On this day in Labor History the year was 1879.
That was the day that Will Rogers was born in Oologah, Indian Territory, in what later became Oklahoma.
Rogers grew up on a ranch, and by 10thgrade had dropped out of school to be a cowboy.
Skilled with a lasso, he became a cowboy entertainer first in vaudeville then in silent film.
Rogers also had a syndicated column and a radio show where he became a popular political commentator.
With quick wit and humor Rogers helped to shape public opinion.
He brought humor to serious issues in a way later echoed by the likes of John Stewart and Stephen Colbert.
Rogers often talked about the plight of the American worker.
In 1931 he was asked to give a radio address for President Herbert Hoover’s Organization on Unemployment.
Rogers expressed the urgency of the unemployment that was sweeping the nation during the Great Depression.
He said, “The only problem that confronts this country today is at least 7,000,000 people are out of work.
That’s our only problem. There is no other one before us at all. It's to see that every man that wants to is able to work, is allowed to find a place to go to work, and also to arrange some way of getting a more equal distribution of the wealth in country…So here we are in a country with more wheat and more corn and more money in the bank, more cotton, more everything in the world—there’s not a product that you can name that we haven't got more of it than any other country ever had on the face of the earth—and yet we’ve got people starving.”
January 25 - Solidarity Works!
January 24 - Arturo Alfonso Schomburg is Born
January 23 - If Poison Doesn’t Work, Try Briggs!
January 22 - Tragedy in the Mines & in the Union Hall
January 21 - On Strike for Health & Dignity
January 20 - The Flint Womens Emergency Brigades
January 19 - A Snapshot in Misery
January 18 - Is Colorado in America?
January 17 - Standing Against Wage Theft
January 15 - We Want to Live, Not Just Exist
January 14 - The Rise of the Bellamyites
January 13 - Johnny Cash Plays Folsom Prison
January 12 - The Cost of Wartime Industrial Peace
January 11 - Battle of the Running Bulls
January 10 - The Rise of Settlement Houses
January 9 - Courts Stand Against Workers
January 8 - Oil Workers Walk Out Across the Country
January 7 - Tragic Youngstown Massacre
January 6 - Remembering Ida Tarbell
January 5 - Ohio First to Enact Black Laws
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