Will Rogers

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Between filming scenes on the Fox studio lot, Will Rogers pecksout another newspaper column. (Will Rogers Memorial Museum)

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Gary Clayton AndersonThe University of Oklahoma

Will Rogersand “His” America

THE LIBRARY OF AMERICAN BIOGRAPHY

Edited by Mark C. Carnes

Prentice HallBoston Columbus Indianapolis New York San Francisco Upper Saddle River Amsterdam

Cape Town Dubai London Madrid Milan Munich Paris Montreal Toronto Delhi Mexico City Sao Paulo Sydney Hong Kong Seoul Singapore Taipei Tokyo

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Executive Editor: Ed ParsonsEditorial Assistant: Amanda A. DykstraSenior Marketing Manager: Maureen

E. Prado RobertsMarketing Assistant: Marissa O’BrienOperations Specialist: Renata ButeraCover Designer: Karen SalzbachCreative Art Director: Jayne ConteManager, Visual Research: Beth BrenzelManager, Rights & Permissions: Zina

ArabiaManager, Cover Visual Research &

Permissions: Karen Sanatar

Cover Illustration: Will Rogers Memorial Museum

Full-Service Project Management: Joseph Barnabas Malcolm

Composition: PreMediaGlobalPrinter/Binder: Edwards Brothers/

LillingtonCover Printer: Lehigh-Phoenix Color/

HagerstownText Font: Sabon

Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data

Anderson, Gary ClaytonWill Rogers and “his” America / Gary Clayton Anderson.

p. cm. — (The library of American biography)Includes bibliographical references and index.ISBN-13: 978-0-205-69506-5ISBN-10: 0-205-69506-X

1. Rogers, Will, 1879–1935. 2. Entertainers—United States—Biography. 3. Humorists, American—Biography. I. Title.PN2287.R74A82 2010792.702’8092–dc22 2010010646

Photo credits and acknowledgments borrowed from other sources and reproduced,with permission, in this textbook appear on appropriate page within the text.

Material taken from James M. Smallwood & Steven K. Gragert, eds., WillRogers Weekly Articles and James M. Smallwood & Steven K. Gragert, eds.,Will Rogers’ Telegrams in chapters 3-7. reprinted with the permission of WillRogers Memorial Museum, Claremore, Oklahoma.

Copyright © 2011 Pearson Education, Inc., publishing as Prentice Hall.

All rights reserved. Manufactured in the United States of America. This publica-tion is protected by Copyright, and permission should be obtained from thepublisher prior to any prohibited reproduction, storage in a retrieval system, ortransmission in any form or by any means, electronic, mechanical, photocopying,recording, or likewise. To obtain permission(s) to use material from this work,please submit a written request to Pearson Education, Inc., PermissionsDepartment, One Lake Street, Upper Saddle River, NJ 07458.

Many of the designations by manufacturers and seller to distinguish their productsare claimed as trademarks. Where those designations appear in this book, and thepublisher was aware of a trademark claim, the designations have been printed ininitial caps or all caps.

ISBN-10: 0-205-69506-XISBN-13: 978-0-205-69506-5

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To my childrenKari, Evan, and Jon

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Contents

vi

Editor’s Preface vii

Acknowledgments ix

Introduction: Will Rogers and “His” America xi

Chapter 1 Will Rogers, the Opening Act 2

Chapter 2 The Pursuit of Fame 24

Chapter 3 The Renaissance 51

Chapter 4 A Liberal in an Illiberal Age 85

Chapter 5 Will Rogers, the Journalist 122

Chapter 6 Will Rogers and the New Liberalism 162

Epilogue 200

Study and Discussion Questions 205

A Note on the Sources 209

Index 212

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vii

Editor’s Preface

Think of humorist Andy Rooney, political satirist StephenColbert, and TV journalist Anderson Cooper. Imagine them mor-phed into a single person. Then you will be close to envisioningthe Will Rogers of this biography: a pioneer in journalism whoinaugurated the transition from print to electronic media, aniconoclastic and funny pundit who shaped public opinion in thefateful decades of the 1920s and 1930s.

Readers may be surprised by this Will Rogers, because thepopular version is somewhat different. That Will Rogers is alariat-twirling cowboy turned B movie actor, master of homespunone-liners such as “The income tax has made more liars out ofAmericans than golf.” But few know about Rogers the journalist,the man whose column was regularly read by nearly every adultAmerican during the social, political, and economic transforma-tions of the Roaring Twenties and the Great Depression.

