The following stories are from the hard-to-find book, "Folks Say of Will Rogers," a compilation of memories of Will Rogers by many of his friends, relatives and acquaintances, compiled and edited by William Howard Payne and Jake G. Lyons and published in 1936 by G. P. Putnam's Sons.

I'll transcribe an entry from the book into this site occasionally, inserting stories from the following historical figures:

Charles M. Schwab: It is difficult for me to write you an anecdote about my good friend the late Will Rogers. He was so much the master of anecdotes that I would not know how to do him justice.

I do think of one phase of his character which has perhaps been overlooked. On numerous times when I met him I was always impressed with his thoroughness at his job. While some of the public addresses which he made were in a sense extemporaneous, yet he was always the trooper who studied his audience and what would interest them. I recall, for example, that he and I were both on the program several years ago at the annual dinner of the Association of Newspaper Publishers. Early in the dinner, Mer. Rogers made an excuse to get away from the head table and I noticed he sat at different tables around the room, studying the acoustics and noticing the reaction of the audience to the different speakers. I was impressed by the sincerity of this. He was even then near the height of his world-wide fame, but he did not consider himself too big to study each job at is came along and to give his best to each audience where he appeared.

Another thing that impressed me about Will Rogers on that occasion was the fact that beneath his sense of humor was a real concern for the national welfare. He met some of us after the dinner and talked about some of the diplomatic and political aspects he had noted on a recent foreign tour. His observations were shrewd and to the point. I think of him as a humorist, of course; but first of all, as a great, fine, big-hearted fellow with more shrewd good sense than one usually finds in any one human being.

President Franklin Delano Roosevelt: In addition to my deep appreciation of his marvelous humor, the first time that I fully realized Will Rogers' exceptional and deep understanding of political adn social problems was when he came back from his long European trip a good many years ago. While I had discussed European matters with many others, both American and foreign, Will Rogers' analysis of affairs abroad was not only more interesting but proved to be more accurate than any other I had heard.

William S. Hart

Cecil B. DeMille

Fred Stone

Eddie Cantor

Harry Care

Pawnee Bill (Major Gordon W. Lillie)

George Jessel: I have known Will Rogers since I was a little kid with Gus Edwards, and have loved him for twenty-five years. That's a long time in this game of ours, this series of ups and downs, artificialities, insincerities - this amusement world that we live in.

I knew him in his simple moods as a cowboy who had gone on the stage. And, in later years, I have spoken from the same platform with him when he was equal to the greatest of statesmen.

In 1912-13 we were on the Orpheum circuit together. Eddie Cantor and myself were in a kid act. Will was just starting to talk on the stage while he did his roping.

The years have gone by - much water has gone under the bridge since then - but there are some sweet things that stay with us always. And the older you get the closer they snuggle in your heart.

Will was captain of our ball team, and at the end of the season we kids got together and presented him with a little silver cup. I remember him standing out on the stage in Spokane, Washington. He took the little cup and his eyes filled up and he couldn't find words. All I remember him saying was, "That's mighty sweet of you little fellows."

I remember him knocking on our dressing room door and saying: "Hey, you fellows, we got a little girl at our house!"

Gosh, how happy he was! I think that was the day Mary was born. We had a dinner that night, all of us from the little vaudeville shows in the town.

I remember saying, "Next on the program is a cowboy who can talk." Twenty years later, I introduced him in the great ballroom of the Commodore Hotel, saying, "And now, ladies and gentlemen, the greatest and most beloved humorist since Mark Twain: Will Rogers."

Lois B. Mayer: One of the most interesting of Will Rogers' associations was with the studio where he first starred in motion pictures. Today this is the Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer Studios. Rogers, when it was opened as the Triangle Studios by Thomas Ince in 1915, was one of the first of its stars. He left pictures, returned to the stage, and thence back to pictures with the Fox Organization with the advent of sound. But there was always a warm spot in his heart for the studio where h first achieved fame before a camera.

Will's visits were frequent. He often attended luncheons, dinners, and other functions given there for prominent visitors by Louis B. Mayer, head of the studio and a close personal friend, and on those occasions his talks, sometimes humorous, sometimes full of his homely philosophy, were things long to be remembered.

Because guests were usually public officials or national characters, much of his sly humor was directed toward politics. During the visit of Governor Harry Nice of Maryland, who was being mentioned as presidential timber for the Republicans, Rogers paid high tribute to the man, his attainments, his human qualities. "And so, Governor," he concluded, "I hope they don't nominate you for president. Seems a shame to me that such a fine fellow as you should taste the bitterness of defeat!"

Invited to a studio party, he wrote a note of regrets on one occasion explaining that, "I am not much of a party man; ain't even joined the Democrats!"

Governors of various states, when in California on a convention tour, were guests at a luncheon. Rogers, addressing them, talked of roads and national reforms. I was acting as Chairman of the California State Central Committee, and turning to me, he remarked: "I never dreamed that I'd ever see so many Democrats eating off Louis B. Mayer!"

One of his classic remarks is reported by Wallace Beery. They were seated together at graduation exercises in a Beverly Hills school, in the class of which were young relatives of both.

"Ain't it a grand thing, Wally, that you and I were smart enough to pick out an occupation where a feller doesn't have to get educated?" he commented.

One of the most charming and touching expressions of a nation's affection was voiced by Rogers at the great birthday party tendered the late Marie Dressler. It was being internationally broadcast. Messages of congratulation to the star had poured in from all over the world. Famous speakers vied with each other for superlatives to describe the love in which she was iniversally held.

Rogers got up and mopped his brow.

"I've been thinkin'," he said, "of a lot of big words to sort of describe this big love we all have for Marie, but somehow all these big words don't seem to be big enough. You see, love is a funny kind of feeling. There's pride in it, and a sort of sense of possession, too. Like when you hear young couple speak of 'our home' or 'our baby.' That word 'our' sort of expresses everything they mean - something they're all wrapped up in, something they love better than anything in the world. And that's how it is tonight. She's our Marie - and I guess that's about everything a feller can say."

Amos 'n' Andy (Freeman F. Gosden and Charles J. Correll): During our long radio career, thousands of people have inquired: "What was your greatest thrill since entering radio?" Strange as it may seem, our greatest thrill was not experienced while in a broadcasting studio, but while at home listening to a radio program of Will Rogers, and the thrill of our career was hearing Will imitate Amos 'n' Andy. It was by far the best we ever heard, yet in a wire which Rogers sent us the following morning he not only apologized for his imitation, but referred to it as, "A bum job!"

Irvin S. Cobb

Ed Sullivan

Will H. Hays

Will James

Herbert Hoover

One of my favorite Will Rogers stories came from Patsy Montana.

I performed with Patsy Montana in the 1994, in a grange hall in Northern California. A large bake sale was under way during the show and while another performer was on the stage I went to the kitchen with Patsy to check out the food. She said she left her purse backstage and asked if I would buy her a piece of pie. I jumped at the chance to pick up the tab and share a table and conversation with her.

Our conversation drifted around and managed to touch on Will Rogers. She appeared introspective as she recalled meeting Will Rogers at a rodeo in Oklahoma. "He was eating peanuts, and he gave me one of those peanuts." Then she smiled and said to me, "I should have kept that peanut."

She told me, "I recorded 'I Want to Be a Cowboy's Sweetheart' on the very same day that Will Rogers was killed." Patsy Montana's recording of that song became the first million selling record by a female vocalist in country music.

Patsy Montana died in her home in Los Angeles on May 3, 1996. She was 87. She was inducted into the Country Music Hall of Fame that same year.