A story of Will Rogers with H. Stanley Coffin, Washington State banker and sheep baron, told by Mr. Coffin's granddaughter, Mrs. David H. Reid: "Will Rogers had been invited to speak to the Yakima Lions Club some time in the late 1920s. He came, but never got to the meeting because the two boys were having such fun playing polo. I think it was at the Yakima Fairgrounds. My grandfather started a local club after learning the game in Argentina on a trip in 1927. He kept some horses there for that purpose. Several Lions Club members were pretty mad at my grandfather about this!" (This story doesn't seem to fit with the actual events of Will Rogers' 1927 visit, but it's the story Mrs. David Reid had for me.)

Will Rogers gave a performance in Yakima, Washington, on March 26, 1927. The following articles appeared in local newspapers before and after the show:

Yakima Daily Republic, March 24, 1927

DUDLY TO GREET BEVERLY MAYOR

Will Rogers, international humorist and mayor of Beverly Hills, will be introduced to the people of Yakima tomorrow evening by mayor W.B. Dudley. Rogers is to speak at the armory under the auspicies of the public schools. Reservations have already come from Roslyn and Richland and all the points between.

Rogers is frankly of the opinion that the United States is "too willing to butt in and try to help other nations fix up their musses." As for the Nicaraguan situation, he adds that "we are trying to tell those folks who they elected president when the Lord knows that not a single United States senator elected at the last election is going to be able to take his seat because we can't agree on whether he was elcted or not." At the conclusion of his lecture, which according to custom will include a number of strictly local hits, Rogers will give a demonstration of his skill with the lariat to show that he throws the rope with the same abandon that he slings the bull.

(Interesting to note that a later review said Rogers had no introduction, while this article said the mayor would introduce him.)

Yakima Daily Republic, Friday, March 25, 1927

NOTHING DOING ROPING BUFFALO FOR WILL ROGERS

Noted Humorist Arrives Early This Morning to Put in His Day at Real Work

Hard Task to Be Funny

Will Speak This Evening at Armory Under Auspices of the Public Schools

Being a humorist is a serious business with Will Rogers, who arrived in Yakima this morning and will talk this evening in the armory under the auspices of the public schools.

Rogers started his public career as a vaudeville entertainer doing roping stunts about 20 years ago. Now that he has made his reputation, theatrical managers in New York City can't understand why he wants to go out on the road, but he likes it. He likes meeting new people, and visiting with them, learning about other towns and meeting new cow boys, he says.

"Roping buffalo?" he repeated when asked if he would accept the invitation of O.D. Gibson to go out and try his skill on the Gibson buffalo herd today. "Who's going to rope buffalo? I can't, why, I couldn't even rope a goat, let alone a buffalo. I really would like to go out and see them, though, and if I can find the time will do it."

Yakima Daily Republic, March 26, 1927

WILL ROGERS MAKES GREAT HIT WITH LARGE AUDIENCE

Humorist Compares Yakima and Tennessee; One Worries About Gopher, Other Monkey

Know why the movement to recall Hartley died down? Take it from Will Rogers, it was because the recallers couldn't find 90,000 people in the state who could write their own names - everybody signs petitions regardless! That was but one of the "wise cracks" with which Rogers filled his talk last night and which held the interest of the 1200 people in the armory for over 2 hours despite the uncomfortable chairs and decided chill. Paid admissions totaled $995, of which Rogers received 80 percent.

Tennessee, according to Rogers has the monkey problem while Yakima has the gopher problem, because it wants to tunnel under the railroad tracks while Tennesseans don't want to jump off the limb. Rogers had his audience with him and for him from the moment when, disdaining any help or introduction, he hopped on the platform - a sizeable jump - and leaned comfortably on one of the pillars with the drawl that this was about the nicest place he had found to lecture in and that he guessed he'd carry a pillar around for leaning purposes after this. Just then the pretty teachers who had been ushering marched down to take the front seats reserved for them and Rogers indignantly wanted to know why they were alone - after which he panned the youths of the audience for their neglect. In his talk, Rogers covered the whole field of national and international politics, moral issues of the day, clothes, prohibition, and the like and his audience insisted that he give several encores by continuing his rambling remarks which always some to a joyously unexpected point. As a grand finale, Rogers did stunts with his rope and at the same time kept up a running line of talk - as he said, free - and was not permitted to stop until he fled from the building.

