I spent six months in Paris and wrote a novel entitled They Had to See Paris. Will
Rogers appeared in the screen version. It was his first talking picture. I had tempting
offers to remain in Hollywood and write several of Will Rogers' pictures. But I didn't. I
returned to New York. And my troubles began!
It slowly dawned on me that I had great dormant abilities that I had never developed. I
began to fancy myself a shrewd business man. Somebody told me that John Jacob
Astor had made millions investing in vacant land in New York. Who was Astor? Just an
immigrant peddler with an accent. If he could do it, why couldn't I? ... I was going to be
rich! I began to read the yachting magazines.
I had the courage of ignorance. I didn't know any more about buying and selling real
estate than an Eskimo knows about oil furnaces. How was I to get the money to launch
myself on my spectacular financial career? That was simple. I mortgaged my home, and
bought some of the finest building lots in Forest Hills. I was going to hold this land until it
reached a fabulous price, then sell it and live in luxury-I who had never sold a piece of
real estate as big as a doll's handkerchief. I pitied the plodders who slaved in offices for
a mere salary. I told myself that God had not seen fit to touch every man with the divine
fire of financial genius.
Suddenly, the great depression swept down upon me like a Kansas cyclone and shook
me as a tornado would shake a hen coop.
I had to pour $220 a month into that monster-mouthed piece of Good Earth. Oh, how
fast those months came! In addition, I had to keep up the payments on our now-
mortgaged house and find enough food. I was worried. I tried to write humour for the
magazines. My attempts at humour sounded like the lamentations of Jeremiah! I was
unable to sell anything. The novel I wrote failed. I ran out of money. I had nothing on
which I could borrow money except my typewriter and the gold fillings in my teeth. The
milk company stopped delivering milk. The gas company turned off the gas. We had to
buy one of those little outdoor camp stoves you see advertised; it had a cylinder of
gasoline; you pump it up by hand and it shoots out a flame with a hissing like an angry
goose.
We ran out of coal; the company sued us. Our only heat was the fireplace. I would go
out at night and pick up boards and left-overs from the new homes that the rich people
were building ... I who had started out to be one of these rich people.
I was so worried I couldn't sleep. I often got up in the middle of the night and walked for
hours to exhaust myself so I could fall asleep.
I lost not only the vacant land I had bought, but all my heart's blood that I had poured
into it.
The bank closed the mortgage on my home and put me and my family out on the street.
In some way, we managed to get hold of a few dollars and rent a small apartment. We
moved in the last day of 1933. I sat down on a packing case and looked around. An old
saying of my mother's came back: "Don't cry over spilt milk."
But this wasn't milk. This was my heart's blood!
After I had sat there a while I said to myself: "Well, I've hit bottom and I've stood it.
There's no place to go now but up."