America’s Cowboy: The Story of Will Rogers

This is Lee Habib, and this is Our American Stories, the show where America is the star and the American people. To search for the Our American Stories podcast, go to the iHeartRadio app, to iTunes, or wherever you get your podcasts. Most everyone over the age of fifty has heard the name Will Rogers. His quote’s ring is true. Today is the date of the nineteen thirties. Congress opens with a prayer and closes with an investigation. Good judgment comes from experience, and a lot of that comes from bad judgment. Make crime pay. Become a lawyer. Here to tell the story of Will Rogers is Tad Jones, the executive director of the Will Rogers Memorial in Claremore, Oklahoma. But first, audio from Lux Radio Theater. You’ll be hearing a lot of it over this hour. Let’s get into the…

Story from Hollywood: The Hollywood Radio Theater. Marrying Jane Wyman and Will Rogers Junior. In “The Story of Will Rogers”, Ladies and Gentleman, your producer, Mister Irving Cunning.

Readings from Hollywood, Ladies and Gentlemen. If a vote were taken, or the most popular American of all time outside of public office, I’m sure Will Rogers’ name would head the list. His keen perception, gentle humor, and simplicity made him one of the most beloved men of our time. Tonight, playing his original role in “The Story of Will Rogers”, we have the perfect choice: Will Rogers, Jr. And as his co-star in this humorous drama from the Warner Brothers Studio, a glamorous Academy Award winn, Jane Ryman, in her original role of Missus Rogers.

Now, well, Will didn’t become Will Rogers just overnight. You’ve heard of the Trail of Tears. The Rogers family came over a few years earlier. They had a deal to get some property, so they were what was called the early settlers. So that was Will’s granddad that came over.

Clem, Will’s dad, was very involved.

in everything in northeast Oklahoma and was a very prominent Cherokee citizen. He had was a judge in the area, also a Cherokee senator.

When Oklahoma was becoming a state.

Clem Rogers was one of the delegates at the Constitutional Convention for the creation of Oklahoma’s state.

Really, how’d you get here?

Son?

You ought to know, Paw. You sent me the money to come home. That’s right, I did, didn’t. Well, it’s good to see your son. Now, if really excuse me, I got some news for the folks.

Here, Ladies and Gentlemen, Ladies and Gentlemen! As Senator of the Cherokee Nation, it gives me great pleasure to tell you that we’ve just smoked a pipe of peace with these congressmen from Washington, and in the not too distant future, Oklahoma shall become the forty-sixth state of the Union.

So the county we live in and where the memorial is and where Will was born is called Rogers County, but it wasn’t named after Will Rogers. It was named after Will’s dad. He was married to a lady named Mary America Scripture. Both of them were about a quarter Cherokee. Also, he served in the Civil War, and he served with a gentleman in the Civil War named William Penn Adair. And when Will Rodgers was born, that’s where his name came from: William Pin Adair Rogers.

He liked a joke that he was born on Election Day, November fourth, and he said his mom…

had nothing better to do because women weren’t allowed to vote, so she just stayed home and had him. Will Rogers adored her. Clem and Mary America had a number of children, and unfortunately, only four of them lived to adulthood.

Three of them died when…

They were young, and Mau died when I was ten.

But his three sisters really loved on Will and spoiled him. And that’s kind of who…

Ray? And who’s this little boy?

Well, that’s me. All of these are me. Each one was taken when I started a new school.

You must have run out of schools early, no, ma’am?

Those schools, they kept cropping up like mushrooms.

Will’s dad was a very hard worker. He did not care much for Will’s work ethic, which wasn’t much. Will did not do very good in school, and he went to a number of schools all over northeast Oklahoma and Missouri and just didn’t have much luck.

This one here is Paul’s last flame: Kemper Military Academy. I was there for two years, one in the guardhouse and one on the fourth grade.

His dad even tried to get him in a military academy to try to get into discipline. Well, Will wasn’t there very long and earned one hundred and fifty demerits.

So he left the military academy. He liked a joke. I think it was he didn’t pass the fourth grade McGuffey reader. But Will was highly intelligent, making no mistake. I mean, he was an avid reader. He knew things. He had a great memory. His thing, he had so much energy. He just loved to joke. Kind of was a class clown.

He learned to rope by a former slave named Dan Walker, and so Dan Walker worked at the ranch, and that’s he taught Will Rodgers how to rope.

And that is what Will loved more than anything.

And so Will roped at the ranch all the time. And when he was at school, he wrote the kids, and he rope the girls.

