Starring Orson Welles in The Great Man Votes, the cavalcade of America sponsored by DuPont,
maker of better things for better living through chemistry.
Good evening, this is Orson Welles.
This week in America we're celebrating the 150th anniversary of our charter of human liberties,
the Bill of Rights.
And so we've chosen as our story that truly fine archeal picture, The Great Man Votes,
the story of a little man, a little man who while destiny smiles became a great man
because of his country and the liberties and rights he had in his country
and because he understood the full value of those liberties and rights
in terms of human dignity and human hope.
The time of this story is any time, the place America and any large city in America.
The scene is a dingy little frame house jammed in amongst the tall buildings of the city's downtown districts
and in the parlor an obscure American citizen named Gregory Vance is talking with his two grandchildren.
You leave Pro-River to miss you, you scourge to miss your opponent.
Now Donald Lanes, Vance, you're attempting to tell me what he's got out of his expedition to Britain.
Uh, he got pushed around by the pickets and the scots.
Oh, no, no, not the pickets and the scots, the pickets and the scots.
Grandpop, it's almost time you went to work, isn't it?
Yes, I fear it is.
You've no time for both you young scamps to be a-bed.
Oh.
What's the matter, Grand?
I'm going to enter my room at the St. Donald's. If only there were a drop of my medicine about.
Your medicine? You mean that whiskey.
Not tonight, it's time for you to go to work.
Well, my little Florence nightingale, I suppose you're right.
Uh, Grandpop.
Huh?
Would you mind very much, I mean, what would you do if you were fired from your job?
Joan, since your parents died and I resigned from the faculty of Harvard, I've lost many jobs.
But if Bradley fired me from that night watchman's job, it'd be by all odds the worst job I'd ever lost.
But what would you do?
We can worry about that when it happens, Joan. Not as practical as your mother was.
Don't worry so much.
Grand, won't you maybe go to the Angleys?
Angleys? Those well-stuffed, cloth-headed lumps of pomposity.
Just because by the unfortunate accident of birth they happened to be relatives.
Besides, why do you think am I getting fired?
Well, just don't let Iron Hat McCarty see you.
Iron Hat McCarty? What does that demagogue to do with my job?
Iron Hat McCarty is the boss of this ward.
So he can do anything he likes in this ward.
Do you rascals mean to say that you winged a brick band as Iron Hat McCarty?
Well, not exactly.
Well, see, Iron Hat's kid, Daisy, and we did throw a rock at him. We pushed him into a tub of cement.
I can't say that I approve, but on the other hand I can't find it in my heart.
But why did you find such drastic action necessary?
Well, he was calling names.
Calling names? Calling who names?
You.
Me.
He called you a drunken old bummer.
Defending the family honor.
You don't think your granddaddy is a drunken old bummer?
You only drink a quart a day.
Certainly. Right. Only a quart a day.
So, so if you're fired tonight, you'll know why.
I defy the deligage. I'm off to work. Where's my cane?
I'll make a sword of it and duel McCarty to the death.
Lay on McCarty and damn be every member of your party.
Good evening to you, Iron Hat. Good evening, Gilley.
Good evening to you, Brad.
I trust you'll be showing up at the polls to register your vote for the administration, as usual. Come out of Brad.
You know me, Iron Hat. It's a straight ticket.
Get to the point, McCarty.
Yes, yes. A meeting of the city leaders awaits me, Brad. Therefore, I will speak briefly.
You'll be in need of a new night watchman here tonight.
I've got a watchman. Gregory Vance.
I'm not sure he's up to his responsibilities, Brad, if you follow me.
I ain't had any kicks on Vance's work.
His kids beat up Iron Hat's Davy and Maggie McCarty was fired.
Any kids are likely to knock each other around, Iron Hat. I don't see why...
Mr. Bradley, that's an attitude unworthy of you, especially considering that you're clogging the public streets with building materials.
It's been a sad time I've had keeping the street commissioner off you.
Your pleasure is my pleasure, Mr. McCarty.
That's more the spirit, Brad.
I'll find you a worthy replacement for Vance just as soon as I get back from my meeting with these important party leaders.
McCarty, is it come gone get to your meeting?
So it's you, you hoodlums, grandfather.
