Tonight, the DuPont Company brings you Man Against the Mountain, starring Chester Morris on the cavalcade of America. But first, here is Gain Whitman. Chemical science has provided in Antu, A-N-T-U, a better poison for the common brown rat. A few ten-thousandths of an ounce will kill a rat. Rat poisons containing Antu are therefore more effective and easy to use. Your dealer has, or can readily secure for you, a reputable brand containing Antu, which gives good results as a bait or as a tracking poison. Bear in mind, of course, it is a poison, and pets and animals should be kept away from it. If you would like a free copy of a 12-page illustrated booklet, How to Get Rid of Rats, write to the DuPont Company, Department A, Wilmington, Delaware. Antu is one of the DuPont Company's better things for better living through chemistry. And now, Chester Morris as Gustav Marsh in Man Against the Mountain on the DuPont cavalcade of America. Did your husband go up on that mountain alone, Elizabeth? No, Aunt Hitty. Gus took a ranger and a photographer with him. Well, he better be getting back. There's another one of those storms brewing up there. When Whitney's in that mood, it ain't safe. Aunt Hitty, you talk as though the mountain were alive. Mountains don't have moods. Whitney does. It's vicious, I tell you, Elizabeth. It ain't just a mountain. It's a devil. Killed my own husband. Caught him in an avalanche at a time of the year when there ain't avalanches. And my man wasn't the only one. I tell you, Elizabeth, if Gustav keeps going up that mountain sooner or later, it'll get him. In the little village of Lone Pine, California, dusk comes unnaturally early. For directly to the west, rearing itself almost 15,000 feet against the sky, is the towering bulk of Mount Whitney, highest peak in the United States. Because of its avalanches and the fierce electrical storms which swept down from its peak to engulf them, the villagers of Lone Pine regarded Mount Whitney as a malignant force bent on their destruction. Then in August, 1903, Gustav Marsh, a newcomer to Lone Pine who had no superstitious fear of the mountain, set out to conquer it. Elizabeth! Gus! Oh, my God. I'm so glad you're back. Oh, hello, darling. How are you? How's the baby? Fine. Everything's fine now that you're back. We just got here in the nick of time, Gustav. The storm's going to hit here any minute. Oh, we've been racing it all the way down. Tell me, Gus. I found what I was looking for. Oh, are you sure? Positive. Now we can go ahead and make that mountain earn its keep. What are you talking about, Gus? What am I always talking about? Mount Whitney. I'm going to put that mountain to work, Aunt Hitty. Don't talk like that, Gus. The mountain's going to be destroyed. The mountain's going to be destroyed. The mountain's going to be destroyed. The mountain's going to be destroyed. The mountain's going to be destroyed. Order! Order! That's better. Now, I don't know the reason for this town meeting any more than you do. Gus Marsh asked me to call it, and Gus will have to do the explaining. Okay, Gus, it's all yours. Well, thanks, Bert. I didn't give you folks much notice about this meeting tonight. I couldn't. If we're going to do what I hope you'll agree to do, we'll have to start work right away. Well, what is it? What do you got in mind, guys? Well, I want to build a trail at the East Slope on Mount Whitney. A trail at the East Slope? Yeah. How far up? All the way. That's impossible. Clear to the top. Nobody's ever reached the top from this side. Well, it can be done. You know, Ed Cross and Fred Spears will bear me out on that. They went along with me on this last trip. We climbed to 13,000 feet, took pictures, drew maps, and found a way to reach the summit from the East Slope. After you get up there, what good will it do you? By the way, now, I was coming to that. I want to put Mount Whitney to work. Useful work. You stayed up on that mountain too long, Gus. Make a mountain work. Wait a minute. Wait a minute, boys. If we build a trail up the East Slope, the kind of a trail I have in mind, one that can be traveled safely by men who are on mountaineers, well, Mount Whitney will work for us. You mean it'll draw tourists? Yeah, it may. But I was thinking of scientists. Scientists? Sure. You know, Whitney is the highest spot in the United States. The best place in the country for scientists to study the atmosphere, observe the stars, and, well, carry on experiments. Can't you just see a long-haired college professor lugging a telescope up Mount Whitney? Well, he won't have to, my friend, if there was an observatory up there. An observatory? What do you mean? Sure. Well, that's my dream. An observatory equipped with all the latest scientific apparatus on top of Mount Whitney. But the first step is a trail. That'd be a son of a gun of a job, wouldn't it? The kind of trail you're talking about. It won't be any picnic. Costs a lot of money, too. And what would the Lone Pine get out of it? Well, if tourists did start coming here, we'd all profit from it, you see. We'd have the satisfaction of having given something to the country. Something that no other village, no other group of men and women could give. That ain't enough for