Woody Agree? Will Rogers as the Forgotten 'Will of the People'

Plus music from Wilco, Jason Isbell, Rosanne Cash and Woody Guthrie.

From ‘Cherokee Kid’ to ‘Unofficial President’

One of the most tragic accidental deaths of an American occurred in 1935 when a light plane helmed by famed pilot Wiley Post crashed in Alaska, killing him and the man often described as the most popular American of his time (possibly even including President Roosevelt). The phrase "nation mourned" is often tossed about carelessly, but in this case it was true. Historians claim it was the greatest outpouring of genuine affection since Lincoln was assassinated. NBC and CBS radio went off the air for thirty minutes in mourning and movie screens all over the country darkened their screens.

In the wreckage of the plane in Alaska was found in Will Rogers' typewriter a sheet of paper with the beginning of one last column: "Now I must get back to advising my Democrats."  Earlier he proposed as his epitaph:  Here lies Will Rogers. Politicians turned honest, and he starved to death.  

Back in 1933, however, in the depths of the Depression, when an eternally hopeful Democrat was about to take the reins from a widely-hated failure, Rogers commented,  "A smile in the White House again, why, it will look like a meal to us."  He might have said the same of the transition to Joe Biden last week.

Imagine this: Rogers was by then simultaneously the country's most popular radio personality and newspaper columnist and number one male movie star. Unfortunately, many Americans today (those who even know about him) think of Rogers as merely a folksy humorist or even a rope-twirling vaudeville star, thanks to the Broadway hit, The Will Rogers Follies.  Of course he was all of that but in addition he was also the nation's wisest and most influential political commentator.

He was, in short, the Will of the People.

His views on Republicans, on Wall Street and big banks, on income inequality, and the need for FDR to take bold action, are particularly relevant right now.  He expressly called for “more equal distribution of wealth in this country.” When Roosevelt (already influenced immensely by Rogers) was about to be inaugurated, he advised, "We have had years of 'Don't rock the boat.' Go on and sink it if you want to. We just as well be swimming as like we are.… For three years we have had nothing but 'America is fundamentally sound.' It should have been 'America is fundamentally cuckoo.'"  

Perhaps the question most often asked in America in the final decade of his life was: Did you see what Will Rogers said? He was the forerunner of Jon Stewart and other late night TV hosts with their topical monologues. Some of his wisecracks have turned to cliche ("All I know is what I read in the papers"); others entered the American language as folk sayings or punch lines:

"Every time Congress makes a joke it's a law, and every time they make a law it's a joke."

“I am not a member of any organized political party. I am a Democrat.”

"We hold the distinction of being the only nation that is goin' to the poorhouse in an automobile."

"This would be a great world to dance in if we didn't have to pay the fiddler."

Perhaps the most famous quote attributed to him, however, was actually more of a paraphrase: “I never met a man I didn’t like.”

Rogers was our "most complete human document... the heartbeat of America," Damon Runyon observed, although his record on race relations was mixed, not unusual for the time. Reviewing one of his books, a New York Times critic insisted that "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." The theologian Reinhold Niebuhr praised his facility in puncturing foibles "which more pretentious teachers leave untouched."

His life was an American amalgam. He liked to brag that his ancestors did not come over on the Mayflower--they met the boat. Rogers was born to Methodists in pre-Oklahoma "Indian Territory," as it was known, in 1879, but he was at least one-quarter Cherokee and immensely proud of it. Before settling down as a political philosopher and movie star in the 1920s, Rogers worked as a cowboy. Rope tricks were his specialty, but Rogers was no bumpkin: He lived in New York City for many years while appearing with the Ziegfeld Follies before moving to Santa Monica. Unlike most commentators at the time he often traveled abroad, and not just to Europe but to hot spots in South America and the Far East, and due to his fame was able to meet with top officials and experts there.

Although he spent most of his life on a ranch, he hated guns, possibly because of what they (and their owners) had done to Native Americans. Mention Andrew Jackson and he would really go off.

Rogers read newspapers and magazines voraciously.  He was often mentioned as a presidential candidate, and he regularly received a strong write-in vote in state and national elections.  He even ran a mock campaign for president in 1928 as the candidate of the Anti-Bunk Party, and then was seriously proposed as Al Smith’s running mate by one of the top columnists, Heywoud Broun.  The National Press Club appointed him America's congressman-at-large, and others called him the Unofficial President. At the Democratic National Convention in 1932 he received twenty-two votes as Oklahoma's favorite-son candidate and was so excited he slept through the balloting. Another Oklahoman named William C. Rogers, no relation, ran for Congress in 1933 after shortening his first name to Will--and won by fifty thousand votes (he was no dummy).

To those who complained that his humor was becoming too topical, Rogers replied, "I hope I never get so old that I can't peep behind the scenes and see the amount of politics that's mixed in the medicine before it's dished out to the people as 'pure statesmanship.'" He once compared the U.S. Senate to Siberia--the place "where they send all the rich men." And: "My idea of an honest politician is a fellow who declares income tax on the money he sold his vote for….The Democrats and the Republicans are equally corrupt where money is concerned. It’s only in the amount where the Republicans excel."

Coming tomorrow:  Part II.

Song Pick for Today

Rosanne Cash doing Woody Guthrie’s “I Ain’t Got No Home.”

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