Humorist Will Rogers gave final interview to Milwaukee Journal — in Alaska
Humorist and movie star Will Rogers gave his last-ever interview to a Milwaukee Journal reporter. In Alaska. How did a reporter from Milwaukee wind up chatting up the most famous and beloved figure of his time in one of the most remote parts of the United States?
It took one ambitious social experiment; one intrepid journalist; and one showbiz legend on a mission.
First, the social experiment: In 1935, the federal government sent out a call for people to resettle land in the Matanuska Valley in southern Alaska. More than 200 families from northern Wisconsin, Minnesota and Michigan signed up.
Arville Schaleben, a star reporter at The Journal in the 1930s, set out to tell the colonists’ story. In an April 26, 1935, story, he explained why the new settlers — more than 1,000 in all — took the plunge:
“When you see before you the adversity they have suffered, it is inspiring indeed to find them still brimful of fight,” Schaleben wrote. “They come out of their shacks, set amidst twisted stumps or slashings or outcropping rocks, and say simply and stoutly:
“‘This is our chance. We’re ready. We want to be independent and make our own living. We think we can do it up there.’ “
Schaleben lived with the families in Alaska for four months, filing stories by radio for The Journal and the North American Newspaper Alliance.
That same summer, Rogers, one of America’s leading evangelists of air travel, joined aviator Wiley Post on a high-profile trip flying north from Seattle to Alaska in Post’s jury-rigged seaplane.
In 1935, Rogers was the king of all media before anyone knew what that meant: the movies’ top box-office star, a popular radio performer and a columnist whose writings ran in hundreds of newspapers — including The Journal, which had had Rogers on its front page since 1926.
But more than that, Rogers was beloved. He was the “Daily Show” of his time, regularly skewering government and business leaders in ways that felt neither false nor mean. One of his bestknown sayings was, “I never met a man I didn’t like,” and most people believed him.
On Aug. 14, 1935, Rogers and Post took a side trip into Alaska’s Matanuska Valley to check out the colony.
“You got a mighty nice place here,” Rogers told Schaleben in a front-page story in The Journal on Aug. 15. “We saw some colonists. Caught one guy just moving his stove in. I said, ‘I’d just as soon be moving in with him.’ “
Then Rogers added: “Say, you’re a newspaper man, ain’tcha? I kinda thought there’d be one looking around here.”
Rogers and Post returned to Anchorage and Fairbanks, where they continued their trip.
The next day, Aug. 15, Rogers wrote a column about the colonists and he and Post returned to their journey. Not long after, the plane developed engine trouble and plunged to earth, killing both men.
Rogers was 55; Post was 36.
As the news spread of Rogers’ death, the world went into mourning. In its extensive coverage of
the crash in its Aug. 16, 1935, edition, The Journal reported that, within minutes of radio reports that Rogers had died, the newspaper’s telephone exchange was swamped by callers hoping it was fake news.
“He was just like a friend,” one woman said, according to The Journal. “He seemed as close as anybody I know.”
The Journal also published Rogers’ last dispatch, just below the front-page story on his death, about his visit to the Alaska colony, where he said “things have been a terrible mess,” especially the lack of permanent housing.
“After all,” Rogers concluded, “there is a lot of difference (between) pioneering for gold and pioneering for spinach.”
Schaleben, who was the only reporter to spend any amount of time in the Matanuska colony during its first year, returned to Milwaukee about a month later, but he made several trips back to Alaska over the years to report on the colonists’ efforts there.
In a column in The Journal on Nov. 5, 1979, marking the centennial of Rogers’ birth, Schaleben, who worked at The Journal for 42 years before retiring in 1972, remembered that afternoon visit in 1935. (Schaleben died in 1999 at age 92.)
“The Rogers charm was amazing,” he wrote. “… When Will grinned, the audience practically doubled up with laughter.”