The Cavalcade of America presented by DuPont, maker of better things for better living through chemistry. To the millions of American men and women who have labored, and today labor still with hand and mind and heart to build and to preserve a great free nation, the Cavalcade of America proudly dedicates the unending story of a new way of life in a new world. Ladies and gentlemen, to our cavalcade microphone as special guest comes Alexander Wolcott, who from time to time since the fall of 29 has as the town crier been ringing his bell at the crossroads of the world. On this program of the Cavalcade of America, he'll give you the biography of a masterpiece, telling its story with the help of the noted composer, Deems Taylor, who has composed and will conduct the original musical score. Ladies and gentlemen, Alexander Wolcott on the Cavalcade of America. This is Wolcott speaking, the town crier coming to this network to serve as a courier on a journey, a journey not through space, but through time, backward through time. A hundred years ago or nearly that, through the magic of a man of genius, there was given to an immortal named Scrooge, a friendless old miser named Ebenezer Scrooge, a chance at a change of heart, a chance while still in this state of life to be reborn. It came to him because on a certain Christmas Eve, he was allowed to go back through the years and see himself as he used to be, was suffered to stand invisible and look through a grimy schoolhouse window at the lonely little boy he used to be. The change this wrought in Scrooge is one of the ageless miracles that warm the heart. What would it do to us? Look to you and me as individuals, what would it do if in this anxious hour we the American people could go back through the years and see ourselves as we were to look at the people we used to be? Shall we try? I propose that all of you who have in your hearts a concern and a wonder about our country should journey back and eavesdrop on a momentous night in American history, a night long ago which saw the birth of a masterpiece, a masterpiece which is still one of the most treasured of our possession, an incalculable part of the national wealth. Shall we start back now? Are you ready? Let's go. In another moment, the years in reverse will be whistling past us, back through the depression, back through the boom, armistice day 1918, the World War, the Spanish-American War, the gay nineties, faster, faster, faster, the eighties, the seventies, the sixties, what's that I hear? The crack of a pistol? Why should anyone be firing a pistol in the box of a theater? Oh, so that's who it was a moment ago, that man on horseback we saw riding through the night as though the devil were after him. It wasn't the devil, it was the verdict of history, implacable, forever unforgiving. We cannot stay to watch, you and I must hurry, hurry, hurry. Appomattox, Gettysburg, 1862, 61, December, Christmas, November, November 61, Thanksgiving, November 10th, 9th, 8th, 7th, November 7th, 1861, we're there. Look around us, we're standing, you and I, on a ledge outside of time, holding our breath, will they hear our heartbeats, looking at the world as it was on a night in November 1861. Let's look at the world from where we stand. Face west, that ocean, the Pacific, and those little islands, Japan, that's the harbor of Yokohama, tall ships with towering masts and great white sails. One flies an American flag, another English. Japan has just been pried open by the eager world outside, such a fascinating little people, so amusing and picturesque. Now face east. Beyond the Atlantic lies Europe, at peace for a change, but not for long. Europe, a continent 10 days away from us, 10 days away for battleships, 10 days away for words even, 10 blessed days away by the fastest boat afloat. On the throne of England, Victoria, young Victoria with Albert still beside her, but not for long. Before this very year is out, she will enter upon her tremendous widowhood. Gentlemen, the Queen. Next Germany. Having a little war with Austria, Germany. Who's that on the floor of the royal nursery? A four-year-old boy with a shriveled arm playing with soldiers. The mischief in that arm and in those soldiers. For contrast and comfort, let's turn back and look at another boy, the five-year-old son of an obscure household down in Georgia. They call him Tommy. These two boys, Tommy Wilson and Willie Hohenzollern, will never in this world come face to face but they'll meet in history head on. Willie Hohenzollern and Tommy Wilson. Later, Tommy will use his fancy middle name, Woodrow. Woodrow Wilson. November 1861. Where are we standing? What is this city spread at our feet? Sprawling, country-fied, filthy. Geese, ducks