How Times Change

In light of recent commentaries by political analysts in the news media I just couldn’t resist publishing this story. I hope I do not offend anyone’s feelings, since politics can be a very sensitive subject to some readers.
Cowboy movie star, Will Rogers, may best be remembered for his homespun philosophy and witty comments on world events. One of his most famous satires on politics was delivered during a weekly radio broadcast over the Columbia Networks on November 11, 1932. This satire goes as follows:
"A friend passed away since I talked with you last Sunday night, and I wouldn't feel right if I...well, if I didn't change my program to say a few words about him. Well, I can't be eloquent and I can't be worthy of doing it, but I'm going to try and make up in sincerity and feeling what I lack in words."
"Well you've heard of somebody since childhood...well then, as you grew up and met him and come to know him and to like him, and see him become almost a tradition ...then see him pass out right when it should have been the most useful years of his life. I don't know it kind of gits me. He'd been ill, but he was feeling more hopeful. But last Tuesday (Election Day) morning about seven he started having acute pains, and as the day went on, they got worse. They called in what little medical help they had, but it was feared he was beyond human aid, and by midnight...just as the sun was setting, he breathed his last...this gallant old figure who had been loved by many, feared by many, and had gone to where there was no returning. All that was mortal of the Republican Party had left this earth. Don't applaud. He passed away....he passed away because he wanted to live like a pioneer. He couldn't change with modern civilization. We knew that he had really never recovered from that stroke in October of 1929. That stroke laid him low, and it happened just when he was at the height of his career. He'd been warned that he was living a little too high, and it liable to bring on a fluttering heart, but he scoffed at 'em. As I say, on November 4th, 1932 nature took its course again. The patient had another stroke."

(Will Rogers was 56 years old when he and his pilot, Wiley Post, were killed when their plane crashed on take off from a small lake near Barrow, Alaska on Aug. 16, 1935.)

Tags for this story: Obituaries