A famous national debate almost happens between Claudius O. Johnson, chair of the WSC Political Science Department and humorist / actor Will Rogers.  Johnson gives a speech for the Pullman PTA in December of 1932, and in the course of the evening cautions people against accepting Rogers’ expertise on foreign policy issues. Some of his comments are soon reprinted in the Pullman Herald, and several people forward copies of the article to Rogers.  The comedian sends a telegram back to the Pullman Herald, threatening to come up and debate Johnson.  The offer is gleefully accepted, and for many months thereafter the proposed debate is both bandied about in the press and discussed in telegrams between Johnson and Rogers.  Will Rogers describes the debate as “Ignorance vs. Knowledge – and I’m going to be Ignorance.”

The two correspond for a few months thereafter, but their final exchange comes in March of 1933.  Though the proposed debate gains a public life of its own, it never comes about. The death of Rogers and Wiley Post in a 1935 Alaskan plane crash forever ends the possibility, though the passage of time would turn this almost into an urban legend, reframing it with Rogers fatally canceling the debate at the last moment in favor of the Alaska trip.