and goats roam its footway. Pigs root in the mud of its streets. Open sewers befall the air. The crazy broken promise of a city. Here and there, a marble temple half built amid miasmic swamps. Yet surely that stately dwelling with the white columns, that white house just across the way is the White House. Can this be Washington? It must be Washington in 61. And that street there with pigs rooting in the mud must be Pennsylvania Avenue. Pennsylvania Avenue. A country lane with pigs rooting in the mud. Washington in 61. But where's the capital? That fraction of a building with a skeleton dome, is that the capital? But the monument, the Washington Monument, where's the noble shaft that for remembrance should stand forever silhouetted against the sunset? Now it's just a stump. Its memorial blocks still in their packing cases scattered on the ground. This is November 61. The White House. Let's look inside. Who's that standing there at the window? That tall shambling figure standing at the window. He's looking across the Potomac at the stars and bars. The rebel flag snapping defiant in the breeze. Now he's turning toward us. Do you recognize him? This lanky midlander with haunted eye. Of course. Of course, Lincoln. Abraham Lincoln with his great work still to do. Will he do it? Will he have time to do it? How many years has he? Three? Four? No, not four. Lincoln. See, he's walking toward his desk. He's sitting down. He's writing. Notes. Notes for a speech. For a message. Can you look over his shoulder as he sets the words down? Perhaps if you hold your breath you can actually see the word. Try. Try. Try. Try. Try. We shall nobly gain or meanly lose the last best hope of Earth. November 61. All day and all night. The tramp of marching feet. Hoofbeats of cavalry. Rumble of artillery. Troops from the north. Troops from the west. Indiana. New York. Massachusetts. The 20th Massachusetts. Parades. Parades. Parades. McClellan on a horseback. While pretty ladies in crinoline ride out to watch him and applaud. Open carriages. Tilted parasols. Fluttering handkerchiefs. How handsome he is. McClellan. Little Mac. All eyes are on him. And on Lincoln? Oh no. Nobody looks at him. Nobody notices him. Nobody thinks of Lincoln. Not yet. November 61. The November 61. If we wait for sundown we shall see a myriad lights winking in the meadows round about. Tents pitched in the vacant lights. White tents ghostly in the moonlight. Pickets on duty. The watch fires of a hundred circling camps. It's the army of the Potomac. Young and undaunted most of them. But untrained. Marked for disaster most of them. Defeat after defeat at first. Is it always so at first? Must it always be so when a free people goes to war? A democracy limbering up. Good troops. Fresh troops. Young troops. But untrained. Inexperienced. Unequipped. Unled. The army of the Potomac it must have a leader. Are all the able officers on the southern side? In all the north is there no one to match thee? The army of the Potomac. It must have a leader. All right let's get one. Where's Pershing? Oh there he is. Out on a farm in old Missouri. John J. Pershing. What's he doing? Can you see? Yes you're right. He's lying in a cradle and sucking his thumb. This remember is 61 and Black Jack Pershing is under military age. He's only one year old. Sherman then. Where's Sherman? William Tecumseh Sherman. Oh home in Ohio. Having the jitters in Lancaster Ohio. Sherman has kept squawking about the poor second hand muskets issued to his troops. Just insisting that the south would be mighty hard to beat. Even kept saying that the war between the states might last for several years. So the bigwigs in the war department have packed him off home. Poor Sherman they said. He must be crazy. The army of the Potomac and no one to lead it. Where's Grant? He's the man. Where is he? Where's Grant? Oh out in Kentucky. A mere brigadier and glad of the chance. Why? Only a year ago he was a clerk in a leather store. Shipless and shabby in an Illinois town. A few weeks ago he was miserable in civilian clothes with only a red sash and a sword to show he was an officer. No uniform. No money to pay for one. But a great soldier. You listen. S. Grant. Why doesn't Lincoln send for him? Why doesn't he send for Grant? I'll tell you why. He's only just heard of him. He'll hear of him again this very week. Grant is just around the bend in the road of history. But this remember is 61. November 61. Only three months ago was Bull Run. After the other day the bloody skirmish of Balls Bluff. Bull Run. Deceit. Balls Bluff. Deceit. Pretty bad. But worse is yet to come. Worse? Oh look ahead. The peninsula. Fredericksburg. Chancellorsville. The blood