The Cavalcade of America, presented by DuPont. Songs of Stephen Foster, an American legend, narrated by Channing Bonner. The DuPont Company, makers of better things for better living through chemistry, tonight presents a man who knows and is known by all America. His lectures have taken him to almost every city in the country, and his books and plays, notably The House Beautiful, The Fool, and The Enemy, have brought him distinction as one of America's foremost men of letters. He is Channing Pollock, and in this radio portrait of America singing, he will act as our narrator, as we offer tribute to a man who touched life and found song. Stephen Foster, whose melodies have an important place in the cavalcade of America. Sometimes I think the history of peoples is written in their music, not so much in the works of great composers as in songs that come from the souls of humble men and women. Tennyson said, the song that serves a nation's heart is in itself a deed, and what deeds have echoed in or been inspired by our country's melodies. Victor Herbert told me once that he thought no song survived that did not bring tears to the eyes or cause some human being to reach out for the touch of another. The novelist Zola said we have only four elemental things, love, hunger, birth, and death. There was a man who expressed those things in song. His name was Stephen Foster, and his songs are deathlessly dear to us because of their common touch. One of them may be our earliest memory. Close your eyes. That's a good boy. Go to sleep, honey. Beautiful dreamer, wake unto me. Starlight and dewdrops are waiting for thee. Songs of the room, love, and death. What's in your heart? My heart is in your heart. My heart is in your heart. My heart is in your heart. Love, by the moonlight I go past the way. When I was a very young author, a famous dramatist told me, if you write of love for sweetheart or wife or husband or child or home, you write of what the world knows. For every man of us there was a certain girl, the most beautiful girl in the world. And for Stephen Foster, there was Jeannie. Jeannie, I thought you'd be alone. I'm sorry, Stephen. I didn't know you were calling this evening. You know Mr. Richard Cowan? Evening, Mr. Cowan. Glad to know you, sir. You see, Stephen, Mr. Cowan... I'm sure Mr. Foster feels no embarrassment. I certainly don't. Very plain to see, Mr. Cowan. I'm sure you two gentlemen will want to know each other better. Mr. Cowan is in law, Stephen. Stephen writes songs. Interesting. I knew a chap once who wrote songs. I knew a lawyer once. Ten o'clock. I had no idea it was so late. No, I... I'm afraid I must take my leave now, Miss Jeannie. It's time a gentleman retires. Thank you for a most charming evening. It was kind of you to call, Mr. Cowan. Good night. Good night, Miss Jeannie. Going my way, sir? No. Stephen. Well, I really must get on now. Good night again, Miss Jeannie, and thank you. Stephen, really, how could you be so rude? Mr. Cowan is one of our up-and-coming young men. Stephen, stop playing that piano and listen. Stephen. Jeannie. Sit down here with me. Well, I shouldn't. I want your answer. Is it yes or no? My answer, Stephen? Yes or no? It's yes, Stephen. Oh, Jeannie. Oh, my dear, sweet Jeannie, I... Yes, darling. Oh, Jeannie. I'm not much good, but I'll do my best for you. I'll try to make you happy. I know you will, Stephen. Oh, my dear, sweet Jeannie, I... I'm not much good, but I'll do my best for you. I see the breathing where the bright wings play, Happy as the lazy that dance on the way. Many were the wild ones, and many were the strong, Many were the brave ones, But one bird can know. Oh, I dream of Jeannie with a light brown hand, Learning life of paper on the song of the wind. I long for Jeannie and my home alone, Nevermore will find her. Jeannie with a light brown hair. America sang it then, and we are singing it tonight. There have been and there are millions of Jeannies. There will be millions more. Maybe one of them is sitting beside you this minute. Maybe her hair is light brown and maybe it's gray, And the sight of her brings back memories of glad moments And sad ones together. Love is a song, and song is the universal language. We all know it. The darkies on a plantation, the fiddler at a country dance, And they knew it too in the America that was expanding to the West. Hardship and danger couldn't daunt these pioneers, And with the morning sun at their backs they found song in their hearts too. At dawn they were ready to shove off. Somewhere in Missouri a cabin would stand empty, The woods closing in around it. Right now, Pa and his two tall sons are loading the bedding into the wagon. Easy with that parcel, Jim. Name's Morris Cawdrey. All right. All right. Easy does it, Pa. Are you ready, Ma? Yeah, just tying on my bonnet. You youngins make yourself a place in the back. Pa and me and Jim will ride the buckboard. I want to get in the car. Well, I reckon we're not ready to go. Look at them harness again, Jim. I want to have no trouble. No, they're plumb secure, Pa. Well, I reckon we'd better start. Yeah, yeah. Not just yet, though, Pa. Much trouble, huh? I figured we all sort of ought to take a last look at the old place. It'd be kind of lonesome without us. Yeah, yeah. I reckon you're right, Ma. Yeah. Go ahead now. Start the mule, Jim. Get