92.- s R?3d 62-17^14 $5.95
Day, Donald, 1899-
Will Rogers, a biography.
N.Y. , D. McKay Co. [1962]
370p. illus.
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A BIQGR.APLHY ..
Books by DONALD DAY
Backwoods to Border, Edited with Mody C. Boatright
(A Texas Folklore Society Publication)
From Hell to Breakfast, Edited with Mody C. Boatright
(A Texas Folklore Society Publication)
Big Country: Texas
(American Folkways Series)
The Autobiography of Will Rogers, Editor
Franklin D. Roosevelt s Own Story, Editor
Will Rogers on How We Elect Our Presidents, Editor
Woodrow Wilson s Own Story, Editor
Uncle Sam s Uncle Josh, Editor
The Autobiography of Sam Houston, Edited with Harry Ullom
The Evolution of Love
Sanity Is Where You Find It, Editor
Will
A BIOGRAPHY
by DONALD DAY
DAVID McKAY COMPANY, INC. New York
WILL ROGERS
COPYRIGHT 1962 BY DONALD DAY
All rights reserved, including the right to reproduce
this book, or parts thereof, in any form, except for
the inclusion of brief quotations in a review.
PUBLISHED SIMULTANEOUSLY IN THE DOMINION OF CANADA
LIBRARY OF CONGRESS CATALOG CARD NUMBER: 62-16719
MANUFACTURED IN THE UNITED STATES OF AMERICA
VAN REES PRESS . NEW YORK
ToKLARI
5.95 6217411
"America s
Most Complete Human Document"
SHORTLY AFTER WILL ROGERS CRASHED TO HIS DEATH
with Wiley Post on August 15, 1935, at Point Barrow, Alaska, Carl
Sandburg commented: "There is a curious parallel between Will
Rogers and Abraham Lincoln. They were rare figures whom we could
call beloved with ease and without embarrassment." Another Lincoln
authority, Robert Sherwood, added: "The impact upon the people of
America at the death of Will Rogers was similar to that produced by
the death of Abraham Lincoln."
"Rare figures whom we could call beloved with ease and without
embarrassment." A poetic concept that could have come only from a
man who occupies a similar niche in the people s affection, and one
which with Sherwood s statement supplies for the heart a full measure
of understanding. And yet the mind is teased for a fuller comprehension.
Perhaps for Will Rogers a statement by Damon Runyon contains
the best clue: "Will Rogers was America s most complete human docu
ment. He reflected in many ways the heartbeat of America. In thought
and manner of appearance and in his daily life he was probably our
most typical native born, the closest living approach to what we like to
call the true American."
If this be so, the comprehension the mind seeks must emerge out of
a study and appraisal, an unfolding, literally "a reading," of that
"complete human document" against the times, events, and in relation
to the people that produced it.
DONALD DAY
New York
February, 1962
Acknowledgments
IT IS DIFFICULT TO SINGLE OUT A FEW OF THE MANY WHO
helped me with this book over the years. To all of you who gave your
time and counsel I offer my profound thanks. I owe much to Mrs.
Paula McSpadden Love, niece of Will Rogers and curator of the Will
Rogers Memorial at Claremore, Oklahoma, and to her husband,
Robert Love, Director of the Memorial, without whose cooperation
my books on Will Rogers could hardly have come into being. By
their untiring work, their love for Will Rogers, they have collected and
preserved material that would otherwise have been lost.
I also gratefully acknowledge the unfailing and generous coopera
tion of Will Rogers, Jr. and his brother Jim, as well as that of Mrs.
Rita Aurand.
Sources have been acknowledged throughout. Where material is
not identified, the source in almost every case is Will Rogers original
manuscripts.
Contents
1. "There s a Lot of Mule in Willie" 1
2. Dry Grazing in Academic Pastures 17
3. Greener Grass Beckoned 25
4. "The Visiting Girl" 34
5. Grazing in Foreign Pastures 40
6* - "No Business like Show Business" 49
7. "Two for the Money" 64
8. "The Real Follies Are Out Front" 73
9. "What We Laugjied At during the War" 87
LO. "The Peace Feast Follies" 95
11. The "Foffiest" of All: Prohibition 101
12. "The House that Jokes Built" 106
13. "A Return to Normalcy" 117
14. "Leave Em Lay as I Write Em" 127
15. "To Rescue the Country from the Politicians" 136
16. "Presidential FoUies of 1924" 145
17. "The Return to Wall Street" 153
18. "FoUies, Follies Everywhere" 160
xi
xii CONTENTS
19. "Meetin the Regular Bird" 170
20. "Coolidge s Colonel House" 180
21. His Honor, the Mayor 196
22. "Congressman-at-Large of Cuckooland" 203
23 . "Unofficial Ambassador to Mexico" 216
24. "Unofficial President of the United States" 225
25. "As Millions Cheered" 237
26. "The Crash Heard Round the World" 243
27. "There Ain t No Civilization Where There Ain t
No Satisfaction" 253
28. "Washington Would Sue Us for Calling Him Father" 260
29. Will Looks Over the Far East 274
30. "The Bankers Are the First to Go on the Dole" 284
31. "The Teanut Stand Gets a Cop and the Poor Man
a Friend" 292
32. The United States Moves into the Future 302
33. The Howls and Growls and Cheers 313
34. Around the World with the Rogerses 320
35. "To the Polls ... to the Polls" 328
36. Playing Himself in the Talkies 332
37. "I Got to See That Alaska" 342
38. "A Smile Has Disappeared from the Lips of America."
John McCormack 354
Index 363
Illustrations
(between pages 242 and 243)
A cadet at Kemper School, Boonville, Missouri, 1897
Betty Blake of Rogers, Arkansas, in 1900
Will "The Mexican Rope Artist" "down under" in Australia in 1903
Jimmie Rogers, Will, and Irvin Cobb
Young Jim Rogers
Will, Jr., riding "hell-for-leather"
Will in Laughing Bill Hyde
The Rogers family at breakfast
"Down goes the goat . . ."
"Better tie him good . . ."
Will in Dublin, 1926
"I am wasting no oratory on a mere prospect."
A "Daily Wire"
"All I know is what I read in the Newspaper . . ."
Betty Rogers
Will typing one of his Daily Wires
Will and Wiley Post and "the little red bus"
America s "Unofficial" First Family
The Rogers s ranch house at Santa Monica, California
xiii
1
"There s a Lot of Mule in Willie"
"ANCESTORS DON T MEAN A THING IN THE HUMAN TRIBE/
Will Rogers once commented. "They re as unreliable as a political
promise. A western range mare is liable to produce a Man o War,
You won t know what will happen. You just raise em and then start
guessing. They no more take after Father and Mother than a Con
gressman will take after a good example/
Nevertheless, Will was fantastically proud of his Indian blood and
it may well have been the dominating force in heredity s contribution
to his make-up. "My ancestors met yours when they landed," he told
a Mayflower group. "In fact, they would have showed better judg
ment if they had not let yours land."
Will was part Cherokee Indian from both his paternal and his
maternal side. The original home of the Cherokees was in the valley
of the Tennessee River, some 40,000 square miles, extending from
the headwaters of the Kanawha and Tennessee rivers southward to
the Appalachian foothills and westward to the Tennessee River, in
cluding portions of North Georgia, North and South Carolina and
Tennessee.
An intelligent, industrious and peaceful people who loved their
mountains and rivers and wanted nothing more than to make a
pleasant, prosperous world for themselves, they were, from the be
ginning, outrageously victimized by the whites. Against this avalanche
pouring in on them in constant pressure, they were understandably
divided on what to do. In the end they were totally destroyed as a
1
2 WILL ROGERS
nation. "The manner and method of their destruction wrote the last
and saddest chapter of Indian life east of the Mississippi. For they
were not destroyed by war; the white man simply removed them from
the land, as the English had moved the Acadians. There was no
Evangeline to immortalize their tragedy, but their story remains one
of the best known in American history, perhaps because it epitomizes
everything that happened to the red man in his long battle against
white supremacy." x
There was absolutely no justification for the removal of the
Cherokees beyond greed and avarice. They were not a savage, warlike
people who had inflicted a long series of brutalities on the white man.
Their only fault was that, in living in peace, they wanted to live in
their ancestral home, the country that they loved.
The majority of the Cherokees had allied themselves with the
British against the French and then with the United States in the War
of 1812. Most members of the tribe had adopted the white man s
ways of living. Gone were the wigwams. Instead, the majority lived
in houses, some of them sumptuous, and were farmers, ranchers, mill
ers, smiths and traders. They had their own school system, read books,
perused American and English newspapers, and had a newspaper of
their own. A Cherokee, Sequoyah, devised an alphabet for the tribe
that revolutionized their schooling.
, In 1826 the tribe held a convention and drafted a written consti
tution modeled after that of the United States, something no other
Indian tribe had ever done. It was adopted the following year by vote
and under it the tribe became an independent nation. This ran
counter to the claims of the state of Georgia, which maintained that
instead of owning their lands the Cherokees were merely tenants of
the state. In 1829 a removal bill was introduced in Congress. In
the meantime the state of Georgia, acting independently, had divided
up the land and deprived the Cherokees of practically all their civil
rights. The tribe took the case to the Supreme Court, which at first
ruled against it on the grounds of no jurisdiction as the Cherokees
were an independent nation. The following year, however, the Court
reversed itself.
1 John Tebbel and Keith Jennison, The American Indian Wars (New York:
Harper & Brothers, 1960), p. 222.
"There s a Lot of Mule in Willie" 3
"John Marshall has made his decision," President Jackson re
marked, "now let him enforce it."
President Jackson proceeded with the plan to move the Cherokees
to the west regardless of the Court s decision. This travesty is as dark
a blot on American history as exists. The bodily removal of over
15,000 Cherokees from their ancient home was accomplished by a
military force of 7,000 under the command of General Winfield Scott
beginning in May, 1838. Before this many Cherokees, sensing the in
evitable, had gone west voluntarily, among whom was Will Rogers s
great-grandfather, Robert Rogers, who settled with his family in the
Arkansas Territory and later, when the other Cherokees were forced
to move, joined them in the Going Snake District of the new Cherokee
Nation.
The grandfather of Will s mother, John Gunther, was a mixture of
Welsh and English. He settled in the Cherokee country where as a
powdermaker and trader he accumulated considerable property. One
holding, a salt flat, adjoined the territory of the Paint Clan of the
Cherokees. Its chief visited Gunther to barter for salt and brought
his fifteen-year-old daughter, Catherine, with him. One glimpse of
her and bachelor John offered the clan salt "while the grass grows
and the rivers run" in exchange for her in marriage. The chief ac
cepted his offer.
A shy, timid girl, Catherine was never at ease in her husband s big
log house. When children came, Gunther refused to let her care
for them, and when they reached school age sent them to boarding
schools. Catherine spoke no English and the children were not al
lowed to learn Cherokee, so she could not communicate with them.
As the years passed, she would disappear for weeks to live with her
own people. Then, drawn back by the desire to see her children, she
would slip into the big house for a short time, almost unnoticed by
her husband and children. One of these, Elizabeth, married Martin
Schrimsher, of whom little is known except that he had a trace of
either German or Dutch blood. Shortly after their marriage, they went
west over "the trail of tears."
It was springtime., the trees were greened out, and everything
seemed propitious for a great harvest. To these people who had lived
in these beloved surroundings for countless centuries, probably before
4 WILL ROGERS
Greece attacked Troy in the name of a fair woman but really over
trade routes, the threat of expulsion held over them was as unreal
as most of the white man s ways. This was a believing people who
had made peace with the stern forces of nature and with themselves.
The crops were planted and the young corn, with a good seasoning
in the ground, was knee-high when the soldiers, without warning, ap
peared on the scene, with wagons to haul the Indians and their pos
sessions to a stockade. Any belongings left behind were stolen or
burned by a frontier rabble that came on the heels of the soldiers.
Those herded in the stockade suffered from dysentery and fevers and
were the prey of white jackals attempting to fleece them out of their
last money.
Herded into Satboats on the Tennessee, they began the journey
into the fearful West, from which, according to their mythology, blew
the sere wind of death. They feared the dark country more than the
journey, but in this they were mistaken. It was the journey that became
the real horror. Out of the 15,000 who began the trek more than
4,000 perished. Eventually, they reached their new lands, most of
them impoverished, and members of their families left in shallow
graves along "the trail of tears." There was nothing to do except
start a new life under new promises that were to prove as untrust
worthy as had those of the past.
After the main body of the Cherokees arrived in their new home,
promised to be theirs by treaty as long as the grass grows and the rivers
run, an autonomous government was set up with the capital at
Tahlequah, schools were established, and the members of the tribe
got down to the business of their individual affairs. Martin and
Elizabeth Schrimsher settled on the Verdigris River and it was there
that a baby daughter, ironically named Mary America, was born on
an unknown date. In another part of the Nation, on January 11,
1839, there was bom to James Rogers (the son of Robert) and
Catherine Vann Rogers a baby boy. He was named Clement Vann.
Intermixed in them was Indian, Irish, English, and either German
or Dutch blood. Will s father was probably one quarter Cherokee
and his mother three eighths,
Clem s father died when he was young, and upon reaching school
age he was sent to a boy s seminary at Tahlequah. It was there that
"There s a Lot of Mule in Willie" 5
he met Mary America Schrimsher, now "a tall, slender girl with dark
hair and flashing black eyes." So pretty and witty was she that Clem
had eyes only for her. The most popular girl in school, she let him
know that she approved, but she was not going to make a final deci
sion until she had looked around a bit. A new land and new conditions
had changed things since John Gunther had bought a bed companion
with salt.
With the impetuosity of a sixteen-year-old boy, Clem stormed
home to prove himself. There he found intolerable conditions. While
he had been at school his mother had remarried, and in a few days
it became apparent to her that her husband and her high-spirited son
could not get along. With rare wisdom and confidence she gave Clem
two Negro slaves, 200 head of cattle, and a dozen ponies and sent
him forth to make it on his own. In doing so she passed on to him an
injunction from his father: "Tell Clem to always ride his own horse."
Clem began ranching near the present town of Oolagah, Oklahoma.
Under the Indian law, all the land was held in common by the
tribe, and thousands of acres beckoned to anyone with the enterprise
to make use of them. Clem not only had the enterprise but had in
valuable help in his two slaves, Rabb and Houston, who were reliable
and industrious. "There wasn t any man better to be owned by than
Mister Clem," Rabb commented many years later, "When he said
a thing he meant it, and you didn t trifle when he give you an order.
But he treated us good." As soon as the ranching operation was
organized, Clem turned it over to Rabb and Houston and opened a
trading post. By "hard work, perseverance and taking advantages of
his opportunities" (a formula Will was to take many a crack at later
as it was exploited particularly in the pages of the American Maga
zine) in a couple of years Clem had a flourishing business and an
expanding ranch. In the meantime he had seen to it Mary heard
about his progress and when he proposed marriage she accepted.
They set up housekeeping in a log cabin he had built near the trading
post. A year later a baby girl was born whom they named Elizabeth.
At almost the same time the Civil War began.
Most of the influential and wealthier Cherokees owned slaves, and
tremendous pressure was brought on the Nation to go with the Con
federacy. A prominent Cherokee, Stand Watie, recruited a mounted
6 WILL ROGERS
rifle regiment and twenty-one-year-old Clem became a first lieutenant.
Everything was in doubt and confusion. Fighting broke out among the
Cherokees and open warfare with nearby tribes. Clem s trading post
and ranch were in the midst of it, as well as adjacent to the Kansas
border where Union troops were stationed. Mary and Elizabeth were
first removed to Fort Gibson, where the baby sickened and died. As
the fighting became more bitter, Clem took Mary to Texas, where
other relatives had fled for safety, and at Bonham in 1863 another
baby girl, Sallie, was born.
By the. time of General Lee s surrender, on April 9, 1865, the
Cherokee country was, with the exception of Virginia, the most
ravaged section of the strife-torn land. Brigadier General Watie s
regiment had covered itself with glory and was the last to lay down its
arms. With his surrender, on June 3, 1865, the last pure Indian gov
ernment in the United States passed away. A new treaty had to be
negotiated with the United States, and the Cherokees, having picked
the losing side, had to be content with a territorial status and the loss
of much of their land to other tribes that had fought with the North.
The moment that Clem was mustered out as a captain, he hurried
to Texas for Mary and the baby to begin life anew. Back in the
territory destruction and desolation awaited them. Clem s cattle had
long ago vanished into hungry stomachs and his improvements at
the trading post and on the ranch were piles of weed-covered rubbish.
To get a small stake he worked as a common laborer at Fort Gibson,
but this definitely was not "riding his own horse." After a few months
he began freighting between St. Joe, Missouri, and Dallas, Texas.
Although he had built up a prosperous business, with the coming of
railroads he realized he could no longer compete. On his last trip
he carried a stock of goods into the Choctaw and Chickasaw Nations,
and traded for cattle which he drove to the Verdigris River bottoms
across from where he had first ranched. He brought Mary and the
baby there and began ranching in earnest. In the next decade he
fenced in thousands of acres of rich grassland, the first man in the
region to use barbed wire. In addition, he brought in herds of cattle,
fattened them on unfenced range, and shipped them over the railroad
to the Kansas City and St. Louis markets.
As Clem became enormously successful, the small log cabin gave
"There s a Lot of Mule in Willie" 7
way to a large, two-story house with open halls and porches upstairs
and down. Broad stone chimneys flanked both ends and there were
open fireplaces in four of the seven rooms. The walls were of heavy
walnut logs cut in the river bottom and the structure was weather-
boarded outside and plastered inside. In addition to his private activ
ities, Clem became judge for the district in 1877 and senator in 1879,
the year Will was born. Known far and wide as Uncle Clem, he was
one of the richest and most influential men in the territory. Everyone
was welcome at his house, although Kansas people were not looked
upon with affection. "As a young boy I didn t know a Republican
from a Democrat," Will said, "only in one way; if some man or bunch
of men rode up to the ranch to eat or stay all night, and my father
set me to watching em all the time they was there what they did
and what they carried off why, I learned in afteryears that they was
Republican; and the ones I didn t spy on why, they were Democrats.
For the Democrats were loyal that way they never took from each
other."
By the time Will began his verbal protests, November 4, 1879, his
mother had given birth to eight children. Sallie, Maude, Robert and
May were alive, the others having died at birth. Will was named
Colonel William Penn Adair in honor of a prominent and influential
Cherokee leader. At seven his name was entered on the Authenticated
Rolls of the Cherokee Nation as No. 2340.
"I am the only known child in History who claims to Nov. 4th as
my Birthday, that is election day," Will wrote. "That s why I have
always had it in for politicians." 2 His appearance on the scene was
not auspicious for a career in the Ztegfeld Follies, if a contemporary
witness may be believed. A bashful cowboy came to see him a few
days after he was born. He shuifled from one foot to the other.
"Barney, I know exactly what you are thinking." Mary said, a
smile crinkling the corners of her eyes.
"What do you mean, ma am?" Barney asked.
"You re thinking this is the ugliest baby you ever saw," she said.
"You know, Sam," Barney later told another cowboy, "Mrs. Rogers
sure is a mind reader."
2 Autobiography of Will Rogers (Boston: Houghton Mifflin Company, 1949),
pp. 1-5. There is Will s own account of his entry into the world here.
8 WILL ROGERS
Many years later Will and Barney met at Claremore and chuckled
over this.
"There was something else mighty peculiar about that first time
I saw you," Barney recalled.
"What was it, Barney?" WiU asked.
"You was speechless."
The "speech" may not have been there yet but the other elements
were both in inheritance and in environment. In the baby there was
a mixture of slightly more than a quarter Cherokee Indian, much
Irish, a sprinkling of English, Welsh, Scotch, and either Dutch or
German.
The country that Will opened his eyes to was "a fragment of earth
unlike any other in the whole world because it somehow gave realiza
tion to a spirit," in the words of Noel Kaho. It was not, as some
claim, because it "held the last flare of the Anglo-Saxon spirit, that
here was the last frontier." It was something else, something in
digenous, "too well blended with Osage and Delaware and Cherokee
to carry an alien tag." It was a way of life peculiarly Indian, "a spirit
of gaiety and laughter at work" that "somehow got distilled and
poured into the heart of a little boy." 3
Aristocrats of the American Indians, the Cherokees were a lively,
intelligent people, fond of jokes and extremely gregarious. Yet be
neath the lively exterior they had solid character. Over and over the
victims of white diplomacy, their chiefs made bad bargains, but the
Cherokees kept their part of the bargains. Sustained by their saving
grace of humor, they had over the years grown tolerantly cynical of
white civilization. Their religion which had such an appeal for Sam
Houston was poetic, dramatic and couched in much pageantry. For
untold centuries their gods had protected their ancient hunting grounds
and given them a good life in which time was marked not by clocks
and calendars but by the change of seasons, by birth, life and death.
It is not difficult to understand that the white man s religion would
be looked upon with suspicion since it preached one thing and
practiced another. Missionaries on the Arkansas unsuccessfully tried
to convince them that Christianity was a better safeguard against evil
3 Noel Kaho, The Will Rogers Country (Norman, Okla.: University of
Oklahoma Press, 1941).
"There s a Lot of Mule in Willie" 9
spirits than their own pagan religion. The hell-fire that went with
Christianity seemed infinitely worse than the minor discomforts of
witches and hobgoblins.
Regardless of whether their way was better or not, something
more powerful overwhelmed it and most of the beliefs and mores of
the Cherokees were pushed into the background. Nevertheless, they
were not, and never will be, completely eradicated. The mixtures of
blood in Will Rogers, particularly the Indian racial instincts and
memories, never ceased their tug of war. Nor did the call of this land
that gave him birth ever cease, although it could not contain com
pletely his restless spirit.
There were the times also. The Civil War seemed to have drawn
the United States into itself as a coiled spring which at the war s end
pushed the nation to the Pacific in one tremendous surge. This move
ment was checked for a while in the territory because it had been
assigned to the Indians. But only so long as there was other free land
to settle on. This somewhat held back the changes taking place in the
rest of the country but not for long. The first decade of Will s life,
the 1880 s, saw his father s ranch and farm operations expand to their
fullest and then gradually decline. They were to change sharply when
once again under pressure from the land-hungry whites the Indians
were to have their lands taken from them.
Most important for Will s development was the family life sur
rounding him in contrast to that outside. Within it the boy lived in
an atmosphere of warmth, love and security. Outside, quite a different
situation prevailed. Because of the difficulty of extradition, the Indian
Territory became a haven for criminals of all kinds, a situation not of
the Cherokees making or willing. Eventually the situation became so
desperate that the United States courts began handling murder cases
rather than leaving them to the Indian courts. "In the old days in the
Indian Territory," Will recalled, "there were so many United States
marshals and so many whiskey peddlers that they had to wear badges
to keep from selling each other." Many train and bank robbers hid
out in the territory. "Most of us boys knew these outlaws by sight,"
Will commented, "out that was about all we wanted to know about
them. We sho didn t ask too many questions. In the glorious old
State of Oklahoma a rope is not only an implement; it s tradition. Our
10 WELL ROGERS
history has been built on citizens dangling in the air by a rope and
some escaped the dangling that would have made better history if
they hadn t."
Men living in a violent land must tread more softly, but when they
act it must be with firmness and decision. Such a one Willie (as his
family called him) had in the person of his father, whom he greatly
admired and wanted to please, although he seldom could do so. But
it was his mother that he adored and her influence went with him the
rest of his life. She had suffered the death of three of her children in
infancy and when Willie was not quite four the older boy, Robert,
died of typhoid fever. Will s only memory of his brother was seeing
him astride a brown horse named Kaiser on his way to help the cow
boys with cattle work, and he envied him the horse even then. With
the knowledge that there would be no more sons, Mary hovered over
Willie with tender care and was happy to see him grow into a healthy,
sturdy youngster. The two became boon companions. Always Will
recalled her in her rocking chair, smiling at him and lifting her hand
to the gray-streaked, black hair, which she wore in a knot at the
back of her head. "Mama s name was Mary," Will wrote, "and if
your mother was an old-fashioned woman and named Mary you don t
need to say much for her, everybody knows already."
Proud of her home, Mary kept the big house neat and spotless.
Invariably, when she returned home from visiting neighbors she
brought seeds and cuttings, and people came from miles around to
see the yellow jonquils and white and lavender hyacinths planted
inside the white picket fence that enclosed the yard. On frosty nights,
Will would help her cover the tender young plants she had been
growing in tomato cans in the house for early spring transplanting.
Her voice was calm and soft in contrast to Clem s, which was loud and
blustery.
"Although I was quite young," said Miss Gazelle Lane, long the
librarian at Claremore, "I still remember Will s mother. She had a
buckboard and drove a white horse. She and Willie would go visiting
together. I have always thought this was where he got his interest in
going to see people. When anybody in our section saw a buckboard
and white horse coming, they knew they were in for a good time."
In line with many frontier women, Mary wanted her son to become
"There s a Lot of Mule in Willie 9 11
a preacher. Uncle Clem did not argue too openly about it, although
he growled that "there is damn little money in it." On the other hand,
he did not encourage such a course for his son by example. He gave
in to Mary on asking blessing at mealtime, but as if ashamed of
himself for his weakness, the next moment he might pour out a
string of cuss-words "as thick as a hoe handle." One of his favorite
tricks, especially when there was company present, was to take Willie s
nursing bottle away from him so that the boy would rip out some
cuss words he had taught him. "Stop that, Clem," Mary would say.
"Why, it makes me sick to hear it." On the question of working on
Sunday, which Mary deplored, Clem turned a deaf ear. Work was his
religion and Sunday was no exception. In another way, also, Willie
emulated his father. Even when Uncle Clem did not profane the
blessing by cuss words, he mumbled through it as fast as he could so
that he could get at his food. He had an enormous appetite, as did
Willie, who never lost his taste for the food he ate at home.
It was "beans cooked plenty soupy like, just old plain white navys,
cooked in plenty of ham or fat meat. Got to eat em with a spoon."
And then ham, fried ham, cured on the ranch, "smoked over an old
hickory log fire, then salted away for a long time. Then the cream
gravy. You know there is an awful lot of folks dont know much about
eating gravy. Why, not to be raised on gravy would be like never
going swimming in the creek." Ham gravy was the last word for
Will, although "good beefsteak gravy" was a close second. But it had
to be made after the beef had been cut thin and fried hard. "Do you
know all this eating raw, bloody, rare meat, like they order in those
big hotels, and City people like, that aint it," he commented. "That
old raw junk goes for the high Collars in Cities, they are kinder
cannibalistic anyhow." Along with the beans, ham, steak and gravy
went corn bread. "Not the corn bread like you mean," he hastened to
say. "I mean corn pone, made with nothing but meal, and hot water
and salt. Then for dessert? Dont have room for any dessert. Had any
more room would eat some more beans."
Willie s mother was in poor health after his birth, and much of his
daily care was left to a Negro woman, Aunt Babe Walker. She was
the soul of kindness, an extremely religious woman who read the Bible
when she had nothing else to do, or sang religious hymns. "Come
12 WILL ROGERS
here, Willie," she would call. "The good Lord say, suffer little
children to come unto me. " Years later Will admitted that this
frightened him because he did not want to suffer.
As Will grew older and spent more time outside, Aunt Babe s
husband, Uncle Dan Walker, took charge of the boy. It was he who
first interested Willie in roping and made him practice until every
throw was perfect. "Naw, naw, Willie," he would grumble, "that
ain t the way to do it. Hold yo rope thisaway." Perhaps to keep the
boy out of mischief, Uncle Dan had him practicing hours on end, most
of the roping being done on an old elm stump in the yard which Will
later said he wore to the ground. Gradually, as the boy improved,
Uncle Dan permitted him to rope at moving objects. "I could rope
turkies at four," Will said, "and I caught em, too."
Uncle Dan s son, Mack, and daughter, Charlotte, were Willie s
earliest playmates. "Charlotte could catch a goat with a lariat before
I could get my loop made," Will admitted. "After roping a nanny
goat, she would milk it while we looked on." Willie and Mack prac
ticed riding on the goats until their mounts learned they could be
dislodged by butting into a rail fence. After this Will would get down
on all fours and let Mack cinch a saddle on his back. Then Mack
would climb on the saddle and Willie would start bucking around the
yard while imitating the sounds of a horse s hoofs. "Sounds jes like
a stampede coming," Uncle Dan growled. After a few rounds Willie
would flatten down on the ground and with one huge lunge, his hands
held high in the air like the front feet of a horse, would buck off
his playmate.
"Now it s my time to be the hoss," Mack would say.
To this Willie shook his head stubbornly. Ordinarily, he took his
turn at anything without complaining, but neither now nor in the
future did he like to get bucked off a horse, although he took many
nasty spills playing polo. Actually, Willie liked roping better than any
thing, and it nearly resulted in his being seriously injured or killed.
Willie and his sister, Maude, were walking across a pasture when,
suddenly, they heard Uncle Clem yelling at them to run for their
lives. They glanced around to see him galloping toward them on
horseback and pointing to one side. Startled glances showed a great
bull tearing at them, its horns lowered. Maude began to run, holding
"There s a Lot of Mule in Willie 13
onto Willie s hand. He jerked loose, planted his feet firmly apart
on the ground, and measured out a loop on a small rope he had been
carrying.
"Run, Willie, run," Maude screamed from the safety of the fence.
As the bull was almost on Willie, Uncle Clem reached down from
his speeding horse and scooped him up to safety. Out of danger,
Uncle Clem stopped the horse, laid Willie across the horn of his
saddle and gave him a good spanking. The boy clamped his lips shut
and did not make a sound.
"Why didn t you run?" his father demanded.
"Didn t need to," he said while trying to keep the tears back. "I d
have caught him with my rope."
\ "Willie s awful brave," Maude bragged later.
Uncle Clem shook his head with the same stubborn look Willie
had in his eyes.
"Well, I guess there isn t much to do/ he confided to Mary.
"There s a lot of mule in Willie."
This stubbornness had in it a stoical acceptance that was Indian in
its origin and nature. Long past the normal time for weaning, Willie
refused to give up his nursing bottle. All pleas were met with clenched
teeth and a shake of his head. One day he and Maude were crossing
the Verdigris River in a boat during floodwaters. Willie had his bottle
in his hand. A log struck the boat and jarred the bottle out of his
hand. In stunned silence he watched the bottle float out of sight, and
he never asked for it again.
Another stubborn acceptance indicates a different characteristic.
When Willie was seven or eight the family went to visit relatives at
Christmastime. The boys were outside shooting off firecrackers. A
cousin, Spi Trent, noticed a package of firecrackers hanging out of
Willie s back pocket, and set them off. As they began to explode
Willie made a running dive into a snowbank. The seat of his pants
was burnt off and he was scorched so badly that he had to be doctored
with lard and put to bed. Months later he and Spi were riding together.
"Willie," Spi said, "did you suspect who set off those firecrackers?"
"I knowed, Spi."
"Why didn t you tell who done it?"
"Well, Spi," he said, "the seat of my pants was already burnt off
14 WILL ROGERS
and I didn t see no sense in havin the seat of yours whipped off."
Willie s beloved rope often proved a nuisance to others. When he
was six he roped a big turkey gobbler as it took flight, breaking its
neck.
"Ill never do it again," he promised, as hat in hand, his grin
flashing, he handed it to its owner, "but I ll stay until you eat it."
In addition, he paid for the bird out of his weekly allowance.
Tolerant in most things, Willie s constant roping of everything in
sight, particularly inside the house, annoyed his mother. One day
when a neighboring woman was visiting her, Willie kept roping various
objects in the room.
"If you don t quit that, Willie," she threatened, Til spank you."
Willie kept right on roping. Mary got to her feet and started
toward him. Instantly his loop flashed out and, as it settled over her
head, he drew it tight, pinning her arms to her sides. As she still
moved toward him, he backed away as he had seen good roping
horses do. Finally she stopped, shook her head, and burst out laugh
ing.
"If you ll promise not to spank me," Willie offered, shaking a
warning finger at her, "I ll turn you loose."
In addition to teaching Willie how to rope, from the time he could
toddle outside, Uncle Dan, with Clem s enthusiastic approval, was
accustoming him to the back of a horse. At first he would put the boy
on the back of a gentle old animal and lead it around the corral. As he
grew older he would ride up front on the saddle when cowboys were
working the cattle. Willie s curious eyes studied the way the men got
on their horses, turning the horse s head with the rein so it would not
start off before they were in the saddle, and how they swung up in
one quick, graceful movement, then handled the reins lightly so as
not to injure the horse s mouth. More than anything else in the world, *
Willie wanted a horse of his own, and his father had promised him
one as soon as he was old enough. When Willie was five, his father
told him he thought the time had come.
"When do I get him?" Willie asked.
"Tomorrow."
All of Willie s pleas to learn more about the horse met with a shake
of the head from Uncle Clem. Willie was up at daylight, prowling the
"There s a Lot of Mule in Willie" 15
bains and corrals, but there was no sign of a pony that might be for
him. At the usual time, Aunt Babe called him to breakfast. This morn
ing there were hot biscuits, big slices of hickory-cured ham with red
eye gravy, a huge platter of fried eggs, fresh-churned butter, and a
big goblet of milk for him.
Willie glanced around the table to see if anyone was watching him.
His father sat at the head of the table, a big, impressive-looking
man with heavy eyebrows and drooping mustache. As usual, he had
on a white shirt, collar, tie, coat and vest. An important man in the
territory, he dressed the part. Mary sat at the foot of the table and
although almost fifty, her face still showed traces of the pretty girl
she had been. Next to Uncle Clem sat Sister Sallie. She was a young
woman now, tall and pretty, and would blush if Tom McSpadden s
name was mentioned to her. Across from Sallie sat Maude and May.
Willie was between Sallie and his mother. It was a tight-knit family
in which there was a great deal of warmth, affection and love. As he
looked them over proudly, Uncle Clem thought that all of them made
too much fuss over Willie. Then he did exactly the same thing by giv
ing him everything he wanted.
"Papa . . ." Willie said hesitantly, when his father had finished the
blessing.
"Yes, son."
"Do you remember what day this is?"
"Wednesday, I think."
"Don t tease the boy, Clem," Mary said. "I think he is too young,
but you did promise him a pony."
"Pshaw!" Uncle Clem snorted. "Nothing grows a boy up into the
right kind of man like a good horse, and I am a man of my word.
Eat your breakfast, Willie."
As Willie gulped his food he kept one eye on his father. Suddenly
there was a cowboy whoop outside. Uncle Clem pushed his chair,
wiped his mouth on his napkin, dusted off his vest and stood up.
"Come on, Willie," he said.
The boy raced outside, followed by his father and the rest of the
family. There stood Uncle Dan holding the reins of a small sorrel
mare with an arched head. She had on a little saddle. Uncle Dan
handed the reins to Willie. He took them, held them tight, placed a
16 WILL ROGERS
foot in the stirrup and tried to swing up. As he did so, he slackened
the reins and the pony started forward.
"Watch out, Clem, he ll get hurt," Mary called out.
"Try again, Willie," said Uncle Clem, motioning Mary to be quiet.
This time Willie pulled the reins too tight and the pony circled on
him.
"Please, Clem . . ."
"Try again, Willie."
This time he made it. With a touch of the rein he turned the pony,
rode out the open gate and down a lane toward the river, waving to
them as he passed out of sight. A wonderful feeling of exhilaration
came over him. He had a horse under him and he was on his way.
Never was he to feel so much at home, so much a complete being,
as when on a horse. "There is something wrong with a man who
doesn t love a good horse," he always maintained, and he was never
to see a good one that he did not want to own. Actually, a horse could
not have lived with a better family than Uncle Clem s, and it was to
be the same when Willie had a family of his own.
His rope, his horse, his doting family, a lust for living, and certainly
one of the grandest playgrounds in all the world. Willie would have
been content for time to stop, but things have a way of changing and
the boy helped them to do so.
"If it wasn t for my pony and my rope," he said to his mother,
"I might grow up to be famous."
Mary raised an eyebrow and that night had a talk with her husband. .
By now Sallie had married Tom McSpadden and moved across the
river near a school. It was determined that Willie would live with
Sallie when school opened and begin his education.
Dry Grazing in Academic Pastures
WILLIE PUT ON A REAL BUCKING ACT WHEN TOLD THAT
he was to leave home to be corralled within the four walls of a school-
house. He finally agreed, since he was to live with Sister Sallie, but
only on condition that his pony, Dandy, go with him. As an addi
tional inducement, Uncle Clem bought him a special handmade saddle
like his own with W.P.R. tooled on the side of it.
Life with the McSpaddens was pleasant enough, but the one-room
log cabin schoolhouse with uncomfortable split-log, backless benches
was a nightmare. Most of the pupils were full-blood Indians. "I had
just enough white in me to make my honesty questionable," Will said.
Life inside the schoolroom was unbearable. Willie was always ready
to go to a spring for a bucket of water to pass around, and the teacher
was glad to get the fidgety boy outside under any pretext. Only at
recess and noon play periods did he really come alive. The boys raced
their ponies and played games. Willie was nicknamed "Rabbit" be
cause of his big ears and speed in running. "A person that gabbed as
much as I did had to be fast," he admitted.
As the redbud and dogwood bloomed in the spring and the grass
turned green, Willie barely managed to stick it out until school closed.
When he rode up to the house at home, with a whoop of joy, he had
improved his roping and riding, knew how to cure hiccoughs by swal
lowing oil of cloves, knew that if a fox barked he must bark back at
it, but the report card he carried indicated he had learned little else.
This made not the slightest dent in his high spirits. A year older
17
18 WILL ROGERS
and Dandy under him, he ranged farther afield, spending much of
his time with the six sons of Rabb Rogers, one of Clem s former
slaves. They rode and roped, picked berries and swam in Rabb s
creek. Although the other boys did, Willie would not fish or hunt.
There must be a lot of pleasure in it," he wrote later, "but I just
dont want to be shooting at any animal, and even a fish, I haven t
got the heart to pull the hook out of him." When a cousin of his came
in one day and proudly displayed a fawn he had shot, Willie took one
horrified look. "You oughtn t to have killed it," he said.
When another year at this school produced the same results, Uncle
Clem enrolled him the following fall in a girl s seminary at Muskogee
along with Maude and May. Willie was to room with the principal s
son, and it was hoped that the more serious atmosphere might awaken
his interest in learning. Furthermore, Dandy did not accompany him.
It was a grave miscalculation. The girls were at the "giggling" age,
and Willie liked nothing better than to get them started. It might be
by the slow, lazy way he got out of his seat, or the manner in which
he peeked out from under his forelock, like a shy little brown pony,
or when he would let one eyebrow climb to the top of his forehead.
He could mimic, also, and as he talked he would let his voice go from
a deep bass to a falsetto in one sentence. He was such a funny, homely
little boy, with mischievous gray eyes, a lock of brown hair that was
always hanging down into his face, that he had little trouble keeping
them giggling.
It was not a happy time, though. "I felt just like Old Custer did
when he was surrounded by Indians," he described the year there, "as
I was an island completely surrounded by petticoats."
The summer that followed was the unhappiest of his life. It began
by an attack of measles, with a relapse that kept him in bed for sev
eral weeks. Then Sallie lost her first baby. While he was still in bed
his mother came down with typhoid fever. Although relays of wagons
hauled ice from Coffeyville, 40 miles away, Mary s fever could not
be controlled and she died. When they buried her in the little family
cemetery, with its twisted cedars and crape myrtle bushes enclosed
by an old-fashioned iron fence, Willie was too sick to attend the
services.
"My folks have told me what little humor I have comes from her,"
Dry Grazing in Academic Pastures 19
he wrote. "I can t remember her humor but I can remember her love
and understanding of me." He was ten when she died.
The following fall Willie was sent to the seminary at Tahlequah
that his father had attended, but he did not last until Christmas. He
became extremely untidy in his dress, let off Indian war whoops in the
hall, and refused to obey orders. Earlier in the fall Uncle Clem had
bought 3,000 cows in Texas and on the drive to the ranch a number
of them had died, leaving motherless calves. There were about fifty
of these and he gave them to Willie to tend. The boy taught them to
drink milk out of a bucket and branded them with his own brand
shaped like the front end of a dog iron.
But life at home was not the same with his mother dead, Sallie
married, and the other girls off at school. Uncle Clem was gone from
home much of the time in connection with his various enterprises and
public duties. Willie was alone in the big house at these times except
for a woman, Mary Bible, who had been hired to help when his
mother was sick. When fall came Uncle Clem packed him off to
Willie Halsell College (actually what might be designated as a junior
high school today) about 20 miles from the ranch. The boy remained
here for four years in what were perhaps his happiest schooldays.
This was due partly to many of the neighboring boys and girls being
there, and also because home was less pleasant than ever as his father
had married Mary Bible.
Years later, long after the school had closed, Will attended a home
coming of its alumni. "We are celebrating the passing of Willie Halsell
Institute," he said. "Well, there were guys went there that would have
put Harvard and Yale out of business. I studied art at Willie Halsell.
I also took elocution. I stopped just in time or I would have been a
Senator."
In the summer of 1893 Willie accompanied Uncle Clem to Chicago
with a trainload of cattle, riding in the caboose. After the cattle were
sold, they took in the World s Fair. In the Streets of Cairo they ate
Turkish, Hungarian and Egyptian dishes, Oriental johnnycake, hot
zelabiah and Arab s loaf, which they broke in imitation of a Bedouin
in the desert. Willie rode a camel and a giant Ferris wheel, the first
one built. It carried 2,260 riders at one time and from its 300-foot
height the city and Lake Michigan spread out before his eager eyes.
20 WILL ROGERS
As it reached the top, he instinctively dug his spurs into the wooden
bench on which he sat.
The most exciting part of the trip was Buffalo Bill s Wild West
Show. It opened with the great showman making the Grand Entry
atop Old Duke, "the grandest parade horse on earth. Behind him
rode Uhlans, Arabs, Russian Cossacks, French Chasseurs, British
Hussars, Japanese and American Cavalry." As Buffalo Bill (Colonel
William F. Cody) swept off his big black hat and in a dramatic voice
boomed, "Permit me to introduce the Congress of Rough Riders of
the World," Willie took in a deep breath, closed his eyes, and sighed
as he let the air out.
A dizzy whirl of fast-moving acts followed: the pony express riders;
the Fifth Royal Irish Lancers riding at full gallop as they picked hats
off each other; an Indian act with 150 Sioux; a prairie watering hole
to which wild buffalo came close to where Buffalo Bill and an emigrant
train were camped with lighted fires over which supper was cooked
and eaten, followed by a Virginia reel on horseback.
All this faded into insignificance, however, when the Mexican
vaqueros began their roping routine. These colorful performers were
headlined by a man in "an embroidered jacket, buckskin trousers
ornamented with brass buttons, a red sash and a hat trimmed with
gold braid" by the name of Vincente Oropeza who was billed as "the
greatest roper in the world." And he proved so to Willie. He did
"fluent spins, leaped lightly in and out of his whirling loop and snared
a racing horse by its front feet, back feet, all four feet, the saddle
horn and, finally, by its tail." As a closing stunt, he wrote his name,
one letter at a time, in the air. This brought tears to Willie s eyes, and
as accurately as Oropeza spelled out his name he spelled out the
future course of the boy s life.
In the summer of 1895, sensing that the future of the territory was
no longer in agriculture, Uncle Clem helped organize a bank in Clare-
more, bought extensive property there, and moved there to live. As
farmers flocking in on the railroads had taken up the free grazing
land, his holdings had shrunk to a fifth of their former size. In the
same summer, carried away by admiration for the horse and buggy
of the traveling representative of Scarritt College, at Neosho, Missouri,
Willie had enrolled for the fall term.
Dry Grazing in Academic Pastures 21
The first day on the campus Willie met a woman with two daugh
ters who had attended Willie Halsell with him.
"Why, Willie Rogers," she exclaimed, "it looks like you re just
following my girls around."
"Yes m," he agreed, "where they go I go, an what they learn I
learn."
"I hope not," she replied.
Willie managed to stick it out at Scarritt for a year and almost until
Christmas of the second year. An old mare owned by one of the
teachers ambled out on the campus, followed by her colt. Willie was
standing toying with his rope with a group of boys.
"Rope her, Willie," one of them said.
Willie s lasso shot out and caught the mare around the neck. She
bolted, jerked the rope from his hand, and stampeded, with her colt
following, across the tennis court, tearing the net down, and then
disappeared down one of the streets of the town. Along with this
news, and a bill for five desks Willie had whittled up, came a report
that the boy was at the bottom of his class in grades. He was requested
not to return after Christmas. Uncle Clem decided on sterner meas
ures. A military school with its discipline might succeed where the
others had failed.
On January 13, 1897, Willie enrolled in Kemper School, Boonville,
Missouri, in what would roughly be the sophomore year of high school.
Eighteen years old at the time, on arrival he created a sensation with
his ten-gallon cowboy hat, flaming red flannel shirt, fancy vest, and
a red bandanna handkerchief knotted at the throat. His trousers were
stuffed into high-heeled red-top boots with jingling spurs. A number
of ropes of various sizes were coiled around his suitcase.
At first the showmanship of the school appealed to him. He enjoyed
parading in his uniform with its brass buttons and high, ornamented
collar. For a few weeks he kept his rifle immaculate, the brass on his
uniform shined, his bunk neat and orderly. But then he lapsed into
his old careless ways. In his studies he excelled in the "talking sub
jects" where he could "bull" his way through or where his phenom
enal memory served him well. "He glanced through a list of the
books of the Old Testament once," a classmate recalled, "and rattled
them off like an alarm clock." He excelled also in "elocution," where
22 WILL ROGERS
the teacher who usually emphasized the correctness of gesture and
pronunciation, realized that Willie was an exception to the rule. He
soon became known as the school wit. "Just think of it," a classmate
said later, "there s Will Rogers getting big money for saying the same
things over the radio he got demerits for saying in the mess hall at
Kemper."
The cadets were not permitted to attend the performances of travel
ing shows and vaudeville that sometimes came to the little Ozark
town. Willie seldom missed one. He would borrow an old suit from
the janitor, pad his front with a pillow, black his face and hands,
put on false hair, and in this disguise slip by the guard. In the local
opera house he would go to the gallery for Negroes. He was not
reported by his classmates perhaps for selfish reasons. He would repeat
the performances, acting them out and giving the routines word for
word as he had heard them.
It was at Kemper that Willie first flaunted his pride in his Cherokee
blood. Many of the cadets came from other sections of the country
and some of them openly made fun of anyone with Indian blood. In
one class an instructor referred to an Indian as a thoroughbred.
"A horse is a thoroughbred," Willie protested, jumping to his feet.
"An Indian chief is a full blood."
At another time he was standing in the local bank gazing at a print
of the painting, "Custer s Last Stand."
"You know, I like that picture," he said.
"Why?" another cadet asked.
"It s the only time my people got the best of it."
Before returning to the ranch for his first vacation Willie wrote
that he was going to teach the cowboys the cadet manual of arms.
To prepare for the instruction he sent along a chart so that the grounds
could be properly marked off. A score of cowboys and neighboring
boys gathered for the exhibition.
"Here he comes a-struttin ," his cousin, Spi Trent, described it.
"There was no regulation rifle on the ranch and he was usin a short,
sawed-off saddle gun. He had on his blue uniform decorated with
brass buttons . . . every one fastened. On his head was a cute little
military cap. We had a peacock on the ranch, but on this day that
dressy bird sure dragged his tail feathers when he got a look at Willie,
Dry Grazing in Academic Pastures 23
all buttoned up an rarin* to go. He came a-stoinpin stiff-legged up to
the marked-off place, giving orders in a high-toned voice way down
in his throat like he was a general. Ten-sHUN!ARMS Right! He came
to a halt right in front of where the boys were standing. Order ARMS!"
Then he let the butt of his rifle drop to the ground. The jar caused the
gun to go ofi and the bullet grazed his forehead and knocked his cap
off. Although blood was running down his face, Willie went on with
the show. He put his hand to his heart, rolled his eyes, and staged a
pretty good death scene.
"Maybe we better bury him out on the Lone Prairee," one of the
cowboys drawled.
This brought Willie out of his act laughing.
In the fall of 1898 Willie saw Vincente Oropeza perform his roping
act again, this time at Springfield, Missouri. By observing closely he
managed to memorize most of the tricks. After this, as one cadet put
it, "his rope was in motion at Kemper more than his tongue." If
he could not persuade a new cadet to stoop over, run down the hall
"and beller like a calf," he would pay an old one to do it for him.
As the boy ran, Willie would lasso his right or left foot, both feet,
either arm, or pin his arms to his sides. For hours he would hold the
cadets in a trance as he put on a one-man act with his lasso, twirling
it vertically and horizontally, stepping in and out, then making it do
all sorts of curlicues. If he was not doing this, he was putting on ama
teur theatricals from what he had seen at the local performances or
from his own improvisations.
More and more reports and stories about Willie s doings at Kemper
filtered back to Uncle Clem at Claremore.
"I m awfully worried about Willie," he told one of his partners at
the bank. "It looks like he isn t interested in anything except showing
off. I m afraid he wants to go into the show business."
"Well, Clem," his practical-minded friend said, "there ain t no use
to worry. All you can do to stop it is knock him in the head."
"Yeah," Uncle Clem agreed, "I reckon you re right."
Shortly after this SaUie and Maude, who was married now, received
identical letters from Willie asking each to loan him ten dollars.
"I could not understand why Willie needed extra money as papa
gave him a generous allowance," Sallie recalled. "I got in my buggy
24 WILL ROGERS
and drove to Maude s. Both of our husbands advised us not to send
it. So did the postmaster. Willie gets too much already, he said. But
we sent it. Next thing we knew Willie had left Kemper and was in
Higgins, Texas. A friend of his at Kemper had told him about a ranch
there and he had gone to it looking for a job as a cowboy."
Will always said that he and Colonel Johnston, the commandant
at Kemper, could not agree on how the school should be run, and
being "an accommodating boy" he got out.
Anyhow, his "academic grazing" was at an end.
3
Greener Grass Beckoned
LATE IN THE WINTER OF 1898 WILL LANDED IN HIGGINS,
Texas, and learned that the ranch his friend had told him about was
eight miles across the state line in Oklahoma. He made his way there
afoot and found no one at home except a cook and two or three "old
broke-down cowboys." This provided him with food and someone to
talk with until the owner, W. P. Ewing and his son, Frank, came home
from buying cattle. Mr. Ewing, who knew Uncle Clem, wrote that
Willie was there and asked what to do with him. Uncle Clem wrote
back and told him to get any work out of him he could, which was
more than he could do, and if he did not earn his board he would pay
the difference. There seems to be a question as to whether he did so.
Congressman Percy Gassoway from Oklahoma, a cowboy on the
ranch at the time, gave one version. After being away for a couple of
weeks he came in one day and saw a tall, gangling youth sitting on
the corral fence cracking jokes.
"Why is he around?" he asked Ewing.
"In the first place," Ewing said, grinning, "he s so funny I can t
let him go, and in the second place, I m just wondering if he can do
anything. I can t fire him until I find out"
In spite of this confirmation that Will was not "workbrittle," he did
a man s work in helping to drive 600 cattle from the ranch to Medi
cine Lodge, Kansas. At the end of his first month, Ewing made out
a check for $30, top wages at the time.
25
26 WILL ROGERS
"I can t take it, Mr. Ewing," Willie said, handing it back. "The
fun I m having is pay enough."
"He was a whiz with a rope and he didn t care what was on the
end of it," Ewing said later. "He was all right at bustin broncs, but
he didn t like it. The other men would play cards and gamble but he
wouldn t."
After four months, Will decided to move on for more adventurous
activities. Ewing singled out a stout little Spanish pony.
"Ride it into Amarillo and sell it," he said.
"I just want something that will get me there," Will replied, point
ing to a broken-down old nag. "I ll take Grey Eagle."
"You ll rename him Creeping Turtle before you get there," Ewing
warned. "If you make it, turn him out on the range."
The next day, Will waved good-by to the Ewing family (destined
to be his close friends for life), and prodded Grey Eagle into Higgins,
where he spent the night. There an event took place that furnished him
material for a weekly column in 1932. A cowboy who had driven in
from a nearby ranch with four mules hitched to a wagon to get
supplies went on a roaring drunk. After his drinking companions were
under the table, in the wee hours of morning, he hitched the mules
to a plow he had brought in to have repaired. Then he went to work
plowing up the wide, unpaved black-loam main street, and several
side ones. The startled inhabitants of Higgins woke up the next morn
ing to find their houses and places of business surrounded by plowed
land. The cowboy was rounded up and haled before an angry local
magistrate.
"Shore I did it," he confessed. "She wasn t much good to anybody
like she was, an I thought I d plow her up and sow her in grass."