that will be spilt in the next three years. Blood and pain. Pain and blood. Well never a child is born without them. Balls Bluff. When it was over rookies who had paraded here in Washington only the other day were bodies floating down the Potomac. Red bodies in blue floating down the Potomac. Only today one of them was cast up on the shore here in Washington itself. Look at him lying there. Just a kid. A youngster in blue. The red stains gone from the blue. His uniform washed by the Potomac. An unknown soldier. No papers in his pocket. Just a testament. And a lock of hair. Well down to this wartime city we've just been looking at. There came in that long ago November a visitor from Boston. Up there the governor had asked the great Dr. Samuel Gridley Howe to check up on the care of the Massachusetts wounded. And with him on his mission he took his wife. She had been a Miss Ward of New York. Thus it befell that Julia Ward Howe arrived in Washington in November 61. Lodging at Willard's Hotel. Calling upon this uncouth Mr. Lincoln in the White House. Visiting the hundred circling camps. Talking with the pickets along the road and hearing everywhere she went in every camp on every road from every detachment slogging through the mud. The song the troops liked to sing. John Brown's body. The soldiers had fitted words of their own to an old camp meeting tune. No one knew then. No one knows now who wrote it. What a tune said Mrs. Howe wistfully. Howe said a friend if only you could find the right words for it. And she replied I have often prayed that I might. That night while she slept her prayer was answered. In the hour when the dawn showed gray at the window she awoke with the words on her lips. Such words are the stuff that dreams are made of and can vanish like the dew with the rising sun. Before these could vanish before there was light enough for her to see what she was doing she rose and put those words down on paper. They were there legible enough for her to read them when the day broke. And pretty much as you and I know them now. They are part of our great inheritance. Oh yes you know them. My eyes have seen the glory of the coming of the Lord. He is trampling out the vintage where the grapes of wrath are stored. He hath loosed the fateful lightning of his terrible sweet soul. His truth is marching on. Thus was born the Battle Hymn of the Republic. When she had finished it she sent the manuscript to the Atlantic. Then edited by a neighbor of hers named James Russell Lowell. He accepted it and in a lavish moment paid her five dollars. It was published in the February issue. In no time it was hers no longer. But common property the whole north knew it by heart. Today it is part of the national wealth. The Battle Hymn will be sung in this program. Not for you or me, though we may listen in. But for a single listener. A woman now sitting in the gentle fire lit living room of a house in the state of Maine. A yellow house that stands at the top of a hill in Gardiner, Maine. This listener's name is Laura E. Richards. The English speaking world is thronged with her friends. Friends who may never have seen her in all their lives but who are greatly in her debt. For it was she who wrote Captain January. She wrote that dear story more than half a century ago. But to this day it comes to every boy and girl who reads it as a personal kindness. Yet that is not why we honor her tonight. This serenade will be sung under her window because she is the daughter of Julia Ward Howe. Are you listening? This is Richards. I have seen him in the watchfire of a hundred circling camps. They have built it him an altar in the evening dews and dance. I can read his righteous sentence by the dim and glaring lamps. His day is marching on. Glory, glory, hallelujah. Glory, glory, hallelujah. Glory, glory, hallelujah. His day is marching on. Glory, glory, hallelujah. Let me tell you one fact about Mrs. Richards. She has reached that point in her journey where no woman minds if the neighbors know her age. Frankly, she is going on 91. On her birthday last February, she insisted on having three parties and so helped me she had them. The third was held in the dusk of the winter sundown with all the clan gathered about her. The great cake got blazed with 90 candles. The birthday messages which poured in from every corner of the country were too much, she protested for one small and ancient woman. In answer, she was content to quote the words her mother had said when she was 90. I want you to hear the message Julia Ward Howe sent on her 90th birthday. Indeed, I've come to this microphone just to pass those words on to you. When she was 90, the author of the battle hymn said this. I march