 1933, Will Rogers gave New
Bern world wide publicity (see Through The Looking
Glass) when he mentioned our town briefly in one of
his daily columns, and for good measure devoted a
full Sunday column to a not so gentle spoofing of
things dear to our heart. Hundreds of newsp^ers
carried his flippant remarks about our first State
Capital to countless millions of readers. A few New
Bernians didn’t appreciate the much beloved humor*
ist’s wisecracks on this occasion, but like most of his
writing it not only caused chuckles but punctured
our vanity sufficiently to bring us down out of the
clouds of self esteem. Certainly, if Will Rogers could
needle kings and Presidents, and make them love
it, singling us out was a compliment rather than an
in.sult.