Second, when I started a new venture, I always kept on ace in the hole. Military experts
say that the first principle of fighting a battle is to keep your line of supplies open. I figure
that that principle applies to personal battles almost as much as to military battles. For
example, as a lad down in Texas and Oklahoma, I saw some real poverty when the
country was devastated by droughts. We had mighty hard scratching at times to make a
living. We were so poor that my father used to drive across the country in a covered
wagon with a string of horses and swap horses to make a living. I wanted something
more reliable than that. So I got a job working for a railway-station agent and learned
telegraphy in my spare time. Later, I got a job working as relief operator for the Frisco
Railway. I was sent here, there, and yonder to relieve other station agents who were ill
or on vacation or had more work than they could do. That job paid $150 per month.
Later, when I started out to better myself, I always figured that that railroad job meant
economic safety. So I always kept the road open back to that job. It was my line of
supplies, and I never cut myself off from it until I was firmly established in a new and
better position.
For example, back in 1928, when I was working as a relief operator for the Frisco
Railway in Chelsea, .Oklahoma, a stranger drifted in one evening to send a telegram.
He heard me playing the guitar and singing cowboy songs and told me I was good-told
me that I ought to go to New York and get a job on the stage or radio. Naturally, I was
flattered; and when I saw the name he signed to his telegram, I was almost breathless:
Will Rogers.
Instead of rushing off to New York at once, I thought the matter over carefully for nine
months. I finally came to the conclusion that I had nothing to lose and everything to gain
by going to New York and giving the old town a whirl. I had a railroad pass: I could travel
free. I could sleep sitting up in my seat, and I could carry some sandwiches and fruit for
my meals.
So I went. When I reached New York, I slept in a furnished room for five dollars a week,
ate at the Automat, and tramped the streets for ten weeks-and got nowhere. I would
have been worried sick if I hadn't had a job to go back to. I had already worked for the
railway five years. That meant I had seniority rights; but in order to protect those rights, I
couldn't lay off longer than ninety days. By this time, I had already been in New York
seventy days, so I rushed back to Oklahoma on my pass and began working again to
protect my line of supply. I worked for a few months, saved money, and returned to New
York for another try. This time I got a break. One day, while waiting for an interview in a
recording-studio office, I played my guitar and sang a song to the girl receptionist:
"Jeannine, I Dream of Lilac Time". While I was singing that song, the man who wrote it-
Nat Schildkraut- drifted into the office. Naturally, he was pleased to hear anyone singing
his song. So he gave me a note of introduction and sent me down to the Victor
Recording Company. I made a record. I was no good-too stiff and self-conscious. So I
took the advice of the Victor Recording man: I went back to Tulsa, worked for the
railway by day, and at night I sang cowboy songs on a sustaining radio programme. I
liked that arrangement. It meant that I was keeping my line of supplies open- so I had no
worries.
I sang for nine months on radio station KVOO in Tulsa. During that time, Jimmy Long
and I wrote a song entitled "That Silver-Haired Daddy of Mine". It caught on. Arthur
Sattherly, head of the American Recording Company, asked me to make a recording. It
clicked. I made a number of other recordings for fifty dollars each, and finally got a job
singing cowboy songs over radio station WLS in Chicago. Salary: forty dollars a week.
After singing there four years, my salary was raised to ninety dollars a week, and I