Mitch, Meet Roy Rogers

Len Morris and Petra Lent take Roy Rogers on a tour of his long-forgotten home movies

In 1990, I found myself in Portsmouth, Ohio filming a documentary on the life and career of Roy Rogers. Roy spent most of his childhood on a small farm nearby, in the tiny hamlet of Duck Run where there were easily more chickens than people. I visited Roy's aunt who was in her high eighties and remember the six home-made pies she had made for me and the crew – her country welcome.

Roy's father had worked shifts in a shoe factory in Portsmouth to make ends meet during the Depression. At one time the family even lived on a houseboat on the Ohio River which runs through town and serves as the boundary with neighboring Kentucky, Mitch McConnell's home base.

 When you cross the bridge from Ohio to Kentucky there is no real change that's immediately apparent. It all feels, looks and sounds like rural America.

Roy would say, about the behavior of men who put money first, " He wouldn't pay a nickel to see an ant eat a bale of hay."

Portsmouth and southern Ohio are southern in their culture. The radio plays country and western music. Trucks, beer, sausage and grits served by chain restaurants that sell pies of every variety are the norm and so is a graciousness and a warm welcome to visitors.

Making Roy Rogers, King of the Cowboys for American Movie Classics (1992), I came to know Roy and Dale Evans, his feisty film love interest and wife of 42 years. Roy was one of the most popular western movie stars in history, making 100 films. In the 1940’s and 50’s he set the gold standard for the honorable “cowboy code.” Personal honesty, hard work, empathy for others, kindness, philanthropy, faith and generosity were exactly what you got with Roy. These values were central to the Roy Rogers I knew and I can't help but think of him as I take in the public spectacle of Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell calling for a bankruptcy bill that will directly hurt the very people who protect and service the rural way of life that gave us Roy and is the heart of America.

From his perch as a life-long employee of American taxpayers who have sent Mitch to Congress from Kentucky for 36 years, we see a man removed from the reality of life in America. For Mitch, everything from his haircuts, transportation, healthcare, salary and retirement are all paid for by the American taxpayer. He doesn't wait in lines, he wants for nothing and he thinks bankruptcy is good for states. You can get into the weeds about the details but it's really pretty simple. Mitch wants to "starve the beast," that would be big government, while he feeds at the trough.

Among Mitch's Kentucky constituents are the very people states will be forced to fire unless they receive cash assistance in the next pandemic bill. These are the policemen that protect us, our teachers, doctors and nurses, social workers, home health aides that care for our elderly, child-care providers, transportation workers, the fine people who care for our veterans... the list goes on.

But Mitch isn't thinking about its effect on people with his budget moralizing; he sees blue votes or red votes. He smells power and the need to retain it at any cost. A life-long partisanship blinds him to what's happening already in Ohio and Kentucky and all across the country. Without significant state aid and more funds for hospitals, hot spots like Lucas County, Ohio and Hopkins County, Kentucky will be forced to lay off nurses, emergency personnel, police, fire, teachers at the height of a pandemic. Rural hospitals have already begun to close their doors even though the majority of Americans must drive a half hour or more to reach a hospital for the care they need.

States don't need bankruptcy. That's reserved for our President's business practice. They need financial help from the federal government, and they needed that help weeks ago. Meanwhile, the Senate is on recess until May 4th.  Think of it as paid vacation brought to you by the Leadership. That would be Mitch.

While the Senate Majority Leader is gripped with concern over national spending, choosing to help banks and his wealthy donors, his neighbors in Ohio and Kentucky are being victimized by their own Congress and in particular Mitch, who single-handedly blocks legislation providing help to all 50 states.

I would ride around with Roy in his minivan and listen to his music on the cassette machine. It was a favorite thing of his to do and even though I was an eastern filmmaker, fifty years his junior, he was a lot of fun to be with, very at ease with who he was... a country boy always.

The Morris family, Lizanne Donegan and Roy Rogers

Roy Rogers (aka Len Slye) was taking Len Morris on a tour of his life and music. That life in Duck Run looked a lot like my childhood visits to our family farm in Massie's Mill, Virginia. Roy's mom, Mattie shared the same first name as my grandmother Mattie, another farm girl.

A boy of the Depression, Roy had a way of describing a certain type of person he had little time for – cheapskates and money people who exploited others, who lacked feeling. He would ultimately make millions of dollars and become a business empire. But he'd travel the country exhaustively with his show to state fairs and give truckloads of merchandise to children or visit hospitals without press and bring the disabled children out of the shadows and into the front row to see him perform.

Roy would say, about the behavior of men who put money first, " He wouldn't pay a nickel to see an ant eat a bale of hay."

So, you have a clear choice to make, Mitch. You can help everyday Americans on the front lines of cities and towns and country hamlets, or you can be the kind of guy Roy would go out of his way to avoid. Your legacy is on the line.