You vulture. Fly to your roots. Maybe you'll find some more bones to pick.
Get along with you before I tell him to tell you a cult.
Come on, Iron Hat. Get in the car. You know you got his last yard.
If I didn't have to attend an important party meeting, what else takes that up with your family, you bad party?
Sorry, Vance, but I have to sign you off. Not that I want to.
No, the demagogue has spoken. You're only the echo.
McCarty goes to an important meeting and I go to the ranks of the unemployed.
Sieg, Semper, Gloria, Munde.
Who's handling the first ward this year?
Iron Hat McCarty.
Is McCarty the first ward president?
I can only say, gentlemen, that I'm annoyed by this pinhead's tidiness on the eve of so important an election.
An election which, if we are victorious, may well prove to be the forerunner of a national victory for our great party.
Charlie Dale, our publicity chief, will explain our plan of attack.
Okay, Chief. Boys, you know the old saying, as Maine goes, so goes the nation.
Now, get this. You've got a Maine right here in your own city.
Since 1830, the 13th precinct of the first ward has always voted unanimous for the old party.
Nine out of ten times, the rest of the precinct have fallen over each other, climbing on the bandwagon of the good old 13th.
Now, here's what you do.
Get your voters of the 13th precinct fled. Get them all together before the polls open.
Organize a parade.
March them to the polls in a body under the banners of the old party.
That way, we prove they're voting for us.
We splash it in the early morning headlines, the rest of the precinct fall in line, and the election is in the bank.
And great stunt, Charlie, great stunt. The 13th is one of McCarty's precincts, as we Peter McCarty have been heard from.
Here, sir. I was delayed in the pursuit of my duty, sir.
I heard what you said, sir, and a splendid lot of voters I have for you.
What?
What? But what, McCarty?
But if you gentlemen knew my ward as well as I do, you'd be realizing that my 13th precinct is a very unique precinct indeed.
Can you promise a unanimous vote? Speak up, McCarty. How many votes are there in the 13th?
Well, at times there are a great many, sir, at noontime, but they only work there in the shops and the offices.
So we haven't as many registered voters as previous.
Out with it, McCarty. How many? Get to the point, McCarty. How many?
One.
McCarty, you know this fellow?
Like a brother, sir.
That's good, because if you fail to pledge his votes, McCarty, you're through, finished, washed up. Is that clear? You know your job.
Yes, sir.
To vote him unanimous.
Great. Tomorrow, one stalwart voter will uphold the traditions of our pioneering forefather's single-handed people. McCarty, what's his name?
His name is Gregory Vance.
You're listening to The Great Man Votes, starring Orson Welles, from the cavalcade of America, sponsored by DuPont, maker of better things for better living through chemistry.
As our play continues, we find Gregory Vance returning home from the job that he has just lost.
Salutations, my gladiators. Are you awake?
Is it morning, Gladys?
No, not morning yet. No, I got off a little early. Mr. Bradley thought it would be nice if I could spend a little more time with both of you.
You were fired, like we said you'd be. That's why you're home.
As you said I would be like is a preposition, not a conjunction, Donald Ainsley, then.
Well, anyway, you were fired.
You say fired I am, but why so glum?
Again, if you expect me punished for handing him a card here beating, you'll be disappointed.
We wish you would spank us, Grandpa. We'd feel better about going away.
Who said anything about going away?
Ainsley's.
Ainsley's?
When you went to work, we ran away up to Park Avenue to look for them, because we were scared of Ironhats.
They brought us home in a great big car, and they said they were coming back and bring some people with them.
Yes, I think I see. You'd much rather live here than on Park Avenue, wouldn't you?
Yes, Grant. Even if Uncle Chester did say I could have a pony. Oh, I love you lots more than any old pony.
Thank you, boy, thank you.
Of course, it is nice on Park Avenue. If you live there, Grant, you might do some of those big things you used to talk about.
What's that to do with it? We get along all right here, don't we? It's a nice house, comparatively speaking.
Anyway, we have plenty to eat and wear. Not any too stylish, perhaps, but at least we've never been hungry, have we?
No, Grant.
Then you're both quite happy about everything, aren't you?
Yes, Grandpa, if you are.
