Texas

Will Rogers spent a great deal of time in Texas and wrote frequently about Texas politics. As a young man, he worked on a Ranch in Higgins, Texas and he drove cattle from Texas to the North. Will was very good friends with Ft. Worth newspaperman Amon Carter. After Will’s death, Mr. Carter helped raise the funds for the statue of Will on his horse, Soapsuds, and three statues were commissioned, one at the Will Rogers Memorial, one at the Ft. Worth Stockyards and one at Texas Tech University.

“Amon is National Committeeman, delegate, alternate, steering wheel, banker, receiver, and wet nurse for the Texas delegation. They have taken over the Sherman Hotel, the best hotel in Chicago, and have generously allowed the California delegation to spread their bed rolls out in the halls, so they could stand guard over the Texas delegation.” – Weekly Articles, 1932 (Speaking about the Democratic Convention)

“Been interested in the scheme of my old friend Jack Garner of Texas. Jack wants to divide up the great State of Texas into five states. Why he wants to stop at five nobody knows. If he is going to split the old open range up, why not make job of it. The papers state that Texas would make 220 States the size of Rhode Island, and 54 the size of Connecticut, and six time bigger than the whole of New England. Jack wants more Senators to offset that mess from the east. Well let’s make some Rhode Islands out of it, and that will give us (220 times as big). That’s 440 Senators. Now that ought to satisfy anybody, even if you are fond of Senators, 440 ought to get us about what Pennsylvania has been getting with their two.” – Weekly Articles, 1930

“Texas is having a big centennial next year and while you are sorter planning your vacation ahead, you want to come to our biggest State. You ought to read a list of what this State produces, and her modern and up-to-date cities, and size and distances. Plenty of ranches here as big as Germany or France. Horse pastures as big as England. Your Belgiums and Switzerlands would get lost in some farmer’s cotton patch in Texas. And oil? They are the only State that can serve you oil hot or cold. Sam Houston, the most colorful man in all American history, made this his arena. Yes, sir, brother, this is a State.” – Daily Telegrams, January 23, 1935

“The only way to lick a Texan is with bad liquor. Any State that can make worse liquor than Texas can lick ’em, but it’s hard to make worse. That’s why Texas licked Mexico. Texas had the worst. They fattened on Mexico’s “tequila.” – Daily Telegrams, July 28, 1931

“Texas starts entertaining you when you hit the State line. I thought the convention was held here, the way they act. It ain’t just Houston, it’s Texas that will show you something.” – Daily Telegrams, June 21, 1928