The Cavalcade of America presented by DuPont, maker of better things for better living through chemistry. To the pioneers of the American continent who built its great nations, and to the millions of men and women who together cherish and preserve a way of life in a new world of freedom, we proudly dedicate this performance of the Cavalcade of America. One of the most inspiring chapters in the history of the Western Hemisphere is the long piece that has existed between the United States and Canada for over 125 years. To tell this story, the Cavalcade of America asked the distinguished American writer and poet, Stephen Vincent Benet, to prepare a symbolical play celebrating this long piece. Mr. Benet has written a poetic play based on historical facts called The Undefended Border. In it, the Cavalcade of America presents the internationally celebrated star Raymond Massey, known to millions for his performances on the American stage, the screen, and in radio. Our cavalcade orchestra and the original musical score are under the direction of Don Vouris. As a special program, this performance of the Cavalcade of America is to be short-waved to South America. DuPont, maker of better things for better living through chemistry, presents Raymond Massey in The Undefended Border by Stephen Vincent Benet on the Cavalcade of America. All over the world, there are borders between countries. They may be rivers or mountains. They may be nothing more than lines on a map. But in time of war, they are ravaged land, no man's land. And in time of peace, the guns still look at each other. Between the wars, the grass grows back again. But sometimes it doesn't grow for long. And there are always soldiers. But from New Brunswick to Puget Sound, there runs a border between two great nations of proud people, individual people, people with their own customs and beliefs and ways. And that border has not one fort, not one ship of battle, not one hidden or usable gun. There is a lone cannon. And they point it out to tourists as a memory of the past. The cannon is rusted now and covered with moss. The little boys on both sides of the border climb over it and are not afraid. And there are the voices of people talking across the border, voices like Bill Carter. He was born in Chicago. Yeah, I lived in the States until 1916, then I enlisted over the border. Told the recruiting sergeant I was from Montreal, but I guess he knew where I came from. They used to call me the Yank. I was wounded and gassed, but my girl married me just the same. Now we're living in Vancouver and I got a nice little business there. People, people. All through the years, millions of people both sides of the border take Sally Forbes. Sally came from North Dakota. They married young out there in the 70s and Sally was like the others. She was only 16 when she married Randall Forbes. Randall Forbes always said I snatched him bald-headed, but you know how a man talks. Well, we homesteaded near Calgary. The years went by so fast. Randall Jr. is a doctor in Baltimore. Harry teaches at McGill. I've got one grandchild, Lucy. Was born in Hawaii. Yes, the children are scattered now. If you're asking about the border, well, I know it's there. But you can't build a fence between a woman and her children. Just the voices of people talking across the border. The voices of people who have known how to share a continent together in peace and goodwill. Through the sun and the rain and the years. Voices of men and women with the same sort of beliefs. The same sort of courage even 70 years ago. Voices like our own. My name's Hugh McCacken. There were four McCackens of my name before me in Canada. Yet I fought four years in the Army of the Potomac. There were 50,000 like me, first and last, in the Union armies. Oh, they gave me bounty money. But that wasn't why I went. I felt it was a fight for freedom. When it was done, I came home. I worked my land. I gave my life and strength to Canada. But all my life I remembered the men I'd fought beside. When they came to my house, they were welcome. When I went to their house, I was welcome. May it ever be so between the two houses. And yet it wasn't always so. There had been a war in 1812. A war between two peoples who spoke the same tongue. And like all wars, it left scars. Let's stand on the Canadian side of a great water. It is summer in the year 1817. There's a small boy launching a toy boat. His name is Jock McKinstry. Do you like my new boat, Father? Hey, you've done a good job on her, son. She's a fine little sloop of water. Billy Ross and I are going to have a big battle and sink all the Yankees. Hmm. Son, look across the water there. Yes, Father. Do you mind the boy Jimmy Hunter you played with in the old days? He lives over there. And now maybe he's building a boat too. A fine little sloop of water on his side of the lake. Father, I don't understand. Jimmy's father was my friend too, son. And here on both sides of the border, we have a free great land to dwell in. So what would you do? Now war's over. I'd send him a peace belt the way the Indians do. Now that's a suggestion. But would he take it, do you think? Oh, of course he would. You have to take a peace belt. Hmm. But