Volume 18 , Issue 24

1935 - To Read Or Write? That's the Question

This little tidbit is was written by the famous Oklahoman, Will Rogers, on that fateful Black Sunday, 14 April 1935, Sunday, page 13, in The Independent Record, of Helena, Montana: "To Read or Write? That's the Question."

Found on Newspapers.com

Well all I know is just what I read in the papers, or what I see as I try to look down through the wings of an airplane. If you want to see something don't go up in the air and try to see it. Just as you glimpse it, why the wing of the plane will cover it and before the wing passes over it, its too far back to see. I flew East and back here a couple of weeks ago and it was when the dust storms were going, and in lots of places where the real dust storm was not operating, it was dark and looked like rain, and I said to my sister in Oklahoma, its going to rain today, and she said, "No, its been this way for days and days. Its just the very fine dust that in the air."

I just been reading tonight some reviews. I have the autobiography but I haven't had time to read it, but will, of Hohn Hays Hammond, the great engineer, who has operated all over the world. He used to come out here to my place and we would talk South Africa. We would talk about the Jamieson raid. He was mixed up in it, and its what started the Boer War. He was down there before the war, and I got in just before the end. Not in the fighting. I was breaking horses, and at the close working with a little wild west show. (My very first show experience).

He has had a great colorful career, has John Hays Hammond. Eighty years old the other day I was going to send him a wire, but like everything else I am going to do. I forget it before the time comes. Like about ten days ago, Dorothy Stone my little partner in Freds show one time, why she opened here as the big star in "As Thousands Cheer," and while I went myself, I plum forgot to send either wire or flowers. Now I meant well, but I get off to talking to some old guy about the N> R. A. or some cowpuncher about who won the roping at Ft. Worth at their big show, or maybe knocking the ball around on the field, or roping at some old gentle calves that are trained to stick their heads in the loop. I get to doing all this foolishness, and plum forget to do what I ought to do. I sometimes wonder if the Lord is going to make the proper distinction between the fellow that means well, and the ones that does well. I don't believe he will blackmail us just because we don't remember.

Now some people are so wonderful about things, and they remember, and they do and say just the right things at the right time. My desk right here before me now is piled higher than Jim Farleys of letters from friends, and folks that should be my friends. If I would show them the least courtesy of answering. But do you know I will keep putting it off. I carried some of them clear to N. Y. and back. Now I knew in my own heart darn well that I wasn't going to sit down and write any letters while I was on the planes or in hotels, but I meant well. I intended to answer em, but I knew darn we'll I wasn't going to. There ain't a thing in the world to lay it onto but laziness. I could have quit talking and boring somebody long enough to answered a lot of them. I could have stayed up an hour or so later and answered another dozen or so, but no I was too darn lazy, and I get sleepy early, and then the darn reading. I want to read everything in the world thats in a paper. No sporting writer ever wrote anything that I didn't read it all.

Why you know what I do, and I bet you I am unique. I even read the editorials. Yes sir, you can't beat that for miscellaneous reading. Thats what you call exploring in reading. Course I forget everything I read. I haven't got any more memory than a billy goat, and I forget about nine tenths of what I read, and get the other tenth wrong. But it makes me think that I am sorter doing something when I am reading. Then too, I can fall to sleep and never drop a paper. My closest friend cant' tell when I am reading or sleeping. They are pretty near always wrong. They say, "You read a lot," and I say, "No, I sleep a lot over my reading." If they would just quit printing newspapers for about a year, I could get some books read, but by the time the daily papers are read I am sound asleep. They send me books, they autograph em to me, sometimes with some very kindly and much more than fair inscription, but do you know that I am that lazy and honey that I don't acknowledge em.

Now that is terrible, but I just get out of it by letting the impression go around that I am just so busy that I haven't the time. Well I haven't go the time because I am out on a horse somewhere, or asleep somewhere. If it wasn't for riding, and reading newspapers, and dozing off, I bet you I would be writing to more people than Mrs. Roosevelt. Lord I would like to borrow that Lay's energy for a month, and I would wind up with some friends instead of a lot of unintentionally made enemies. Now here lays all these important letters here tonight, and I could answer at least a tenth of em, but here comes the morning papers (They come out the day before). Now will I answer these letters and maintain my friends. No I will take the papers and go to bed, and go to sleep holding it out at arms length, the light burning, and the glasses on.
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