 The Cavalcade of America, presented by DuPont. Good evening everyone, this is Gabriel Heta speaking for the DuPont Company. Tonight's The Cavalcade of America brings you a story of a great American. Great because he was a living example of qualities which we like to feel a part of our American heritage. His name is Edward Buck. A man who came to America as millions did and began his climb by hard work and faith in his new country and its opportunities. A man who helped hundreds of men and women to climb as he did. I believe it's especially appropriate for us to hear about Edward Buck tonight. We've heard so much about men of force and men who rule by might and power. Here's a man who lived by tender compassion. A man who had one great goal in life, to serve his fellow men, to make their lives richer, fuller, happier. And now before the curtain rises on our story, Don Voorhees and the DuPont Cavalcade Orchestra play September songs from the musical comedy of early days in New York, Nicobarca Holiday. The theme provides its readers with a hundred useful services. Services unknown a few years ago, but that today are available to everyone for the few pennies it costs to buy a modern magazine. America's most famous baby doctor, right for American mothers. 100 inexpensive hymns to make your home more attractive. 50 dinners any man will enjoy. Practical points for doing over a spare loom. Gardening made simple for the backyard farmer. A successful businesswoman gives advice to girls. The man responsible for most of these services in the modern magazine is an editor of recent times, Edward Bach. And tonight our story is of Edward Bach's struggle to rise from an immigrant boy's poverty to a position of influence and distinction in his adopted land. His success was largely due to his constant effort to understand Americans. And he began studying them shortly after his arrival from Holland at the early age of six. When one day he and his brother William stood staring hungrily into a bakery shop window. I don't know what the words in English, Edward, but that is bread and toasts are rolls. And that is lemon pie, William. Mmm, I tasted the piece once. Let's go into the baker and say, give us a lemon pie and we do some work. Work? For a baker? See, out of good family. Yeah, a good hungry family. But our family does not work for bakers. Gentlemen, don't work. They do too. In America it's all right to work. You can work at anything you want. No, it's wrong. It is not. Yeah, yeah, yeah, it's wrong. No, it's not. It is not. It is not. And listen, our people were great people in Holland. There was a judge in our family, and who was our great-great-grandfather, Anthony? An admiral. I still want lemon pie, William, so I get one. Oh, Edward. Edward Bates, what are you going to do? Well, little boy. Good evening, mister. Those current buns look mighty good, don't they? They would, mister. If your window was clean. What? It's too dirty to see very good. Well, of all the nerve for a pint of fries like you. Maybe you'd like to wash my window. I would. Oh, I see. Not a customer, a job hunter. Well, how much would you want for an hour of your valuable time? Five cents? What is there? Five cents and a current bun. Wait, please. I hurry back fast. Well, for the love of... Yeah? What happens, Edward? He's a good man, like friend. I come every day and scrub clean. Maybe they don't customers. He hires you already? No, not yet, so better I hurry. William, in the window, the roll is not called. Oh, it's called current bun. You will get it for being scrub man to the baker? Yeah. It's all right for an American to versed William. I just know this. So, you tell mother, William, I bring home a big lemon pie. That was Edward Bach's first job and his first lesson in Americanization. For the boy or man may work at whatever he likes, so long as it's honest. And like many an American lad, young Bach turned an industrious hand to whatever came along. He was a baker's boy, a news boy, a lemonade seller, and an office boy. The briskness and initiative of America delighted him. By 12 years of age, he'd learned enough of the language and the people to know how to pick out a job and go after it. One evening in the room of a newspaper, the Brooklyn Eagle... Boy! Boy! Yes, mister? Take this to the composing room. Hey, who are you? My name is Bach. Edward Bach. I've written several letters to you, but I know you're a busy man. Who let you in here at this hour of day? How did you get past the outside office? I walked past. A lady called me, but I kept on going. And then I heard you calling for a boy. I met the copy boy. Oh, you just said... Listen, will you come to the point? What do you want? I have a good story for the Eagle. What is it? I wrote it out for you, sir. I brought it to the Eagle Specialist. Here you are. All right. Last night, Miss Irina Davis gave a charades party at the home of her parents, Mr. and Mrs. C.D. Davis of Elmwood Avenue. 