here's your fine big sloop of water, son. And it's not boys that build them. It's grown men both sides of the border. Yes, it isn't boys, but grown men both sides of the border. Here the hammers, shipwrights' hammers, carpenter's hammers, corking hammers, hammers on fresh smelling wood and bright iron, hammers by the ports and shores of Ontario and Erie and Champlain, the pleasant harbours, the pine smelling beaches, hammers building the ships of war. Lakes, these are not lakes but oceans. They must be defended. Let hills for the Yankees, they'll soon have enough. With great and with round shot, we'll give them hot stuff. British Admiralty, Lake Ontario, ship of the line St. Lawrence, 110 guns. The Psyche, 50 guns. The Princess Charlotte, 40. Sailmakers, powder monkeys, carpenter's, 74 gun frigates, 74 gun frigates. Prepare, prepare, prepare. And as it was on one shore, so it was on the other. And have you heard of Harry, of Oliver Hatton Harry? For have you heard of Harry and his famous victory? United States Navy Department, Lake Ontario, the Superior, 44 guns. The Mohawk, 32 guns. The General Pike, 24 guns. Get ready. Prepare. Militia. The Niagara. The Jefferson. 18 guns. Ports. Men. Arms. Frigates. Cannon. Cannon. Cannon. Cannon. Cannon. Cannon. Cannon. Cannon. Cannon. And that's the way it starts. That's the way we know it starts. The border must be kept with ports, ships, and cannons. Come and see how Americans felt about it on their side of the lake in 1817. Jim Hunter. Howdy, Jim Hunter. Charbatiste. Come on, Char, you old pirate. I ain't seen you in a coonzy. Well, well, I'm glad to see you, Jim Hunter. Well, I'm glad to see you. Ah, new canoe. Ah, finest dumb canoe on the lake. I don't doubt that none. Well, Charbatiste, what's the news? Oh, she's about the same. An old baby. A good year for Beaver. Mm-hmm. Fighting the war? Oh, sure I fight. I fight like six men at Chateau-Gueil. He fought at Lundy's Lane myself. Say, you know, you know when I do a Chateau-Gueil, Jim? No. I capture my own cousin. Sure, he's a lion on the ground with a bullet in his leg. He's Batiste Jean-Henri Louis David Lingroyer, like me. Same name. Afterward, he go home to Maine. He write me a letter. Oh, there I am, one big fool. I got letter for you, Jim Hunter. I forget. Letter? Yeah. Here, look. Well, real sizable. Who give it to you? Jacques McKinstry. You open up now, Jim. I take answer back. Ah. Boy, it's a wampum belt. Eh, white one. Mm, that's old, that is. That's your own work. The white belt. She mean peace. Eh, peace. Already they're building ships of war again on the lakes. I wish the people in London and Washington could know how we people on the border feel. Someone ought to tell them. Eh, you're right there, my friend. Well, there's only one way to do that. Tell them. Folks like us can't go across the ocean to London. But a man could get to Washington if he deigns to. I wonder where Washington is. I say it's a long way away. It was a long way to Washington, but there was the Polestar to go by in the old Indian trails. That was the forest when Jim Hunter left the banks of the Great Lakes. Beyond South and East Lake, rolling green valleys not yet claimed from the wilderness. And Jim Hunter slept under the stars, head pillowed on his pack. Through the wilderness, through the Onondaga section he strode. And the hunting good on the Finger Lakes. And the twigs crackling underfoot when Jim Hunter sighted a clump of cabins through the trees. Hello! The house! Hello! What's the name of this place, stranger? We've got a name. Mine. What's the nearest town? Eh, Clyde Wolf. Cowga. How far? Quite a piece. Oh, you got any meal? I might have. Well, I'll swap you three prime squirrel for some. I come quite a ways and I'm tired of eating squirrels. It's a trade. Come in alive. A long way to Washington, the moccasins wearing thin. But there were friends in the wilderness, countrymen. And all the rich, sweet valley of the Susquehanna lay ahead. Through Sunbury, not stopping the night. The next night rain dripping through the boughs, Jim Hunter went on. Grey morning into late dusky evening. Days had become weeks. Then Harrisburg, a settlement still sleeping in the curve of the Blue River. The mountains misty beyond. And at York a signpost pointing to Baltimore, a city. The first city Jim Hunter had ever seen. Just 40 miles from Washington. Washington. And now in the muddy and straggling Washington of 1817, two other men meet to talk of a distant border. They aren't remarkable men. You don't read much about Richard Rush in the history books. Richard Rush, acting Secretary of State. Not secretary, you know, just acting. And Sir Charles Baggott, British envoy extraordinary to the United States. For a while, with no great name in history, English, American. Two honest men of good will. A toast to Charles, to his highness, the Prince Regent. To the President of the United States. And now Sir Charles, shall we proceed to our business? With pleasure. Now correct me sir if I'm in error. But the question between our country seems to resolve itself to this. What armed forces, if any, our respective governments intend to keep on the border between the United States and