Parts of Call Beyond blue horizons far at the world's end, strange fascinating lands beckon us. Bid us revel in their exotic splendors. Come with us as we head for Port of Call. Come with us as we visit the land of prodigal superlatives. The land whose very name is an adjective for all that is modern and progressive. That child of the old world which is itself the oldest republic in the world. That titan of the western hemisphere, the United States of America. Our radio steamer lands us near the same hallowed spot where 300 years ago the little ship Mayflower anchored. We dock at Boston whose winding streets, recalling scores of English cities, remind us that here men once lived leisurely, but fully. Remind us of great names, of Samuel Adams and John Hancock, of John Adams and Captain Prescott, and of a silversmith and patriot whose name was Paul Revere. Good morning, Revere. Ah, good morning, Master Dawes. What word this morning? I have just come from the waterfront. Yes? There is much activity on the British men of war in the harbor. An absolute meachum, him that is a ship janitor. And a loyal friend of liberty. Aye. He's received intelligence that General Gage means to march on Lexington to capture Samuel Adams and John Hancock. We must not permit it. We will not. You may be sure. Furthermore, they intend to go on to Concord and destroy our stores of ammunition and supplies. If they attempt that, then indeed it means war. I volunteered to warn the farmers and the militia. And I want you to help me. That I will gladly. The British will probably not march until tonight. We cannot learn whether they'll travel by way of Roxbury or by way of Charlestown. If they take the Roxbury road, they'll go by land. If they take the Charlestown road, they'll go by water. Precisely. Tonight you roll across to Charlestown and get a good horse. I'll stay here in Boston. A signal has been arranged. A lantern to be placed in the tower of the Old North Church by our friend Absalom. One if by land and two if by sea. I'll be on the opposite shore tonight. That night, impatient to mount and ride, booted and spurred, with a heavy stride on the opposite shore walked Paul Revere, gazing at landscape far and near, watching with eager search the belfry tower of the Old North Church. Even as he looks on the belfry's height, he sees a glimmer, a gleam of light. He springs to his saddle, and bridle he turns, but lingers and gazes, till full on his sight a second lamp on the belfry burns. A hurry of hoofs in the village street, a shape in the moonlight, a bulk in the dark, and beneath from the pebbles in passing a spark struck out by a steed flying peerless in fleet. That was all. And yet through the gloom and the light, the fate of a nation was riding that night. Who is it that rouses this leaf of peaceful folk? Wake up! Up in new arms! The British are coming! The crack British regiment under Major Pitcairn, quick stepping through the foggy dawn of April 18, 1775, finds their way blocked by a small but determined band of Minutemen at Concord Bridge, mobilized by Paul Revere's midnight alarm. Dispass! Dispass you passive rebels in the name of the King of England! Remember men, don't fire unless the British do. But if they want war, then let it begin here. Ready! Pretend! Fire! Behind every wall, hidden in every farmhouse, couched back of sheds and behind rocks, the American militia return the fire. The stiffly formed British and their bright red coats are no match for the von Piersman tactics of the colonists. They retreat, losing formation. The retreat becomes a rout. British dominion in the new world has been challenged successfully. The American Revolution has begun. In 1848, the American flag was raised over a sleepy Mexican Presidio in California. The land between San Francisco Bay and the mountains was owned by a Swiss named Sutter, who ruled his vast domain in baronial style from a rancho called New Heldisha. It was this same year, 1848, when one of his employees, John Marshall, a carpenter, was engaged in building a sawmill that he made a discovery which Sutter pledged him to keep secret. But the secret leaked out. First it was a whisper, then a murmur, then a rumble which rolled across the land and reverberated around the world. Gold! Gold! Gold! Gold! Mr. Hewitt, I just came in to tell you I'm quitting. Why, why you can't do that, Robert. You have a good job here, you're doing fine, and someday you'll be a partner in the business. Oh, I can't help it. I've got to