The
cavalcade of America sponsored by DuPont, maker of better things for better living through
chemistry presents John Garfield in the blessings of liberty.
Before we begin our play, here's a suggestion for victory gardeners and factory workers.
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Apply it to your hands before starting work.
To remove, use running water to dissolve the protective film and carry the dirt away with
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We are a free people.
The guarantee and contract of our liberty are simply stated and written down for all
men to know and ponder.
But words without deeds are barren.
For what avail the plow or sail or land or life if freedom fails?
Our DuPont cavalcade is a story of an American soldier on the Anzio beachhead, awaiting the
signal for H-hour.
And the remembrance is out of his life that gives bone and blood and heart to our word
guarantee of freedom.
Cavalcade recognizing I am an American day to be celebrated next Sunday, presents John
Garfield as Private Jim Hunter, Army of the United States in the blessings of liberty.
An original radio play by Sylvia and Robert Richards on the cavalcade of America.
I am Private James Manson Hunter, 25 years old from Adams, Indiana.
I'm waiting with my company in a stone farmhouse on the Anzio beachhead.
It's almost dawn and at 5 a.m. we will attack.
Yesterday other men were here who went where we are going.
We saw some of them being brought back during the afternoon.
As for us, for the past hour we've just been talking.
It's getting lively out there.
We must be giving it to them.
No, the noise that gets me.
Is this your first time?
Yeah.
Oh, you'll get used to it, Lou.
Sure, it's just like when we moved from Flatbush to Manhattan.
What time is it, Jim?
He just told you, pipe down.
What a guy can ask, Kevin.
Oh, talk, talk.
What time is it?
I don't like the noise.
It's getting later.
Listen, brother, knowing the time won't help.
All right, Tony, keep your shirt on.
Hey, anybody got something to read?
We could take tits.
I say there's a lot of junk here.
The last guy's left.
Maybe there's something.
I looked at it.
Mostly wrapping paper.
Yeah, dirty socks.
Hey, look.
A world almanac.
Great.
Look up Italy.
Oh, yes, my old man's given me.
Okay, here we are.
Italy, page 240.
Italy is a country of much interest to the tourist with its lively landscape and picturesque
people.
The climate of Italy is sunny.
Maybe it's more up to day on the state.
Okay, the U.S.
Well, there's the urban population over 2,500, tax laws, Monroe Doctrine.
Well, why do you know?
What you got, Jim?
The Constitution of the United States.
That's funny.
I never knew it was so short.
Only about seven pages here.
Yeah, I remember that in school.
Article this, article that.
I don't know.
It's not so bad.
Listen to this.
We, the people of the United States, in order to form a more perfect union, establish justice,
ensure domestic tranquility, provide for the common defense.
Yeah, that's pretty good.
Yeah.
Yeah.
Provide for the common defense.
Support the general welfare.
And secure the blessings of liberty to ourselves and our posterity to ordain and establish
this Constitution for the United States of America.
Isn't that the preamble?
Yeah.
Yeah.
You know, this is what we're fighting for.
You mean to tell me I'm going out there for seven pages in the World Almanac?
I know why I'm going.
The lieutenant told me to.
For sure.
But we tell the lieutenant and everybody right up to the president.
Nobody tells Hitler but Hitler.
Well, sure.
We're in this for reasons.
Sure.
Yes.
Big reasons.
They're in the Constitution.
And if you come to think of it, there isn't anything you've ever done that isn't tied
up with it in some way.
I remember one time when I went to Sunday school, I must have been about seven years
old.
My mother dressed me up in one of those eaten suits with a big collar and gave me a dime
for the collection.
I had about four blocks to go to the First Methodist Church on Grove Street.
Well, a few houses down I saw a boy, he was older than me, coming out of a house.
Hello.
Hello.
What's your name?
Tom Malloy.
Where are you going?
Sunday school.
Where are you going?
Sunday school?
Where do you go to Sunday school?
Don't you know?
No.
Why should I?
You said you were going to Sunday school.
I am.
Then why don't you know where it is?
I do.
Well, where do you go?
I go to the church.
You go to the church?
I go to the church.
You go to the church?
I go to the church.
You go to the church?
You go to the church?
I go to the church.
You go to the church?
No.
How?
