How We Elect Our Presidents

by Will Rogers, Donald Day (editor)

Collection of Will Roger's magazine and newspaper articles detailing the National Election process from 1920 to 1935.

176 pages, Library Binding

Published March 1, 1952

About the author

People noted wry homespun commentary of American humorist William Penn Adair Rogers, known as Will, on society and politics.

This Cherokee cowboy, comedian, vaudeville performer, and actor fathered Will Rogers Jr., the congressman and veteran of World War II.

A mother bore Rogers, known as favorite son of Oklahoma, into a prominent family. This world-famous figure traveled around the world three times, made 50 silent films and 21 "talkie" movies, and wrote more than four thousand nationally-syndicated newspaper columns.

The American people adored Rogers, the top-paid movie star in Hollywood at the time before the mid-1930s. Rogers died with aviator Wiley Post, whose small airplane crashed near Barrow, Alaska territory.

Reviews

[Ron Ross · Rating 4 out of 5]

This is a collection of Will Rogers News Paper columns. This collection of columns were mainly from his reporting of the Presidential Elections from 1920 until his death in August 1935. His humor has long been forgotten or overlooked but it shows us that history repeats itself. For example, "In this country people don't vote -- for -- they vote -- against." This is an quick read and gives us several of Will's homespun quotes such as "We are the only fleas weighing over 100 pounds. We don't know what we want, but we are ready to bite somebody to get it." and " We are the firt nation in the history of the world to go to the poor house in an automobile."

[Catherine]

The occasional book keeps sneaking up on me. Will Rogers is informing me on "How We Elect Our Presidents" and I highly rec this informative collection of newspaper articles. The details he drops into his satiric broadsides are as on-point and in-tune with his audience as Jon Stewart ever was, and in much the same vein. Rogers hips the straights to the speakers and the speeches that aren't twisted out of moonbeams, and points out which politicians or journalists have fallen ill and in delirium accidentally told it like it is; like Stewart, Rogers refused to let go of the boundaries between editorial, commentary, news and journalism.

One terrifyingly modern juxtaposition: when he talks about the Democrats, you would swear he's discussing today's Republicans, and a more than a little vice-versa. The funhouse mirror once bent the other way. Of course it didn't matter so much back then, since the country at the time was ticking along so neatly the only thing causing pandemonium at rallies was the big Wet vs. Dry debate. It cost a lot of democratic Wets a comfortable government seat, although they seem satisfied with the ones inside the nearest Republican-run speakeasy.

But let's talk briefly about women in the 1920's. Did Will Rogers view them with the same jaundiced jailor's eye as the culture, state and nation? Where were women, back nearly 100 years ago?

June 27, 1928

"This morning they got me out of bed early to attend a big Breakfast given to over a thousand Political women who have left their Husbands bed and Board and are assisting in America's champion pastime. I was the only *alleged* man at the breakfast. Just think of that, the only Male party invited to attend the principal Social function of the female contingent.

These women are a great audience, when you get 'em off to themselves and speak to 'em in their native tongue. Us Women sho' had some fun. Sam Blythe ... told me that this was the prettiest and best Hall he ever saw."

Wow, sexist much? Between other reports of women showing up everywhere, Rogers disses the Republican Convention for opening on the same day as his Broadway show, hyping the female headliners' and chorus girls' bodies as a far bigger draw. Sexist Much.

But hold on there a minute, just one ellipsical moment...

Will Rogers, for his time and culture, was a Big Time Equalist. He lobbied for women's right to education, to any work they were able to perform, for their participation in every level of society, which he assisted by noting that, both at a national level and every day on the farm, there were women doing things *everywhere*. He put them on stage, he didn't ignore them. He gave them media space and was matter of fact about it. Women could trip over themselves as well as any man, as far as Will was concerned.

His sexism was cultural; everyone reflects their culture, even in refuting its ideals and shameful acts; you cannot change a culture from outside, so you will reflect it -- as most of the Equalist men discover, as the media sets them on fire one by one.

Our Media keeps taking away context. They've trained US citizens to judge the past by the current, hypocritical idealism they take the time and trouble to define for us. That way we don't have to try to fit the edges of reality to the wayward angles of media-set culture. They lie to us, the politicians lie to us, the cereal boxes lie to us, every source of information bends, spindles and mutilates context, simplifying to idiocity and drawing in Straight Lines to Obvious Conclusions.

Picture old Will Rogers breaking the Fourth Wall, boggling for his contemporaries at the clueless ping-pong that was and is Convention Rhetoric. "Last night Claude Bowers ended up his speech with the following: 'The Battle hour has struck. Then to your Tents, O, ISRAEL."'

So the Democratic Convention of 1928 spent time discussing how to split the country in two, and Claude yelled that info into a Bugs Bunny-style microphone for the world to hear. Remember the Democrats of the time were the low-IQ version of Republicans, but with progressive ideals that Pelosi would have happily stomped on with both sensible heels. This was back when people knew the bible, remember, so the inference was as clear as a Republican yelling, "White Power!"

Poor Claude was doing so well, too. Mr. Rogers climbed all up his leg over the keynote speech. "I was the first one that suggested Calaude Bowers for this job ... he is a bear. You haven't heard the Republicans called anything until you hear this fellow -- comedy, oratory, facts and sense. He makes the Republicans pretty near as bad as they are. That's how good he is."

But getting back to Claude's fail on Biblical Context: Nepotism put an anchor baby on Israel's throne, which his dad Solomon mortgaged for trophy wives, spiced kumquats and lots of public buildings. Tammany Hall, seeing an opening, suggested Anchor Baby lower taxes and learn to budget; after due consideration, Junior raises taxes and throws in extra whips and scorpions. As one does.

For some no doubt Mud Age reason, Israel's designated citizens didn't hang about waiting for Mueller's investigation to wend its way through the pyramids back to the papyrus fields; various business entities got on the clacks and invited another candidate to declare for office. First he had to catch a train back from Egypt, where he had been attending dinners on the strength of having been chased out of God's Own Country by old Solomon himself.

Apparently Junior wasn't sure he was up to facing off a seasoned insurrectionist, and when said insurrectionist showed up and started hanging out by the front window and slowly sharpening his spear... well. Trained battle scorpions don't come cheap. The King called for more taxes to protect the kingdom from its invited guest, and promised he'd hold back a few scorpions for the welcoming committee.

Back to the Bible: "When the people heard what the King had said, they said: 'What portion do we have in David, and what inheritance do we have in the Son of Jesse. To your tents, O Israel!' That was how Israel came to be split into two."