up there, Bess. Get up, Jimmy. Get up. Well, it'll be a long ways, but it'll be a pretty way, Ma. The sun's shining on the plains as far as you can see, like the book Jim was reading, isn't it? And there'll be us all together. The youngins playing the tune like right now, huh? Maybe you're right, Pa. The right cheery tune is playing now, ain't it? Yeah, it's a new one we heard to dance, Ma. Remember, they called it out? Written by an Eastern fella. They can't think of his name. I come from Alabama. My country's like Susanna. Oh, I come from Alabama with a banjo on my knee. I'd like to lose the anemone to the father's seat. It rained all night today, I left, the weather it was dry. The sun's so hot, I froze to the death. Susanna, don't you cry. Oh, Susanna, oh, don't cry for me. I come from Alabama with a banjo on my knee. Hey, Wilkie! Carry back, hitting that album on your banjo. Caleb, I'm here waving. Coming down to men. And a clarifying, boy. You must have been practicing. Thanks, Caleb. But now I'm a hanker to hear you get sentimental on that last verse. Well, if I can remember the words. I had a dream the other night when everything was still. I thought I saw Susanna dear coming down the hill. The buckweed cake was in her mouth, the tear was in her eyes. I said, I'm coming from the South. Ooh, that's pretty, Gale. Susanna, don't you cry. Oh, Susanna, oh, don't cry for me. I come from Alabama with a banjo on my knee. With a banjo on my knee. Oh, Susanna, don't cry. Not one family, but thousands of families. Not one voice, but thousands of voices. And all singing, oh, Susanna, as America marched westward over the prairies. That is the spirit of America. There are still planes to cross. There are still frontiers and dangers to be faced and problems to be met. May we face and meet them together. A united America with America first in our hearts, courage still in our souls, and a song still on our lips as in the days of 49. Home is any place where the world is shut out. Or as James Whitcomb Riley said, any place that holds love and the smiling face of her. That's the kind of a home Stephen Foster dreamed about as he took Jeannie down the Mississippi for their honeymoon. And they stood on the deck of the old Riverside Wheeler. Happy, darling. So very happy, Stephen. I think this is the loveliest night of all. The moon's almost full, isn't it? Mm-hmm. Look, Jeannie, the lights of that plantation aren't sure. Yes, beautiful. It's like the end of a song. A song I must write. Well, that's us, Jeannie. You and I. We'll have a home. May not be as nice as that plantation, but it'll be ours. We'll have it, and we'll have ourselves and our memories there. The sun shines bright in the old and now deep old. This summer the darkies are gay. The corn talks bright and the meadow gives the blue. While the birds make music all the day. The moon shines bright in the old and now deep old. We come on by making music. Oh, we come on by. We will sing one song. For the old and not the young. For the old and not the young. And as that old Mississippi steamboat turned on through the night, the enchantment and the soft fading lights of the river plantations wove dreams of longing in the mind of Stephen Foster. And we all know what he felt whenever we hear my old Kentucky home. We have so many memories, so many customs vanished and gone. For example, nothing was ever more American than the old-time minstrel show. Many of Stephen Foster's songs were first heard in minstrel shows. There was E.P. Christie's Sable Harmonist, and I wonder how many of you remember Primrose and West, or Haverly's Minstrel. My first song was sung by a little minstrel troupe that played on the second floor of a dime museum in Salt Lake City when I was 12 years old. I can still feel the thrill of the night I climbed up the stairs and heard an end man singing my words. I'm sure one of the reasons my father was glad to have children was that it gave him an excuse to see the minstrel parade, for there was always a parade before the show. How we scrambled for our places at the curb. There they came in silk uncle-sand suits and tall hats, the leader of the band whirly his baton. By the time that parade had passed, there was no question in my mind or my father's. We were going to that minstrel show. Gentlemen, be seated. Well, Mr. Bones. Yes, sir. How do you feel tonight? Just like the house, half full. Ladies and gentlemen, a new song entitled Camp Town Racing. Which will be interpreted separately by that supreme vocal artist, Mr. James Ross. And by those two stars of Turk-Sakorian art and debauchery, Holmes and Wheeler, doing the new dance sensation, the Buck and Wing. The camp town ladies sing this song, doo-dah, doo-dah. The camp town race track five miles long, oh, doo-dah-dee. I come down here with my head skeezed in, doo-dah, doo-dah. I'll grind back home with a pocket full of tin, oh, doo-dah-dee. Wind to run all night, wind to run all day. I'll bet my money on the volunteer neck, somebody get on the beat. Wind to run all night, wind to run all day. I'll bet my money on the volunteer neck, somebody get on the beat. All these were the homely American thing, the homely heart held American song. There is none of us who cannot be touched by the pity and tenderness of those never to be forgotten melodies of a younger and