He wanted to be a cowboy. He just wanted to rope. And an opportunity came for him…

to leave the ranch and go out to Higgins, Texas, and he worked on as a ranch hand out there for several months and then came back to the ranch, and his dad ended up giving him the ranch for a couple of years. Will Rogers called it the Dog Iron Ranch. But that is not what Will Rodgers wanted to do. He didn’t want to be a businessman. You know, it could be a cowboy, but when you’re running the ranch, that’s a different responsibility. So after three years of that, Will Rodgers said, “You know what, I’m not too excited about this. I think I’m gonna leave and go and be a cowboy in Argentina.” He’d heard that there were no fences in Argentina where in here, and this was Indian Territory. It wasn’t Oklahoma at the time, so Will Rogers was not born in Oklahoma.

He was born in Indian Territory, and I grew up in Indian Territory.

And in nineteen oh one, sold him back to his father and said, “I’m going to Argentina with a friend of mine just to be a cowboy, what they call a gaucho.”

When we come back, more of the story of Will Rogers here on Our American Stories. Folks, if you love the stories we tell about this great country, and especially the stories of America’s rich past, know that all of our stories about American history, from war to innovation, culture, and faith, are brought to us by the great folks at Hillsdale College, a place where students study all the things that are beautiful in life and all the things that are good in life. And if you can’t cut to Hillsdale, Hillsdale will come to you with their free and terrific online courses. Go to Hillsdale.edu to learn more. And we returned to Our American Stories and our story of Will Rogers with Tad Jones, the director of the Will Rogers Memorial in Claremore, Oklahoma. When we last left off, Will Rogers, looking for direction, had decided to head south—south to Argentina to become a cowboy, rejecting a life of running his powerful father’s ranch. Let’s get back to the story. Here again is audio from Lux Radio Field.

Sit down, Willie. Glad to have you back soon. And I hope your foolish days are over.

But, Paul, ain’t you kind of tired with all this to doing?

Certainly not. I found it very stimulating. Well, you’ve been gone for two years. I’d get the rested to learn what you’ve a compliment.

Well, so Will and his buddy took off. They thought they’d just go to New Orleans and then make their way down to Argentina. But it wasn’t that easy.

They had to take some boats to go to New York and then over to London and finally got to Argentina. Well, when I got down there, life wasn’t near the glamorous thing that they thought it was gonna be.

So Will’s buddy came back home.

Will Rogers was by himself in Argentina, virtually dead broke. He wrote some letters back to his dad, which were his first published letters in the newspaper when the family… When he got some letters back, the family published it in the Claremore Progress, and people got to kind of keep up with Will Rogers, mainly because of his dad was well known in the area, and there’s his son was kind of well known, and so he probably didn’t know what was happening, but kind of his first foray of being in the newspapers.

So, what was Will gonna do with his life?

He’s stuck in Argentina, firsuly, has no money, and there was a big cattle run that was going to South America. Big boat. And so Will jumped on the boat to take all the cattle to South Africa and got to South Africa, got the cattle off, still was sure he’s gonna do. His life is broken South Africa, and he saw a sign for Texas Jack’s Wild West Show. This was the game changer for Will.

Yes, Surrey folks, the original Santa Fe Jack and his Wild West Show, the greatest assembly of Prairie Dad devils ever gathered under one tens. You see Honey Girl Kates, you see Chief Big Awesome, the Young Team, Apaches, and no One and only Cherokee Kid, the foremost roping artist in the world, especially from Triumphs.

People.

Good Wild West Show was looking for somebody that could do what was called the big crinoline, which is the big rope trick with a, you know, a huge rope that you rope with, and Will Rogers happened to know how to do the trick, and he could do a lot of other…

Tricks too. So now, his first forad show business…

Did it for a little while and then decided he was ready to go and try to make his way back to the States, and he went to… He got a letter from Texas Jack recommended him as a great performer. He went to Australia, New Zealand, and was in some Wild West shows there.

And then came back to the United States and came back home.

Well, I worked a lot of ranches. Paw met a lot of fine people, got in some practice with my rope. I even had an offer to go with a big roundup.

If that’s your ambition, that aimless drift in life, there’s no use my even talking.

To you. Sent me a hundred bucks, Paw. Don’t seem like you’re getting your money’s worth out of this conversation. I ain’t with a roundup. I’m here, but I any different than when you left, Paw. You and me have been making the same mistake for twenty years. You wanted me to be Clem Rogers’ boy, and I’ve just stampeded away from it. I might do better. Is just playing Will Rogers? Why not give it a trot?

So Will had when he was here… He ran into a lady at the train stop, and she was there. He was working at the train stop, and he went to pick something up at the train stop, and there was a lady there named Betty Blake.

