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Will Rogers:
Oklahoma in the Mirror
By Doug Watson
It was never Clem Rogers’ plan for his son to become a rope-spinning star of stage
and screen, and he didn’t live to see him become America’s most-sought-after
voice of the common man, or a humorous critic of Congress, or a friend of America’s
political and business leaders, or one of the movie industry’s highest paid stars.
Clem hoped that young “Willie” would get an education and assume a role in
the political development of Oklahoma—a soon-to-be state that included the
Cherokee nation where Clem himself had earned wealth and respect.
Will Rogers’ fame and success reached far beyond the boundaries of Oklahoma, but
he never forgot his roots in Indian Territory. After 1906, his mailing addresses were
in New York and California—never in Oklahoma—but frequent visits to his family
and frequent comments about events and accomplishments “back home” proved
that his eyes and a part of his heart were always set on Oklahoma.
Despite projecting an image of “aw shucks” indifference to the rush of events
around him—he said he usually fell asleep while reading the paper—Will was
profoundly restless. As a child, he seemed unable to concentrate on schoolwork
and was often the most disruptive pupil in his class, frequently showing off for
classmates or playing jokes on his friends. When he “quit school for good” before
earning a high school diploma, he ran away to Texas and a ranch job he thought
would be an escape from his father’s oversight. Past twenty, he deserted Clem’s
gift of work for himself on his own ranch to seek a mythic South American frontier
described in popular magazines.
He had tried to urge his son to give up the uncertainty of “fame” for the security of
home. Will supposedly replied that “I may be just an ol’ country boy in the city,
but I’m eatin’ pretty regular,” and he sometimes sent Clem money, too, mostly to
demonstrate that he could. When Clem saw the theater where Will performed,
he was finally impressed; he assessed the situation with his banker’s mind; and
when he returned to Claremore, he confided to his daughter that, given the
number of seats and the price of tickets, “they must make an awful lot of money
out of Willie” (Yagoda).
Considering Will Rogers’ public stature at the end of his life, one might suppose
that he had outgrown Oklahoma, left it behind for national fame and international
recognition. Not so. He boasted publicly about being from Oologah, or from
Claremore (“people in California can’t say ‘Oologah,’” he joked), and he embraced
his Indian heritage, too, in spite of widespread prejudice. He stopped over in
Oklahoma when he traveled across the country by train, often to visit family and
friends. He saluted Tulsa when it built an airport, Waynoka, when it became
a stopover for cross-country air travel. He piloted the Claremore Queen in
“Steamboat Round the Bend,” struck oil near Claremore as Pike Peters in “They
Had to See Paris.” He followed Oklahoma politics, from the embarrassments of
gubernatorial impeachments and “Alfalfa” Bill Murray’s feud with Texas over the
Red River boundary to the economic hardships brought on by drought and dust—
and he spent weeks crossing the state to raise money to aid suffering Oklahoma
farmers. He was generous toward his family, and he valued his Oklahoma friends.
Will Rogers
Will Rogers was born on a ranch in Indian Territory in 1879. His parents were both part Cherokee. After attending several schools in
the Territory and in Missouri, Will did ranch work before beginning a life in show business—wild west shows, vaudeville, the stage,
movies, personal appearance tours, radio, and newspapers. He was a friend of the common man and of many powerful businessmen,
politicians, and government officials. His nearly twenty-seven-year marriage to Betty Blake produced three children who grew to
adulthood. During his show business life, the Rogers family lived in New York and California, and Will traveled often around the U.S.
and the world. From the obscurity of caring for cattle in Indian Territory, he rose to the zenith of public attention and to considerable
wealth—his written words syndicated in six hundred papers, his movies the most popular of their age, his voice and image familiar to
tens of millions of Americans. His death by airplane crash in August 1935 set off a season of national mourning, but he lives on still in
words that reflect his humor and common wisdom and that embody some of the universal hopes of human beings.
Will’s restlessness found its complement in show business, where he began as a
rope-spinner, added comic gags and a shy stage presence, and eventually seemed
to dominate every medium he engaged—stage, screen, radio, newspapers, and
personal appearance—always traveling, around the U.S. or around the world. Yet,
in the midst of his great success, he remained remarkably grounded in common
sense and simple reason. His language was simple, his words short, and his
metaphors folksy and comfortable. He always seem ed to be going somewhere
or coming back, having just spent the afternoon at Edison’s birthday party or
visiting with Mussolini or having supper with Calvin Coolidge or flying with Charles
Lindbergh or playing polo with movie star friends or lunching with senators in the
capitol dining room.
Will’s anchor—and he readily confessed it—was his wife, Betty, whom he dubbed
“Blake” for her maiden name. “She runs this outfit,” he said repeatedly of his
business interests and his family. Will met her in Oologah before 1900. It took him
until 1908 to convince her to marry him, but he understood from the start that “the
best roping performance of my life was the day I roped Betty.” Like Clem, she had
hoped to keep Will in Oklahoma, where success seemed almost ready-made, but
when his show business success demanded another life, she made the best of it.
In 1910, Clem traveled from Oklahoma to Washington, D. C., to visit Will and Betty.
21
“Live your life so that
whenever you lose, you
are ahead.” - Will Rogers
“It’s a great country but
you can’t live in it for
nothing.” - Will Rogers
Perhaps Clem was right. If Will had stayed home, he could have had a base on
which to build a good life. The Rogers family was never poor. Even after the
Dawes Act rearranged the nature of Indian land claims and access, Clem played an