"I am the first acknowledged comedian to receive a vote for the presidency - not the first comedian, mind you, but the first acknowledged one."
So said Will Rogers.One finds it rather hard not to like a man who once compared the U.S. Senate to the senate in ancient Rome and pointed out that now we know why the Roman Empire fell.
Rogers was one of America's greatest humorists. Born William Penn Adair Rogers, he was a talented man who still held the love of America long after his tragic death in an airplane crash in August 1935.
"Will Rogers' World" by Bryan and Frances Sterling is a fine tribute to the man who helped his country laugh its way through the Depression era with such remarks as "This Depression must have finally hit the Senate. They're investigating it."
The authors have produced a browsers' collection of Rogers' famous wit. Nothing ever escaped his eye, whether it was Congress ("If we took Congress seriously, we would be worrying all the time.") or the world and its celebrities at large ("You know about the Prince of Wales falling off his horse. Never saw a picture of him falling unless the horse was falling too. Can't see any humor in that. What are you going to do when your horse falls? Go down with him or stay up in the air until he comes back up under you?").
No subject was ever spared a Rogers' barb, but it was humor wrought by love.
Born in the Indian territory that would become Oklahoma, Rogers took turns in life as a cowboy, a circus performer, a vaudevillian and an actor. He wrote a syndicated column, and, during the Depression, his Sunday radio broadcasts helped reassure a suffering nation with humor.
This book barely manages to scratch the surface of the profound wisdom Rogers left. Most of his humor still pertains to our modern world. As Rogers himself would say, "Every gag I tell must be based on truth. No matter how much I may exaggerate it, it must have a certain amount of truth." Rogers always knew truth had to hurt a little, but that truth was spoken with humor and love.
The husband and wife writing team has worked together on other Rogers projects, including "Will Rogers in Hollywood" and "A Will Rogers Treasury."