50 young people were lucky enough to be invited. Well, what's the story? Did it wind up in a murder? No, mister. It wound up with lemonade and cookies, but look at page three. Page three? Mm-hmm. Those present were the Mrs. Anna Tracy, Dean Smith, Betty Gould... Say, what is this all about? Don't you see, mister? If you print those 50 names, every single family will buy a copy of the Eagle. Huh. Well, you might be right, sonny. Mister, I could get you a lot of stories. Oh, with names, that's just practice for me. When I grow up, I might work for you all the time. Well, that's mighty kind of you, sonny. Well, I could use some stories like this, and we'll pay you three dollars a column. Three dollars. Now skip before I change my mind, and don't come back before tomorrow. Yes, mister, I'll get busy. Three dollars a column? Four dollars. Five hundred words to a column. One thousand names to make two thousand words. I get somebody to help me. Hey, sonny! Yeah? You going to any parties this week? Yeah, my mother's making me go to a girl's birthday party. Why? Listen, would you like to make a nickel by just going to a party? A nickel for going to a party? What's the catch? No catch, it's easy. All you do is take a paper and pencil and stand off in a corner while and jot down names. Then bring them to me. Tommy, you don't work hard enough at this job. What's the matter with that list? I'd like to know. Look, you put down Ed Roberts. His name is Edwin Castleton Roberts. And here, Jeanette White. Her middle names were the spoons. All right. But I don't know if I'm having much fun at parties anymore. I won't get names for less than ten cents, Edward Bach. Jamie Crowell. Oh, you are awful popular. How many parties do you go to this week? Three. All right. Ten cents a piece. Let me cut down profit, but it gets results. We'll have a story for the paper. Edward Bach was in his teens, not yet fully adjusted to the country, his father died. If he needed more incentive to industry and initiative, he founded in the desire to shield his widowed mother from poverty. Taught that purpose he worked as a clerk by day and for his newspaper at night. One memorable evening he was assigned to cover a banquet at which the President of the United States, Rutherford B. Hayes, was the principal speaker. How do you know I'm at this table, boy? There's a reserve of reporters. I am a reporter. I mean, I hope... Well, they must be hiring help from the day nurseries now. What's your name? I'm Brooklyn Eagle. Don't remember seeing you before. How does it happen that he sends you out in a story? Because I take shorthand. But I hope the speech is slow enough. Oh, you won't have any trouble. President Hayes speaks very slow. Yeah. The slowest talker I ever heard. He stutters and repeats himself. Oh, really? Yeah. I didn't know that. Well, it's going to save my life. Sir, you might give me a couple of those pencils you've got with him. Certainly. I'll have one, too. Those look like good pencils. Oh, thanks, Barth. But I need some myself. Look, I've only one pencil left and it's broken. But I have to have a pencil. Ladies and gentlemen, it is our good fortune this evening that the final remarks at this meeting will be made by the President of the United States, Rutherford B. Hayes. President Hayes. Ladies and gentlemen, because I have long loved New England, it's great men, it's scenery, it's noble history in these United States. I consider it a privilege to be here tonight for this forthright discussion of problems to be met in our northeastern states. Most of you are practical men with the close knowledge and conditions in your own communities. You are met here for exchange and comparison for criticism and help. I shall make an end to these remarks, ladies and gentlemen. They were offered in the Contemplative Spirit. They were the words of a critic, but of a philosophic critic. And a man who wishes you well. And please believe, ladies and gentlemen, that I have spoken more in the role of an interested, sympathetic, private citizen than as an officer of your government. I thank you. I never heard anyone talk so fast in my life. How much of a tenure I remember. Hardly any. I might as well jump on the river and go back with what I know. Which door will the president leave by? Do you know? Does anyone know? Well, I'm sorry, Doreal. I'll avoid the crowd. But what... Hey, boy, don't go out there. Wait a minute. Excuse me. Can I squeeze through here, please? I beg your pardon. Let's shopping, please. I have to get through. Oh, thank you. Pardon me. Right on my foot, sir. I'm sorry. Dorman, has the president come through here? The carriage is just drawing up, sir. Stand back, please. I have to. Oh, Mr. President. Mr. President. Come over here, man. You have an appointment with the president? Let him speak to me if he wants. There's a secret service. There's no way, Mr. President. I do. He was the reporter's table. Weren't you, son? Yes, Mr. President. I couldn't get all your speech about it. I wondered if you have a copy of it. Certainly. I'm staying over on Brooklyn Heights. Are you going my way? I'd love, Mr. President. Please don't take a strange young man in your car. It's all right, Parker. Get in, son. Thank you, sir. Fine evening for a drive, isn't it? Yes, Mr. President. Blend it. I enjoyed your speech. It was just a little fast for me, though. I saw all of you struggling. This is your first big assignment? Yes, sir. And while I'm here, maybe I could ask you some questions. Political questions that the eagle would like to know about. Go ahead. I don't promise I'll answer. Well, at the time of your election, first about the copy of your speech. Here you are, son. A word for word copy, Mr. President. The eagle will beat the town. Early