In some roundabout way, Will maintained in 1932, President
Hoover had heard about this remarkable happening and extracted
from it the idea that "the grass would grow in the streets of America"
if the Democrats won the Presidency.
After Will had had a good laugh over the incident he climbed
aboard Grey Eagle, who picked his way out of the plowed ground
to the open range. It was a good 150 miles to Amarillo, and it took
him almost a week to make it. He passed only three ranch houses on
the way, and at each the cook permitted him to cook up biscuits and
Greener Grass Beckoned 27
dried beef to eat on the way. "One night I staked the old skate out,"
he wrote about the trip, "and hit the old sougans, as I was dead tired.
During the night a thunder storm come up. I d never seen such light
ning and heard such noise in my life. A big bunch of range horses got
frightened and run smack into that rope I d staked my old horse out
with. When another flash of lightning come, I couldent see him
and thought he d been killed. I was wet as a drowned rat and hit out
back for a line camp I d passed and hadn t gone in. I knocked and
yelled, Hello! Hello! and nobody answered. I went in and as my
matches was wet fumbled around in the dark till I found a table
and went to sleep on it. When I woke the sun was shining bright and
there just six feet away was a good, warm bunk with blankets and
everything. There was coffee and a side of bacon and I made a fire
in the stove and cooked up a bait."
After Will had "the wrinkles out of his belly" he set out on foot
and at the top of a little hill saw Grey Eagle grazing, as good as ever.
One of the first things Will saw after getting to Amarillo was the
recruiting office for Colonel Theodore Roosevelf s Rough Riders.
This appealed to him as the adventure he wanted. He opened the
door with a shaking hand, and faced a grizzled old recruiting sergeant
"I m Willie Rogers from Oklahoma Territory and . . ."
"Son . . ." The sergeant looked him over with a crooked grin and
spat a stream of amber in the general direction of a cuspidor. "Son,
what we want is men, not boys. We ain t aimin to ask mamas and
papas for consent."
Willie spun on his heel and slunk out. There were to be other set
backs. He could not eat like old Grey Eagle out on the range. He
must find work as a cowboy.
Dozens of trail herds dotted the prairies wailing for railroad cars
to haul them north and east. Willie hit up every trail boss he could
find, but most of them were laying off men. After a week in which
his belly protested louder and louder, he heard of a trail boss who
needed a hand. Another cowboy was already talking to him when
Willie arrived. "Right there I seen a feller talk himself out of a job,"
he wrote, "telling the boss what a good hand he was. The old cowman
listened to him till he had had his say, then he told him, I m in need
of a hand all right, but I think you d suit me too well. " After the
28 WILL ROGERS
other man had gone, Willie asked for the job, giving Mr. Ewing as a
reference.
"I think you ll do," the man said, giving him an appraising glance.
"Them was the happiest words I ever heard," Will commented.
"I got to the chuckwagon just in time for dinner. The boys setting
around grinned as I stowed away helping after helping of beans."
Willie wrangled horses for several days until the cattle his employer
had brought to Amarillo could be shipped, and then the outfit moved
to Panhandle City, crossing the Canadian River at the old LX Ranch
where Frederic Remington had painted some of his most famous
pictures. From there they moved to the boss s ranch near Woodward,
Oklahoma, where Willie worked through a roundup and helped brand
the calves. He was becoming a seasoned cowboy but, like everything
else, the monotony of ranch life soon caught up with him.
An opportunity came to go with a trainload of cattle to California,
and after the steers had been delivered Willie and another cowboy
went on to San Francisco, where the end of the trail almost came
for them. Willie turned in early at their hotel and was asleep when
his companion returned. He must have blown out the light, which Willie
had left lit, without turning off the gas. "They dug us out of there the
next morning and hauled us to a hospital," Will wrote, "and believe
me I didn t know a fighting thing until late that night and that was
just bull luck. The main doctors gave me up, but a lot of young
internes, just by practicing on me, happened to light on some nut
remedy that no regular doctor would ever think of and I come
alive. Well, I landed back home pretty badly buggered up. This stuff
was located in my system. I went to Hot Springs to boil it out and
when I would get in a hot room they would all think the gas was
escaping some place."
It may have been fright at the close escape Willie had had or it
may have been a wild hope that the boy was ready to settle down.
Anyhow, Uncle Clem took a gamble. "You re the only child I have
at home now, since May married, and if you re bound to punch cows,
there s no need for you to leave," he told Willie. "I m going to give you
this Dog Iron Ranch, lock, stock and barrel. It s yours and you can
run it the way you want to. There is a farmer and his wife there now
and you can keep them if you want to."
Greener Grass Beckoned 29
It was exhilarating to have the ranch and to be his own boss. But
Willie soon found that there were drawbacks too. Running a ranch
carried with it responsibility and worries that a hell-for-leather cow
boy did not have. Nor was it pleasant to have strangers in the old
ranch house, particularly when the farmer s wife was from Illinois
and knew nothing about the kind of food he liked to eat. But Willie
was not the kind to mope over details and soon he was busier manu
facturing ways to amuse himself than in working at ranching. He
built a platform where open-air dances were held. He raced horses
when he could arrange a match. Once when he was soundly beaten
he traded his horse and $10 for a little yellow pony named Comanche
that had beaten him. It was one profitable venture and this pony was
to be the best horse he ever owned.
Willie sang tenor in a quartet that serenaded the Indian girls on
moonlit nights. "I have what is called a fresh voice," he later described
it. "It s got volume without control. It s got resonance without reason.
It s got tone without tune. I got a voice that s got everything but a
satisfied listener."
With Comanche under him, Willie went to every dance for miles
around. In August, 1899, he attended a "tacky" party in Claremore.
"An important feature of the evening," the Claremore Progress for
the 19th reported, "was the cake-walk. The prize, a generous-sized
ginger cake, was awarded to Vic Foreman and Willie Rogers." Will
later claimed that he was the first in the territory to do the Cakewalk,
as well as to own a rubber-tired buggy. When he stepped out in style
in this, a high-prancing horse named Robin was between the shafts.
Willie was so proud of the buggy that he suspended it by ropes from
the beams under a shed to keep the rubber tires from wearing out.
To help break the monotony, as well as to keep from eating the
food prepared by the farmer s wife, Willie persuaded Spi Trent to join
him in building a log cabin. It was great fun for a while, but the
problems of getting provisions, of cooking three meals a day, and of
countless other irritating chores soon palled on them. After sticking
it out for several months, it was a relief to both of them when Co-
manche, tied to a corner of the cabin, reared back in fright and the
structure came down in a heap of logs.
While they lived there, a nearby fanner killed one of Willie s steers
30 WILL ROGERS
that had wandered onto his place, broken down a flimsy fence and
eaten his young corn. According to range custom, he should have told
Willie about it. Flaming with a mighty wrath, when he heard of it,
the young rancher and his "hired man on horseback" rode forth to
punish the farmer. On the way a cold rain blew up and soaked them
to the skin. When they arrived at the farmer s cabin, he was not at
home and his wife invited them to come in and get dry by the fireplace.
She was thin and emaciated and five scrawny children of various ages
huddled as near to the fire as possible. Later the farmer came in. He
was a giant of a man with a deep, booming voice and a long red beard.
His wife told him they had come out of the storm and as it was still
raining he invited them to supper. "You ll have to eat beans," he
apologized "as the storm has kept me from finishing butchering my
steer."
It was still raining when supper was over, and the farmer insisted
that they spend the night there. The next morning his wife sent them
on their way with a hot breakfast in their stomachs. As they rode
back to the ranch Spi gave Willie a wicked look.
"I thought you was going to tear that nester apart for killing your
steer," he reminded.
"When I saw how little those poor folks had," Willie said, slow
and quiet-like, "I wished they had killed two steers. Spi, I didn t lose
that steer. I traded it for a little human happiness. There are millions
of steers in the world, but human happiness is kinder scarce."
On July 4, 1899, Willie entered a steer-roping contest at Claremore
and won first money. "It was the first one I ever was in," he wrote,
"the very first thing I ever did in the way of appearing before an
audience in my life. Well, as I look back on it that had quite an
influence on my little career, for I kinder got to running to em, and
the first thing I knew I was just plum Honery and fit for nothing
but show business. Once you are a showman you are plum ruined
for manual labor again."
After winning this contest Willie heard that there was to be a big
roping and riding shindig at St. Louis, put on by Colonel Zach
Mulhall as a part of the fair for 1899. He sent in his name and "the
next thing I knew I was getting transportation for myself and my
pony." This time Willie did not win. "I made the mistake of catching
Greener Grass Beckoned 31
my steer," he explained, "and he immediately jerked me and my
pony down for our trouble."
In addition to the contestants, Colonel Mulhall took along a cowboy
band of sixty pieces, all resplendent in ten-gallon hats, jackets, chaps,
boots and spurs.
Later in the fall Willie planned to enter a roping contest at Okla
homa City. He and Spi were practicing on a steer that had strayed
onto their range from a neighboring ranch, and in doing so killed it.
They did not want this to become known, as it might embarrass Willie
at Oklahoma City, and in an attempt to conceal the dead animal
dragged it into a ravine and covered the carcass with brush and
dirt. Of course in a couple of days the buzzards flying overhead gave
them away. Nevertheless, they decided to bluff it out. For a couple
of days, when they rode into Oolagah for their mail, nothing hap
pened. Then one day they saw the rancher who owned the steer talk
ing to some men and all of them were laughing. There was nothing
to do but join them.
"Howdy," Willie said, as they did so.
"Hear you boys are figgering on winning the big money in Okla
homa City," the rancher said.
"Yeah," Will said, a sickly grin on his face.
The rancher kept talking about the contest, patting Willie on the
back and offering encouragement, as the men about were obviously
trying to stifle their laughter. Willie got more and more nervous.
Finally, he caught the rancher by the arm, took him to one side, and
confessed what had happened.
"The joke s on you and Spi," the rancher said. "I knowed who
killed the steer all the time. All them fellers I was talking to knowed
it and they was chuckling while I was ribbing you."
"What s the steer worth?" Willie asked.
"Nothing," the rancher said. "I ve had my money s worth in fun."
Willie turned on his heel, went to a store and cashed a check for
$50, ten more than the steer was worth. With the extra money he
bought two boxes of cigars: one he gave to the rancher along with the
$40 to pay for the steer; the other he opened and passed the cigars
around to the crowd.
"I feel $500 better," Willie said. "Ill practice on my steers after
32 WILL ROGERS
this. I wouldn t have that on my conscience for anything. It felt like a
whole herd of steers was stampeding around in my head."
The nineteenth century went into the ashcan of history as Willie
reached his majority. As the first decade of his life had been one
of expansion and growth for the country and for his father, the second
decade, the 1890 s, had been a watershed in which the country, as
had Uncle Clem, changed from rural emphasis to urban, from agri
cultural and ranching to business and industry. Actually, the most
important change was what had happened to the cowboy as a part
of American life. During a period of roughly a quarter of a century,
during which he was greatly shaped by the tradition, the cowboy had
come into existence, reached the apex of his usefulness, and was
already on the decline. Amazingly enough, though, he was to leave
a profound influence. In the future he, like the knights of feudalism
in their romanticized form, was to go through a similar process so
that the original (which Will had been) was to bear as little resem
blance to the synthetic process (which Will was to make use of) as
the boots worn on the range bear to those worn by Texas oilmen. In
the best sense of the word, Will was to become a link between the
old and the new. Summed up as he went into manhood (without los
ing his "boyishness"), he was friendly but did not run with the pack;
lie was brimful of energy and enthusiasm but not "work-brittle"
merely for the sake of working; he was talkative but not confiding;
lie was curious and at the same time careless in nonessentials; he
was "a wanting man" but not ambitious as his father was; he was
shrewd and intelligent but not as a businessman or a scholar; and,
above all, he had "to ride his own horse," no matter where the journey
took him. Will definitely needed direction and it could come in only
one guise if he was to reach the heights: it must come in "gingham."
A strange loneliness had possessed him since the death of his
mother. His sisters were married and had problems of their own; his
father s remarriage, plus an obvious disappointment in his son s ac
complishments, placed a barrier between them; his fiddle-footing it
to dances and scurrying from one roping contest to another satisfied
only surface needs. He needed something peculiarly his own and so
far no one meeting the need had appeared. The first girl he had pro-
Greener Grass Beckoned 33
posed to, as a teen-ager, had screamed: "I wouldn t marry you, Willie
Rogers, if you was the last man on earth." The father of a girl at
Neosha had set his dog on him and Willie had lost the seat of his
trousers as he raced downhill. The daughter of the local hotelkeeper
at Oolagah, Kate Ellis, was a good friend, but he knew that her
parents disapproved of his irresponsible, helter-skelter ways, and
certainly did not look upon him with enthusiasm as a potential son-
in-law.
The answer to his needs came in the form of "the visiting girl."
4
"The Visiting Girl"
NOTHING IS FEARED MORE BY THE GIRLS IN A SMALL TOWN
than "the visiting girl," particularly if she is pretty and vivacious.
In the fall of 1900 when Betty Blake, convalescing from typhoid
fever, came from her home in Rogers, Arkansas, to visit her sister
whose husband was station agent for the Missouri Pacific Railroad
at Oolagah, no one thought much of importance would occur. She
had been warned. "I am afraid you won t like Oolagah," her sister
wrote. "The only young people in town are the two daughters of the
hotelkeeper, and one boy, Willie Rogers, who lives a few miles out
on a ranch."
In truth the treeless, drab little village had been a disappointment
to the high-spirited girl from the beautiful little Ozark town with its
great oaks and breath-taking scenery. Aside from the railroad station
and its stockpens, there were the two-story frame hotel, a livery
stable, a church that doubled as a schoolhouse, and a few crude busi
ness buildings with rickety board sidewalks in front of them. The
residential houses were small, most of them unpainted, and all crudely
constructed. Main Street was a welter of dust in the summer, or a
sea of black, sticky mud when it rained, and in the winter frozen into
rough ruts.
Betty s sister and brother-in-law had quarters adjoining the station,
and when she had nothing else to do, she sat on the telegraph table
at the bay window facing the tracks. On a cold evening, as the eight-
o clock train from Kansas City puffed in, a lithe figure swung to the
34
"The Visiting Girl" 35
platform before the train stopped, grip in his hand. He strode briskly
into the waiting room and she hopped down from the table to go to
the window to ask what he wanted. One glance at her and he spun
on his heels and left the room. A few moments later her brother-in-
law came in with a banjo addressed to Will Rogers and asked where
he had gone. She shook her head in amazement.
Early the next morning she heard the sound of horse s hoofs on
the frozen ground outside, jumped from her bed and ran to the win
dow to see who it was. It was Will Rogers riding out of town on
Comanche, his overcoat collar turned up against the cold wind, the
reins in one hand, a grip in the other, and a derby perched on top
of his head. She watched him ride out of sight where the road snaked
its way across the prairie. As he did so, she wondered how he would
get his banjo and regretted that she had not spoken to him.
During the day Kate and Lil Ellis, the daughters of the hotelkeeper,
excitedly told her that Will had brought back a bundle of popular
songs from Kansas City. "He s coming back tonight and is going to
sing them for us," Kate said. "Mother said for you to come for supper
and stay afterwards, so you can hear them."
Will ate in embarrassed silence but, afterward, sitting in a low rock
ing chair before the fireplace in the living room, he lost all trace
of shyness as he went through the repertory of songs imitating the
way he had heard them on the stage in Kansas City. The one that
impressed Betty most was "Hello, My Baby, Hello, My Honey, Hello,
My Ragtime Gal." Later, they popped corn over the kitchen stove
and pulled candy.
On leaving Will gave Betty the songs and asked her to learn to
play them on her sister s piano. He promised to come back to hear
them in a couple of days. "I am afraid I showed off a little that second
evening," Betty confessed, "for I could see he was impressed by my
musical accomplishments. I played the piano, then paraded my tal
ents by stringing and tuning the banjo. Will made a few attempts at
playing, but finally gave up and handed the banjo to me. He sang
while I played, and I am quite sure that I outdid myself in fancy
pi in king and plunking."
Before returning home Betty s brother-in-law drove her and her
sister out to the ranch. Will was away at the time and she was dis-
36 WILL ROGERS
appointed in what she saw. The house was cold, ill-kept, almost bare
of furniture. Everything seemed neglected and run down. She did not
see Will again, but shortly after New Year s she received a letter
from him. Here is part of it:
Miss Betty Blake
Rogers Arkansas
My Dear Friend:
No doubt you will be madly surprised on receipt of this Epistle.
But nevertheless I could not resist the temptation and hope if you
cannot do me the great favor of dropping me a few lines you will at
least excuse me for this for I cant help it.
Well I know you are having a great time after being out among
the "Wild Tribe" so long. Well I have had a great time this Xmas
myself. Have not been at home three nights in a month. Taken in
every Ball in the Territory and everything else I hear of. I was in
Fort Gibson again last week to a Masque Ball, and really had a time.
Say you people never did come out home as you said you would
and see us "Wooly Cowboys" rope wild Steers. I have some pictures
of it and if you want them I will send them to you if you will send me
some of those Kodak Pictures you had up here of yourself and all
those girls. Now isn t that "a mammoth inducement for you" to have
your picture in a lovely "Indian Wigwam."
If you will come back up here we will endeavor to do all that we
can to make you have a time Dances, Skating, Sleigh Riding, Horse
Back Riding (of which you are an expert), and in fact every kind
of amusement on the face of God s Footpiece.
Well I guess you have an ample sufficiency of my nonsense so I
will stop. Hoping you will take pity on this poor heartbroken Cow
pealer and having him rejoicing over these bald prairies on receipt of
a few words from you. I remain your true friend and
Injun Cowboy
W.P.Rogers
Somewhat surprised and taken aback by the tone of this letter,
Betty waited several weeks before answering. Almost immediately
Will fired back what she called her first "love letter" from him. It
"The Visiting Girl" 37
left no doubt of his feelings or intentions, even though he could not
keep from dressing it up with showmanship:
Hillside Navy
Headquarters, Dogiron Ranch
Oolagah, Indian Territory
March 14, 1900
My Dear Betty:
Now for me to attempt to express my delight for your sweet letter
would be utterly impossible so will just put it mild and say I was
very very much pleased. I was also surprised for I thought you had
forgotten your Cowboy (for I am yours as far as I am concerned).
I know you had a fine time when your Sweetheart was down to
see you. Oh! how I envy him for I would give all I possess if I only
knew that you cared something for me, for Betty you may not believe
it or care anything about it but you do not know that you have made
life miserable for one poor boy out in I.T. But you did for I think of you.
all the time and just wish that you might always have a remembrance
of me for I know that I cant expect to be your sweetheart for I am
not "smoothe" like the boys you have for sweethearts. But I know
you have no one that will think any more of you than I do although
I know they may profess to. Now Betty I know you will think me a
Big Fool (which I am) but please consider that you are the one that
has done it. But I know you dident mean to and I ought not to have
got so broken up over you. But I could not help it so if you do not
see fit to answer this please do not say a word about it to any one
for the sake of a broken hearted Cherokee Cowboy.
Now Betty if you should stoop so low as to answer this please tell
me the plain truth for that is what you should do and not flirt with me
for I would not be smoothe enough to detect it.
I have some new Songs to send you also those pictures I promised.
I was very glad to get your pictures and thank you very much for
them. I have had lots of compliments on them, especially yours. I am
going to Fort Smith some time soon and if you will permit I can
probably come up but I know it would be a slam on your Society
career to have it known that you even knew an ignorant Indian Cow
boy. I still have lots of pretty ponies here if you will come out I will
let you pick the herd.
38 WILL ROGERS
Well Bettie please burn this for my sake. Hoping you will consider
what I have told you in my undignified way and if not to please never
say anything about it and burn this up.
I am yours with love
Will Rogers
The flaming pride hidden behind a false modesty, the impetuosity,,
the great craving for love and affection in this letter appealed to but
also frightened Betty. She was quite right in having serious second
thoughts. She did not bum the letter but she did not answer it either.
The next time Will and Betty saw each other was at a rodeo in
Springfield, Missouri, later in the spring where he performed as a
part of Colonel MulhalTs troupe. Will rode Comanche all over the
arena, whooping and shouting in his exuberance that she was in the
stands, not realizing that he was "loading the guns" of those who
would both warn and tease her. Once again Betty was "the visiting
girl" and Will definitely was not the only boy in town.
Despairing of Betty and needing excitement to keep up his flagging
spirits, Will joined Colonel MulhalTs show as a regular trouper. It
toured the Middle West, showing at state fairs, then headed south.
The band was one of the big attractions. "Most of the members could
not ride in a wagon unless their shirttails were nailed to the floor,"
Will said. "So Colonel Mulhall added a number of cowboys. He did
this for a purpose. I held a slide trombone on which I could not
play a note. The Colonel advertised that he could pick out boys in
the band that could ride any old outlaw horse produced or could rope
and tie a steer in less time than any challengers." This, of course, was
the old come-on game.
At one place, San Antonio, Texas, the cowboys met some real op
position but came through. "It wasn t like it is now," Will said in
1934, "runty little calves you roped steers. Them big boogers was
given a hundred foot start and when the flag dropped, your rope
was tied to your saddle. All you had to do was to take down that rope,
build a loop, rope the steer, throw him and tie his legs. When you
finished, you held up your hands. In ten minutes, the judge would
look at that steer and if he was still tied properly, you got your time.
"The Visiting Girl" 39
The judge was old John Blocker, who knew more about a calf than
its mother did."
The spectators at San Antonio liked the performance so well that
a big barbecue was given in their honor. Will was called on to make
a speech, much to his surprise and bewilderment. He scrambled to
his feet, blinked a few times and scratched his head.
"Well, folks," he began, "this is mighty fine grub, what there is
of it:
This produced a roar of laughter.
"Well, there is plenty of it," he started over when the laughter had
subsided, "such as it is/
He got no further nor needed to. His first after-dinner speech had
been a success.
In the fall Will saw Betty again at a street fair in Fort Smith,
Arkansas. She was with friends and they exchanged a few words. He
knew as he left her that she would be teased by her companions. A
mammoth ball on the night of the last day closed the fair. Betty kept
looking for Will during the evening, hoping to dance with him. But
he did not come inside. As she danced past a window, she saw him
standing alone outside watching the dancing. Two years passed before
she was to see him again, and by then he had fiddle-footed his way
around the world during which he did not write or communicate
with her in any way. His pride would not permit it.
Grazing in Foreign Pastures
MANY TIMES IN LATER YEARS WILL ADMITTED THAT TWO
pictures seen in a simple geography book had influenced his career
more than all the rest of his schooling. One pictured a tremendous
expanse of grazing land in Argentina and the other was of wolves
chasing a sleigh in a howling Siberian blizzard with the obvious in
tention of devouring its passengers. The first was now to be the lure
that drew him away from his dejection at not being able to have
Betty for his own. Not for his life, though, would he have admitted
it, and a ready excuse was at hand.
Although Will had been given enough land and stock by his father
which if farmed and ranched profitably would have made him a good
living, his basic justification for not doing so was that it did not offer
enough possibilities. He remembered the time when his father s cattle
had grazed thousands of acres, when it took half a dozen threshers
to take care of the wheat, and when five full trains of cars stood on
the sidings to haul off the steers. Such a situation, he reasoned, would
have satisfied him, and of such he was to dream many times in his life.
There were many others who thought and talked the same way, and
envious and eager eyes were turned toward Argentina and magnified
were the stories about huge fortunes that could be made there by
ranching.
Responding to the lure of adventure and dreams of great wealth,
perhaps to lay at Betty s feet to show how wrong she had been, Will
proposed to his father that he sell the ranch and the cattle and go to
40
Grazing in Foreign Pastures 41
Argentina. Unable to talk him out of the notion, Uncle Clem bought
the cattle but would not permit him to dispose of the land. The
absurdity of Will s dream soon revealed itself. The extent of the
knowledge about that country manifested itself when nobody in the
Indian Territory could tell Will how to get to Argentina!
Early in 1902, with $3,000 in his pocket from the sale of the cattle
accompanied by a friend, Dick Parris, whose expenses he was paying,
Will headed for New Orleans as being in the right direction. They
were informed that no boats sailed from there to Argentina, and were
advised to go to New York, which they did, only to learn that "the
one boat a year" had already sailed. After two weeks of sightseeing in
New York, they shipped for England because they had been told that
a regular line plied between Liverpool and Buenos Aires. "I lasted just
long enough to envy the Statue of Liberty for being in a permanent
position," Will wrote. "Oh, Doctor, I sho was sick. This boat cut
some capers. A bucking horse, why this thing did every thing but
rare up and fall back. My diet consisted of a small part of two lemons
on the whole trip. When I landed in England my sole purpose was
to become a naturalized citizen until some enterprising party built a
bridge back home."
While in London Will visited the Houses of Parliament in session,
not a likely place for a Cherokee Indian cowboy to spend his time.
In Westminster Abbey "a curious sort of sensation" crept over him
although he had "personally" known few of the men buried there.
The Tower of London intrigued him but, although Piccadilly Circus
|Vas billed larger than anything" on the buses, it turned out to be
"not much of a show." He admitted it was "a good location if they
ever want to put on a show." The transportation system was a dis
appointment. "Hitch a thresher engine to a string of covered wagons
and you have an English train as fast, as comfortable and as hand
some." He had a glimpse of King Edward, whose coronation cere
monies were in preparation, but he doubted if "the king recognized
him." He made an interesting comment on the guards posted outside
Buckingham Palace. "Can you imagine a flock of these located in
front of the White House with Teddy Roosevelt there? But different
nations have different ideas of humor."
After a week in London the two young men shipped for Argentina
42 WILL ROGERS
and landed in Buenos Aires on May 5, 1902. They registered at the
expensive Phoenix Hotel, where English was spoken, and soon learned
that no great expanses of free land were awaiting their coming. Nor
were there demands for American cowboys at fancy wages. Will toted
up what was left of his roll and found that after "paying dividends
to steamship companies" it had shrunk alarmingly. To complicate
matters, Dick had had enough traveling and was homesick for the
Indian Territory. There was not enough money left for both to return,
even if Will had swallowed his pride and agreed to do it, so hepaid
his companion s passage home, sending along gifts he had bought for
members of his family. 1
Not ready to give up so easily Will made a trip 800 miles into the
interior to inspect a ranch. "I was sorter itching to show those gauchos
how we could rope and tie a steer," he wrote, "so one day they wanted
to catch one to pick the brand on him, so I takes me down my little
manilla rope, and I even goes so far as to pick out the exact bit of
earth where I would lay the brute down. Well I hadn t even got close
enough to start swinging my rope when I heard something go whizzing
over my head. A guy running about twenty feet behind me had thrown
clear over my head and caught the steer. I couldn t speak much
Spanish outside of asking for something to eat and cussing, but I
took off my hat to that hombre and took my rope and tied it all up
against my saddle with knot after knot, to give the impression that I
didn t have any more use for it down there. They savvied the humor
all right. They can rope a steer further than I could hit him with a
rock."
On the other hand, Will was upset at the way the gauchos handled
the cattle. "They drive them in a run," he wrote, "and I asked the
boss if it did not take off too much fat. He gave the horse laugh and
said, Why, they fill right out again. In cutting out there are from
three to five men to each animal. They would not believe that a horse
knew enough to cut out a cow without guiding and one man to the
head. They don t think of rounding up a herd of cattle with less than
1 Mrs. Walker Milam, Sallie s daughter, wrote that Will sent gifts of "beauti
ful Brazilian lace collars for his three sisters. My own sisters and I wore my
mother s on our graduation and wedding dresses. For grandpa there were
bridles, quirts, and other presents." "Will Rogers as I Knew Him," Chelsea Star,
Chelsea, Okla., Dec. 5, 1935.
Grazing in Foreign Pastures 43
thirty men. There is no chuck wagon. Yours is right on the saddle
with you." The pay of the gauchos ranged from $5 to $8 a month,
and Will had trouble getting their food down. Argentina, he decided,
was "no place to make money unless you have at least $10,000 to
invest. I don t expect to make any money here, but I would not take
a fortune for the trip. You don t know what a good country is until
you have seen others. Marry and stay home, boys," he advised, "for
this country is overrated."
Instead of the hope of making money, by the time Will returned
to Buenos Aires his big worry was whether he would eat or not. His
habit of reading newspapers helped solve the problem. He found a
notice in one he had used as cover while sleeping in a park that a
shipload of stock was to be shipped to South Africa, and hurried to
the stockyards to see if he could get work. Evidently the gauchos here
were not so skillful as the ones on the ranch. "There was an old
gaucho trying to rope a mule and missing every lick," he wrote. "I
grabbed that rope and slipped the noose over that old hardtail s neck.
The boss offered me 25^ for every one I roped. Say, I stayed with em
without any time off for breakfast and dinner. Then they offered me a
job on that boat chaperoning them mules and she cows to Africa."
Will flipped a coin as to whether to wire his father for money to
come home or take the job, and Africa won. Before sailing he wrote
an illuminating letter home:
I never cared for money, only for what pleasure it was to spend it,
and I am not afraid of work, and so, as I am now, I feel better than
I ever did in my life, am in good health, so don t you all worry about
me. I have spent a world of money in my time and I am satisfied, as
someone else has got the good of some of it. It has not been all on
myself and if you will only give me credit for just spending my own,
as I thinlc I have, I will be as happy as if I had a million. All that
worries me is people there all say, Oh, he is no account, he blows in
all of his father s money, and all that kind of stuff, which is not so.
I am more than willing to admit that you have done everything in the
world for me and tried to make something more than I am out of me
(which is not my fault) but as to our financial dealings, I think I paid
you all up and everyone else. I only write these things so we may
better understand each other. I cannot help it because my nature is
44 WILL ROGERS
not like other people, and I don t want you all to think I am no good
because I don t keep my money. I have less than lots of you and I
dare say / enjoy life better than any of you, and that is my policy. I
have always dealt honestly with everyone and thing in the world and
all of you and all the folks, and will be among you all soon, as happy
as any one in the world, as then I can work and show people that I
am only spending what I make.
Seasick all the way, the 32-day trip to South Africa was a night
mare to Will. The ship was a modern Noah s ark with horses and
mules below, cows on the deck and sheep up where the crow s-nest
should have been. Most of the crew were German, except an Irishman
who was the veterinarian ("who spent most of his time working on
me") and the Englishman who owned the stock. "I couldn t wrestle
a bale of hay and seasickness at the same time," Will reported, "and
they couldn t fire me, so I was appointed night watchman to the cows."
After he had got to where he could eat "without a return ticket," the
supply of food on the boat ran low and the Englishman saw to it
none of the cows were slaughtered. "I finally figured out a way to land
some extra nourishment," Will said, "since some of those cows had
calves. I tied off the calves and when it got dark milked those old
wild cows. They was harder to get to than the back end of a six floor
loft. After bearfighting them old snaky heifers and getting kicked over
till pretty near daylight, I would get my little pint cup % full. Well,
I haven t drank milk since I was a papoose, so I would take it up to
the cook who would load me up with everything this Englishman
couldn t eat the night before."
Although the ship almost went down when it struck the tail end
of a storm as it approached the coast of Africa, it managed to limp
in to Durban, Natal. Will was allowed to land, as the Englishman gave
him a job to help drive the stock 200 miles inland to his stock farm.
He worked for him for several weeks doing everything from riding
blooded horses for inspection of buyers to cleaning the stables and
helping the blacksmith shoe the beasts. Soon tiring of this he drifted
down to Ladysmith, where he got a job breaking horses for the British
army. Although the Boer War was in process of being "diplomatically"
settled, sporadic fighting kept breaking out. "You know these Ameri
can and Australian horses killed and crippled more soldiers than the
Grazing in Foreign Pastures 45
Boers," Will commented. "Why they were Western Broncos that had
never been broke and then they expected some of the yeomanry
that had never rode anything worse than a Ansom Cab to crawl up in
the middle of these old snuffy Bronks in a little Pancake Saddle. Why
it was nothing less than suicide. When a whole company would get
new horses and they would holler, Company Mount/ in ten seconds
you could see nothing but loose horses and Tommies coming up
digging the dirt out of their eyes. They had as much chance staying on
top of some of those Renegades as a man would have sneezing
against a cyclone. But you have to slip it to those old Tommies for
nerve, they would come right up clawing mud out of their eyes and
want to take another fall out of the Blooming Bleeder, but sometimes
nerve can be taken for darn foolishness."
In December, 1902, Will made a 600-mile cattle drive to Johan
nesburg and on arrival learned that Texas Jack s Wild West Show was
performing in the city. Homesick for the sight of people from the
United States, he made his way to the show grounds. A lean, kind-
looking man wearing American boots and spurs, greeted him.
"Howdy," the man said in a friendly drawl. "Anything I can do
for you? I m Texas Jack."
"I m lookin for a job," Will said, a big grin spreading across his
face. "Got anything a feller might do?"
"Jus might have. Where do you come from, son?"
"I m Will Rogers from Indian Territory."
"Maybe you can ride and rope?"
"I can rope some," Will said, "but probably not good enough for
the show." Texas Jack studied him for a moment. "I guess I m a
little longer on the ropin than on the ridin ," Will added.
"Can you do trick roping?"
"Tricks? . . ." Will ducked his head. "A few, but they don t amount
to much."
Texas Jack took up a huge coil of rope, made a loop in it, and
began to spin it over his head, feeding out the rope as he did so until
the loop became larger and larger. Will moved back to give the loop
more room. Soon it was whizzing on the breeze, ninety feet of rope
out, as the loop made an extended circle like the bottom of crinoline
hoop skirts women once wore. This was usually the closing trick of
46 WILL ROGERS
a rope act, and needed much room. As it reached its full spread, Texas
Jack let it fall to the ground.
Instead of taking the rope, Will took a smaller one from his grip,
played it out in a loop and soon it began to writhe and jump as if
alive. Then he danced through it vertically and horizontally. After
going through this routine, without a word, he took the rope which
Texas Jack still held in his hand, and let it play out as the showman
had done. Its movements became long and smooth as the loop widened
and a pleased smile came to Texas Jack s eyes as he realized this
young stranger with his deft wrists exceeded him in skill.
"You re hired," he said, as the loop hit the ground, "an 5 you ll go
on tonight."
Will was an instantaneous hit. "We have the best show in South
Africa," he wrote home, "about 23 horses and 35 people and only 8
Americans with it. The play is partly a circus act and then they play
blood-curdling scenes of Western life in America, showing Indians and
robbers. I was an Indian but I screamed so loud that I liked to scared
all the people out of the tent. Then we have riders of bucking
bronchos, roping and fancy shooting and a little of everything. I am
called The Cherokee Kid on the program and do all the roping." He
was paid $20 a week and had a car to sleep in. "Jack is the finest old
boy I ever met and seems to think a great deal of me. He is a much
better shot than Buffalo Bill This is a civilized crowd for he
allows no gambling and drinking. I m billed as the champion lasso
thrower of the world. "
Early in 1903 Will had some hopes of going home as Texas Jack
was considering taking the show to the States. "I am going to learn a
lot while I am with him," Will wrote, "that will enable me to make my
living without making it by day labor." He also wrote that at matinee
performances Texas Jack gave a medal to the boy who could throw a
rope best. "I am their ideal," Will proudly wrote about the boys.
They see me rope in the show and follow me around to get me to
show them so they can get the medal. They applaud until their little
hands are sore."
For amusement Will roped wild zebras, the first man in the world
to do so. In chasing one down a slope his horse stepped on a rock,
stumbled and fell, rolling over Will several times. The horse broke
Grazing in Foreign Pastures 47
two legs and had to be shot. Will was knocked unconscious and had a
ragged gash on the back of his head that had to be sewed up. In spite
of this, he missed only one performance.
He was not so proud over his boast that if a tiger used in an
animal act got out of his cage he would rope it. "One afternoon in the
middle of the show," he confessed, "Mr. Tiger busted out of his cage
and started walking around. The people in the tent sat still, either
from fright or thinking it a part of the act, but the performers sure
were panicky. A couple of acrobats beat me up the center pole and
I dived into a harness box. A clown was already in there and we held
the lid down. Somebody kept yelling for The Cherokee Kid to come
out and rope the tiger. Finally, the tiger got tired and went back into
his cage. Then the clown and I come out of the harness box. I kept
still about roping tigers after that."
Texas Jack became increasingly fonder of Will as the days passed.
"I like you," he told him one day. "You stick with me and you can
take the show by yourself, and run it. I ll furnish the capital." Will
seriously considered accepting the proposition, but the pull of the
Indian Territory and home was too strong. "I ve seen it all," he wrote,
"and if I stayed much longer I might get buried in the life here and
never be able to leave." When he did so he determined to go by way
of Australia and around the world. When he left he had in his pocket
a letter from Texas Jack to the Wirth Brothers who had a circus in
Australia. It read:
"The Cherokee Kid" has performed with me during my present
South African tour and I consider him to be the champion trick rough
rider and lasso thrower in the world. He is sober, industrious, hard
working at all times and is always to be relied upon. I shall be pleased
to give him an engagement at any time should he wish to return.
Will s praise for Texas Jack was boundless. "He was one of the
smartest showmen I ever met," he wrote. "It was him who gave me
the idea for my original stage act with my pony. I learned a lot about
show business from him. He could do a bum act with a rope that an
ordinary man couldn t get away with, and make the audience think it
was great, so I used to study him by the hour and from him I learned
the great secret of the show business learned when to get off. It s
48 WILL ROGERS
the fellow that knows when to quit that the audience wants more of/
Will s sea journey across the Indian Ocean was "20 days of
agony," as "it sho was on the warpath," and then the ship bypassed
Australia and went on to New Zealand, which took five more days
and then five days back. He landed in Sydney in time to see the
Australian Derby, after which he went to work for the Wirth Brothers
circus. Once again he was an immediate hit and toured the country
with the show. There was no performance on Sundays and when he
could get a booking Will made appearances to pick up extra money
toward paying his passage home.
At a racing meet he hooked his toes around the saddle horn and
with his pony "hitting the breeze leaned back over the horse s rump
and picked up three handkerchiefs spaced at intervals on the ground."
The governor general of the province was in the audience and sent
a messenger asking him to do it again.
"I ll do it for $150," Will replied.
"But it s for the governor-general . . ."
"If he ll do it cheaper," Will drawled, "I ll loan him my pony and
handkerchiefs."
Although the governor-general did not put up the money, it was
raised by the crowd and Will repeated the performance.
After touring Australia the circus jumped to New Zealand, with
an additional five more days of seasickness for Will. Will fell in love
with New Zealand. "The best system of government in the world," he
commented, "and the greatest scenery and natural resources."
By the time the New Zealand tour was over Will had enough money
to book third-class passage home. When he reached San Francisco
he had been gone from home nearly three years and had traveled
over 50,000 miles most of it seasick. "I started out first class,
dropped to second class, and come home third class," he summed up.
"But when I was companion to those cows on that perfumed voyage
to Africa it might be called no class at all. George Cohan s trademark,
Old Glory, sho looked good when I sighted it outside the Golden
Gate." He made it home from San Francisco by freight train.
"When Willie got back home," Uncle Clem told a friend, "he
was so broke he was wearing overalls for drawers."
No Business like Show Business
IF UNCLE CLEM HAD THE SLIGHTEST HOPE THAT WILLIE S
hardships on his jaunt around the world would turn him to more
sober pursuits it was soon dispelled. For one thing, the spirit of the
times was against him. Theodore Roosevelt s ebullient personality
crackling out of the White House made for excitement and challenge.
In spite of the dour and generally accurate warnings of the muckrakes
and sober thinkers like Woodrow Wilson, a brash young nation fresh
from the successes in Cuba and in Manila Bay did not have time to
listen to howlers of doom. We were rich, weren t we? We were power
ful, weren t we? President Roosevelt not only waved the Big Stick; he
also spoke jingoistically and chauvinistically and the country loved
it. What was the use of being rich and powerful if you did not flaunt it?
For another thing, Will came home a celebrity who must maintain
his aura. In a region where few had gone beyond the nearest "blind
pig," a man who had played in a circus in Africa, Australia and New
Zealand, and had then come home by going around the world, was a
hero who must not lose his halo. And yet Will already knew, as he
was later to state, that being a hero is "about the shortest-lived pro
fession on earth."
Fortunately, to escape from the monotony that soon boiled up
around him, Colonel Mulhall was putting together a show at his
ranch to take to the St. Louis World s Fair in the summer of 1904.
When the Colonel learned about Will s return, he offered him a spot
in the show, and Will moved his activities to the Colonel s ranch.
49
50 WILL ROGERS
When he was not practicing roping Will banged away on an old
piano. "He nearly drove my poor mother crazy," Lucille Mulhall,
"America s first cowgirl," recalled. "He played a tune entitled I
May Be Crazy, But I Ain t No Fool over and over." Spi Trent
maintained that when Will played it, his listeners were inclined to
disagree with the title.
In April, 1904, Will went to St. Louis with the troupe. Colonel
Mulhall was to furnish the stock and the riding and roping acts for a
much larger show. Almost immediately arguments broke out. "Mul
hall and the boss stable man got into a scrape and after the night show
last night, they met out at the front when all the people were coming
out and got to shooting," Will wrote Uncle Clem. "A boy that was
standing; near was shot in the stomach and it is doubtful if he will get
well. A cowboy trying to stop the scrape was shot through the side.
Mulhall did most of the shooting and if had hit the fellow he was
shooting at, it would have been all right. He is no good." x
This unfortunate happening broke up the main show, and because
of his loyalty to the Colonel, Will withdrew and took a job with a
smaller one. "The riders had their quarters over the stables," Charley
Tompkins, its manager, wrote. "Every morning, as soon as daylight
would come, Will Rogers would be up and down in the Arena
practicing with his ropes, trying out new tricks. He did this while
the other Cowboys lay in bed until breakfast was called. I have at
times sat and listened to some fellow pop off as to how he taught
Will Rogers all that Will knew about roping. Mark it down from me:
No one taught Will anything. He got it the hard way by hard work." 2
Later in the summer Colonel Mulhall promoted a steer-roping con
test at the Delman Race Track, in St. Louis, and on Sunday after
noons, when not performing at the Tompkins show, Will, Charley
and others competed. It was while performing here that Will received
a note that set his heart skipping faster than his rope. Betty Blake
was visiting another sister in St. Louis and taking in the fair. She
overheard an Indian girl say she had seen Will perform in the Wild
1 Colonel Mulhall was sentenced to three years imprisonment, appealed the
case, and on a new trial was acquitted.
2 Charles H. Tompkins, "My Association with Will Rogers," Old Train
Drivers Convention, San Antonio, Texas, Oct. 1, 1953.
"No Business like Show Business" 51
West Show, so she wrote saying she would like to see him. Will dashed
off a reply asking her to meet him before the contest and he would
take her in. "Come this eve sho and we will have a time tonight."
Betty was somewhat doubtful at first, but finally she, her sister and
a girl friend decided to go. "The girls, of course, were curious about
my circus friend and made no secret of the fact that they thought the
occupation an undignified one for a young man with Will s advan
tages," she wrote. "Though I wanted to see Will very much, I had a
wide streak of conventionality in me, and I was not particularly
thrilled about Will s profession. But I hid my misgivings and tried not
to hear the teasing and joking." 3
Will could not meet them outside but he did leave tickets for them.
When he entered the arena for his roping act Betty s misgivings were
justified. He glistened in a tight-fitting red velvet suit, crisscrossed with
gold braid. She was so embarrassed at the sidelong glances of her
companions she did not hear the applause at the end of his act or
realize he had put on a superb performance for her benefit. Later she
learned tie story of the costume. Since he was billed as The
Mexican Rope" artist in the Wirth Brothers circus, Mrs. George
Wirth (whom Betty was to meet many years later) had made it for
him. "Will was proud of the suit," she wrote, "but he never wore it
again."
Overcoming her embarrassment, Betty met Will after the show and
they had their first full evening alone. They had dinner on the Pike,
strolled through many exhibits, and finally ended up at the Irish
Village where they heard John McCormack sing. As they listened, it
would have been fantastic to have peered into the future and foreseen
this gawky cowboy appearing on the same stage with the famous tenor
and with Will the featured attraction.
It had been Betty who broke off with him when she received his
"impetuous" love letter; it was Will this time who broke a date they
made to go to Claremare for a horse! As may "be imagined, Betty
did not relish this.
Actually Will was far from satisfied with the way things were going.
Plenty of applause greeted his performances, but he had had that in
s Betty Rogers, Will Rogers (Indianapolis: Bobbs Merrill, pp. 82-83).
52 WILL ROGERS
Africa, Australia and New Zealand. "Is there anything down there to
do or that I could get into? I have seen the fair?"
A minor break came when he was given a week s engagement to
do rope tricks at a St. Louis burlesque theater. A theater owner from
Chicago saw his act and recommended it to a manager. Will was
offered a week s engagement in the "Windy City." When he got there
he found he had been canceled out because he "had failed to send
Billings and Photos. I figured that was about the limit of orneriness
when I dident have any pictures and dident know what billing was,"
he complained. c< He didn t need much billing for thirty dollars/
Will s curiosity and love for all sorts of shows stood him in good
stead. He was buying a ticket to a show at the Cleveland Theatre on
Wabash Avenue when he heard the manager telephoning an agency
for a substitute act.
"I have an act," Will spoke up.
"How long will it take you to get ready?" the manager asked.
"Just as long as it will take me to go to my hotel and return," Will
replied.
Will opened the show with his act and went over well enough to
be hired for the rest of the week. During one of his performances a
speckled pup from a dog act ran across the stage and lie was "lucky
enough to land a loop on him as he breezed past." It got his biggest
laugh but, infinitely more important, reminded him of Texas Jack s
suggestion that he rope a live horse on the stage.
When Will had written Betty telling her he could not keep his date
he had asked her to write him at Claremore. He did not receive a
letter there. One she had written was forwarded from there and caught
up with him in Chicago. She let him know in no uncertain terms that
she did not care to play second fiddle to a horse, and that he was
only one and not at the top of the list of her admirers. Will fired a
letter back confessing no surprise at how she stood "with all those
Railroad Gisables," but what did concern him vitally was that she had
not married one of them. "You know according to form we both
should have matrimonied long ago," he said in one of the most
fantastic proposals in history, "and it wouldent do for this young
gang to look at our teeth you know. But if you are not contracted for,
please fie my application" He then assured her he had not "had a
"No Business like Show Business" 53
girl since I left on that trip. On the tour I had all I could do to live,
much less sport a damsel," and by the time he returned he was "so
out of place and behind the times" that he now had a reputation as a
girl hater. "I could just love a girl about your caliber," he added. "I
am yours any old time." Although Betty reprimanded him severely
for his language, she let him know that if he changed his occupation
became a good solid farmer or rancher or opened a place of business
she might look favorably on his application. Will was tempted but
that "little bit of mule" in him prevailed.
Filled with enthusiasm for using a live pony in his roping act, on
the way home from Chicago Will stopped in St. Louis and bought
from Colonel Mulhall a little white pony that he thought might be
trained for the act and shipped him to the Colonel s ranch. After
spending Thanksgiving at home, he went to the ranch and began
training Teddy, named for President Roosevelt. Hour after hour and
day after day he worked on his act in a ring the size of an ordinary
vaudeville stage. In about the same proportion, he banged away on the
old piano. Colonel Mulhall was putting together a show to take to
Madison Square Garden in New York for the following summer, and
Mrs. Mulhall insisted that he must take Will along or she would go
stark, raving crazy listening to his playing. At the same time she smiled
tolerantly when he stole her fresh baked pies. "He s just a big, spoiled
boy," she said.
At Christmas Will journeyed to Navata, Missouri, to a party that
Betty was going to attend. When he unfolded to her his plans to go
to New York with Colonel MulhalTs troupe and while there try to
crash vaudeville with his live pony act, she let him know that in such
a case she definitely preferred her ^Railroad Gisables." When he got
back to the ranch, his face set and a cold glint in his eyes, he tore into
his practicing with even more determination. With such boon friends
as Tom Mix and the two lively Mulhall girls there, he was soon back
in "joshing" humor.
In April, 1905, Will shipped Comanche, for his riding in the Mul
hall Show, and Teddy, in case he got a vaudeville engagement, on
ahead to New York. He and J. H. Minnick, of Seymour, Texas, who
had done some riding for him in his act, stopped off at Washington,
54 WELL ROGERS
D. C., for a visit to the White House. The Washington Times re
ported:
Mr. Minnick was here during the inauguration and is remembered
as the cowboy in the red shirt who did such wonderful tricks with his
pony and rope on the Avenue as the parade passed by ... Will Rogers
is perhaps the finest ropeman in the world, doing a number of fancy
tricks with a rope. This morning the two Westerners, attired in their
cowboy boots and hats, went to the White House, and did some of
their choice tricks for the entertainment of the children of the Presi
dent. Rogers showed the children how a cowboy jumps the rope . . .
They will come back from New York through Washington and say
they will be here when President Roosevelt arrives. It is their intention
to give a special performance for his benefit.
It was in the Madison Square Garden performance that Will got
the most important break of his life in show business. A big steer
that had come out of the chute to be roped jumped the barriers and
ran amuck among the spectators. "The Indian, Will Rogers," an item
in the New York Times on May 8, 1905, reported, "ran up the
Twenty-seventh Street side and headed the steer off. As it passed the
corridor again into view of the spectators he roped the steer s horns.
Alone and afoot, he was no match for the brute s strength, but he
swerved it down the steps on the Twenty-seventh Street ring. Im
mediately the ropes of a dozen cowpunchers fell over it from all sides,
and it was brought down with a quick turn and led from the track."
Will took advantage of this in two ways. First, he enclosed a
clipping in an envelope without a word and mailed it to Betty. Second,
he used the publicity to get a hearing from vaudeville managers in
regard to his act. Both seemed to fail. Betty did not write and the
managers would not believe that a live horSe could be roped on a
stage. Nevertheless, when Colonel Mulhall s engagement at the
Garden ended, Will, much to the Colonel s displeasure, remained in
New York. Finally a manager (who growled that he had given Will
a chance to get rid of him), put him on the "supper show" at Keith s
old Union Square Theatre. "It was 6:30 on a hot afternoon," Will
recalled, "and with Jim Minnick riding Teddy, a supper show audi
ence, one of the toughest to please in the show business, laid their
"No Business like Show Business" 55
afternoon papers down and kidded us into a pretty good hit." Will
did not take chances. He had "Laughing Fred" Tejan, a famous
claquer, in the audience to keep the laughs going. "Will was a scream
that first night," Jim Minnick, who rode Teddy for the first week,
commented, "and for a long time he said Laughing Fred had more
to do with the success of the show than I did."
At the end of a week the act was moved to Hammerstein s ("the
greatest Vaudeville theatre of that and all time") and Buck McKee, a
former sheriff of Pawnee County, Oklahoma, and a performer who
had also been in the Garden, rode for Will (Jim Minnick had to
return to his ranch). The show was a bigger hit here than at Keith s.
"Will P. Rogers, the sensational lariat thrower is making his first
appearance at the Paradise Roof, and has proved a sensation in every
way," the New York Herald reported. "The novelty of his act lies
in the dexterity and the oddity of what he does, and the whole makes
a charming specialty well out of the ordinary run."
After the act was held over for the second week, one of Will s
fellow performers tipped him off that he should ask for a raise. After
mulling it over for several days he hesitantly asked for $10 a week
more, which was instantly granted as Arthur Hammerstein had ex
pected him to ask for double what he was getting. Joshed about it
later, Will grinned, and said: "Boy, I ve learned better and have made
em pay since."
Will s act remained on the Hammerstein Roof for the rest of the
summer and, as he was making personal appearances elsewhere, he
had plenty of clippings to send to Betty. Eventually she wrote sug
gesting that they be "good pals." Will was not interested in this. "I
wish to God I could look at it as you do but I cant," he wrote.
"I got to love someone and it dont take me many guesses to tell who
it is. I am on a fair road to success and have met some pretty big
men here and stand pat with them." Will knew instinctively, as
Voltaire found out the hard way, that "you better have some kings up
your cuff."
As the summer of 1905 came to an end Will had an extra induce
ment which he thought might sway Betty. He had an offer to play
an extended engagement in Europe. "So go to piling up your doll
rags," he wrote, "and prepare to see the world as the wife of Rogers,
56 WILL ROGERS
the Lariat Expert. I go about Nov. 1st if I take it. Play several weeks
in Paris, then London and Berlin." To his great disappointment she
turned it down. "I have always had about what I wanted and it breaks
my heart when I think 111 never get it," he wrote in a most revealing
statement. "I am ordinarily a good loser but I guess my nerve is
failing me this trip. I don t know how long I will stay at this. I might
leave it any day and go back to the ranch. I have made a success and
that s aH I wanted to do. I want home offul bad and I am going to
stay there too."
