A Will Rogers Treasury

Source of book: I own this

 

I have appreciated Will Rogers since I was a kid. He had a knack for a pithy quote, an astute observation, and a humorous way of looking at life. 

 

For those who don’t know about him, Rogers was at his peak during the 1920s and 30s, as a humorist, both in person and in his newspaper columns. He also acted in movies and had a lasso act at the Ziegfeld Follies. He was urged to run for office - and likely would have won easily - but he declined, preferring to comment from the outside. 

 

Rogers was Cherokee on both sides of the family - his mother’s ancestors traveled the trail of tears, and his father was active in tribal affairs as a judge and attorney. He considered his Cherokee heritage to be an important part of his identity, and referred to it often. 

 

This book is drawn from the over 4000 newspaper articles Rogers wrote - he was quite prolific - edited by husband and wife team Bryan Sterling and Frances Sterling. Bryan in particular was considered a noted authority on Rogers with several books to his name. Frances was likely every bit as involved, but, like women often are, she wasn’t as recognized. 

 

The Sterlings wrote part of this book, which is organized by year, from 1922 until Rogers’ death in 1935. The opening of each year is a summary of the events of that year, starting with the United States, moving to world affairs, and finally to the events of Will Rogers’ life - his movies, his tours, and so on. This is clearly written by the Sterlings, because events are placed in context, which often requires mentioning the future - including events after Rogers’ death. This book was published in 1982, so the sensibilities of the co-authors tend to be of that time. 

 

These sections are quite interesting, and fit well with the articles by Rogers. Often, Rogers is commenting on the events of the day, and the context helps illuminate what Rogers is saying. I particularly liked the way Prohibition was woven into the narrative, and appreciated the mention of the St. Francis Dam failure - I have a formative childhood experience connected to that - I’ll have to tell that story sometime. Finally, I had no idea that Amos and Andy lasted until 1965. Yeesh. 

 

Speaking of dates, did you know that “The Star Spangled Banner” didn’t actually become our anthem until 1931? 

 

There is also a mention of Sir Oswald Mosley, founder of the British Union of Fascists, and fictionalized in two very different but excellent books. 

 

Another interesting bit is that when Mussolini came to power, he outlawed abortion. And said the quiet part out loud, the core motivation behind abortion bans: abortions are “against the integrity and the health of the race.” Got to keep having those white babies. 

 

As with anything that is firmly rooted in a time and place, some of the columns feel really dated - subsequent events will, for example, show whether a political policy was helpful or harmful - and jokes aren’t always as funny as they were at the time. (A few, even with historical context, feel puzzling.) 

 

There is one particularly disappointing moment where Rogers calls The Birth of a Nation to be the best old film ever made. I didn’t expect this. Rogers was all too aware of anti-Native American prejudice and stereotyping, and was no fan of Hitler, so why did he admire a movie that glorified the Klan and utilized blackface and vicious stereotypes to mock African Americans? I don’t get it. 

 

With that out of the way, I’ll hit some highlights. 

 

First up is his takedown of Lord Stanley Baldwin, the Prime Minister of Great Britain at the time, I believe. For reasons I don’t know, he refers to him as “Sir Percy Baldwin” - perhaps as a joke? Anyway, here is a bit of it. 

 

This bird, Sir Percy Baldwin, that’s visiting over here, made some slighting remark about our Senate and House of Representatives. Now I resent that. The President and I can get vexed at Congress sometimes, but we are all the same family. We resent any foreigner coming in here and knocking our representatives. He said that all they know, is to raise hogs and wheat. He is wrong. They don’t even know how to raise hogs and wheat. 

 

For Rogers, he had the right to laugh at politicians, particularly those from his own party. But those Brits, man. As Rogers understood, the best humor is self-deprecating. Here is another bit, from “How I Became an Actor.”

 

My little old act with the lasso was just put into the Ziegfeld Follies to kill time, while the girls were changing from nothing to nothing. A male actor’s monolog in a girl show is just like an intermission. So I tried to make my act attractive by telling a few jokes, and the audiences laugh, and so Mr. Ziegfeld calls me a star. 

