Will Rogers Recycled

"I have been accused of being worried over this 'inflation.' I wasn't worried. I was just confused... When you are worried, you know what you are worried about, but when you are confused you don't know enough about a thing to be worried."

Those lines, which recently appeared in more than 150 U.S. newspapers, might have been written by any contemporary columnist last week, except perhaps for the dated, folksy tone. In fact, they were composed by the late Will Rogers 41 years ago. Since early March, Rogers' wry, apt commentaries on U.S. life in the '20s and early '30s have been resuscitated in a daily column syndicated by the Des Moines Register and Tribune. Usually the pieces have uncannily current impact.

Edited into dollops of 150 to 300 words and titled simply "Will Rogers Says," the Oklahoma folk philosopher's recycled columns have something telling to say about all sorts of contemporary issues. Plea-bargaining by Watergate defendants? "It seems if he is lucky enough to get convicted, or confesses, why, he has a great chance of coming clear," Rogers wrote in a 1928 column on criminal-court procedures. Women's lib? "Imagine the idea that woman couldn't live happily at home and have an active mind" (1925). Gun control? "I see where a lot of men are advocating letting everybody carry guns, with the idea that they will be able to protect themselves. In other words, just make a civil war out of this crime wave" (1925). The energy crisis? "It's a question what we can convert these 4 billion filming stations into in years to come" (1928). The spirit behind the Rogers reincarnation is Bryan Sterling, 52, a Vienna-born freelance writer who settled in the U.S. after fleeing the Nazi occupation. Rogers died in a plane crash in 1935. Sterling began hearing Rogers quoted in the late 1950s; he read a biography of the humorist (Our Will by Homer Croy) and was struck by the way Rogers' homespun humor crossed language and cultural barriers. "I thought I was the only one who knew about him," Sterling recalls. "I thought, 'What a great mind!'"

Sterling (original name: Bruno Zwerling) began amassing a collection of memorabilia that now includes four filing cabinets stuffed with 13 years of Rogers' columns and other writings. He decided that Rogers' country wit and wisdom "deserved to be read again." Sterling keys his selections to current headlines, but does not try to edit out now obscure references or names. He believes that the vintage flavor of the columns adds to their basic appeal: "When people read Will Rogers, they realize that much of what we are going through has happened before, that we've already lived through this."

At its peak, Rogers' original column ran in 500 papers and reached about 40 million readers. An estimated 10 million are witnessing the current revival, and response has been enthusiastic. Sterling reports heavy mail, not only from old Rogers buffs but also from younger readers who are seeing him in print for the first time. Presumably, they find that events today tend to bear out Sterling's favorite Rogers line: "Any man who thinks civilization has advanced is an egotist."

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