Canada? Between Canada and the United States. I accept the correction. Now Mr. Adams feels that these armaments should be greatly reduced. Lord Casselry unofficially has long been of the same opinion. At the same time Sir Charles, we have laid down the keels of certain ships. His majesty's navy has not been wholly idle. British Admiralty, the St. Lawrence, 110 guns. Prepare sail makers, powder monkeys. Sir Charles, I don't control the military policy of my government. But as a citizen, I can say we are profoundly disturbed by the recent developments in American waters. The Niagara, badly damaged, refit. Prepare. Our citizens along the Maine border are greatly disturbed by what seems to them American aggression. Get ready for psyche, 50 guns, frigates. Maine is defending her just claims Sir Charles. The Superior, 44 guns. The Mohawk, 32 guns. Our just claims to Canada's fisheries Mr. Rush. Prepare. Cannon. The fisheries question has nothing to do with it Sir Charles. The recent and most unwarranted attack on an American business. Cannon. Cannon. Cannon. Cannon. Cannon. Cannon. Cannon. Cannon. Cannon. I confess I was growing heated. Your pardon Sir. Another glass of your excellent Madeira. With pleasure. Oh come Sir Charles, let's drop diplomatic formalities for the moment. That border line between us is not just a set of marks on a map. Let me show you something I received from that border today. Here. Do you know its significance? Hmm. Belt of Indian wampum. It was brought me this morning by an American trapper. May I ask you to hear his story? Why, of course. You show Mr. Hunter in? Yes, Mr. Rutt. Will you come in, sir? Sir Charles, this is James Hunter, one of our frontiersmen. Mr. Hunter, Sir Charles Baggett, His Majesty's envoy extraordinaire. Your obedient servant, Mr. Hunter. Mr. Rush has just shown me this very interesting belt. Yes, sir. Indian work means peace. And how, if I may ask you, is the feeling between the citizens on the border? Hmm, it depends. We ain't tame on the border. Neither side, but we don't like to. Well, we want to be shut of fighting. That's why I brought the belt. You want to be shut of fighting. May I ask you why? Why, mister, it's like this. You see, here's me, one side of the lake. And here's Jock McKinstry, the other side. He's got his ideas and I got mine. He's loyal to King and Crown. I'm loyal to the United States. Well, if we get along, fine. Well, Jock McKinstry sent me the belt. He's scotch and he don't talk much, but he meant what he said. He meant peace. Well, I know we couldn't get to London. That's across the water. So I figured I'd better come here. If I may ask, Mr. Hunter, how long did the journey take you? One pair of moccasins. Call it moon and a half. One pair of... Perhaps 40 days, Sir Charles, on foot. Forty days? Mr. Hunter, tell me, you may speak quite freely. What force do you think would be sufficient to maintain peace and order on the lakes? Well, that's for you folks to say. But we want to know what you think, you and Jock McKinstry. Well, because me and Jock, I'd say, just one boat each side. What about forts and soldiers? Well, forts and soldiers, you see, they're for enemies. We've fought, but we ain't enemies. We'll differ, we'll always differ, but we want to be friends. I believe you, Mr. Hunter. May I keep the white belt? I should like to send it to London. And thank you. And finally the Rush-Baggett Agreement was signed in April 1817. James Monroe was president then, James Monroe of the Monroe Doctrine. Because of the sense and goodwill of two peoples, the hammers stopped on the Great Lakes. And a board clerk read in the Senate of the United States, Naval forces to be maintained upon the American lakes by His Majesty's government and the government of the United States shall be confined on Lake Ontario to one vessel, not exceeding 100 tons burden and armed with one 18-pound cannon. The lone cannon, and back and forth, back and forth, across the border the tide of human beings as ebbed and flowed, rapper, trader, farmer, merchant, woman, and man. It's they who have kept the peace and the freedom, the borders, men and women. I am the voice of the border. I was born under the maple leaf. I was born under the stars and stripes. I lead people who are used to space and wide skies to an old and dear tradition and the wind that blows over a new world. The Douglas fir and the redwood, the trillium and the number one hard wheat, all these are in the veins of my people. The gray stones of Quebec are part of them and the old French speech. The rolling Dakota plains and the warm wheat-growing summers, the springs of the Mississippi and the shining Bay of Vancouver and the rocky shield of the Laurentians, the neccess around the North Pole, where there is space and freedom, love of law and love of justice, you will find my people. We live next to each other and we're used to each other's ways. We swing the same kind of ax and we drive in the same kind of cars. We marry back and forth and the children don't quarrel. We've had a lot of history together and our wide earth remembers it. We've had Sir William Lyon Mackenzie and John Brown. We've had Sir Wilfred Laurier and Teddy Roosevelt and