 

Particularly early in his career, Rogers made money off of advertising, which led to some interesting shills. Rogers didn’t smoke, but he wrote spots for cigarette ads. He quipped that just like when he advertises pianos, all he claims is that the one he advertises is the best. 

 

For the most part, I will be featuring the stuff by Rogers, but I do have to mention this snarky bit from the summary of 1925. 

 

At the Locarno conference Germany agrees to a demilitarized Rhineland and “guarantees” Belgo-German and Franco-German borders. Despite this written “guarantee,” France begins construction of the Maginot line, a deeply dug fortification along the entire French-German frontier. Events will prove that the German guarantee and the French Maginot line are equally unreliable. 

 

Rogers would comment on German politics with this gem:

 

After all, elections are a good deal like marriages, there is no accounting for any one’s taste. 

 

One of the interesting things about reading a book like this is seeing how attitudes have shifted over time. Back in the 20s, gun control was actually on the table, and writers like Rogers - admired by those on all sides of the political aisle (and generally centrist for his time) - could question the “guns for everyone” orthodoxy that has now taken over the Right Wing. Here are a few bits from his column on automatic pistols. 

 

The biggest question that is agitating the public is the following: Are all escaped lunatics to be furnished with guns and ammunition?

…

Do you know what has been the cause of the big increase in murders? It’s been the manufacture of the automatic pistol. It’s all right to have invented it, but it should never have been allowed outside the Army, and then only in war times. The automatic pistol is as much more dangerous and destructive than the old six-shooter, as poison gas is over perfume. In the first place there is no skill or nerve required in using it. You just touch the trigger and aim the thing around like you would a sprinkling can, or a hose. It is shooting all the time, and the more unsteady the nerve of the holder, why, the better the shooting he can do, because he takes in a bigger radius. 

 

And he actually proposes this:

 

You let the government confiscate and forbid the entire sale of automatics, even to police officers, and everybody, because officers kill ten innocent people to one guilty one with those sprinkling cans, and prohibit guns of even the older variety to any but officers, and then, when you catch a guy with a gun, send him to jail, not just fine him. 

 

And this:

 

But I see where a lot of men are advocating letting everybody carry guns, with the idea that they will be able to protect themselves. In other words, just make a Civil War out of this crime wave. 

 

Will was right. He also discusses how an “everybody armed” situation would go down, with everyone whipping out a gun, sure the other is about to murder them. He also notes that civilians having guns has made things far more dangerous for the police as well, which is indeed the case. 

 

I also loved his column, “Slogans, Slogans Everywhere,” which has held up well. 

 

Everything nowadays is a slogan. 

…

Even political campaigns are run, and won, on slogans. 

…

The William Jennings Bryan run on a slogan: “16 to 1.” He was defeated, of course, because he didn’t explain what the 16 meant. It meant 16 defeats to 1 victory.

 

That’s a great joke, even if you have to know about the old silver and gold standards and exchange rate. 

 

I also liked this line, from a column on the Monte Carlo casinos. 

 

Monte Carlo has the right idea: fix a game where you are going to get people’s money, but the people don’t mind you getting it. A fellow can always get over losing money in a game of chance, but he seems so constituted that he can never get over money thrown away to a government in taxes. 

 

Rogers wrote a number of articles on Russia and the Soviet Union, and I was surprised at how well they have aged. He was quite perceptive on a number of points, perhaps even foreseeing Stalin’s eventual purges. Here is an interesting line, when Rogers spoke to a representative of Trotsky, who informed him that Russians didn’t go in for fun, because there were serious issues at hand. 

 

I wanted to tell them that what they needed in their government was more a sense of humor, and less of a sense of revenge.

 

Honestly, this is a good idea for any government. One of the reasons our current Right Wing is so toxic is because it is based on a sense of grievance - and a sense of revenge. What humor there is consists of punching down by mocking the vulnerable. A good dose of Rogers’ self-deprecation would be welcome. 

 

Several years later, he wrote a hilarious riff on caviar and vodka, which includes this line. 

 

Now then you add all these things and it’s got to ferment. Well, it don’t take long for anything to ferment in Russia. They are a nation that can start stewing before you know it. 

