Tonight, the DuPont Company brings you The Voice of the Wizard, starring Dane Clark and Donna Reed on The Cavalcade of America. Today's play is about a man who more than once heard the words, young man you're fired. He was the genius Thomas Alva Edison, and we'll hear more about him in just a moment. But first, here's Dane Whitman. From the wonder world of chemistry comes another DuPont product to make your household tasks easier. DuPont paint cleaner floats dirt away quickly, easily. In handy powdered form to be mixed with water for use, it costs you less than one cent a gallon and saves time and elbow grease in cleaning painted surfaces, linoleum, tile, and enamel ware. DuPont paint cleaner is another of DuPont's better things for better living through chemistry. And now, Dane Clark as Thomas Edison and Donna Reed as Mary in The Voice of the Wizard on The DuPont Cavalcade of America. Tom? Tom? Tom? Yes? It's just about time to go, Tom. Are you almost... Why, Tom, you're not even dressed. You haven't started. What did you say, dear? Tom, I've shouted to you a dozen times to hurry. Why did you do that? The carriage is waiting. Oh, I just didn't hear you, Mary. I know, darling, whenever you want to hear people, you hear marvelously. But when you don't want to, you just don't hear a sound. I guess my deafness is kind of self-adjusting. Gives me wonderful privacy. Darling, the dinner. The banquet. The people are waiting. Oh, yes. Yes, the banquet. As a matter of fact, Mary, that gave me the idea for this amazing invention. What on earth is it? What a weird thing. It's a fine idea. It has to do with after-dinner speeches. Now, Tom, you're not going to sit here working on something when you faithfully promise those people that... Mary, I... I have a kind of a bad case of indigestion, and I wonder if this banquet wouldn't really be... Dear, you always manage to have indigestion before a banquet. But we've used that twice this month already. Oh, we've used that? Twice, just this month. Well, gotta be more original than that, then. Dear, you reassured them only yesterday that you'd be there. There are going to be speeches, and you promised to talk yourself until... I know, I know. It's awful. That's what turned my thoughts to this contraption. It's really quite an idea. Look, I'll explain it to you. In the meantime, I'll get a clean shirt for you so that you can at least get started. Thanks. You see, I was thinking that all those speeches, all that talk, all that hot air, if it could only be harnessed for useful work. So, here's what I did. Here, this is a nice shirt. Oh, thanks. Say, this is Junior's big doll. What's this doing here? He was looking for that doll. Well, that's part of the invention. You see, it's fastened to this saw here. What on earth? Well, you see, I'll show you. As people talk, this diaphragm will vibrate as in a telephone. The diaphragm pushes here and turns this ratchet wheel. The wheel connects with this mechanical dial which holds the saw and saws wood. There you have it. After dinner oratory, converted into labor benefiting mankind. Oh, darn. Look, I'll practice my own speech on it. Ladies and gentlemen, we are on the threshold of a new age. It's starting, the dolly saw. A new day is dawning upon mankind in which the dreams of centuries will be full. It works, it works. And many realms that seem forbidden to man... Hello? Hello? This is Thomas Alva Edison. When I was still on earth, I invented that torque harnessing machine to show how I felt about, well, occasions in honor of this or that. But now in 1947, when they tell me it's a hundred years since I was born and that I'm to take part in this broadcast, I, well, I feel differently. Because in a way a broadcast like this is the climax of things I worked at. In a way I can't help being here. This microphone and the tubes in your radio, I had a hand in them. So when those tubes light up and bring you a voice from far off, in a way it's me talking. And then many radio programs are recorded for schools and for broadcasts overseas. Small ideas that I fought for. Because the inventions that I cared most about were those that would bring men's voices across space and time. So I'd like to tell you the story behind those inventions. A few words for new age. Many people think of inventions as coming on a man all in one piece by inspiration. Well, things don't happen that way much. The phonograph, for example, was a long time coming and it came step by step. For my own part, it started way back in the days of the Civil War when I was a young telegrapher in Indianapolis. In those days, the telegraph was beginning to bind the world closer and being an operator was one of the most exciting jobs there was. Sitting in the dingy little room, often with other operators side by side, we'd receive messages from many