me. Quiet, Jerry, quiet. How much do you think it'd take to build a trail, Gus? Well, I don't know, Tom, but we'd all go into this together. Whatever it takes, we can raise it. Well, I'll start you off with five dollars. You can put me down for five, too. There's over 300 people in Lone Pine. If each one of them donated five dollars, it wouldn't be a drop in the bucket. I told you to shut up, Jerry. Now shut up or get out. I let him alone, Tom. He's right. There isn't enough money in Lone Pine to pay for building that trail. We'll have to build it ourselves, hack it out of the mountain with our own sweat and blood. Now think it over, boys, but think fast because this is August. We only have a few weeks to work. Well, as Burt with the pack train, Elizabeth, I have to be getting back up the mountain. Are the men still as enthusiastic about building the trail, Gus? You'd think it was their idea. Oh, wonderful. Yeah, a few more days a week at the most, and we should be at the top. Don't start boasting now, Gus. You afraid the mountain will hear me, Aunt Hitty? The trail ain't finished yet. Well, don't be too sure. The men had only a few more hundred feet to go when I left them to come down here. There are still things can happen. Oh, Aunt Hitty, stop it. The mountain's been warning you ever since you started to work. That blizzard that come early and almost snowed in, then them rock slides out of nowhere. Men took sick mysteriously. Oh, that was the attitude. Running out of money. Well, we've always managed to get more, a little at a time. I'm sure we've got enough now to see us through. You know, it seems to me you made a contribution to the work yourself, didn't you, Aunt Hitty? Well, I didn't want to be the only person in Lone Pine who held out. Oh, it's been wonderful the way everybody's helped. The women with their box socials and cake sales. We'll all be waiting for the news. Well, just keep watching the mountain top. You got a signal to us? Sure. We've got huge bonfires ready and I'm taking up fireworks on this trip. Dynamite, enough to blow the top off the mountain. Be careful somebody don't get blowed to kingdom come. I'll handle it myself. Oh, Gus, be careful. Oh, don't worry, I will. When that trail's finished, everybody in Lone Pine and up and down Owens Valley is going to know we made it. The dynamite may start an avalanche. We'll be on top. I know. You're certainly doing your best to scare me, Aunt Hitty. It ain't that, Gus. It's just that I know that mountain and there ain't any man has set himself against that mountain yet and come off winner. Hey, Gus, it's time we were starting. I'll be right with you. Goodbye, Elizabeth. Take care of yourself and don't let Aunt Hitty frighten you. I'll try not to, Gus, and do be careful. Sure. What's the matter, Gus? Huh? We're over the worst part of the trail. Why are you looking so worried? I can't hear the men working. Of course, they may have knocked off for rest. It ain't meal time. See, I suppose something's happened. I don't know. Hurry those mules along with you, Bert. Oh, there are the boys now. Tom, Oscar, what's up? We are, Gus, darn near. You mean you reached the top? Only about half an hour of more work, Gus. We figured as long as this trail was your idea, you ought to be in at the finish. Well, I'm here now, boys. Let's go. Well, boys, the trail's finished. Thanks for waiting for me. Oh, hi. Gives me kind of a queer feeling in my stomach. Yeah, me too. I want to feel like cheering, but instead I feel like crying. Not me. Let's get on with the celebration, Gus. Yeah, yeah, just as soon as we plant the flag, Bert. Flag? Sure. You know any better place to fly the flag than from the top of the United States? Well, I'm not worried now, boys. There's a storm brewing, Gus. We want to signal folks down along Pine. We better hurry up. All right, get the rockets ready, boys, and the dynamite. You're all set, ready to touch off. Mount fires all lighted. Boy, look at that rich pine burn, will you? Folks down below think Whitney turned into a volcano. Hurry up. Storm's coming quicker than we thought. Look at that lightning. Trying to compete with our fireworks, huh? And with our dynamite. All right, boys, set off the rockets and the powder. Okay. Here we go. Can't tell which is thunder and which is dynamite. Well, that was thunder all right. We better get back to camp, boys. This is a bad one. Oh, Lord, that boat struck the top of the mountain. Are you all right, boys? It's moving over to the west of us now. Worst is over. Yeah. Hey, look, laying in the ground. Yeah. Who is it? Bert Sirvey. Come on, let's see what's the matter. Wait, I'll see if... Dead? Yeah. Poor Bert. Must have been killed instantly. Man against the mountain. And we thought we won. I'll make a stretch of boys and we'll carry him down the new trail. The death of Bert Sirvey increased the superstitious dread of Mount Whitney, and again Gustav Marsh had to inspire the people with enough courage and faith to continue work on the trail, always urging them on towards the goal of building an observatory at the summit. It is now the autumn of 1907, and the great crest of Whitney is still bare, except for the mounds of stones that hold the names of men who have climbed the mountain