I'm not kidding anybody but myself.
Everything's all right, Grant. You're not kidding. It's just that the other kids are so proud of their families, and we know they are worth two pins compared to you.
Only they don't appreciate you around here.
Joan, it's been a long time since anybody took the trouble to show me myself.
Just for a minute there, I had the feeling you were your mother.
See me now.
I wonder what she thinks.
You think you could still be a great man if you wanted to.
Yes, that's like her. And I'm not sure it's not right.
You know, I've had a funny feeling all evening that Destiny is coming back from a long vacation.
Destiny!
Donald, it's me, is it?
Remember, united we stand. Come in!
Good evening to you, Mr. Dash.
Ah, the demigod.
Say again your pardon, Mr. Vance, Mr. Maris.
Ah.
I'll be your humble servant, Aloysius Francis Xavier McCarty.
I must say it's extremely difficult to anticipate your chameleon whimsies.
I forgive you, Mr. Vance, our family ties. The grandfather and the little ones were the heart.
Perhaps I've misjudged you, McCarty.
What people think of me don't matter, as long as him and I for the grand works of the party.
What's your feelings about that, Mr. Vance?
I'd hate to tell you with the children in the room.
It was the loss of your job that's put the ranker in your heart. You feel different things.
And I get it off my chest at the polls tomorrow, yes.
Wait till I tell you why you were done out of that miserable job.
It was beneath you, Mr. Vance.
The fact has come recent to my attention that you were once an educator at Harrowmont College.
True, though somewhat died to point.
Says I, such a great man, must find his place in our educational system.
You mean I might be a job of some kind?
Listen, Mr. Vance, the house of learning would take on a new aroma just from your presence.
Uh, how would a janitor's position strengthen?
Oh, Mr. McCarty, I'd like nothing better.
Wait a minute, Grant. Janitors aren't so great.
But I need the job.
Yeah, and I bet Mr. Einhat McCarty needs your vote.
Ah, the vote is nothing in itself, that. But the party sort of feels, uh, well, it's dead set on enlisting your intellectual support.
Now, if it's a teacher you want to be...
No, that's for ladies teaching.
Uh-huh. Well, I was about to say, um, we might use your right handily on the school board.
Oh, Mr. McCarty, all right.
Hold it, Grant.
Uh, superintendent.
What's that, Julie?
Oh, second lady.
Oh, please, please.
Commissioner of education, and that's the last offer.
If the job's good enough for the mayor's brother-in-law, it's good enough for you.
Thank you, Grandpa.
And that's the term you're oystered with, Mr. Vance.
Ah.
If you'll vote the straight ticket.
I always vote the straight ticket.
Fine, fine. I'll have a car for you in the morning. A pleasant evening to you.
And to you, Mr. McCarty.
You're in, Grant, you're in. I was afraid that many would spoil.
No, there's nothing to it. I can't possibly make a bargain with this man.
But you said you always voted the straight ticket.
So I do, but not McCarty's ticket. The casting of a vote is the casting of a belief, son.
Someday you'll know that a man's vote is not something to be bought and sold.
A man's vote is a man's faith in the future, in the future of his children and their children after them.
It doesn't look like much of a future for us right now.
Hey, Grant, don't let us down.
What's that?
Well, I'm...
No, goodbye, Jupiter. I won't let you down.
I told McCarty I'd vote the straight ticket and I'll vote the straight ticket.
Oh, we knew you'd come through.
We always said so.
Of course, Grant. You look swell riding in an automobile. It's...
I can take a hint. Go heat up an iron. I'll even press my pants.
I'll put on a clean shirt in my other worm.
Oh, it's you.
Grant, it's Dandley.
So it is.
Welcome, Phoebe. Do you always walk in like that?
Gregory Vance, you... you renegade. And I smell liquor here.
Well, Phoebe, the years haven't changed you much. They couldn't. Hello, Chester.
This is my attorney, Gregory. We're going to court in the morning with a paper to give us legal guardianship over these unfortunate children.
It's obvious they're not getting a proper bringing up.
A matter of fact, I just heard that Vance has been fired from his job.
Has no visible means of support for the children. It'll be an open and shut case.
Why don't you ask the children whether they'd rather be brought up, Chester?