distant places. Some were for local delivery, others to be relayed on to the West. Often there were new dispatches that came in in dots and dashes. But that immediately became for me voices of history. Washington. President Lincoln announced today that General Ulysses S. Grant has been appointed commander in chief of all Union forces. India. Reports of famine throughout India are growing more alarming. Thousands are reported dead in resulting riots. Berlin. The new prime minister Otto von Bismarck said in a speech, quote, the great questions of the time will be decided not by resolutions of majorities, but by iron and blood, unquote. A state of war between Russia and Australia is considered imminent. You who in a later age have sat at crystal sets to pick up Pittsburgh or Kansas City, or who during the dark days of World War II have listened by shortwave to London under air attack, you will understand how a 17-year-old boy felt sitting at his telegraph instrument in Indianapolis. There was already in that room a hint of the radio age, and some of us were already thinking toward the next step. I remember one night when I came in reporting for work. I had just been moved to an evening shift. Evening, Fred. Oh, howdy, Tom. Well, what are you up to? How's it going? Oh, shut up, will you? What's the matter? I'm, I'm sorry. I don't know what I'm doing. I'm going crazy, I tell you. What's the trouble? I can't stand it any longer. I'm out of pieces. What do you mean? A man on the Cincinnati line is trying to run me ragged. He's one of these speed demons. He's been sending around 40 words a minute, and I can't keep up with him. I broke three times in the last hour. I don't know what to do. News dispatches? Yeah. Say, you have got some nasty gaps in this copy here. Well, can't you fill them in somehow? I don't know. It's been a little low, and I've been trying to figure it out. Something about a battle at a place called Spotsylvania. I got most of it only, I don't know, who lost or won. It's wearing me sick. I got a pass on something. Mm-hmm, I see. I don't know what to do. You seem to be able to stand the pace, but I'm almost cracking up. This is my first job, and if I get fired, I don't know what I'll do. Mr. Gridley was bawling me out only yesterday. I get errors and gaps in all my stuff. Yours is always perfect. Gosh, I don't know. Well, Fred, lucky thing for you that I'm working with you tonight. I wanted so much to be a telegrapher. I got something here that might help you. Huh? Where do I get this locker open? By the way, Fred, do you enjoy reading the encyclopedia? I talked to the librarian to let me take a couple of volumes overnight. It's good reading. It steadies the nerves. When would I find time to read? That speed demon in Cincinnati will be at it again in a few minutes, trying to trip me up. Don't worry about him. We've got him licked already. Oh, there we are. What? What's all that? Oh, some little contrivance of mine. You see this moving band of paper? Well? As a telegraph clicks, it punches dots and dashes in this paper. Oh, say, that's fine. Then you've got a record to check. I've heard about that idea. Wait, wait, wait. That's not all. When you hook it up with the sending set and run the paper through again, Yeah? the set repeats the dots and dashes. Hey, then the stuff that has to be relayed out west, all we have to do is hook it up. Why do you think I brought this reading matter? No use wasting a whole evening. Might as well relax over an encyclopedia. For land's sake. And what about messages for local delivery? Oh, we just record those two, playing back to ourselves at a lower speed when things are quiet. Oh, something's starting now. Hook it up, Fred. Here, I'll show you. Like this. Well, I feel like a new man already. Uh, which volume of the encyclopedia do you want? Egg to fub or poodle ram? Whichever you don't want. Hey, this is gonna be the life. Sure, why not? Boy, I was all set to retire to a sanitarium for the rest of my life. That fella had me down. You want a sandwich? Sandwich? You think of everything. Listen, there's so much to be done, so much to be learned in this world that a man's a fool a slave over something a machine can take off his hand. So put your feet up, Fred. Let's get some good reading done. Well, I guess you talked me into it. Well, ah-ha. Oh, hello, Mr. Gridley. Oh, hello, Mr. Gridley. So, taking it easy, huh? Yes, sir. You see, sir, I've been working out this machine that automatically records... Automatically. I thought as much. What do you mean, sir? I've been wondering why your copy was so perfect, Edison, and now I've caught you right in the act. What happened? The messages been going through, Mr. Gridley? Don't mind about the messages. The point is, I've been swindled. Swindled? How so? I pay you a big salary, $70 a