• Originally printed: DAC News (unknown date – presumably 1924/1925)
• First reprinted in: Pluck and Luck
• Original Byline: Robert C. Benchley

🦉🦉🦉🦉

Commentary:
Absolutely inspired nonsense from Benchley, drawing nitrous oxide suffused breath from the basic babblings of the business page. Diligent research has now (and I mean just now!) disclosed that the piece first appeared (under a different title) in an as-yet-unknown issue of that Executive’s Delight, the Detroit Athletic Club News, which just makes me love it all the more. Who said America’s Capitalist Leaders don’t have a sense of humour about their role in the nation’s affairs? We can be pretty sure of our rough date for the article, at least, thanks to its speculative engagement with the true meaning of the 1924 Presidential Election (it had none). Boom and bust a gut economics at its finest!

Favourite moment:
“Europe’s plight has not been without its influence either. Europe’s plight is never without its significance. No matter what you are figuring on doing, you must count on Europe’s plight to furnish at least fifty percent of the significance and ten percent of the gross.”

Reprint Note:

• Originally appeared in the DAC News under the title “Our Monthly Market Letter”
• Gordon E. Ernst, Jr.’s Annotated Bibliography lists the essay under the reprinted title, as the original could not be identified using the resources available in 1995