Seventh Street.
That's not where it is.
It's on Grove Street.
Not my Sunday school.
Is there another Sunday school?
Sure.
Lots of them.
Lots of them?
What are you doing yours?
Well, we have Hail Mary.
What's Hail Mary?
Don't you know that?
Hail Mary, full of grace.
No, we don't do that.
And we have catechism.
What's that?
It's catechism, that's all.
Gee, that's funny.
It is not.
If not, yours is.
Well, we don't do that.
Hail Mary, or catechisms.
Don't you do any of the rest?
What's the rest?
Like our Father, who art in heaven?
Oh, sure we do.
Everybody does that.
Bet you don't.
Bet you don't even know it.
Sure.
It's our Father, who art in heaven, hallowed be thy name.
What's the name of your Sunday school?
St. Mary's.
It's Catholic.
Oh.
Well, I guess that's all right.
Sure it is.
It's a pretty big thing when you come to think of it,
that a kid can get to be seven years old without even knowing
that there's any difference of opinion about religion.
In Germany or Japan, people have been
killed for saying what we kids said that morning.
And that's in the Constitution.
Freedom of religion.
I wonder what happened to Tom Malloy.
He's in this too somewhere.
He volunteered before me.
There's something else I remember.
I was about 12 or 13.
You see, my father's a lawyer.
And for a long time, he was county attorney.
And he and my mother used to talk at supper time
about what was going on in the town.
And I just listened.
Most of it was over my head.
But one night, it was spring, I remember.
He came home awfully worried.
And that day, his dad asked me, to tell a friend
about my daughter's newgrb.
And I'm telling him that I didn't like it.
So then I told him, you know what?
You're being AOA 민dır, and you'll pay us admit.
Right.
And he said, I'm ad punted.
Yes, you're ad punted, threat keep with one or two million.
Well, that's well enough, my friend.
killer because he was a miser and had lots of money and they caught the man
who did it and he had blood all over him and he confessed. You see Anne? Oh it's true isn't it dad?
No no Jim it isn't. Oh gosh everybody's sick. Look Jim boy I'll tell you what's true.
Sure dad. Mrs. Parker was killed and a man's been arrested. A man who's called a
hobo. But but he confessed. No son he's not confessed and there was no blood.
Oh gee. You see Anne even in our home rumors, threats it's all over town. But dear they
couldn't. Well they won't. Friendship. Listen. Oh no John. Maybe I can head them off. Please please John no. Dad can I go with you dad?
I have to Anne I have to try somebody has to stop them. John you'll be hurt. Sir let me go too please sir.
It's the boy here Anne. John. Don't worry I won't be hurt. Thank God no one is.
Somehow I gave my mother the slip and followed. I don't know how but I remember I felt some of the excitement of nights at the county fair.
It took just a few minutes for me to get to the center of town. I met people going the same way I was.
People who ran out of the side streets carrying axes, guns, clubs and yelling. When I got to the jail there was a big crowd yelling and pushing.
I saw my father standing alone on the steps of the jail. He was facing the crowd shouting.
Wait wait you've got to stop there's a law.
No no no no no no.
Joe Ellis what are you doing here? And you Carl. You know this can't be done not in this country. This man is entitled to a trial to protection under the law.
We got a job to do. Leave him alone.
I'm ashamed for you. For our town. If you do this there's not a man or woman.
Suddenly I couldn't see my father. The mob went forward and I followed it. When I got to the steps I found him.
He'd been hit. There was blood running down his face and he was white and dazed.
Jim. Jim boy. How did you get here?
I I followed you. Dad.
Poor boy. Don't cry son. Don't cry.
Oh dad. Dad who hit you? You're hurt. Oh dad.
No no no. It's all right son. Now don't cry.
But why did they hit you? Why?
Don't cry for me Jim boy. Cry for them.
You see my father was right. It wasn't just that a man got hung who may have been innocent.
It was worse than that. For days afterwards no one in that town could look anyone else in the eye.
There was a sort of sickness, a feeling of shame. I don't think it will ever happen again.
I think the people learned that night the same things we're learning now.
It isn't enough just to have the laws of human decency written down on a book somewhere and call it the Constitution.
You've got to make it work. No exceptions.
I remember the summer I was seventeen. I got a job on a farm outside town.