Will might have done so for a while, at least, if engagements had
not kept him busy. "I want to send you a little token which I prize
highly," he wrote Betty at Christmastime, enclosing a handkerchief.
"It is supposed to be very fine work done by the Paraguay Indians.
The old Indian Lady I bought it from asked me if I was married. I
said, No. She said then give it to your wife when you do marry. I have
kept it. Carried it all through Africa at times when I dident have a cent
and was actually hungry, then to Australia, most of the time in an
envelope in my locker, then back home and on all my travels. I did
intend always to do as the old woman said, but I guess there s nothing
doing for me."
In truth there was much novelty to Will s routine. Billed as a
"dumb act," it was organized to show his skill with a rope. He would
come on, shuffle down to the center of the stage, a coiled rope in both
hands, as the orchestra played "Cheyenne":
Cheyene, Chey-an-an-an,
Hop upon my pony,
There s room here for two, dear,
Till after the ceremony . . .
Buck McKee astride Teddy would come galloping out of the wings
across the stage and in the twinkling of an eye Will s lariats would
dart out, roping both the rider and the horse. He would follow this
with an amazing variety of trick roping, and close by doing the big
crinoline astride Teddy who would back up as the loop widened.
The double-roping act had to be done so quickly that often the
audience failed to recognize the skill employed. An actor on the same
bill suggested that Will announce it. At the next performance, Will
"No Business like Show Business" 57
shuffled down front, took off his hat, scratched his head, and motioned
for the orchestra to stop playing. "I want to call your sho nuff atten
tion to this little stunt I am going to pull on you, as I am going to
throw about two of these ropes at once, catching the horse with one
and the rider with the other. I don t have any idea Fll get it, but
here goes."
Before the orchestra could strike up again, a roar of laughter came
from the audience. After Will had completed his act, he stormed off
the stage "mad as a hornet."
"I ll never open my trap again," he told the manager.
"But, why?" the delighted manager protested. "You got a big
laugh, didn t you?"
It took strong medicine to convince Will. "One day all the ghosts
of the dead Indians over whose graves I let out whoops must have
caught up with me," he explained, ^because one night unseen fingers
grabbed my rope and began to do all sorts of things to it, pulling
it this way, that way, the other way, and both ways and sorely per
plexing me. I commenced to get red in the face and the audience was
gettin red in the eye. In my agony I said to myself, words, come to
me! and they came I don t know from where, but they came.
Swinging a rope is all right, I remember saying, when your neck ain t
in it. Then if s hell. I heard some faint titters. I went on. Out West
where I come from they won t let me play with this rope. They think
I might hurt myself. Well, that audience started to laugh and forgot to
look at the rope and I was saved."
Will s ability to think and act in a flash saved many bad situations.
On one appearance he followed a comic barber routine that had left
the stage covered with lather. When Teddy dashed out on the stage
his feet slipped from under him and he went down, sliding toward
the orchestra pit with Buck McKee s leg pinned under him. For
tunately, Teddy stopped with his head hanging over into the pit, which
had been cleared in a flash. Will roped Teddy s head in a twinkling
and pulled him up tight with one hand as he seized Buck with the
other and dragged him from under the terrified animal. Together, they
pulled and hauled until Teddy was on his feet.
"No cause for alarm, folks," Will drawled, as he patted the trembling
58 WILL ROGERS
animal to reassure him. "Just a little something extra we put in today
to see how you d like it."
After stagehands had mopped up the lather, Buck rode out again
and Will made his catches perfectly.
Will gave much of the credit for the success of the act to Buck
McKee. "He had that horse trained so well he was almost human,"
Will explained. "He s about one of the best with horses I d say. Teddy
would come tearing out on the stage and when I d rope him, he would
prance right out to the edge of the footlights over the drummer s head.
Many a time I ve seen a drummer mopping the sweat off his forehead
after that stunt. They all thought Teddy would plunge right over into
the bass drum but he never did."
For his part Buck claimed he had the best part of the act because
if an audience got after them he had a horse to get away on. "If
that happens," Will retorted, "111 give you and Teddy half a mile
start and pass you. Teddy s boots is to help him stop fast. Mine is
built to help me go fast."
Will caught on to the tricks of showmanship fast. He had a purple
saddle blanket made for Teddy with "Will Rogers" embroidered on
it in gold. Before showtime Buck would walk from the stable to the
theater along the busiest streets, and Teddy would follow without
a rope on him. Before doing the big crinoline Will would have an
usher take one end of the rope to the back of the theater to let the
audience see it was 90 feet long. Then there was his chewing gum, a
habit he had picked up from shagging flies with the local baseball
teams in the towns that he played. On the stage he might park it on
the proscenium arch or over the W on the card announcing his act
so that it came out 111 Rogers.
As patter became more important in his act, he began studying the
routines of those on the bill ahead of him and making remarks about
them. In doing so, he looked at his rope rather than the audience,
thereby creating the illusion that what he said was impromptu and
not carefully thought out, which it was. He also began roping those
backstage who gathered in the wings to watch his act and dragged
them out on the stage. Will laughed about this. "They d get so mixed
up they wouldent know their way off the stage. Sometimes I d get a
chorus girl in her kimona or something else,"
"No Business like Show Business" 59
With his experiences in Africa, Australia, New Zealand and in
following the rodeo circuit, Will soon became a seasoned vaudeville
trouper. He could sew on a button, darn a sock, press his own
trousers, fry an egg over a gas jet, and turn out a tasty concoction of
steak, gravy and biscuits in a dressing-room chafing dish. He could
travel for twenty-four hours in a day coach, duck his head under a
water tap, and go into his routine without a rest. "He could grumble as
much as anyone and play practical jokes," someone commented. "Get
a kick in the pants from a witty acrobat at Podunk and return it
months later at Peoria. He could stand a man a drink, share a bed,
make his overcoat serve double, and play a bit in another act when
one of the cast was off on a toot."
Will could do all these things but he could not make Betty change
her mind. In the spring of 1906 he took his act to Europe without
her. His first billing was in Berlin, and on the way he stopped for a
few days in Paris. "It is a wide open place," he reported to Betty,
"and seems to have no laws especially of morality." The stage women
he had encountered "ain t one to 1 1 with these for paint and make-up.
Oh, how they strut." The men "just curl their mustache and put on
all they got." The city had New York 66 whipped to a whisper for
continuous performances," and he let Betty know that he lived at
"one of the swellest hotels where Champagne flows like water."
The act was a big hit in Berlin but the city made a bigger hit with
him. "I never get in till 8 or 9 or 10 in the morning," he wrote Betty.
"Everything is wide open all night and we just go from one cafe to
another. There is quite a bunch of English girls and a few of us boys,
and I didn t think it was possible to go such a clip. N. Y. sleeps more
in one night than Berlin in a week." Will was learning that a little
competition might help.
Several times when riding in the Tiergarten Will met the Kaiser on
the bridle paths, and failed to salute him, which caused no trouble at
all. But when he roped a fireman stationed in the wings and dragged
him out onto the stage the audience almost mobbed him. "The man
ager had to come out and explain that my rope slipped," he explained.
"In Germany they have cultivated everything they got but humor."
Nevertheless, Will s act was a tremendous success and he was offered
60 WILL ROGERS
an extended engagement but his schedule did not permit him to
accept.
The act went over even better in London at the Palace, its leading
music hall. He was paid more than he had ever received before and
was offered three or four more weeks of work. While there he ap
peared before the exclusive Raneleigh Club, and learned later when
presented with a beautiful silver cup that King Edward VII had been
in the audience. It had taken him only a short four years to be
"recognized" by the King!
Back in the States, riding the crest of the wave of his foreign suc
cess, Will invited Betty to join him in Oklahoma to meet his family.
He seemed almost a stranger to her. There were parties, horseback
riding, dinners and picnics, but always as a group. "Even in our moon
light rides," Betty wrote, "we both rode up in front with the rest. He
never came around where I was unless we were playing and singing
at the piano. I just could not understand it." She understood him less
when on his way back to New York he stopped at her home and asked
her to marry him at once. She frankly told him she could not accept
a life of trouping over the country in vaudeville. "Our parting was
a sad one," she commented, "but we promised to write."
In the spring of 1907 Will organized a Wild West troupe and took
it to London, hoping that being a producer might appeal to Betty
more than being a mere performer. Although his own act, which was
billed for a couple of weeks before the larger troupe arrived, was a
sensational success, the big show proved a dismal failure. It was
top-heavy and slow-paced and, bogged down in managerial duties,
Will s act lost its appeal. He was forced to tour the cities outside
London by himself to raise the money to send the troupe back home,
and he followed them a few weeks later, broke and discouraged. It
was back on the vaudeville circuits for him.
During the next year and a half he played most of the cities of
the United States and southern Canada on the various circuits, and
during this time he and Betty kept up their correspondence. She would
not consent to marry him, and yet she would not let him go. There was
a spat over a girl he occasionally took out for a bite to eat or a beer
after the show that he told her about. "She was such a nice lady-like
smart kind of a kid," Will explained, "and she got a bit stuck on me."
"No Business like Show Business" 61
He sent along a letter from her to him that proved It had not been
serious. Betty was not satisfied. Then as the panic of 1907 made it
more difficult to make a living, Will became more and more irritable.
"If I act queer don t think of it," he wrote. "I ain t treating you right
and I know it but I will later on. I am in wrong and will tell you all
about it when I see you which might be Xmas . . , When you still
refused me last spring we both will regret that for we could of
been happy and a thousand times more prosperous. Still you was so
wise you couldent be showed. I have not been worth a dam since, and
you are the direct cause of it. I don t blame you, only I wish you had
not been so bullheaded? Will ended by taking some of the bite from
his criticism by assuring her "I love you more than anything."
Not satisfied to wait until he saw her for an explanation, Betty
insisted on being told all at once. Will sent her a letter from a woman
he had been having an affair with begging him to see her again. In
stead of appreciating his honesty and forthrightness, which was cer
tainly not expected, she countered with some of her own activities.
"So you snared you a promising lawyer," Will wrote. "What all did he
promise you, and you him? Now you better slack up on that stuff
for it gets you in bad and I will be getting sore." But he was not
"sore" enough not to want to see her nor to tell her that he loved her.
As the routine of his life began to build up, Will considered seri
ously going back into ranching, and might have done so if the back
waters of the panic had not hurt that business. "One more year will
let me out of this," he assured Betty, and then, as if afraid of being a
weakling, berated himself. She had only hinted to him about her
"Dearest Friend, T.H., the promising lawyer" but he, "like a big
rummy" had been a fool and told her "a lot of stuff that I had never
ought to of told anybody in the world." But since he had done so he
determined "to live life as she comes" and not have "much confidence
in anything. We all make mistakes," he added, cc but as long as we
live the best we know how they can t be considered against one."
After this rather philosophical approach, he then "playfully" admitted
that he had got even with her *for I have fell in love with an Actorine
and gone plum nutty"
Betty blazed back, thanking her good fortune she had learned the
sort of life he was leading before it was too late. Will at once dropped
62 WILL ROGERS
his playfulness. He chided her for thinking any other girl was con
sidered in the same breath with her, and he was no longer sorry for
telling all. "I told you I had always been a bad boy and guess I will
continue to be one till you are with me and then it is all over. I will
put all of this old life behind and I think I am man enough to do it
too. I have had a lot of girls, not sweethearts or girls when it comes
to settling down I would consider for a minute. I kinder always
thought I knew about where my love and affection lay, and I gave you
credit for not being a jealous girl. Now I am the jealous one of the
two, and I took what you put in your letter as it was meant and come
back at you with the actor gal one. But you size it up all wrong and
write that offul letter. If I wanted to break off, I think I could do it
in a great deal more gentlemanly way than that. I wouldent beat
around the bush trying to save your feelings but out with the whole
truth." He then took her to task for saying he had made "unpleasant
insinuations," and called it the worst thing she could say. "It would
be the last thing on earth I would do," he assured her. "Why I
would fight any one that would insinuate as much to me as that you
acted the least bit unladylike at any time. Why Girl that s why I love
you. That* s why you are different from the rest."
Will considered closing his act and going to Rogers, Arkansas, to
talk with her. But better judgment prevailed and, instead, he asked
her to "cut out all this foolish talk for when I tell you you are the
only girl for me I mean it regardless of how I act sometimes."
After a few more months of verbal sparring, one morning early in
November, between bookings, Will appeared in Rogers unannounced,
and told her to start packing as they were getting married. They would
go to New York for a few weeks after which as a honeymoon they
would make a tour of the Orpheum Circuit, then back to Claremore
to live. Betty said "yes" this time.
Will left her to break the news to her family and went to do the
same for his. "Back to the scenes of our childhood," he wired her
from the Oolagah railroad station. "Wish you was at the old depot.
Love, Billy."
They were married at Betty s home in Rogers, Arkansas, on
Wednesday, November 25, 1908, thus ending a fantastic courtship
and beginning what Gene Buck, Ziegfeld s man Friday, called, "the
"No Business like Show Business" 63
most perfect mating I have known." On their twenty-fifth wedding
anniversary Will wrote: "The day I roped Betty, I did the star per
formance of my life."
How true that was! When Will told Betty that he had to have
someone to love he revealed his most vital need. There had been no
one since his mother s death whom he could completely relax with,
be himself, to whom he could reveal his innermost desires and long
ings. Betty filled this compelling need to perfection.
7
Two for the Money"
AS WILL HAD PROMISED, THINGS WERE DIFFERENT
different for both of them. For him life was more relaxed and less
lonely, and for Betty more exciting. In St. Louis, on their way to
New York, they watched Pop Warner s Carlisle Indians scalp their
opponents in a Thanksgiving football game. That evening at dinner
Betty drank her first champagne. Afterward they went to the theater
to see Maude Adams in What Every Woman Knows. This was to be
Betty s introduction to a New York star and she was trembling with
excitement when the curtain went up soon after their entrance. The
theater was jammed and it seemed terribly hot and stuffy to her. In
a few moments her head began to swim and when the brightly lighted
stage began to tilt she became alarmed.
"Please take me out," she whispered to Will.
Will quietly hustled her out and walked her back to the hotel, where
she fell into bed and was asleep as soon he could get her un
dressed. She did not understand what had happened until the next
morning.
"From the way you drank champagne," Will said, "I wondered
what kind of a girl you were. I decided champagne-drinking must be
an old Arkansas custom. "
Will hustled Betty over New York at a mad pace, showing her the
sights from the Aquarium to the zoo in Central Park. They climbed
to the top of the Statue of Liberty and of the Singer Building, forty-
one stories and the tallest in the world. The bells of old Trinity rang
out the old and rang in the New Year for them. Betty wanted to see
64
"Two for the Money" 65
the opera. "I hustled around and got two seats from a Spec," Will
wrote. "I noticed him laughing and thought it was at me. I dident know
he was laughing at the seats. I dident know a seat could be so far
away and still be in the theatre. We could just see the drummer.
My wife was worried about how we could tell Caruso and I told her
he would be the one that sings. My Lord, that s all all of them did.
Well, I stuck it out till intermission and then went up to Hammer-
stein s to see the three Keatons and a good show. I don t think that
show Caruso was in was much of a hit as I passed there next day
and they had a different show billed."
Betty watched Will s routine for the first time at Proctor s Theatre
in Newark. Although the applause was tremendous, she was not im
pressed. A few days later when she told a friend of hers from
Arkansas, Mrs. W. H. ("Coin") Harvey about meeting Battling
Nelson at the Metropole, a hangout for newspapermen, gamblers,
sportsmen and actors, the old lady was shocked, "Betty, what will
your mother think of you meeting a prizefighter?" she asked. Betty
had no answer.
At the end of Will s two-week engagement in the New York area,
they headed out on their honeymoon over the Orpheum Circuit. In
every city where Will had billing, it was a repeat of the New York
experience. He seemed determined to show her everything she had
missed by not being with him on previous trips. When she protested
at being routed out at daylight, he would brush it off. "Let s do it
now, then we ll have the afternoon free for something else." Truly,
these were days he had dreamed about and he did not want to lose
a second. It might be a sightseeing trip or a horseback ride in a city
park, or it might be a trip into the country on which they would take
sandwiches and beer for a picnic. Then after his performance, which
was usually last on the bill, it would be a snack in a quiet little
restaurant. By the end of the tour, Betty had begun to like the carefree
life and when Will was offered an extended engagement in the Percy
Williams theaters back east, it was her decision to accept it. On
another question he made the decision in a peremptory manner.
"I will be glad to help you correct the mistakes you make in
grammar," Betty offered soon after they were married.
"Never mind," he snapped, "that s our bread and butter."
66 WILL ROGERS
As they settled down in their New York headquarters, Betty more
and more relieved Will of little nagging duties such as taking care of
his correspondence with his family. Will turned over to her some rent
property he owned in Claremore and she proudly opened an account
in Uncle Clem s bank. Til surprise Billy with a big balance," she
wrote.
Late in July, 1909, Will s sister May died suddenly, and he was
unable to go to the funeral. "All of us children have been wonderfully
fortunate in having such a kind and loving Father," he wrote, "not
only financially but by word and action. I don t know what arrange
ments you all will make about May s children but I want to pay for
the schooling for at least one of the boys."
As Will became more successful, Uncle Clem s disappointment in
his son changed to pride. His second wife had died and he had moved
to a corner room over the bank in Claremore. Will kept him supplied
with clippings from the various newspapers in the cities where he
appeared. "At the drop of a hint" Uncle Clem would whip out a
particularly laudatory clipping. If the praise came high enough and his
visitor was in to see about a loan, Uncle Clem was known to shave
down the amount of security demanded or go on the note himself. Past
seventy now, he could not ride as in his younger days, but when he
hitched his high-stepping Kentucky-bred, Roger K, to his rubber-
tired buggy he could raise as much dust as anybody in the region.
"I d hang on to my New York hat with one hand, and cling to the
seat with the other," Betty wrote, "when Uncle Clem took me out
on, as he said, c a spin around the town. " As for the newfangled auto
mobiles just making their appearance, he had the deepest scorn.
At first Uncle Clem had been frankly suspicious about the amount
of money Will was making. "Looks like something is wrong some
where," he confided to a friend when Will s pay was $250 a week.
But after going to New York with Sallie and Maude to watch Will
perform he changed his mind. He stood up and by pointing his pencil
counted the house. Then he sat down and did some figuring on an
old envelope. "I tell you, girls," he complained, "that manager is
making a lot of money off Willie." He attended every performance
while in New York and would station himself outside to hear the
comments after the show was over. If any of those coming out ex-
"Two for the Money 67
pressed doubts that Will had once been a cowboy, he would promptly
correct them. Then he would identify himself and offer to introduce
them to Will. Invariably, when Will joined htm his father would have
a crowd for him to meet.
Although Will was a recognized success, he was not a headlines
To achieve this he needed a big act with top performers. He ignored
his failure with such a show in England, and in the summer and fall
of 1910 hammered together an even more elaborate show built around
glamorous women on dancing horses doing fancy roping and riding
and on cowboys riding bucking horses on the stage. It did fairly well
on the larger New York stages but was too unwieldy for most of the
theaters on the circuits. Once again Will had to disband a show and
once again he ended up broke. But in the meantime with the help of
Betty and a theater manager he had learned something that prepared
him for the next big step in his career.
At a performance in Philadelphia Betty was standing backstage
with the manager watching the performance. "Tell me, Mrs. Rogers,"
he asked, "why does Will cany all those horses and people around with
him? I would rather have Will Rogers alone on the stage than the
whole bunch of them put together, and I know a lot of other managers
who feel the same way about it."
Betty had been thinking the same thing, and she told Will about it.
Harried by managerial problems that he was not fitted to handle,
Will thought it over.
"What would I do?" he asked the manager.
Take that white horse and tie it out in the alley, tell Buck McKee
and the rest of em to take the day off, then take that rope of yours
and go out in Number One ["the Street" in front of the big drop
curtain] and give em eight minutes of patter along with your rope
tricks."
"What ll I tell em?"
"I ll stand at the first entrance and you can talk about me, about
the mayor, about the other acts, about anything that comes into your
head."
The manager had to shove Will out the first time he tried it. "H
Buck McKee hadn t taken the day off/ Will admitted, "he and Teddy
would have been out there with me."
68 WILL ROGERS
Most of the cast of the big show were either in the wings or down
front and the rounds of applause that brought Will back time after time
told them their "pink slips" were in the offing. The greatest wrench
of it all for Will was in parting company with Buck McKee and
Teddy. The horse was shipped to Oolagah, put out to pasture, and
lived to old age with only one mishap. He broke out of the pasture
and was found months later by Will s nephew, Herb McSpadden,
hitched to the plow of a full-blood Indian. Although he seemed to
enjoy this as much as appearing in the leading vaudeville theatres
of America, the music halls of Europe and before the King of England,
he was returned to a well-earned life of leisure.
Life became much more enjoyable for Betty and Will now that
he had only himself to look after for the act. There was more money
for them also as Will received as much for his own performance as
he had for the old act. Buck s salary and the expense for Teddy had
cut deeply into his earnings. Will s act as a "single" usually went on
last so that it would give him a chance to watch the other performers
so he could comment on them. "The house seems to kind of like it
but sometimes the actors don t."
Will s comments must have pleased the critics as well as the audi
ence. He was seldom without a booking and as Betty went with him
most of the time he was at his best. In Chicago, for the second time
in the history of the Majestic Theatre, he was held over for a second
week. His performance, which was a typical one, brought this com
ment from Richard Henry Little, critic for the Chicago Tribune:
The accomplished Mr. Rogers not only delights the audience with
his amazing dexterity with the lasso, but even more with his running
fire of small talk. The great beauty of Mr. Rogers conversation is that
he never is quite through. He makes a remark and apparently marks a
period by doing some trick with the lasso and the part of the audi
ence that sympathized with his statement applauds madly. Then Mr.
Rogers drops another remark that is diametrically opposed to his first
statement and starts another section of the audience to great applause.
But as this tumult drops down he makes still another comment along
the line of his original thought that is a trifle more pertinent than
either of the first two and differs widely from them.
"Two for the Money 33 69
Little ended Ms criticism with a most illuminating conclusion: "The
remarks of Mr. Rogers when published properly look something like
an extract from the Congressional Record because of the applause/
and great laughter/ and long continued demonstration that must be
scattered through the published text."
Will was soon to have less worries over his act as he was to have
more responsibilities. There was to be an addition to the family. "I have
about all my baby clothes made," Betty wrote Uncle Clem on August
21, 1911. "I am expecting the youngster about the fifteenth of
October. Billy wants a boy of course, but I do not care which it is.
If it is a boy, I am going to name it after Billy. I would name it after
you, but there are so many Clems in the family I m afraid they would
get mixed up."
In her next letter Betty excitedly announced that they had seen
"an airship" at Syracuse and had taken an apartment at 551 West
113 Street. "I can hardly wait until he comes. My mother came last
Thursday. She is so well and I m so happy and glad to have her here.
We can get anything we want close to the apartment. We buy potatoes
by the quart and peaches too. I wonder what the grocery man out
there would think if one should go in and call for a quart of potatoes?"
The baby was born on October 20, 1911, and was a boy. It was
named William Vann, for Will and for Uncle Clem. A package
came from Clem containing three pairs of little black wool stockings
with pink-and-blue toes and heels, and a pair of tiny beaded Indian
moccasins. Will wrote his father to thank him. "We are doing fine/
he stated. "Betty will write you. She sat up today."
Uncle Clem did not receive her letter nor see his newborn grand
son. Within hours after the package arrived a telegram informed them
of his death. He had spent the weekend in Chelsea at Maude s and
had died in his sleep.
In the spring of 1912 Will appeared in his first regular show,
The Wall Street Girl, starring Blanche Ring. He and Betty rode to
the opening on the subway, both so nervous they could not talk. She
sat down front in the orchestra section and shortly after the curtain
went up there were excited whisperings around her and a number of
people got up and left. Will came out on the stage, stopping the
action of the play, and announced that the Titanic, the largest ship
70 WILL ROGERS
afloat, on her maiden voyage to the United States had struck an ice
berg and had gone down with a shocking loss of life (1,517 dead, 53
of them children). This tragic news unquestionably hurt the show.
If the critics may be believed, the short run was not the fault of
Will, nor of Blanche Ring for that matter. "Will Rogers, the lariat
thrower, produced the only real humor of the evening" (the Tribune ) .
"Rogers is more than a cowboy he s an artist He threw a rope
over The Wall Street Girl 3 and dragged off the first honors of the
performance. Aside from his skill, Rogers displayed a sense of humor
as fresh as a breeze from the Western prairies. Without betraying the
slightest effort he roped* the house" (the World) . "There were two
high spots in The Wall Street Girl. One of them was the Deedle-
Dum-Dee song of Blanche Ring herself, and the other was that
extraordinary performer, Will Rogers, who did his regular vaudeville
act, but who undoubtedly scored the success of the evening" (Charles
Darnton). "There was a poet with his lariat who had come out of the
West and inserted himself right in the middle of the play who was
worth his weight in Gold to the management" (Acton Davies,
Evening Sun*).
After The Wall Street Girl closed Will went back on the vaudeville
circuits, touring for almost a year by himself, while Betty lived at
Rogers, Arkansas. The chief reason for this was another addition to
the family, a baby girl born May 18, 1913, and named Mary Amelia
after Will and Betty s mothers. Will was playing in Houston, Texas,
when he received the telegram announcing her arrival.
While going it alone Will s prize possession was a scrapbook filled
with pictures of Betty and the children. "I like being a successful and
popular actor," he told a reporter, "but when it comes to being a
matinee idol gee whiz, these people in this scrapbook are the only
ones 1 want to be an idol to. How could I be interested in them
matinee girls with kids like these out home? That Bill, Jr., of mine
is learning to throw a rope and has a hobby horse he rides all the
time. He insists on being an actor like me he thinks I am an actor
but watch me make a farmer out of him. He and his kid sister and
their mother are going to meet me in Syracuse next week." Actually,
Will s itinerary can be fairly well traced by the postcards he sent home
to the children.
"Two for the Money" 71
In late spring of 1914 Will told Betty to leave the children with
her mother at Rogers, Arkansas, and to meet him in Atlantic City as
he had big plans on the fire. When she joined him she learned that
he had booked passage to Europe for them on the new German
superliner, the Vaterland, that was to return from its maiden voyage.
She had to gather a wardrobe in a few days but by now was used to
doing things in a hurry. It was her first trip on a ship and she saw to
it that they were dressed very carefully for dinner the first evening
aboard. They were the first in the dining room and as it filled up,
Betty s face reddened in embarrassment as the other passengers came
in dressed as they had come aboard.
On the trip over Will s curious eyes noticed that the ship had un
usually wide decks. "They said she was built to transport troops in
case of war," he commented. "Her wide decks were to drill on. It
didn t do our boys any good after we seized her when war was
declared. Both of their days training was done over here. The boat
and cooties were all we got out of the war."
Although Will had no bookings in England, where they first landed,
he had been there only a few days when Sir Alfred Butts, for whom
he had worked before at the Palace, offered him a part in The Merry-
Go-Round, starring Nora Bayes, at the Empire. Will was doubtful
about accepting. The theater was a large, noisy music hall, and there
was constant activity and turmoil in the lobby centering around a
huge bar. During the performance, people in the audience would go
out to the bar for a drink or be served in their seats by "hostesses"
or "percentage" girls. Will was afraid the activity, noise and confusion
would crab his act. Sir Alfred insisted that he have a try at it. The
result was amazing. When he was on, the lobby emptied and the girls
stopped selling drinks. At the end of the week Sir Alfred wrote out
a check for $400 and offered him an unlimited engagement.
While Will worked, Betty and friends toured the Continent, sight
seeing and shopping chiefly in Berlin and Paris. When she returned to
London Will saw to it that she kept hopping.
As the days passed, Will became increasingly anxious about the
tense situation shaping up in Europe. Although everyone assured him
that the world had "outgrown war," Will did not believe it. Over
Sir Alfred s protests, he left the show and he and Betty sailed for the
72 WILL ROGERS
United States on the German Imperator. By the time it docked in
New York hostilities had broken out.
Will returned to his old bread-and-butter vaudeville, but not hap
pily. The time had come for him to find a more stable spot in show
business or go into some other line of work.
"Can you imagine when I die and St. Peter asks me what I did on
earth to qualify for heaven," he said to Jack Lait, "and I answer,
*I spun a rope and kidded myself so s other people wouldn t kid me
first ?"
"You re crazy," Jack argued, "with your ability the show business
can be steady enough. All you have to do is to find the right spot.
Then there is no limit to where you can go."
Fred Stone, one of his closest friends and the famous dancer and
star of many Broadway productions, gave the prescription. "Stay in
New York, even at less pay, Bill," he advised, "so that you can be in
the right spot when the big opportunity comes."
Betty gave her "amen" to this.
8
"The Real Follies Are Out Front
ACTING UPON FRED STONE S ADVICE, WELL ACCEPTED
vaudeville engagements only in and around New York. When there
were not enough bookings at the major theaters to meet his expenses,
he played smaller houses under an assumed name for as little as $75
a week. His friendship with the press proved invaluable, since his
secret was not revealed, as did his ability to disguise himself and
mimic. 1 In the summer of 1915 he took a house at Amityville, Long
Island, across the road from Fred Stone, and here their third child,
named James Blake, was born on July 25, 1915. In the same month
another member joined the family, by the name of Dopey, a little
round-bodied, coal-black pony, with glassy eyes, "the gentlest and
greatest pony for grownups or children anyone ever saw. I don t know
why we called him Dopey," Will recalled. "I guess it was because he
was always so gentle and just the least bit lazy. Anyhow we meant no
disrespect to him."
Horseback riding was a ritual in the Rogers family. The children
had their first lesson on their second birthday, and Dopey was perfect
for this. "He helped raise the children," Will wrote. "During his
lifetime he never did a wrong thing to throw one of them off, or a
wrong thing after they had fallen off. He couldent pick *em up, but
he would stand there and look at em with a disgusted look for being
so clumsy as to fall off. I used to sit on him by the hour (yes, by the
iJn later years, for a joke, he would impersonate Bill Hart and Spencer
Tracy so perfectly that people asked for autographs.
73
74 WILL ROGERS
year) and try new rope tricks, and he never batted an eye. Dopey
and Dodo, another pet pony we got for Mary, rode in the best palace
car by express."
This was a happy summer for Will and Betty. For companionship,
in addition to Fred Stone and family, there was his brother-in-law,
the famous novelist Rex Beach, and his family. The three men sailed
on Great South Bay in Fred s boat, rode horseback and roped, picked
up a smattering of polo, and swam. Rex was a superb swimmer and
diver and, of course, Fred and Will, competitive and cocky as fighting
roosters, tried to surpass him. On one dive Will hit his head on a rock
on the bottom and was dragged out half-conscious.
"Didn t you know the tide was out?" Rex asked when Will could
talk.
"There wasn t any tides in Rabb s Creek where I learned to swim,"
Will replied.
This accident could have had serious consequences as Will s right
arm was paralyzed from it and he had vaudeville engagements coming
up. By hours of practice he learned to do his rope tricks with his left
arm. "I sho had to do a mess of tall talking those first weeks," he
admitted. Eventually he regained the use of his right arm and later
he would surprise his audiences by switching from his right to his
left arm for his tricks.
"My earliest recollection of Will was as a thrilling figure on horse
back who would come trotting along, swoop down, pick me up in his
saddle, and then to my huge delight, whirl his lasso in ever-widening
circles," said Dorothy Stone, whom he was to play with in Three
Cheers when her father was injured in a plane accident. "I can
remember his booming laughter, and how I would climb to the
pommel of his saddle, with his arm resting me in his lap."
During this summer Will took his first airplane ride at Atlantic
City in a "flying boat" made by Glenn Curtiss. For several days he
and Betty^had gone out to watch the flights and it was only on the last
day that he developed enough nerve to go up. He was carried out to
the plane on the back of another man and when it landed brought to
shore in the same manner. "As the plane left the water," Betty
wrote, "Will waved at me as he was to do so many times in the future.
He was nervous but vastly pleased."
"The Real Follies Are Out Front" 75
Will s next chance in a regular show almost proved disastrous. It
was in a musical Hands Off, and his act was spotted between two
full-stage musical numbers. This meant he had to work in Number
One and did not have enough room for his tricks. Twice he tried the
big crinoline and twice the rope hit the backdrop and fell to the stage.
He was preparing to try again when the manager rang down the
curtain. This meant failure, even disgrace that might blight his entire
career. The audience came to his rescue. It resented this highhanded
action. Led by his loyal first-nighter friends, wave after wave of
applause shook the theater. When the curtain went up for the next
number, it was hooted down. In desperation the manager asked Will
to go back on. He refused to do so until the producer, Mr. Shubert,
asked him as a personal favor. As he ambled out, grinning his ap
preciation, he was given a standing ovation. Once again, although
Will received good critical notices, the production ran only a short
time. Most important, though, one of the telegrams congratulating him.
for his performance came from Gene Buck.
Early in the fall Will had another opportunity in Ned Wayburn s
Town Topics in the ill-starred Century Theatre on Central Park West,
and this also had a short run. Back in vaudeville, he played two weeks
at the Palace, and then moved to the Forty-fourth Street Theatre.
In all these appearances Will received top critical acclaim and yet
his "rope of words" neither lengthened nor became strong enough to
lasso anything permanent. Most of his comments were on other acts
or on members of the cast. If he wandered afield, it was on subjects
thought to be of general interest to a theatrical audience. His per
formance had been good enough and his comments pertinent enough,
however, to plant an idea in the fertile brain of Gene Buck. He came
up with the madcap conclusion that Ziegfeld needed this irrepressible
cowboy to add humor to his productions.
When Buck first broached the idea Ziegfeld was almost hysterically
opposed to it. It was inconceivable that this uncouth cowboy with his
dirty, sweat-begrimed clothes, ungrammatical drawl, and shuffling
walk could help "glorify" the most beautiful girls in the world be
decked in the most gorgeous costumes imagination could devise in a
fairyland setting! If it had come from anybody except Gene Buck,
Ziegfeld would not even have listened, and if anybody but Gene Buck
76 WILL ROGERS
had thought up such an absurd notion it would have been dismissed
as a daydream.
At the time Ziegfeld had two productions at the New Amsterdam
Theatre. Downstairs, since 1907, the Follies had flamed across the
theatrical world. Nobody spoke of the extravaganza in comparison
with other shows but as better or worse than the previous year. Its
performance ended at 11:15 and Ziegf eld s other production, The
Midnight Frolic, began on the roof at the stroke of midnight. "The
Frolic was the start of this Midnight and late style of entertainment
that has degenerated into a drunken orgy of off-colored songs, and
close formation dancing," Will wrote. "It was the first midnight show.
It could have 50 or 75 people in the cast, bigger than all modern day
shows given at regular hours. It had the most beautiful girls of any
show Ziegfeld ever put on, for the beautiful ones wouldent work at
matinees for they never got up that early."
It was on the roof that Buck finally browbeat Ziegfeld into giving
Will a spot. A typical routine in his first appearances went like this:
Hello, you Roof Roosters . . . you ain t missed a night or drink all
year Some of you buy one drink and have one laugh in your
system and try to conserve both of them You leave your wife at
home, get a front table, light up a cigar, get a bottle of wine ... of
course the more wine you drink, the farther you can reach with your
cigar to burst a balloon on one of the girls. ... It adds up to about
$10 a balloon ... I am going to stick with this fellow Ziegfeld ... I
am off all the shows that go in for art ... That fellow knows just how
to drape *em so you don t know just what they have on or haven t
. . . You keep coming back and then you don t know . . . Somebody
has got to do something while the girls change even if they don t have
much to change . . . The reason Mr. Ziegfeld keeps me here is the
people seem to drink more after watching my act. . . .
Actually, Ziegfeld saw no reason for keeping Will. True, at first he
got laughs, but with an audience that had close to 50 per cent as
"repeaters" and "plenty of insomnia" Will was having a nightmarish
struggle to maintain its interest. Ziegfeld definitely was not amused.
His genius turned toward the selection of girls and an impeccable
taste for costumes and settings. Furthermore, Will s references to
prominent men in his patter frightened him. Buck was able to talk
"The Real Follies Are Out Front" 77
him out of firing Will at the end of the first week, but halfway through
the second, his face flaming from a reference Will had made to him, he
called Buck into his office.
"That damn cowboy has to go," he ordered. "I am leaving for a
couple of weeks and when I return I don t want him around here."
Gene had no choice but to call Will in and give him the bad news.
As Will came up to his desk, he busied himself with some papers,
wondering what to say.
"Fm glad to see you, Mr. Buck, 55 Will said before Gene spoke.
"I ve got to have more money. *
Buck gulped and blinked, "Why do you think you deserve more
money?" he asked.
"I have a wow of an idea my wife gave to me," Will said. "She says
I ought to talk about what I read in the papers every day. It would
give me a brand-new act every night I could talk about all sorts of
things and people in the news."
"You would get us sued," Gene hedged.
"Not if I talked about public figures," Will argued. They d eat
it up."
The idea appealed to Buck. If it worked, it might appease Ziegfeld,
whose second look, after the girls, was at the box ofiice and the cash
register.
"Try it," he gambled, "and if it works, then we can talk about
more money."
Buck was on hand that night to see what happened. Will ambled out
and started his rope spinning. "See where Henry Ford s peace ship
has landed in Holland . . ." he punctuated this with a spin of the rope
as all eyes turned to him . . . "Got all them pacifists on board . . "
another spin "Holland s welcome to em, they ain t much good to
us . . ." another spin "Ford s all wrong, instead of taking a lot of them
high-powered fellers on his ship . . ." another spin . . . "he should ve
hired away all these Ziegfeld pippins . . ." another spin ". . . He d not
only got the boys out of the trenches by Christinas . . ." another spin
". . . but he d have Kaiser Bill and Lloyd George and Clemenceau
shootin 5 craps to see which one d head the line at the stage door. *
As the roof rocked with laughter and applause, Gene knew that if
Wfll kept this up even Ziegfeld would be convinced. It was the proper
78 WILL ROGERS
time for doing so. Under the whiplash of the war, Americans were
gradually crawling out of their shell of localism and isolationism,
and news was taking on more vital meaning and pertinency. Will s
long experience in reading newspapers from front to back coupled
with his shrewd insight permitted him to dig to the heart of things.
After doing so he was able to restate it in such a way that perked up
ears and irrigated minds.
When Ziegfeld returned, the first thing he did was to call in Gene
Buck.
"How did your cowboy friend, Will Rogers, take it when you fired
him?"
"I didn t," Gene replied.
"What do you mean?" Ziegfeld s face flushed with anger. "You
mean you didn t obey my orders?"
"Come hear him on the roof tonight," Gene said, "and then if you
want to fire him, do it yourself."
Ziegfeld did not fire him but it was the cash register and box office
that kept him from doing so. He would pace up and down, muttering
to himself and tearing his hair, as Will unmercifully jabbed his verbal
pitchfork into the "most sacred cows."
"I might be kiddin an Archbishop and Ziegfeld would be worried
for fear I was gettin beyond my depths." Will chuckled. "But Flo
didn t know what I knew that I was holding up a grand boost for
the Archbishop at the end."
As the war provided vivid and dramatic material in both events
and leaders, Americans became more conscious of news and its re
porting in various media. On the domestic scene, Woodrow Wilson, as
president, was a dramatic figure who even as a college president had
made news. A scholar and an intellectual, a visionary and an idealist,
he was at the same time an astute, hardheaded and resourceful leader.
In an incredibly short time as president he had pushed through more
reforms under his New Freedom than had taken place since Lincoln.
Tariff schedules had been reduced for the first time since the Civil
War; the currency, particularly through the Federal Reserve Act
and the banks established, had been made more flexible thereby
partially breaking the control by Wall Street and the bankers over
money; the Clayton Antitrust Act had struck out against monopoly
"The Real Follies Are Out Front" 79
and helped labor unions by exempting them from its provisions; and
the financial distress of the farmers had been somewhat alleviated.
This program had been achieved by dedicated help in Congress and
not through the help of President Wilson s Cabinet, most of whom
were appointed because of political demands. One of them, Secretary
of State William Jennings Bryan, lent himself admirably as a subject
for Will s satire, Bryan s knowledge of foreign affairs and the role the
United States must play was on a par with his fundamentalist views
on evolution.
Typical comments in Will s routine might be like this: "Bryan is
against every public issue that comes up ... About the only thing he
is pleased with is himself . . . When Ford s peace ship sailed I went over
to see it off ... I got there just in time to hear Bryan say, God bless
you . . . That s the only thing he says for nothing . . . Well, you have
to give him credit ... He held out for more money ... I thought for
a while it might be a success . . . Bryan didn t go ... President Wilson
says a man has a right to change his mind and should, but Bryan has
been doing the same act for 14 years . . . Bryan is really in earnest
about preparedness ... He is going to make a few free talks on it.
... If Bryan and Billy Sunday were to lose their voices this wouldn t
be such a bad old world to live in after all Now they have some
of Bryan s speeches on phonograph records ... in sections . . . They
also have records of some guy reciting Gunga Din . . . listening to them
would be my idea of an exciting evening."
Henry Ford, one of "the kings that Will kept up his cuff," was one
of his best sources of humor: "I see where Ford just said he would
send a bigger peace ship over ... He is a glutton for punishment . . .
I ll bet Bryan don t hold out for more money this time . . . Ford was
mistaken when he says the people looked for a lot of highbrows on the
Peace Ship and were surprised to find ordinary people ... He said he
could have sent thousands of them ... He could, like hell . . . Why,
Barnum couldent have gotten a collection like that . . . Why, he could
of made money just showing them over here . . . Ford will go down
in history as the man who shoved the mother-in-law joke into the
ashcan."
Subjects and events, as well as men, furnished grist for his grinding:
"They got Panama Canal fortified with guns pointing out to the
80 WILL ROGERS
oceans . . . Now they have discovered you could come up behind it on
land . . . They never thought of that . . . We are prepared all right . . .
Have the Panama Canal, Nicaragua, the Philippines and the North
Pole ... If we would take Cape Horn then we would pretty well have
traffic tied up. . . . See where we lost two airplanes. . . . Lucky the
other two couldent fly or we would have lost them also A man in
the Virginia Legislature introduced a bill to protect the men ... A
woman can only be naked from the top of the head to three inches
below the neck . . . then they must be covered with stuff you can t see
through from there down to four inches of the ground . . . Nothing
was said about going barefooted, which is a frequent occurrence in
Virginia. ... I read in another paper that skirts are to be shorter next
year ... If they keep on I want the Lord to let me live 2 more years
... Of course our girls don t seem to have on much . . . but they re
all wrapped up in themselves."
In the fall of 1915 the Friars Club of New York sponsored a show
to make a week s whirlwind tour of principal cities in the East.
Baltimore was on the list and great excitement prevailed when it was
learned that President Wilson planned to attend. Most of the acts in
the revue were based on skits written by George M. Cohan and right
down to bit parts everyone was a star with a big reputation. Will was
included to do his "specialty with a Rope and telling jokes on national
affairs." It was a particularly good time for him as President Wilson
was at the height of his much ridiculed note writing to the Central
Powers in Europe and the United States and Mexico were feuding
over Pancho Villa s raids into this country.
Will described his state of mind as he waited to go on: "Well, I am
not kidding you when I tell you that I was scared to death. I am always
nervous. I never saw an Audience that I faced with confidence. For
no .man can tell how a given Audience will take anything. Further
more, I was to kid about some of the policies with which the President
was shaping the Destinies of Nations. How was I to know but what
the audience would rise up in mass and resent it? I had never heard,
and I don t think any one else had ever heard of a President being
joked personally in a Public Theater about the Policies of his Ad
ministration."
Will kept a copy of the act he had prepared (as he did for most of
"The Real Follies Are Out Front" 8 1
his appearances): "I am kinder nervous here tonight . . .1 shouldn t
be nervous, for this is really my second Presidential appearance . . .
The first time was when Bryan spoke in our town once, and I was to
follow his speech and do my little Roping act . . ." He heard the audi
ence laughing, so he took a sly glance at the presidential box and
President Wilson was laughing too. "As I say, I was to follow him,
but he spoke so long that it was so dark when he finished, they
couldent see my roping ..." a long wait "... I wonder what became of
him?" This went over great As yet Will had made no direct reference
to the President, but he was about to* "I see where they have captured
Villa . . . Yes, they got him in the morning Editions and the After
noon ones let him get away." Everybody in the theater was watching
for the cue when to laugh, and Wilson was laughing. "Villa raided
Columbus, New Mexico We had a man on guard that night at the
army post . . . But to show you how crooked this Villa is, he sneaked
up on the opposite side ... We chased him over the line 5 miles, but
run into a lot of Government Red Tape and had to come back. . . .
There is now some talk of getting a Machine Gun if we can borrow
one." Wilson was being criticized on all sides for lack of preparedness,
and yet he led the laughter. "The one we have now they are using to
train our Army at Plattsburg If we go to war, we will just about
have to go to the trouble of getting another Gun." At this time there
was talk of forming an army of 250,000 men. "We are going to have
an army of 250,000 men . . . Mr. Ford makes three hundred thousand
cars a year ... I think, Mr. President, we ought to at least have a man
to every Car . . ." President Wilson howled at this. "We are facing
another Crisis in Europe tonight . . . but our President here has had
so many of them lately that he can just lay right down and sleep beside
one of those things . . . President Wilson is getting along fine now to
what he was a few months ago , , . Do you realize, People, that at one
time in our negotiations with Germany that he was five Notes be
hind! . . ."
President Wilson not only enjoyed this, but told many of his friends
that it was the best satire pulled on him up to then. Will called this
appearance his "proudest and most successful night." It meant some
thing very personal to him. "A great many Actors and Professional
people have appeared before him, on various occasions in wonderful
82 WELL ROGERS
high-class endeavors," he explained. "But I don t think that any person
met him across the footlights in exactly the personal way that I did.
Every other performer did before him exactly what they had done
before many audiences, but I gave a great deal of time and thought
to an Act for him, most of which would never be used again and had
never been used before."
This was the ultimate secret of Will s success in his appearance before
any group. President or policeman, prince or pauper, His Royal High
ness or hobo, Will made every listener feel that he was being talked
to personally.
Another forum opened for Will in 1916. The Follies edition of
that year was the most spectacular and extravagant revue produced
up to that time. As it began to shape up, Gene Buck realized that it
was top-heavy and unbalanced with big numbers. As a constrast, he
thought that Will s patter would add needed lightness and pace.
Ziegfeld shuddered at the thought. Although a crowded Roof con
vinced him of Will s drawing power, he wanted none of him in his
pet production. Nevertheless, before opening night it was obvious
something had to be done. Grudgingly he offered Will a part. As usual
he would not agree until he had talked it over with Betty. She shook
her head. The additional salary offered, she felt, would not justify the
extra work. The "repeaters" on the Roof from the Follies would mean
two different routines. "Besides," she reminded, "the Follies go on
the road."
This was a telling argument with Will. They were now living in
Forest Hills, twenty minutes from the theater by subway, and the
children were old enough to join him and Betty in their favorite
sport horseback riding and roping. Yes, he decided, Betty was right.
For the first time everything seemed just right. He had a loving wife,
adorable children, enough income to pay his overhead and buy a few
more acres of land at Oolagah. What more did he want?
Will s first doubt came when he saw a flicker of relief spread over
Ziegfeld s face when he turned down the offer. On the other hand,
Gene Buck was glum about it and told him he had made a mistake.
Will bought four tickets for the opening at $12 apiece and he and
Betty took a couple of friends from Arkansas to see it. As the revue
unfolded, spectacle after spectacle, it was intolerably boring. Will
The Real Follies Are Out Front" 83
squirmed in Ms seat, nudging Betty every few moments. "See, Blake"
he called her this when irritated "what did I tell you? Boy, boy, I
wish had had a crack at this."
After a couple more performances, even after some major surgery,
the revue was still unwieldy. Ziegfeld waylayed Will in his dressing
room one afternoon when he came in with a roll of newspapers to
prepare his act for the Roof.
"I want you for the Follies, Rogers/ he said.
"When do you want me to go on?" Will asked.
"Tonight."
Will dashed out to Forest Hills to break the good news to Betty.
"Well spend the night in New York," he said.
"But your act?" she gasped.
"Ill use the stuff I prepared for the Roof, and then get more
material for that out of the later editions. Hurry up, I have to get back
in time to practice a dance routine."
For once Betty was ready to shed tears when the curtain in the
theatre went up tears of joy that, after all, Will was to have his chance
that she had argued him out of and at what she saw there. The New
York American for January 6, 1916, reported:
Against a sky of Egyptian blue, glimpsed marble pillars bathed in
calcium moonlight, two pretty girls in satin slippers and rather ex
treme riding breeches pirouetted after a polo ball. From the wings
peeped out a bevy of girls in costumes possibly meant to approximate
full dress in the South Sea islands. Came a pause: the polo players
scurried off. A gorgeous creature in a Paris ball gown sauntered down
the marble steps and across the stage nonchalantly. Then of a sudden
a young man in shirt sleeves and other habiliments to match ma
terialized right in the scandalized spotlight. The newcomer said some
thing to the orchestra, which began to play "Finnegan s Wake." The
young man had a rope in his hand, and the rope suddenly became
alive and described strange circles in the air about him. A small girl
(her name is Sybil Carmen) in white woolly chaparejos and a red
skirt, bobbed into the circle and the oddly assorted pair began to
waltz. The rope danced with them, hemmed them in, slipped under
their feet skillfully and came up on the other side still whirling. Noth
ing that they could do embarrassed that rope. They played hop, skip
and jump with it, but it always kept just out of the way.
84 WILL ROGERS
Will made another appearance on the show, commenting on people
and events. < Never had he gone over so well," Betty wrote. "It was a
big and exciting evening and when he went upstairs to do his mid
night performance, his magic stayed with him. After the performance
on the Roof, we sat in our little hotel room, and over sandwiches and
beer discussed the triumphs of the evening. We waited for the morning
papers, and all of them gave Will excellent notices the best, most
important he had ever received."
The Follies was a better forum for Will than the Roof, where the
audience was composed chiefly of tired businessmen looking for
amusement. "I can t depend on New York jokes for the Follies/ 9
Will said, "because such a large percentage of the audience is tran
sients." Doing both shows, as Betty had warned, really kept him
stepping. "I get my jokes out of the newspapers," he explained, "not
out of the funny columns, but out of the latest news. At the matinee
I pull stuff based on the noon editions of the afternoon papers. Well,
before the evening performance all the matinee stuff is too stale for
the audience, so I use the sporting editions, finals and home issues.
But by the time the Midnight Frolic starts, these late evening jokes
are also stale, so I get the first edition of the Morning Telegraph and
make my monologue out of that. I buy more newspaper extras than
any man in the world, because I ve made up my mind no joke can
get over after it is six hours old. A lot of clever writers have tried to
fix me up with acts, but I can t get away with them. The public just
won t allow me to learn a part. I ve got to make it up as I go along.
I m going to try some day-old gags in Philadelphia, though, just as an
experiment."
Although politics was the staple article for Will s routines, he was
careful not to let the act become dull: "They say that a shark won t
bite a leg that has a stocking on it ... These theater goers must thinlr
they re sharks, the way they strain their eyes to determine whether
stockings are being worn or not People thitiV I can t be a real
cowboy, or I wouldn t work in a show where there s nothin but
calves . . . The boys that are back from the Mexican border say the
reports were wrong that it was 1 15 in the shade down there . . . They
say that s a lie ... There wasn t any shade there. ... I d like to be
a millionaire, but I d hate to be telling how I got it all the time."
"The Real Follies Are Out Front* 85
The manner in which Will got over his humor was tremendously
important At one time within a few days a number of people com
mitted suicide by jumping off Brooklyn Bridge. "They ll have to
condemn Brooklyn Bridge . . . It s been weakened by suicides jumping
off." The audience howled at it. "If I had told it," W. C. Fields re
marked, "they would have mobbed me. He can get away with any
thing." At another time Will came on the stage laughing, as he
thumbed back over his shoulder, then leaned over the footlights COIP-
fidentially. "Fannie Brice was just telling us a grand story, and I m
laughing yet."
"Tell it to us . . ." the cry went up.
Will twirled his lariat, chewed on his gum, and scratched his head
thoughtfully. "Lemme see, folks " he winked "today s Tuesday,
isn t it? Well, I ll tell you that story about Thursday . . . It ll take that
long to launder it."