quit. You've got to quit. Why, why, where are you going? What are you going to do? There's gold out in California, Mr. Hewitt. I'm going out there and make my fortune. Gold so thick you dig it out of the ground with your bare fists, they say. Oh, gold in California. Robert, I'll go with you. I want to congratulate you, Mr. Shelton, on the splendid editorial you wrote in this week's paper advising our young men not to allow themselves to be carried away by this unchristian hunger for gold. Thank you, Parson Brown. I have no doubt that the strength and persuasion of your words will deter many of them from leaving their homes and farms for California. I'm glad to hear you say so. It was my last editorial and I wanted it to be good, your last. Why, I'm going to California. I can't stand it any longer, Marty. There's gold out there on them hills of California and I aim to get a pass love of it myself. But, Ed, it sort of seems a shame. First you work so hard building up the place in Missouri. Then you no sooner get a pay in homestead than you want to move out here to Iowa. Now this place is just beginning to come around and you've stopped your mind on going out west. Can't help it, Marty. There's something inside of me that's just eating to get up and go. Gold, Marty. Think of it. Gold. It's better than farming, ain't it? Well, I'll get to the packing, Ed. Well, I don't know about you, Marty. California won't be much of a place for a woman and youngins. Well, you'll need me all right, Ed. I pioneered with you before and, well, California can't be any worse than these hot prairies. Marty, I'll buy a silk dress with the first gold to get. Oh, and some shoes for the children, maybe? Yes, yes, and shoes for the children. We'll have everything we need, Marty. Everything we need. By land and by sea they came. The Argonauts, the searchers for the Golden Fleece. The sleepy little village on San Francisco Bay overnight became the mecca of the civilized world. A metropolis of tents and chantes. First to arrive were the ranchers from Southern California, Oregon, and Washington. Then came the vessels from around the Horn. San Francisco Bay, whose waters knew only the occasional ripple of a fishing schooner, saw 90 vessels riding at anchor in January of 1849. 90 vessels which had brought 8,000 men through the Golden Gate in one month. They came overland by prairie schooner, flogging their tired oxen, dying of thirst in the desert, braving the snows of the Sierras. They came around the Horn in any ship that would float, packed in the stifling holes like cattle. They came across the isthmus of Panama, sludging through the tropical swamps, falling by the wayside with yellow fever, plagued by the deadly malarial mosquitoes. Death guarded the portals of California, but still they came by land and sea, the Argonauts, the searchers for the Golden Fleece. The question of states' rights, which has split Congress more than once since the nation's founding, finally cracks it wide open over the issue of Negro slavery. In February 1861, seven southern states secede from the Union. In April, Fort Sumter is fired upon, and President Lincoln calls for 75,000 volunteers. April 18th, Colonel Robert E. Lee, a brilliant veteran of the Mexican War, is summoned to the War Department. Colonel Lee reporting, Mr. Secretary. Yes, Colonel, come in. Thank you, sir. Colonel, if you know, Fort Sumter was fired upon by Confederate troops last week. Yes, sir. We have expected these rebels to... I must remind you, Mr. Secretary, that I am a Virginian. Oh, nothing personal, Colonel. I am speaking to you not as a Virginian, but as an officer of the United States Army. And a very good one. The best, in fact. You flatter me, sir. Not at all. I ask you to come here to inform you that I am placing you in command of the Army. Placing me in command, sir? I know of no better man. And President Lincoln agrees with me. Now, the objective of our first campaign will be Richmond, the rebel capital. Richmond is in Virginia, sir. Of course it's in Virginia. Mr. Secretary, you're asking me to lead an army against my native state. You're asking me to take up arms against my own family, against my friends, against my people. We can't consider such things in a time like this, Colonel. Uh, General Lee, we must act. And act quickly. I'm afraid, sir, I'll have to ask for a little time. There isn't time. I must have time, sir, to think this through. Don't think me disloyal, sir. I love the United States, but I also