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By Homer Hirt
No one outside of the Cherokee Nation in Indian Territory paid much attention to the birth of William Penn Adair Rogers on that winter day…the fourth of November 1879.
On August 15 sixty years later almost the entire world heard about and mourned the death of Will Rogers… cowboy, entertainer, writer, political commentator, philosopher.
In between those two dates is the story of a man who lived a life unlike any other in these United States.
The Rogers baby was born in the Indian Territory where his ancestors had been sent not very many years before. They were called “Indians” and they were in the way of the settlement of the West and of the white men who were hungry for the wealth that land offered.
The United States Army gathered them up, from Florida and Georgia and Alabama and from all other points where it seemed that they might have claim to land, and marched them into the Oklahoma territory, where boundaries were set… boundaries that were intended to keep them isolated.
Young William grew up on a ranch, and took to that way of life… roping cows, tending herds, branding, riding fast horses…..and learning.
He left home as a teenager and found a place among the “Wild West” shows that travelled from place to place, giving the city folk what they wanted to see… good riders, good marksmen, a “wild” Indian on occasion.
Will was good with a lariat… the coil of rope that real cowboys twirled and spun and used to catch the dogies for branding. He could spin and dance and jump in and out of the loop, and look with a smile on the paying audience below the footlights.
Young Rogers soon found that if he added some “palaver” to the show the folks liked it better. One promoter from the East…Flo Ziegfeld… saw the potential, and took him to Broadway, to brighter footlights and bigger audiences… and turned him loose… to spin and toss loops and grin and tell stories.
New Yorkers ate up the act and began listening to his one-liners. He overcame his shyness and began working on politicians, Democrat and Republican alike. Through it all, though, he reminded everyone that “I never met a man that I didn’t like”. The politicians, young and old, affluent, ward heelers and all, got their share of the put-downs… and learned that they had to “grin and bear it”.
Will Rogers wrote columns full of dry wit, columns that criticized, sort of in a nice way, those of power and those who wanted to have power. Hollywood soon found him and he moved to the western shore of the continent and starred in movies…..Steamboat ‘Round The Bend…A Connecticut Yankee…Life Begins at Forty.
Rogers’ books were bestsellers as soon as they hit the stalls. Folks bought and laughed and quoted the witticisms in publications like The Illiterate Digest …Will Rogers’ USA….He Chews to Run….and Will Rogers’ World.
Will gave other performers a leg up, just as he had help from the early Wild West showmen…..young fellows like Gene Autry, whom he found in an Oklahoma railroad station sending telegraph messages and picking a guitar and singing in his spare time.
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His quotes became the quips of everyday life, with the man and woman on the street reciting them because they made gentle fun of the country’s leaders, with those leaders acknowledging, reluctantly, that he was right more than he was wrong about the country’s political system, from President down to the elected dog catcher in the smallest hamlet in the most rural area of the great country called the United States of America.
Will Rogers became infatuated with something new…..aviation. He learned to fly in the crates that the barnstormers and mail carriers ventured in up into the blue skies, seeking to “touch the face of God”.
Then one day, when he was exploring Alaska Territory from the air with professional pilot Wiley Post, their light plane crashed at Point Barrow, and both men were killed.
I remember that day.
My father, my mother and I were travelling up a road near our home town. It was the first day of the week and we were on the usual “Sunday drive” that often passed for entertainment. The skies were leaden, and rain had fallen and the poorly paved road slippery.
Suddenly the radio announcer told of the tragedy.
We rode along, saying nothing to each other, and then my father spotted two kittens alongside the road. We stopped, picked the little fellows up and they immediately became “Will and Wiley” in memory of our two heroes.
As I watch what passes for news today, whether on the radio or television or on my computer screen, I long for the man yclept Will Rogers… and those days that allowed him to spin his lasso and grin and make fun of the inflated egos in our state capitals and in Washington, D. C…. and the cities and towns across this continent.
William Penn Adair Rogers’s statue stands at the Will Rogers Museum in what was once Indian Territory. He is shown grinning, as though he had just poked fun at the most pompous of our politicians. Will and the common folk knew the truth…..the truth that the politicians didn’t like…..but they had learned to be quiet and smile even if it hurt. They were caught in Will’s lariat of words just like he caught those dogies that needed branding…..and there was no escape!
So, all together now…..PLEASE SEND US ANOTHER WILL ROGERS!
Lagniappe: (note: This “Something Extra” is all Will Rogers. Enjoy the words, and may they give you a laugh or two…..and a lot to think about!)
There are two ways to argue with a woman…..neither works!
So live that you wouldn’t be ashamed to sell the family parrot to the town gossip.
The short memories of American voters is what keeps politicians in office.
The trouble with practical jokes is that they very often get elected.
All I know is just what I read in the papers.
Everybody is ignorant, only on different subjects.
Never miss a good chance to shut up.
I don’t belong to any organized party….I’m a Democrat.
If there are no dogs in Heaven, then when I die I want to go where they went.
– Will Rogers
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