In the Follies even more than on the Roof Will began lengthening
his "rope of words" in another way. "I started picking the follies
out of the audience," he explained, "joshing the celebrities who came
to the show." They liked it and so did the audience. Actually, this
took on a "snob" appeal. Not to have been joshed by him was a blot
on the escutcheon of the famous, the near famous and the self-im
portant. To be introduced or roped by him either in the Follies or on
the Roof was like owning a Rolls-Royce or belonging to the Union
Club. Often Will would purposely ignore some celebrities who ex
pected to be noticed and it was a rare treat to watch one of them
fidget and become nervous as he glanced in their direction. If he
wanted to play a joke on a friend or cut down to size someone he
thought needed it, he would have the spotlight played on his victim,
perhaps glance in his direction, and then not mention his name.
"Ziegfeld was scared but it was a safe and simple game to follow,"
Will explained. "Your big butter-and-egg man, your author, base
ball player, and especially your politician like attention. They eat
it up. And the folks who pay the tariffs at the box offices like to realize
they are in prominent company. They go home and brag about sitting
next to so-and-so even if they were ten rows away."
Will s way of doing this was not a hit-and-miss proposition. He was
furnished a list of all the prominent people who had bought seats and
86 WILL ROGERS
their location. He found out from the newspapers each day who was
"running for President or away from the police," as he expressed it.
Actually Will had discovered an unlimited source of humor ("fresh-
laid jokes are the best" ) based on a simple formula: he might be
working in the Follies but the real follies" were out front, in the
audience, in New York City, in New York State, in the United States,
and in the world. No matter where or when, if observed closely and
long enough, humor would crop out, and the bigger the man or the
event the greater the "folly." It had to be separated properly from
the trappings behind which it reposed, must be personal, political,
social, economic or religious. Will had definite ideas and methods for
this: "I use only one set method in my little gags, and that is to try
to keep to the truth. Of course you can exaggerate it, but what you
say must be based on truth. Personally, I don t like the jokes that get
the biggest laughs, as they are generally as broad as a house and
require no thought at all. I like one where, if you are with a friend,
and hear it, it makes you thinly and you nudge your friend and say,
He s right about that I would rather have you do that than to have
you laugh and then forget the next minute what it was you laughed
at." Will was at his best when things were happening in the world.
Three or four thousand jokes would pass through his hopper in one
season. With the coming of World War I his humor was to meet a
crucial test.
"What We Laughed At during the War 1
DURING WORLD WAR I, MOST HUMOR WAS PROVIDED BY
magazines like Judge, the old Life, and in humor departments of
magazines or books. There were performing comedians but they were,
as Will pointed out, doing the same act over and over. Will was the
only one using fresh-laid" jokes. "I traveled for 4 years with the
Follies," he pointed out in the preface to a book he envisaged but
never published, "the biggest stage show on the road, and all I had
to do was to tell the audience new things to make them laugh each
night. My little stunt consisted in talking on what I had read in the
papers every day. Well, when the war commenced to get serious for
us, I thought here is where you will have" to change the style of your
act. You can t keep kidding people." The year before the United
States entered the war he could hit out at everybody and everything.
"There was Villa, and neutralists, and note-writing and Bryan
dozens of heads aching to be hit" But after the country got into the
war there would not be "a villain in the papers." All his Mends con
firmed his judgment on this.
"It only showed how little we understood the American people,"
he admitted later. "Why, they laughed better during the war than any
other time, and the more serious the situation, the better they laughed
if you happened to hit the right angle of it. There is nothing yet so
serious that an American audience won t see something funny in it. All
you hear is, Who won the war? Well, the American sense of humor
didn t do the cause any harm. The people s funny bone developed in
87
88 WILL ROGERS
proportion to their backbone. If Germany had had a sense of humor,
there would have been no Kaiser, hence no war."
Will illustrated this. At the time the New York, New Haven and
Hartford Railroad had a series of bad wrecks. In the fighting in
France much emphasis was placed on "spring drives" when the weather
improved. One day in the spring of 1918 the New Haven had a wreck
in which fifty people were killed. That evening in his act Will said:
"I see where the New York, New Haven and Hartford have started
their spring drive." The audience yelled at this. The next day an
official of the railroad sent word for "that alleged Comedian at Mr.
Ziegfeld s to kindly eliminate any reference to the New York, New
Haven and Hartford Railroad." That evening Will said, "I see where
one of our Railroads have started in on their spring drive." This went
over as big as it had the night before. "You see I did not mention the
name of any Railroad in that," Will went on. "Last night I did and
today Mr. (I gave his name) called up and told me not to mention
his railroad s name, so you see I did not say a word about New York,
New Haven and Hartford." This received the biggest laugh of all.
A bigger test came when Will played before President Wilson again
in Washington. Did he dare kid the President now that the country
was at war? "I took a peep at the President in his box, and said that
Colonel House was the only man that ever listened himself in.
NorthclifEe had that day refused the ministry of air, and I said the
British had never heard of Bryan or he d have got the job; and the
President didn t seem to dislike that either. Then I went on and said,
*I guess Lord Northcliffe figured it s easier to tell how to run the war
in his newspapers than to run it. Mr. Tumulty, Wilson s secretary,
told me that the President quoted that remark next day at a cabinet
meeting."
Published speeches were Will s chief source of humor during the
war. "If a man makes a speech he takes a chance on saying a damfool
thing," Will said, "and the longer his speech the greater the thing.
I read where Vice-President Marshall had said, Right will win. That
night I said, Right might win, but it would win sooner if we had a
few more machine guns and uniforms. " Even more ridiculous, the
Crown Prince of Germany said that "God will help us to victory."
This was Will s opening. "It s always struck me as funny that none
"What We Laughed At during the War" 89
of these Crown Princes, none of these Royal Guys have got hurt in
the war since it was started by that guy that was heir to the Austrian
throne getting killed , . . It looks like the only way we can get some
of them Royal guys killed is to declare peace . . . Well, if the Lord s
with the Crown Prince, the Lord s never been near enough to the
firing line to know there is a war."
Good laugh producers during the war were the "dollar-a-year" men
whose chief activities consisted in getting "10% plus cost" contracts
for their companies; profiteers; draft dodgers; Hog Island and the
wooden ships; the government management of the railroads; the air
plane program that turned out more "air" than planes. His comments
would make a gag history of the war. "The Guy that made the bullets
was paid five dollars a day and the man that stopped them fifteen
dollars a month. . . . When you see a lot of chaplains getting ready
it s most time for the charge. . . . The chief army maneuver was to
turn the shirts each day . . . that kept the Cooties marching and
countermarching till it broke their hearts . . . Sergeant to Private look
ing through field glasses: "How many men in that trench? Thirty men
and one officer. 5 *How can you tell there s one officer? All the rest
are working/ . . . One girl in Paris figured in more engagements than
the Legion of Honor."
Shortly before the end of the wa3r Will appeared before President
Wilson again, this time at the Metropolitan Opera House in a program
honoring Enrico Caruso. The President was negotiating behind the
scenes in an attempt to end the war. Will made some pertinent re
marks. "The note from Germany had the only true thing in it that
any of them had It said, anything we do at the Peace Conference
will not be binding. . . . Now Bulgaria has quit . . . They been in all
these Balkan Wars and when they got in this they found out they was
shooting with real bullets. Turkey wants to quit . . . TheyTl quit if the
Allies will give them the Massacreeing privileges . . . One thing Pres
Wilson asked Germany that I am surprised at, for as smart a man as
he is ... That was., we will not deal with you as long as you occupy
invaded Territory . . . The Kaiser came back and says, If you can
show me how I can give it up any faster than we are, I wish you
would tell me . . . We are going out in high now . . . Germany dont
know how we could get troops over there and get them trained so
90 WILL ROGERS
quick . . . They dident know that in our manual there is nothing about
retreating, and when you only have to teach an army to go one way,
you can do it in half the time."
President Wilson later quoted this last statement as coming from
"an American humorist" ("I was only a comedian until then") and
called it the most pungent comment made during the war. "Will
Rogers remarks are not only humorous," President Wilson said, "but
illuminating."
Although Will was painfully honest in not using other people s
material, he so loved a quip made by fiery old "Uncle Joe" Cannon,
long-time Speaker of the House, that he used it several times. "All
the officers in Washington wore spurs," Will said, "and there was no
cavalry. People wanted to know why and Uncle Joe* gave them the
answer. It was to keep their feet from slipping off their desks."
This comment may have been responsible for one of Will s most
popular routines on how to get a commission in "fighting the war
in Washington." It went like this:
The only experience necessary is the danger of being drafted by
your own board . . . Then pick out the branch of service whose office
hours are the shortest . . . Then get your home Senator s address . . .
Wait your turn in line and if you draw only a Captain, don t feel dis
couraged . . . You may meet a Cabinet officer and be promoted before
night. . . . The next most important thing is the uniform . . . Unfor
tunately, our uniforms are mostly alike . . . When we have had as
many wars as the European countries we can remedy that to the satis
faction of our officers . . . There would be no time to have it ready
made as you have a date with a photographer at four . . . The clerk at
the store can tell you what insignia to put on your shoulder and which
end of the puttees to go on top ... If you decide on boots buy spurs
without rowels ... It will be easier to put in the clutch and to shift
gears . . . Also, the clerk for a small fee will show you how to salute
. . . Otherwise you might go out and meet a cadet who has only been
in West Point three years and you, as a superior officer, must return
his salute ... At this point you are a full-fledged American Officer in
the Great War of Washington, and ready to go into operation. . . .
Your first act will be to call some humble, unpatriotic friend who
you knew before you entered this awful conflict who is toiling trying
"What We Laughed At during the War" 91
to make enough to pay his taxes and meet his payments on his Liberty
Bonds and ask him to dinner . . . You must go to the best place as you
may be humiliated by being next to a lot of non-com officers . . .
After dinner take your friend to the Follies who happen to be in town.
. . . Now its perfectly proper for a Washington army officer to admit
ignorance of the war but it s gross negligence to admit he is not
acquainted with at least five of the girls . . . When the usher comes
back and says there is no answer, bawl him out before your friend
and tell him you guess he gave it to the wrong girl and was he sure
he told her it was Captain Jasbo? . . .
On the first day the hardest task is to find a place to park the car
. . . But the most important consideration is to make certain of the
assignment The saddest case that has happened in this war was
a fellow dident notice how his appointment read and he found he had
been put with a regiment that was to go to the European War where
real bullets were shot The rest of the day would be spent in meet
ing the secretaries . . . After that it was time to go to the hotel to
dress for dinner in the uniform the tailor had made . . . Make for a
cafe and sit in a prominent place to watch the new officers who had
just been commissioned that day. . . .
That night the military training started ... It consisted of twelve
lessons to learn how to dance with a girl without catching your spurs
in her dress ... It was a good idea also to carry a French book in
your pocket. . . . You know you are not going to use it but it lends a
certain amount of atmosphere. . . .
By now you are facing a crisis . . . The next day you will have been
in long enough to commence figuring on a promotion and nearly long
enough to get the papers from home . . . That s one of the most
anxious moments of your entire military career, wondering how the
picture will turn out and if it s on the front page
Now you are ready to face the dangers. . . . Why, the casualty list
in one day out of a minion and a half officers in Washington was ten
wounded getting in and out of taxicabs . . . two choked through their
collars being too tight ... 61 hurt through typewriters choking up ...
500 prostrated when they heard the war was over and they would
have to go back to work. . . . The hardest part of it will be trying to
look like an officer, and how to act in the presence of someone who
has been across . . . Most of them will have their hardest jobs trying
to make their uniforms look worn somewhere else besides the trouser
seat. . . .
92 WILL ROGERS
In the fall of 1917, with the coming of the Russian Revolution,
Will did his first newspaper writing. "I can write about Russia for I
know that my readers don t know any more about it than I do," he
commented. "There is always this to look forward to with Russia.
Pick up the morning paper and look for Russian news and have a
fear of reading the -worst. You won t be disappointed. I will give the
Russians credit for one thing: They dident sign a peace treaty with
Germany. They said: What s the use of signing something? We just
quit. You see, Germany was willing to treat for peace as long as
Russia did all the treating. Now they have given German freedom
to some province called Ukrainia which sounds like ukulele. I doubt if
it ksts as long as that short-lived instrument The ukulele had this
advantage: not even a trained musician could tell if you were playing
on it or just monkeying with it, but the Ukrainia liberty don t fool
anybody. Those poor independents have Made in Germany stamped
afl over them. You see the Kaiser has the dope on it this way: It is
better to be surrounded by a lot of small nations than by a couple of
regular ones. They come in handier to go through. If Russia s land
holds out long enough, Germany should be able to make a very
generous peace with her eastern foes. Russia was handicapped by not
having a national anthem to fight by ... If we had only known it, we
could have loaned them Toor Butterfly, but only on one condition,
they keep it."
Although Will had a wife and three children, which exempted him
from the draft, he seriously considered going into the armed services.
He had opposed our entry into the war, but once in, the only thing to
do was to fight it to a successful conclusion as soon as possible.
Certainly, his friends and his draft board were right when they
persuaded him that he could do more good for the cause by helping
to keep up the morale of the country through his humor than he could
have done as a fighting man. He and Betty put every cent they could
spare into Liberty Bonds and Will gave freely of his time in raising
money for the Red Cross. William Fox was general chairman for the
drive among theatrical people, and Winfield Sheehan, later Will s boss
at Fox Studios, was his captain. When the drive first opened Will
wrote this letter:
"What We Laughed At during the War" 93
May 21, 1917
Dear Mr. Fox:
I have tried hard during the last week to figure out what I per
sonally consider my duty in the amount that I should contribute to
the Red Cross fund. While not a wealthy man, I earn a very good
salary. I am pleased and grateful, therefore, for the opportunity to
contribute ten (10) per cent of my next year s income to the Red
Cross, and put me down on the books for $5,200.
I wish I had greater wealth so that I could give a larger amount,
and were it not for the fact I owe an obligation to three little children
at home, I certainly would have been over there myself.
Yours truly,
Will Rogers
P.S. I pray to God this terrible war will be over in less than a year,
but if not I hereby pledge myself to continue my subscription of
$100 a week for the duration of the war.
In addition to contributing 10 per cent of his income, Will also
more than "time-tithed" by working many benefits. His speeches,
bringing laughs one moment and tears the next, kicked off the weekly
meetings for the theatrical groups. The $2 million raised on Broadway,
however, represented only a part of his efforts, as he appeared before
any group that asked him to and when his schedule permitted.
In the fall of 1917 the entire Rogers family played a benefit at the
Polo Grounds to raise money for the soldiers "Tobacco Fund."
"New Yorkers will remember the amazement the little tykes created
when they came galloping out," a reporter wrote, Dipping and stick
ing to the leather like regular cow men. Their pa wasn t any prouder
of them that day than he is every day, because whenever he thinks of,
talks to, or sees, those kids, he just naturally throws his pride into
high and breaks afl speed laws on the statute book." Will himself
wrote the captions for a picture spread of the show: "Youngest cow
boy in the world, age two, and he can ride. If you want to start a
Civil War, just try to take him off that pony. He eats there ... All
mounted on their own ponies . . . The youngest cow terrors in the
world . . . Bill, six, and Mary, four Here we come, all in a dead
run, and nobody holding on. They won t ride unless they can ride in
94 WILL ROGERS
a run. Fm riding the only opposition in a Ford . . . The Home Defense
League on parade. The tough little bird on the end is not holding his
gun right, but none of us had the nerve to tell him so. That s Roose
velt Rogers . . ."
The war ended in an uneasy armistice on November 11, 1918. The
great cry was to get the boys back home and out of the army. "The
most popular joke I had after the war in New York, and the Boys
were coming back and parading every day was, *If we really wanted
to honor our Boys, why don t we let them sit on the reviewing stands
and make the people march those 15 miles? They don t want to
parade, they want to go home and rest But they wont discharge a
Soldier as long as they can find a new Street in a Town that he hasent
marched down yet. If the money spent on stands and Parades, and
the high prices people paid for the seats, had been divided up amongst
the soldiers they would have had enough to live comfortably on until
the next war." He warned a cheering Follies audience that "this is
only a rehearsal . . . Wait till the real thing comes." He had in mind
the coming Peace Conference which would have a lot to do if the
world was to be "made safe for democracy."
Will was going to describe what happened there as he saw it. Noth
ing could illustrate this better than what he told Albert D. Lasker,
advertising executive and assistant to Will Hays, chairman of the
Republican National Committee. Lasker interviewed Will at the re
quest of Colonel Theodore Roosevelt. "The man has such a keen
insight into the American panorama and the American people that I
feel, in the course of time, he is bound to be a great factor in the
political life of the nation," the Colonel had told Lasker. "I want you
to meet him, because his good will can prove a great asset to the
party."
Will listened to what Lasker had to say. "Fll be glad to talk to you
at any time," Will said, "but I want you to know that I must hold
myself as an unbiased commentator on public affairs."
The war had been the "great folly" and it was followed by the Peace
Conference which "seemed to offer a better field for Humor provided
you stick to the Facts."
10
The Peace Feast Follies"
THE PEACE CONFERENCE AT PARIS FOLLOWING WORLD
War I produced Will s first book. It was a compilation of what he
had used in his Follies routines and in his day-by-day comments on
what was taking place there, and was called The Cowboy Philosopher
on the Peace Conference* Will stated on the dust jacket: "I made this
book short so you could finish it before the next war" and warned
that "you can t tell peace from war without this book." In a dedica
tory statement he said that "in the five times I have appeared before
President Wilson I have used dozens of these same jokes about him,
and he has the best sense of humor and is the best audience I ever
played to. Which bear out the theory I work on, That you can always
joke about a big Man that is really big, but don t ever kid about the
little fellow who thinks he is something, cause he will get sore."
Will s first satire was on the "facts" on which he was to base his
statements. They were "procured from the most reliable source. Here s
how I got it. There is a fellow I know, Who has a friend, And this
friends Sister had a sweetheart and he was a Soldier in France and his
cousins pal was a Brnifrie of Col Houses Chouffer, The Col told
his Chouffer. So you see my information comes from the same place
Pres Wilsons does." Not much different from the "lowdowns" passed
on as coming from "unimpeachable sources!"
The Teace Feast" came "when the Armistace was signed and
Germany agreed to quit running at eleven o clock on a certain day."
1 New York: Harper & Brothers, 1919.
95
96 WILL ROGERS
The United States was "bunked" in even this as it "got word a
couple of days early making everybody have TWO DRUNKS where one
would have done just as well It was delayed because the German
Generals whom they sent out to sign it, had never been to the front
and dident know just where it was." Everybody at the time was won
dering what to do with the Kaiser. Not Will. "He should have been
made to clean the streets after that first Armistace day."
Will noted that the signing of the Armistice almost coincided with
our election day so that "the Germans and the Democrats learned
their fate" at the same time. Actually, this had a profound bearing on
the fate of the world.
In the off-year elections of 1918, President Wilson appealed to the
country to return Democratic majorities in both houses of Congress,
especially in the Senate, so as not to block his efforts to achieve a just
and lasting peace that could be kept through the instrumentality of an
international organization. Under the hammerings of the Republicans
led by Colonel Theodore Roosevelt and Henry Cabot Lodge, aided
by isolationists in both parties such as Senators Jim Reed and William
Borah, joined by the tariff-Republicans interested chiefly in profits
and the garden-variety politicians who wanted jobs, the country re
jected Wilson s plea. Despite this agonizing setback, President Wilson
went ahead with his plans. Regardless of politics, he could not en
vision anyone so craven as to risk the fate of the world for such selfish
reasons. He had outlined his program to Congress the past February
in his Fourteen Points that later became the Covenant of the League
of Nations. He had unquestionably brought the war to a quicker con
clusion by appealing over the heads of the leaders of the Central
Powers to the people, and he hoped he could do the same thing in
this country. In doing so he grossly misjudged both the temper of
the people of the United States and the actual war aims of the Allied
countries. Before the Armistice was signed, Theodore Roosevelt sent
identical telegrams to Senators Henry Cabot Lodge, Miles Poindexter,
and Hiram Johnson that the peace must be "dictated by the hammer
ing of guns and not the clicking of typewriters" and that unconditional
surrender of the Germans and not an Armistice must be the American
policy. Then after the Armistice had been signed Roosevelt warned
"The Peace Feast FollietT 97
both our allies and our enemies that "Mr. Wilson has no authority
to speak for the American people at this time."
As the constitutional elected chief magistrate of the country, with
two years to serve, if President Wilson did not speak for the country
on such an important consideration, who did? Certainly, it may be
argued that Wilson erred deeply in not taking a prominent Repub
lican with him on his peace mission, but who can doubt that if he
had taken a man like Lodge or Roosevelt the arguments that defeated
the League in this country later would have been used at the Peace
Conference itself and resulted in even greater injustices?
No one in this country saw clearer than Will Rogers the troubles
that were boiling up and the need to approach them with a sense of
humor. He called President Wilson s journey "the Number 2 Peace
trip," the first of course having been Ford s effort, and complimented
Wilson on using "better judgment than the first one as it waited until
the war was over."
Before the conference opened Wilson made a tour of England,
France and Italy, lining up support of the people so that if he had to
he could go over the heads of their rulers to get his League of Nations
into operation. Will made some pertinent comments. "Can you imag
ine how sore these Republicans got when they read about a Democrat
sleeping in Buckingham Palace? ... In Paris, President Wilson got
an earful from Col House . . . The Pres had a letter of recommenda
tion from Caruso so he met some of the best people in Italy . . . The
King of Italy and also the King of England have agreed with htm up
to now . . . But neither one will be at the Peace signing . . . England is
orally in accord but there has been nothing signed. . . . See the Peace
Feast is about to begin . . . Hope the Turkish delegation dont bring
all their WIVES or we never will get Peace ... All will go well for
the first week or so when they re just complimenting each other . . ,
But watch out when it comes time to divide something! . . ."
The conference met in an atmosphere of fear, hatred and greed
fear of bolshevism, hatred for the enemy, and grasping hands reach
ing for colonies and money reparations. Only by refusal to give in
was President Wilson able to get his Fourteen Points into the pre
liminary treaty. "There is to be no more wars. . ." Will remarked about
9g WILL ROGERS
this ". . . then there is a paragraph a little further down told you where
to get your Ammunition in case there is one."
President Wilson had barely overcome the opposition he had to
meet in Paris when he realized that to save the League he had to do
the same thing in the United States. "Pres grabbed his old commuting
boat, the George Washington, and come back to explain The League
of Nations to Congress . . . You know those guys cant read anything
and understand it. . . .After eating out of 15 million dollar Gold
Plates and hobnobbing with Kings and Dukes can you imagine how
Congress looked to the Pres when he come back . . . ?"
The President was making some headway with Congress, unfor
tunately a "lame duck" one, when warning rumblings reached him
from Paris. Wilson rushed back there. "America dident know till
they got over there that those European Nations had a disease for
years called Gimmes . . . England and Japan had a secret Treaty where
England was to get everything south of the equator and Japan every
thing north of it. ... Everybody at the Table wants a second helping
. . . And Germany, the cook, hasent got enough to go around . . . They
agreed on one of the Fourteen Points . . . That was that America
went in for nothing and expects nothing. . . . They are all UNANIMOUS
... WE GET IT ... The best time to have formed the League was during
the war when all these Nations needed each other All those Na
tions claim they were fighting for freedom . . . But a little more land
would make a little more FREEDom. ... I wonder if we quit fighting
too quick and dident sign peace quick enough? . . . But then it has
been just this hard at the end of every war to try and prevent another
one. . . . Japan s claims are sorter novel . . . They want pay for cap
turing part of China, one of our Allies. ... If Japan gets all of her
Claims, China will pay more indemnities than Germany who lost the
war . . . you know China has one of the best Japanese Armies in the
World."
President Wilson was able to get the League of Nations back into
the treaty, but he could not keep out many inequities. He accepted
them because he thought an active and strong League might iron
them out in the future. On the other hand, his concept of self-deter
mination for small nations in the creation of Czechoslovakia, Finland,
Poland and Yugoslavia, brought with it almost as many inequities as
"The Peace Feast Follies " 99
were cured. Geographers may outline theoretical boundaries but this
does not correct the wrongs suffered by racial minorities. Furthermore,
the treaty fixed the total war guilt on Germany, thereby whitewashing
"some gray if not black" conduct of other nations. Germany s colonies
were taken from her, slices of her territory lopped off, and huge in
demnities imposed. "I thought the Armistice terms read like a Second
Mortgage," Will commented, "but this reads like a foreclosure."
"If he puts this thing through and there is no more wars," Will said
about Wilson, "His address will be WHITE HOUSE WASHINGTON D c
till his whiskers are as long as the Peace Treaty. If it should be a Fliv
(which it wont), why, then a letter would reach him at ALABI NEW
JERSEY. So all Credit to Pres Wilson. It took a Game GUY to go
through with it."
As hundreds of billions of dollars in debts and hundreds of millions
of dead eloquently point out, President Wilson failed to make the
League of Nations a saving force in the world. He could have forced
acceptance of it in this country if he had yielded on Article X, which
gave to the organization authority and means to enforce its decisions.
In his opinion, without this authority it would have been *little more
than an influential debating society. 2 In order to capture the White
House in 1920, the Republican party made the League the chief issue
of the presidential campaign, and in doing so capitalized strongly on
the isolationist feeling prevalent in the country at the time.
In September, 1934, Will was sitting in his room in the Athenee
Palace Hotel, Bucharest, worrying about another World War that he
saw in the making in this "powder keg of the world," as the Balkans
were called. In the ensuing years he had been over most of the world
several times and spent countless hours studying politics. This was
his judgment on what had taken place since the Treaty of Versailles:
1 am a great believer in letting every country run itself. Heretofore,
we been a terrible old busybody, jumping around over the world advis
ing folks. Trying to make Babtists and Methodists out of Chinamen
that have got the most perfect and satisfying religion in the world,
2 In the late summer of 1919 President Wilson made a swing around the
country appealing for the League. In September, he dramatically warned the
cxrantry that, unless the League was made operational, in twenty years the
world would have another general war that would make the first one seem like
child s play. He missed the coming of World War n by less than two weeks!
100 WILL ROGERS
and have had it when we was hanging by the tails throwing cocanuts
at each other. We have fought wars to keep Spain from talcing all
the sugar out of the Philippines. We made Cuba so free that our own
Ambassador cant stay there without being shot at. We made the
world "safe for democracy/ then everybody went "dictator" on us.
We fought a war to stop wars, then sold enough ammunition to start
a dozen wars. We fought to make self-determination of small nations
at the end of the war. We give every people that had ten signers a
country. It will take forty wars to get back the original countries that
were taken away from each other after the last war. Every nation was
supposed to go into the last war to fight for its liberty and its home
land. But at the Versailles Conference they were dividing up islands
and captured countries like a remnant sale. Austria come out with
nothing but 200 yards of the Danube River and a half dozen Strauss
waltzes. Hungary went in hungry and come out starved to death.
Italy was signed up with one side, saw they had picked the wrong
horse, run and made a bet on the other side. Went in to make the
world safe for Romans and come out with Trieste and Fiume, and
an everlasting hatred of Jugo-Slavia.
Japan had no more business in it than an Esquimo has in an Upton
Sinclair election. But they went in and come out with all Germany s
possessions in the Far East. Not only dident lose money and men,
dident lose any time. All the expense they had was sending the Allies
a cablegram saying, "We are in too."
So you can see we are really maby not much worse than the
rest of *em. But somebody should take our entry blanks away from
us so we cant enter into any of them. Wars would be great things if
they would make em closed corporations. Nobody allowed to enter
but those directly interested.
11
The "Folliest" of All: Prohibition
THE UNITED STATES DISREGARDED PRESIDENT WILSON S
advice on another question too Prohibition. Most laws had in them
an "element" of a "joke" to Will, but the effort to legislate as to what
a person drank or did not drink was the most absurd "joke" of aH.
His comments made to "the follies out front" from the rostrum of the
Follies were brought together in his second book, The Cowboy Philos
opher on Prohibition, published in August, 19 19. 1 He warned on the
cover that "you won t find the country any drier than this book," and
in a foreword admitted "the more I can keep my readers away from
the title" and on the other side (about 95 proof) "the more chance
I got getting away with it." He also had to admit, regretfully, that it
was "not subsidized by any Liquor Concern." His thanks went to
"Professor Lowell of Harvard for the English translation" and to "the
Writers of the Old and New Testaments for furnishing facts for some
of my strongest arguments against Prohibition." He looked forward
with dread to the future because he liked to play to "an audience
who have had a few nips, just enough so they can see the joke and
still sober enough to applaud it" He also predicted empty galleries
for the Congress that had voted for it, for no one could listen to a
representative or a senator "without a certain amount of liquor in
him,"
The thing that disturbed Will the most was the way Prohibition
i New York: Harper & Brothers, 1919.
101
102 WILL ROGERS
came into being. It had been fobbed off on the American people by
crusaders, backed chiefly by business interests who thought that a
man worked better when sober, at a time when millions of men were
in the army, many overseas and unable to vote. The Volstead Act,
passed before the 18th Amendment to the Constitution had been
ratified, paraded itself as a war measure. Will took sharp issue with
this. "Now France fought quite a bit in the war and trained on Wine
. . . England did her part on Scotch and Polly and Ale . . . Canadian
Club furnished its Quota in Canada . . . Italy Chiantied over the Alps
into Austria . . . Women s clothes and Scotch Whiskey didn t keep the
Highlanders back much . . . Guinness s Stout kept the Irish fighting as
usual . . . The American Troops didn t retreat any further than you
can run your hand in a Paper Bag, and they had been used to Old
Crow and Kentucky Bourbon . . . Russia was doing fine till some nut
took their Vodka from them and they went back to find it. ... Ger
many, the Country with the smallest percentage of Alcahol in their
National drink (which is beer) , and Turkey who are totally prohibi
tion, why, they lose the war . . . Looks to me like if Germany and
Turkey ever wanted to win a war they better start drinking a MANS
SIZE DRINK . . . Prohibitionists ought to be arrested for treason since
treason means anything that gives annoyance to your own people,
thereby giving aid to the enemy . . . Outside of profiteers, I can t think
of anything that has given more annoyance . . ."
Actually, parading Prohibition as a "protection" of our fighting
men, an effort to keep them as pure and innocent as William J. Bryan
himself, was a smoke screen. The real reason the measure was pushed
through came from a fear by the vested interests of what might happen
when millions of men were released from the armed services without
jobs. A little alcohol in desperate men s stomachs, especially those
who had learned to kill on the battlefield, might give f bottled" cour
age. Dark whispers of bolshevism stirred uneasy consciences. There
are always those who can see the pimple but have little idea or inter
est in what caused it. They love nothing better than to monitor other
people s thinking and acting. "A Prohibitionist is a man or woman,
who is so self satisfied that he presents himself with a Medal, called
the CKOIX DE PERFECT HE ... He gives himself this Medal because
he is going to start to meddle in everybody s business but his own . . .
The "FoWesf of All: Prohibition 103
The first six ice-cream sodas served to six pinoclde players mean six
more Bolsheviks . . ."
Will predicted some dire results from Prohibition. For one thing,
"getting bit by a snake" would become a lost art because "no man
is going to let a snake bite him after liquor goes out." Also the woman
who used to faint and be revived by a nip of brandy would have to
"struggle along without fainting." But the saddest of all "will be the
loss of the Kentucky Colonal industry. They received their title
through owning the widest brimmed black hat and having the largest
Bourbon capacity of any man in the country, Sah:
When they go to dig up his Mint bed,
He will say, *just dig it a little deeper
and I will get in myself, we are both
non-essential. "
Will s arguments, thanks to the writers of the Old and New Testa
ments, were based on solid facts which the Prohibitionist had over
looked, in much the same way as Christians "resemble" Christ "Of
course the only way we have to prove anything is by the Bible I
find in Genesis 9th Chapter 20 verse, *Noah began to be an Husband
man and planted a vineyard. . . . The minute he got to be a husband
he started in right away to raise the necessary ingredients to make
what goes into family life ... Why don t they pick on Marrying, that* s
in the same verse, why single out the poor old vineyard? . . . Next
verse, And he drank of the wine and was drunken and was within
his tent*. . . Now Noah was a chosen man ... If the Lord dident
punish him, where do the prohibitionists come in to tell somebody
what to do? . . . Now Noah knew more about water than all of them
put together . . . He was the Water Commissioner of his time ... He
was the first man to discover a use for it, that was to float a boat on ...
But as a beverage he knew it was a total failure . . . Now everything
happens for the best . . . Through Noah partaking of too much wine
and going on this little spree is why the Lord picked him to gather
those Animals into the Ark ... If Noah had not drank we would today
104 WILL ROGERS
be without menageries . . . Other men of later generations have
claimed to have seen animals that Noah dident take on the Ark . . .
Perhaps their Vineyards were of a different variety . . . Noah was told
to collect two of every variety of animals and take them on board . . .
I defy any man to show me where he took a prohibitionist and his
mate aboard ... In the next verse we find Ham saw his father and
told his brethern . . . There was the foundation of the first prohibi
tionist, butting in where he had no business . . . He made such a bad
job out of it, thafs why all bad actors are called hams. . . . This wine
had such ill effects on Noah s health that it was all he could do to live
950 years Just 19 years short of Methusalah who held the long
distance age record of his and all times Now in the 14th chapter
when Abram was returning from victorious battle it says Melzhizedek
king of Salem met them with bread and wine . . . What did we meet
our victorious troops with? . . . Huylers Chocolate and Spearmint
gum."
Nor did Will rely on the Bible alone for his arguments. There was
Omar Khayam, "the pickled philosopher of Persia ... In that verse
about a loaf of bread, a jug of Wine and Thou/ look how they have
jagged those three things on him . . . Bread they voted wheat so
high nobody can eat bread . . . Wine will soon be gone and the wine
they have got, if it had ever been handed to Omar, I would hate to
have read his book . . . Thou I guess he meant a woman . . . Well,
she has the vote and she ain t the same Thou any more . . ." There
were other authorities. "Caesar carried a canteen of Chianti that
would make an Italian Restaurant proprietor envious . . . History says
that Nero fiddled while Rome burned . . . Now any man has got to
drink to fiddle, and whoever listens to him fiddle has to drink more. . . .
The Romans were the first people to discover after Noah any other
reason for water . . . They put it in those beautiful Roman Baths . . .
then built marble slabs to lay on and watch it ... You never saw a
picture of a Roman in the water in your life."
Politics, of course, would be affected. There was the case of women.
They could once drink but not vote . . . now they could vote but not
drink ... It will take them just as long to make up their minds who
to vote for as it did to tell what to drink . . . Most of them will vote
for some guy named Martiny just through force of habit . . . But if
The "Potties? 9 of Att: Prohibition 105
these women think they are going to get as much of a thrill around
a voting booth as they did around the old punch bowl, they are going
to be fooled . . . Who wants to vote if there s no place to stop on the
way home? . . . Besides one has to be about half drunk to vote for
most of the candidates they run nowadays . . . For a while it will feel
kinder embarrassing to sell your vote while sober . . . On the other
hand, the voter should ask more for his vote, as he will not be able
to sell them as often as he used to ... In the old days, if you could
keep the politician drinking with you, you could sometimes sell sev
eral times to him alone . . . And it would make a difference in the
counting . . . More men have lost office through bad counting than
through bad political policies ... A man with nothing on his hip but a
patch ain t liable to mistake one hundred for one thousand . . . And if
he is sober, he ain t near as liable to be asked to make said mistake
A quart of Old Crow in the counting-room at night has put more
men in office than voters ever did"
Instead of stopping divorce, as the Prohibitionists claimed, Will
predicted that Prohibition would affect marriage. "They lay all the
divorces on to liquor when it s only bad judgment in picking em . . .
Some men have to drink to live with a woman, some women have to
drink to live with a man, most generally though they both have to
drink to live with each other . . .The drys, as usual, have it just wrong
... It won t stop divorce, it will stop marriages ... A couple sitting
opposite at a table don t look near so good to each other over a water
decanter as they do over two just emptied Champagne bottles."
Actually, Will admitted, "it don t make any difference to me which
side I am on. I get paid for getting laughs and I found out that the
majority of the people would laugh more if I kidded the drys. But
lots of people laugh one "way and vote another. Look at Congress, it
voted dry and drinks wet."
12
"The House that Jokes Builf
IN THE SUMMER OF 1918, WHILE STILL LIVING ON LONG
Island, a new career opened for Will that was vitally to affect his
and his family s way of life. Sam Goldwyn was making a motion
picture out of Rex Beach s Laughing Bill Hyde, and Rex insisted that
Will play the part of the hero, an easygoing tramp. Will agreed, after
much argument, provided he did not have to give up his work in
the Follies and the Midnight Frolic * On completion of the picture,
Goldwyn offered Will a contract for two years at twice his salary
from Ziegfeld for the first year, and three times as much for the second
year.
"You re waving that paper at the wrong boy, Mr. Goldwyn," Will
said, shaking his head. "Why, if I was to take up your proposition,
you d be the maddest man in the world before you got through with
me. I m no actor."
Goldwyn got up and motioned for Will to follow him into his
projection room where Laughing Bill Hyde was run off.
"Now, what do you say, Mr. Rogers?" Goldwyn asked. "Are you
an actor?"
"Yep, you re right," Will replied. "I m an actor all right. The worst
in the world. Leave the acting business to them that can act All I
know how to do is to throw a lariat and crack jokes."
"Think it over," Goldwyn told him, "and well talk it over later."
It was something to be thought over and given serious considera-
1 See Autobiography, for Will s description of his early motion-picture ex
periences.
106
"The House that Jokes Built 107
tion. Life on Long Island had been good for the family, but it lacked
permanence. Will seemed well entrenched in the Follies and on the
Roof but no one knew better than he the uncertainty of theater busi
ness. A star today and a tramp tomorrow described it all too accurately.
Then there was always the chance that something might happen to
Ziegfeld himself. On the other hand, the motion picture business was
fraught with the same uncertainties. Furthermore, if be accepted
Goldwyn s offer it would mean moving to Hollywood where most of
the production was concentrating,
A letter that Will wrote to Oklahoma on learning that a niece was
to marry gives interesting information on the family as the argument
waxed hot on whether to move to California or not. It informed:
William (that s the oldest boy) is a bit like your Herbert (who
seems to like the Horses and Poetry better than Women), well,
William seems more of a mechanical nature than affectionate. He is
continually working on some scheme to make a Toy Train run. His
task seems hopeless with the opposition he encounters from the
nearest of kin.
Now there s Mary, that s our only Female of the specie, kinder
takes after your Helen. She can t seem to keep her mind on any partic
ular fellow any longer than the Candy lasts. We fear she is a bit
frivolous, all of which I lay to breeding on the Arkansaw side. She
is very patriotic, however, and is now keeping company with a Boy
Scout. I haven t met the family yet, although they have lived next
door for years, and must be people in moderate circumstances. They
have had no new car this year.
Now James Rogers, named rightly after the James Boys, is a regular
Lounge Lizard. He is to the Ladies of our town what your Pauline is
to the younger Male Set of Rogers County. He has kicked up more
disturbances and circulated more inside Propaganda concerning the
inner working of people both in and out of his set than Count Von
Bernsteins. And as for family affairs, he has the key to the Skeleton
Closet
I personally am hoping he don t marry till after he gets out of Jail.
Now Freddy, our youngest, he only made his Debut into Society last
Summer. He is such a ladies man that he never goes out alone and
really receives more attention from the opposite sex than any of the
older ones. But my Wife and I feel that they are all young yet and
108 WILL ROGERS
that a Son or Daughter-in-law would be rather an incumbrance on
us as we are not permanently fixed for them as you all are there.
Well, will close by offering our best wishes to both parties. And
congratulate them on the fact that they both have the worst of their
first year s troubles over, as they have already seen Niagara Falls,
Grant s Tomb, Statue of Liberty, Bush s Sunken Garden and the Cliff
House.
Will added that he had left "a standing order with Marshall Fields
for several sets of Havfland China and a gross of Baby Buggies and
you all just wire them direct which to send."
The more Will and Betty talked over the offer from Goldwyn the
more it appealed to them. True, Betty, who had brought her sister,
Miss Theda Blake, from Arkansas to live with them, had accompanied
Will on most of his Follies tours out of New York. They had even
taken their horses along. But California had a particular lure for them.
They were an outdoor family and life there could be more relaxed
and informal. Furthermore, the children were delighted with the
proposed move. In the end the decision was to accept Goldwyn s offer.
The chief opponent to the move had been Ziegfeld, who had long
since realized Will s value to him.
"Watch out for those movie cuties," he advised.
"Shucks!" Will retorted, "if your gals couldn t break me down in
all these years, what chance has those in Hollywood got?"
Loath to give up his forum for expressing his viewpoint, before
leaving for California Will contracted to do a series of shorts to be
flashed on the screen as "The Illiterate Digest," a humorous take-off
on "The Literary Digest Topics of the Day."
In the spring of 1919 Will journeyed to California ahead of the
family to arrange for living quarters. This was not a simple matter,
as in addition to a house suitable for the family, there were half a
dozen horses to be properly stabled. For days Will scoured Hollywood
unsuccessfully for the right combination. The problem was settled
temporarily when Goldwyn permitted Will to keep the horses at the
studio stables where there was a fenced-in space in which the children
could take their daily rides in safety. A roomy house for the family
was rented on Van Ness Avenue, the family moved in, and Will went
to work at the studio.
"The House thai Jokes Builf 109
It was here that tragedy struck. While Will was on location away
from Hollywood, the three boys, Bill, Jimmy and Freddie became
sick. The ailment was first diagnosed as tonsillitis instead of diphtheria,
which it was. Although Will drove all night with antitoxin, which
could not be had in Hollywood, he was too late to save Freddie. After
this tragic loss, it was somewhat a relief to move into a house Will
had bought in Beverly Hills ("the House that Jokes built"), a newly
developed residential district west of Hollywood. It was to be their
home until they moved to the ranch house (now a part of the Will
Rogers State Park) in Santa Monica in the early 1930 s. Now they
could have their horses close at hand as Will had added a stable and
barns, a tanbark riding ring, and a swimming pool.
Will had some troubles with architects and landscape artists. One
architect committed the unpardonable sin of trying to tell him how
to build a bam. After telling him to run along and play with his "Looey
Quince" and **velvet saddle blankets," he ended the talk by saying,
"I sure got ideas of my own on how these barns are going to be built"
When the landscape artist announced that he was going to pretty up
the yard so it would be the pride of the neighborhood, Will dispelled
all such ideas by announcing that he was going to build a seven-foot
brick wall around it so "the boys could come up Sunday mornings
and have a little fun roping goats and bull-dogging steers." He made
the poor, befuddled man have some "groupings and spacings" of
shrubbery dug up and real trees planted . . . cottonwoods and eucalyp
tus trees he was "acquainted with personally." In a few months he
proudly announced "you could conduct a real nice hanging in my
front yard now."
The crowning insult to him was a "little fountain in the middle, one
of them statues that expectorates continuously." He admitted to hav
ing been in the Follies and protested against being an Anthony Corn-
stock, "but I felt rigjit sorry for that little thing out there without even
a bandana, playing September Morn in December." It had cost $350
to put in the fountain and Will paid $500 to have it taken out. "I
didn t begrudge the money a bit. I wouldent a dared to ask my old
friends to come to the house with that thing in the yard,"
Betty told about that seven-foot brick wall. There was a city ordi
nance against such a construction, but Will got around it some way.
110 WILL ROGERS
Then, a bit conscience-stricken that it was unsightly, he ordered a
landscape artist to plant ivy around it. When he came home from the
studio and saw the small slips that had been set out he blew up.
"When I want ivy," he stormed, "I want ivy I can see."
"But this will soon grow to where you can see it," the man protested.
"Get me some I can see now."
At a fantastic cost the entire wall was covered with ivy plants.
Life became very pleasant for the Rogers family in their new home.
Will enjoyed his work at the studio, as it left him time to spend with
his family and friends. A good description was given of Will on the
set by a fellow actor and polo player, Guinn ("Big Boy") Williams:
"Bill was slouched easily in the saddle of a little black nag, paying no
attention to those around him. He was twirling a rope and tossing it
at a nearby fence post. My idea of a leading man at that time was a
cross between an Arrow Collar ad and an Olympic Swimming cham
pion. My heroes had to have firm chins, pearly teeth and barrel chests.
I took one look at Rogers. I decided that if that guy could be a star,
I would be one myself inside of six months ... Six months later I
knew I was all wrong. By that time, Will Rogers to me was the hand
somest and finest fellow inside and out that I had ever known."
Part of this worship came because Will gave Big Boy, who had run
away from home, enough money to go see his mother.
One of Will s favorite silent movies was Jubilo, made from a short
story by Ben Ames Williams published in the Saturday Evening Post.
The script writer (one of Goldwyn s "eminent authors" he had
brought to Hollywood) changed the story so drastically that Will
refused to do it. "We shot the scenes from the various paragraphs in
the Story in the Post," Will said. "When we took a Scene we just
marked it off and went on to the next. It was the only story ever
made that was filmed as it was written."
As if changing the story had not been enough, Goldwyn decided to
change the title. Will wired him on October 17, 1919:
Thought I was supposed to be a comedian but when you suggest
changing the title of "Jubilo" you are funnier than I ever was. I don t
see how Lorimer of the Post ever let it be published under that title.
That song ("In the Land of Jubilo") is better known through the
South by older people than Geraldine Farrar s husband. We have
"The House that Jokes Built 1 1 1 1
used it all through the business in the picture but of course we can
change it to "Everybody Shimmie Now." Suppose if you had pro
duced The Miracle Man" you would have called it "A Queer Old
Guy." But if you really want a title for this picture I would suggest
"Jubilo." Also the following: "A Poor But Honest Tramp"; "He Lies
But He Don t Mean it"; "A Farmer s Virtious Daughter"; "The Great
Train Robbery Mystery"; "A Spotted Horse but He is Only Painted";
"A Hungry Tramp s Revenge"; "The Vagabond with a Heart as Big
as His Appetite"; "He Loses in the First Reel but Wins in the Last";
"The Old Man Left but the Tramp Protected Her." What would you
have called "The Birth of a Nation?"
Will Rogers
P.S. They will film the Lord s Supper and when it is made, figure out
that it is not a good release Title and not catchy enough, so it will be
released under the heading, "A Red Hot Meal," or "The Gastronom-
ical Orgy."
In the movie, Jef Call Me Jim, little Jimmy Rogers, aged four, had
a part. Betty was asked if she would go on location with them* to look
after him.
"Of course," she replied, "his father would take care of him, no
doubt, but in reality I have three boys to look after my sons and
Billy."
Now that he was a motion picture star, Will was asked in an inter
view for his viewpoint on clothes. "Clothes don t bother me much,"
he confessed, "I just wear what is most convenient to get around in.
Generally speaking, an old pair of pants and a flannel shirt and cap
suit me from the ground up. As for women a pretty, sensible woman
looks just as good to me in a gingham or calico dress as she does in a
hundred dollar evening gown, all mixed up with flum doodles and
what nots."
"Do you agree, Mrs. Rogers?"
Betty nodded emphatically.
"What don t you like about the picture business, Mr. Rogers?"
"Close-ups," Will growled. "I just naturally hate em. I ain t never
going to get used to standing quiverin* all over with a camera three
inches from my nose. Don t you think it distracting, when you see a
picture, for the camera to suddenly switch from a whole scene to the
112 WILL ROGERS
hero s beaded eyelashes magnified so that they look like Zeppelins?"
The easier, relaxed life in California had not blunted Will s interest
in politics. Many of his political comments, as well as some on other
subjects, were flashed on the screen in "Illiterate Digest," but some
how they lost the "pricking" pertinency of the personal deliverance.
In the summer of 1920, as in 1916, work kept Will from attending
the presidential nominating conventions. This time, though, he decided
to give them "the absence treatment" by reporting them through a
newspaper syndicate. "You don t have to hear somebody say a thing
to know it," he said. "Why, 111 bet the typewriter the machine, not
the blond that runs it which has lived through a convention or two
just automatically runs off all the speeches including the applause
and Svild cheering for twenty minutes."
The Republicans met amid an atmosphere of hope and optimism,
buoyed up by the Congressional successes of 1918 and with opposi
tion to the League of Nations as the chief issue. "A professional
Tray-er was called in to get the Convention going as none of the
politicians present knew how," Will reported. "Of course Bill Hays
told him what to pray for. A number of leading Republicans were
opposed to the prayer as they don t think it is necessary this year
but they kept it in for variety sake." The keynote speaker was Henry
Cabot Lodge, who devoted most of his efforts to damping Wilson.
The convention was deadlocked for some time and ended up by
nominating a dark horse. Senator Warren G. Harding of Ohio, and as
his running mate Governor Calvin Coolidge of Massachusetts, who
had moved into the national spotlight by his settlement of a police
strike. "Only two detrimental things have come out since the nomina
tion in Harding s whole record," Will wrote. "One was his middle
name, Gamaliel, and the other he used to play a slide trombone in a
country band. Musical circles in Washington are now looking towards
a big revival."
Although the cause of the Democrats seemed hopeless, as usual
they put on a livelier show. Will reported this convention as a simu
lated conversation between himself and President Wilson at the White
House, and commented on the noise.
"Yes, Will," Wilson says, "there is more noise. But it don t mean
anything. A noisy vote don t count any more than a quiet one."
"The House that Jokes Builf 113
"It s too bad you can t handle the Senate on the League of Nations
thing like you do those fellows at the Convention," Will said.
"I could," Wilson said, "if it hadn t been for a lot of Republicans
buying in there."
"But you Democrats during the war must have made Government
jobs look so good that the Republicans figured they could make money
out of them even after paying big prices for them," Will said. "I would
just like to have what one Republican would have made out of those
jobs McAdoo had."
The Democratic Convention ended a deadlock by nominating Gov
ernor James Cox of Ohio, with Assistant Secretary of the Navy
Franklin D. Roosevelt to run with him. 2
The campaign of the Republicans crystallized around Harding s
slogan of a "return to normalcy" which untangled meant a return to
Icassez faire in economics: for the government to keep hands off in
industry unless a labor union "got out of hand"; government subsidies
to favored industries; and isolationism in international affairs main
tained chiefly througji high tariffs that kept foreign competition out.
This meant, of course, that the League of Nations must not be a part
of American policy. This program received a landslide endorsement
at the polls.
Early in November, 1920, Will received a letter from an attorney
representing the magazine Literary Digest, complaining that the pres
tige of "The Literary Digest Topics of the Day" was being lowered
by Ms "Illiterate Digest," and to stop it. He replied:
Los Angeles, CaL,
Nov. 15, 1920
Mr. Wm. Beverly Winslow,
Dear Sir:
Your letter in regard to my competition with the Literary Digest
received and I never felt as swelled up in my life, And am glad you
wrote directly instead of communicating with my Lawyers, As I have
not yet reached that stage of Prominence where I was committing
unlawful acts and requiring a Lawyer, Now if the Literary Digest feels
that the competition is too keen for them to show you my good
2 Will s reporting of both conventions is in his How We Elect Our Presidents
(Boston: Little, Brown and Co., 1952), pp. 5-12.
114 WILL ROGERS
sportsmanship I will withdraw. In fact I had already quit as the gentle
men who put it out were behind in their payments and my humor
kinder waned, in fact after a few weeks of no payments I couldent
think of a single joke. And now I want to inform you truly that this
is the first that I knew my Title of the "Illiterate Digest" was an in
fringement on yours as they mean the direct opposite, If a magazine
was published called Yes and another Bird put one out called No I
suppose he would be infringing. But you are a lawyer and its your
business to change the meaning of words, so I lose before I start.
Now I have not written for these people in months and they havent
put any gags out unless it is some of the old ones still playing. If they
are using gags that I wrote on topical things 6 months ago then I must
admit that they would be in competition with the ones the Literary
Digest Screen uses now. I will gladly furnish you with their address,
in case you want to enter suit. And as I have no Lawyer you can take
my case too and whatever we get out of them we will split at the
usual Lawyer rates of 80-20, the client of course getting the 20.
Now you inform your Editors at once that their most dangerous
rival has withdrawn, and that they can go ahead and resume publica
tion, But you inform Your clients that if they ever take up Rope
Throwing or chewing gum that I will consider it a direct infringement
of my rights and will protect it with one of the best Kosher Lawyers
in Oklahoma.
Your letter to me telling me I was in competition with the Digest
would be just like Harding writing Cox and telling him he took some
of his votes.
So long, Beverly, if you ever come to California, come out to
Beverly where I live and see me.
Illiterately yours,
Will Rogers
After writing this letter Will let a number of people on the Goldwyn
lot read it. For the next few weeks they kept asking if he had received
a reply.
"Nope,** Will replied, "I just wasted a letter on some High Brow
lawyer without a sense of humor. I m sore at myself for having written
it" 3
3 Copies of the letter written to Will and of his reply are in his Illiterate
Digest (New York: Albert & Charles Boni, 1924), pp. 5-10.