Yakima Morning Herald, March 26, 1927:

NOTED HUMORIST PLEASES YAKIMA

Will Rogers Convulses Large Audience in Armory With Witty Monologue Overlying Philosophical Beliefs

When his audience was not convulsed with laughter it was chuckling and when it was not chuckling it was catching its breath to laugh again during the two hours Will Rogers held the stage in the national guard armory Friday night.

More than 800 persons grinned and guffawed at the famous comedian's jokes and antics. His running fire of wit and humor touched on national and international personages and problems, styles and human foibles, spiced with local color and topped with an exhibition of deft rope spinning. Rogers needed no one to introduce him. With his jaws working vigorously on a wad of gum, and hands in pockets, he walked down the aisle, leaped to the platform and launched his monologue.

Girls Get Dig
"Your mayor asked me how the 'Vanities' were dressed and so I told him how bad they were. Whey they've just as badly dressed as the girls you see on the streets. You know, girls, don't you follow fashions any further than you are physically able. I've always maintained that concealment has lead more men to the altar than exposure ever did. As for the youths of the country, they need narrower pants and broader ideas."

Marketing Touched
"We all go in for cooperative marketing when we have a big crop and prices are low. The beautiful thing about cooperative marketing is that you always know your neighbors are being done as bad as you are. We all go broke together,.
"What the farmer ought to do is pass more resolutions and fewer filling stations. He needs to trade his speedometer for an alarm clock.
"You know I'm mayor of Beverly Hills, the decentest end of Hollywood. It's no more a joke being mayor of Beverly Hills than being mayor of any town. All the rest of the mayors are jokes, too. If more mayors left town when they were elected the towns would be better off."

Regents Barred
"I'm like Governor Hartley. I'm agin regents. I'm also agin alumni. If all the alumni were drowned the universities would be run better. When a student gets a diploma he thinks he has a deed to the university and spends the rest of his life telling how to run it.
"Ireland is our best friend. The Irish don't owe us and they don't hate us. Those European countries don't hate us as bad as they hate each other, 'cause they've only started in hating us.
"America is having an epidemic of disarmament. We don't feel good unless we break a gun every day. I don't know why we think we're overly armed. At that conference five years ago we agreed that for every battleship those other nations built we'd sink one. Why we wouldn't break our agreement if we had to build a battleship and then sink it. I don't know what started this epidemic of disarmament."

Geography Praised
"America never lost a war and never won a conference. We can't even confer with Mexico without coming home with our shirt torn. If the time ever comes when you have to vote for a war or a conference, vote for the war. The boys will have the war all finished before a conference could get started.
"Geography has been good to us. The egg who made America, whoever he was, was a good guy. It's all right for us to talk about what we've done and rub it into other nations, but we're not any smarter. Just lucky, that's all.
"In Germany, every time they cut down a tree they plant two. In America every time we cut down a tree, we sit down on the stump, roll a cigarette, light it and throw the match away and burn up the whole grove."

Subway Alluded To
"Coolidge is the nicest little fellow when you get acquainted with him. Quiet. He doesn't say much because he hasn't much to say.
"Mussolini, he's the biggest thing in the world today. Anyone who can put those dagoes to work is some guy.
"In Tennessee evolution is their big problem. Just like your problem here of trying to dig under the railroad tracks."

Rogers, who looks like a cowboy and talks with the directness of a cowboy, arrived in Yakima from Seattle Friday morning, accompanied by his secretary, B.W. Quisenberry of Joplin, Mo., and Walter Ricks of Portland, his northwestern tour manager. He spent the morning in his suite in the Commercial hotel tapping out talk material on his portable typewriter and in the afternoon spent several hours on the Yakima Polo club's grounds in the South Broadway District, where he was escorted by H. Stanley Coffin, O. D. Gibson and Fred Ross.

Rogers Plays Polo
Mounted on one of Coffin's polo mounts, Rogers slapped the bamboo root up and down the field, talking to his horse when he wasn't chatting with the men.
"Off-hand I'd say this is the fastest polo field in the northwest," he remarked.
Last week he scrimmaged with the (illegible) team and Thursday played on the Olympic Riding club's field in Seattle. Mention horses and his blue eyes gleam. Talk polo and he's afire with enthusiasm. He just built his own private field at Santa Monica and is training his two sons and daughter, Mary, to play the game.
"I'd rather ride any old horse, cold blood or thoroughbred than talk," he commented, and he evidently meant what he said.
From the polo grounds he was taken to the Congdon & Battles ranch where he renewed acquaintanceship with O. V. Battles, whom he met in Kansas City last year.