for adventure only. From his house in Lone Pine, Marsh stares up at the summit more than two miles above him and talks to his wife. Oh, another summer gone, Elizabeth. And still no further progress. Gustav, don't be discouraged. Oh, I'm not really. But sometimes I can't help wondering if... Somewhere in this country there must be men with the necessary vision and the brains and the money. I'm sure there are. If I just knew how to get in touch with them. Get in touch with who? Oh, hello Aunt Hitty. Who are you trying to locate? Someone who'll make our dream come true. The observatory on Mount Whitney. You ain't still thinking about getting a telescope up there. Yes, I am. Well, you might as well give up the idea, Gustav, cause it can never be done. On some mountains maybe, but not on Whitney. Yeah, how do you know? No one's ever tried it. Oh, yes they have. Who did? When? Oh, long time ago, back around 1880, when I was just a girl. Some men from Washington come out here with a big telescope. Got a bunch of soldiers to lug it up the mountain, the west slope of course. They got part way, then they come to a 200 foot precipice. So they turned around and went back. Some men from Washington, you say? Yes, they were from the... Oh, what do you call it now? The Smith... Smith... The Smithsonian Institution? That's it. Oh, the Smithsonian Institution, of course. Oh, Aunt Hitty, I think you've given me the answer. I'll write him tonight. Well, gentlemen, I hope you feel repaid for your climb. You say the summit is always clear of snow like this, Mr. Marsh? Yes, the year round, Dr. Abbott. Amazing, at almost 15,000 feet. Well, you see, the wind keeps it swept bare, even in the dead of winter. You don't think the wind would blow the observatory right off to you? Well, don't worry, sir. We guarantee to anchor it firmly to the mountain if the Smithsonian ever decided to build one here. There's no if about it, my friend. The matter's already been decided. And what's your decision? My colleagues and I are strongly impressed with what we've found here, Mr. Marsh. There's no doubt about it. This mountaintop offers unique conditions for scientific observation and research. You couldn't duplicate them anywhere. We're sending our findings on to Washington as soon as we... Well, we get on the earth again. Recommending that the Smithsonian Institution ask for funds for the building of an astronomical station on the summit of Mount Whitney. Well, that's wonderful, Dr. Abbott. Immediately after that, we'll have plans drawn up and to see about getting bids from builders. Well, I can tell you right now, sir, that whatever anyone else may bid, I'll underbid him. You're eager for the contract, aren't you, Mr. Marsh? I started this, Dr. Abbott, and I'd like to finish it. If it's the last thing I ever do, I want the job of building the observatory here on Whitney. You realize the difficulties, I'm sure. Well, I ought to. I've been up and down this trail more than any other living man, I guess. An astronomical station is no ordinary structure, Mr. Marsh. It'll mean transporting tons of steel and glass and cement up 15,000 feet by muleback. In the condition the trail's in now, I'd say that was impossible. I agree with you, Professor, but the trail can be repaired. I'll guarantee it. There's one more stipulation, Mr. Marsh, perhaps the most important of all, the matter of time. Yeah? The observatory must be completed and ready for use by September 1st of next year. September 1st? Not a day later. There are conditions which will exist on that date, you see, astronomical conditions, which won't occur again for another 13 years. Now, we'll want to take advantage of them to make observations from here. I understand. If you could meet that deadline... I can, sir. I can, sir. You sound very confident, Mr. Marsh. Well, when a man wants something as much as I've wanted this, he has to try. I'll have the station ready, gentlemen, by September 1st of next year. You are listening to Chester Morris' Gustave Marsh in Man Against the Mountain on the Cavalcade of America, sponsored by the DuPont Company. Maker of better things for better living through chemistry. The people of Lone Pine, California were afraid of Mount Whitney until Gustave Marsh overcame their superstitions and persuaded them to build with their own hands a trail up the hitherto unscaled eastern slope of the mountain. With the trail completed, Gustave was forced to mark time for three years until the representatives of the Smithsonian Institution traveled out to Mount Whitney and inspected the site on which he proposed to build an observatory. When they accepted his site and his bid for the building of the observatory, he was elated. But now that the first flush of excitement has passed, Gustave realizes the tremendous difficulties still to be faced and conquered. I guess I was crazy, Elizabeth, to say I could do it. You've got a year. Yeah, I've got exactly two months. Till next September? Two working months. Oh. It'll be next July before we can tackle the trail up there above Timberline. And if you could see the shape it's in. Very bad. Oh, it'll have to be entirely rebuilt in some places, widen the whole way. That's a season's work in itself. If you put enough men to work on it, hire a big crew. Well, I would if I had the money. Oh, won't the Smithsonian Institution? The Smithsonian is financing the observatory. But the work on the trail is my responsibility. That was the agreement. Oh. Two months. 