month, to receive and transmit messages. But you said yourself... And instead you sit here and read the encyclopedia. But, Mr. Gridley... Do I pay you $70 a month to read the encyclopedia? I don't see why it isn't all right to read the... Do I pay you $70 to sit here with your feet up eating sandwiches? Now, look here, sir... Do I have to support a reading society? But, Mr. Gridley... Go on, through, Edison. What? Through. Fired. Fired? Yes, fired. And now, get out! Yes, strange as it may seem, my first improvement cost me a job. But that idea, automatic recording and transmitting, was in the air. Many were working on it. And before long, it was an accomplished fact, and we were ready for the next step. For me, the next step came years later, when at last I had my own laboratory in New Jersey. I'd meanwhile been to Boston and New York, invented a stock ticker, improved the telephone and worked on the typewriter. And now I was ready for an idea that kept buzzing in my ear, an idea that carried on from that Indianapolis experiment. I... I had with me at that time a laboratory worker named Mary Stilwell. I hired her because... Well, I liked her. But one thing, I could always understand what she said. Mary! What? What are you humming, Mary? Why, it's... Well, I don't know what it is. Where'd you hear it? Well, let's see. How silly of me. It's what you hum all the time, Mr. Edison. Evening Star from Tannhäuser, one of my favorites. I like it, too. Mary, come help me with this experiment, will you? Of course. What do you want me to do? I'll show you. You see, I've got a telephone mouthpiece here with a needle fastened to the diaphragm. And when someone talks, the needle, of course, vibrates with the diaphragm. Now, I'm trying to find out if those vibrations can be caught on a strip of paper so they can be repeated. Like in an automatic telegraph repeater. Yes, that's what gave me the idea. You'd be surprised how much this needle moves. Now, I'll show you. I'll hold the needle against my thumb, and you say something into the phone. Here? Yeah, that's it. Now, up close. Hello! Ouch! Oh, I'm sorry. Oh, that vibrated so much it jabbed right into my thumb. Oh, it's bleeding, bleeding awfully. Let me bandage it for you. Oh, it's nothing. I've got a clean handkerchief. I'm so sorry. Oh, it's all right, Mary. Oh, just a moment now. Hold still. Well, it's very kind of you. It's really nothing. I'll just tie it with a small knot like this. Oh, that's good. Is that all right? Sure. Now, if we'd only preserved those vibrations on a strip of paper instead of my skin, we could pass on to history and invent his cry of pain. Mr. Edison, this work you do, it's so exciting, so fine. I'm glad you feel that way, Mary. Oh, I do. Because I want you to be a part of it. I want to be. What kind of paper are you trying to record these vibrations on? Oh, I'm trying out all kinds in this automatic telegraph here. Here's some paper covered with paraffin. It's a nice, sharp impression. Won't it be too soft for playing it again? Maybe. I'll try it with a needle later on. You want to help me? Oh, yes, surely. Mary, I... Yes? Ever since you've come here to the laboratory to work, I... You what, Mr. Edison? Let me tell you something. As you know, Mary, since I've been a kid, I've been kind of deaf. I hardly notice it. Well, I can understand some people easily, you, for instance. Others, I can't at all. And that's not good, Mary. It shuts you off in people. But that's made me think that almost everyone in the world is really shut off. We don't hear each other. We don't even know each other. That's true, yes. There are barriers between people and countries, Mary, that we almost never break down. Now, these things I'm working on, Mary, therefore breaking down barriers. Talking machines, loud-speaking telephones, talking photography. We'll have them all. Machines that talk across space and time. Do you see what I mean, Mary? Oh, yes. Yes, I do. And this. This may be the beginning of it. This telegraph key. I see. Yes. Mary. Yes? Do you know the Morse code? Oh, yes. I've studied it hard. I want to know all about these things. Then listen, Mary. Listen carefully. Do you get it? Well? Don't tease me, Mr. Edison. Oh, not Mr. Edison. Well, what's your answer, Mary? Do you really mean it? Of course. Well? I'm... I'm not sure I got the message right. Oh, I think you did. Will you, Mary? You are listening to Dane Clark as Thomas Edison and Donna Reed as Mary in The Voice of the Wizard on the cavalcade of America, sponsored by the DuPont Company, maker of better things for better living through chemistry. After a laboratory romance and a proposal in Morse code, Mary and I were married. We had a girl, and we called her Dot. Then we had a boy, and we nicknamed him Dash. And so the cause of telegraphy moved ahead, at home and