love Virginia. I must have time to think. Very well then. When can you give me your decision? More than morning, sir. Throughout the night, Robert E. Lee paces the floor of his high ceiling bedroom, torn between allegiances, balancing the issues of the conflict, praying to God for guidance. When the warm spring sun rises across the Potomac, his decision is made. He is waiting at the War Department when the Secretary of War arrives. Ah, good morning, General. I'm glad to see you here bright and early. We've got a lot of work to do this morning. I've come, Mr. Secretary, to deliver to you my resignation from the United States Army. What? Under the circumstances, it's the only thing I can do. My first allegiance is to my family, my friends, and my Virginia. Good day, sir. Thus was lost to the Union, the service of one of the greatest military geniuses of history. For four years, Robert E. Lee fought a brilliant campaign with insufficient money and supplies to back him. Leading at the end, an Army half-starved for what of proper rations, an Army suffering from exposure for what of proper uniforms, but an Army which, to the last man, was loyal to him and the cause. In November of 1863, that other great figure of the Civil War dedicating the cemetery on the battlefield of Gettysburg delivers a speech written on the back of an envelope, a speech which has become one of the great examples of English prose, written and uttered from the soul of the backwoodsman Abraham Lincoln. For score and seven years ago, our fathers brought forth on this continent a new nation, conceived in liberty and dedicated to the proposition that all men are created equal. Now we are engaged in a great Civil War, testing whether that nation or any nation so conceived and so dedicated can long endure. Let these years highly result that these dead shall not have died in vain. Let this nation under God shall have a new birth of freedom, and that government of the people, by the people, and for the people, shall not perish from the earth. The Great Mississippi River Surging majestically down the great Central Valley of America, draining half a continent is the great Mississippi River, which with its tributary, the Missouri, is the longest in the world. Boundary between East and West, broad avenue between North and South, the Mississippi has always been of primary importance in the life of the country. Today, great fleets of flatboats, pushed by tiny stern wheelers, sweep down its mile-wide current, carrying produce and manufactured goods to New Orleans and the countries beyond the sea. A hundred years ago, the Mississippi knew its brief and glorious hay days. When bittering passenger packets with splendid and white and gold raced from New Orleans to St. Louis, when the ambition of every small boy along the river was to be a steamboat man. One of these, a young lad from Hannibal, Missouri, is well in the way of realizing this ambition when he persuades Horace Bixby, pilot of the steam packet Paul Jones, to take him on as a cub. They are bound upstream a few hours out of New Orleans, and young Sam Clemens, standing in the pilot house beside his master, is the proudest boy on the river. Here, Sam, you take the wheel. Yes, sir. Hold her close into the clump of china trees until you get to that point. Slack water ends there, then you cross over. Yes, sir. What's the name of that point I showed you a while back? What point? That first point above New Orleans. I don't know. You don't know? No, sir. What do you suppose I pointed it out for? Why, to make conversation, I guess. To make conversation? To make conversation? You suppose for a minute that piloting a riverboat is just standing there looking important and holding the wheel? No, sir. Setting the boat out in midstream like you're doing so you have to fight the whole current of the Mississippi River? No, sir. You think you're going to do all your piloting in the high water in broad daylight? Well, I didn't know, sir. You've got to know. You've got to know every pipe to an island, every landing and snag, every bank and hill for 1200 miles of river. Yes, sir. And you've got to know them in high water and low water, and on foggy nights and rainy days. You thought I was talking to make conversation. Yes, sir. Where are you going now? You want to run over that snag? No, sir. Pull her down. Yes, sir. Don't you hear me? Pull her down. Pull her away from that field. Yes, sir. You will never make a pilot. Well, I guess maybe you're right, sir. I'm