We'll let the court decide that, Gregory.
So far, so good, my benevolent Buttinsky.
Merely adds to your report that I've just attained an importance and highly lucrative position.
And you have your records.
Delusions, I should think, Stransley. Possibly drunken.
Oh, how you think. As of tonight, I am the new commissioner of schools.
If you don't believe me, it's at that Iron Hat McCartney.
So McCartney's up to his old tricks, eh?
That cheap war dealer couldn't deliver a garbage collector's job.
Come, Miss Inslee, Mr. Inslee. My clients will call for Joan and Donald in the morning, Mr. Vance.
Scram. Does that mean that it was all baloney, what I had said?
Large as succulent as slices, I'm afraid.
Ah! Ah, so there you are. Thank heaven.
Iron Hat McCartney, I am fully aware that what you said last night cannot be held against you.
The same time, Iron Hat, I wish to point out...
Never mind what I said last night. You're late for the parade. You're keeping the mayor waiting right now.
Parade?
The parade to the polls in your honor.
Indeed. Oh, seems that again I have misjudged you, McCartney.
Dear fellows, you realize that the polls are directly across the street.
It doesn't matter where they are, there's got to be a parade.
Come along now, will you, into the mayor's car with you.
Tell the band to start playing. Here you are. Meet his honor. Your honor, this is Gregor Vance.
Oh, yes.
All right, here's the car with you, kids. The parade has got to start.
Oh, boy, Graff. Now if Iron Hat comes through with that committment job...
I see here, McCartney, is it true that you...
Oh, just ease yourself, sir. Disturb in the dual movements of your mind with such strife.
Stop interrupting. If you've made promises to Vance that can't be fulfilled...
Then I just glamp on how to vote, won't you, Graff?
And it'll be in all the papers how he wrote it.
Oh, no, no, no, no, no, no. Now promises must be fulfilled.
Promises in their small ways, just like planks in our platform.
Isn't it true that the little planks are more substantial if reinforced by the written words?
Oh, yes. Well, give me your pen, McCartney.
Yes, yes.
Oh, yes.
There. And now you know where you stand, Mr. Vance.
Thank you.
That is you, Ed.
But isn't some onlooker got it, son?
A witness. Yours is the honor, McCartney.
Why, I... Well, all right. There.
Thank you.
Well, here we are. Around the block and back at the polls.
Ah, well, we'll be waiting, Mr. Vance.
Your name, please?
Gregory Vance. Sign here, please.
And, uh, booth right over there, please.
There you go.
I... I came, I saw.
Ha. I conquered.
Stop singing.
No, son, that's Gregory Vance.
The scrubbiest Roman of them all.
Gregory Vance. Magnified for a brief moment by a kind destiny.
In a kind land is where greatness is within a people.
Not within a man.
A people and their faith in each other.
Where any man who calls himself great is only looking at his shadow
on the shoulders of those who've lifted him up.
On election day, his own feet carry him.
On this day, the so-called great walk side by side
with the shoulders that have held him high.
Side by side, the strongest and the least.
And those we sometimes call down and out are equal in the voting booth.
Tomorrow, I'll be quite forgotten.
A bit of shadow glory like the rest of you left his mark.
Only in a ballot box.
I'll be no less a part of that total greatness.
Because being even the least in a land where strength is so generous
is greatness in itself.
And as for faith, I know I shall never lack that.
Gregory! Gregory!
Ah, yes sir, your honor. Meet my brother-in-law, St. James.
Oh yes, well how do you do? Now if you'll excuse me, Commissioner.
Commissioner?
Commissioner of Education, Chester.
Yes, as I mentioned last night.
Yes, yes. Well, thank you and a happy good day to you, Commissioner.
You must excuse me, I have a thousand other duties to perform.
I'm sure you have. Good day, Chester. Nice to have seen you.
Commissioner of Education?
Oh, yee, Grant. You're still going to be a big man when you take over that job.
Well, Joan, I wouldn't count on it too heavily.
But Grant, the mayor said...
Yes, charming fellow, the mayor.
You know, I'm rather sorry now I didn't vote for him.
Thank you, Orson Welles. Ladies and gentlemen, in a few moments Mr. Welles will return to the microphone.