There was an old man there, a hired hand, a Polish fellow named Steve.
I guess he liked me and he had a lot to say even if his English wasn't so hot.
One early fall day when there wasn't much work I decided to go hunting.
I was out by the barn cleaning my gun and Steve hung around and kept talking.
Oh, maybe you get rabbits, huh? I cook you.
Sure, Steve. Sometimes. Yes, I steal them.
Steal them? I thought you lived on a farm.
Sure, sure, but in my country everything belonged to the nobleman.
The land, even little birds and rabbits. Everything.
No killing. Even rabbits.
How'd you catch them? Very hard. With traps.
It is very good. You have a gun.
Oh, no, this one isn't much. When I get paid here I'm going to buy me a beauty.
In my country, Jim, no guns.
What do you mean? Don't they make them?
Make them, yes, for the big men who run the country.
Oh, well you didn't have enough dough to buy one.
No, no. You see, they are afraid. Afraid.
In America it is your country. For everybody.
So you have gun. Anybody have gun.
Sure. Well, that's right.
Over there, big men's country. They are afraid of me, of Steve, of the people.
And so, no guns. I still don't get it.
You are a young man, Jim. I see many things.
Yeah?
I see you can go shoot rabbits, not steal.
Sure, but suppose I couldn't.
You can work hard, save, buy farm. That is good.
Sure, if you go in for farming.
Over there you must farm. But on other man's farm. The nobleman.
Gee, that's lousy. Why do you put up with it? Why don't you get together and change things?
Ah, it looks easy, Jim. But in America many people die.
So you can say this. So you can get together like you say.
Say, Steve, I wonder if...
What, Jim?
Honest? You didn't ever shoot a gun?
No, no Jim, no gun.
How about it? Would you like to try mine?
No, no Jim.
Oh, come on, Steve, it's fun.
No, no, you go. I'm old man.
Oh, you'd really like it. Well, I'd like you to try.
Why, Jim?
Well, I sort of think you've got it coming to you.
You are listening to John Garfield as Private Jim Hunter, Army of the United States, in the blessings of liberty, on the cavalcade of America, sponsored by DuPont, maker of better things for better living through chemistry.
Among these better things are Freon's safe refrigerants. Freon is now serving the armed forces. And when peace returns, it will be back to quick-freeze your foodstuffs and cool your refrigerator.
As our DuPont cavalcade play continues, four American soldiers are awaiting in a stone farmhouse on the Anzio beachhead for a dawn attack.
Private Jim Hunter, played by John Garfield, is telling the others of the happenings in his life that brought home to him the meanings of American freedom and liberty.
It's funny, the things you remember, like that day in 1940. From the minute I got up, I felt excited, and I could tell that my father was even more excited than me.
I remember walking down the street with him. I knew every house, every fence, every tree, like the inside of my own hat. But it was like seeing it all for the first time, the people too.
And they looked at me and said hello like I was something they had created. In a way they had.
By the time we got to the old schoolhouse where we were going, I was feeling pretty important. Everyone we saw was anxious to say hello, to ask my opinion, and of course to give me advice.
The last couple of blocks they were as thick as flies.
Morning, Hunter.
It's too late now to worry about the presidential vote, I guess, but it's going to be a close thing for road commissioner, and we can't afford to lose that, no.
Sure, sure, Mr. Norton.
And Jim, I know youngsters like to experiment, but I think it's a bad mistake to start out by splitting your picket.
Pick even our candidate for supervisor. It's not what I'd call well, you know, but still, after all, he's a well, you know.
Sure, Mr. Norton. I know. You just want to be sure that I vote for the best man.
The voting was in a school I'd gone through to the eighth grade, and there were quite a few people in the room when we went in, watches and people just hanging around.
Morning, Hunter.
Good morning, Jim.
Morning, Davis.
Morning, Mrs. Pree.
Good morning, Mr. Hunter.
Hello, Mr. Davis.
Hello, Hunter. Jim.
Come on over here, Jim. We'll find you in the register.
How about it, Davis? Do we let him vote?
Hey, come on.
I don't know now. You have your certificate?
Certificate?
Why, you know the requirements. A notarized statement that you've shaved for three years.