"The House that Jokes Built" 1 15
When Will s two-year contract with Goldwyn terminated, he
expected it to be renewed with a substantial raise. Instead, to his
embarrassment and chagrin, it was dropped. Goldwyn had sold out
and his operations became a part of the newly formed Metro-Goldwyn-
Mayer corporation. "It stunned me for several days," Will confessed,
"then I went home, as usual, and talked it over with Betty."
"No use blaming the producers," she told him frankly. "If you were
going good they would want to keep you. There s something wrong
with your pictures. Let s find out what it is and if possible correct it.
Then they will want you again."
This was exactly the advice Will needed. He was not satisfied with
what he had done. He had made a dozen pictures for Goldwyn, all
of them fairly successful at the box office, but none of them out
standing.
They tried to discover the trouble, but exactly in the wrong manner.
The motion-picture business was going through a reorganization, and
many of the top stars began producing their own pictures. Forgetting
his experience in London in 1907 and in New York in 1910, Will
decided to do so himself. Pretty soon all the members of the Rogers
family were up to their necks reading and discussing books and scripts
and planning for the time when dad would be another Douglas Fair
banks. In the end, Will produced three one-reel pictures: Fruits of
Faith, One Day in 365 (a pictorial history of a day in the life of the
Rogers family), and The Roping Fool The last was the only one
with real merit. By using a white rope and the little black pony, Dopey,.
Will had all his roping tricks photographed so that they could be
shown as he did them and in slow motion. "I don t think you might
consider it Art," he said in a personal appearance, "but there is 30
years of hard practice in it."
Something went wrong with a release agreement that Will had
made, and as a result he found himself so deeply in debt that he had
to mortgage his home, borrow on his life insurance and sell his
Liberty Bonds to keep going. Even after doing this the films of his
movies had to be left with the bank as further security. "If the loan
is made for a Moving Picture," he groaned, "the President of the bank
wants to write the story for you. The Directors want to know wha
116 WILL ROGERS
the Leading Lady is, and if they could, they would keep her as
collateral."
The unvarnished truth was that Will s abilities did not run in the
direction of business. Nor had his and Betty s studying his acting in
the rerun of his pictures made for Goldwyn uncovered his* weakness.
This came to him later after he had returned to the stage. "One night
when I was out on the stage, twirling my rope and looking silly, no
body in the house thinking I had a serious thought, it all came to me,"
he said *7 was being myself on the stage" Every time Will was him
self he succeeded beyond his wildest dreams; when he tried to get
out of character he failed. Furthermore, the contrast between his
success and his failure was so great that his failure in his silent movies
done for Goldwyn would have been success for an ordinary person.
Will had to be on a lone peak.
At this crucial time Betty was a tower of strength, as she had been
in the production attempt of 1910. It was she who assured him he
eventually would make it in motion pictures, and for the moment to
return to New York. "We will keep our home here for the time being,
and with Theda here to take care of the children, I will spend as much
time with you as possible."
13
"A Return to Normalcy"
WILL S RETURN TO THE <C NORMALCY" OF BEING HIMSELF
coincided with the country s doing so under President Harding. On
his way to New York Will stopped off at <c the national fun factory"
for fresh-laid jokes" to enliven his routine for the stage. It was an
excellent time to be in Washington as the jubilant Republicans were
once again in control of the government and were speedily converting
it into an instrumentality for a particular segment of society. The first
and most important consideration indicates quite clearly where the
interest lay. Even before Harding took over the White House on
March 4, 1921, an emergency tariff measure was rushed through
Congress. Foreign competition must be strangled. "If there ever was
a time when America had anything to fear from foreign competition
that time has passed," President Wilson said in vetoing it "If we wish
to have Europe settle her debts governmental or commercial we
must be prepared to buy from her. Clearly this is no time for the
erection of high tariff barriers." The answer came after Harding s
inauguration in the Fordney-McCumber Tariff Act, which estab
lished the highest duties so far in American history. When the country
should have pushed boldly out into its obvious leadership of the
world it cringed behind a wall to protect its rich and powerful. Profits
to the few surmounted the welfare of the many. "The tariff is an
instrument for the protection of a minority," Will lashed out, "but
what a minority!"
The act added billions of dollars to living costs, encouraged the
117
118 WILL ROGERS
growth of monopoly, impaired trade and political relations with the
rest of the world, and ensured that the League of Nations would
become impotent-
In addition, Prohibition, now firmly entrenched in the Constitution,
provided a smoke screen behind which gangsterism, racketeering and
nationwide bootlegging flourished. Even more destructive, though
often overlooked, its flagrant violation created a cynical attitude to
ward law enforcement from the lowest levels of society on up into
the ranks of big business and governmental operation. The old Mark
Hanna-isH concept of the "robber barons" of "what is the Constitu
tion between friends 5 spread to all phases of law enforcement. The
gate was wide open, particularly for big business, and Mr. Dooley s
statement that "what is a stone wall to a layman is a triumphal arch
to a corporation lawyer" offered lush grazing for "the rugged in
dividualist."
In the fall of 1921 when Will arrived in Washington another in
teresting event was in the making. As a coup de grace for the League
of Nations, one of its implacable foes, Senator William E. Borah of
Idaho, had suggested a Disarmament Conference as a means of pre
venting war and Secretary of State Charles E. Hughes had approved.
The advance guard of the delegates were arriving in Washington at
the time Will came and, remembering the Versailles Conference, he
appraised them caustically. The announced purpose of the conference
was to reduce naval armament.
On his arrival in Washington, Will was drafted to make a speech to
the National Press Club. He assured the members that he was not
"deeply touched" by the honor, as some of the foreign dignitaries who
arrived for the conference had assured them, and as a matter of fact
before the conference was over it would be the United States that was
"deeply touched." Nevertheless, he had missed Washington while in
California. "Getting thrown off a cliff in a movie, I would thinTc of
Washington. Thinking of a city where you couldent get a place to
sleep and the hotel Clerks would insult you for asking, I would think
of Washington. Prohibition, be in towns where nobody could get a
drink, I would always think of Washington." The city would be one
of the greatest in the country, he assured them, if it weren t for "the
drawback of the Capitol with the people it brings here. Congress
"A Return to Normalcy" 119
meets twice a year and brings you a class of citizens whose own people
don t want." He reminded them that President Harding in his cam
paign had promised the vote to everyone except the citizens of the
District. "The Esquimos will be voting before you do/* he warned
them.
Will kidded Congress, the Vice-President, and then he got around
to President Harding. "I went up to the White House today to see if
I could see the dog, Laddie Boy. While I was being moved on by a
Policeman, why, out comes Will Hays. He spied me and says, Have
you met the President yet? I said, No/ So he dragged me right
through three rooms filled with Ohio office seekers. Didn t even knock.
Just busted right on in. I thought we would both get thrown out on
our ears. But he didn t even get started to introduce me before the
President said, Hello, where s your Chewing Gum? So instead of me
telling him anything funny, he started repeating things I had said in
the Midnight Frolic for years. So the fellow who tells you he come
right from a farm in Ohio to the White House is Cuckoo.
" Do you want me to tell you the latest political jokes, Mr. Presi
dent? I asked him.
" You don t have to, Will, he said, *I know em already. I ap
pointed most of them. "
In New York Will played at Shubert s Winter Garden for three
weeks, and then went back into the Follies. "It s a great thing to get
the old brain workin again after loafin* on the movie lots," he said.
"You know, you ve got to exercise your brain just like your muscles.
I found when I came back that I wasn t as good as I used to be. I
was all out of practice."
Prohibition was a "staple * subject for his gibes, as was its impact
on the nation. <r Would ask you-all in the back to come up to the front,
too, but I havent got room . . . This gang in the front row is here every
night . . . They haven t missed a show or a drink for a year . . . They
bring their present wives to see their old ones act ... This is Boot
legger s Exchange . . . You can just look at their faces and tell how
the market is today . . . Scotch was 4 points off today and Gin was
steady to weak ... a tendency to weakness These men have
Diluted themselves into a Fortune . . . They have parlayed Water and
Wood Alcohol into our national drink."
120 WELL ROGERS
Taxes was another subject that came in for satire. "U.S. to spend a
million dollars to try and collect income tax from corporations . . .
What do they spend on individuals that don t pay? . . . Just carfare
to jail is all ... Those corporations pay for smartness . . . Stockholders
of big corporations take out their Dividends in extra stock on which
they have to pay no tax . . . Still a married salaried man that takes
out his Dividends in groceries to put into his family corporation has
to pay just the same . . . The income tax has made more Liars out of
the American people than Golf has . . . Even when you make one out
on the level, you don t know when it s through if you are a crook
or a martyr ... Of course, people are getting smarter nowadays . . .
they are letting Lawyers, instead of their conscience, be their guide."
The chief subject for Will s X-raying was "the Disagreement Con
ference" at Washington. "It s the No. 2 Company of the Peace Con
ference . . . Only a few nations have been invited, but it don t make
any difference . . . The United States, England, France and Japan
will decide what the rest will do ... Japan has the largest delegation,
150 ... They didn t get started good in the war but they are going
to swamp us in the Peace Conference . . . They arrived here on a
Warship China, up to the opening of the Conference, did not
know how many delegates they would send as Japan hadn t told her
. . . Most nations are coming to see what they can get at the Con
ference, but China is coming to see what they give . . . The only thing
agreed on at the opening of the Conference was that Japan was
agreed on what she wanted. . . . The Conference was opened by a
speech by Secretary Hughes setting forth its purposes When Japas
and England get through offering Reservations there won t be any
thing left but the Gentlemen and Delegates. . . . Mr. Hughes got an
awful lot of applause but no signatures . . . Japan agreed to two-thirds
of Hughes s plan, that she is in favor of England and America dis
arming, but the other third, herself disarming, she couldent seem to
derive much nourishment out of that France is getting uneasy
. . . She wants them to kinder speak about Armies if they are going
to prevent war."
A couple of weeks later Will made another report. "Japan is still
holding out for a larger navy. . . . You know you can t patrol a big
coast like China has without a big Navy . . . You never saw such dis-
"A Return to Normalcy" 121
armament in your life as is going on ... Japan has disarmed from
60 to 70% ... France has asked permission to disarm from a half to
a million standing army . . . Italy wants to disarm their Navy until it
is down* to Japan s They are secreteiy disarming China now
Japan disarmed her in Mongolia . . . England disarmed her of Shanghai
and France of Indo-China Well, it looks like Open Covenants
Secretly arrived at "
As the conference progressed, Will took cracks at President
Harding, as he had at President Wilson. In a skit Will presented a
Cabinet meeting in which most of the talk was about golf and Harding
bragged about a hole-in-one and other feats on the links. "See
where Senator Freylinghuysen was renominated in New Jersey . . .
That shows the great esteem the people of New Jersey have for the
President. . . . The Senator is the only man in Washington the Presi
dent can beat playing golf . . , The fire at the Treasury Department
started on the roof and burned down until it got to the place where
the money ought to be and there it stopped . . . The Harding Ad
ministration had beat the fire to it ... A fire in the Treasury Building
is nothing to get excited about during a Republican Administration/"
In the spring of 1922 the Follies played in Washington and in his
routine Will had an act on "the Disagreement Conference." Tickets
were sent to President Harding inviting him and party to attend. In
case this was impossible. Will offered to bring the act to the White
House. The tickets came back and Gene Buck, in charge of the tour,
received a phone call from Will Hays that the President was angry
over Will s comments about him.
"I took the story to Rogers," Gene Buck recalled, "and he cried.
He told me, Why, you remember, Gene, when Wilson come all the
w&y to Baltimore to hear me in the Friars show, and came backstage
afterwards and said how he enjoyed my jokes. "
Will s tears were not of defeat or compliance. The next night he
not only continued the skit but added another statement. "I have just
read the President s treaty message," he said. "I thought it was the
best speech Secretary Hughes ever wrote," Then in a curtain speech
he told the audience that "I joked at Wilson and he liked it A
really big man will laugh at a joke on himself." He followed this by
122 WILL ROGERS
sending a wire to the President s secretary: "From now on I m a
Democrat"
At the end of the conference Will reported that it had been "like
a Poker game, everybody claims they won five dollars." His com
ments admirably sum up the accomplishments. "We just signed up
to go to Japan s aid in case China jumps on her . . . This Conference
is to make war cheaper ... All these Nations brought Experts and
they can tell how much of a War you can put on with a given amount
of Armament ... If we could only get rid of Congress and our
Profiteers we could put on a war cheaper than anybody, for the
minute our war is over we don t have to pay our soldiers . . . We don t
pay for rehearsals between wars . . . Battleships cost a lot and mil be
no good during the next war . . . They will go the same way the old-
fashioned General on the Gray Horse on the hill that used to shout,
Go on, Boys! . . ."
Will reported sadly that this was to be the beginning of a series of
conferences. "They are laying them out like a Circuit now . . . Most
of these Delegates jump from here direct to Genoa America
hasn t decided yet whether to go or not ... We have to take stock to
see if we have enough to get to the next one on ... They call it an
economic Conference and it will be if Americans don t attend."
Will predicted truly that China would be the "chief patient operated
on" territorially, and the United States would do most of the sinking.
A series of treaties came out of the conference; they brought some
disarmament, set forth the status of China and the limitation of island
fortifications in the Pacific. Although the United States was relieved
of expenditures for keeping peace in the Pacific, Japan was left as
the strongest naval power there and the road to Pearl Harbor was
paved.
"I can picture Balfour as I saw him at the Conference," Will wrote
on March 21, 1930. "It was the professional diplomat, the trained
Statesman, just coasting along with a lot of amateurs. He could sink
a blueprint with more emotion than he could a battleship. He knew on
account of England s numerous coaling stations all over the world
that it was fast, light cruisers that were needed, so he with real
reluctance agreed to limit battleships. He thought it was up to us to
make it a success if we had to sink the Robert E. Lee and did.
"A Return to Normalcy 1 123
Balfour was made *Lord when he returned home for what he did
here. I always thought he should have been made king." As a result
of the conference the Atlantic remained England s ocean and the
Pacific went to Japan.
"When some nation really wants to fight you 3 Will summed up
this and other conferences, "they don t tell you to put up your hands.
They just pop you in the jaw before you know it. Peace meetings are
held after every war since Adam first swung on Eve for not having
his breakfast apple there on time. When she come to, they held a
peace meeting to stop wars between husbands and wives."
A few weeks after Will s return to the Follies, "the nicest old
gentleman I ever met, especially in the law profession" came to his
dressing room to see him. It was William Beverly Winslow to whom
Will had written his letter about the "Illiterate Digest." Winslow had
photostated Will s letter and passed copies around to the officials of
Funk & Wagnalls, publishers of the Literary Digest, to its staff, and
to his attorney friends. So Will s letter had not been wasted, after all.
By now, as a movie star and the top star of the Follies, Will had
become a sort of father confessor to the show girls. When asked what
the girls had done to him, his reply had been, They ve made me
love em. Most of them are working for their living and working
darned hard, too. You ought to see em at rehearsals. They know how
to work and there s no nonsense about it either. There s not half of
this stage-door johnny evil you hear about. I d rather have my daughter
working in the Follies than trooping around Hollywood, with her
mother at her heels. These movie mothers! Gosh, they re the ones
that cause all the troubles! If my girl ever goes in, she ll go alone. I
thfnk everything in this world of my wife, but I don t believe in this
mother business on the stage or screen."
True to her word, Betty came east as often as she could to be
with Will, and particularly when the Follies were on the road. She was
just as fond of the girls as Will and was always ready to listen to
their troubles. "When one of the girls is sick or in trouble," Will said,
"they go to her and she fixes em up and takes care of them."
While in New York on this Follies stint Will made his first radio
appearance. The only person with him in the studio was the famous
announcer Graham McNamee. Thinking it might be easier on Will,
124 WILL ROGERS
McNamee stood behind him. Then he noticed that Will kept glancing
around and grinning. It finally occurred to him that Will needed an
audience, so he moved around in front. Almost immediately Will s
embarrassment dropped away.
In addition to radio, this period was one of growth and accomplish
ment in two other, different fields. One was forced on Will, so that
he could earn more money to pay off his debts. It consisted of after-
dinner appearances before various groups he called it "barkin 5 for
my dinner" for a fee, usually $1,000. The other was the beginning
of Ms weekly newspaper column that was to give him an infinitely
wider "rostrum" from which to comment on men and affairs.
For over a year, in addition to his work in the Follies, Will aver
aged three to four speeches a week. "I encountered every breed of
organized Graft in the world," he said. "I faced men that made every
known and unknown commodity that the American people could very
well get along without. I even got so low one time that I talked to
Real Estate men. If this keeps on I will be speaking at a Kiwanis
Luncheon next." No other man alive could have told the various
organizations what he did.
The Advertising Men were "the Robbing Hoods of America" and
when "the Thief of Bagdad quit business the Advertising Clubs of
America took over his incorporation papers." The Automobile Show
was just an alibi to get to New York without the men bringing their
wives. The Automobile Dealers were "the old time Horse trading
Gyps with white collars on" and instead of "operating a livery stable"
they were in "a glass-fronted building . . . The only real difference is
the glass front and the smell . . ." Their organization constituted the
"mother lodge of liars" but they came by it naturally as "the old
Biblical Ananias sold Chariots . . ." Even worse were the Automobile
Accessory Manufacturers whom he called "the Lenins and Trotzkys
of the business." They made the "brittle parts, sell em to the manu
facturer, and he has to be the goat and try and peddle them to the
public." Topping it all were the paint manufacturers. The manufac
turers "put out those Cornshellers and call em Automobiles. You
sell em the paint to cover em over with so they will deceive the
people. If they have a thing they want to pass off as steel, they just
put 4 more Coats of paint on it."
"A Return to Normalcy" 125
The Rug Manufacturers were described as "the Supreme Council
of High Binders of the financial world." Their victims were girls.
"A leading trade paper says that 42% of all rugs are bought by Girls
and Women between the ages of 18 and 30 ... That is the boob age
. . . She will either buy a Rug or get married, and if she is doubly
crazy she will do both . . . Over in Armenia, Rugs are made by the
Wives and Lady Friends . . . Over there they sometimes take 4 to 5
years to make a rug . . . Over here they are bought by Wives and Lady
Friends and it sometimes takes ten years to pay for one." It had been
a pleasure to address the "24 Karat Klub" as a bunch "who have sold
more Nickle for platinum, more alloy for Gold, than anyone in the
world." On the other hand, Will had doubts about talking to the
Association of Woolen Men because they should know "what a
Cowboy thinks of a sheepherder." But on investigation he had found
there would be very little wool there as their competitors had as
sured him the organization was "about 65% shoddy." In case of rain
he warned them to stay inside or there would be "about 500 men
choked to death by their own suits." The Fur Industry men were told
that to become a member of their organization all that was necessary
was "to buy $50 worth of Diamond Dye and move next to the dog
pound."
Will told the National Association of Manufacturers, after reading
a booklet describing the purposes and accomplishments of the organ
ization, that the only other organization equal to them in effectiveness
had been "six Irishmen that met in a saloon in Chicago and passed a
resolution that King Edward should not be crowned." He called the
National Chamber of Commerce "the resolution-passing end of the
United States" and compared the local units to "the Old Ladies
sewing circles in towns years ago that knew everybody s business and
were into everything." The local Chamber of Commerce "is the Male
end of that same organization . . . They fix everything from the local
Marble Championship to the next War . . . The minute a fellow gets
into a Chamber of Commerce he quits mowing his own lawn."
After a year and a half of the "banquet routine," Will gave it up
as a regular activity. "A great many will think that it is Dispepsia
that is driving me away from behind the old banquet table . . . But
it is not so ... There is only one way that a person can survive a year
126 WILL ROGERS
of banquets and not wind up with a burlesque stomach that is not
eat there at all ... And a better plan still not only don t eat there,
but try to get there late enough to miss the speeches, too. If you
follow those two plans you will never have a spoiled banquet." Will
followed the first one by fortifying himself at "a little Chili Joint on
Broadway and 47th Street" where there was just a counter and a few
stools. "Well, on any night I had to go to a banquet, I would go there
and play about two rounds of Enchiladas, and a few encores of Chili/
and he was fortified" not only to refuse "anything that might be
offered at dinner, but to set through almost any kind of speeches."
14
"Leave Em Lay as I Write Em"
A SPEECH OF WILL S TRIGGERED THE NEXT GIANT STEP IN
his career. "One of the Roosevelt boys" asked him as a favor to
speak in support of the candidacy of Ogden Mills, who was seeking
re-election to Congress from "the silk stocking" district of New York
City. Will agreed because "nobody can refuse a Roosevelt," but he did
not agree on what he would say. It was a hilarious performance. "I
have spoken in all kinds of Joints from the homes of the rich on 5th
Avenue to telling Jokes in Sing Sing . . . But this is my first crack at a
Political speech and I hope it flops ... I don t want it to get over . . .
If it did, it might lead me into Politics, and up to now I have tried to
live honest . . . Some of you might think I am speaking for my candi
date s opponent but such is not the case ... I don t know him, but
he must be a scoundrel and a tool of the interests. . . . On the other
hand, I don t know or have never met my Candidate, and for that
reason I am more apt to say something good of him than any one
else. . . . There is one thing, though, I do not understand . . . Most
people take up Politics through necessity, or as a last resort, but I
find this Guy was wealthy before he went in ... Not as wealthy as
now but rich . . . Perhaps he went in to protect what he had as they
say there is honor among r em His handicap is that he was educated
at Harvard . . . But I understand he has forgotten most of it, so that
brings him back to earth. . . . Before serving one term in Congress, he
spent 4 terms slumming in the State Assembly at Albany ... He is
the only Politician outside Henry Cabot Lodge that can get into the
127
128 WILL ROGERS
front door of a 5th Avenue Home without delivering something . . .
He favors a living wage for the bootleggers and a free examination for
those who drink their products ... He is 100 per cent for ticket
speculators and everything in his district ... He is the only candidate
you can accept a cigar from without worrying about smoking it."
Will continued in this manner for fifteen minutes. An examination
of the speech shows that it was merely an elaborated Follies routine,
tailored for a special occasion and a special subject, as all of his
speeches had been. He was being himself, as he had not been himself
in his silent motion pictures. "The poor fellow doesn t know yet,"
Will recalled of Ogden Mills, who sat through the speech without
cracking a smile, "whether I was for him or against him." In that Will
was also being himself. On most subjects and on most men Will was
a commentator rather than a propagandist or publicity agent.
This speech was reported verbatim in the New York Times for
October 27, 1922, and widely read, chuckled over and commented on.
One man in particular read it, V. V. McNitt, founder and owner of
the McNaught Syndicate, who sensed in it the germ of a successful
newspaper column.
Up to now Will s writing had been sporadic and more or less an
imitation of the run-of-the-mill humor with wild exaggeration, out
landish puns, and slangy gibberish something he would never have
done on the stage. His books on the Peace Conference and Prohibition
had been merely collections of what he had said on the stage, as his
reportings of the political conventions for 1920 were what he might
have said if he had been in the Follies but with much less pertinency
and "fresh-laid" quality. In addition he had done a number of things
for the humor magazine Life, though not too successfully as a letter
to the editor indicates:
Dear Mr. Shipmann:
Enclosed find some Volstead or Near Jokes. Now I read the ones
you used last week (both of them) . And you have some man on your
Paper whose Genius I don t believe you fully appreciate. The way
he can take 48 Jokes and pick out the absolute poorest is positively
uncanny. You see I try them on the Stage, so I am in a better position
to appreciate his flawless picking than you are. Now this time I am
fooling him. I am not sending any bad ones. So this means that none
"Leave Em Lay as I Write Em" 129
of these will see the advantages of Life. Kindly have them return to me
the list I sent with the ones marked off which they used. Also the
Banker s Speech as I have no Ccpy of either.
What wfll Life take for their Waste Paper basket? I want to buy it.
There is a field for a humorous Magazine.
Yours in the Follies Unedited,
Will Rogers
P.S. If Benchley and Sherwood have had the same Experience I have,
we can take that Basket and Start a Humorous Magazine. If a
theatrical Manager had him as a Picker and he Worked on the direct
opposite from you, it would make Producing an Absolute Cinch,
Will s humor was not the sort that filled the pages of the humor
magazines of the time. That was the old standardized joke with a
straight man asking a question, akin to the sort used in most vaude
ville skits. Will s "fresh-laid jokes" without his own delivery were
buried in such a melange.
At the same time Will was negotiating with the New York Herald
on doing a weekly column around a horse-sense spokesman, Towder
River" Powell, which would have been squarely in the tradition of
American humor. It was to consist of conversations between Powder
River and his barber, "Soapy" when he rode in once a week for a
shave. A sample sketch did not meet the approval of the managing
editor of the Herald. At this time McNitt entered the picture. Powder
River was not Wfll Rogers to him either. After some scouting around,
negotiating and thinking, McNitt suggested to Will that the New
York Times might be induced to use a weekly column if Will would
comment on men and affairs as he did on the stage in the Follies.
This appealed to Will and he did several columns, finally doing one
that was what McNitt and the Times wanted. In it, writing as he spoke,
Wfll managed to get himself into words and onto paper.
In the New York Times and in other newspapers over the country,
on December 30, 1922, Will s first column appeared (the first Times
columnist who was not on its staff) . It was titled "Settling the Affairs
of the World as They Should be" and had this introductory com
ment: "The famous cowboy monologist, Will Rogers, has undertaken
to write for this paper a weekly article of humorous comment on
130 WILL ROGERS
contemporary affairs. The Literary Digest recently quoted an editorial
from the New York Times thus: Not unworthily is Will Rogers carry
ing on the tradition of Aristophanes on our comic stage. " Will s
justification for writing the column was that his connection with the
Follies "has given me an inside track on some of our biggest men in
this country who I meet nightly at "the stage door." He would and could
tell the truth about them because he tad never "mixed up in Politics."
Now the people across the United States were to get a weekly diet of
what the Follies audiences laughed at, and by reading it were to have
more time to mull over it.
It might be on politics. "The more you read and observe about
Politics, you got to admit that each party is worse than the other
The one that s out always looks the best . . . They ve had a Governor s
Conference in Washington where they discussed but did not try
Prohibition . , . It was the consensus that there was a lot of drinking
going on and that if it wasn t stopped by January that they would
hold another meeting and get rid of some more of the stuS."
Or it might be on a man. "We can always depend on Judge Elbert
Gary for a weekly laugh in his speeches . . . But last week he pulled
the prize wheeze of his career ... He had his accomplices make an
investigation of the Steel Industry, and they turned in a report that it
was more beneficial to a man to work 12 hours a day than 8 ... They
made this report so alluring that it is apt to make people who read it
decide to stay the extra four hours on their jobs, just through the
Health and enjoyment they get out of it ... Judge Gary got up to
read this report before the stockholders ... He read for one hour in
favor of a 12 hour day. . .Then he was so exhausted they had to
carry him out and Charlie Schwab had to go on reading the sheet
. . . After Schwab read for two hours, the audience was carried out"
It might be on Washington. "See the Senate has a filibuster
There is no other Body of Lawmakers in the world that has a thing
like that Why, if a distinguished Foreigner was to be taken around
to see our Institutions and was taken into the Senate and not told
what the Institution was, and heard a man ramble on, talking that
had gone on for 10 or 12 hours, he would probably say, You have
lovely quarters here for your insane, but have you no Warden to
look after their health ... to see that they don t talk themselves to
"Leave * Em Lay as I Write Em 93 131
death. 3 . . . One Senator threatened to read the Bible into the record
as a part of his speech and I guess he would have done it if somebody
in the Capitol had had a Bible."
The very next week a distinguished foreigner, Sir Percy Baldwin,
came to this country and criticized Congress. "Now I resent that . , ."
Will wrote ". . . President Harding #nd I can get vexed at Congress
and say things, but we are all of the same family . . . The worst thing
was, Sir Percy said our Congress was Rural and Pastoral ... I would
interpret it to say he meant HICK ... Sir Percy says all they know is
how to raise Hogs and wheat and sell them ... He is wrong . . . They
don t even know how to raise hogs and wheat."
Then it might be on borrowing money. "If you thfnlc it ain*t a
Sucker Game, why is your Banker the richest man in your Town? . .
Why is your Bank the biggest and finest building in your town? . . .
Now I m not going to put these Bankers out of Business right away
. . . I m kinder warning them . . -Of course the Ali Baba of this gang
is J.P. Now, I give John credit. If s no small job, when you have to
handle the finances of the world in addition to your own country, to
be suddenly deprived of his livelihood . . . Then there is Otto Kahn,
one of the most pleasant men I ever saw . . . And Charlie Schwab, who
has the greatest personality of any man in America ... Of course
Charlie don t hardly come under the heading of Banker . . . He only
owns just the ones in Pennsylvania You see if s not from a per
sonal view that I am abolishing Banks. It s just that I don t think these
Boys realize really what a menace they are."
In his column for April 21, 1923, Will wrote his first letter to a
president. At the time there were reports that Colonel George Harvey,
ambassador to England, was about to resign, and Will applied for his
job. His letter was addressed to
Mr. Warren Gamaliel Harding
President of these United States and
Viceroy of the District of Columbia
Chevy Chase Golf Club, Washington, D.C.
My dear Mr. President:
I can tell by observation that it [the job] does not come under Civil
Service or competitive examination . . . Now I want to enumerate a
132 WILL ROGERS
few of my qualifications for the Position of Ambassador to the Court
of James (I don t know whether it s St. or Jesse). But, anyway, it s
some of the James Family.
My principal qualification would be my experience in Speech-
making. That is 90 percent of the duties of a Diplomat, Now I can t
make as many speeches as my predecessor, unless I trained for it.
But I would figure on making up in quality any shortcomings I might
have in endurance. . . . The way I figure it out, what one has to do is
to make his speeches so that they will sound one way to the English,
and the direct opposite to the Hearst readers back over here. Now
George (Col. and not the King) was rather unfortunate in that respect.
He made them so they would sound two ways, but both Nations took
the wrong meaning. . . .
Another qualification is my Moving Picture experience. We must
pay more attention to how our public men screen if we are going to
have to look at them every day in the news films. We must not only
get men with screen personality, but who know Camera angles and
when they are getting the worst of it. If you don t watch, you are
liable to be photographed with the Mob instead of the Principals.
The thing to do is some little thing during the taking of the picture
that will draw the attention to you. For instance, during the Court
Ceremony, I would just playfully kick the King. Now you don t know
how a little thing like that would get over with the public. Or, at one of
the big weddings in the Abbey, I could just sorter nonchalantly step on
the bride s train, perhaps ripping it off, or any little Diplomatic move
like that . . .
Now, another thing, I ride horseback, so the Prince of Wales and
I could ride together and, on account of my experiences with the rope,
I could catch his horse for him
Now the feature that I feel rather modest about referring to, but
which is really my principal asset, is my being able to wear Silk Knee
Breeches not only wear them, but what I mean, look like something
in them. The Lord instead of distributing my very few good points
around as he does on most homely men, why, he just placed all of
mine from the knee down . . . Say, I can put on those Silk. Rompers
and clean up. Now I don t like to grab off a Guy s job by knocking
him, but you know we haven t had a decent looking leg over there
in years. . . .
That brings us down to Golf. Now I will have to admit that my
political education has been sadly neglected as I have never walked
"Leave Em Lay as I Write Em" 133
over many green pastures. Horses are too cheap for a man to spend
half his life walking over the country looking for holes in the
ground. But as I understand this lack of Golf will not handicap me
in England as it would over here, as Mr. Volstead has not percolated
into that land and the game is still fought out at the 19th hole. And,
if I do say it myself, I do talk a corking Game of Golf
I should like to get the appointment at once, as I want to get over
there before all the King s Children are married. If one can t attend a
royal marriage, why, their ambassadorship has been a failure as far
as publicity is concerned for that event is the World s Series of
England.
Now, as to Salary, I will do just the same as the rest of the
Politicians accept a small salary as Pin Money, AND TAKE A CHANCE
ON WHAT I CAN GET.
Awaiting an early reply, I remain
Yours faithfully,
Will Rogers
P.S. If you don t want me, Turkey wants me to represent them in
Washington. So where would you rather have me in England or
Washington?
Although Will could satirize a man like Harding, who could not
take joshing, he could praise him for his good work. "Our public
men are speaking every day on something, but they ain t saying
nothing . . . But when Mr. Harding said that, in case of another war,
that capital would be drafted the same as men, he put over a thdtight
that, if carried out, would do more to stop wars than all the Inter
national Courts and Leagues of Nations in the world. . . . When that
Wall Street Millionaire knows that you are not only going to take his
Secretary and Clerks but his Dough, say, Boy, there would be the end
of war You will hear the question, Yes, but how could you do it?
Say, you take a Boy s life, don t you? When you take a Boy you take
everything they have in the World . . . You send them to war and what
part of that life you don t use, you let him come back with it ...
Perhaps you may use all of it ... Well, that s the way to do with
Wealth . . . Take all he has, give him a bare living the same as you do
the Soldier . . . Give him the same allowance as the Soldier, all of
134 WILL ROGERS
us that stay home . . . The Government should own everything we
have, use what it needs to conduct the whole expenses of the war, and
give back what is left, if there is any . . . There can be no Profiteering
. . . Every man, woman and child, from Henry Ford and John D.
down, get their Dollar and a quarter a day the same as the Soldier . .
The only way a man could profiteer would be to raise more Children/
President Harding made his statement as a "political" utterance on
Memorial Day, and it meant no more than a preacher s prayer over
the Unknown Soldier means. Will meant his.
By the summer of 1923 Will could gleefully boast, "I m getting to
be one of the writing fellers. The Times has already objected to some
of my stuff, but I ain t the first comedian to write for them. The
Kaiser wrote for them long before I did, and all he had to do to be
funny was to tell the truth." More important, Will also announced that
"Mr. Harding wants to see the Follies, but, on account of the humor
ous relations between the White House and myself being rather
strained, he naturally feels a kind of hesitancy about coming, for at
the present time you can t see the American Girl being glorified with
out being annoyed by a jarring presence among them which I am
free to admit is myself. So I am leaving, not because I want to, but
even though you wouldn t judge it by my writing or Grammar, I have
some politeness and courtesy, and being a fair American Citizen (I
won t say "good" as I think I have heard that used before) , I certainly
have a high regard for the Chief Executive of this Great Common
wealth and I won t do a thing to stand in the way of any pleasure that
he may wish to enjoy, no matter how small."
A contract at $3,000 a week to do a series of two-reel comedies for
Hal Roach and to be able to live at home unquestionably influenced
Will more than the idea of accommodating President Harding. This
time when he went to Hollywood he could take his forum with him
through his newspaper column. "Don t thinV I am letting these promi
nent men get away scot free," he wrote. "I will continue to give you
the lowdown on them. There are just two towns in the United States
where everybody goes. One is New York so s to get where you can
act different from what you vote, and the other is Los Angeles to have
a test made to see how you screen. You can t find out anything in
"Leave Em Lay as I Write Em* 135
New York. Everybody comes there but, on account of the Volstead
Law not applying in that State, why, they are never sober enough to
tell you anything. So I really think I can give you more details from
Los Angeles on the Great American People, their habits, manners
and customs."
15
"To Rescue the Country
from the Politicians"
WILL WAS HAPPY TO BE WITH HIS FAMILY AND IN HIS HOME
again. If he could only do something to keep him there? He went at
motion-picture making with his usual zest, but in a short time Betty
realized something was wrong. After he had completed a couple of
two-reelers she knew why.
"They aren t letting you he yourself, Billy/ 5 she said.
"I know it," he growled. "I keep telling them so but nobody will
do anything about it."
A couple of nights later at Irene Rich s house both of them were
voicing this complaint. A friend, Rob Wagner, who had directed a
number of pictures, was there.
"What is the trouble, Will?" he asked.
"All I do is run around barns and lose my pants," Will growled.
"I ve lost my pants in every big scene."
"If they would only let Billy play himself," Betty put in.
Wagner nodded his assent.
On the way home Betty suggested to Will that he ask Roach to
give him Wagner as a director, and a few days later the studio manager
called Rob.
"Have you any ideas on what you would do with him?" the manager
asked.
"Goldwyn played Will as a character actor, which he isn t, and
you have been playing him as a red-nosed comic, which is profane.
136
"To Rescue the Country from the Politicians" 137
How would it do to get on the screen what the Follies paid him $3,000
a week for doing?"
"Might work," the manager said. "Come to the studio and well
arrange the details,"
Rob cornered Will at the first opportunity. "Do you have any ideas
on what you want to do?"
"Let s do a take-off on The Covered Wagon" Will suggested. "It s
a box-office success and we could play on the name. I don t mean a
burlesque, but to use characters and incidents satirizing it. We ll have
two wagons, an ox-team from Hoboken, and a swell horse-drawn
coach from Palm Beach. The two parties join and go west to found
an empire, which in itself would be unpatriotic in a Republic, We
could load up on Mayflower furniture, and then for stock to start
our Empire, take just one bull and a crate of roosters."
While Will was finishing his current picture, they worked on a
script "the first complete working script the Roach lot had ever
had." It had been a harrowing task. "Will s mind works in quick,
brilliant flashes, but it lacks continuity," Wagner wrote in his Script.
"It was my job to prepare a stout cord upon which to hang his pearls.
Finally, we managed to get a straightforward story that carried the
two wagons to a point in California where they parted, one going
north to Sacramento and the other south to Los Angeles. Will as
Torrence, in charge of the ox-team, said good-by to Will as Kerrigan,
in charge of the Horse Team he played both parts and we stuck to
the ox-team headed for Los Angeles. Will never quite got over the fun
he missed by not going to Sacramento."
The various studio employees on location could not understand
what was being done. There was none of the obvious, knockabout
comedy, clowning or pie throwing of the usual Roach production.
Then when the picture was finished ahead of schedule and under its
budget, the studio officials sat through it in glum silence.
"They don t like it, Will," Rob said.
"I am going to offer to buy it," Will said, "I still think it wffl go."
A release date had already been set, and this prevented the sale
of the picture to Will, or the studio would have accepted his offer.
Wagner was told his services would no longer be needed.
In its preview a George Ade feature came on first, a tough competi-
138 WELL ROGERS
tion to follow. But from the moment Two Wagons Both Covered
came on, the audience began to laugh. Then, as the story unfolded,
"the laughter grew and grew" until Rob thought the people were going
to tear up their seats. At the end came a tremendous cheer, something
unusual in a movie house. Wagner walked out, leaving Will and a
tearful Betty to their triumph, as the audience did not know they
were there. In the lobby Wagner ran into a conference of studio
officials.
"You never can tell," the manager said. "Rob, come over and see
us tomorrow."
Although Wagner directed Will in his next picture, studio officials
had decided the success of Two Wagons had been a fluke. They began
to muscle in to be "sure" about the next picture. "If Will had been
allowed to have his say," Wagner said, about the next picture, "it
would have been the first great Hollywood satire. Instead, it followed
the formula. So fearful was the studio that we couldn t be funny
enough, that they began to hand us first one gagman, then two, and
finally a supervisor! As help was added, each picture grew less and
less funny. Finally, the supervisor suggested certain gaucheries and
vulgarities to which we objected. When he ordered us to cut out
England, in one picture, and make it a musical-comedy kingdom, we
blew up. I ll walk through this stuff until my contract s ended, 9 Will
said. Then back to the Follies. "
While Will was suffering through the tworeelers, he kept his
promise to inform the people on the antics of their prominent men and
on the waywardness of affairs. He kept them up to date on President
Harding s swing through the country in the late summer of 1923, in
his effort to gain support for the entrance of the country into the
World Court. "The show opened in St. Louis ... I never heard of a
good show playing St. Louis in the summer time . . . Only circuses . . .
In Hutchinson, Kansas, Harding met a childhood sweetheart he had
not heard of for forty years ... If she had wanted to be truthful, she
could have said, Well, Warren, up to 2 and a half years ago, I had
not heard of you in 40 years either. . . . Harding told the Farmers they
been put on c a business basis, that as a consequence they can borrow
more and carry on their operations like any other good business
"To Rescue the Country from the Politicians" 139
man ... I don t know what kick the farmers have coming . . , When
could they ever owe that much money before?"
In California he met Dr. House, the discover of scopolamin, the
truth serum. "See they conducted experiments on convicts ... I don t
know on what grounds they reason a man in jail is a bigger liar than
one out of jail . . . The chances are telling the truth is what got him
there ... It would be a big aid to humanity, but it will never be, for
already the politicians are up in arms against it ... It would wreck
the very foundation on which our political government is run ... If
you ever injected truth into politics you d have no politics . . . Even
the ministers are denouncing it now . . . Humanity is not yet ready for
either real truth or real harmony.
"See where Mr. Edward Bok of the Ladies Home Journal has
offered a hundred thousand dollars for the best plan to stop war . . .
People that praise his idea laughed at Henry Ford for trying to stop
just one war . . . The very terms of the offer are ridiculous ... He is
to give half when the Trustees accept the plan, and the other half when
the Senate approves it ... Now, I am no Philanthropist ... I am hard
to separate from money ... If I killed two Birds with one stone, I d
want the stone back . . . But I hereby make a Bona Fide offer of 200
thousand dollars to any man in the World who can draw up any kind
of Bill or Suggestion, I don t care on what subject, no matter how
meritorious, and send it to the Senate and send this paper a copy of
the Bill submitted, and if the Senate passed the Bill as you sent it in,
you get the 200 Thousand. , . . Talk about stopping War, there ain t
a man in this Country that can draw up a Bill that the Senate them
selves won t go to war over while they are arguing it 1 am only
an ignorant Cowpuncher but there ain t nobody on earth, I don t care
how smart they are, ever going to make me believe they will ever
stop wars. . . . We ain t as smart as the generations behind us and they
tried to stop them and havent been able to ... The only way to do is
just stay out of them as long as you can and the best way to stay out
of them for quite a while, instead of teaching a Boy to run an Auto
mobile, teach him to fly, because the Nation in the Next War that
ain t up in the Air, is just going to get something dropped on its
Bean."
On August 18, 1923, while still on his swing around the country
140 WILL ROGERS
President Harding suddenly died, supposedly of apoplexy but under
mysterious circumstances. At the moment, Will laid it to the <4 Bone-
headedness of Reception Committees 5 that had overtaxed the Presi
dent. "If Jack Dempsey had left Washington and undertaken this
same strain, when he got back Uncle Joe Cannon could have licked
him."
A few weeks later, when the oil scandals broke, the idea dawned
that the President s death might have had some connection with them.
He, like Ulysses S. Grant, may have been a victim of those who ask,
"What is a Government trust between friends, especially if there is
a little black bag with enough money in it?" "I am going to devote
my life s work to rescue the Country from the hands of the Politicans,
and also rescue the Politicians to a life of Christianity," Will decided
as he contemplated this.
As Will looked about over the land, two grave injustices appalled
him. One was the refusal of Congress to pass a bill paying a bonus
to the soldiers. "You promised them everything but the Kitchen Stove
if they would go to War, and all they got was $1.25 a day and some
knitted sox and Sweaters which after examining them they wore the
sox for sweaters and the sweaters for sox. . . . The way to pay it is for
the rich men who chiefly oppose it to submit to a tax on their tax-
exempt bonds . . . These boys helped their Country in time of need
. . . Tax-exempt Bond Buyers knowingly hindered it by cheating it out
of Taxes... In 1916 there was 1296 men whose income was over
$300,000 and they paid a Billion in Taxes . . . This year there was
only 246 whose income was supposed to be over 3 hundred thousand,
and they only paid 153 million You mean to tell me that there are
only 246 men in this Country who only make $300,000? . . . Why, say,
I have spoken at Dinners in New York where there was that many
in one Dining Room, much less the United States Tax-exempt
Securities will drive us to the Poor House, not Soldier s Bonus. . . .
Now, if a man is against it why don t he tell the real truth? . . . T don t
want to spare the Money to pay you Boys. ... I think the best in
surance in the world against another War is to take care of the Boys
who fought in the last one . . . YOU MAY WANT TO USE THEM AGAIN."
Actually, "a return to normalcy" had come full circle, and most
social progress was braked to a full stop. Will s column, properly
"To Rescue the Country pom the Politicians" 141
designated The Weekly Exposure," as it began its second year never
lacked for "gas" although the "bearings" of the vehicle often grated
and groaned at the cargo carried. "We are staking the Reputation of
our Periodical that nothing in Public Life (or out of it) is any good.
It s no trouble to pick out the Bad but I tell you Readers, when you
sit down to pick out the Worst, you have set Some Task for yourself."
In announcing that he was not going to run for the Presidency,
Henry Ford said publicly that 90 per cent of the people of the United
States were satisfied. "It ain t so ... It s just got so 90 per cent of the
people Don t Give a Damn . . . Politics ain t worrying this Country
one tenth as much as parking space. . . . There is millions of people
in this country that know the color of Mary Pickford s hair but think
the Presidential office is hereditary There is more Mortgages in
this country than there is votes . . . The country is operating on a
dollar down and a dollar a week . . . Mr. Ford says, America is on
Wheels today. ... He means America is on Tick today . . . It is not
politics that is worrying this country It s the Second Payment."
When a revolution broke out in Mexico Will became furious. "I
see where we have the exclusive Contract to furnish all the Ammuni
tion for this and the next five wars, with an option on another five . . .
If you can t match a war yourself, why, get the Contract to furnish
the material for some other war ... I tell you there is nothing as
disheartening to a Country as to want to go to War and can t . . .
So I thir>1r we are to be heartily commended for obliging suffering
humanity."
Actually, it would be a good idea, Will thought, to concentrate on
some "local" wars first One of them was "the rash of husband kill
ings" that with the connivance of criminal lawyers, a publicity craze,
and the automatic pistol had broken out all over the country. If this
would have improved "the character of Husbandry" some good might
have resulted, but all the good that Will could see in this rattle of
Musketry in the homes" was "more Dead Husbands" but "not better
ones."
The other war was among the various churches and groups within
churches as to the truth of various creeds. "How the Lord got here
on earth, whether by Virgin Birth or Via the Familiar Stork has
nothing to do with it He must have been a pretty good man after
142 WILL ROGERS
he did get here ... If they would spend less time arguing over the
how, and more in following His example, they would come nearer
getting the Confidence of their Church . . . There is no argument in the
World carries the hatred that a Religious belief one does . . . Per
sonally I do not believe the story about Noah and his Ark ... I have
seen Men, since Prohibition changed their drink, claim that they
saw Animals that Noah never heard of ... I don t believe Noah could
round up all the Animals in one Herd without the Skunk causing a
Stampede . . . But if they want to argue religion, no wonder you see
more people at a Circus than in a church."
As the investigation of the Teapot Dome and Elk Hill oil scandals
following the arrest of Albert Fall, Harding s Secretary of the Interior,
came into the Senate, Will lost hope. "Statistics have proved that the
surest way to get anything out of the public mind and never hear of
it again is to have a Senate Committee appointed to look into it ...
If it had been turned over to some Justice of Peace, with the power to
act with no Appeal, why, we would be reading this morning that
Millionaire so-and-so had been served breakfast from the outside in
Ms Cell." As a partial solution for the ills of the oil industry, Will
suggested a "wet nurse" like the one the motion-picture business had.
"The great criticism of th Movies is that people are suddenly thrown
into the possession of Money who were never accustomed to handle
it before and they lose their heads . . . Why, the Oil People are rich
so quick they don t have time to get the grease off their hands . . .
They jump from a Ford to a Rolls-Royce so fast that they try to crank
the Rolls through force of habit Scandal for Scandal, Oil has
blackened the reputation of 99 per cent more people than the movies."
On the same day that pictures were shown in the newspapers about
witnesses testifying before the Senate Committee, another picture
showed a Negro with a truth machine strapped to his wrist. He had
been sentenced to 99 years for manslaughter. "Now if he admitted
that he killed the party he would get life ... It meant either life or
99 years for him. . . . That very day in Washington there were Guys
testifying with nothing on their Wrists but Silk Shirts. If they had
taken one of those Truth Machines to the investigation, there would
have been more Americans sailing for Europe than went during the
War What s become of the old-fashioned Felon that used to be
"To Rescue the Country from the Politicians" 143
arrested for perjury? . . . God Bless America for a Sense of Humor"
Will knew that a "wet nurse" would not be appointed for the oil
industry and that the rich oilmen behind the scandal would not be
sent to the penitentiary as Albert Fall had been. And the answer was
in "lawyers," to whom he turned his attention when the investigation
was transferred to Los Angeles. The "lawyers" and "the evidence"
came in three private railroad cars and Will went down to see them
unload:
Well, they unloaded the first Car just at daybreak . . . They were
just little ones . . . Chances are there was not one in that Car whose
fee run any higher than maybe 40 thousand a Case. In fact they were
kinder engaged to carry the Brief Cases. ... It was at the Second Car
load that we commenced to prick up our Ears, for we were now
getting into the Big Money. Lawyers come out of that car who
wouldn t argue a speeding case in Traffic Court for less than a hundred
thousand And then maybe you would have to give em a retainer
in case you got pinched again . . . There were men in there who had
procured Divorces for every one of the 400. . . . Well, when they had
unpacked this second car and got them safely away to Individual
Private Suites at our Home Talent Biltmore, why, then come the real
headliners. Just a few big ones that were in real touch with Mr.
Doheny personally . . . Real Lawyers! Men who, on a Case like this
which involved perhaps 400 Million Dollars, why, they consider them
selves slumming , . . Well, I will tell you how high Mr. Doheny went
for legal talent ... He had Jack Dempsey s lawyer!
It might appear from Will s description that Doheny had hired
all the important lawyers in the country. But this was not the case.
*The Teapot Dome Gang went to Cheyenne . . . Mr. Sinclair unloaded
at least 4 cars there."
After seeing this magnificent pageantry of lawyers, Will went to the
station the next day to see Uncle Sam s legal talent" arrive. A special
with five private cars pulled in as he reached the station, but he soon
learned that this was a Follies private train with a special compart
ment for each girl A focal wheezed in on another track. "Who do you
think Emerged? . . . Why Atlee Pomerene and a Mr. Roberts . . . They
came crawling out of a Day Coach where they had been sleeping on
the back of their Necks from Cheyenne. They didn t even have a
144 WILL ROGERS
Caddy to cany their legal papers." Will felt let down. "Uncle Sam,
no wonder you don t get anywhere Of course there is one Silvery
lining for the Navy s fuel . . . That is the other side has so many
lawyers, they may get fighting amongst themselves . . . and we
might win Accidentally . . . But they are well fortified for that . . .
They have Expert Technicality Lawyers . . . Lawyers who could take
W. J. Bryan and show you on Technicalities how he is entitled to be
President . . . Then there are Postponement Lawyers who could have
the Falls of Niagara put back on account of the Water not being
ready to come over and who on the last Judgment Day will be
arguing that it should be postponed on account of Lack of Evidence."
Will s prophecy proved correct. The defendants were acquitted in 1926
on a technicality, although few, including their own lawyers, doubted
their guilt.
Sick and tired of the silly work he was doing at the Roach studios
and pining for "the national joke factory," Will went back to New
York in May, 1924, in order to be for the first time at the National
Political Conventions. He described it as "that City from which no
weary Traveler returns without drawing on the Home Town Bank, that
City of Skyscrapers, where they are endeavoring to make the height of
their Buildings keep pace with their prices, where the Babbitts from
Butte and Buffalo can pay speculators fantastic prices for a cheap
Show, view the Electric Signs until 12 o clock and then write home
of Bacchanalian Revels." Will was changing one "California Rea for
a Billion Long Island Mosquitoes" and leaving the land where "the
Movies are made to return to the land where the bills are paid." He
had survived for a year on "Culls and Seconds" of oranges and wanted
to return where he could get "No. 1 good California Oranges and
Fruits."
16
"Presidential Follies of 1924"
BEFORE THE 1924 EDITION OF THE FOLLIES OPENED WILL
had time to go to "the national joke factory" for new material for
his act. "Congress has been writing my material for years and I am
not ashamed of what I have had. Why should I pay some famous
Author, or even myself, to sit down all day trying to dope out some
thing funny to say on the Stage? ... No, sir, I have found that there
is nothing as funny as things that have happened . . . Nothing is so
funny as something done in all seriousness . . . Each state elects the
most serious man it has in the District ... He is impressed with the
fact that he is leaving Home with the idea that he is to rescue his
District from Certain Destruction, and to see that it receives its just
amount of Rivers and Harbors, Postoffices and Pumpkin Seeds.
Naturally, you have put a pretty big load on that man . . . If s no
joking matter to be grabbed up bodily from the Leading Lawyer s
Office of Main Street and have the entire populace tell you what is
depending on you when you get to Washington."
