Will won’t trade column for a federal job
COLUMBUS: Before I get started, I want to get one thing straight. The Obama administration has not promised me a job to get me to stop writing this column. Not even a position on an advisory commission. Now, if they had offered a job on a commission (which they didn’t) the weekly pay would be exactly the same as I get from these Comments. Although they never offered a job to get me to quit, there may be a few times they wanted to shoot me.
The oil keeps on flowing from that BP well, at around 15,000 barrels a day. Wouldn’t you like to receive the one-eighth royalties on a well like that? I know we’re not supposed to see anything but the negatives from this disaster, but consider how many square feet of solar panels it would take to equal the oil from a well like this in a year? Or wind machines?
Petroleum engineers say this oil gusher would be fairly easy to manage if it was on land or in shallow water. I believe them, but I’m not sure they ever had one spewing out this much oil. Everybody hopes, when drilling, they don’t hit a dry hole. But when you hit one with ten times or a hundred times the oil that was planned for, it can be a big a problem.
The government sure doesn’t know how to plug a well. (Stuffing it full of dollar bills won’t work.) But they could perhaps handle the clean up. The President should name a General or Admiral to head it, and bring in men and machines and boats, to collect the oil and keep it off the shores. Work with the Louisiana Governor, oil companies and others that have the materials and the knowhow to get it done. Don’t forget about the idea of using hay to soak up oil.
Historic quotes from Will Rogers:
“(Presidential advisory) commissions are fine, but they turn in a lot of data about something that ain’t so good. Now, Mr. Hoover (is a) conscientious, fine, hard-working man, and appointing a commission is not any crime. But it seems like a presidential commission don’t get nothin’ done. They don’t really earn the breakfast that they give ’em at the White House the day they appoint ’em.” Radio, April 30, 1933
“(President Warren G. Harding) spoke on Decoration Day at Arlington Cemetery… Mr. Harding said that, in case of another war that capital would be drafted the same as men. He put over a thought that, if carried out, would do more to stop Wars than all the International Courts and Leagues of Nations in the world. Of the three things to prevent wars, League of Nations, International Court, and this Drafting of Capital, this last one is so far ahead of the others there is no comparison. When that Wall Street Millionaire knows that… you come in to get his dough, say, boy, there wouldn’t be any war.” WA #29, July 1, 1923
“A sure certainty about our Memorial Days is as fast as the ranks from one war thin out, the ranks from another take their place. Prominent men run out of Decoration Day speeches, but the world never runs out of wars. People talk peace, but men give their life’s work to war. It won’t stop till there is as much brains and scientific study put to aid peace as there is to promote war.” DT #888, May 31, 1929