in life, Edward Bach learned that famous Americans were friendly and democratic, and began writing to them for information about their lives. In this way, General Ulysses S. Grant sketched for Edward a map with the exact spot marked where General Lee had surrendered. Jefferson Davis, the cultivated head of the dissolved Confederacy, wrote to Edward for years. Henry Ward Beecher, the famous Brooklyn preacher, he led with almost one of his households. And he met Henry Wadsworth Longfellow, Oliver Wendell Holmes, Ralph Waldo Emerson, and many others. But while he was educating himself, he carried on his work, a denographer by day reported by night. You did very well on that President Hayes, John Everton. Thank you, sir. I'd like a chance to do a special work every evening, if I could. How would you like to work for us on a full-time basis? I'm sorry, sir, but I almost have to keep my daytime job as a photograph company and get to the work I'm interested in during the evening. Well, I'll give you all the way you can swing to the evenings. Here, take this ticket for the Grand Opera House tonight. Tonight? Can't you work tonight? Yes, sir. It's Rose Coughlin's show. She played it here early in the season, and we reviewed it. But I stated to you, we want to cover it again. Bring in the story tonight. Yes, sir. That was an interesting review you sent in last night, Edward. Thank you, sir. There's nothing wrong with it. It reviewed a show that didn't go on. There was a speech made just before the curtain was to rise. Miss Coughlin was too ill to play. I'm sorry, sir. I know you want me to resign. Yes. For faking. Let's finish your chances with the eagle. In time, Edward Bach convinced his editor of his fundamental honesty, and the eagle took him back. He never faked a game. Instead, he was hard-working and direct, and made his newspaper training a stepping stone to the famous old publishing house of Scriveners, to a little magazine of his own called The Brooklyn Magazine, and to a syndicated newspaper column on books. Then one day in the city of Philadelphia, one of the most brilliant publishers in America, Cyrus H. K. Curtis, had a talk with his wife, who was about to retire as editor of The Lady's Home Journal. Why am I having so much trouble finding someone, Louise? Because most editors are literary people. This magazine can be more than just literature. It ought to reach out to people directly. Everybody we've thought about so far has certainly been a disappointment. I wish you'd look up the man who writes this syndicated newspaper column, William Bach. William Bach? Well, he writes about books. Probably doesn't know a thing about people. I'll try. I'll make a lunch in appointment with him next time I go to New York. Your name is Edward Bach. Why the William Bach on your articles? Oh, that's my brother's signature, Mr. Curtis. We used to do that literary column together at first. Then he dropped out of it. My wife likes that column. So do I. Thank you. My wife's retiring from the editorship of The Lady's Home Journal. Too much of a strain for her to continue. She needs a successor. How well do you understand women? I don't understand them at all. Well, that's honest, have you? You mind? No. Any sisters? No. But my mother... My mother met a great deal to my brother and me because we were left to take care of her when we were quite young. So I know a lot about homes, Mr. Curtis. My whole life's been a struggle to keep one together. Of course. Our title's The Lady's Home Journal. We might put the emphasis on the home and see what you could do for us. So began Edward Bach's career as an editor. Cyrus H. K. Curtis hired him to edit The Lady's Home Journal. And through the busy years of his life, it seemed that the presses were always turning. Reading manuscripts, consulting authors, making new contacts. Always trying to keep in close touch with the public he sought to serve. Edward Bach brought the women's magazine to its present useful form and made it indispensable in the American home. His genius with people took him far and wide over the world, recruiting talent for his readers. I envy you, Bach. I envy the power you have. That's a strange statement from the president of the United States. No. They read what Theodore Roosevelt says. Newspapers. When they're tired and rushed and busy. But they read you at home, where it makes an impression. You have more to do with the future of America than some of us down here in Washington. What about a doctor, Coolidge? Is this a wild plan? Well, it's never been done before, Mr. Bach. But think of it. Thousands of mothers needing health advice. Not nearly enough doctors in the rural areas. Well, I'm willing to try. Good. We'll raise 90,000 babies by mail. A sideline to the magazine business. Oh, a part of it. The Lady's Home Journal. Now, Mr. White, if you could give us some quotations. Now, Mr. White, if you could give us some quotations from architects on what they think of the magazine's Better Homes campaign. You could say that Stanford White thinks you've done more than anyone else to better suburban city planning and the architecture of small homes in America. I want to be able to say Rudyard Kipling is one of my writers. He wouldn't have me make a trip to England for nothing. But what could I write for a woman's magazine? Your best work. We've shown