in the laboratory. Then I invented a loudspeaker for telephones, improvements for telegraphy, and a mimeographic system. And I kept working on that vibrating needle and the problem of recording its vibrations. In this, I had the help of John Krusey, a Swiss mechanic who lived nearby. Well, here's that instrument you wanted, whatever it is. Just finished it this afternoon, as I promised. Oh, fine, John, fine. That means I owe you $18, right? That is correct, Mr. Edison. You'll get it right now. George? Yes? Make out a check for John Krusey, $18. Right away. Now that I have made it for you, would you please tell me what it is? I wondered all the time I was making it. A turning cylinder, two needles that poke it. Well, you stick around and we'll see if it works. It's supposed to be a machine that talks, John. A machine that talks? You mean I make a machine that talks? I don't believe it. You see, we wrap this sheet of tinfoil around the cylinder. That way, gotta be very careful about this. I bet you two dollars it don't work. Well, I can't spend two more dollars on it, John, but I'll bet you a barrel of apples. Me make a talking machine. No, no, no. Now look. That's it. Now, we turn the crank and we talk into the mouthpiece. Mary had a little lamb, its fleece was white as snow, and everywhere that Mary went her lamb was sure to go. Hey, what's the Edison laboratory coming down to now? Are we going to take up singing nursery rhymes for relaxation, Mr. Edison? You'll see, George. Stick around. Have you got that checked, Mr. Krusey? Yeah, yeah. Here it is, Mr. Krusey. Oh, thank you. This is supposed to be a talking machine, George. Huh? That little thing? Yeah. And I make it. Now, let's see if it's any good. I'll move it back and I'll crank it again. Mary had a little lamb, its fleece was white as snow, and everywhere that Mary went her lamb was sure to go. Hey, what do you know? It works. It works. Now, I've seen everything. Wait a minute. Wait a minute. Wait a minute. I don't trust something that works the first time. There must be something wrong with it. I'm scared. This machine, would it talk also for me, Mr. Edison? Well, let's try it. I'll move the needle over a little more and start cranking. Now, go ahead, John. What will I say? Bend over a little closer. Yeah. Now, that's it. Now, sing that little song. Go ahead. Mary had a little lamb, its fleece was white as snow. I can't go on. I'm too moved. I make this machine. All right. Now, let's see what it sounds like. Oh, Tom. Tom. Your husband's in here, Mrs. Edison. Oh, hello, everybody. Hello, Tom. Hello, dear. Hello, Mrs. Edison. I was sure you'd be working late tonight, Tom, so I thought I'd bring supper over for all of you. Oh, that's wonderful, Mary. Wonderful. Ah, look at that spread. Thank you, Mrs. Edison. Thanks, dear. Thanks very much. I guess we will be working late. I knew this would be an important evening. Is the machine finished? Does it work? Listen. Mary had a little lamb, its fleece was white as snow. I can't go on. I'm too moved. I make this machine. Now, wait a minute. There's something wrong here. I can believe all right that a machine can talk, but a machine can't talk with an accent, can it? It doesn't seem quite right, does it? Oh, you don't think so? Well, listen, then. Now, now, wait a minute. There's something wrong here. I can believe all right that a machine can talk, but a machine can't talk with an accent, can it? Cheer! And that was the beginning of the hardest work yet. Now came the years of the Midnight suppers, the sleepless nights, the cat naps on top of the desk. We had made a machine that could give us... Mary had a little lamb, but could it talk with the richness of the human voice? and could it play Evening Star from Tannhäuser with the beauty of a fine orchestra. Until it could, had my work even begun. And so we recorded, and worked, and worked, and music squeaked away at us out of a long paper cone. And we lengthened the cone and we shortened the cone, and the music still squeaked. We tried different ways of recording on tin foil. No good, still no good. We tried it on paraffin paper. Sounds awful, Mr. Ellis. We tried it on wax. A little better. Shall we try that again? We recorded on cylinders, and years later we gave that up and recorded on disks. We changed the needles and tried a hundred different shapes. We needed a motor to turn the machine at even speed, and so we worked on that. Once years later we didn't go to bed for five nights in a row. And all that time, little by little, the music got better. A little clearer. A little richer. And at last, it began to sound like Evening Star. Now these things happened over a period of many years, and during quite a few of those years people kept asking me questions. Oh, endless questions. Questions like... Mr. Edison, do you