Will rode into my life just after the turn of the century. Oklahoma was still Indian Territory and Oolaga, one of the few cowtowns that boasted a railroad. If it weren’t for that railroad, I wouldn’t have been there at all. My sister’s husband, Dave, was a station master, and I’d come for a visit. I saw Will tie his horse outside the station, just another saddle-weary drifter. And then he wandered into the baggage room, and when…

He went to pick up his guitar and his long underwear, he saw her and immediately fell in love. And he was so nervous, he took off and left his stuff there. For eight years, Will Rogers tried to get Betty to date him and marry him, and she just wouldn’t have that much to do with him because Will didn’t have, you know, a stable life. Will was all over the place and traveling and wasn’t gonna make a lot of money. She was from a very well-to-do family from northwest Arkansas in the Rogers, Arkansas area, and…

So she really didn’t think much Will.

But Will just kept after and kept after and send her letters and in those kind of things to try to let him let her know that he really appreciated her.

Well, Will then start went to New York.

Started doing, or he went with a Wild West show to New York and was doing the show in New York, and this is where his big break in the States came. So they were in Madison Square Garden doing a Wild West show. He was just one of the troop, and a bull got out of their arena and went into the crowd. And the story is that Will Rogers got his rope, got up there, roped it and brought it out and gotten saved people’s lives. Well, you know, there might have. There’s some other stories. Supposedly it might have happened, but the one that the newspapers went with was, you know, “Cowpuncher from Oklahoma saves the crowd,” you know, Will Rogers. So now, I said, he’s front-page news, and people up there, you know, in New York, they want to see, you know, what’s this, this…

Cowboy from Oklahoma. So all of a sudden, Will is a little bit famous, and people want to see him. So he gets picked up to be in vaudeville.

You know, those were all the trick—you know, the jugglers and the comedians and different things—and Will went in there just to be a trick roper. So Will got into vaudeville and started doing trick roping. And during this time, he’s still court and Betty and eventually convinced Betty to marry.

Him? Betty, yes. Well, what would happen if I was to quit gallivant and around and settle down?

What would you like to have happen?

Well, I haven’t any money.

That isn’t important.

I love you, Betty, ever since I first saw ye. I ain’t.

I haven’t always say aimed.

Well, well, just think straight about nothing except that I love you. Is that important?

It’s awfully important.

Then you’ll marry me? Yes, Will. Golly Moses, I feel like hollerance. Why don’t you? No.

So she moved up to New York, and they started having a few kids. So he ends up having four children. One child died in infancy. Unfortunately, his son, Fred Stone, died when he was just two.

So Will Rogers now is doing the Follies. He’s very popular. And then one time he missed a rope trick, and he made a joke, and the people laughed.

And he was kind of offended by that. You know, he’s a professional, professional roper. You know, you don’t laugh at, as a professional roper. Even though he grew up joking and may trying to make people laugh. But this was his, you know, his serious business.

I was having a pretty bad time myself, but nothing, I’m sure, to what he was going through. He couldn’t blame the audience for laughing at.

White, and nice you got a laugh, of course. Ain’t no use to pretend I ain’t nervous here tonight, because I sure am. You know, horses are smarter and humans. You never heard of a horse going broke betting on people.

Well, when he came off the stage, they kind of told me, “No, yeah, the people laugh, they like that.”

You got to do that a little bit more. And so he started writing jokes.

And when miss Rope tricks on purpose, so he could tell a joke, you know, he’d mess up and go, “I got both my feet in but one,” you know, or whatever the joke might be. And so now they’re laughing at him, and he was liking that. So now, you know, it added a little bit to a show.

But then, you know, there were other rope triggers that were showing up.

And so he was such an avid reader that Betty told him and said, “You know, you ought to start talking about the news of the day.”

I see where they got a new governor back in my home state of Oklahoma. He’s a real fine governor too. And the folks back there sure love it, especially some of the folks who’ve been spending their time behind bars. You see, this governor’s been sending out a lot of pardons and kind of getting the warden sort of worry. Anyway, he sent out so many that one old boy send him back an answer. Why Shuck’s governor? He said, “Thanks for the pardon, but they ain’t caught me yet.”

And we’re listening to the story of Will Rogers, as told by Tad Jones, the director of the Will Rogers Memorial in Claremore, Oklahoma, and again, special thanks to Lux Radio Theater. You’re hearing excerpts throughout this piece. When we come back, more of the story of Will Rogers here on Our American Stories. And we returned to Our American Stories and our story on Will Rogers with Tad Jones, the director of the Will Rogers Memorial in Claremore, Oklahoma. When we last left off, Will had finally found relative stability as a professional roper. Let’s return to the story.

The curtain rises on Act Three of “The Story of Will Rogers,” starring Jane Wyman as Betty Rodgers and Will Rogers J…