that women will read good literature. The best of William Dean Howells, Sarah Arn Jewett, Conan Doyle. There's just one way to please the American public, Mr. Kipling. Keep one jump ahead of it. Through 30 years, Edward Bach remained proudest of one thing. And he considered this one fact more important than being an editor. It was his conviction that the American people were the most idealistic in the world. He crusaded for the best in women's clubs, for day nurseries, for civic improvements, for better painting and decoration in the American home, against the evils of certain patent medicines, and for a more readable and realistic literature. Toward the close of his life, he counseled the young on the future of America. Mr. Bach, all the younger men on the staff, well, we just can't believe you're retiring. I am, Tom. I have a debt to repay. A debt? Not a money debt. 50 years ago, a half century, a six-year-old immigrant boy sailed into New York Harbor. He didn't know the language. He had no money and no prospects. And now, thanks to a great country, he has both. I've been taking a lot out of America for years, and it's about time I put something back. But Mr. Bach, you've done more for America than a lot of native-born Americans. The two presidents wanted to make you minister to Holland just to thank you. Well, I deserve no great credit. I learned long ago America demands the best from its public men. I've found ours to be the most idealistic country in the world. Keep a jump ahead of the American public or it gets disgusted with you. I want you to remember this. Democracy is a hard taskmaster. Now I want time to think, Tom. A man my age forgets the busy years, his mind goes back, far back, to a worried little boy. The boy was hungry sometimes, eager, always. Those roles cost five cents a dozen. If they had five cents. But you don't understand. Gentlemen don't work. Dovillum, teacher at school says in America, it's all right to work. I go in and see the baker. Edward Bach's life could be said to approximate the ideal of the American citizen. It was his firm belief that leadership meant keeping ahead of the public's demands. He was a man who worked for his city and community. He brought music, art, and literature to the mass of the people. And to the memory of his grandparents, Edward Bach built a beautiful architectural monument down in Montenegro, Florida. A carillon, carillon, a stately tower like the old bell towers of Holland where people might come to gaze on beauty, to rest, and to think. He's buried at the foot of that tower near this motto which he liked best. Wherever your lives may be cast, make you the world a bit better or more beautiful because you have lived in it. Ladies and gentlemen, this is Gabriel Heeter again. There are romance and drama in American industry to tame all fabled wonders of Aladdin's magic lamp. I found a headline to prove it. New York's city losing 20 million gallons of water every day because of leaks and underground water pipe. 20 million gallons a day which gives you an idea how much water New York needs. And here's my romance of American industry ensuring water for a great city. Way up in the Catskill Mountains at the headwaters of the Delaware River. Two great tracts of land have been set aside for reservoirs. The job now is to build the world's longest tunnel called the Delaware Aqueduct to bring pure mountain water to New York. A job that wouldn't be possible without the aid of chemistry. It will mean boring through 110 miles of solid rock. It means going down in some places as deep as 1500 feet. Running shafts down 1500 feet and boring in both directions and then crossing the Hudson River 600 feet below. I shall never forget a day when I went down below a riverbed to watch tunnelers at work. Men tunneling against rock. Now picture driving a tunnel 18 feet in diameter straight through hard rock. Chemistry will make it possible. Dynamite born in a wonder world of chemistry a miracle by which puny man moves mountains changes the course of mighty rivers furrows deep into an underground empire of nature to get coal and ore to make life better to live. It will take 22 million pounds of dynamite to do the Delaware Aqueduct job. And when it was explained to me I realized I had always imagined dynamite was dynamite. And I asked the DuPont engineer are there many kinds of dynamite? He said in the average year we make as many as 500 different kinds and sizes for locating oil for mining coal iron copper lead zinc and other minerals for quarrying building dams highways railroad tunnels for draining swamp clearing land of boulders fighting soil erosion all the work of building civilization. And some day not so very far off people in New York City will be drawing water through a 110 mile rock tunnel built by men and dynamite 700 million gallons of water every day in addition to water now available. One more example of a product born in a wonder world of chemistry creating jobs wages for every mile of construction there will be paid out three quarters of a million dollars in wages alone the Delaware Aqueduct a story of vision for today and tomorrow's to come a living example of a timeless DuPont pledge better things for better living through chemistry. Next week at the same time DuPont again presents the Cavalcade of America. This is the Columbia Broadcasting System.