The First Lady of Radio (22 page)

The real value of debate in Congress, over any measure, is not only the clearing of the minds of the legislators themselves, for their final decision expressed in a vote, but the opportunity which debate affords the people of the United States to understand the points at issue and to make their own voices heard through their representatives.

In order to achieve this, there must be a real freedom of the press, however; not the kind of freedom which requires a reporter to write his story always with the emphasis on a point of view previously decided on by an editor or an owner, but the kind which permits a factual story and leaves the opinion and interpretation of the fact to the editorial page.

This recent message to Congress deals with things which are most important to the American people. We are producing many things for the use of the democracies fighting the Axis powers. We are sacrificing our time and our money to do it. We are reorganizing our lives to achieve certain ends. We do it with our eyes open, knowing what the price will be if we succeed and what it will be if we fall. We are now confronted with the question of whether we shall make every attempt to see that goods ships reach their destination, or whether we wish to continue to leave that in the hands of those who cannot do it as successfully as we can.

Shall we arm merchant ships? Shall we allow them to go into belligerent waters under our naval protection? These are the questions up for debate, and Congress should hear from the people. In a democracy, people do not only have the right to vote, they have the right to bring their influence to bear on their elected representatives.

The torpedoing of the tanker
I.C. White
has come home with special poignancy to us here in the United States, because the sailors were almost all our own citizens, living in this country. As you look down the list, the names might indicate origins in various parts of the world,
but the addresses are nearly all on the East Coast of the United States of America. Though I find one man from West Texas. In the records of these men, there are many little stories which show that they had every realization of the risk they were running. It is interesting to note that Bernard Brady of New York City, for instance, had written to his wife from Cape Town, [South] Africa, asking her to send his sister, who lives in Vermont, $500 out of his $5,000 war risk insurance in case anything happened. He was a fireman, so his wife was much worried, as she knew he must have been belowdecks.

Julius Wojslawowicz is only twenty-one years old. This was his first trip, and he had signed up because he worked as a lead-man at the Brewster Plant in Newark, New Jersey, and had fallen ill from the effect of zinc chromate fumes. His doctor had advised a job at sea and his family heard from him in Curaçao that he was well and cheerful again. His family sat up all night praying that he and the others of the crew might be saved.

I saw two English boys in Philadelphia from an English merchant ship who seemed quite unconcerned. Men will go on sailing for distant ports, for that is the way of the sea, so they
should
be protected.

Speaking of national defense, many people would like to know whether the expansion achieved by our Army is actual or merely on paper. Just in case you haven't seen the figures given out by the War Department, I am going to quote some of them. In May 1940, the Army consisted of approximately 230,000 enlisted men, 13,500 officers, and about 225,000 National Guardsmen, only partly equipped and trained. And now the Army consists of over one million and a half men.

There has been much said about the need for mechanizing the Army, and some people have suggested that it was not necessary to train so much manpower if you had the necessary mechanized equipment. Unfortunately, even the most highly mechanized army must have trained personnel, and infantry still has its place in war, which is being amply
proved in Russia today. Men, however, can be trained more quickly than we can produce many of the things which they need to make them effective as an army in the field. It was necessary to develop new methods of feeding, of caring for their health, and of clothing them. All of this has gone forward rapidly. The greatest advance has been made in the mechanized equipment. In July 1940, there was only a total of 29,867 vehicles on hand. A year later, the number had been increased by 100,000, and it is mounting rapidly. The production of tanks and of every type of armored vehicle has gone forward, and by the end of 1941, the armored force will be increased by 1,400 percent over the amount which existed in 1940. In the providing of airplanes, we had to make a decision: on sending abroad or keeping them here. So we concentrated on providing primarily the equipment needed for training. This has been done very successfully, and Assistant Secretary of War Robert Lovett recently declared, “I think for the first time, we're going to have available in the maneuvers aircraft of a quality which has no superior anywhere in the world.” Quantity of aircraft is of course a secondary consideration, as long as it is necessary for our airplanes to go to the English and the Russians. But quality, we can emphasize even more.