Well, I don't know, Mr. Davis, but if you start when you have the hair on your chin, do you stop when there isn't any on your head?
Well, here you are, Jim. You sign opposite your name.
All right, Mrs. Pree.
Do you know how to use the machine, son? If you want help.
No, thanks, Mr. Purdy. I'll make out all right.
You're entitled to help if you need it. Do you want to go first? Go ahead, Jim.
Well, all right.
Your turn, Dad.
Be right with you.
Hello, Mary. Are you going to vote?
You know I'm not, 21. Whom did you vote for?
Oh, the best man.
Oh, don't be so cagey. I don't mind telling you how I'd vote if I could.
Well, maybe that's why I won't tell you. I don't want to start an argument.
Oh, that's it. Oh, hello, Mr. Honey.
Hello, Mary. Well, Jim, I guess we'd better get along. Surprise your mother.
All right, Dad. I'll see you tonight, ma'am.
All right.
All right.
Well, son?
Well, Dad?
Quite an experience, isn't it?
Yeah, I guess it is.
Yeah, I always say that the voting booth is one place where a man stands alone with his conscience.
I guess he does.
Jim, just between you and me, who did you vote for?
Well, Dad, just between you and me and my conscience, I voted for the best man.
I couldn't help kidding Dad, even though he was right about the conscience business.
But you can't keep your opinions to yourself forever if you really believe in them.
I remember a meeting we had in Adams in the town hall.
This one was on the wall.
We had a speaker from the state capitol, a guy from some committee, and he really went to town.
And for our own great nation, protected on both sides by mighty barriers of water,
it is unthinkable that we are or ever shall be in the slightest danger of attack.
I say to you that to send our boys to be killed, wounded, to be maimed and crippled and blinded by shot and shell
for the preservation of alien government would be the most appalling crime in our national history.
I thank you.
He's a hot air artist, Jim.
Now I'm sure a lot of you here have opinions on this, so I'll throw the floor open for debate.
Who wants to speak first?
Somebody ought to say something. Maybe I...
Jim, no.
Somebody has to. He's wrong.
I know you folks talking up about this outside.
There must be somebody here who...
Mr. Chairman?
Jim Hunter.
I really can't make a speech or anything, but the speaker tonight talked a lot about not sacrificing our young men.
Well, I'm just about the right age, I guess, if we get into the war, so I thought I ought to say something.
Yeah, boy!
I think the speech we heard tonight is the same kind of speech the French heard a year ago.
They thought they were protected by mighty barriers, too, like the Maginot Line.
People were telling them it didn't matter which side won.
Well, they found out different.
They found out that when Hitler smashed the churches, the schools, and freedom in his own country,
that was just the beginning, that he wanted to smash those same things in every country.
Of course people are going to be killed, but people were killed when we set up democracy in this country.
And unless we want to give up everything we won then, we're going to have to fight.
Oh, yeah, order!
Well, now, Jim broke the ice. Does anyone else have something to say?
Mr. Chairman, I want to say something.
Mary Davis has the floor. Go ahead, Mary.
It's not much. I just want to say it seems to me that we can't, I mean, violence is always wrong.
Killing is wrong. There must be some other way.
I mean, as long as America can keep out of war, like the speaker said, I think we should.
War is so horrible.
Mary, I just think that...
Poor Mary. They shouldn't have done that.
I'll go out and talk to her.
Order! Order!
Mary! Mary, wait!
Mary, you shouldn't have run out.
Jim, I... I sounded like a fool.
But you didn't, Mary. You were fine.
Because I really don't know about the war and what's right. I only feel it.
Well, Mary, none of us know all the answers.
I only made them laugh at me.
You see, Mary, that's why I feel like I do about the war.
Maybe one of us is wrong or maybe both of us are.
But why do we have to fight a war?
Because being able to talk is the first thing they take away from us if they got the chance.
Jim, I don't want it to happen here. But if there were only some other way...
Then what?
Then having people killed and crippled.
Boys like... like you, Jim.
Oh, uh...
What is it, Jim?
I was going to tell you.
Jim.
I enlisted this morning.
You see, Mary, I know it's coming and I want to do what I can.
Jim.
I have to do it. For so many reasons. So many things.
Our town, meetings like this one, all the things that are good.
And all the things that are bad.