On the other hand, Wffl pointed our, they wouldn t be so serious
and particular if they only had to vote on what they thought was the
good of the majority of the people of the United States." But a thou
sand minor interests kept them from doing so.
Outside the Halls of Congress Will found the politicians "all full
of humor and regular fellows. That is when you catch them when they
havent got Politics on their minds. But the minute they get in that
immense Hall they begin to get Serious, and it s then that they do such
145
146 WILL ROGERS
Amusing things. // we could just send the same bunch of men to
Washington for the Good of the Nation, and not -for Political Reasons,
we could have the most perfect Government in the World"
Will made his first personal appearance at the Republican Con
vention held at Cleveland, Ohio. "At first I was going to say the
Republican Follies but it s not so. Mr. Coolidge could have been
nominated by post card. Those misled Delegates will have just as
much chance to really nominate him as a bow-legged girl would have
at our Stage Door." His disappointment matched that of "a sick man
who had been promised a trip to the World Series, and then when he
was able to get up they take him to Grant s Tomb. The most exciting
thing about the Convention when it opened was an array of badges
that was deafening." Will s big thrill came when he entered the
Convention Hall press stands with William Jennings Bryan. "Every
body thought I was a plainclothes man sent along to protect Bryan
from the Republicans."
"You write a humorous column, don t you?" Bryan asked.
"Yes," Will admitted.
"I write serious articles and if I think of anything of a comical or
funny nature, I will give it to you," Bryan offered.
"Thank you, and if I happen to think of anything of a serious
nature, I will give it to you."
Will smiled as it occurred to him that both of them might be wrong.
With everything cut and dried, the prayers turned out to be about
the most exciting thing. One of them was a "keynote prayer" in which
Republican party unity was its principal plea. The only reference to
anything pertaining to the Bible was the "Amen" at the end. A
woman delegate received Will s highest praise. In introducing the
permanent chairman she walked down front and said, "Convention,
I submit to you Mr. Mondell." If it had been a man "he would have
had to drag in the glory of every past Republican President back to
Lincoln."
An amusing moment in the convention came when Keynoter
Burton, in referring to the oil and other scandals in the Harding Ad
ministration, said, "we must condemn exaggeration and protect the
innocent," the applause "like to have torn the House down." But
when Burton stated that "we must amidst all these rumors of iniquity
"Presidential Follies of 1924" 147
punish the Guilty," the applause was a "ripple." Burton rushed over
the oil scandal "so quick you would have thought his speech was
greased. He dident even have a sentence; he had only a semicolon in
which he laid the scandal onto the war/ which was, of course, "under
the Democrats."
Wfll left the convention before it closed. "I love Cleveland because
I knew her before this catastrophe struck . . . She will arise from her
badges and some day be greater than ever. But I had to leave ... I
simply couldn t stand the incessant din, the roar, the popping of
corks, and the newness and brightness of the speeches, and the fair
ness to other political parties uttered from the platform. I just had to
have rest and return to the solitude and quiet of a Ziegfeld rehearsal
where everything wfll be as still and orderly as a prayer meeting."
After Coolidge had been nominated, he was called on the telephone
several times for approval of So-and-so as a running mate. His
answer was "Yes" in every case. Later, Wfll asked frmi why he had
not expressed a preference.
"Nobody told them whom to nominate for vice-president in 1920,"
he replied, "and they did afl right."
"Cleveland is negotiating with Billy Sunday to hold a revival there,"
Wfll summed up, "so the Town can get some excitement and their
money back that they lost on this."
The 1924 Potties opened in New York at the same time as the
Democratic Convention. "The Democrats go to Madison Square
Garden, where Singling Brothers Circus always plays, and we go to
the Amsterdam, a beautiful theatre consecrated solely to Art. . . . It s
the first time in the theatrical history of New York where two shows
of equal magnitude both open on the same night ... It means *Man
versus woman. . . . They are featuring Men, and we are featuring
Women ... I don t mean to be partisan, just because I am with the
Woman show, but I thfnlr women will outdraw Men as an attraction
every time . . . Can you imagine any one going into a big barn of a
place to see Al Smith when they can go into a comfortable theatre
and see 100 of the most beautiful creatures on earth? . . . And Bfll
McAdoo, he is a dandy, nice fellow, but do you think I would go
into a place to look at him when I could see Ann Pennington s knees?
. . . And the costuming ... to compare that is a joke Can you
148 WILL ROGERS
imagine my old friend William J. Bryan s old alpaca coat stacked up
against the creations Evelyn Law and Martha Lauber will have on?
. . , Now these politicians suits are all right in the Chautauquas . . .
they know they are, for they have tried them for years . . . but not for
New York. . . . The only thing they have on us is the badges . . . We
are simply outbadged ... Of course we could put badges on our girls,
but who wants to see a Follies girl overdressed?"
Alfred E. Smith, political leader in New York City and perennial
governor of the state, and William G. McAdoo, son-in-law of
Woodrow Wilson, were the leading candidates. As a Catholic and
antiprohibitionist, Smith was not popular in the South. McAdoo not
only was a prohibitionist, he practiced its precepts. Although a strong
partisan fight was in store and chances for success in the election were
slim, the convention met in a carnival atmosphere. "It was a beautiful
Sunday in New York . . . The New York churches were crowded with
New Yorkers . . . Coney Island was crowded with delegates ... It
may have been a coincidence, but every preacher in town preached on
Honesty in Government. . . . The Democrats can adjourn right now
and they will have had a better Convention than the Republicans had
... In fact, I suggested to them that if I was them / would adjourn
before they nominated somebody and spoiled it Excitement? . . .
Why, there are more bands playing in this town than there were
delegates at Cleveland ... If they had had that many bands and
delegations parading all in different directions out in Cleveland, why,
they would have had to borrow some streets from Toledo or Youngs-
town. . . . AI Smith copped off Fifth Avenue for his parade and it
took five hours for his followers to stagger by a given point."
At first Will had great fun reporting the convention and com
menting on it in his Follies routines. "The Keynote speaker, Pat
Harrison, told things on the Republicans that would have made any
body but Republicans ashamed of themselves . . . When he mentioned
old Andy Jackson, he just knocked those Democrats off their seats
. . . Then, as he saw they were recovering, he hit *em with the name
of Thomas Jefferson, and that rocked them back . . . Then he men
tioned Woodrow Wilson, and that sent 9 em daffy . . . The delegates
would raise up and start singing, Hail, Hail, the Gang s All Here,
What the Hell Do We Care. . . . Even my old Side-Kick Bryan was
"Presidential Follies of 1924" 149
prancing around the hall shouting Now he has been brought up
different ... He has read the Bible, even if to just get quotations from,
but he knows, even if those other delegates dident, that that was no
way to pay tribute to a martyred President As poor as the Repub
lican Convention was, they dident sing Hail, Hail, the Gang s All
Here,* when the speaker mentioned the name of Lincoln."
As the convention continued in deadlock day after day, to engender
some excitement Will offered himself as "a sacrifice" for the Vice-
Presidency. His qualification as he gave them to the Follies audience
were "being a farmer" he understood "the farmers conditions" and
"owning two farms, both mortgaged," he appreciated the farmer s
predicament. It was conceded that the vice-presidential candidate must
be from the West, and "if a man came from 25 feet further West than
I lived last year, he would have to be a fish hi the Pacific Ocean." His
best qualification, though, was that he did not belong to either party.
"I am just progressive enough to suit the dissatisfied and lazy enough
to be a Standpatter." Furthermore, oil has "never touched me as I
drilled a well on my farm and it was oilless" nor "have I ever worked
for a big corporation." As a good after-dinner speaker, "I could
learn two stories, one for dinners where ladies were present, and one
for where they were not." There was, of course, the question of what
would happen if the President died. "WeE, I would do just like
Mr. Coolidge I would go in there and keep still and say nothing.
He is the first President to discover that what the American people
want is to be left alone."
After more harrowing days of recriminations and feuds, Will
announced to his Follies audience and in his newspaper column that
he was going to make a nomination that would solve all the problems.
When it came into his column it was in the form of a nominating
speech, "The man I am about to name," and then a listing of his
"peerless" qualifications. It ended up in this way:
The man I am about to name is the only man in these grand and
glorious United States who, if we nominate, we can go home ana have
no worry as to the outcome. Don t, oh, my Democratic Colleagues,
listen to my friend Bryan ... He named ten candidates; ten men can t
win! . . . Only one man can win Oh, my newly made friends, have
confidence in me ... Trust me just this once and I will lead you out
150 , WILL ROGERS
of this darkened wilderness into the gates of the White House. Oh,
my tired and worn friends, there is only one man.
The man I am about to name to you is Calvin Coolidge!
A few days after this, a delegate from Arizona with only a half-vote
cast it for Will. On the next ballot another delegate cast his half-vote
for Will also. A reporter for the New York Times interviewed the
new candidate in his dressing room at the New Amsterdam Theatre.
"I cannot talk statesmanship clothed in the habiliments of the art of
Thespis," Will said, getting up and putting on a necktie. "This is a
very serious moment in the destinies of the nation. The Democratic
Party is locked in a strangle-hold and can make no progress My
candidacy represents nothing more than the efforts of the plain people
of which I am one to remedy this disastrous condition of affairs.
It is my duty to go directly to the scene of the conflict and marshal the
forces of right and justice. I did not seek this office, but respond to
public demand in the spirit in which Spartacus left his plow in the
furrow. The hour demands a leader. The voice of the people calls.
Who am I to hesitate?"
Will confided to the reporter that his plan of campaign was to go
along with the others until about Labor Day, and "then throw in my
reserves. My vote has doubled without me turning a hand, and when
we throw in the reserves that will make three of us. What I need is a
good campaign manager. You might announce that any retired busi
ness man looking for a safe place to invest about $25,000 with a
partnership in the concern, references exchanged, will be welcome in
this capacity. His work will be very light . . . He wouldent have more
to do than to sign the check. I ll take the labor of spending it off his
hands. And I d like to have the word passed around quietly that I can
be bought. But let them know, to save time, that I don t intend to
sell out the delegates who have flocked to my support cheap. I m not
naming figures, but my Rolls-Royce needs a new tire on the left hind
foot."
As the convention moved into a "Seven Years Hitch," Will told
his Follies audience some things that had happened. "Women Dele
gates started with Bobbed hair and wound up by being able to sit on
it ... The Arkansas Delegation started in whittling up the Board
"Presidential FoWes of 1924" 151
floor and whittled their way from the Back of the Hall up to the
Speaker s platform . . . There was so many shavings under their Chairs
that if a fire had ever broken out, between these Shavings and the long
Whiskers, there would have been no way in the world to put it out
. . . Delegates who brought their Wives along have spent more time
with them than in years ... If they don t hurry, they will be the only
Party that nominated a Candidate and got him defeated the same
day."
The deadlock was broken by the nomination of a dark-horse candi
date, John W. Davis. His selection was "a personal triumph" for
William J. Bryan, Will contended. "He is the greatest character we
have in the country. Most of us attract attention twice on Earth. One
when we are born and the other is when we die ... But Mr. Bryan
improves on a bear ... He hibernates for four years, and then
emerges, and has a celebration at eveiy Democratic Convention. In
the meantime, he lectures in tents, shooting galleries, grain elevators,
snow sheds or any place he can find a bunch of people that havent
got a radio. No one has ever been able to understand the unique and
uncanny power that he seems to hold over the Democratic Party . . .
Since 1896 he has either run himself or named the man that would
run ... He could take a Dictionary and sink an enemy with words at
40 paces . . . His speeches have been the only thing to look forward
to at a Democratic Convention for years He has sent more Presi
dential Candidates home without a Reception Committee meeting
them than any Monologist living ... He can take a batch of words and
scramble them together and leaven them properly with a hunk of
Oratory and knock the White House door knob right out of a Candi
date s hand . . . Well, this time it seemed different ... All during the
Convention you could hear the expression, Well, poor old man Bryan!
He has lost his grip on the delegates. Here is once where he won t be
able to name the man! But not me ... I never wavered. When he
came out against Davis, Davis was a nominated man Next to
Bryan, the New York Newspapers have killed off more deserving
candidates by supporting them than anyone or anything."
Will wired Al Smith: "I told you, Al, you would be the lucky one,
that they would nominate Davis. I tried to see you during the day,
and all that prevented me was the New York and Albany Police Force
152 WILL ROGERS
combined. Well, Al, that shows them, you and I, that a couple of
New Yorkers are good losers. We will go back to our respective
Follies, me to the Amsterdam and you to Albany. I am glad you
wasent selected. It would have taken a couple of years to sweep up
the paper. We will make a Joint Campaign in 28, Al, and I will take
you away out West as far as Pittsburgh."
To John W. Davis Will wired: "Would have congratulated you
sooner, but was afraid somebody would call for a poll of the delegates,
and they never polled like they had voted. So I was in mortal fear for
you until they got out of town. Hear one of the Bryan Brothers is
to be associated with you indirectly. For God sake pick the right one."
Davis wired back assuring Will that his vice-presidential running mate
was Charlie, not W. J. Bryan. "If elected I will appoint you Ambas
sador to England," he added, "and I have the knee breeches."
In his wire to Charlie Bryan Will advised him to go through the
birth records and if possible to show that he was a cousin and not
a brother of WJ. to do so. "Thanks for the wire," Charlie Bryan
answered. "Will do as you suggest about the records. In the meantime
I have bought him a one way Ticket to Florida."
The slate was set for the 1924 "Presidential Election Follies."
17
The Return to Wall Street"
THE COLORLESS 1924 PRESIDENTIAL "SWEEPSTAKES"
were relegated to the want ads by the news that the Prince of Wales,
then at the height of his popularity, was to visit the United States.
"Everybody is making preparations for the visit of the Prince of
Wales ... He has been offered every private home to live in East of
Altoona I don t know his address over there or I would write him
and tell him what I had to contribute ... So I will just do so publicly.
... He wants to avoid the crowds and be off by himself so I think I
have just what he wants . . . Now in offering this, I have no Ulterior
motive I have no Daughter of marriageable age that I have visions
of occupying Windsor Castle . . . What I have to offer is not as
elaborate as some he has been offered but it might be just what he
wants ... I have a nice large dressing room at the Follies and I can
have a cot put in and he can use it as long as he cares to stay ... I
have heard he loves dancing . . . Now where can you get Girls and
dancing right at your door like I am offering him?"
The Prince of Wales may have read Will s offer and yearned to
accept it Anyhow, he said on arrival in the United States, "I say, I
should like to meet Will Rogers."
In compliance with his request, the Prince s equerry, Major Metcalf ,
came to Will s dressing room and invited him to a dinner in the
Prince s honor to be given at the Piping Rock Country dub. Ziegfeld,
sensing the publicity value, moved Will s routine up early in the show
so he could attend. He arrived at the dinner as the Prince was
153
154 WILL ROGERS
finishing his speech. The audience "was composed of 150 of the most
prominent men in the U.S. A man with only 5 millions at that dinner
would have been a waiter. . . I stumbled over the feet of 10 of the
heads of the oldest Families of New York trying to arrive at the
Speaker s Table." Here is a part of what Will said as taken from his
prepared speech:
Gentlemen and Polo Players, and Guest of Honor . . . You see I
am stuck already . . . It s terrible to get stuck this soon in a speech,
but I am ... I don t know what to call our Distinguished Guest . . .
In the mornings he is the Prince of Wales ... in the afternoon he is
Lord Renfrew . . . and as I have not read the last edition of the papers,
I don t know what he is here tonight ... He travels under so many
Aliases. . . . Well, anyhow he is a Prince in his own Country, he is
Lord Renfrew on his trip over here, but with us here he is just a
Regular Guy. . . .
Now I know a lot of you thought I would be all nervous up here
appearing before Royalty but I am not because it is not the first
time. . , . One time Sir Harry Lauder was in the audience where I was
playing . . . somebody had given him a pass to get in ... Well, of
course, I was all swelled up over appearing before a Sir, and later on
I got to reading some English Book and found that Sir was about the
lowest form of Royalty there is ... It s the Ford of titles . . . But I
am broadminded ... If a man can get out and make himself popular
in spite of his birth, I am for him ... I admire any man that can rise
above Ms surroundings ... I didn t know he was here until just by
accident I happened to see a little squib down in one corner of the
paper, in a kinder out of the way place. . . .
Now if you think I am coming here to tell you a lot of jokes about
the Prince falling off his horse, you re mistaken. I fall just as much
as he does ... Of course my falls don t attract as much attention, but
they hurt just as bad. . . .
We can t kid Englishmen about their Horsemanship. If I can t find
something funny in an Englishman besides his riding I won t consider
myself much of a Comedian . . . Besides if we want to see some funny
riding go to Central Park ... We don t have to wait for the Prince.
Will continued in this vein for an hour and a half. Every time he
tried to stop, the Prince urged him on, even whispering in his ear
something to say, A couple of days later Will played polo with him,
"The Return to Wall StreeF 155
and went to a party given in the Prince s honor by Josh Cosden,
Oklahoma millionaire oilman who had been snubbed by the Newport
set The Prince, his entourage in attendance, was graciously pleased
to favour Lord Josh Cosden, Gusher in Extraordinary to the Okla
homa Oil Wells, and Lady Cosden, at a Sunrise party at the Castle
Petroleum," kidded the Syracuse Telegram on September 5, 1924.
"Viscount Will Rogers, Knight of the Lariat, Master of the Follies
Garter and Commander of the Bucking Broncho, didst make Hys
Royale Highness Laughe full sore with Quips of Chorus and Cactus."
It helped WilPs humor "to have a Prince up his sleeve," and he
made full use of it both on the stage and in his column. "The Boy went
down to see Mr. Coolidge the other day . . . Some combination ... A
Mr. Young live go-get- em and just Cal settin* there . . . Wonder
what they talked about? . . . Just like to know ... It would be like me
spendin an evening with the Pope ... At that the Pope probably has
a sense of humor and he and I could swop jokes . . . But can you
imagine the Prince telling Cal an English joke? ... We can t even teH
him an American one yet ... Up there at the club I just told the
Prince that if none of the jokes got across down there before Silent*
Cal not to worry at all."
The report got around that Will had bought one of the Prince s
polo ponies. "Now that was a mistake ... I bought one but it was for
Mr. Flo Ziegfekfs little daughter ... I have some alleged Polo Ponies
of my own ... In fact I have the best string of $40 Polo Ponies in the
world, so you would hardly get me giving $2100 for some old Pony
just because he belonged to the Prince ... I wouldent give $2100 for
the Crown, much less a horse . . . But anyway he was a very nice,
gentle, real kid s Pony, and little Patricia Burke Ziegfeld was tickled
to death with him . . . She had him following her all around, even into
the house, and that made a big hit with Mr. Ziegfeld ... I told him,
Why, the barns that Pony has been used to, you re lucky to get him
to go into your house. . . . That s the reason I did not get one ... I
knew I could not support one in the -manner in which it had been
accustomed."
On October 4 WiD reported that "the Prince has left us. You often
hear the expression that a person has left the country flat, but in this
case the Prince left the country asleep. Long Island went to bed the
156 WILL ROGERS
night after he left and has not woke up yet ... A lot of men got
their Wives back much shopworn from dancing."
Lord Louis Montbatten, the cousin of the Prince who accompanied
him on the trip, termed Wfll "the most intelligent and delightful man
in America." Some newspapers were not so kind. Will knew exactly
what he was doing. "The publicity that accrued from the Prince was
the means of my using it for weeks in the Follies and in my newspaper
columns. Later, I used it when I went out on my lecture tour. I could
not have bought it for a million dollars." Will looked for "the real
follies" elsewhere. A few weeks after the Prince left, J. P. Morgan
sailed for Europe. "They made all the photographers and reporters get
off the boat, and they put in a special gangway for him to go on the
boat ... He had dozens of Policemen and Officers to see that no one
molested him by even looking at him . . . Then you will hear some
Bonehead say we have no classes in America like they have in England
. . . Why, if J. P. Morgan was as democratic in just one day as the
Prince of Wales is every day, Morgan would feel like he was
slumming."
Late in October a bit of excitement was stirred up in the presidential
campaign when a troupe of actors were entertained at breakfast by
President and Mrs. Coolidge. This brought on a senatorial investiga
tion at which a witness testified that for $50,000 he could have bought
jokes on the stage in favor of any candidate. "Gosh, I wish I had
known that ... I would have been rich by now ... If I had collected
for every favorable joke I have told about each one of the Candidates,
and if I had been paid for all I have told against each one of them,
I would be a Millionaire ... I generally give the Party in Power more
digs because they are generally doing the Country the most damage,
and besides I don t think it is fair to jump too much on the fellow who
is down."
Wfll had his rules for what an actor should say. "An Actor has as
much right as any one else to have his Political beliefs ... He pays his
taxes and is usually a good Citizen . . . But I don t think he should
carry any Campaign propaganda into his stage work, either for or
against any Candidate ... He has no right to use his privilege as an
Actor to drive home his Political beliefs . . . We are paid by an Audi
ence to entertain them, not to instruct them politically . . . Distribute
"The Return to Wall Street 9 157
your compliments and knocks so when the audience go out they don t
know where you are politically . . . Then if you want to, as a Citizen,
go hire you a Hall and tell em what you want to ... You are a
Citizen and not an Actor then ... I knock em all, and occasionally
boost, when they do something meritorious, which is rare ... So here
is hoping that the stage will not, as some papers seem to think, pollute
Politics . . . The worse we could do for it would be to help it . . ,
Besides this contamination of Actors dining in the White House won t
happen again soon, as there is no Campaign until 1928."
Will insisted there were no real issues in the elections, The Demo
crats dusted off the League of Nations, but the Republicans countered
with the World Court The Ku Klux Klan bobbed up but just as the
Republicans were "having their Campaign literature printed to de
nounce, somebody shipped some sheets north to Indiana, New Jersey,
Maine and a few other places. So that Issue was chased up the same
tree." Of course lower taxes were promised but that had been
promised by every president "since Washington crossed the Delaware
in a rowboat. But taxes have gotten bigger and their boats have gotten
larger until now the President crosses the Delaware in his Private
Yacht." Prohibition was no longer an issue but a commodity. In
desperation, Coolidge announced "his policy will be Common Sense.
Well, don t you know the Democrats will claim that too? Besides,
Common Sense is not an Issue in Politics; it s an affliction Davis
announces that his Policy will be Honesty . . . Neither is that an issue
in Politics . . . It s a miracle . . . and can he get enough people that
believe in Miracles to elect him? . . . The only thing I see now that
they are divided on is the question, Who will have the Postoffices? . . .
No matter how many parties you have, they are all fighting for the
same thing SALARY . . . You abolish salaries and you will abolish
Politics and Taxes."
On the eve of the election Will announced that "the fellow who
don t know how it is going to come out should not be allowed to read
a paper and probably hasent Some of the County Offices, Sheriffs
and Road Commissioners may be in doubt up to election time but
Coolidge don t even have to stay up to hear the returns." When it
was over he said, "The Republicans mopped up, the Democrats
gummed up, and I will try to sum up." It happened because Davis
158 WILL ROGERS
foolishly ran on honesty. "It was too radical for Politics. Mr. Coolidge
ran on Common Sense and the returns showed that there was 8 million
people more in the United States who had Common Sense enough not
to believe that there was honesty in politics." Will was able to report
"much jubiliation on the part of the disgracefully rich, or Republican,
element of the entire country . . . They are celebrating the country s
return to Wall Street. It never had such a two weeks in the history
of that ancient and honorable institution as she is going through now
. . . They had to keep open 20 minutes longer and all the papers made
headline stories of the fact . . . Just think of the inconvenience of the
Brokers having to wait for 20 minutes after 3 P.M. in raking in more
dough ... It is one of the worst personal hardships that the Exchange
has gone through in years . . . And stocks, why, anything that looked
like a stock would sell . . . People would wire in, Buy me some
stocks . . , The Broker would answer, What kind? The buyer would
wire back, Any kind; the Republicans are in, ain t they all supposed
to go up? "
The stampede was on that ended in the debacle of October, 1929,
and there was nothing to interfere with it. The business of government
was to keep the government out of business that is, unless business
needed government aid! This was the absolute "norm" of "the return
to normalcy" and Coolidge was its high priest.
Will was at his peak as a Follies performer and had perfected his
technique in his newspaper column so that it would as nearly as pos
sible resemble his verbal humor. In December, 1924, when a collec
tion of his columns came out in book form as The Illiterate Digest
(dedicated to William Beverly Winslow), Don Herrold, in the Herald
Tribune of March 1, 1925, stated that Will "has no important people
complexes. The President of the United States is a feller, and the
Senate is just a bunch of guys. Not even the Follies girls get his goat
He weaves, first of all, a spell of comfort. His chewing gum is comfort
ing. His rope is comforting. His grammar is comforting. His rambling
is comforting. He turns the New Amsterdam Theater into a grocery
store, and for $5.50 a throw we sit once more around the cracker
barrel. ... He employs the same method in his newspaper writing."
John Crawford in the New York Times added: "Those seemingly
offhand remarks of his are neatly timed to coincide with some spec-
"The Return to Wall Street 159
tacular stunt with the ropes. It is not until afterward, when you try to
tell it to some one who has not been to the Follies that you realize
two things: he puts it over in the only language and intonation possible
and he said something keen and penetrating and true."
According to Crawford, Will s newspaper columns and The Illiter
ate Digest were "goods off the same bolt He is down in black and
white where you can watch him closely and go back and see how he
did it He is just as unsophisticated in doing his work as a Russian
toe dancer, and one job is as intricate as the other. He gives the im
pression of being simply the crossroads general merchandise store
talkers of a continent rolled into one man He knows just what he
wants to do, just how he wants to do it, and he does it He is an
expert satirist masquerading as a helpless, inoffensive zany."
In the Herald Tribune for January 5, 1925, Frederick F. Van de
Water warned that Vhen censorship, having finished with books and
newspapers, starts on him [Rogers], we shall sell our liberty bonds
convinced that the time of national dissolution is at hand. Congress
should endow him. He is its greatest guaranty of safety. ... He says
things about Congress that the rank and file of the populace would say
if they only knew how. The nation has to thank Mr. Rogers for the
fact that, so far, no one has launched a royalist party in America."
18
Tollies, Follies Everywhere
WILL WAS INCENSED AT THE FLAGRANT LACK OF PRE-
paredness in the country for no better reason than to lower taxes.
"When I tell you that if I was running the Government and would
raise rather than cut taxes, you know now a Comedian was crazy."
Will would do this both to pay off part of the national debt and to
spend more on our national defense. He screamed in anger when
"80,000 people paid 800 thousand dollars to see twelve rounds of
wrestling between two alleged fighters, Wills and Firpo. . . . On the
same day they received 150 thousand Dollars cash for 36 minutes
embracing while we released on half salary General Pershing who
had spent 42 years fighting for his country. ... So if you are thinking
of taking up fighting as a career, why, be sure and FIGHT FOR YOUR
SELF INSTEAD OF FOR YOUR COUNTRY. He was retired on half salary
and a Coolidge speech. My Lord, can t our Government do something
for a man who is not a Politician?"
Will s anger at this was as nothing compared to what happened
when our newest and finest battleship, the Washington, was sunk by
the navy in compliance with the Washington Disarmament Conference
agreement. "All the ammunition left over from the war was shot into
it, and those big guns on the Texas they were using, they only are good
for so many shots during their lifetime ... So we spoiled the Guns of
our next best boat trying to sink the best one . . . The Secretary of the
Navy said that the treaty required this vessel be sunk or broken up
but permitted us the privilege of using it as a target before sinking. . . .
160
"Follies, Follies Everywhere" 161
This was one of the advantages accorded us by the Treaty! ... If I
thought a year I could not think of anything as ridiculous as that . . .
ONE OF THE ADVANTAGES GAINED WAS TO USE OUR OWN BOATS AS A
TARGET . . . Maybe that is why we are going to hold another confer
ence, so we can get permission to shoot at the rest of them The
Secretary says he don t want the other Nations to find out how we did
it ... Don t worry, they are not going to sink any of theirs . . . Sinking
your own Boats is a military strategy that will always remain the sole
possession of America . . . The other countries sank blueprints. . . .
Anyhow, if there were to be no more wars, why did the navy need
practice in sinking ships? *
On December 27, 1924, Will recalled that it was the twenty-first
anniversary of the Wright Brothers* historic flight "People wouldent
believe that a Man could fly, And Congress don t believe it yet. Amer
ica celebrated the occasion by letting one aviator out, and deciding to
keep the other three . . . Our Air Service is waiting for Congress to
make an appropriation to have the Valves ground and the Carbon
removed from the Engines."
Will was equally derisive of the farmer who expected relief from a
Republican administration. He had a good laugh when Coolidge went
to Chicago to speak on the problems of the farmer before the Saddle
and Sirloin Club. "If a fanner ever come in there to that Club, they
would arrest him for poaching ... I bet you that it is a lot of Commis
sion men at the stockyards and Doctors, and Lawyers that maybe
have an old horse . . . They put on their Breeches and ride every Sun
day Morning . . . They ride a Pan Cake Saddle, then come in and eat
a Sirloin Steak . . . that has been shipped by a Rancher 15 hundred
miles . . . then invite the President to deliver a message to the Farmer.
. . . Coolidge said that the future of Agriculture looks to be exceedingly
secure ... It is, most of it by at least two mortgages."
Another chuckle came in February, 1925, when Judge Elbert Gary,
chairman of the board of United States Steel, and John D. Rockefeller,
Jr., journeyed to Washington to offer Coolidge advice on the enforce
ment of the Prohibition laws. "You remember a few years back and
this country had to pass a special kw called the Anti-Trust law aimed
primarily at those two Trusts, the Oil and the Steel . . . Now if they
have to pass a law to curb men like that, they are not exactly the men
162 WILL ROGERS
to give confidence to the rest of our Nation in regard to keeping the
law . . . Getting them to arrange our Morals would be like appointing
me to teach English at Harvard."
In addition to the Ku Klux Klan, other "special privilege" organiza
tions and movements were springing up over the country. The one
that irritated Will the most was composed of members calling them
selves One Hundred Percent Americans. Will decided to rope one of
this "breed" and pick his "brand." He was startled. "The first thing I
find out there ain t any such animal . . . This American Animal I
thought I had here, you might find in any Country ... He is not a
politician ... He is not a 100 Percent American ... He is not any
organization, either uplift or downfall ... He has no decided faith or
religion . . . From his earmarks he has never made a speech, and an
nounced he was an American. He hasent denounced anything ... It
looks to me like he is just an Animal that has been going along, be
lieving in right, doing right, tending to his own business, letting the
other fellow alone."
Will rode around on his horse and found "hundreds and hundreds
of exactly the same marks and brands." Those that claimed special
status were "a lot of Mavericks and strays." One particular group, "a
bunch of Bobbed Haired men gathered in Madison Square Garden,"
a few days before had denounced everything on earth. "A Kid 14
years old delivered such a tribute on Lenin that he made it look like
George Washington or Abe Lincoln couldent have caddied for him."
At the same time millions of other "kids of the same age were play
ing and leading a normal life."
Will s advice was to give to the "Mavericks a hall or a box to stand
on and say Sic em; knock everything in sight and when they have
denounced everything from Bunions to Capitalistic Bath Tubs, then
they will go home, write all week on another speech for the following
Sunday. It s just like an exhaust on an Automobile ... No matter how
high priced the Car, you have to have an exit for its bad Air, and
Gasses. It don t do any particular harm, unless you just stand around
behind smelling it cdl the time, but who would want to follow a Car
to smell its exhaust when you could just as well be in the car Riding?"
Anyway, Will was not worried about such manifestations. "No
Element, no Party, not even Congress or the Senate can hurt this
"Follies, Potties Everywhere" 163
country now except for temporary setbacks . . . But they don t mean
a thing in the general result . . . Nobody is making history . . . Every
body is just drifting along with the tide ... If any office holder feels
he is carrying a burden of responsibility, some Ry will light on his
back and scratch it off for him some day, . . . Congress can pass a
bad law and as soon as the old normal majority find it out they have
it scratched off the books." It would be the same for the big men, on
up to John D. Rockefeller. "When he is gone and Gasoline raises 2
cents, and all expenses paid and the Estate settled we will kick along.
. . . Even when our next War comes we will through our shortsighted
ness not be prepared, but that won t be anything fatal. The real energy
and minds of the Normal Majority wiU step in and handle it and
fight it through to a successful conclusion."
Will s writings were attracting so much attention five of his articles
had been read into the Congressional Record by March, 1925, as
representing a typical American view OH important public affairs.
When he was quoted once more another member arose and objected
**to the remarks of a Professional Joke Maker going into the Con
gressional Record." Will s hackles came to instant attention. "Now
can you beat that for jealousy among people in the same line? . . .
Calling me a Professional Joke Maker? . . . He is right about every
thing but the Professional . . . They are the Professional Joke Makers
. . . Read some of the Bills that they have passed, if you think they
ain t Joke Makers. ... I could study all my life and not think up half
the amount of funny things they can think of in one Session of Con
gress . . . Besides my jokes don t do anybody any harm . . . You don t
have to pay any attention to them But every one of the Jokes
those Birds make is a LAW and hurts somebody, generally everybody
. . . Joke Maker! ... He couldent have coined a better term for
Congress if he had been inspired ... If I had that Guy s unconscious
Humor, Ziegfeld couldent afford to pay me I would be so funny. . . .
Of course I can understand what he was objecting to was any common
sense creeping into the Record ... It was such a Novelty, I guess it
did sound funny ... I have engaged counsel and if they ever put any
more of my material in that *Record of Inefficiency 5 I will start suit
for deformation* of Character I don t want my stuff buried away
where Nobody ever reads it"
164 WILL ROGERS
In April, 1925, Will journeyed to Washington to be the guest
speaker at the Gridiron Dinner along with President Coolidge. Speaker
of the House Nicholas Longworth took him to the White House to
meet the President. "Well, the way Mr. Sanders rushed us in to the
President s private office you would have thought we were going to
swing Alabama and Mississippi to the Republican column. ... Of
course I don t lay all the credit to Nick for a prompt entrance, because
the President knew I was not looking for an appointment to a post-
office, nor did I want a friend transferred in the Army, nor a wife
pardoned out of jail."
Before going to the President s office, Longworth had made Will
a bet he could not make Coolidge laugh.
"I beg your pardon," Will said, as he was presented, "I did not
catch the name."
Coolidge burst out laughing. They chatted for a moment. Back in
his office Longworth paid his loss.
"I never heard him so talkative," Longworth commented.
"Why, he was just as agreeable as an insurance agent," Will replied.
In his speech Will did a simulated dialogue between himself anil? -
someone else on an imagined visit to Coolidge and his report on it.*
"Did he ask you to eat with him? . . . You bet your life Did he
charge you? . . . No, he dident. I took him down some Maple Syrup
and homemade Sausage Does he still like Flap Jacks in the morn
ing? . . . Better than ever, he has gained 10 pounds I ve been read
ing about them Breakfasts he has Down there, where he invited people
to eat Breakfast with him Yes, every time he wants to get even
with some one he invited them to eat Breakfast with him . . . It s at
eight o clock and they have to stay up all night, he is a Slicker, he is.
... Do you think this Government Business is worrying him, you
know it has killed more than one President? . . . What s Cal worrying
at on 75 thousand a year? . . . How about this Hobby Horse with a
Ford Engine in it that he Gallops around the bathroom on every day?
... He showed it to me, it s the funniest thing I ever saw, it ain t got
any head or tail. ... He must have got it from the Democratic Party
... I guess he did, he got about everything they had ... Is it on account
of giving more exercise that he uses it instead of a real Horse? . . . No,
if on account of Oats, You give him a real Horse that wont eat and
"Follies, Follies Everywhere" 165
be will take it So you don t think he is worrying too much? ... No
New Englander ever died of Worry at 75 thousand a year. ... Do you
think all these Tales they tell about him being so close will hurt him?
. . . They are the greatest thing ever happened to him, and he knows
it Ford dident try to stop Ford Stories, did he? ... Is them Poli
ticians kinder scared of him? . . . Why, he is getting em so he can
stand on the banks of the Potomac and throw sticks in and have them
Senators swimming out and bring em back."
Gene Buck sat next to General Billy Mitchell, "I d like to take
him up in my plane tomorrow," Mitchell said. "Do you think you can
arrange h?"
"I think so," Gene said.
It was this flight that sold Will on aviation. Perhaps it was the
drama in it. "You have been with me on the last flight I will make
as a Brigadier General/ Mitchell told him after they had landed,
"Tonight at twelve o clock I am to be demoted to a Colonel and sent
to a far away Post where, instead of having the entire air force at my
command, there will be seven planes/ * This was the reward for
General Mitchell s valiant fight to convince the "brass" of the army
that aviation would be the backbone of the fighting in the next war.
"We ought to have the greatest air defense in the world," Will told
his Follies audience, "we got more air. The Army and Navy are like
a couple of old Hens fighting over one Chicken France gave
Mitchell the Croix de Guerre, England the Order of the King, and
the Republican Administration gave him the Order of the Tin Can.
He is the only man ever connected with the high up Aviation in Wash
ington that used the Air for anything but Exhaling purposes."
A few months later, still carrying on his fight, Mitchell accused the
army and navy of incompetence, negligence and conduct approaching
treason in their contempt for aviation. He was court-martialed and
suspended from the service for five years. Will was at the trial. "In
the stillness of shocked dismay Will Rogers ran to Bill and threw his
arm over his shoulder," General Mitchell s sister, Ruth, wrote. " The
people are with you, Bill/ he cried. 4 Keep punching. Years later Bill
1 Will s account of this historic flight may be found in the Autobiography,
pp. 112-114.
166 WILL ROGERS
said, "That was a moment of tenderness the one moment of that
nightmare which I shall never forget." 2
In May, 1925, Will journeyed to Oklahoma for the funeral services
of his sister, Maude, who had joined May in death. "I am out in
Oklahoma, among my People, my Cherokee people, who don t expect
a laugh for everything I say Death dident scare her. It was only
an episode in her life. If you live right, death is a Joke to you as far
as fear is concerned. I have today witnessed a Funeral that for real
sorrow and real affection I don t think will ever be surpassed any
where. They came on foot, in Buggies, Horseback, Wagons, Cars and
Train, and there wasent a Soul that come that she hadent helped or
favored at one time or another. Some uninformed Newspapers printed:
c Mrs. C. L. Lane, sister of the famous Comedian, Will Rogers. It s
the other way around. I am the brother of Mrs. C. L. Lane, The
Friend of Humanity. And all the honors that I could ever in my
wildest dreams hope to reach would never equal the honor paid on
a little Western Prairie hilltop, among her people, to Maude Lane.
// they will love me like that at the finish, my life will not have been
in vain" This is the Cherokee in Will speaking.
Saddened by the death of Maude and homesick for his family he
had been away from for nearly a year, he longed to leave the Follies
and spend the summer in California. There was an extra inducement
in addition to his family. He had bought acreage in the Santa Monica
Mountains, enough for a small ranching operation, and was consider
ing building there. Some of his activities and plans were outlined in a
letter to his son, Jim, then eleven years old:
Say I went over yesterday to the Palace Vaudeville house to see
two Kids, a Boy and a Girl about Sixteen and seventeen, the Blather-
wick Children, the Boy said he rode your Pony in a Beverly Hills
Horse show and got a Prize. I guess it was Billy. They do a dancing
and Roping turn and sure are good, they do some fine dancing, taps,
and the Girl is a Contortionist and Dancer. They have an awful keen
2 Ruth Mitchell, "My Brother Bill," Reader s Digest, May 1954. Shortly
before he died, in 1936, General Mitchell predicted an air attack on Pearl Har
bor "some fine Sunday morning." After Pearl Harbor, he was voted the Medal
of Honor and, posthumously, given the rank of major general.
"Follies, Follies Everywhere" 167
act, so you cdl get to practicing. We win have a lot of roping this sum
mer, Fancy and Calf and Goats. We will get us some Goats and keep
em up in a small pen all the time then turn em loose in the round
corral and rope em on a horse in there. The old Show is going on
fine, we have standing room every night. . . .
Jim, I wish you would look after some things down there at the
Ranch for me. Get *eni to build the back part on the big barn, Uncle
Lee will know what we had talked of. Get those Logs put around the
outside of the east hill. Then if they have time move the old Stables,
and fix up a Bunk House out of part of the old one. Now see what
luck you can have on this. Did you do anything about the Tennis Court
at home, and I want one of those Polo Racks with a Saddle on it
out in the Riding ring to hit a ball off of, like Tommy Hitchcock had
on Long Island. There is nothing to do only put a high carpenter s
bench Horse there with a Saddle on .
You tell your Mammy she better be rolling out of there. Old Dad
is getting lonesome. Tell Bfll they opened another Midnight Frolic up
at Ziegfeld s last night. The first one dident go over so big (what with
Prohibition on) so they opened another one. He has been trying to
get me to go up there. But I don t want any of it He has got White-
man s Band and the Duncan Sisters this time.
Well, how s Mary and her Pack of Hounds? We will get us three
or four old Curs this summer at the Ranch, shepherds, and hounds.
Well, so long. Love to alL Sure will be gjad to get home.
Dad
Although Will s newspaper column was bringing in more and more
income, it was not enough to take care of his obligations, nor did its
writing use up his boundless energy. Besides, much was^taking place
in the summer of 1925 that needed verbal lambasting. The most
ridiculous of all was the famous Scopes evolution trial in Dayton,
Tennessee. "If I was either of those men," Will commented on Bryan
and Darrow, "I wouldent spend the best years of my Chautauqua life
trying to prove or disprove my ancestry The Lord put all these
millions of people over the earth . . . They don t all agree on how they
got here, and 90% don t care . . . But He was pretty wise when He did
see to it that they all do agree on one thing, and that is the better
lives you live the better you will finish. . . . Coolidge is a better exam
ple of evolution than either Bryan or Darrow, for he knows when not
168 WILL ROGERS
to talk, which is the biggest asset the monkey possesses over the
human,"
During the summer a move gat underway to draft Will as governor
of Oklahoma, "Are you people getting jealous of Dayton, Tennessee?"
be wired. w Even with me as Governor we can t compete with them in
humor. But if you are serious y and want a Governor, I will come home
where I belong anyway. However, I must have election guaranteed
before I give up my present job. Wire best offer at once. Yours for
Honesty in Politics." He followed this a few days later with another
wire. "I havent voted in Oklahoma for years because you never had
the right men up for me to vote for. Put me up for Governor and see
bow quick 111 come home and vote for myself. That s what Bryan
used to do and look where he is today. If a campaign fund has been
raised, kindly send some on now. I have two Democrats here I can
bring out with me. Yours for a better Governor s mansion."
Bryan won the jury s verdict in the Scopes trial and lost it in the
regard of the people of the country. He had put so much of himself
into it that the strain proved fatal. Shortly after returning to his home
in Florida he died. In his habitual manner Will rushed to his defense.
This country has hundreds of thousands of people who feel that they
havent a soul now who will conscientiously fight for them, the plain
people . . . Bryan had no Vice-President to carry on ... So here s good
luck to you, WJ., you were a novelty among politicians , . . You were
sincere . . . You might have missed the White House, but you dident
miss the hearts of the plain people/*
A good picture of Will, who was about to leave the Follies to go
far afield among the "plain people," was painted by the columnist
George Matthews Adams:
Today I sat a few feet from Will Rogers and saw him chew his gum
and spread his jokes and a gags M so thick that they blew up the room
with laughter the kind of laughter that covers your face with tears.
If anybody dse had said the things he said in a serious mood they
would have sent for the police. But Wfll Rogers never hurts people.
But he packs wisdom there just the same. He is one of the wisest
tbiikers in America. He is tremendously much of aH that America is.
I studied the face of this man. It is set in rough cast like Lincoln s.
His eyes are unusually keen, He has a fine nose and a splendid chin.
"Follies, Follies Everywhere" 169
His mouth is rather large so that he is able to get great smiles from it
to permeate into the great crowds that roar from his jibes and also
to facilitate his ability to throw his gum in unison with his cowboy
rope. Will Rogers* hands are big, bold and brown. His forehead is
very striking in its suggestion of intelligence>#Mf the biggest thing
about this American product is his heart. Will Rogers is loyalty and
squareness to the core.
I grow several inches in stature every time I hear Will Rogers and
my food digests perfectly for weeks afterwards. Will Rogers is one of
the big institutions in America.
Will was now ready to go out and meet "the regular bird" in the
far-flung spaces of the United States.
19
"Meetin the Regular Bird"
FOR A LONG TIME WELL HAD CHERISHED THE IDEA OF DOING
his act aQ over the United States. "I kinda like the idea of an* oP
ignerant cowboy goin out an taHrin* to the college professors an all,"
he sakL "An another thing, these big shows that I been in right along
tibey don t never get down to Oklahomy because they re too darned
expensive, so the boys down home they ve never seen me on the
stage." An offer to do this came from Charles Wagner, one of the
most successful lecture and concert managers, after the singer Mary
Garden assured him Will would be a great success.
Shortly before Win signed a contract he agreed to speak at the
second annual Radio Industries Banquet, on September 1, 1925, over
a 26~statk>n hookup. At four o clock that afternoon Paul B. Klung,
executive chairman of the National Broadcasters Association, was
handed a note white presiding over a meeting. "Rogers has run out
on us," it read. "What shall we do?" Covers were laid for 1,500 guests
at the Commodore Hotel, publicity had been sent across the country,
and the banquet was to start two hours later. A hurried conference
was called and a delegation sent to interview Will, some of them
maintaining he had pulled out because he wasn t to be paid. He was
coming off the stage at a Pottles matinee when they arrived.
"Well pay you anything you want," the spokesman for the group
said.
"It isn t the money," Wifl explained. "Before agreeing to do the
broadcast, I signed a contract without reading it to go on a lecture
170
rfn the Regular Bird" 111
tour and there is a clause in it forbidding me from doing this sort of
a show. My manager has ordered me not to do it."
This, of course, was an entirely different situation. Will sensed the
predicament of those concerned. "I m a showman," he said, "and
111 figure a way out of this. Ill be there as I agreed."
Will handled it in his usual dramatic fashion. "I have been forbidden
to make a speech to you over the radio by my manager for whom I
am going out on a lecture tour He figures if you ever hear me
once, you would never want to hear me again . . . But I wanted to
explain to you in person that it is a bigger disappointment to me than
to you because when you make an Actor keep his inouth shut he is
in pain It s like an after-dinner speaker going to a Banquet and
not being called upon . I am sorry, my Radio friends, you can t see
me as those here at the Tables are privileged to do ... Hearing me is
nothing in comparison to seeing me . . . Well, I will try and describe
myself to you ... I am six foot five and a half inches horizontal,
weigh 195, all brawn, color of eyes, azure blue, hair jet black and
wavy, features strong, complexion perfect, hands two, waist before
meals, 34, home, Hollywood, politics, highest bidder, religion waft
till I look around here before announcing, oh, yes, Jewish/
Will told them he did not know what the dinner was for unless
"somebody stung some Sucker with a new Radio set and said let s
have a dinner.*. . . It would have been more useful if they would get
rid of the static A dinner is all right for those of you here, but
how about the millions that tune in and all they hear is ... whistle
oooooooooooo whistle Another reason for my not appearing is
the Presence of a Senator and my contract says I am not allowed to
go outside and appear in inferior company . . . There is a Moral Clause
where we are judged by our Associates 1 see where the French
are coming over to pare down the debt , . . They are bringing their
own Champagne . . . My Lord, if they will just put in half a dozen
extra cases they can auction them off and pay the debt at once . . .
They want to see about funding the debt . . . Funding is called over
here renewing the note. . . . See where the dirigible Shenandoah fell
... As usual the blame will be layed on someone who perished on it
That s why they can never fix a blame in any accident where no
one lost their lives, there is no one to lay it on Parachutes were
172 WILL ROGERS
the first thing invented and they seem to be the only thing they don t
use ... Parachute jumps from Balloons were done at every Country
Fair even when I was a kid ... I was a big old Rube kid ... am yet ...
and was standing around a Balloon ascension in Vinita, Oklahoma,
when they asked all to help hold her, and of course if there was a rope
around I had a hold of it, and they cut her loose. Uncle Clem s Boy,
Willie, come offul near becoming an aviator at the eariy age of 14 ...
At that it jerked me high enough that my feet caught in a House of
David Disciple s beard."
Will concluded by saying, **I will be in every town, I don t care
where you live, I will be there. Talk about seeing America first, I may
not see it first but if I live I wfll see it, this winter, all of it."
This appearance, contrary to Charles Wagner s fears, gave Will
thousands of dollars worth of publicity. He also used his newspaper
column to let the people know be was coming among them. "I am
making what the politician calls a swing around the circuit . . . But
I am not like the politician who wants to meet the voter ... I want
to meet the taxpayer, and that is very seldom the voter ... I am
going to give to you the real inside dope on our hired help in Wash
ington." Will also warned the men that there would be no Follies girls
in the show so they would not be able to use him as an alibi. Will had
a personal reason. "A man only learns in two ways, one is by reading,
the other by association with smarter people ... I don t like to read,
and (Hie can t find that kind of associates in New York ... I am going
out among the people whom New Yorkers call Rubes . . . But these
people I am going out among are the people that just look at New
Yorkers and laugh. I am going to be able to tell my readers something
besides Who Ann Pennington is going with this season* and *What
miffibfjaire has been in the front row four nights running.* I am out
to see bow America is living, I mean the ones that don t go home and
brag on what everything cost em ... I am meeting the regular bird . . .
the one that lives in his town; stays in his town; is proud of his town;
lie ofes no apology for not having seen last year s Follies, or any
Qtiier year s 1 want to find out what be was thfnVmg about; what
be was reading aboiit.**
SocioiQfpcaly, he explained that he was going from a "tax exempt
audience to Tax Payers," from "footlights to rostrum," "from boot-
"Meetin the Regular Bird" 173
leggers to boot wearers," from "National Pollys to State Capitol Pollys,"
**from Town Topics to Town Halls," in his graduation from the
"Follies" to the "Concert" and from legs to lectures. "
Will opened at Elmira, New York, in a church, and from there
went from city to city, doing a modified Follies routine tailored to
local conditions. He talked to all kinds of people editors, reporters,
barbers, bootblacks, members of all professions, read the local papers,
and from all this gleaned bits of interesting material to add to his
comments on national men and affairs. **Never look at a town with
one of its prominent citizens and think you have seen the place," he
soon learned. "You have seen just what he wants you to see. I always
get me a Taxi and go prowling." Many of the cities, also, Will had
known intimately in his vaudeville days. His newspaper columns
helped bring out people to his lectures and his personal appearance
in cities helped bring new newspapers for his column. It was a two-
bladed ax.
As Win approached Oklahoma on his tour his pulse began to beat
faster. "Everyone has deep in their hearts the old town or community
where they first went barefooted, got their first licking, traded the first
pocket knife, grew up finally and went away thinking they were too
big for the Burgh . . . But that s where your old heart is ... There is
a mill inn towns in the United States, and a million communities. Pick
out a million people and ask *em where they would rather be thought
of well, and they will say, Back Home. "
This came to Will in full measure as he brought his act into his
home state. He played five towns in the state on this tour Bartlesvifle.,
Ponca City, Enid, Oklahoma City and Tuka and "they laughed at
me MORE than New York or London or Omaha, I was never as happy
and independent in my life. I have been over 20 years trying to kid
the great American Public out of a few loose giggles . . . Somebody
bad to act the fool, and I happened to be one of the many that picked
out that unfunny business of trying to be funny . . . After acting the
Foo! aH over the Work! and part of Iowa, I have been home, and
they seemed glad to see me, and they laughed at me ... My HOME
FOLKS thought I was good. , . . I know lots of Theatre goers that will
disagree with them . . . But what do I care for them? . . . What do I
care for anything? . . The dd home State and old home Town and
174 WILL ROGERS
the old ranch people I was born and raised with, I got by with them
. , . Twenty years of doubt and expectation of just what they would
think of you n
At Tulsa, closest to his home range, Will had "such an audience"
as he had never before encountered. The local manager asked him if
he minded if people were seated on the stage. They did not even
leave him a chair for his dressing room. They were packed in,
standing at the back, and sitting in the aisles and over three hundred
seated behind me on the stage . . . Two little girls come up and gave
me a great floral piece . . . Well, I had never received flowers before
in my life, and that did stick me Well, after it seemed like ages,
I got started, and they laughed, and they would laugh so long it would
give me time to think of another one . , . Well, they kept on seeming
to want more till I did two hours and fifteen minutes . . . That s a
minor league record for a Monologist."