John A. MacDonald and Abe Lincoln. We've had folks who tried to sow dissension too, but they never raised a crop and they never will. For when we say freedom, we mean it and we have faith in the people. Dominion, Republic, we have faith in the people. And together we'll keep that faith for the years and the children still to be. We built a house for freedom here and free it shall remain. Freedom! We built it out of northern pine and Manitoba grain. Freedom! We built it with our hearts and lives from Puget Sound to Maine. Freedom! The house was built in freedom's name and so it shall abide. For your thoughts and my thoughts whatever may be. We'll keep the peace our fathers kept and keep it side by side. We built it with the broad axe and the shining rails of steel. The birch bark of the Voyageur, the creaking wagon wheel. We built it with the best we had for the loyal and the lew. While rock endures and pine endures and when the cornrows grow. With your strong sons and my strong sons we shall maintain it all. The house we built in freedom's name, the house that shall not fall. The great house of freedom, the house that shall not fall. The house we built in freedom's name, the house that shall not fall. The Cavalcade of America thanks Raymond Massey and the Cavalcade players for their performance of Stephen Vincent Bonnet's original radio play, The Undefended Border. And now the DuPont Company brings you its story from the wonder world of chemistry. Over the trade routes that bind the countries of the Western Hemisphere flows a never ending stream of goods. Rubber, machinery, hides, spices, tires, shoes, automobiles, copper, foodstuffs, textiles, all the good things of living. One of the most important of these textiles is rayon. And our story tonight is about this product of chemistry. Rayon is made of cellulose from cotton or from wood. Most people know that. Not so many know that one of the most important ingredients in rayon yarn and the most carefully measured is time. Time, the fourth dimension. What do we mean when we say rayon has time spun into it? Well, in the viscose process of making rayon, the sheets of cellulose which come to the rayon plant looking like great squares of blotting paper are soaked in a solution of sodium hydroxide for a definite length of time. Thus, time enters into it at the very beginning. After soaking, the cellulose is shredded for three to four hours by machines that look like gigantic lawn mowers. It tumbles from these machines into storage bins in the form of coarse snow or crumbs. The crumbs are stored away for two days, time again entering the process. It is stored away, oddly enough, to rest. And not merely to rest, but to rest for a certain specified length of time. Left alone in the dark for two days, the molecules of cellulose groped toward one another and clasped hands like youngsters playing a game. The white snow in the next step turns to the bright color of a pumpkin. Curiously, it smells like a pumpkin. Then the orange crumbs become a brownish orange syrup, and the syrup again must be stored away in vast white tanks in a cold room. More time is necessary. It is almost as if someone said, tomorrow you're going to be spun into silvery glistening yarn. So please sit here a while and get used to the thought. At last, the spinning solution is pumped out through tiny spinneret holes to form into thread. From cotton or wood cellulose to thread, the process takes five days. And the glass wheel that draws the thread from the spinnerets must whirl at exactly so many thousand revolutions a minute. Just as exactly timed as the whirling bucket into which the yarn falls from the wheel. Again, time, time. The chemist knows time must be steeped into rayon, soaked into it, spun into it. He knows exactly how much time. Two days here, ninety-four minutes there. Because he wants to make the best rayon, he gives it exactly the time it needs. Time is a very precious ingredient that the chemist includes along with other materials. The woman who buys a dress woven of rayon yarn may think she is merely buying a dress. But it's every bit as true to say she is buying a garment cut of the mysterious cloth we call time. Time, handled as an element essential and with sure knowledge by the workers of DuPont, is an important ingredient of all the product bearing the DuPont oval house mark. Products that are better things for better living through chemistry. And now Ted Joyd of the Cavalcade player to tell you about next week's program. Ladies and gentlemen, next week as a Christmas time message to our listeners, we bring you an American classic on the Cavalcade of America. A play whose kindly humor and gentle fantasy have endeared it to the hearts of a nation. The Green Pastures by Mark Connelly. For the first performance of this play on the air, Cavalcade has assembled before its microphones a great and talented cast, including the world-famed Hall Johnson Choir and many of the original Broadway cast. Next week, DuPont brings you The Green Pastures by Mark Connelly. Thank you. On the Cavalcade of America, your announcer is Clayton Collier, sending best wishes from DuPont. This is the National Broadcasting Company. Thank you.