In funny and memorable ways, Rogers described the Americannation and its people during a time of great hardships. He alsoinfluenced events. Rogers preached calm during the worst of theeconomic storms and exuded confidence in FDR’s proposals toexpand the role of the federal government in people’s lives. As theGreat Depression worsened, Rogers came to believe that govern-ment should feed desperate people and provide them with jobs.His common sense, laced with humor, did much to change the political attitudes of an American people who had alwaysbelieved that the common man should pick himself up by his own

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viii * ED I T O R’S PR E FA C E

bootstraps. Indeed, Rogers was arguably the most effectiveproponent of liberalism of his age—perhaps surpassing evenFranklin Delano Roosevelt. For his part, Roosevelt borrowedsome of Rogers’ techniques, including homespun humor andradio-broadcast chats with the American people.

Veteran biographer Gary Clayton Anderson first became inter-ested in Rogers because of his humor. Anderson, who is GeorgeLynn Cross Research Professor at the University of Oklahoma,was also drawn to Rogers because Rogers, a Cherokee Indian,was from the Indian Territory in remote eastern Oklahoma.Anderson was astounded that Rogers could rise from suchobscure origins to journalistic prominence, surpassing in reader-ship two of the titans of print journalism of the twentieth century:Walter Lippmann and H. L. Mencken.

Anderson has the good sense to allow Rogers, a master of theone-liner, to speak for himself; few biographies, consequently, areas consistently fast-paced and amusing as this one. Yet Andersonalso advances a thesis of enduring relevance. Nowadays punditsbludgeon their way to public notice; but Rogers realized a deepertruth: the best way to change people’s minds is to get them to laugh.

Rogers delivered an emblematic “gag” when he tried to inter-view Leon Trotsky in the Soviet Union in 1926. Being disap-pointed by the strongmen in power, Rogers simply wrote that hewould like to have met Trotsky, “for I have never met a man thatI didn’t like.” It was that attitude, the belief that everyone had astory to tell, that there were always positive and negative sides toevery story, that make Rogers a house-hold name.

MARK C. CARNES

ANN WHITNEY OLIN PROFESSOR OF HISTORY

BARNARD COLLEGE/COLUMBIA UNIVERSITY

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ix

Acknowledgments

Those who have helped formulate my rendition of Will Rogersinclude a host of professionals both in publishing and in theacademy. Michael Boezi, formerly the U.S. History editor atPearson Longman, and editorial assistant Amanda Dykstra,both saw the biography as ideal for the Library of AmericanBiography Series and supported it from the start. Those of mycolleagues who have read sections and offered criticism includemy good friend Richard Lowitt and University of Oklahomacolleagues Robert Griswold, David Levy, Richard Lowitt, BradRaley, Ben Keppel, and William Savage. Perhaps no one knowsas much Oklahoma history–and thus Will Rogers history–as BillSavage. Several of my graduate students have found time in theirbusy schedules to read and critique. They include EmilyWardrop and Catharine Franklin.

My close friend Charles E. Rankin, Editor in Chief at theUniversity of Oklahoma Press, has been a wonderful foil for dis-cussing Rogers and national politics. Chuck has also graciouslyallowed me to use quotations from the press’s recent publicationof the Will Rogers Papers, in five volumes, a magnificentachievement that took ten years to put together. I also wish tothank Steven K. Gragert, Director of the Will Rogers Memorialand Museum; in addition to supplying photographs, he kindlyallowed me to quote from two wonderful but poorly knownpublications of Rogers’ articles and telegrams, the WeeklyArticles (in six volumes) and the Daily Telegrams (in four

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x * AC K N O W L E D G M E N T S

volumes). While all of this material was originally published innewspapers, bringing it together into two publications makes it so much easier for scholars to pursue research on the viewsand impact of this very interesting American. The Will RogersMuseum is located in Claremore, Oklahoma, and maintains anactive publishing agenda.

As usual, my lovely wife, Laura, has been there through it all,watching and helping with the pacing—or, rather, the thoughtprocess—that comes with writing.

GARY CLAYTON ANDERSON

GEORGE LYNN CROSS RESEARCH PROFESSOR

THE UNIVERSITY OF OKLAHOMA

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