README
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2 Some years ago, my neighbor Avery said to me: "There has not been an
3adequate jokebook published since "Joe_Miller", which came out in 1739 and
4which, incidentally, was the most miserable no-good ... jokebook in the
5history of the printed word."
6 In a subsequent conversation, Avery said: "A funny story is a funny
7story, no matter who is in it - whether it's about Catholics or Protestants,
8Jews or Gentiles, blacks or whites, browns or yellows. If a story is genuinely
9funny it makes no difference how dirty it is. Shout it from the rooftops.
10Let the chips fall all over the prairie and let the bonehead wowsers yelp.
11... on them."
12 It is a nice thing to have a neighbor of Avery's grain. He has
13believed in the aforestated principles all his life. A great many other
14people nowadays are casting aside the pietistic attitude that has led them
15to plug up their ears against the facts of life. We of The Brotherhood
16believe as Avery believes; we have never been intimidated by the pharisaical
17meddlers who have been smelling up the American landscape since the time of
18the bundling board. Neither has any one of our members ever been called a
19racist. Still, we have been in unremitting revolt against the ignorant
20propensity which ordains, in effect, that "The Green Pastures" should never
21have been written; the idiot attitude which compelled Arthur Kober to abandon
22his delightful Bella Gross, and Octavius Roy Cohen to quit writing about the
23splendiferous Florian Slappey; the moronic frame of mind which, if carried
24to its logical end, would have forbidden Ring Lardner from writing in the
25language of the masses.
26 -- H. Allen Smith, "Rude Jokes"
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28 ... let us keep in mind the basic governing philosophy of The
29Brotherhood, as handsomely summarized in these words: we believe in
30healthy, hearty laughter -- at the expense of the whole human race, if
31needs be.
32 Needs be.
33 -- H. Allen Smith, "Rude Jokes"
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