to the brave music still. I march to the brave music still. Can you and I say the same? Under every American roof from coast to coast, in every anxious American heart today, those words stir a question. The answer to that question also lies just around the bend in the road of history. The next few years, perhaps the next few months, will bring that answer. Do we, do we, do we march to the brave music still? Glory, glory, hallelujah, glory, glory, hallelujah, glory, glory, hallelujah, his truth is marching on. My eyes have seen the glory of the coming of the Lord. The battle hymn of the Republic, born in the dark of a troubled night nearly 80 years ago, born to become a common heritage of the millions cherishing our ramparts of freedom, born to the America of the Mississippi River and the Gettysburg address, where the fires of liberty are glowing in a world of darkness. This is the spirit of the battle hymn of the Republic, the spirit we salute on the cavalcade of America. Glory, glory, hallelujah, his truth is marching on. The cavalcade of America thanks Alexander Wolcott for his radio presentation of the battle hymn of the Republic and for being our guest on this special program. And to Demes Taylor who composed and conducted the original musical score, our deep appreciation. And now the DuPont Company brings you its story from the wonder world of chemistry. America is being built out of time and out of the hearts of men. And those of us who go up and down the country into the many places where the business of America is carried on, know that we build on a sound basis. In the DuPont rayon plants, there is a phrase that guides every hand, a challenge that helps to fashion every small strand of yarn. And it is the integrity of our yarn. And this integrity is as much a part of it as the molecules of which the threads are made. It is this integrity of manufacture that has carried American rayon yarns to a top place among the yarns of all nations, the integrity of our yarn. What an encouraging symbol this is of the care and pride with which American products are made. Again, on a sun-bleached strip of sand in southern Florida is a battery of colored panels tip-tilted full south at an angle of 45 degrees so that they have maximum exposure to the blazing sunlight. On these panels are DuPont paints and finishes. Among them, day after day, research chemists walk, noting the effect of continuous exposure. Periodically, the panels are removed and sent into the laboratory for a complete checkup on their resistance to the ravages of sun, storm, and wind. Once again, integrity, building into a can of paint some householder will use, the sure knowledge that it will give full measure of service. Another example of this watchfulness, this zealousness, is to be found at the plant in which neoprene, the new chemical rubber, is made. The gases, liquids, and finally the dough-like solids taken from various points along the production line are subjected to constant and meticulous tests to make sure that DuPont integrity is maintained. DuPont chemists have busied themselves in the orange groves of Florida and California, in apple orchards, where is grown wheat, corn, and rye, among all the green things nurtured from the good brown earth, treating the seed, fertilizing the soil, guarding the growing crop against pests, protecting it in storage bins, and en route to your table. The chemists' work follows it patiently and surely through all the days of its growth and its harvesting. Up and down and across America, you will find numberless duplications of this watchfulness, this zealousness. Let no one say unchallenged that America sleeps, that this republic is not moving steadily forward, advancing on all fronts with an integrity of mind and purpose and will to do, and with that inspire all the world. It is this integrity that stands behind every product bearing the DuPont Opal, behind all the workers of DuPont who are ever diligently striving to bring you better things for better living through chemistry. And now the star of next week's program, Ray Collins of the Cavalcade Players. Ladies and gentlemen, next week the Cavalcade of America pays tribute to Theodore Roosevelt. Our radio play, The Big Stick, is the story of a fearless hero, as rough rider and as president, Teddy's courage and brilliance were the great legends of his era. But to our time, he is entrusted an even greater heritage, the security and strength of the Western Hemisphere. I am honored to portray the role of Theodore Roosevelt on our broadcast next week. Thank you. On the Cavalcade of America, your announcer is Clayton Collier, sending best wishes from DuPont. This is the National Broadcasting Company.