only fit for a roustabout. I haven't got brains enough to be a pilot. Ah, drop it. When I say I'll learn a man the river, I mean it. And you can depend on it. I'll learn him or kill him. Looks like shore water ahead. Sing out for the ledsmen. Yes, sir. Ledsmen, look alive. Mr. Bixby wants to death. Aye, sir. Now, Sam, another thing. You've got to know is the soundens at every point of the river. How much they change between trips. Deep water. Four fathoms. Subgressed polymers land and remember that. Yes, sir. Mark three. Water less three. Getting shallower, sir. Yeah. Half twain. You know what half twain is? Yes, sir. Two and a half fathoms. Water twain. That's right. You'll learn. I doubt it. Mark wave. Mark wave. Young Sam Clemens did master the unbelievable intricacies of the Mississippi and became a pilot in his own right. But he is not remembered today for that accomplishment. The world knows him as the creator of Tom Sawyer and Huckleberry Finn, who took his pen name from the deep cry of a riverboat ledger. The world has never seen anything to equal the development of America's industrial empire in those fantastic days following the Civil War. There was a continent to develop, a nation to build. Men got rich doing it, rich beyond their wildest dreams. Immigrant boys arriving penniless from Europe died millionaires. The American tradition rags to riches was born. But the greatest phenomenon was yet to occur. In 1892, C.A. Durye built and operated a strange conveyance, a buggy without shafts or a horse, a buggy that was propelled by a gasoline motor, the first automobile in the United States. And a little while later in a barn in Detroit, Michigan... Oh, Wisconsin. Ah, that's more like it. Well, for the love of Pete, what are you doing in there, Henry? Henry! Huh? Oh, hello, Jim. Mrs. Ford said I'd find you out here in the barn, tinkering with an invention. She seemed a little annoyed. Yeah, she thinks I'm wasting my time. Well, maybe you are. What are you doing? I'm building an automobile. An automobile? Oh, you mean one of them horseless carriages. Yeah. Henry, are you going to be a fool all your life? Well, there's nothing foolish about this. Why, everybody knows these horseless carriages aren't practical. They break down, they scare people, they make horses run away. I tell you, they're a threat to life and limb. It ain't safe to drive 15 miles an hour unless you got rails under you. I see you're like all the rest. What do you mean? I asked you to come over here to see this car of mine because, well, frankly, Jim, I'm going to start building and selling them and I need capital. Maybe you haven't heard of it, Henry, but I've got a reputation in Detroit for being a pretty sensible businessman. And I'm too old to change. Invest in an automobile? You must think I've lost my mind. I'll give you half interest for $1,000. I wouldn't take a 90% interest for $10. This thing's a fad, Henry. I don't think so, Jim. I think the day will come when everybody will be driving automobiles. I think the day will come when the only horses will be in pastures and the only hitching posts will be in museums. Henry Ford, I think you ought to have your head examined. While others built expensive motor cars, Henry Ford turned to mass production following his dream of placing the automobile within the reach of everyone. The millions upon millions of cars he has built have gone to the far corners of the earth. The word Ford is probably the most universal word in the English language, and certainly the man Ford is the epitome of America's industrial achievement. Music Lindbergh hops the Atlantic. Post and Gatty circle the globe. Howard Hughes races the sun from coast to coast. Admiral Byrd crosses the poles. The Pony Express becomes a tri-motored monoplane. Angel of Death and Angel of Mercy, the airplanes filling our horizons have become as commonplace as a streetcar. Yet 35 years ago, not a single man had ever left the earth in a motor-driven, heavier-than-air machine. But men were thinking of it, dreaming of it as they had for hundreds of years. And in a little bicycle shop in Dayton, Ohio... Hello, boys. Hello, Orville. Hi, Orv. How's the race going to be Saturday? I'm going to win it. You ain't got a chance if Orv's done a good repair job on my train. Got it ready, Orv? Yeah, it's right here. Heard you and Wilbur are tinkin' around with a flyin' machine, Orv. Well, we're making some experiments. Nobody never flew without, they used a gas bag. Can't be