So that we can keep on deciding how to make them better.
Don't you see, Mary?
Yes, Jim.
I see.
So, we're frightened for seven pages in a world almanac.
I guess I shouldn't have talked so much.
I don't know. I think you got something there.
Right, Tony?
Sounds okay to me.
But, uh, it must be late.
It's almost five o'clock.
Okay, fellas, everybody out. Come on, make it.
Well, here we go. Everybody all set?
Yeah, let's go.
Well, this is it, Jim.
Yeah, this is it.
Thank you, John Garfield.
Mr. Garfield, who has recently returned from an extensive overseas entertainment trip,
will return in a few moments.
In the meantime, here is Gayne Whitman,
seeking for DuPont to tell us how color can help to prevent thousands of accidents.
Last year, more than 18,000 industrial workers were killed on the job.
And nearly two million men and women were injured at work.
The causes of these tragic accidents are so many and so varied
that no single overall plan will solve the problem.
All of us must do everything we can.
One suggestion made by DuPont will be of value, we believe.
This is a standardized use of colored paints,
a suggested method of highlighting danger points in factories with colors.
The same color meaning the same thing in every plant.
Color talks. Certain colors mean certain definite things to us.
For instance, we're all used to green as a go-ahead signal meaning safety.
It shouts fire to every youngster who has ever chased a fire engine.
Since colors do mean certain things,
every factory in the United States can put them to work and make them talk safety.
Some factories already use color, painted pipes and so on for this purpose.
But a standardized color code will enable them to make better use of it.
Red, for instance, ought not to be used on firefighting equipment
and in the same plant on safety devices. It's confusing.
What would happen to you if you drove your car across the border into the next state
and found all the traffic signals purple and orange instead of red and green?
Yet there are some plants today in which a workman can walk 50 feet from one building to another
and step into an entirely different system of color signals.
A standardized code might specify high visibility yellow striped with black
for any spot where a man is apt to stumble or fall.
Orange, the shoutingest color, for dangerous parts of machines, the inside of fuse boxes and so on.
Green to identify safety equipment and first aid rooms.
Red for all fire equipment.
Blue as a warning against using machinery that's under repair or ought not to be started.
And white or gray to mark aisles, storage places, and waste receivers.
There's good reason to believe a standardized color code will help prevent many personal injuries.
DuPont invites plant executives and safety engineers to write for a 16-page illustrated booklet
on the subject of safety color code for industry.
Write to the radio section, DuPont Company, Wilmington, 98, Delaware.
Buco and Deluxe finishes, self-cleaning house paint, and many special finishes used in industry
have been developed by DuPont, maker of better things for better living through chemistry.
And now here is John Garfield, star of tonight's Cavalry.
Thank you.
I'm sorry I don't have time tonight to tell you all I saw on our recent trip overseas.
But one thing I want to pass on to you, especially to the families of our soldiers,
and that is that all soldiers that are eating prime beef or wearing grade A leather
are getting the best care and equipment of any front line army in history.
This stay-o to you at home, to what you give up, to what you produce.
Knowing this, I'm sure you'll sacrifice gladly and produce even more.
Thank you and good night.
Next week DuPont presents Thrust and Foster with John Hodiac and Eddie Maher in A Ship to Remember,
a saga of fighting men and their fighting ships.
It is the story of the flat-top Hornet and her crew,
which in a shortened heroic career gave Tokyo something to long remember.
Cavalcade's music was composed and conducted by Robert Armbruster.
John Garfield, star of tonight's play, will soon be seen in the Warner Brothers picture, Between Two Worlds.
This is James Bannon sending best wishes from Cavalcade sponsor,
the DuPont Company out Wilmington, Delaware.
We invite you to be Cavalcade's guest again next week when Thrust and Foster,
John Hodiac and Eddie Maher will be heard in A Ship to Remember,
a story based upon Alexander R. Griffin's best-selling book entitled A Ship to Remember, The Saga of the Hornet.
For an evening of fine listening, may we suggest that next Monday you tune in your NBC station
to hear the Firestone program, Information Please, The Bell Telephone Hour, and the DuPont Cavalcade of America.
The Cavalcade of America, sponsored by DuPont, came to you from Hollywood.
This is the National Broadcasting Company.