Five accidents in two minutes

A painful classic from Fred Allen

The following letter has featured on Letters of Note before, so I apologise; however, it’s one of my favourites and it was “written” on this day in 1932, so that apology is delivered quietly. Keep scrolling for footage of it being read at Letters Live by Jude Law.

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Screenshot from a Home Alone clip on YouTube

It was during the Golden Age of Radio in the 1930s that American comedian and radio host Fred Allen became a household name. His success on the airwaves is undisputed: at the peak of its gag-filled, seventeen- year run, The Fred Allen Show boasted upwards of thirty million listeners. But it wasn’t until a decade after his death, upon publication of a collection of his greatest letters¹, that the public learned of Allen’s devotion to this altogether more private form of communication, one which allowed him to practise his comedy in front of a much smaller audience. One of his most amusing letters was a complaint, written in 1932, most probably never sent², and addressed to the State of New York Insurance Department.

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June 18, 1932

State of New York Insurance Department

Dear Sir:

The soullessness of corporations is something to stun you. I am myself a victim; and instead of being a man of wealth and honor to the community, I am now a relic of humanity just from the hands of a surgeon who made an honest effort to restore me to the form in which I grew while reaching manhood’s estate.

Let me review my case. I carry an accident insurance policy in the New York Indemnity Company, by terms of which the company agreed to pay me $25 a week during such time as I was prevented from working because of an accident.

I went around last Sunday morning to a new house that is being built for me. I climbed the stairs, or rather the ladder that is where the stairs will be when the house is finished, and on the top floor I found a pile of bricks which were not needed there. Feeling industrious, I decided to remove the bricks. In the elevator shaft there was a rope and a pulley, and on one end of the rope was a barrel. I pulled the barrel up to the top, after walking down the ladder, and then fastened the rope firmly at the bottom of the shaft. Then I climbed the ladder again and filled the barrel with bricks. Down the ladder I climbed again, five floors mind you, and untied the rope to let the barrel down. The barrel was heavier than I was, and before I had time to study over the proposition, I was going up the shaft with my speed increasing at every floor. I thought of letting go of the rope, but before I had decided to do so I was so high that it seemed more dangerous to let go than to hold on. So I held on…

Half-way up the elevator shaft I met the barrel of bricks coming down. The encounter was brief and spirited. I got the worst of it but continued on my way towards the roof—that is, most of me went on, but much of my epidermis clung to the barrel and returned to earth. Then I struck the roof the same time the barrel struck the cellar. The shock knocked the breath out of me and the bottom out of the barrel. Then I was heavier than the empty barrel, and I started down while the barrel started up. We went and met in the middle of our journey, and the barrel uppercut me, pounded my solar plexus, barked my shins, bruised my body, and skinned my face. When we became untangled, I resumed my downward journey and the barrel went higher. I was soon at the bottom. I stopped so suddenly that I lost my presence of mind and let go of the rope. This released the barrel which was at the top of the elevator shaft and it fell five floors and landed squarely on top of me—and it landed hard, too.

Now, here is where the heartlessness of the New York Indemnity Company comes in. I have sustained five accidents in two minutes. One on my way up the shaft, when I met the barrel of bricks, the second when I met the roof, the third when I was descending and I met the empty barrel, the fourth when I struck the barrel, and the fifth when the barrel struck me. But the insurance man said that it was one accident, not five, and instead of receiving payment for injuries at the rate of five times $25, I only get one $25 payment. I therefore enclose my policy and ask that you cancel the same I made up my mind that henceforth I am not to be skinned by either barrel or/and and insurance company.

Yours sincerely and regretfully,

Fred Allen

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1. Fred Allen’s Letters is long out-of-print but copies are floating around. This particular letter can also be found in Letters of Note: New York.

2. This “letter” has taken many forms over the years—first, according to Snopes, as a newspaper article in 1895. So, unless we’re dealing with the mother of all coincidences, Fred Allen merely repurposed it. Most famously, this tale was told by Gerard Hoffnung at the Oxford Union on 4 December 1958. Audio from that reading can be found here.