Tuesday, November 4, 2025

Will Rogers, born 4 November 1879, and apparently a prophet of sorts

A hand-tinted studio portrait of a middle-aged man with neatly combed brown hair, wearing a dark suit and white shirt with a tie, smiling directly at the viewer. His expression conveys genial confidence, with bright eyes and a mischievous warmth suggesting both wit and approachability. The subtle tinting of his lips and skin gives the photograph an early 20th-century charm, bridging the line between photographic realism and painterly artifice. Inscribed faintly in cursive at the bottom left are the words “Yours, Will Rogers,” identifying the sitter as the beloved American humourist and social commentator. The portrait embodies the genial populism and understated sophistication of its era—an image at once intimate, idealised, and emblematic of a figure who made comedy a form of moral conscience.
Wikimedia Commons

“The trouble with practical jokes is that very often they get elected.” One can but conjecture what the great Will Rogers—among the most incisive and quotable of all Americans—might utter were he confronted with Donald Trump and the maelstrom of incivility and wilful ignorance that now characterises the former United States. I strongly surmise that his judgment would be anything but kind. —Arthur Newhook, 4 November 2025.

Copyright 2025, Arthur Newhook.

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Will Rogers, born 4 November 1879, and apparently a prophet of sorts

Wikimedia Commons “The trouble with practical jokes is that very often they get elected.” One can but conjecture what the great Will Rogers...