Proud to be
a human being

I’ve got a problem. I’ve been trying to figure out, this morning, all morning, why I feel so good to be here. It certainly isn’t the weather. I had toes when I came in. Or is it the fact that I’ve got my family with me, because we live very close to each other. We are blessed to be near each other, where we live together in California. And the only reason I can really think that it feels good to be here is the way I felt when I first came here. That was because I was in the presence of something as pure as this mountain. And as this remembrance of a great man and a great culture and a great people. And the motivation was done in a way that is not seen or heard of very much these days and that is a motivation that is clearly to correct a wrong with a right.

A man and his family, twelve in all that did this incredible thing. And we should all feel, and I feel, despite the cold, despite the fact the weather isn’t very kind to us, that we are all members of the human race today, and it’s wonderful when you can feel that. I felt it recently when I stood at the destruction site of the Berlin wall. I thought, by golly, I’m proud to be a human being again. After that terrible thing.

There’s another place, too, that I feel good, that I feel as though I’m happy to be a human being, and that’s at a ranch out in the Pacific Palisades in California, Will Roger’s Ranch. There is something about it there where peace comes dropping slow, and there’s honesty and there’s humor and humanity. It’s in the air there. And it was all built and lived in by a man named Will Rogers. He was an American Indian. His mother was three-eighths Cherokee, he was born on the Cherokee roll of births. His father was a half-blood Cherokee. Will said, with his typical humor, "I never got fer enough in arithmetic to figure out just how much injun that makes me." But he said, there is nothing in my life of which I am more proud, than my Indian blood.

Will Rogers was critical of our country. It was Charley Russell, the great painter, who said to Will one time, "you know, Will, if you can look history dead in the eye you’re going to learn something, If you can look at it dead in the eye without blinking. You’re going to learn something that will help you to live into tomorrow.

It seems to me that that is what this mountain does. It’s also a place where I have played so many times in Ford’s Theatre, where President Abraham Lincoln was assassinated. That theatre was closed for many, many years after the terrible thing of the assassination of the President. Then they came back and they said, no, we are not going to let this theatre die, we are going to fix the fact that this was a dark, dark chapter in our country’s history and we are going to redo this theatre. And, now they’ve got things going on in that theatre that are full of life, joy and pleasure and wondrous things that are very human.

Will Rogers had an attitude that was quite wonderful, he said he knew what it was to be an Indian, he was a true American, evidently, a real American. He also realized that we had to move on and he said that "life wasn’t much until you considered the alternative." He said he was all for the first one.

He wanted to live life fully and well, and he certainly did. He influenced so, so many people.

Will Rogers was very critical about politicians. But he did it with love and he did it in a way that somehow they weren’t hurt by it. They may have been embarrassed by it, but most of them deserved it.

And, Will Rogers, one of his favorite people was Calvin Coolidge. Of course he’s known to all of you folks out here, because you’ve got a mountain named after Mr. Coolidge. Will Rogers said that Calvin Coolidge was one of the funniest men he ever met. He said, sometimes even intentionally so.

He said of Cal Coolidge that it was absolutely true that Cal Coolidge, "never did nothin" while he was president, but he said "he did it so well that he became famous." He said that Cal Coolidge could have had a third term as president, all he had to do is say "the first two terms I didn’t do nothin’."

He did a wonderful imitation of Cal Coolidge giving a State of the Union Address. And Will always held up the card, he tried to find it in his pockets and he finally found it and then he held it up and he said "State of the Union message by Calvin Coolidge." And then he said Coolidge always wore glasses whenever he delivered a speech. He said "he done that because it was the first time Calvin had seen the speech."

And then he began to read the speech. "State of the Union Message by Calvin Coolidge." First of all he said, "I want everyone here to pretend you’re present at this state of the Union message. You’re the Congress and you’re the military and you’re the Supreme Court. So please, let’s all pretend that this is a state of the union message by President Calvin Coolidge."

And then he started out this way. "I am proud to report," and then he stopped, Rogers did, and then he said. "No, no folks, this won’t work this way, you are all much too alert. Some of you go to sleep," he said, "and then we’ll get a sense of reality here." And then he went on. He said, "I am proud to report that the country as a whole is prosperous. I do not mean by that that the whole country is prosperous, but as a whole it is prosperous. Now a hole is not supposed to be prosperous, and we are certainly in a hole. There’s not a whole lot of doubt about that. And in conclusion: Everyone I come in contact with is doing well, they have to be doing well or they don’t come in contact with me."

Now that was Will Rogers in his comic mode. All of the criticism that Rogers leveled at the politicians, he always said, that everyone of them guys and gals down there in Washington "was no better and no worse than the folks that put them in there."

And he said they were a lot better than the folks that didn’t vote at all. He said not to worry about America. We’re hearing a lot of doom and gloom these days, and that was sixty, seventy, eighty years ago and we’re still hearing those gloomy Gusses. He said, don’t worry about it. He said, stopping America today would be like spitting on a railroad track to stop a freight train. It can’t be done.

"But," he said, "remember we’re going to do it in spite of our government, not because of it. He said we were going to do it because of the "normal American people that aren’t no members of any political party necessarily, they ain’t no members of any organization, either uplift or downfall. They are just folks trying to raise their kids and make sense out of this life," he said, "we’re gonna make it."

And then he said, at the end, "we’ve got to watch out for our liberties, we got to keep an eye on our liberties, because if we don’t watch them they’re gonna snatch ‘em. We’ve got to watch."

And he said, "Liberty is a funny thing." He said, "You know," he said, "some people feel that you should be at liberty to do anything to anybody anytime you want to." He said, "any boob knows that ain’t gonna work." He said, "What I think about it is that everyone of us in this country ought to be free to grab every speck of liberty we can get. But we’ve got to remember that we’re only gonna get as much liberty as we give." He said, "now that’s my definition of liberty," and he said, "of course your at liberty to pick your definition." He said, "You may not agree with me," he said, "and I may not see things your way, but that’s the essence of this country, ain’t it?"

He said, "I believe." And then he said, "don’t take yourself too seriously, have some fun in this life, we’re only here a very short time." And then he said, "just live your life so you wouldn’t be ashamed to sell the family parrot to the town gossip."