The Waterbury Democrat., 1935-08-26

or might be punching cows o, hadn't been for one man. He is
 Will was doing a roping act in New York vaudeville when Gene Buck found him and brought him over to the Follies, much to the disgust of his partner Flo ziegfeld.
 "Whati" protested Ziegfeld, you going to have that cowboy with dirty pants come in' here with all iify clean beautiful girls? I won't have it."
 Will Makes the "FrOlic"
 Nevertheless, Buck put him on in "The Midnight Frolic." Will was paid $175 a week. At that time he had no lines except an occasional gag to fill up a stage-wait when he snarled his rope. The act went, but 1t was no world-beater, and Ziegfeld still objected.
 "Efave you fired your COW. hand yet?" he asked Gene Buck week later. "All right, then you can take his salary out of your royalties. He doesn't even brush his hair"
 Finally, to pep up tho act, Buck suggested that Rogers in- crease his gag lines and get new ones every two or three days.
 "You know what I'd like to do?" said Will, picking up a thumbed and dirty newspaper. "Id like to make gags right out of this here paper, about the things people are talkin' and readin' about"
 Buck was a little hesitant. He never allowed actors to spring spontaneous lines, for fear they would offend the audi ence. Nevertheless he tried Will out. And that was the be- ginning of Will Rogers's career as humorist news-commentator. Two Friends
 Two men associated with Washington knew Will Rogers almost as well as anyone. One was Eddie Bowling, and the other Vice President Garner.
 Eddie once argued with Will for weeks after he was hit in the mouth while playing polo at Sands Point in 1925.
 A veterinarian sewed up the mouth, and left piece of lip as big as a Albert hanging out of place. Eddie wanted Will to get it fixed by regular surgeon, but for weeks he refused.
 "I'm so homely anyway" he said, "the bum lip doesn't matter"
 Finally, however, he yield. ed.
 Bowling recalls that in his early days on the road, Will would never trust banks. He always bought postal money or- ders and sent them to himself. Shuberts At $5,0O0 Per
 After leaving Broadway for Hollywood the first time, Will was persuaded to come back by the Shuberts, who paid him $5,000 a week to start their new vaudeville circuit at the Crescent Theater in Brooklyn. wills first day was an awful experience. He never got laugh. Making up in the same dressing-room with Wowling, he told Eddie that if he ever again found the knack of making an audience laugh he would never stop talking, even if he had to play every benefit in America to keep in practice.
 Every night for several years, Will and Eddie Bowling would meet at Dinty Moore's after per- formarces, where the Broadway down -and -outers lined up night ly waiting for Will to pass by. He never forgot them.
 Gypsy Rogers
 twill was a gypsy" says Jack Garner of his old friend. "He was the most lovable, irrepress- ible gypsy that ever played one- night stands.
 "He had played every little theater in the whole United States, and he remembered the exits and the stage doors as if he had been in them only yes- terday.
 "It was in his blood, and he kept wandering. He turned up at naval conferences and World Series, at political con- ventions and Pan American parleys, and his sagacious hus nor contributed to their sue. cess.
 ''It was the gypsy in Will's blood that sent him to his tragic death fin the wastcland of Alaska"
 I'm glad" says Eddie Dowl- ing, "that Will died in a remote place among humble. sincere people. For along with the fun he brought to millions. his true greatness lay in his sincere de- sire to remain an unspoiled, humble philosopher"
 One other in Washington once knew Will Rogers inti- mately, the late Harry Rogers, newspaperman and cousin of the famous humorist. He used to tell the story ofg how he lived not far from Will Rogers's fam fly, and his mother constantly warned him:
 "Kcep away from that Rog. CTS gang. They've got Indian blood in their veins."
 Harry Rogers got into mess and died, penniless.
 MAIL BAG
 w. l.. N, Richmond, Va.-- There is no evidence that Sem ator Smith himself is Q trader in the cotton market. The fact that he lost heavily when the market broke March II may mean that he owned stocks of cotton, not cotton futures.