think mankind will ever catch up spiritually with the implications of his own inventions? Of course I do. He always has. Oh, Mr. Edison, what are your views on world peace? I'm all for it, 100% naturally. Mr. Edison, what are your views on education? I'm in favor of it. If we need more, that's all. That's what will solve our problems. Oh, thank you, Mr. Edison. Questions like that, especially on my birthdays. And I guess those questions still hold. And the key to that education is in these things I helped to work on. Talking machines, films, radio. That's how people can learn the truth. The truth that will set them free. But it can't be done in a day. After all, we've only just begun to scratch the surface. And while Edison was right, while he had just begun to scratch the surface, still Edison's genius on this, the eve of his 100th anniversary, lights the world today, provides music for the world, and motion pictures for everybody's entertainment. Yet for all his genius, Edison was a typical American. Typical because he was a plain, honest sort of man who never left his own pasture, but dug as hard as he knew how in it. Perhaps Edison's greatest asset was that he was born in America, and had the freedom of opportunity to develop his ideas without restriction or interference. Edison's inventions are not the only American inventions to make life easier for people everywhere. But the sum of Edison's ideas can be expressed as the American idea. And the whole world is better off because there is an American idea. Music Now here's Gain Whitman speaking for DuPont. Men like Thomas Alva Edison, practical experimenters and inventors, in friendly cooperation with theoretical scientists, have done much to give us a better world. To them, as originators, we owe the fact that the United States today has more than 30 million users of electricity. More than half of all the telephones in the world. The electric motor driving a power tool for a farmer. The ignition coil that touches off the gas in an automobile or airplane engine. The electronic tube that wings a radio program across hill and valley are only a few of the marvels and comforts we owe to electricity. And these represent only a beginning. There are few, if any, countries which do not have a source of power of one kind or another, which can be made to generate electricity. Someday, men everywhere will light their nights, will lighten their days, with a mysterious power that flows through wires. To bring the electrical industry to its present state of development, electrical engineers have had to solve many difficult problems. Chemistry often helps to provide them with their solutions. Take insulation. The electrical wires in your house are insulated, covered. In industry, where higher voltages are used, along with greater quantities of current, this insulation presents many problems. Neoprene synthetic rubber and two of the plastics manufactured by the DuPont company, nylon and polythene, are helping the electrical industry solve difficult problems. Neoprene, long used as an outer jacket for cable and cord, resists heat, weather, and abrasion. Nylon, which is unusually light and extremely tough, is used as a protective sheathing. Polythene, when used in television cables, is one of the best plastic insulating elements so far known to science. Neoprene, nylon, and polythene are three of the DuPont company's better things for better living through chemistry. Music Next week, the DuPont cavalcade brings you Chester Morris in Man Against the Mountain, the dramatic story of the conquest of Mount Whitney, the story of Gustav Marsh, who determined to blaze a trail up the eastern slope and build an observatory at the summit. The person who helped him most was the woman who had predicted his failure. Be sure and listen next Monday to Man Against the Mountain, the story of Gustav Marsh's fight against superstition, starring Chester Morris on the cavalcade of America. Music Dame Clark, who played Thomas Edison on tonight's cavalcade, will soon be starred in the Warner Brothers production, That Way with Women. And Donna Reed appears by arrangement with Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer, producers of the new murder mystery, Lady and the Lake. In the cast with Dane Clark and Donna Reed were Alan Hewitt as the manager, Robert Dryden as Cruzee, Jack Manning as Fred, John Sylvester as George, and Chester Stratton as the reporter. The music for tonight's DuPont cavalcade was composed by Arden Cornwell, conducted by Donald Borey. Our cavalcade play was written by Eric Barnall. This is Ted Pearson inviting you to listen next week to Chester Morris in Man Against the Mountain on the cavalcade of America brought to you by the DuPont Company of Wilmington, Delaware. This is NBC, the national broadcasting company. Thank you.