The next day Wfll went to Qaremore. "They had asked me to get
there by noon. . . . These Folks, after driving home from Tulsa after
the show away late that night, got up the next morning and the Ladies
cooked everything in the World good that was ever put before any
body at a meal, and stacked tables and tables full of it in the American
Legkm Hall. When I drove over and got there at twelve o clock they
had the tend out and everybody in Town was there to welcome me,
and we west in and had this wonderful meal that if Peggy Joyce had
to pay for it, she would have had to send out and get a new husband."
Will s first lecture tour, eleven weeks in all, ended in Boston on
December 14, 1925, at Symphony Hall. "Can you imagine me appear
ing at Symphony Hall in Boston? . . . Me, with my Repertoire of 150
words (most of them wrong) trying to enlighten the descendants of
the Cod." Everybody seemed to like it "except one old boy there that
thought we were desecrating their Temple of Art by causing laughter
in it. 1 We bad been out 75 nights all over the country and hadn t
received an adverse notice. Well, this old Soul is a Musical Critic and
having a trained musical ear, why, naturally my jokes were <Off Key 7
most of the time. *My diction was poor and my selections of jokes
extremely bad. " In general, Parker thought Will s jokes had
. Parker who wrote as H.T.P.
"Meetirf the Regular Bird" 175
lost their sting and that he would do well to return to the Follies.
"In short, Parker, when you looked me over you were slumming.
The old Tradition got to working . . . But you unconsciously paid me
a Bear of a compliment when you said, Will is a small town Actor.
You bet your life I am small town ... I am smaller than that ... I
am NO town at all, and that is what I am going to stay is Small Town."
Will ended by saying that next time he came to Boston "you are the
first man I am going to look up, and I bet you we have a good dinner
and we will kill off that old Indijestion of yours, and I will have a
lot of good Jokes against Yale, and maybe Harvard will have won
a football game and you all will be feeling good . . . But give me
credit for one thing, Parker, wasent that English of mine the Worst
that "was ever spoken in that Hall? 3
The critic for the Boston Globe was kinder to Will. "He came on
stage dressed in a blue, double-breasted suit, soft shirt, knitted tie
and black shoes. Nothing on the stage but a piano. He slid over behind
it, putting his hands over his face, grinned at the audience as much
as to say, Is it all right for me to come out here to try to entertain
you?* " A wave of sympathetic understanding flashed over the faces
in the audience.
"Aw, say, cut down some of the lights, will you?" Will asked some
one backstage, and they were immediately dimmed. He threw back the
lock of hair over his face. "You know, this isn t put on. Imagine me
in Symphony Hall. O Lawdy, how did I ever get in here?"
A smile flashed out, appealing, ingratiating. "It just got you," the
critic said, "and you smiled back. Great guy, this Rogers."
Although Charles Wagner had sent a male quartet, the De Reszke
Singers, along, believing that a monologist could not entertain an
audience for an evening, Win certainly could have done so. He was
good enough to earn over $82,000 in eleven weeks, more than twice
as much as he would have been paid in the FolUes* Equally important,
he enjoyed his lecture tours immensely.
Win spent Christmas with his family in California, and in February,
1926, began his second series in Florida, this time taking Betty along.
He opened at Miami at the height of the season with a celebrity-
studded audience that rivaled any Follies first night. It included ex-
Governor James M. Cox, George Ade, Klin Hubbard, Senator Borah,
176 WILL ROGERS
Gene Tunney, O. O. Mclntyre, Carl Fisher, Gene Buck, Bernard
Barach, John Golden, and scores of others. "For two hours and
twenty minutes, save for a fifteen-minute intermission, he held that
audience completely spellbound and sent it away exhausted from
laughter," O. O. Mclntyre wrote. The ovation at the finish was the
longest I have ever heard, and someone began yelling for Mrs. Rogers,
knowing she was in town. Finally, Rogers came to the edge of the
stage, held up his hand for silence and whined, Mrs. Rogers won t
come out in public. You know she has never cut her hair an anti
climax that catapulted another convulsion." 2
A definite part of Will s routine in his lecture appearances at this
time was the treatment Mexico was receiving from the Administration
in Washington in the worst throes of "dollar diplomacy." "We come
nearer running Mexico than we do New York State ... If they pass a
law they have to send it up to Washington to have it OJL d by our
State Department ... If they want to say an American can own land
down there but not the mineral rights, why we say its unconstitutional
. . . For the love of Mike, why don t we let Mexico alone and let
them run their country the way they want to? . . . Americans go there
only to make money . . . Not one in a million ever becomes a citizen
... If a country is good enough to make money in, it s good enough
for you to become a citizen of ... So if you go down there, don t start
yapping for America to protect you ... If you ain t man enough to
protect yourself, they better put you in a crate and keep you in the
kitchen. . . . See where we demand that Tia Juana and Mexicali, in
Mexico, should be cleaned up ... It seems that they sell drinks down
there right over the bar . . . You just pay for it by the drink, and not
by the bottle, and they Gamble right there before your eyes . . . They
daim this is ruining the Youth and the Manhood of this country . . .
The Americans don t want to drink and gamble . . . They just go over
tibere to see the mountains, and make these scheming Mexicans grab
*em and make em drink, and make *em make bets, and make em
watch the race Horses run for money."
Earfy in April, as Will s second tour drew to a close, he received a
wire from Wagner that he had booked him into Carnegie Hal. In
*Q. O. McMyre, "Our Will," Cosmopolitan, October, 1931.
"Meetin* the Regular Bird" 177
spite of his successes elsewhere and Betty s assurances, Will was
doubtful of this appearance. "My goodness! I commenced to get
scared/ he admitted. "I wired Wagner, Don t take a chance on
New York. We been doing pretty good and we better let well enough
alone.*" Wagner, who later stated that Will offered him $1,000 to
cancel the engagement, wired that it was too late.
Once again Will had an audience studded with celebrities. "I never
thought we would meet in Carnegie Hall, and I am just as out of
place as you are ... Ziegfeld don t even know where it is ... The
Follies audience think it and the Museum of Art and the Library are
secret Fraternity buildings . . . Ziegfeld would look for me to do a
joke on Ann Pennington s knees . . . It s a different environment al
together ... I don t know how I ever remained among all that smoke
and uncovered flesh 1 once thought Carnegie Hall was one of those
things Uncle Andy Carnegie imposed on every good-natured town,
but by calling it a Hall New Yorkers might thinV there was some sort
of dancing, or something worthwhile, and go in ... I learned later it
was a tremendous building with three or four rings of Boxes around it
like the Pictures of a Spanish Bull Ring ... I also learned it was for
singers and piano players, chiefly foreign Well, this art thing
kinder worried me ... I had never by any stretch of imagination been
associated with it ... I thought I ought to be playing the Columbia
Theatre on 47th street, instead of Carnegie Hall ... I was explaining
my predicament to Walter C. Kelly, the Virginia Judge, who you all
know as America s best story teller Walter says, Well, Will, you
have one novelty to recommend you up in that Hall . . . You will be
the only short-haired Guy that ever played that joint. "
It was time now to comment on notables. "See since I left New
York, Jimmy Walker has become Mayor . . . That s good news to me
. . . Jimmy always sits next to me at the Speaker s Table and gets my
Cocktail ... He is the most versatile man I ever met in my life ... No
matter what the Dinner, whether it be Jew, Catholic, Ku Klux, Negro,
or just plain Ticket Speculators, why, Jimmy always brought them to
their feet with the announcement that he was one of their race and
that up at Albany the whole Legislature had been against them, and
if it hadn t been for him j they would have been sent out of the country
as undesirable Aliens . . . Jimmy is truly a Cosmopolitan ... I have
178 WILL ROGERS
seen Mm weep at the plight of the Hebrews in Russia, meet him at a
Friendly Sons of St Patrick apparently friendly and he proposed
a toast Ttown with the Jews, they are seeking thek own political
machine in New York, . . . I predict Jimmy will be the best Mayor
New York ever had ... He can promise the drys enough that he won t
be thought out of place among New York s other 90 percent ... He
believes in the political machine that is, always leave the victim
enough to get home on- . . . Tammany never took a man s last Dollar
. . . They always figured with that he would earn another stake and
soon be ready for them again. "
Other celebrities came in for a ribbing. "Al Smith s the most
popular man the Democrats have . . - Some have suggested that he
woidd be elected if he changed his religion and turned Protestant , . .
I thmfc it would do more good if he would keep his religion and turn
Republican Been reading about the marriage of Ellen Mackay to
Irving Berlin . , . Her father opposed it ... It would be a good joke on
her Father if he made her a living, wouldn t it?" 3
On the evidence of Fannie Hurst, Will took no chances on those
lie would kid that evening. "I received an invitation to attend," she
wrote. "Enclosed were seven or eight box seats. I assembled a party
of friends, and attended. After 15 minutes of delightful rambling,
Mr. Rogers abruptly announced that he was going to introduce to
the audience some of its members. He began his work around the
horseshoe, beginning, as I remember, with Minnie Maddern Fiske,
on to Theodore Roosevelt, Jr., until he approached my party. In my
group there happened to be a beautiful young girL When he called out
my name in introduction, I pushed the bewildered young thing to her
feet to take the bow for the applause that followed. Well, Fannie, he
said, *I like your Benda mask. ** 4 Fannie forgot something else that
Wfll said: There s JFannie Hurst,. .Her and I write . . . We both
write the Worst Stories I Have Heard Today.* She got 50 thousand
for hers. She is writing for the Movies, Thank goodness I have never
got that commercial"
It was reported at the time that Will s appearance in Carnegie Hall
3 Irviag Berlin not only made her a living bat bailed out her father when the
depression came,
4 New York Journal, November 8, 1935.
"Meetin the Regular Bird" 179
brought so many tremendous rounds of applause that shortly there
after contractors began work on the rear wall to strengthen its founda
tion.
In Will s newspaper column for April 24, 1926, appeared this in
teresting statement: Well, I have seen America from bottom to
top. I had lunch yesterday at Philadelphia with Mr. George Horace
Lorimer, Editor of the Saturday Evening Post, and I am going over to
Europe for the Post. I am really going to represent President Coolidge.
You see, he hasent a CoL House to run over and fix things, so that is
what I am to be. I want to get away about the middle of May. I want
to catch Mussolini while he is going good, and before some better shot
gets in their work. I am also going to Ireland and see what s keeping
them so quiet, and if they are really happy, and also go into Germany
and Russia and Spain."
Will and the entire Rogers family were to have a busy and inter
esting summer.
20
"Coolidge s Colonel House"
MARK TWAIN S Innocents Abroad, PUBLISHED IN 1879,
colored the tTifnfring of Americans concerning Europe for half a
century. It was the most publicized trip to Europe until Colonel E. M.
House went during World War I as President Wilson s confidential
adviser. Now Wfll Rogers was to give the lowdown on that Continent
with the humor of Mark Twain and the high seriousness of Colonel
House. The audacity of his going as "The Self-Appointed, Unofficial
Ambassador of President Coolidge" in short, to be his "Colonel
House" caught the fancy of the American people at once. It was
to have a fantastic coverage with his weekly articles in the Saturday
Evening Post, then at the height of its success, in his weekly columns
in newspapers, and in his Daily Wire which he began while there. In
addition, he was to do a series of travelogues that would be flashed
on the screens of motion-picture theaters with his titles and com
ments. For these, an army of cameramen trailed him around to the
various countries he visited.
Before leaving on his trip, Will journeyed to Washington to secure
letters from various government officials and influential people ( Vlce-
Presklent Dawes, Senator Borah, Alice and Nicholas Longworth,
congressmen, and officials in the State Department). He did not bother
to cal on President CoolMge, "I was very busy," but their under
standing was "so antiseptic that I knew there was no use in talking
0er personalty what I am to accomplish on this trip. I would have
come up to your house, but I dkfent know whether you had any help
180
t( Coolidge 9 s Colonel House" 1 8 1
or not, and keeping up a big house when you have always lived in
a small one is quite a problem. Then I dident know but what you
might charge me." Instead, he had lunch with Vice-President Dawes.
"He was asking anxiously about your health. I had to disappoint him
by telling him you were never better in your life. He just sighed and
we went on talking about something possible." Will told Coolidge he
was to sail on the Leviathan and not to bother Congress about another
appropriation. "Will do as you say and draw on Mellon if necessary."
In his next letter Will informed Coolidge about the trouble he had
getting a passport when he was asked for a birth certificate. "In the
early days of the Indian Territory, there were no such things as birth
certificates. You being there was certificate enough. While you were
going through the trouble of getting a birth certificate, you could be
raising another child." He was then asked if he was in Who s Who.
"My Lord, I am not even in the New York Telephone Directory, and
that is the most ordinary collection of humans ever assembled in
America." His problems were solved when the general manager of the
Follies vouched for him. 4e Why, sure, I knew your Father well," Wfll
has him saying, "and I know that he was an American. Not 100
percent ones like the Rotarray s and Kiawanians and Lions, but
enough to pay taxes."
On the Leviathan, accompanied by Will Jr., now fourteen, Will
never let the fun stop. "Everybody received Flowers and Fruit and
Caikiy ... If you sent anything it hasent been sent to my stateroom
yet. But there is a lot of Bundles and Baskets up there yet that
havent been delivered, and I wiH give you the benefit of the doubt
tfll I find out otherwise." It was signed "Col. William Rogers."
"Certain news is so urgent that it is necessary for me to cable you,
so from time to time you may get something, Collect. I hope there
is an appropriation to cover this, look under the heading, Ways and
Means. " One of the urgent ones was for Coolidge to "kindly find
out for me through our intelligence Department who is the fellow
that said a big Boat dident rock. Hold him tfll I return. Wflrog. That s
code name for Will Rogers." A couple of days later he reported that
the ocean was "as meek and docile as a Republican Convention."
Another source for comedy on the boat was a commission headed
for a Disarmament Conference in Geneva. They don t suspicion
182 WILL ROGERS
that I am going for you too ... and I never let on ... I just sit tight
and listen." Since the commission was composed of army and navy
personnel, Will was relieved. All that the army would give up was
their "spurs" and the navy wouldent sink the boats from under them.
"Just take your case, Calvin Can you see yourself attending a
Conference to cut down Presidents? . . . You might attend for propa
ganda purposes, but you can bet your last maple tree you wouldn t
cut yourself down any or abolish the office It s all right to send
Delegates and do a million and one things that the Public thinks
amounts to something, but between us we know the whole thing is a
tot of Apple Sauce . . . It s like, for instance, you meeting a Democrat
and saying, *I am glad to meet you.* Well, that has to be done ... It
is a custom . . . But, of course, get right down to it, you are not glad
to meet him at all ... You are just human and wish there wasent such
a thing Well, I am going to Geneva and see this thing . . . There
will be 21 nations there, and outside of England and France and
America, the otters will take it serious." Will also confided that he
had made our delegates promise not to scrap "the old Republican
tugboat," the presidential yacht, Mayflower. "So don t worry about
it this summer. We will keep it tfll just before the Democrats get in
next time and scrap it then. Be a good joke on them." 1
Before the Leviathan reached Southampton the passengers were
warned erf an impending general strike in England and given the choice
of going on to Cherbourg, which most of them did. "I am on a
mission . . ." the President s Colonel House insisted ". . . and I want
to show I am a soldier in the service of my country just as much as if
I had on a uniform ... I am going on to London regardless of danger,
because when one devotes themselves to a cause, why, what is danger?
Your devoted accomplice, Col. William Rogers."
Among his "gripful of letters 5 * Will had OIK from Lady Astor s
"Sister and Brotber-in-Law in New York, Mrs. Chas. Dana Gibson."
He had tried to assist Mrs. Gibson in getting more people to adopt
bai>ies, tat it had been a failure for him. "I offered three little heathens
if anyone would take them, and didn t get rid of a one of them. You
can always get rid of children easier if the people don t know who
1 So it proved. President Hoover decommissioned it.
f< Coolidge*s Colonel House" 183
the Parents are." Lady Astor gave a dinner for Will at which he sat
next to Sir James Barrie. "I think he is a Syndicate writer, or Strip
Cartoonist, or Paragrapher, or something like that ... I think he
had a Cartoon running called Peter Pan, and a little Comedy Char
acter called the Little Minister. They were afterwards made into
books . . . We broke even, for neither one of us had read anything the
other had written." Will Jr. later told him about Sir James s books.
Sir James was so impressed with Will that he invited him for a talk
after dinner. The apartment overlooked the Thames embankment and
from a stone balustrade Sir James pointed out where Dr. Johnson had
once lived and a place where Boswell stood while prying tidbits out
of the recalcitrant doctor. During the war Sir James had watched the
air raids from the balustrade as the German pilots had followed the
course of the Thames. Bernard Shaw lived right across "the alley,"
and Sir James promised to introduce Will to him when Shaw returned
from a trip.
"He is a great personality," Will commented on Barrie, "so quiet
and soft spoken you are afraid you will scare him away if you speak.
For once I knew enough to keep my mouth shut and let him talk."
It was not the general strike that upset Will; it was coffee. "Per
sonally, I will be willing to sign over my share of the debt settlement
for just one good cup of Coffee . . . Dam it, we give *em good tea,
and all we demand is reciprocity . . . Look into this, Calvin, wfll you?
. . . Next to Farmer s relief, if s one of the big problems that is con
fronting us today . . . For every Fool American is coming over here
this summer, and it s the fool vote that we have got to watch out
for ... I would even drink New Orleans Coffee if I had it now."
Will of course visited the House of Commons ami the House of
Lords. "The members of the House of Common are just as rude as
Congressmen They holler at each other and interrupt and yell
, . . They are just like a bunch of old Nesters elected to congregate at
Oklahoma City, or Austin, or Bismarck every year . . . The welfare
of their country generally felt a little heavier around their November
Fourth." As to the House of Lords, nothing excited them except "a
raise on the tax on liquor or land."
In addition to helping Will meet prominent people in England,
Lady Astor triggered off the next giant step in his career. On May 18,
184 WILL ROGERS
1926, he sent this cable to the New York Times: CALCOOL, Wash-
housew/ute:
London, May 18 Nancy Astor (which Is the non de plume of
Lady Astor) is arriving on your side soon. She is the best friend
America has here. Please take care of her. She is the only one over
bore that dont throw rocks at American tourists.
WELLROG
This was the first of Will s Daily Wires ("Will Rogers Says") that
became an integral part with the bacon or ham and eggs for breakfast
of millions of Americans. It appeared on the first page of the second
section of the New York Times, and on the front page of most other
newspapers.
A few days after his arrival in London Win and Will Jr. were
sitting in their hotel room reading when the telephone rang. Will Jr.
answered it.
"It s for you, Dad."
"Who is it?"
"It s General Trotter, the equerry to the Prince of Wales."
Will got on the phone.
"Hie Prince would like to see you/ General Trotter said, "Can it
be arranged?"
"When?"
fc< Rigfat away."
"Where does he live?"
"The York House. Come on over."
Will was ushered into a house that "looked about like an Oil
Mfllbmire s home in Oklahoma, only more simple and in better
taste . . . The whole place would have got lost in what Long Islanders
humorously call their Main Saloon/
The Prince came out to greet Will aiKi shook hands with him "like
a Rotary dub President that has been coached in the best way to
make friends." He had on a very plain brown suit which was like
most others only it fitted.
"Heflo, old-timer," WiH greeted. "How are you falling these days?"
"Al over the place," the Prince replied, grinning. "I got my
shoulder broken since I saw you last."
"Coolidge s Colonel House 9 1 g5
"We will have to get you better jumping horses," Will said.
"Oh, they were splendid horses," the Prince protested. They were
just unfortunate in falling, that s all.**
They moved into the Prince s living room where there was a fire
in the fireplace, a table with a lot of books on it, and pictures of the
royal famfly. For an hour they talked on various subjects, ranching
in Canada, polo, Mussolini, and various people they both knew.
"Well, boy," Will said, as he was leaving, "the old latchstring will
sho* be hanging out for you anywhere you want to light in America.
If you feel that you are not appreciated over here, come on over. The
President will give you a room in the White House and you can be a
sort of Social accomplice of his."
In a full report to "his President," Will ended his comment
prophetically: "Just between you and I, Calvin, he don t care any
more about being King than you would going back to Vice President
again."
On June 5 Will and Will Jr. took a plane from London to Paris.
The flight was smooth over the Channel but they hit France "and
somebody hadn t paid their taxes" for they hit so many "airpockets, or
Chug holes" it reminded Will of motoring in Virginia. He attempted
to keep his stomach under control and did so until they arrived over
the airfield, when the pilot "just dropped the last 500 feet" and with
it went Will s "original cargo of food."
Will passed on to Coolidge his analysis of what was wrong with
France. "They won t pay their taxes . . . They have what they call an
income tax, but if s practically voluntary You turn in what you
want to, and they never investigate it to see if it is right or not . . .
Doctors or Lawyers who are earning millions of francs a year turn in
their earnings as fifty or a hundred thousand francs ... It looks to me
like the only way you will ever get any money for taxes out of them is
to deduct it at the source some way ... If you ever let them lay their
hands on it themselves they wifl never pay it ... And, oh, Boy, how
they are hating us! ... If somebody gets a bad cold it is laid to the
grasping nature of Money-Loving America . . . If s the old Gag (and
nations are no different from individuals) you loan a man money and
you lose his friendship . . . And the funny part about the whole thing
is you go anywhere like the races, or the Opera, or any place where
186 WILL ROGERS
tbe prices are high, and you will see it packed and people spending
more money than they do over home ... I have dodged more big Rolls
Royces and Flats over here than, I ever saw big Cars at home . . . There
is lots of them over here got plenty of dough, but they are not giving
any of it to their Government to pay their taxes The whole debt
problem in all these Countries reverts back to one thing, and that is
our coming into the war . . , They say we come in for one thing and
"we say and know that we come in for another ... In other words,
"what we did has never been appreciated They think we should
have declared war on Germany two days before they started to march
into Belgium ... So I hope these people that are always trying to fix
the world will learn something out of this, STAY AT HOME AND TEND
TO OUR OWN BUSINESS! DON T ATTEND A CONFERENCE, NOT EVEN A
LUNCHEON!"
On the lighter side, one day while in Paris Will encountered Dr.
Nicholas Murray Butler on the street.
"Oh, hello, Will," Dr. Butler said. "What are you doing over here?"
"The same as you, Doc," Will replied. 4S Let s have another."
In Rome, after much diplomatic maneuvering, an interview was
set up with Mussolini. In his report to Coolidge Will said he had made
up his mind "to go in a-grinning" and to treat Mussolini "like he was
BO more than Hiram Johnson." Accompanied by a man from the
embassy dressed according to protocol, Will wore his old blue serge
suit. Mussolini met them "at about the 4th green, shook hands smil
ing, and asked in English Interview?* I said, No Interview. " Wfll
informed him through an interpreter that he was not interested in how
the dictator ran Italy, but he wanted to find out if Mussolini was "a
Regular Guy." Mussolini conceded that he was and then asked Wfll
what had impressed him the most in Italy. "It s the amount of auto
mobiles meeting and neither one ever knowing which side the other
was going to go on and yet nobody ever gets hit, and the amount of
Bicycles ridden, and I never see anyone fixing a puncture."
This seemed to take the wind out of Mussolini s sails as he had
expected the usual stock answer: the great improvements that had
taken place in Italy under his dictatorship. "We have very good
bicycle tires," he finally salvaged out of rt
Wil talked over the atrocious "castor oil" treatment Mussolini and
"CooUdge s Colonel House" 1 87
the Black Shirts had used on political prisoners, and kiddingly offered
to buy the recipe to use on the United States Senate. When this was
translated for Mussolini, he nodded his assent.
"I am going to Russia," Will said,
"Oh, Russia. You take recipe to Russia, very good for Russia. I
give you free for Russia,"
"What do you think about disarmament?" Will asked.
"Why, do you want me to laugh?" Mussolini answered, winking at
Will. "We disarm when England disarm on sea and when France in
the air and on the land. So you see we never have to disarm."
Will came away from the interview feeling, as many did this early
in Mussolini s career, that the dictator might be of some help to Italy.
"I was surprised as much as I was the first time I ran into you, Calvin,
and I come out tfrfnlrfrig yew wasn t as sober as you make yourself
look. . . . It s a woosderfoi thing to meet people and see about how
they all are about the same when you can get their minds off their
Life s wort, . . . Now, You, Mr. President, wife your last year s suit,
your speech on Economy while stepping off the Mayflower, your little
quiet yet just as effective way of getting what you want done . . .
Well, that and you would be just as funny to Italy as Mussolini is to
us ... He gets up in PuMk and teHs Austria and Germany what to
do . , * You have Kellogg seed Mexico a note telling them what time
to quit work that day . , . He cocoes into the House of Deputies and
tells them the measures that shall be put through You have five or
six Senators for breakfast and the same thing happens. . . You see,
everyone of us in the world have our audience to pky to ... We
study them and we try to do it so it will appeal to what we thfnV is
the great majority."
From Italy, Win and W5H Jr. went to Monaco, where everything
appeared in apple-pie order. There is no Government, there is noth
ing to interfere with anything or anybody just that little old wheel
rolling f or them aH the tone ... I will keep looking, Calvin, but this
is going to be hard to beat,"
From there it was on to Spam, where Will interviewed its dictator,
Primo de Rivera. As the largest neutral during the war, Rivera was
incensed that Spain was not permitted to become a member of the
League of Nations. "They won t let y^u in because you are not ready
188 WILL ROGERS
for war," Will told him. He informed Coolidge that "they all feel the
same about this League and Disarming and World Courts and all
that stuff . . . They feel like England and France runs the whole thing
and they don t want anything to do with it ... There ain t any of
them got any use for the other one, and you can t blame em for
looking out after themselves. . . , Say, you give them as much ocean
on each side of them as we have, and then on the two ends a Mexico
and a Canada, they might start disarming with you too. . . . There is
a lot erf things talk good in a speech, but you come to working it out
when you are up against hundreds of years of previous wars and
hatreds, they don t pan out"
In Madrid Wfll and Wai Jr. attended a polo game and met the
King of Spain, who was one of the players. "They rode him off the
Ball, they run into hfm 3 they jumped him, and he was giving as well
as taking. . . . There was times, Calvin, when it dident look like there
was going to be any more Royalty left than a Rabbit What I
don t understand is why he has such poor horses Say, listen, if
I was King of some Country, and we was having a polo game, I want
to tell the world that William would prance out astride the best
steeds that entered the Arena that day."
Back in London, Wfli Jr. decided he had had enough of it and
wanted to return to California. Wffl cabled Betty, who decided to
bring over the other two children, so they could keep Will company,
and for Will Jr. to return home. The evening before he sailed, Betty
wrote, "the two of them divided their neckties and trophies, and he
packed his bag. Later, they went to a cafe for dinner. Will, who was
feeling low over the loss of his traveling companion, suddenly felt a
boyish arm steal around him and ft remained there during the meal."
These moments meant more to him than meeting kings, princes and
dictators.
As soon as the rest of the family arrived, Will joined them for a
vacation in Switzerland. They then returned to England, where they
set up headquarters, and a few days later Will few to Russia. The
fet lap was to Berlin by a regular airline and there he took a Soviet
plane for Moscow. "I constituted Russia s sole aerial immigration
that day . . . As I gat in the plane, I commenced to thinV oi all the
jokes I had told about Russia, and then I remembered that people
"Coolidge s Colonel House" 189
had remarked to me they didn t know why I had been given a passport
when it was so hard to get one Then I thought, maybe they know
about some of the jokes and this Aerial Cossack is about heading off to
Siberia with me." However, the plane landed in Moscow right on the
minute. Everybody had advised Will not to take anything with him as
everything would be carefully inspected. "I tore up a handful of
cards people had given me of people in Russia to look up for them
... I took in only one suit and four extra shirts, as I was told if I
had too much I would be suspected of capitalistic tendencies ... I
even dident get a shave for a few days, figuring I might pass as a
native ... I dident even have my Shriner pin or my Elk Tooth Fob on.
... I went into a little customs office . . . They took my passport, give
it a peek, and shoved it back to me ... I opened my grip ... He got one
peek . . . dident even feel in there ... As for looking to see what you
had in your pocket or on your person, why, I could have had a bass
drum in each hip pocket, a Saxophone down each kg and two years
collection of Congressional Records in my coat pockets. 1 *
Except for a guide in the Kremlin, Will was allowed to prowl
where he pleased to nearby villages, to Leningrad, and to talk with
anyone he met. The New York Times man, Walter Duranty, arranged
interviews with minor officials, but not with Leon Trotsky, whom Will
particularly wanted to meet. "I told the official the nature of the visit
was to find out just what kind of Guy Trotsky was personally, and
that I did not want any state secrets ... I just wanted to see did he
drink, eat, sleep, laugh and act human, or was his whole life taken
up for the betterment of mankind." The official shook his head. "We
are a very serious people," he explained. "We do not go in for fun
and laughter. In running a large Country like this we have no time for
appearing frivolous. We have a great work to perform. We are sober."
Although WiH insisted that his humor had a sober side, that he did
not "expect Trotsky to make f aces for him, or tell him the day s latest
joke," lie did believe the "man must have some very good human
qualities, and on account of being in America at one time, he had
always been of special interest to us." Tlie answer was still "nyet."
tt l wanted to tell him, Calvin, that what they needed in their Govern
ment was more of a sense of humor and less of a sense of revenge. I
saw tMs old boy wasent strong for me X-raying Trotsky . . . But I bet
190 WILL ROGERS
yoB if I had met him and had a chat with him, I would have found
him a very interesting and human fellow, for I have never yet met a
man I dident like. When you meet people, no matter what opinion
you might have formed about them beforehand, why, after you meet
tbem and see their angle and their personality, why, you can see a
lot of good in all of them/*
This is the first appearance in Will s writing of this expression, "I
never met a man I didn t like," and in its context here, as in his
comments on Mussolini, it takes on an entirely different meaning
from that usually accepted.
WHl left Russia with a contempt for those who, in their wishful
tlifnkfng > marked off "the Russian experiment" as a fantasy which,
like the walls of Jericho, would come tumbling down when the High
Priests of Capitalism blew their trumpets. Although the Red army
was "without a doubt the seediest-looking layout I ever saw in my life,"
somewhat resembling "a Chamber of Commerce in Evening clothes
lined up to meet Queen Marie," he warned 4C you take those ignorant
old Boys and give them some real training and they are going to be
kinder hard to clean."
By this time Will was a confirmed air voyager, "If I don t have an
Airship to travel in, I thmV I am walking."
In London Will found a full schedule awaiting him. He made a
motion picture, Tip Toes, with Dorothy Gish and Nelson Keith. This
finished, Charles Cochran begged Will to go into his Review, which
was sagging much as the 1916 Follies had done. Both he and Betty
had grave doubts, as Americans had never before been so unpopular
in England. "Witt was fond of his old friend," Betty wrote, "he
couldn t refuse. He did his usual stunt and spoke frankly about the
war debts, French finance and the British general strike, as well as
about America s big problem, prohibition." A critic in Everybody s
Weekly, under the heading "Go Home, Will Rogers," blasted:
Naturally, we of the audience assumed we would see this quaint
Yankee in some of his inimitable drollery. Nothing of the sort. To the
amazement and, I may truthfully say, consternation of the bulk of
tibe audience, we were compelled to listen to a diatribe which mainly
coasisled of gratuitous insults aimed at Great Britain, France and
"CooUdge s Colonel House 9 191
Belgium. ... It seems incredible that a man like Cochran, whose
sympathies should be with this country and with France because he
has earned much bread and butter from each, should let his platform
be used for foolish American propaganda of this sort His remarks
on the present European crisis are insulting, insolent, presumptuous
and in the worst of taste.
Other critics, in fact most of them, had different reactions. James
Agate in the Sunday Times, July 25, 1926, commented that "our
visitor got at once on such magnificent terms with his audience that
to leave the stage was out of the question. For the better part of an
hour the older generation of this revue knocked at the wings in vain.
The house wanted Mr. Rogers and got Mr. Rogers, not the actor and
comedian, but Mr. Rogers the American citizen and unofficial ambas
sador. No actor accustomed to feeling the pulse of an audience could
have remained unconscious of so spontaneous and genuine a success.
Mr. Rogers frankly and generously accepted our recognition of
him as an exceptional person belonging to an exceptional race. . . .
A superior power had seen fit to fling into the world, for once a truly
fine specimen, fine in body, fine in soul, fine in intellect As a piece
of comic improvisation, his forty minutes harangue was a feat of
something approaching genius." After reading this over, Mr. Agate
added another touch: "Probably I am doing the comedian in Mr.
Rogers an injustice by suggesting that he did act On reflection I am
convinced that he did act, and act very well. . . . The experimental
zest which will not accept tradition, or what other people have done,
the approachableness masquerading as antipathy to race or joy of
mongrelism, that Frankness which only the stupid wfll mistake for
bad manners, the charm which seeks to disguise itself under a show
of impudence, the obvious sincerity of the belief in world salvation
through boost and pep I am not persuaded that this clever pres
entation of the whole American pose can be accomplished with less
of the actor s art than goes to make up, say, the canny camaraderies
of Sir Harry Lauder. . . . America s Prime Minister of Mirth to
borrow Mr. Robey enchanted both in matter and manner."
Instead of sending Wfll home, as the one critic had suggested, if
nothing else a "standing room only" house caused Cochran to keep
Will on as long as possible. When after four weeks Cochran handed
192 WILL ROGERS
him a blank check, and told him to write his own figure, Will tore it
up. *The fun I had doing it is enough pay," he said.
Betty enjoyed his performance too. "It was such fun sitting out in
front watching the reaction of the audience while Will was talking,"
she wrote. Sometimes it was a bit slow, but his ribbing was almost
always accepted good-naturedly. Several times I noticed groups of
Americans sitting up stiffly, as if fearful that their countryman was
going too far."
Will eventually met George Bernard Shaw at a stag dinner given
at the Pinafore Room of the Savoy Hotel. Among other guests were
G. K. Chesterton, Sir James Barrie, Lord Dewar of Scotch whiskey
fame, Lord Derby, Sir Harry Lauder, Sir Thomas Lipton, and Michael
Aden, who had come from Paris for the affair.
Wai and Shaw took to each other at once. "Why, they told me you
were an Indian," Shaw greeted him. "I don t see any feathers." Later
Shaw commented, "I had no suspicion of how important the man is.
Really, be is as important as I am." Of Shaw, Wfll said, "We ve got a
good deal in common. We both know the world is wrong, but we don t
know what s the matter with it"
Early in September Will and Betty went to Ireland. In Dublin,
before a capacity house that included Eamon de Valera, Will played
a benefit for the victims of a devastating theater fire at Dromcolliher.
Before leaving Ireland Wfll stated in Ms Daily Wire: "Am bringing
family greetings from Dublin to every man on the force." Later, in
his travelogue on Ireland he commented that "it keeps a small nation
busy raising the police force of the world." 2
Late in September the Rogerses sailed for "Cuckooland" on the
Leviathan. Secretary of State Charles E. Hughes was on board, and
remembering his skit in the Follies of 1 922, Wfll ducked his head shyly
when introduced to him. U I dident know whether to hold out my hand
to shake or cover up and protect myself," he confessed.
2 Tfeis travelogue was entitled, "Roaming the Emeral Isle.** The one on
Holland was called "The Windmflk of Holland" aad the country was labeled
**tiie lowest country In the world and it conies nearer being on the level than
any other country." la "getting the dirt in Paris," be said, "they call it the Latin
Quarto because nobody speaks Latin and nobody has a quarter." Rome was
"the cradle of civilization" but it "looks like the rockers have been lost." Its
was due to its having senators!
"Coolidge s Colonel House" 193
But in Hughes he was dealing with a different man from President
Harding. They played a benefit on board the ship for the victims of
a Florida tornado in which Hughes was the comedian and Will the
diplomat. Over $40,000 was raised, a tidy little sum, as Will told
the audience, "that would give the French heartburn when they
learned it had escaped their clutches."
As the Leviathan approached New York City, crack reporters in
special launches came down the bay to interview Will. "The United
States looks perfect," were his first words, "and this Guy Hughes,
he s the funniest man I ever listened to. He became so human on this
trip he was almost common. Two more trips and we d have made a
Democrat of him that s how common he is getting. We settled Russia
last night and are now planning a Washington conference/*
The consensus of the reporters was that after returning from the
most publicized trip in history, despite hobnobbing with kings, princes,
dictators and other notables, Will was the same unspoiled Oklahoma
cowboy who had come to Madison Square Garden in 1905.
Will had returned from his famous trip but as yet had not matte his
reports to the President. Nor did he know if he would have a chance
to do that. "Who knows what Mr. Coolidge reads or does for that
matter?" he said later in answer to the question as to whether the
President had read his "Letters." But Will was not the one to cavil.
He immediately wired the President that he had arrived and asked for
an appointment to make the report. By return wire came an invitation
to come immediately. "Mr. Sanders, the President s secretary, met me
at the train himself and we drove in a White House Limousine. We
got to the White House and there sit Mr. and Mrs. Coolidge. Now
there was the President of a country a third as big as Russia and more
than half as big as China. He and the Leading Lady of our land
waiting dinner on a Lowbrow Comedian. I Iiad heard so much in
Politics about them going to do something for the common people
and this was the first practical demonstration I had ever witnessed
of it"
"Wen, what sort of crooks and horse thiefs did you meet today,
Mr. President?" Wffl asked.
"The Cabinet," Coolidge replied.
There is BO record of what Will and the President talked about.
194 WELL ROGERS
He had fish hash for dinner ("and when you get to fish hash that s
about the most in economy in food") and his room in the White
House "was so big you could have roped a steer in it. Great big
bedstead the biggest, widest bed I ever saw a regular Brigham
Young affair.*
Will unquestionably discussed Europe s attitude toward the United
States, "You know of course, or perhaps have had it insinuated to
you, that we stand in Europe about like a Horse Thief. . . . Now I
want to report to you, Mr. President, that that is not so. It is what you
caH at Amherst erroneous. 3 We don t stand like a Horse Thief abroad
. . . Whoever told you we did is flattering us. We don t stand as
good as a Horse Thief , . They knew what you were sore at them
for." On the other hand, none of the European countries loved each
other either. "I would just casually admit that we were a band of
highbinders, and were just waiting to get England or France up a
back aDey and knock em in the head and get what little they had
left. Then as the discussion waxed warm about Uncle Shylock, I
would say, Wfll you enumerate to me, in their natural order, the
number of nations that you people call bosom friends? " He found
that the chief misunderstanding came over the contribution of the
United States to winning the war. "If we thought that they really at
heart and conscientiously appreciated what we did in the war, I think
there would be no trouble getting the debt cancelled in full ... It has
been quite a while since they were saved, and they are not willing
to admit they were saved . . . The only way we could be in worse
with them was to help them out in another war."
Will s conclusion certainly colored by his Cherokee blood was
that the action of nations should be the same as that of "real" in
dividuals. "Let em go through life and do and act as they want to,
and if they can t gain friends on their own account, don t let s go out
and try ami buy them-"
As to a war threat from Mussolini, Will told Coolidge that at the
moment be was not going to start fighting, but would when he had
to "to get more territory for his people ... He is not going to plunge
for the next couple or four years, for he knows the plunging is not
good. . . But he has got something that all Europe is jealous of, and
that is the breeding system. They are raising 500,000 boys a year.
"CooUdge s Colonel House" 195
. . . You can have all the advanced war methods you want, but no
body has ever invented a war that you dident have to have somebody
in the guises of soldiers to stop the bullets, ... If he lives long enough
and Italy s marksmanship don t improve, he will have to go out hunt
ing and bring in some more land where his people will have room to
live."
In October, 1926, when his Letters of a Self-Made Diplomat to
His President appeared, John Carter wrote in the New York Times,
October 31, 1926: "America has never produced anybody quite
like him, and there has rarely been an American humorist whose
words produced less empty laughter or more sober thought His
interviews with Mussolini and Primp de Rivera help to bear out his
contention that European disarmament is a farce, and that the League
of Nations is a piece of eyewash designed by some of the big powers
to manipulate affairs to their own advantage. Perhaps Will Rogers has
done more to educate the American public in world affairs than afl
the professors who have been elucidating the continental chaos since
the Treaty of Versailles."
Woodrow Wilson s summation of Will as being c *both humorous
and illuminating" is borne out by this judgment. Another man was
reading Will s reports with astonishment. "In addition to my deep ap
preciation of his humor," Franklin D. Roosevelt commented, "the
first time that I fully realized Will Rogers exceptional and deep un
derstanding of political and social problems was when he came home
from his European trip in 1926. While I had discussed European
matters with many others, both American and foreign, Will Rogers
analysis of affairs abroad was not only more interesting but proved
to be more accurate than any other I had heard."
Win was not content to rest on his accomplishments. The day after
his report to his President he began another lecture tour.
21
His Honor, the Mayor
WILL S EUROPEAN TRIP ENRICHED HIS MATERIAL FOR BOTH
his lecture routines and Ms newspaper writing, both Ms weekly column
and Daily Wire. He could speak with the authority of one who had
observed on the spot and not merely from newspaper reports, which
of course he continued to read. "I can tell you this will be a dignified
Lecture ... It is not going to be one of those Jazz and Apple Sauce
affairs that I had last year I have watched the effects of President
Coolidge being serious, and how they always think if a thing is serious
it most be so . . . So me for the Deep Wrinkled Brow stuS from now
on. ... See where England is holding their fleet maneuvers in Italy s
front yard . . . That is what you call courtesy among nations ... If
individuals did that kind of thing to show how strong they were in
front of someone they dktent like somebody would shoot em and
everybody else would cheer Suppose Tunney exercised in front
of your window every morning for no reason at all? . . . Our gunboats
are all in the Chinese war, our Marines have all landed in Nicaragua,
Kellogg is sending daily ultimatums to Mexico and Coolidge is dedi
cating memorials to eternal peace What right have the Marines
gol settling an election m Nicaragua? ... I thought our Army and
Na^y was sopposed to never enter politics . . . Evidently they have to
o to Smith America to get into politics Lord, if it wasent for
writing letters to Mexico, we wouldent need any Secretary of State.
... I bet if they d have an egg4aying Convention in Czecho-Slovakia,
196
His Honor, the Mayor 197
and if we could find out where it was, we*d have more delegates and
lay less eggs than anybody else there."
Nor were local affairs neglected. "The Farmers won t get any relief
until Wednesday maybe late Wednesday Every official in the
Government and every prominent manufacturer is forever bragging
about our high standard of living/ . . . Why, we could always have
lived this high if we had -wanted to live on the installment plan."
Betty had gone on to California to help get the children enrolled
in school, and Will Jr., now approaching his fifteenth birthday, was
enrolled at Culver Military Academy. On October 8, 1926, Will
wrote him there that he had got a big laugh out of the one Will Jr.
had pulled in Venice about "No cats in the alleys. * At another place
they had got a tremendous laugh when "old Bruce [Bruce Quisen-
berry, Will s nephew and manager on the road] come on to move the
Piano for the roping and as he was pushing it off, why, the whole
thing fell apart, and there was Piano scattered all over the stage. You
know how scared Old Bruce can look, well, you should have seen his
eyes. He thought he had ruined the whole show. Well, I wish it would
happen every night. I got a dozen laughs out of it." The old showman
even knew how to take advantage of accidents.
In a Canadian appearance, John McCormack came to see WBl
perform. Afterward he came backstage, 4t He liked the act very much
but thought the quartette was Rotten and that they should be shot
for not singing popular songs," Will confided to Will Jr. "That if be
could afford to go out and sing Popular songs, why, he dident see why
they should object He told the manager about it and I hope it does
them some good. They can pick out the poorest songs there is, it
looks like," The next night Win went to bear McCormack sing, "to
help make a crowd. If I hadent there would have been one more
standing room."
Will gave some advice to WiB Jr. on a boil the boy had which
he probably pkked up on his travels or back in the Indian Territory.
"Eat a nkrkle s worth of raisins every day and you won t have any
boils. If you do have any, get em on the outside where you can get
at em."
By October 26, 1926, with cold weather coming on, Will had
worked his way to Spartanburg, South Carolina, where he again wrote
198 WILL ROGERS
to WiH Jr. This letter, he hoped, would get to him "about on your
birthday . . . Now you are fifteen years old, thaf s getting pretty old.
But you got a long way to go yet and the way you prepare for it now
will help you out a whole lot in how you will be fixed for it all through
the trip." Wffl enclosed $15. That s a dollar for each year. Just look
what you will get when you get to be 75 or 80." There was advice for
the boy also:
You just stay with it there and work hard and do everything you
can to improve yourself and do all you can to help out your health
and make you strong. You are now slender and not very husky but
that will come if you will just work on something that will develop
you aH the time ---- Mama was crazy about the school and the way
you are doing there ____
I am fixing so I can go home with you Xmas. Just what day do
you get out? ... We will break in the Polo field with a big game and
a Barbecue and Roping. ... I wfll be back in Oklahoma next week.
I am going to get a lot more land and fix up the old ranch place.
There is the place you will like when we get it going good. We wfll
make a big stock farm out of it. I have quite a few cattle now and
seme sheep, and 250 Goats. We are going into the goat raising
business. . ..
Now you want to get set for that Cavalry after Xmas. Find out all
you can about it I think you ride bareback a good deal. Find out just
what they use and we will fix one out home. Old Rowdy, the good
gentle Polo Pony, would be big like the horses you have there and
you could start in on him and that would give you some confidence
by the time you started ____
We are mi^ity proud of you sticking it out there when a lot of the
big rough ones couldent stand ft. Good night, son, merry Birthday.
la a coaple more years you will be riding the first string and I wfll
have to take the old easy ones like Dopey and Dodo. You wfll be up
on Rooster, and Scout, and Ffeetf ooL Jim wffl have Penny and Boot-
and Oieyemie. Lots of Love, from Old Dad.
la the fall of 1926 Queen Marie of Rumania paid a state visit to
the United States for "the usual purpose" and furnished grist for
WilTs satirical m3L The country went into a tailspin as individuals,
groups and cities vied for the honor of entertaining her. "Don t ever
His Honor, the Mayor 199
say America ain t Cuckoo over Titles and Royalty/* Will commented.
"There are dented marks on the iron fence in front of Buckingham
Palace where American noses have pushed, watching to get a glimpse
of the King if he happened to drive out."
The description of the various functions given in the Queen s honor,
particularly a dinner given by the President, offered ripe pickings.
"Just listen to what the Queen had on [taking a newspaper from his
pocket] . . . *a regal diadem circled the shingled locks of this modern
Monarch, inherited from Grand Duchess Maria of Russia . . . That s
one the Bolsheviks dident get their paws on ... The Crown dripped
great pear shaped pearls . . . Boy, get that . . . the Crown dripped
Pearls . . . Say, I bet it dident drip them long around in front of
Calvin ... He would run and get an old wash pan or something to
catch em in ... Either that or he was the first one down there look
ing around in the morning. . . . These harmonized with the ropes of
Pearls she had around her neck* . . . Holy suffering Cats! . . . Are they
roping with Pearls now?. . . I roped with everything, but I never tried
a Pearl rope . . . *Her White Gown glittered with Sequins . . . Watch
the Society Dames dive for the Dictionary . . . America will all be
trying to trade Fords for Sequins now. . . . Its decolletage was round
in front ... I think this reporter must be speaking of the dress and
not the Sequins . . . *It ended in a low V at the back from which hung
a train! . . .* My Goodness, I haven t seen a train on a Woman s dress
since Mrs. Rogers got married in one . . . She will be digging hers out
now I guess the Queen sat near Calvin during the chuck hour
... I jest wonder what Cal said to her? ... He must about asked her,
What do you do in your country, Maria, to satisfy the farmer? If
you can give me the recipe for that, I wfll see that you get the loan/ "
Will was upset when the mayor of Kansas City, in presenting the
Queen to an audience, said, "This is the greatest day in the history of
Kansas City." He was not, he protested, complaining because Marie
fct was the Queen in some minor league Balkan War trap nation" for "it
would be the same if the Queen of the Biggest nation was there. . . .
Last week seventeen hundred young boys and giris were in Kansas
City . . . Future Fanners of America ... to see the kings and queens
of cattle, sheep, bogs and horses, real kings and queens that produced
something .... real thoroughbreds ... If there had been a scrawny
200 WILL ROGERS
one and an outcast in the breeding, he was discarded at home and
not allowed to enter the arena ... It was not like human royalty
where they use them whether they are fit or not ... These not only
have to have the breeding but they got to face the judges and be
marked on their merit"
At the finish of this lecture tour Will met Betty and the children
in New York, where they had a couple of days of shopping and shows.
Then they entrained for California to spend Christmas at home. Forty-
seven now, Will had come a long way from that day he uttered his
first Cherokee yell on November 4, 1879. He had the wife of his
choice and three fine children, Will Jr., 15, Mary, 13, and Jim, 11.
It was a fitting end to a tremendously successful year as they sat
together on the train, but there was more to come.
As the train pulled into the Los Angeles station, it was obvious
something special was going on. On the platform, as a welcoming
committee, were the leading citizens of Beverly Hills, city officials,
businessmen, motion-picture actors, actresses, directors and pro
ducers, a couple of brass bands, and hundreds of "just ordinary
folks." Banners proclaimed a welcome to "The Hon. Will Rogers,
Mayor of Beverly Hills." Others called him "The Kiddies Pal" and
"The Dog s Best Friend." A parade moved out Wilshire Boulevard to
Severely Hills in a steady downpour of rain that did not dampen
the enthusiasm of the crowd one whit. "The Mayor s family," Betty
wrote, "abandoned an open car in favor of drier accommodations."
On a raised platform in the park opposite the Beverly Hills Hotel,
the president of the City Trustees, Sil Spaulding, after a laudatory
speech presented Wfll with "an elegant illuminated scroll five feet
high" on which was inscribed in red and gold fetters his commission
of office. Will s speech as "mayor" was probably unique. Notes he
made for it indicate approximately what be said:
It don t speak well for your town when this many of you havent
got anything to do but come to meet me ... What s the matter with
bessiess? . . . Real estate men are always between sales . . . They must
be between sales, bet I don t want anybody ringing me up while here
teffiBg me they got a good buy on Wilshire ... I am Mayor, not Santa
Qaes to some Real Estate firm. . . .
His Honor, the Mayor 201
I am by no means the first Comedian Mayor . . . That seems to
be the one requirement of a Mayor ... I have never seen a Mayor that
wasent funny, and the minute he puts on a Silk Hat he becomes
Screamingly Funny ... I may make a good Mayor ... I have tried
everything eke ... I am what you call "Groping in the Dark," and I
am reaching for everything. . . .
Groping! . . . That s the only thing that has held this Joint back . . .
It has everything to make a good town burglars, poor parking
regulations, shortage of water in the summer, poor telephone service,
luncheon clubs, Chamber of Commerce, and everything that goes to
handicap 99 per cent of the towns But what you have really needed
is a Good Mayor Too many Mayors have been elected on Honesty
. . . That don t get you anywhere Now I don t say I will give the
old burg an honest administration, but I will split 50-50 with you
I know you will ask, "Well, Will, how are you going to run the
town if you are away so much?" . . . Say, I can run ibis town by
telegraph, and Los Angeles, I could run it by radio even with the
static on ... There is going to be no keys given out to the city . . .
Even Mark Hellinger and Doug Fairbanks have got to know when they
come in ... I am bringing over a few of the systems of Mussolini,
particularly the "castor oil* treatment ... I want to warn you, the
real estate men have got to go to work ... I don t care who you work
but it s got to be somebody ... I want to introduce a law to make Real
Estate men and Moving Picture people as good as any other Citizens
. . . There shall be no discrimination against them
I am sorry somebody referred to Movies as an art ... For since
then everybody connected with them stopped doing something to
make them better and they commenced getting worse . . . The success
of the Movies have been the animal trainers more than the directors
. . . The minute directors can train actors to act as natural as a dog
or a horse then they wfll have accomplished something. . . .
We have more swimming pools and less Bibles in Beverly Hills than
any town in the world ... We imitate Bake Kohanimoku more than
we do Moses . . . We love to bathe collectively but individually we
are pretty dirty . , . Really, though, the old City has done great ... I
can remember it when there wasent over 25 mortgages in the whole
town . . - Why, there wasent a manicurist or beauty parlor here. . . .
I have been thmVfng over that reform thing and, like all smart men,
I have changed my mind . . . There is nothing to it ... Everybody is
going in for that . . . Hollywood went in for it and everybody that
202 WILL ROGERS
amounted to anything moved out . . I don t know of a single Feature
Length Inhabitant of HoEywood . . . Name me anybody that is pack
ing *em in today and I will show you where he is only two more pay
ments behind in Beverly Hills! ... So come to think of it, I am for
scaErial ... If Silver King pulls a party for the Wild Horse Gang, why,
let it be known ... If Rin Tin Tin gets mixed up with some two-reel
comedy dog that is doing nothing but rescuing babies, why, let him
have his fling . . . Life is short . . .