 

Rogers was also astute about domestic politics. This next bit is something I wish more people understood in our day. While a president can certainly fuck things up (as Trump did for nearly everything he touched), most things are out of the president’s control. He (or, I hope someday, she) gets credit or blame for things they can’t control, from gas prices to inflation to the decisions made by their predecessor. 

 

Being great as a president is not a matter of knowledge, or farsightedness. It’s just a question of the weather - not only in your own country, but in a dozen others. It’s the elements that maye you great, or break you. If the Lord wants to curse about a dozen other nations that produce the same thing we do, why, then you are in for re-nomination. We we are picked out as the goat that year, and are reprimanded, why, you might be Solomon himself occupying the White House, and on inauguration you would be asked to “call in a public conveyance and remove any personal belongings you might have accumulated.” So it’s sorter like the World Series - you got to have the breaks. 

 

Rogers’ riff on Andrew Jackson Day is fascinating. He has no reason to like Jackson, who was Mr. Indian Removal Act himself, and a vicious bigot. (I wrote about how horrid he was some years ago.) Rogers writes with his usual gentle humor, but he has some pointed things to say as well. 

 

They sent the Indians to Oklahoma. They had a treaty that said: “You shall have this land as long as grass grows and water flows.” It was not only a good rhyme, but looked like a good treaty; and it was, till they struck oil. Then the government took it away from us again. They said the treaty only refers to “water and grass; it don’t say anything about oil!”

 

His reports from the Republican and Democratic conventions are pretty hilarious. And a bit nostalgic, for the days when we had two more-or-less functional parties, rather than one that has gone anti-democracy and full-on fascist. Here is one observation that made me think: Rogers saw the parties of his time as having quite a bit in common, on a variety of issues. So why were there two? 

 

So the whole thing, it looks like, goes back to the Civil War. The boys are still fighting it, and don’t know it.

 

These days, it is actually fully clear that we are still fighting the Civil War, and the party of Lincoln has switched and is now the Confederate party. 

 

Another truly hilarious column is the one on the marriage of the Prince of Wales. 

 

A thoroughbred race horse breeding establishment is more in line with royal marriages than anything I know of, only they are more careful to never inbreed; but as far as love is concerned, that’s a lot of hooey. They think it brings nations closer to each other, to have royal families married to each other. Well, it didn’t do much for Germany and England, but anyhow, let’s get the Prince of Wales married off and let the girls all over the world get their minds on somebody else. 

 

Hey, I recently read a book about that! 

 

The riff on stock market speculation is also good, written after the crash. 

 

There is one rule that works in every calamity, be it pestilence, war, or famine. The rich get richer, and the poor get poorer. The poor even help arrange it. But it’s just as I have been constantly telling you, “Don’t gamble! Take all your savings and buy some good stocks, and hold it till it goes up. Then sell it.”

“If it don’t go up, don’t buy it.”

 

There are so many more memorable ones, but I’ll end here with a mention of “The Secret of Education,” a reminder that not only have humans always complained about the state of education, they have always complained about “new” education. It was always better when we were kids than it is now, kids can’t or don’t read like they used to, the young folk are stupid, and so on. At least Rogers is self aware and self deprecating enough to make as much fun of himself as he does the educational system.

 

A final thought: throughout this book, I was struck by the way that Rogers was simultaneously a progressive - he was a Democrat, supported FDR and the new deal, and was on the right side of the war against Fascism. But he also was conservative by temperament, naturally leaning toward the status quo, the way things were done in the past, and against change. To a degree, I think that is how I have become in the last decade. I have always been conservative by temperament, and I love old music, old books, old art, and don’t particularly love change. But I also have come to understand that things do need to change, and change in a progressive direction. Which, by the standards of our modern American political division, makes me a flaming pinko, apparently. 

 

Will Rogers was part of a long American tradition of humor and satire, along with Mark Twain, Bret Harte, and James Thurber. His writing is recognizably American for that reason. As with most people, he was a mixture of noble aspirations and some wince-worthy missteps. This book is worth reading both for its humor, and as a cultural snapshot of its era.