done. I'm not so sure about that. Why, Orv, it ain't reasonable. It just ain't possible. Hey, look out there in the street. Remember when that automobile was called a horseless carriage? And how just a few years ago you used to yell, Hey, mister, get a horse whenever you saw one. Yeah? Well, I'm a little older than you boys. When I was born, they'd have thought you were crazy if you predicted that people would be ridin' down the road at 20 miles an hour in one of those things. Yeah, but flyin''s different. Well, maybe. What are you makin' your machine of, Orv? Goose feathers? No, not goose feathers. Eagle feathers. Eagles fly higher. Receiving scant encouragement from family or friends, the two brothers doggedly continued their experiments, mastering by themselves the difficult science of aeronautics. During 1901 and 1902, they experimented with a homemade glider on the windswept sand dunes at Kitty Hawk, North Carolina. The following winter, they built their motor, and in the fall of 1903, they returned to Kitty Hawk to assemble their machines. The first time they built their engines, they built their gliders on the windwept sand dunes. The motor trouble causes delay and discouragement, which is increased by news Orville brings into camp. Wilbur, look at this. What? You're into tonight's paper. The Smithsonian Institution tried out its airdrome yesterday. So they beat us to it, huh? Well, not quite. It crashed in the Potomac on the first trial. Seventy thousand dollars they put into their experiments. We might as well give up, Wilbur. If the Smithsonian can't make an airplane fly with all that money, how can we expect to succeed? We haven't spent a tenth of that amount. Come on, off-buck up. What's the Smithsonian Institution does? We found Langley's tables were wrong in our own wind tunnel at home, didn't we? We know how to balance and control a glider, and when we get that engine going, we'll have a flying machine. December 17, 1903. A sunless, wintry day. Low-swinging gray clouds scud above the chill white caps of the Atlantic Ocean. Graceful white seagulls careen across Kill Devil Hill, borne by a 27-mile wind. Squatting atop the hill rests another white bird. Not as graceful as its living brothers. Square, crude perhaps, and yet suggestive of flight. Prophetic. Only a few of the fisherfolk of Kitty Hawk are curious enough to come out to see the experiment. They look on quizzically. Doubtfully, a door overboards the flimsy craft, lying full-length beside the motor. Wilbur cranks it. The motor turns over. Roar! With Wilbur supporting the wing, the first airplane careens down the track. It leaves the ground. Rises. Pies. I swore it worked! Go on, Orbs! Go on! I never thought I'd live to see the day. Now he's landing. And he didn't break. Well, the dingus flies all right, but I don't know what use it'll ever be. All aboard! China Clipper for Honolulu, Manila, and the China Coast, gate three. All aboard! Our brief visit to the United States is drawing to a close. Shall we leave by flying Clippership to the Orient, or shall we take passage on the Great Zeppelin Hindenburg for Europe? But before we go, let's hop aboard this great metal monoplane and take one last look at these fabulous United States by air. As our ship spirals high above the Golden Gate and heads east, the vastness of America unrolls beneath us with unbelievable magnitude. Deserts, mountains, the undeveloped empire of the West, limitless acres of arid land, waiting only for the dams now in construction to turn them into farmland, capable of supporting twice America's present 120 million. That great gash beneath us is the Grand Canyon of the Colorado, one of the wonders of the world. On east with a roar, vaulting the Rockies at 20,000 feet, the Texas oil fields lie to our right. Beneath us, the great grain fields of the Middle West. City and town appear and slip behind until at last we see on the eastern horizon the most amazing city in the world, its towers stretching to the sky. This is New York, the monument of American achievement, the symbol of today. And from here, the greatest seaport in the world, our last port of call, we take our departure. Vital, vigorous, young, the United States of America speaks in the superlatives of adolescence. Its path, the victorious struggle, its future despite the periodic pessimism of youth, destined to be great. We invite you to join us again next week at this time, as we journey to another of the world's fascinating ports of call. Music .