But first, Gaine Whitman has some interesting information.
Every child in school knows the blessings that are guaranteed us by the Bill of Rights.
Every American worthy of the name, at some time or other, has counted them for the blessings they are.
When we tick them off one by one, we are reciting Battles won down the long centuries of the struggle toward freedom.
Think of them now.
You are blessed by the declaration of brave men who lived and endured before you with the right to worship your God as you choose.
You are guaranteed free speech and a free press in a world in which today men have been tortured, imprisoned, hanged, and shot for speaking their honest minds.
You have the right to assemble peaceably with your friends, your neighbors, and petition your government.
You reserve the right to bear arms for the common defense.
Without due process of law, no one may deprive you of your property, your liberty, your life.
You have the right to a public trial before an impartial jury.
No cruel or unusual punishment may be inflicted on you.
And today, many of our fellow men beyond our shores are meeting with horribly cruel and unusual punishment.
Perhaps the most liberal, the most American amendment of them all, is the one that says these rights, and the others granted, do not mean you have no further rights.
Count your ten blessings, America, on the ten fingers of your hand.
Always men have known the ideal of liberty.
The Bill of Rights made part of that ideal a fact, made men equal before the law.
But it's steam and electricity and the mass production America introduced to the world that have provided us with enough food and clothing to go around, and so made the ideal a real possibility for the first time in history.
There have always been two kinds of people on this earth of ours, the man of faith and the doubting Thomas.
The doubting Thomas says things will always be the way they are.
They'll never be better.
The doubting Thomas says that women don't need any more washing machines, that there aren't going to be any more inventions, that we've reached the top.
Men of faith and courage, on the contrary, know that while our present system is the most productive the world has known, it hasn't even begun to produce what it can.
DuPont chemists have every reason to believe, for instance, that the present flow of new products represented by, say, nylon and neoprene is the merest trickle.
Tomorrow the trickle can be a river.
Where today chemistry is bringing us a few new plastics and fibers, tomorrow it can bring us hundreds, thousands of new products of which today nobody so much as these.
Under the freedoms of the Bill of Rights, America will continue to create wealth known to no other nation, will continue production surpassed by no other nation.
And to that future wealth and production as his share, the DuPont chemist will continue to add his better things for better living through chemistry.
And now it is my pleasure to introduce to you again our star of the evening, Orson Welles.
Thanks, John.
Thank you, ladies and gentlemen.
You know, I used to be one of the original Cavalcade players a few years ago.
I just want to say that it's a pleasure to be here again.
I only hope that those of the Cavalcade audience who remember me enjoyed our play tonight as much as I enjoyed being in it.
Thanks, Orson. I'm sure they did.
Say, why don't you just carry on from here? You know your way around on Cavalcade.
I most certainly ought to.
I know that at this point you were supposed to announce next week's show.
Well, why can't you do it?
Very well, John. I can't quarrel with you on such an auspicious occasion.
Next week, ladies and gentlemen, Cavalcade will present an old favorite of mine and of every theater and moviegoer in America.
It's Mark Conley's reverent and beautiful play, The Green Pastures.
Cavalcade did it last year at the Christmas season, and because of the enthusiastic response of the listening audience,
it seemed appropriate that they should do it again at Christmas time this year.
I agree. I'll be listening myself. I hope you will, too.
On tonight's program, Orson Welles appeared through the courtesy of Lady Esther
and with Ray Collins by courtesy of RKO Pictures, where Mr. Welles is producing The Magnificent Ambersons.
The orchestra and the original musical score were composed and directed by Robert Ambruster.
Our play was adapted for radio by Peter Lyons.
Every American citizen must become a partner with his government in order to push our war efforts to a victorious conclusion.
We're in a war. We've got to fight it and finance it.
It's going to cost billions and billions of dollars to guarantee victory for our democracy.
Buy United States defense bonds and stamps regularly, as many as you can.
Get them at your bank, post office, or savings and loan associations.
Don't forget, next week, Cavalcade presents The Green Pastures with many of the original cast and the Hall Johnson Choir.
On the Cavalcade of America, your announcer is John Heaston, sending best wishes from DuPont.
The Green Pastures of America
This is the Red Network of the National Broadcasting Company.