So here I am, your new Mayor, God s gift to the People who dident
see Queen Mark.
Will was now His Honor, Mayor of Beverly Hills. More important,
he was at home with his family for a few days. "When he enters the
house, either after a long or brief time away from it, we are all happy,"
Betty wrote at the time. "We all rush to him and greet him and circle
about him, and everything is gay and joyous. This is largely due to
his buoyant personality, his gift for cheerfulness. We aH know we are
going to have some fun. But it is also due to the fact that the head of
the house is back, the family circle is again intact We have a sense
of completeness again."
22
"Congressman-at-Large of CuckoolancT
EARLY IN JANUARY WILL HAD TO TEAR HIMSELF AWAY
from home to go on another lecture tour. "I bet you hated to leave
home," he wrote Wifl Jr, **I know I did/ But now Ms comments on
Europe had lost some of their pertinence and he concentrated more on
local affairs and America s place in the scheme of things as an "inside**
observer. Particularly on the lack of preparedness in building an air
defense. "For the 322 Pursuit Squadron with a complement of five
hundred men that it has cost millions to train there were six old time
Army planes of the type we trained the boys in before we went into
the war . . . Only enough gasoline is allotted so that their flying time
is 2/34 minutes a month, . . . Mr. OooIIdge, on account of his econ
omy plan, has suggested that they fly as high as they can on as little
gas as they have, and then coast down ... In that way they get twice
the distance out of the same gas This old Economy is a good
slogan . . . It s a great horse to ride . . . But look you don t ride it in
the wrong direction. . . . We are not going to be lucky enough to fight
Nicaragua forever , . . Build all we can, and then take care of nothing
but our own business, and we Wifl never have to use it ... Tunney
hasent been insulted since September If you thinfr preparedness
don t give you prestige, look at Japan. , . . We are afraid to look at
them crosseyed BOW for fear we will hurt their Honor . . . Before they
got a Navy neither Item, nor us, knew they had any honor ... It ain t
your Honor that is respected among Nations . . . It s your strength
Japan or England either wocM have just as much honor without any
203
204 WILL ROGERS
Navy at all, but the Navy helps to remind you of it." What Will prob
ably understood but did not state was that the only nations that build
up big armaments are those in which the men who pay taxes, the men
in power, the vested interests, expect to use it for some purpose that
will result in accretions, of whatever sort, to them. In the United
States, with a board of directors for industry, finance and business
running the government, an expanded armed service beyond that
needed for "dollar diplomacy," a protection of their interests abroad,
meant only increased taxes, not gain. It was only when they became
frightened enough over losing their possessions that they took a saner
view.
The way in whkh China was treated by the rest of the world,
including the United States, disturbed Will deeply. Perhaps his feeling
for the way this country s affairs were mangled by the great powers
was enhanced by the treatment of his own people, the Cherokees, by
the whites. <t ChinaI those poor people! ... I never felt as sorry for
anyone in my life as I do for them . . . Here they are, they have never
bothered anyone in their whole lives . . . They have lived within their
own boundaries, never invaded anyone s domains, worked hard, got
little pay for it, and few pleasures in life, learned us about two thirds
of the useful things we do, and now they want to have a Civil War."
This on February 5, 1927. "We had one and nobody butted in ...
China dident send Gunboats up our Mississippi River to protect their
laundries at Memphis or St Louis ... If a package of dirty shirts
got pierced by a bullet, and it made a button hole in the wrong place,
the poor Chinaman had to make it good himself ... I bet you there
have been more people of the Chinese race killed innocently, and
have stood for more insults and property damage in all foreign coun
tries than any other race . . , Yet every other Nation in the World has
took upon themselves some particular claim to help run China . . .
Every Nation in the World have their own Land, and every other
Nation recognizes it ... But China, everybody looks on theirs as public
domain . . . England holds one of their towns Now what right has
England to hold (me 0$ their Towns any more than China has to make
a Laundry out of Buckingham Palace?"
The last straw for Wffl was the sending of missionaries to China.
is dvSized now* They have a navy. We don t send any more
"Congressman-at-Large of Cuckooland" 205
missionaries there now. . . . Any nation is heathen that ain t strong
enough to punch you in the Jaw, . . . Why, the Chinese as a race have
forgotten more honesty and gentlemanness than we will know if we
live another Century When we started in with our missionaries,
that was the last straw Imagine with all our crime, and all of our
immorality, sending missionaries to them Imagine our going over
there and telling them how to live . . . Here we have about as much
contentment and repose as a fresh-caged Hyena . . . Then we go to
tell some calm, contented people how to live . . . Why, they forgot
more about living than we will ever know. ... I suppose that Aimee
McPherson s new religion will be sending Missionaries over to teach
them how to live . . . She will be showing up Confucius next."
The epitome of the absurdity came in politics. "We have Disarma
ment Conferences to persuade Nations to disarm . . . Then we pick on
China, the only big one that is disarmed. . . . Us and England are
going to get a kick in the pants some day if we don t come home and
start tending to our own business and let other people Uve as they
want to . . . What they meant by the open door is everybody could
come in and do what they wanted but China . . . The real reason they
want to stop the Civil War there, it would interfere with British and
our trade . . . We can t allow them to do anything that would interfere
in any way with our commerce."
Instead of worrying too much about what happened to trade on the
foreign scene, WiU thought it might be a good idea to take stock at
home. "This country is not prosperous . . . We got poor people in this
country, only they are not the kind that asks for anything, and they
are not on the street where you see *em Never mind reading Bank
Deposits . . . We got a million poor people that live in the Country
that never saw a bank The rich are getting richer and the poor
are getting poorer That s what we better regulate instead of Nicara
gua, Tacna-Arica, Mexico and China. . . What we ought to do is
import some Giinese Missionaries to show us ... Not how to be saved
tat how to raise something every year on the land . . . We just got the
missionary business tamed around We are the ones that need
converting more than they do."
Certainly the year 1927 was one in which the country needed to
take stock. Although the "norm** in "the return to normalcy" was
206 WILL ROGERS
inflated to its uttermost, nothing was done about the chief sore spots
in the economy of the country. The fanners were sinking into bank
ruptcy. President Harding had boasted that the fanner had been
placed cm "a sound business basis," but his operation had not then,
nor ever had been one in which this was possible. Its very basis is
a gamble with nature and when the connivances of "the middleman"
are added the fanner is protected about as much as the trapper was
protected by a fur association. The McNary-Haugen bill, some
what more flexible than Harding s boasted relief, was defeated in the
House of Representatives in 1924. Two years later, with the Repub
licans solidly in control of the government, it was snowed under in
both bouses of Congress. Now, in 1927, with a presidential election
year in the offing, both houses of Congress passed it content in the
knowledge that their "safety valve," President Coolidge, would veto
it "Put him on a farm," Will scoffed, <c with the understanding he has
to make his own living off it, and I bet you he will give the farmers
relief the next year. I offer mine as an experiment, and if he makes a
go of it he is not a President, he is a magician."
On the other hand, a Republican administration under the energetic
leadership of its efficient Secretary of Commerce, Herbert Hoover,
had probed deep into the world s recesses to expand American trade.
As a definite and positive aid to his efforts, the armed services were
kept up to the demand, "Captured boat from China . . . landed more
marines in Nicaragua . . . sent new demands to Mexico ... It looks
like Mr. Coolidge wiH run on his war record China owes us two
millions and we take over their customs . , . France owes us four bil
lions and we are afraid to send *em a bfll for it ... Looks like we re
going to break off diplomatic relations with Mexico and ship arms
to the revolutionists ... Instead of giving them the means to shed
iBore blood ... aH for the protection of our oil interests , . . we should
either go down and lick President Calles, if there is enough cause, or
get out . . . Here we are the nation that is always hollering for dis
armament, and peace and just because we are not smart enough to
settle our difference by diplomacy (because we have none), why, we
are going to make it possible for somebody else to exterminate the
ones we don t like Suppose they don t like Coolidge down there
and allowed arms to be shipped into this country to start a revolu-
"Congressrnan-at-Large oj Cuckooland" 207
tion against our Government in power? . . . Boy! What a howl we
-would put up! . . . But it s us doing it ... So that s all right . . . Here is
the greatest humanitarian nation of the world (supposedly) fixing it
so more people can get shot . . What right have we got to kick against
Calles? . . . They give America 50 years to get the oil out from under
the land . . . Then they want to divide it up among the Natives . . . We
say it s against our laws . . . Our laws! . . . What s our laws got to do
with Mexico? . . . Personally, I don t think Doheny and Sinclair, and
the Standard Oil and all those are undergoing any great hardships and
starvation We got more out of Mexico than we put in ... We
passed a Prohibition law whereby we confiscated millions and millions
of dollars worthy of property ... We put out of business thousands
and thousands of people ... It was a business that had always been
legal and legitimate and the owners werent given 50 years warning as
Mexico gave the oil people." Will recommended that our relations
with Mexico be taken out of the hands of a man "that knows phrases
for a diplomat," whether right or wrong, and placed in the control of
someone who knows people, particularly the Mexican people. He was
to have a chance to help in this.
In the winter of 1927 Will made two important decisions. One was
to dispense with the quartet and go it alone. He did not like the songs
they chose but, more important, he wanted more mobility. The other
decision was to sell the Beverly Hills house and build on the ranch.
"There is no more fun at home now," he wrote to Bill Jr. "Everything
is finished. I am anxious to get to work on something new."
While touring through California Will helped the legislature pass
"a bill to form a lawyer s association to regulate their conduct." He
expected no results. In the first place, any time anything was turned
over to an association, it ended right there; and, in the second place,
"a lawyer cannot be made honest by an act of the Legislature. You ve
got to work on his conscience, and his lack of conscience is what
makes him a Lawyer."
Now that he was free of the quartet, Will used airplanes more and
more for the longer bops between Ms lecture dates, and as he did so,
he pounded on the necessity for the development of air power in the
national defense. At See where Secretary of War Wilbur says there is
no danger from Europe from airplanes . . . When we nearly lose the
208 WILL ROGERS
next war, as we probably wfll, we can lay it onto one thing and that
will be the jealousy of the Army and Navy toward aviation . . . They
have belittled it ever since it started and will keep on doing so till
they have something dropped on them from one . . . And even then
they will say it wasent a success." Not even the half dozen plans of
various aviators to fly the Atlantic caused a business-buttressed admin
istration to be able to see over its piled-high moneybags.
In the spring of 1927 the worst floods in its history inundated the
Mississippi Valley. Will immediately turned his attention from every
thing else to the necessity for relief of the poor people caught in this
disaster. He was furious. Publicity about the flood was pushed off the
front pages of newspapers by lurid stories and accounts of the trial
of Ruth Snyder who, with the collusion of a corset fitter, Judd Gray,
had killed her husband. "There s hundred of thousands of people
being driven from their homes homes that won t be there when they
come back, and they are people who never harmed a soul in their
lives . . . Yet Mrs. Snyder s pictures have occupied more space in some
of the papers than the whole State of Mississippi fighting for its life ...
There are ten reporters and photographers at the trial to one at the
flood Just think of the amount of money that could be raised if
that array of special writers, with their various talents for describing
dramatic scenes, could be sent to the flood instead of the trial. . . .
There is more heart interest in one housetop with its little family
floating down the river on it than in all the corset salesmen in the
world.* 5
On April 30, 1927, Will and John McConnack gave a benefit at
fee Ziegfeld, his old boss s new theater, for the flood sufferers. "It will
be McConnack and Rogers, those two nifty boys in funny songs and
sentimental jokes." Win told the audience that "you hear a good deal
about what Congress is going to do for the Mississippi Valley . . , I
don t want to discourage the Valley but I would advise them to put
more confidence in a boat builder . . . One rowboat will do more for
you in a flood than aH the Senators in Washington talking about you
... I got more faith in high ground than in any Senator I ever saw . . .
It s the Democrats that are under water, so it s going to be hard to get
New England Republicans and Oregon and Washington interested."
Wil knew from experience what a iood meant "If your house burns
"Congressman-ai-Large of Cuckooland" 209
out in the country, you can run over to some one elses and stay, but
with this when yours goes your neighbors go too ... Then the worst
thing is their crops have been planted and they ll have to wait another
year . . . People complain about giving them a lump sum to go and
squander on a fellow that hasent lost anything but his house and barn
and stock and all his seed he has already planted." This benefit raised
SI 7,950 that was turned over to the Red Cross. Another benefit
played at New Orleans raised over $40 3 000. Many others raised
smaller sums all of which were turned over to the Red Cross. "Lord,
what a blessing an organization like the Red Cross is," Will said. "I
would rather have originated it than to have written the Constitution/*
A few days after playing the benefit in New York Will was "speed
ing along the old Hudson River ... I was thinking how many millions
and millions of dollars would be raised overnight if it was out of its
banks and doing the same amount of damage the old Mississippi is.
Means a lot of difference where a thing Happens But those poor
share croppers, most of them Negroes, you don t want to forget that
water is just as high on them as it is if they were white The Lord
so constituted everybody that no matter what color you are, you
require about the same amount of nourishment."
Today it seenis inconceivable that a catastrophe like the Mississippi
floods of 1927 could have taken place in a civilized and humanitarian
country, and its government would practically ignore it. True, Secre
tary Hoover helped, but more as a private citizen than a government
official. The "business of America is business" went right down to
the very existence of the people. It would take a greater catastrophe
than this one that reached up into the ranks of the privileged and
f aced them with the same alternatives to dent the national thinking.
On May 21, 1927, Will momentarily ceased to think about the
plight of the flood sufferers and turned his thoughts and prayers to
"an old slim, tall, bashful, smiling American boy who is somewhere
out over the middle of the Atlantic Ocean, where no lone human being
has ever ventured before. Lmdbeigh is being prayed for to every kind
of Supreme Being that has a following. If he is lost, it will be the
most universally regretted single loss we ever had. But that kid ain t
going to fail**
Instead, Lindbergh landed in Paris to receive a more tumultuous
210 WILL ROGERS
welcome than that accorded General Pershing in World War I. He
found himself a world hero. Will instantly sensed the value of this
event to the lagging development of aviation in the United States and
determined to help as much as possible to keep it from being lost
"There is a hundred and twenty million people in America all ready
to tell Lindbergh what to do ... The first thing we want to get into
our heads is that this boy is not our usual type of hero that we are
used to dealing with. . . . He is aft the others rolled into one and then
multiplied by ten, and his case must be treated in a more dignified
way ... At his age and with his mechanical knowledge, why, he is
just starting to be of value to us ... He is at the top of a profession
that is just starling to get somewhere He might be the means of
saving us in the next war. Because right up there in his territory is
-where it is to be held. His inspiration will do more for American
aviation than anything that has happened since the Wrights invented
them . . . The other day at our air maneuvers in San Antonio we had
over a hundred . . . But we ought to have had ten thousand . . . If s
not only Army and Navy Aviation but it s commercial Aviation also
that we want to develop.** Later, when Lindbergh opened his trans
continental airline, WiB bought the first ticket and accompanied Lind
bergh on the inaugural flight,
On June 17, 1927, Wffl headed for a vacation at home but it was
not to be a pleasant one. He had a gnawing, persistent pain in the
region of fafe stomach that had begun to bother him at Bluefield, West
Virginia. "Now ordinarily when a pain hits you in the Stomach in
BhiefieM, you would take it for a gunshot wound. . . But the old town
has quieted down now and the sharpshooters have all joined the
Kiwanis and Rotary dubs. So I knew it wasent wounds. Then the
pain struck me before the nightly lecture and I knew no one would
shoot me before the lecture unless he had heard it over in another
town. Well, the next time it hit me was out at my old ranch on the
Verdigris River, in the same house where I was bom. My niece, who
was living there, she g&ve me some asafetida. The only thing it tastes
like is spoiled onions and overripe garlic mixed. And the longer after
you have taken it, the worse it tastes." On the train coming home "to
check up on the moral conditions of Beverly and Hollywood, the
"Congressman-tU-Large of Cuckooland" 211
Sodom and Gomorrah of the West," the pain struck again. As soon
as he reached home Will was examined, and rushed to a hospital.
A couple of days later one of the most famous operations in his
tory was performed when Will underwent surgery for gall bladder
trouble. For several days he was at the point of death with everything
that happened reported in the press of the world as if he had been a
king, president or potentate. Telegrams flooded in from everybody
from President Coolidge down to hundreds who had known him only
by sight or word. He reported his experiences in a book, Ether and
Me, that still has a lively sale.
Before going into the hospital Will wrote enough Daily Wires and
weekly columns to cover the time he expected to be there. The mo
ment he was able to do so he resumed them. "They have sewed me
up with so much cat I am having a back fence built at home and will
use that instead of a bed Just saw the scar ... If they charge by
the inch, that operation will be a serious one Oh, Lord! Here she
comes with the castor ofl again."
While convalescing at home, instead of taking this chance to rest,
he promoted a nonstop Ford race between Beverly Hills and Clare-
more, Oklahoma, the "flight" to be in either direction with a prize
of $500 for the winner. "Remember, no stops for gas, o2, red lights,
trains or long-armed traffic cops . . . You can come alone like Lindy,
or have a passenger just so you could keep coming. This is for
scientific purposes.**
"Actually, Wfll meant this for a joke," said Betty, who was doing
her best to keep him quiet, "but secretly he hoped to stir up seme
activity. It was impossible for him not to be building something, start
ing something or doing something. The nurses at the hospital had to
watch him constantly to keep him from getting out of bed."
Anyway, Will s offer was not taken as a joke. A stream of Fords
began the trip in both directions. At four o clock in the morning, ou
July 13, 1927, Mr. and Mrs. J. Collins of Tulsa, Oklahoma, aroused
the Rogers household to clam Hie money. They had mack the 1,800
miles in three days and nights. The occupants of the car that came
in second had changed a tire en route without stopping. For days
thereafter Will was called upon to bail out stranded Fords between
the two places. "I wifl be careful with my jokes after this," be sighed.
212 WILL ROGERS
It s costing me more to joke than I get for them. So if there are more
Fords coming, please torn back." But stopping Wfll would have been
like telling Niagara FaBs "to cease and desist."
In addition to the pleasure of being with his family, Wfll was heart
ened by a couple of things while convalescing. For one thing, the Red
Cross organization sent him a scroll making him a life member. "Well,
sir, I am just crazy about it for two reasons . . . One, of course, is that
it is the greatest organization in the United States ... I think it s
greater than the Republican Party (including governmental salaries)
. . . But my real reason is it looks like a diploma. I waited all these
years to get something to frame/ The other event was that the United
States emerged from the Disarmament Conference at Geneva without
ftrnfrfng the rest of its fighting ships.
Early in August, when President Coolidge issued his famous state
ment about the 1928 election, "I do not choose to run," Will called
it "the best-worded acceptance of a nomination ever uttered by a
candidate ... He spent a long time in the dictionary looking for that
word choose 3 instead of *I wiH not* The newspapers reported that he
was serious and pale. When a New England Yankee gives up seventy-
five thousand a year the surprise is not that he was pale but that he
dident faint"
As Wfll was recovering from his operation in August, 1927, he
received the news that he was to be ousted as mayor of Bevery Hills.
"The State Legislature of California passed a law saying that no one
not a politician could hold office. ... I hereby notify the world that
Beverly Hills has left my bed and board and I will not be responsible
for any debts contracted by said municipality ... I don t want to knock
but the town never was so dead . . . There hasent been a Beverly date
line about a divorce since I got out, not a shooting, not even a swim
ming pool built ... I dident choose to be Mayor in the first place but
they drafted me ... Just a good man looking for something better."
Will did not have to wait long. The National Press Club in Wash
ington, D.C., promptly Delected" him congressman-at4arge and in
vited him to a dinner for his formal induction. On the way to
Washington the Ex-Mayors Association, holding a meeting in Kansas
Qty, intercepted him at Union Station and elected him president of
that organization. He termed it "an earnest body of men trying to
"C&ngressman-at-Large of Cuckooland" 213
come back, all placed where they are by the good judgment of the
voters and honesty of the ballot ... My Lord, look what the towns
have escaped from . . . Sometimes we lose confidence in the American
form of government, and think that our system of voting is wrong
But I want to tell you that after looking at you and the position you
occupy today, there is Justice in the ballot . . . The American voters
are like the Canadian Northwest Mounted Police, they gradually get
their men, and I see you have all been got . . . Everybody is always
talking about what the country needs . . . What the country needs is
more Ex-Mayors ... If I am handed a key to a City by any of this
gang, I know beforehand that the key will be rusty . . . Good luck and
God help you to get into a honest occupation."
Will proceeded to Washington for the dinner of the National Press
Club. He was presented with his commission by Senator Ashurst of
Arizona. In his acceptance speech he said in part:
More Congressmen have talked themselves out of a job than ever
talked themselves into one I certainly regret the disgrace that s
been thrust on me here tonight . . . When a Boss wishes to fire a man,
or lower his position, he calls him in privately and does it ... When a
man is to be hung it is done practically without flurry . . . They don t
hire a hall to publicly acclaim his downfall So I am sorry you have
made this a public festivity
I certainly have lived, or tried to live my life so that I would never
become a Congressman, and I am just as ashamed of the fact I have
failed as you are . . . And to have the commission presented by a
Senator is adding insult to injury . . . It s like a Second Lieutenant
reprimanding a General Why, in private life a man from the great
State of Oklahoma wouldent associate on the same stage with a man
from Arizona, much less a Senator . . . Why, we got a thousand bushels
of Wheat to every cactus in his State, a million barrels of oil to every
rattlesnake he s got ... Why, he was elected because the Gila monsters
voted Democratic
When I used to read about Walter Johnson I thought, if this hap
pened to me, I would get a teg of money, like he did. And here it is
a sheepskin, . . . There is millions of men in America that have a
sheepskin that havent even got a sheep, and in ten years working for
the ftkm it hasent told them how to get the sheep ... It looks like at
least, being a cowboy, it would have been a cowskin. . . .
214 WELL ROGERS
Will s "sheepskin" bore this citation:
Know all ye presents:
Whereas, Mr. Rogers has served with distinction as unofficial
ambassador, without portfolio, and
Whereas, his service as Mayor of Beverly Hills, California, has
added another scintillating page of American History, and
Whereas, Mr. Rogers, being at present without official connection,
is in the status, as he has carefully explained, of "a good man looking
for something better," now, therefore
Be it resolved, that the National Press Club, recognizing super
lative statesmanship when it sees it and believing that the country s
greatest need is not a good five-cent cigar but a Congressman Will
Rogers, hereby appoints the said Hon. Wfll Rogers Congressman-At-
Large for the United States of America, effective immediately, his
tenure to continue during good behavior.
Done at the Club s Headquarters under its official seal this, the
Twenty Seventh Day of August in the year of our Lord, Nineteen
Hundred and Twenty Seven.
(Signed)
Louis Ludlow, President
W. H. Atkins, Secretary
Emmet Daugherty, chairman,
Board of Governors
Wfll contributed one notable service as congressman-at-large. Early
in 1928 he was called before the House Flood Control Committee as
a taxpayer and in his "unofficial" capacity to give testimony on the
1927 Mississippi River floods, His testimony is interesting:
What is your postoffice address?
Wefl, I am wailing for the best offer from California and Oklahoma.
Beverly Hffls, California, is the latest one.
What is your business?
Everybody s.
You have beard of the floods of 1927, I take it?
Yes, sir, I am one of the few Congressmen that have heard of it
Tell us your views on what should be done.
It was a terrible thing ... I do not want to give advice so soon
after being a Congj^ssman-at-Large, but it does look like that we
ought to give some relief to people like that They could use it to very
"Congressman-at-Large of Cuckooland" 215
gcxxi advantage . . . From the looks of the people and the looks of
the condition of their land and their home, I do not know how they
would be able to pay any part of the relief ... It is a tremendous need
... It is the biggest thing we have got, the biggest thing we have
before us now
What is the sentiment of the country in regard to it?
The sentiment of the country is in favor of it Regardless of
any political idea that some men might have linking it up with his
particular scheme, the sentiment of the country, as I have found it in
every state, is for relief 1 think if it were left to a vote of the people
tomorrow they would do anything they could to help in regard to it,
because, regardless of what we say, when anything is put right before
the people and they know that there is a reed need for it, they are
for it every time.
It s the "chairman" of and "a board of directors" for a business"
government that puts balancing a financial budget against balancing
a people s budget. Nobody knew or practiced the opposite more than
Will Rogers, as his next step as an "unofficial" representative of the
United States would prove.
23
"Unofficial Ambassador to Mexico
ON THE MORNING OF SEPTEMBER 20, 1927, WHEN LIND-
bergh flew into Los Angeles, Will was at work on a motion picture,
The Texas Steer, and could not be at the airport But he and Betty
attended a reception that afternoon at the Ambassador Hotel for the
famous flyer. Will was incensed at the proceedings. "From the time he
sat down between Mary Pickford and Marion Davies, the autograph
ing started . . . They dident let him eat ... They dident let him say a
word . . . They dident let him do a thing but sign his name ... He
signed on the back of old Movie contracts, on old back number
marriage certificates, on recent and long forgotten divorce papers . . .
Louis B. Mayer wanted him to autograph the Metro-Goldwyn-Lion
. . . The writing was supervised by Thalberg, ink by Carter, pen by
Waterman , . ."
There was one ceremony Wfll refused to miss, work or no work.
He and Betty flew to San Diego (where Lindas plane had been built)
and watched Lindbergh arrive the Bert day. "Here he was coming
back to the very starting point . . . When he taxied up to the hangar,
and got out there was workmen and helpers that had built the plane
. . . Men who had known him for the two months while it was being
bait, and maybe you thinlr he dident sorter hurriedly pass us old
reception Committee by to grab those old boys by the hand and tell
*em what the old boat had done . You never saw such beams of
happiness as was on their faces when they each felt that Sim had
216
"Unofficial Ambassador to Mexico" 217
remembered them "Boys/ he told em, my real trip is finished
now. "
At a banquet that evening, when Will sat next to Mm, Lindbergh
was presented with a silver model of his plane and a parachute.
"I guess they will expect you to even demonstrate the parachute,"
Will said.
"Gee, I would like to!" Lindbergh s face gleamed in anticipation.
The next day Will and Betty flew back to Los Angeles in a tri-
motored Ford plane piloted by Lindbergh. Will sat up by the flyer in
the copilot s seat and talked with him about the future of aviation.
While Will was "resting" from his operation he finished the work on
The Texas Steer at a studio in Burbanfc and made lecture appearances
in nearby cities. After that the cast went to Washington to shoot some
scenes there. A number of politicians visited the set One day a man
came in wearing a top hat and cutaway coat "How re you, Senator/*
Will greeted him.
"I m an extra,** the man said, grinning.
"I m sorry I called you Senator," Will said. "You ain t sore at me,
are you?"
Someone asked Will if he had read the script of The Texas Steer.
"Nope," he drawled; "whafs the fun of making pictures if you
know how they re goin to come out?"
But Will had his suspicions. "It was the stage play of a Texas cow
man elected to Congress on bought votes . . . We brought it up to
date by not changing it at all ... In the stage version he dident know
what to do when he got to Congress That part is allowed to re
main as it was . . . The Cattleman-Congressman used to play poker
more than legislate, and that s left in the movie There was a little
drinking among the members at the time . . . For correct detail in our
modern version that has been allowed to remain in, increased a little
in fact ... Of course, I m the cowman who s elected to play dumb in
Washington ... I was told all I had to do was to act natural "
A Saturday Evening Post article for October 29, 1927, "Duck, Al!
Here s Another Open Letter," has in it political knowledge that belies
the "dumbness": He advised Al Smith to write this letter to all state
and the National Democratic Committees:
218 WILL ROGERS
I, Al Smith, of my own free will and accord, do this day relinquish
any claim or promise that I might have of any support or Deligates
at the next Democratic Convention. I don t want to hinder what little
harmony there is left in the party; I not only do not choose to run,
but I refuse to run. But will give all of my time and talents to work
faithfully for whoever is nominated by the party.
This, Will said, would sound as though Smith was sacrificing him
self, "and in 32 they will nominate you by radio, and you will have
a united Party. A half-wit knew you-all couldent win in 24. Well, it s
the same this year You couldent put on a revival of Thomas
Jefferson and get away with it." Will cautioned Al not to let the New
Yorkers kid him. You got no Platform, you got no Issue, you can t
ask people to throw somebody out just because somebody else wants
in. You meet too many Democratic Leaders that s what s the matter
with the Party these same leaders not knowing any more about
Public Opinion than they do. . . . Then, you New Yorkers get a wrong
prospectus of things . . . The outsiders don t care nothing about New
York, and if you think Tammany Hall is an asset, you just run and
try to carry them with you and you will find you have been over-
handicapped."
Wfll admitted that Smith was "the strongest thing the Democrats
have had in years . . . But it s not a Democrat you meet in the finals;
it s a Republican, You can t lick this Prosperity thing; even the fellow
that hasent got any is all excited over the idea. You politicians have
got to look further ahead; you always got a Putter in your hands when
you ought to have a Driver. Now, Al, / am trying to tell you how to
be President, not how to be a Candidate"
In the 1920*s, as in all periods pregnant with change, there were
those who gathered groups around their prejudices with the purpose
of maintaining special status or propagandizing. Wfll was particularly
incensed at such movements as America First or One Hundred Percent
Americans. During the war a lot of the "boys had gotten to know and
understand each other, and find out each other s viewpoints." But
after the fighting was over, "on investigation it was found a lot of
these boys were not 100% Americans at all ... Why, a lot of them
omkfent even speak English ... a lot of them dMent even go to
ctasrcfees, and worse than all, a lot of them went to the wrong churches
"Unofficial Ambassador to Mexico 9 219
... So these societies commenced to be formed and they grabbed our
little civilization just when it was going over the brink and hauled
it back to normalcy/* Will suggested that the only thing to do was
to "form an America Only dub ... I figure the patriotism should run
around 165 to 170% American ... It will make a sucker out of these
100% organizations/
After The Texas Steer and Will s lecture commitments were finished,
in November he intended to take off a few weeks for rest and relaxa
tion with nothing to do except his newspaper and magazine writings,
and a few odds and ends that would have kept most people busy. He
and Betty roamed around Arizona and New Mexico, sightseeing, and
then made their way via the old ranch in Oklahoma to Detroit, Mich
igan, where Henry Ford unveiled for them the new Model A that the
country had been waiting a year to team about "Here is the biggest
news I have ever gathered," Will announced on November 14, 1927.
"It s a real beat cm the rest of the piess . - * I have spent the whole
day with Henry Ford, saw and drove in the new car. And hare is
what you have been waiting for for years gt ready HE HAS
CHANGED THE RADIATOR!** Before leaving Detroit, Henry Fend pinom-
ised Will the first Model A off the assembly line.
Will s plans to relax were interrupted in an interesting manner.
Under the ioeptness of "dollar diplomacy" the relations between the
United States and Mexico had worsened by the month. "Up to now
our calling card to Mexico or Central America had been a gunboat
or violets shaped like Marines . . . We could never understand why
Mexico wasent just crazy about us For we always had their good
will and oil and coffee and minerals at heart ... So when the punitive
smoke had deared away we cooldesit figune out wfay they dident ap
preciate the fact that they had been shot in the most cordial manner
possible, that we were only doing it for their own good . . . We couldent
realize their attitude in not falling on our necks and blessing us for
giving them the assistance of our superior knowledge of govermneni.
. . , Weil, to show you that they cooldent take a joke and were utterly
lacking in humor, they resented it instead of thanking us ... We got
to counting up and tafrfng censuses, and we found that our last
Scmtfaera friends, geographically were located at Brownsville, Texas,
and Key West, Florida.**
220 WILL ROGERS
As later Secretary of State John Foster Dulles expressed it under
similar political climatic conditions, ^tfae purpose of the State Depart
ment is not to make friends" but a to look after the interests of the
United States" primarily the business interests. "The first thing we
knew these people were buying things, and we looked close and they
dident have our trademark on em. In fact they were getting things in
other countries and not from us. They was going away over to Europe
to do it"
This was not only a "horse of a different color," it was a different
gait "It s all right to lose a friend, but when you lose a friend that
spends money with you it s beginning to be serious."
Many of the imperialists in the United States such as William
Randolph Hearst, the big Twining and oil interests, were either pub
licly or privately for taking over Mexico. Will had sarcastic words on
that te Where did this country down here with no great chains of
commercial clubs, and Chambers of Commerce and junior and fresh
men Chambers of Commerce, and Rotarys and Kiwanis and Lions
and Tigers clubs, and no golf pants, and no radio advertising pro
grams, where did a nation like that come in to have oil anyhow? . . .
It was kind of an imposition on their part to even have us to go to the
tremble of going down and taking their country over . . . We should
have taken the whole thing when we took the part we did."
Instead, when they started interfering with "our oils and bananas,
we just got out the old typewriter, loaded it with ammunition and
commenced shooting the notes to *em We would show em! . . .
We would keep em so busy reading they wouldent have time to pass
laws But the rascals wouldent even go to the trouble of having
the notes translated We tried diplomats on em, but they wouldent
dip ... So we begin to realize that we better find some way to fix this
up." At that moment President CoolMge had an inspiration. He
appointed as ambassador his old friend and classmate at Amherst,
Dwigfat Morrow, then with J. P. Morgan Company ("to lend it an
air of respectability"). Morrow had an even greater inspiration, he
asked Wffl and Chaifes Lindbergh to come to Mexico to help get
him off cm the right foot with the Mexican people.
Wffl accepted hi assignment as "unofficial ambassador to Mexico"
with mixed emotions. He loved Mexico and its people and would have
"Unofficial Ambassador to Mexico" 221
done anything to help them. On the other hand, he looked quite
naturally on a J. P. Morgan partner as an unlikely person to bring
about improved relations. On his arrival in Mexico City he was some
what heartened to learn that Morrow s first act had been to tour the
country for two weeks with President Calles. This had aroused wife
criticism among the aristocracy and the vested interest groups who
sneered at Calles as a revolutionist. "I came here accredited to this
Government to the men who are at present running it," Morrow
stated bluntly, "and not to the aristocracy."
Will was plunged into the middle of the struggle when Morrow
took him at once to the presidential palace at Calles s request A tough
election had just been won and a number of contestants were not
able to answer roll caH any more. It was a ticklish time. At the door
of the reception room where President Calles was watting to receive
him, Wfll suddenly drew back,
"I demand an interpreter," he said, in a high-pitched voice.
A frown passed over President Calles s stern face. Nevertheless, he
beckoned to his official interpreter to come forward.
"Tell this Bird..." WiH indicated Calles "...Make it perfectly
clear to him, that I am just down here traveling around for fan. I am
not a candidate for anything."
Calles s frown deepened as this was translated, he gulped and then
burst into a great roar of laughter, as he held out his hand to Will,
Morrow, who had been transfixed with fright, stated later that this
"impertinence" on the part of Wfll broke the ice and, from then on,
he could deal with Calles on a personal level.
Wfll continual his complete disregard for diplomatic protocol- On
another occasion he delayed an official dinner given by Calles while
he chatted with a group of soldiers. Calks let him know through his
interpreter that he was not amused.
"Well, I m awfully sorry." Wffl grinned. "You tell the President I
have been in Mexico only four days but I already have found out it
is better to stand in good with the soldiers than the President"
**You had better be careful," Calles said, with assumed sternness.
"When people begin fooling with my army, they are likely to be shot
at sunrae."
222 WILL ROGERS
That don t worry me a bit," Will answered, grinning. "I m never
op that early.**
For the first time in history the Chief Executive of Mexico came
to the American Embassy in Mexico City when President Calles
attended a banquet given in his and Will s honor. He heard a speech
from Wfll that was as impertinent as Will s approach had been and,
although it must have lost much in translation, he led the laughter.
A couple of days later he went with the party that took Will out to
see where the fighting bulls were raised, although Will steadfastly
refused to go to a bull fight "My life has been saved too many times
by a horse to watch what happens there," he said.
As a gesture of good will, Lindbergh was to fly nonstop from
Washington to Mexico City. He lost his way and instead of landing
on schedule at eight o clock in the morning he did not arrive until
three o clock in the afternoon, "I saw over 200,000 people, including
the President and his cabinet, wait eight hours to welcome him," Will
marveled, "Any other aviator in the world would have come down
to see where he was, but that determination made him stay up there
till he found the name of a hotel, one building, and he found the
city on the map and laid his course from there .In France and
America, they like to have tore up the plane to get souvenirs . . . Here
hundreds took it up on their shoulders and carried it into the hangar.
. . . Instead of being bombarded with ticker tape, the streets were two
Inches deep with flowers Morrow and I have resigned as Ambas
sadors to Mexico."
On the evening of Lindbergh s arrival Wfll had an engagement to
speak at University City at a dinner given in his honor. "All Mexico
waited for Lindbergh in intense anxiety, * Mrs. Dwight Morrow re
called. "The crowds on the street as he was conducted to the chan
cery and the delirium of delight in the city is indescribable. In the
excitement, I forgot until my secretary reminded me of Will s speech
and that we were to go hear him. Many of the guests were late." Mrs.
Mooow felt sorry that Will had to make a speech under such circum
stances. "When lie arose to speak, I was distinctly nervous for him.
It was a waste of my pity. From the first sentence he held the whole
room in the hollow of his hand. I had entirely underestimated his
power and his uncfcrstaiKling of an audience. He shocked, flattered,
"Unofficial Ambassador to Mexico" 223
cajoled, teased, tormented and enchanted the guests. He began by
reminding us that we were in a University Club and said he ques
tioned the qualifications of many present for membership in the col
lege group. Where is your sheepskin? he asked suddenly pointing to
a well-known golfer near him. You brought your score card at the
Churubusco Club and they let you in. And where is yours?* His finger
singling out a marvelous bridge player. *I know you can play bridge,
but you never learned that at College. He went up and down a long
table calling man after man by name and giving credit for something
he could do horse racing, polo, dancing but scoffing at his educa
tion."
During this time Mrs. Morrow wondered what Will would say about
her husband, the ambassador. Not once did Will look at him, or
address him. "There s Mrs. Morrow," he finally said, "up there at the
head of the table Well, I guess 111 have to admit that she got a
degree at Smith, but good heavens! What did she do with it? She
went slumming one day in Amberst and got herself a husband." The
roar of laughter shook the club. "It was the hit of the evening," Mrs.
Morrow stated, "and nobody was more amused than my husband. To
have left him unscratched, would have been a confession of weakness
on Will Rogers part. The cleverness of the attack through me de
lighted the audience." x
Later Will concluded his appraisal of Morrow by saying that he
was not in Mexico **to bat any .300 in the Dinner League. He figured
that the men running the Government may not have known a demi-
tasse from a faors d oeuvre and they might have scabbards on their
knives to keep from cutting their mouths, tot they was the people
that he had to deal with.** Morrow was in Mexico to do business with
them and not to "lead a cotillion in a charity" fete and if he got away
with it, "it s liable to change the business of Embassying. He is just
liable to change it into a human pb." Whether he did or not he was
"WdLl Streefs sole contribution to public life."
Will had promised his amiy to be home for Christmas and to
make certain he flew out "Left Mexico City at 3 o dock, spent the
night in Tampico, lunch in Brownsville and OB to Kelly Field, San
World, Nov. 10, 1935.
224 WILL ROGERS
Antonio, for dinner. Hew over the Rio Grande Valley, which is won
derful The only thing the matter with it, they say, the Republicans
are about to take it" Win made it home in time for Christmas and
found a present for himself. It was the first Model A that Ford had
promised him. "I sure am using it. Nobody is looking at these Rolls-
Royces here in Beverly."
The following year would bring the next giant step in Will s career.
24
"Unofficial President of the United States"
IN JANUARY, 1928, WILL BEGAN TO ASSUME "UNOFFICIAL**
presidential duties when he gave a "message** cm the State of the
Union- It came when he acted as master of ceremonies on the first
completely national radio hookup from his home in Beverly Hilts. On
the program with him were Paul Whiteman in New York, Al Jolson
in New Orleans, and Fred Stone in Chicago. After getting the routine
under way, Wfll announced he had a great surprise for the millions
of listeners. Over the air came what sounded like the voice of President
Coolidge:
Ladies asd Gentlemen: It s the duty of the President to deliver a
message to the people on the condition of the country ... I am proikl
to report that the condition of the country as a whole is prosperous . . .
That is, it s prosperous for a Hote . . . There is not a "hole** lot of
doubt about that . . . Everybody that I come in contact with is doing
well Hoover, Dawes, Lowden, Curtis and Al Smith are doing well
. . . But not as well as they would like to be doing this time next year
. . . Mellon has saved some money, for the country, and done very
wen for himself . . . He is the only Treasurer that has saved faster
than Congress could divide k up ... Congress is here now though to
grab what he has got . . . It would have been cheaper to have sent
each Congressman and Senator his pro rata share and saved the
expense of holding this Congress. . . .
Just a few words oa the public issues erf the day . . . They won t
seat two Republican Senates . . . The Democrats dkknt mind them
225
226 WILL ROGERS
buying their seats but it was the price they paid ... It would establish
a price that would have made it prohibitive for a Democrat to even
get standing room much less a seat in the Senate. . . .
I sent Dwight Morrow to Mexico . . . Smart Boy, Dwight, one of
the two smartest boys in our class at Amherst where we were pre
paring for College . . . Lindbergh is busy in Central America . . . We
seem to get in wrong faster than he can get us out ... I wish he was
twins. . , .
I made a statement last summer in which I said I dident choose
to run ... It seems to have been misunderstood ... So months ago I
clarified it by saying, "I still don t choose to run," If they misunder
stood "Choose" in the first place, I don t very well see how they could
do it again
On farm relief, I give 5 em rain and a good crop . . . That beats all
the McHaugen bilk for relief . . . Fill a Farmer up, that will stop him
from hollering quicker n anything. . . .
On our Foreign Debts, I am sorry to state that they are just as
Foreign as ever, if not more so Cuba and South America, I am
going there at once to try and show them that we are not as bad as
we ve been . . . Nicaragua, we are still having a little trouble down
there, but I think we win gradually get it all Buried. . . .
Prohibition, prohibition is going down about as well as usual. . . .
Radio audience, I thanlc you.
By the end of this incredible speech although if examined care
fully it has magnificent kernels of truth in it wires were humming all
over the country. It seemed impossible that President Coolidge had
made such a speech but, on the other hand, it seemed impossible that
WH would have imitated the President in such a manner. And the
imitation had been perfect! Will had some explaining to do and he
hurried to Washington. "I found on my arrival that some people had
censored me severely for leaving the impression the other night that
Mr. Goolidge was on the radio Well, the idea that any one could
jfflagiiie it was htm uttering the nonsense that I was uttering! ... It
struck me that it would be an insult to any one s sense of humor to
amount that it was not him ... So I wrote Mr. Coolidge a note
explaining, and received a two-page letter within thirty minutes from
bm written all in his own longhand, saying that he had been told
about it, but knew that anything that I did was dooe in good-natured
"Unofficial President of the United States" 227
amusement, and not to give it a moment s worry ... I knew my man
before I joked about him." Nevertheless, Will s imitation offended
Coolidge deeply and it took the tact of Mrs. Coolidge to smooth it
over.
"Will Rogers can imitate President Coolidge and get away with ft,"
a wag commented, "and the President was rather funny, too, when he
put on the cowboy pants out in the Black Hills."
After a quick trip to the Pan American Conference in Havana, on
January 15, 1928 ("For goodness sake, get an international anthem
that goes for everybody when it s played, and make it short"), Will
began another lecture tour. "Hoover was in the Presidential race
from the old days of Save a lump of sugar a day and it will keep the
Kaiser away ... He was the first Tood Dictator* ... He took us off
beefsteak and pot us on calories ... He grabbed the Catholic Vote
by making Baptists eat fish on Friday . . . Fed wheat to hogs and made
the Jewish soldiers eat pork . . . He put a ixed price on wheat and
sold steel and iron to the highest bidder ... He had us sweetening our
coffee with a slogan, *Drink it Hack and give the enemy a whack . . .
He buttered our bread with a slogan, Spread it thin and we are bound
to win ... He won the war, but he ruined our stomachs."
While swinging through Old Kentucky, Wfll was made a colonel.
"I thought I would get out of Kentucky without being made a Colonel
. . . Hie Governor s name is Sampson ... a very strong man ... He
slayed the Democrats with the jawbone of an ass . . . His Democratic
opponent ran on a BO horse racing in Kentucky ... He oot only
supplied Sampson with the jawbone, but made himself the whole
animal by thinking that Kentucky would vote against horse racing . . .
It s CokHiel Rogers, suh . . . Boy, put another sprig of mint in the
julep."
In March, 1928, a curious thing happened to Will when he spoke
to three thousand Cfaerokees who still lived in the ancient territory
of the tribe. They listened stoically to his performance, showing no
emotion and not cracking a smBe. He gave them a thrilling perform
ance with Ms rope and still no response. Then, suddenly," reported
Bee Dixon MacNei, "he became furious. His transformation was
terrifying, amd for three minutes his astonished audience was treated
to a demonstration of wiiat primitive, instinctive hatred could be.
228 WILL ROGERS
Some long-forgotten, in-bred memory welled up in his heart and he
ripped into Andrew Jackson- To the Cherokees, Jackson is known as
"the betrayer and their removal to Oklahoma is the betrayal. No
enemy of Jackson was ever more bitter than was Rogers. The Indians
listened, and then the quiet was ripped by the screaming war cry of
the tribe, while Rogers stood, white, trembling, and aghast**
On this same tour Will kept four thousand people at Raleigh, North
Carolina, waiting for half an hour while he did a private show in an
alley. When he came to the theater, some twenty boys were waiting
for a glimpse of the famous cowboy-comedian. One of them held a
dingy rope in his hand.
"Hi, boys," Will called, lemme see that rope."
The wide-eyed audience formed a ring around him as he performed
his magic with the rope. Although his performance was billed at 8:30,
it was 8:55 when he neatly spun a noose over the boy who owned the
rope and told them to leave.
Take us to the show," the kids clamored.
"Naw," Will drawled, taking some money from his pocket C You
get this fixed," he said to the rope owner, "that ll be eighty-five cents
apiece and fifty cents extra for you. Get along to a movie."
Ten minutes later be was on the stage going through his routine.
On May 26, 1928, Wfll made his own report to a country that was
rapidly approaching that "hole" in its false prosperity. He warned
them:
The Lord has sure been good to us ... Now what are we doing to
warrant that good luck any more than any other Nation? . . . Now just
how long is it going to last? . . . The way we are acting the Lord is
liable to turn on us any minute ... It just ain t in the book for us to
have the best of everything all the time . . . We got too big an over
balance of everything and we better kinder start looking ahead and
taking stock and see where we are headed for. . . .
You know, I thhiV we put too much emphasis and importance and
advertising on our so-called High Standard of Living. ... 7 think that
the "high" Is the only word in that phrase that is really correct. . . .
We sore are a-living high . . . There hasent been a Thomas Jeflferson
pfodiK^d in this country since we formed our first Trust . . . Rail-
splitting produced an Immortal President in Abraham Lincoln, but
"Unofficial President of the Hinted Stated 229
Golf with 29 thousand courses, hasent produced even a good a-
Number-1 Congressman . . . There hasent been a Patrick Henry
showed up since business men quit eating lunch with their families,
joined a dub and have indigestion from amateur Oratory . . . Suppose
Teddy had took up putting instead of horseback riding . . . It s also
a question what we can convert these 4 billion filling Stations into
in years to come ... I am only tipping you off, and you all are sup
posed to act on it.
The summer of 1928 was cluttered up with the "national follies"
of the presidential nominating conventions. The Republicans met in
Kansas City, Missouri, and the Democrats in Houston, Texas. "It
win be great to meet all the old Newspaper boys who grind out dope
for the home papers trying to beep the Conventions interesting , . .
Political Conventions would die standing up if it wasent for the in
ventive genius of the Boys that mate the Actors look colorful . . . It s
when you leave and take one of these conventions apart, and just
see what was really inside it, then is when CHIT sense of humor
asserts itself . , . But then it is too late. . . . The country just smiles and
waits four more years and here they are back again . . . The ones that
failed to save the Country the last time are Patriotic . . . they are back
again for another trial Lower taxes and all the old Gags are dusted
off, and away they go again . . . The same old Leaders are there, just
rarin* for something to lead."
On his way to Kansas City for the Republican Convention Wiffs
plane broke a wheel when it landed at Las Vegas, Nevada, and
turned over. "Am the first candidate to land on my head, and being
a candidate, it dident hurt the head." He grabbed another plane, and
at Cheyenne, Wyoming, had another crash. Not deterred, be crawled
onto a third plane and few into JTamfts City.
Will s report on what the Republicans had accomplished, as set
forth in the keynote speech, is illuminating. "Here are just a few things
that Republicans were responsible for: Radio, Telephone, Baths,
Automobiles, Saving Accounts, Prohibition Enforcement, workmen
living in houses, and a living wage for Senators The Democrats
had broti^it War, pestilence, debts, disease, BoH Weevil, need for
Farm Relief, gold teeth, suspenders, floods, famines and Tom Heflin.
. . . Once I tfaougjbt he [the speaker] was referring to Our Savior/ till
230 WILL ROGERS
they told me, No, it was Coolidge/ . . . When he told how many
million we saved, his voice raised . . . But when our savings had
reached the billions, why, his voice reached a crescendo . . . All ex
penditures was spoken of in an undertone."
Once again the Republican Convention was as orderly as a well-run
board of directors meeting rubber-stamping prearranged business.
This, however, was not as Will had predicted. It was Herbert Hoover
and not Calvin Coolidge who was to be chairman of the board.
Certainly he who had made a tremendous fortune of his own was more
symbolic of "rugged individualism" or the "norm" in "the return to
normalcy" at its "ripest" perfection.
"They havent even got Hot Dogs to sell in the Convention Build
ing," Will stated in a satire that has in it much wisdom if properly
understood.
Stock speculation and hot dogs!
What a contrast in understanding the "norm" in "the return to
normalcy," the "rugged individualism 7 of Herbert Hoover. And who
understood better than Will Rogers the conditions that existed or
predicted more accurately what was to come. The United States that
had returned to the dominance of Wall Street with the election of
Coolidge in 1924 was to continue that dominance for another four
years.
Will advised Jesse Jones, the Houstonian who had brought the
Democratic Convention to his city, to have "hot dogs." He went there
for fun and not to see a potential president nominated, as he had
warned Al Smith. "There is nowhere for the Democrats to go ...
Their only course of action was to go wet, but this they would not do
as they did not know if there were enough votes there to make it all
the way to the White House. . . . *We want Smith, for he is the only
man we got a chance with . . . We wish he was Dry instead of Wet,
but as be is not we got to make the most of it ... We got to dress him
op so he will look WET in the Cities and DRY in the country . . . We
got to hold our Wets, but for God s sake, don t turn loose of the Drys.
. . If s lite Coolidge, *I ani for Labor, but not against Capital. 9 **
Wffl knew quite well that the claims of the Republicans to have
bfongfit "Properity, Peace and Plenty** could not be successfully
cosraierei In spite of Wit s advice, Smith sought and received the
"Unofficial President of the United States" 231
nomination "as candidate" for the Presidency, and to counteract his
stand on Prohibition, a dry, Senator Joseph Robinson, of Arkansas,
was chosen as his running mate. The contestants in the "official
National Political Follies" were set for the race, with the outcome as
certain as a footrace between Nunni and Einstein.
More revealing of the conditions of the country was an "unofficial"
campaign conducted by the humorous weekly Life, with Will as the
candidate of the Anti-Bunk party. This was the brain child of Robert
Sherwood. Will was termed "the invincible candidate of the dis
satisfied voters of both parties," and had been selected after a search
was made, "in a quiet way, for a bunkkss candidate who would run
on an honest, courageous and reasonably intelligent platform." Further
reasons were his "supply of genuine Indian Hood," which made him
closer to "a 100% American than a lot who bragged about it"; that
as a humorist he would be a tfae first President in 62 years who was
funny intentionally" (although this might be fatal, as "the American
voters like to laugh at their politicians and not with them"); his
experience as a "Public Servant" in being unofficial diplomat, mayor
of Beverly Hills, congressman-at4arge, and veteran of thirteen cam
paigns with the Follies; his knowledge of the world that exceeded that
of "all the 18 august members of the Senatorial Foreign Relations
Committee"; and he fit was a good scout, which in itself was reason
enough." Before accepting the nomination, WiH was assured that
fere would be "no baby kissing, passing out of cigars, laying corner
stones, dodging issues" or disguising "himself as a farmer with a rake
in one hand and a sap bucket in the other." After thinking it over
Wfll announced that "I chews to run," and in his "acceptance speech"
he said:
Your offer struck me like what the better fed English Aut 