simpler America. Evening, Master, evening. Evening, Joe. I'll take your coat. Thank you, Joe. Feeling better now? Oh, I've still got the misery, Master Stephen. Old black Joe always got the misery. But how have you been? Making more songs, Master Stephen? Yes, lots of songs. Too many, I think, sometimes. They're all in the songs. All my friends. Someday you'll be there, too, Joe. Better not, Master Stephen. Nobody cares nothing for songs about old black Joe. Long are my friends from the cotton fields away, Long from the earth to a better hand I know, I hear their gentle voices calling. Old black Joe. I'm coming. I'm coming. I'm coming. One man said music washes away from the soul the dust of everyday life. Someone else said architecture is frozen music. There were men who expressed the spirit of our country in soaring bridges and towering structures of stone and steel, in poetry and ringing prose, and in music. One of these men lives in the memory of every American. The last words he wrote were, Dear friends and gentle heart, and not all of them knew that he left behind the legacy of a treasure of song. Know anything about him? Not much. He was sort of peculiar, that one. Leave anything? There's his pocketbook on the bureau. Yeah. Let's see. Thirty-eight cents. What's that piece of paper stuck in the lining? It says, Dear friends and gentle hearts. Don't make sense, does it? Well, it doesn't make much difference one way or the other. Nobody ever paid any attention to him anyway. Close that window, will you? That hurdy-gurdy's getting on my nerves. I don't want to close it. That's one of my favorite songs. Oh, it's just one of them things that'll be gone next month. They never last anyway. Nobody'll ever remember. Oh, I know. Oh, I know. Oh, my heart. Oh, we miss. Come from below. Oh. At home. Come from beyond. Oh. At home. Dear friends and gentle hearts, there are millions of them who lift their voices in the echo of a voice whose owner is long dead but forever deathless. The America of his day carried on the wings of song into the America of now. So long as we can keep some of that simplicity and tenderness and gallantry, we shall have our feet on the earth and our eyes on eternal things. And this is our musical laurel of tribute to Stephen Foster in the cavalcade of America. Thank you, Jan and Foster. Ladies and gentlemen, we hope you've enjoyed this tribute to the spirit of Stephen Foster and American song and that you will enjoy our story from the wonder world of chemistry. In a DuPont laboratory not long ago, the chemists were solemnly frying eggs. Before they put away the frying pan, many weeks later, they had fried 1,347 eggs. They fried these eggs to help you get beautiful dishes for your table at low cost. Eggs are hard on the colors in dishes. The reason is that eggs contain sulfur that turns nice bright colors black. A manufacturer who wanted to decorate glass plates in solid opaque colors came to DuPont for help. The plates were to be used for breakfast sets and had to resist staining by fried eggs. That's what the egg frying chemists were working on. Their experiments took place in a DuPont plant that provides ceramic colors, that is to say colors for glassware in China. They tried using sulfide gas to test the colors, but a fried egg still left a dark ring on the plate. So they had to fry egg after egg and work with color after color until they produced colors that fried eggs would not stain. The result of their research, attractive, inexpensive glassware now will remain bright and beautiful in your home, even if you have fried eggs for breakfast every morning. There's another interesting story about gold decorations for glassware. Until a few years ago, glass of this sort was quite expensive. But now handsome tumblers or goblets with a gold decoration or initial can be bought for as little as five or ten cents. And the decoration is real 22-karat gold. This beauty at low cost also came about as a result of DuPont research. A liquid bright gold is supplied to the glassmaker who puts it directly on the glass by a stencil process. The usual gold band around a glass tumbler is one-tenth of an inch wide. One pound of gold will make such a band 65 miles long. So in this story of ceramic colors, you see once more how DuPont chemists helped create things of beauty for your home. Things that give you enjoyment, that last long, but cost little. Another example of the DuPont pledge, better things for better living through chemistry. Now the cavalcade of America's historian, Dr. Frank Monahan of Yale University. Cavalcade's subject for next week is one of the most famous men of American history. Millions have followed the trails he blazed through early America. He cut to the wilderness road through the forest and led to the settlement of Kentucky. Daniel Boone always wanted elbow room. If there was a neighbor within 50 miles, he felt crowded and moved on beyond the horizon, marking the path of America's westward march. Next week in the role of Daniel Boone, our star will be John McIntyre. On tonight's program, the chorus was directed by Ken Christie. The orchestra and the original musical effects on the cavalcade of America are under the direction of Don Borey. This is Basil Rysdale saying good night and best wishes from DuPont. This is the National Broadcasting Company.