60 days. The folks of Lone Pine turned out to help before. Perhaps they'll help again. What, after what happened to Bird Survey? They're more superstitious than ever about the mountain. It's their mountain though, Gust. Don't forget that. The biggest, the most important thing in their lives. Call them together and tell them what you've undertaken and I'm sure that they'll back you up. Elizabeth Marsh was right. When Gustav took his problem to the people of Lone Pine, they backed him again and the work began. But just as before, the mountain was against them. Avalanches, snow drifts, fatiguing altitude, snow blindness. All nature seemed united in an effort to defeat Gustav Marsh in his battle against the mountain. Then on August 15th, 1909, with the trail completed and the astronomical station half erected, Mount Whitney struck its final crushing blow. Hey, there's a storm coming. It's going to be a beaut too. Look at that lightning. All right, boys, grab those tools and get the shelter. Shale or nothing. I'm getting down off this mountain. Me too. After what happened to Bird Survey, you don't catch me staying here. Hey, wait a minute. You're not all of you leaving. You bet we are. We're hitting the trail. We're through. Yeah, we know when we're like Gust, even if you don't. We ain't coming back either. This storm won't last long, boys. It'll all be over in a few minutes. All over for who? Yeah, who's going to be the victim this time? Not me, fire guy. Not a pocket helping. No, me. Come on. Come back here. You can't quit like this. There's a job to be done and precious little time to do it in. You hear me? We've only got a couple of weeks left. We need every man, every pair of hands. I can't finish it alone, boys. You know that. Come back here. Come back. It was your idea. You finish it. And you left him up there on the mountaintop all alone? Well, he didn't have to stay. Could have come down to be pleased too. You deserted him, the whole bunch of you. When he needed you most, you cowards, you ought to be ashamed of yourselves. That storm was aiming at us both barrels, Aunt Hitty. Man's got his own life to think of after all. You know how the mountain can act. It's how you act that matters. How you stand up to it. Yeah, but we... If that job ain't done up there, if that observatory ain't finished two weeks from now, you realize what's going to mean? Well, all right. It ain't just Gustav Marsh who'll lose out. It's all of us. Every man, woman and child in this town, putting that trail up there, having a hand in building that observatory, is the biggest thing Lone Pine has ever done. And you're doing your best to spoil that chance, throwing away all your work and all our money. Aunt Hitty, I thought you was the one who was afraid of the mountain. Not anymore, I ain't. I'm too mad to be afraid of anything, except that you won't get that job done. So get up there, all of you. Go on back and make up for lost time, if it ain't already too late. Fireproof and earthquake proof. Those were the specifications. It looks as though we'd filled them. Guess there's nothing you overlooked, Gus. Except the payroll, and you'll get that. Look, you don't owe us anything. Not a cent. What about these last ten days you worked? We're giving you those to make up for the time we walked out on. I shall never forget how I felt coming back and finding you working up here, single-handed. Well, you came back. That's all that mattered. Hey, it's Louie with the pack train. Hi, Louie. Hi. Say, who do you think I passed coming up the trail? Who? The fellows from the Smithsonian, a whole party of them, telescope and all. Yeah, where are they? Oh, they're camping at Pine Lake, 5,000 feet below us, overnight. But they'll be up here at the summit tomorrow. Let them come. We're ready for them. It's all done? Yep. The Mount Whitney station is finished. And 24 hours ahead of time, too. Seems to me I ain't seen your garden look so lovely in years as it does this summer, Gustav. This is the first summer he's had any time to devote to it. He's been so busy up to now on the mountain. Well, we've got a great many visitors now, but I let the town boys take them up. Yes, it does seem that the old sleepy days are over. And a good thing, too. What? Oh, time this valley did wake up, become a part of the world. We've got something to offer, nobody else has got. And we ought to realize it. The mountain? Of course. I don't mean just for scientists who are carrying on experiments, but for plain folks and the others who've come here. Folks who want to climb and hunt and fish. You know, you're right, Aunt Hitty. Oh, this is the place for them to take off from, to get themselves outfitted and find themselves guides. The boys of Lone Pine, Lord knows, they know the mountain like nobody else. I'll say so. I can see the time a-coming when it'll be the way a lot of them will make a living, summers, guiding parties up the mountain. Can't you picture what it'd mean to the stores here, the grub they'll sell