In the
Antioch Review
, Mr. Max Lerner, professor of politics at Williams College, asks, “What is the armory of ideas that we require for this war?” And he proceeds to answer himself thus: “Quite summarily these: that democracy has in it untapped strength and unused expansibility, both in waging a war and in reconstructing society afterward; that the peace must be approached in the spirit neither of vengefulness nor forgiveness, but determined planning for more feasible ways of running a world; that economic settlements are required fully as much as political; that there must be substantial steps toward a world federal structure of some sort; and above all, that we do have a picture of a new world to guide those who are fighting and to hearten those who are enslaved.”
That seems to me a pretty good statement to guide our thinking for the future.

Further, it is good to find not only the president, but the undersecretary of state, Mr. [Sumner] Welles, laying stress upon a future world economic order where fair dealing for all countries shall be the aim of the United States. This is the only possible groundwork for future peace. We must be happy that our State Department and the president agree on this important policy.

To turn for a moment to labor, a Labor government goes into power in Australia, and the head announces that it will not try to remake the life of the nation overnight. Probably everything will proceed in much the same manner as heretofore. We do not have to have a Labor government in this country to bring about the consideration of labor problems. In a broad sense, all of us are a part of the labor family of this country, because comparatively few of our people do not work in one way or another. However, for the benefit of some of our highly paid workers who feel that their colleagues with lesser incomes are ruining them by their demands, let me suggest that they note the fact that even a Labor government hasn't seemed unduly to disturb Australia.

Incidentally, I just recently received a letter from Atlantic City, New Jersey, giving me a union card in the hand-knitters union. I failed to ascertain whether this is a CIO or an AF of L union. But being a member of the Newspaper Guild, and of the Radio Artists, I think I am collecting union cards as some people collect honorary degrees!

Turning from labor to the professions, our medical profession might note that in New Zealand, they have created a system of free medical care which will begin to function on November first. Like many experiments, this is evidently one which will need revision and improvement with experience, but it may be a step in the right direction.

By the way, I was appalled to see in a dispatch from Vichy, France,
that the death rate of children under ten was 45 percent above the last five years' average. It is attributed to the long famine. The report introduced “Armistice Skinniness” as a new medical term.

Now to close, for the good, cheerful, American note. I do not know how many of you know the Barter Theatre in Abingdon, Virginia, run by Robert Porterfield. I first became interested when I visited Abingdon because my father had lived there. This theater runs entirely on barter. The audience pays admission with goods: cows, chickens, eggs, pigs, milk—anything they have. The actors and actresses live in a hotel nearby and sustain themselves on the food brought in. There are many amusing stories about this theater, and I was interested to see an item in the paper which stated that Robert Porterfield told the State Advisory Committee on the Budget that one sow paid all the royalties on all the plays produced by the troupe. Mr. Porterfield said, “We kept that sow, taken in one night at the box office, and soon there was a litter of eight pigs, and then there was another and another litter, and we paid royalties with hams.” He added an amusing story about the time he wrote to Mr. Bernard Shaw for permission to present his play
Candida
, and offered Mr. Shaw the usual ham in payment. In his reply, Mr. Shaw said he had no use for the ham as he was a vegetarian, but that he would consider spinach. He got the spinach!

ANNOUNCER: Thank you, Mrs. Roosevelt. And now for your listeners, here's a tip on how to keep beautiful, from Miss Jinx Falkenburg, Columbia Pictures star, featured in
Two Latins from Manhattan.
Miss Falkenburg writes us, and we quote:

VOICE FOR FALKENBURG: “The best way I know for a girl to look her best at all times is to eat the right things, get plenty of sleep, yes, and drink plenty of coffee. Why do I mention coffee? Because I've found that when I want to look fresh and, well, you might say, ‘blooming in the evening,' coffee is really a wonderful help. After all, you look as well as you feel, and coffee makes me feel cheerful and peppy.”

