"Don't Make Waves"

[Douglas G. Wilson]

>Dante is showing a group of tourists through hell. As the group
>proceeds, a strange kind of chant-like murmur begins to become audible.
>A tourist asks Dante about this phenomenon. Dante replies that he'll be
>be glad to let the tourists see it for themselves. No sooner said than
>done, Dante brings his charges to the shore of a lake of shit the size
>of Lake Superior. In this lake, with the foul liquor coming up to their
>lower lips, are standing thousands upon thousands of sinners, who are
>all chanting in unison, "Don't make waves! Don't make waves! Don't make
>waves!" And, at the dock, the tourists see the devil preparing start
>the engines of a hydroplane.

Here is a (euphemistic?) version of the underlying saying, from ProQuest:

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_Washington Post_, 6 Jan. 1941: p. 17:

<<I still follow my old formula for not aggravating the inevitable. When
you are in trouble to your neck don't make waves.>>

[Column: "Baering Down On the News" by Arthur (Bugs) Baer]

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-- Doug Wilson