and the fishing tackle and the camp equipment? You know, you'll be organizing a chamber of commerce next to Aunt Hitty. She really will. There should be some kind of headquarters where folks can get information about packed trains and such. Aunt Hitty, I never thought I'd hear you talk like this. You've always been so superstitious about the mountain. Well, the body's only superstitious about things he don't understand, Elizabeth. Things that are so big, he's afraid of them. Whitney's still the biggest mountain in the United States, Aunt Hitty. But it's working for us now instead of against us. I only wish I could get up to the top. Oh, but I'm afraid I'm too old. Oh, no. Oh, I wouldn't be surprised if someday there'd be a road built, at least part of the way up for all these automobiles that are coming along. Sure, and someday airplanes will be flying over at Summit. And we can look up from this garden and say to ourselves, it was us who did it, the folks of Lone Pine. You know, we conquered the mountain. We conquered the mountain. That phrase would be a good title for a study of material progress in America. Americans like Gustav Marsh, men who see more than what is directly before their eyes, have always been somehow able to make their visions over into actuality, ahead of time and beyond expectation. Often like Marsh, these men have needed the cooperation of their communities, and then they have proved their gift for firing the people with some degree of their own enthusiasm. This is due partly to the kind of people they have had to deal with, Americans who are daring and venturesome, strong and hardworking, generous, and above all, community-minded. From such qualities come observatories and steel mills, laboratories and community chests, ahead of time and ahead of the rest of the world. Now here is Jane Whitman speaking for DuPont. At the DuPont Company, we began to make sponges of cellulose a few years ago because we believed chemistry could do a better job of sponge making than nature. DuPont chemical sponges drink up plenty of water, live a long, hard life, absorb many times their dry weight and still float, come in convenient shapes, stay clean, and can be boiled, if you like, for days without doing them any harm. But look what happened. At first, people used DuPont sponges mainly to scrub floors or wash the family car. But then the news of how good these sponges were got around. Manufacturers began to find applications by the dozen. Now DuPont sponges are used for and in so many things that we actually have a list several pages long. They include washing everything from babies to buses, applying silver polish, holding moisture in tobacco humidors, filtering liquids and gases. They're used as cosmetic sponges to apply makeup. There's a mop made of cellulose sponge that's more absorbent and longer lasting than most household mops. They're even using specially treated DuPont material in coal mines to lubricate bearings on coal cars that formerly were packed in oily waste. The result of all this is that although we're making more sponges today than ever before, we just can't make enough. We thank you for your appreciation of them, but until we can complete a new plant and get it into operation, we can't supply all the sponges people want. These many uses which manufacturers have found for DuPont sponges illustrate an even more important point of our American competitive system. Just give an American businessman something to work with. Set his imagination free. Give him a chance to make a fair profit, turn him loose, and he'll do the rest. He'll come up with something of greater service to enough people so that they'll want it. DuPont cellulose sponges, depending on size and texture, sell for from 20 cents to a dollar and a half. They are a product of chemical science, the chemistry that brings you the DuPont Company's better things for better living through chemistry. Next week, the DuPont cavalcade brings you Ida Lupino in Abigail Opens the White House, the stirring and intimate story of Abigail Adams, wife of our second president. John Adams began his administration with the knowledge that the country had little faith in him and that his political enemies were demanding war with France. It was Abigail who persuaded her husband that peace with the French was worth at least one more diplomatic gesture, and it was on Abigail's ability as a hostess that the success of that gesture depended. Be sure and listen next Monday to Abigail Opens the White House, the story of Abigail Adams starring Ida Lupino on the cavalcade of America. The music for tonight's DuPont cavalcade was composed and conducted by Robert Armbruster. Our cavalcade play was written by Ruth Woodman. Chester Morris is soon to be seen in the Columbia picture Blind Spot. In the cast with Chester Morris, where Martha Wentworth is Aunt Hiddy, Virginia Gregg is Elizabeth, Bill Johnstone is Tom, and Barney Phillips is Oscar. This is John Easton inviting you to listen next week to Ida Lupino in Abigail Opens the White House on the cavalcade of America brought to you by the DuPont Company of Wilmington, Delaware. The cavalcade of America came to you from Hollywood. This is NBC, the national broadcasting company. Thank you.