ANNOUNCER: Why not try a delicious, flavorful cup of coffee with your evening meal tonight? And see how much more you get out of life with coffee. Next week at this same time, the Pan-American Coffee Bureau will bring you another interesting discussion of world events by Mrs. Franklin D. Roosevelt. This is Ernest Chappell bidding you all good night.

ANNOUNCER: Don't forget this is National Doughnut Month, and coffee and doughnuts are just one more way to get more out of life with coffee!

26.

“Freedom of Speech”

Over Our Coffee Cups
, presented by the Pan-American Coffee Bureau

Sunday, October 19, 1941

ER: Good evening, ladies and gentlemen. The moving-picture industry has been under investigation by a congressional committee. The question seems to be whether the producers have a right to present their own views through the plays they produce. I think it is permissible for Senator [Gerald] Nye, Senator [Burton] Wheeler, and Mr. [Charles] Lindbergh to present their views to the world, but I think it is equally permissible for all others. Why is one [form of] propaganda any different from any other? Freedom of speech should be accorded to all. A very great man left us when [Supreme Court] Justice [Louis] Brandeis died recently. Many people throughout the country have paid him tribute and will continue to do so. I have been thinking about him today in connection with this hearing or investigation of the motion-picture
industry, for the two great liberals of recent years on the Supreme Court, Justice Brandeis and Justice [Oliver Wendell] Holmes have both had a word to say on the subject of freedom of speech. It is perfectly evident that allowing a citizen to say “yes” to the government is
not
freedom of speech. The real test is whether a citizen has a right to say “no.” And that right we have had for 150 years and it is still ours today.

Justice Brandeis's remarks on this subject read as follows: “Those who won our independence by revolution were not cowards. They did not fear political change. They did not exalt order at the cost of liberty. To courageous, self-reliant men, with confidence in the power of free and fearless reasoning applied through the processes of popular government, no danger from speech can be deemed clear and present, unless the incidence of the evil apprehended is so imminent that it may be fatal before there is opportunity for full discussion. If there is time to expose through discussion the falsehood and fallacies, to avert the evil by the processes of education, the remedy to be applied is more speech, not enforced silence.”

But there are certain kinds of free speech which are not really permissible. Therefore, this is the point made by Justice Holmes in delivering the opinion of the court in the case of
Schenck vs. the United States
: “The most stringent protection of free speech would not protect a man in falsely shouting ‘fire' in a theater and causing a panic.” In other words, every subject should be a matter for free and full discussion. But we have an obligation to point out to the people as a whole the fallacies of any statements which we disagree with. Both men are apparently agreed on this and there were never two men more deeply interested in the preservation of our basic freedoms.

In our present situation here in this country, there is no question but what we have the time for full and free discussion. Therefore, I would not curtail the expression of anyone's opinion. But I would make sure
that equal opportunity is given for all sides to be presented, through every avenue of communication, press, and radio. Freedom for one side only is not true freedom.

A letter has just come to me from a correspondent who is much upset because the word “traitor,” she says, is applied to everyone who opposes the administration's foreign policy. She never mentions, of course, that the opposition has applied the term “warmonger” to everyone who champions this policy. This type of name-calling is never confined to any one side, but it brings up the whole question of free speech. And I think we should recognize today that we not only do respect free speech and permit it in this country, but that on the whole we carry on our differences of opinion on a higher level than we did twenty years ago. If we compare the congressional debates on the Lend-Lease Bill last spring with those on the League [of Nations] Covenant in 1919, we will see how much we have gained in seriousness and how much less vituperation and name-calling there really is in these days. It is very difficult to be a consistent people, just as it is difficult to be a consistent individual. But in this matter of freedom of speech, I think it is important enough for us to try to see that there is complete freedom of discussion and to be consistent on that one point at least!