 Making some better things for a better living through chemistry and starring Connell Wiles. Tonight's Defant's Day is called Young Man in a Hurry and here's our star, Connell Wiles. He fled Hitler's concentration camps in a hurry, came to America in a hurry and went to school in a hurry and invented a most ingenious scientific instrument in a hurry. His name is Joe Gerber. Tonight on the Defant Cavalcade you will hear Virginia Payne as Joe's mother and I shall be Joe. It was April only a few short years ago. Perhaps for you it was a month like any other month, but for my mother and for me it was the month of our second birth. We were in America and we didn't have to be afraid anymore. That's what the lady at the Hebrew Immigrant Aid Society in New York kept saying over and over to my mother. It's something you just have to accept and say, Frau Gerber, that America is America. It is Europe. Can you understand that? Yeah, I understand good. In Vienna, many years ago, in school, I studied English. Good! You speak it very well. Oh, thank you. Now, tell me your full name again, please. Frau, the first human gerber. And this is your son, my son. Yeah. Hi, Joseph Gerber. Do you speak English? No. He speaks good English. I teach him myself. Hi. So, I'm Frau Verpe in English. You teach the Dharma. Oh, my mother is Christian. Oh, thank you. Say one word for a lady in America. Hot dog. I see that Joe's American education has begun. Tell me, Frau Gerber, what was his education in Europe? Running away. Learning how to stay alive. I know. Frau Gerber, your husband, they caught him. I'm sorry. It's easy for me to ask such questions. It is not easy for me to give such answers. Yes. But from now on, you will just sign my sign to forget. This is America. You're safe. Oh, thank you. Don't thank me. Thank America. We reached it. But how? I can't tell you. Every person does it his own way. You and your son will find that way. You will see. How do you express gratitude for tranquility that may be taken for granted? How do you pronounce the benefits for policemen who do not expect you to bow before them? How do you sing a hallelujah for workers who are not required to remove their hats in the presence of the employer? And the employers who need not tremble before the majesty of government or station? You placed liberty too much for granted. We were the delayed pilgrims. We came later than you. And we were able to see what you have done. We saw so many things. And our eyes were new. You stayed in New York only for a short time. A year later, my son presented himself to the principal of River High School in Hartford, Connecticut State. My name is Heinz Joseph Scherber, okay? Where did you learn to talk like that? Is it bad, sir? Well, let's say it's original. What can I do for you, Heinz? Sure, sure. It's better American. I wouldn't be surprised. Well, Joe, please, you will annoy me. Yes, I have a good desire to be a junior in high school. How old are you? 17. What education have you had until now? One year at Argynazium in Vienna. What else? Three months. Bus born in New York City. Hardly a formal education. I learned planting, sir. I wouldn't be surprised. How, uh, how else have you educated yourself? I work. Speaker, shipping clerk, bakery assistant, office boy, freight handler, salesman, meat cutter. I change jobs a little. Yes, you do, Joseph. So how are you employed at Redmond? By day, office boy, by night, freight handler. Two jobs? Sure. Well, aren't you tired? Sure. You're a young man. You'll exhaust yourself. Why do you do it? It's for college. I will be engineer, American engineer. Please, I have a good desire to be a junior in this high school. I believe you. But first you'll have to find out in what class you belong. You'll have to take a series of examinations. I have two pencils, please. Now, yes, I'm in a hurry. Joe? Yes, sir? Your knowledge of mathematics and science is extraordinary. I am a junior in high school? I'm afraid not. What you said? Yes, I know, but I haven't spoken about your English examination. It's not good? No, it's very bad. Joe, let's try again. Now, how do you spell bow, the bow of a tree? Now, careful, bow. P-O-W. Joe, how do you pronounce B-O-U-D-H? That's easy, but... No? No, it's expecting too much, I guess. No, I'm terribly sorry. I study five hours every day. I study ten hours every day. I study as much as you want, please. I will be high school junior. No, no, it'll be too much for you. It's for your own good, Joe. For my good, I must be high school junior. I must. Oh, it's entirely and completely irregular. In my heart, in my mind, in my soul, I'm for engineer. American engineer, I'm in a... Just as I know, I know you're in a hurry. Very well. We'll allow you to enter the junior grade. Provided? Yes. Provided you study first and second year courses on the side. I will. And pass a special examination in it. Oh, yes, sir, I will. Mr. Joe, I... I think you will at that. My son Joe was in a hurry. You are sorry to express such a thing, but why was he in a hurry? Only for himself, no. Not only for himself. He would become an engineer. But I couldn't bear the fear that he drove himself. He couldn't even sleep his morning oatmeal without the same time doing homework. Mom, will you pack my lunch? I'm nearly late for school. Oh, I am packing it. Now come, you do one thing at one time. First, eat breakfast. Your homework will be... Oh, I blotted it. Not, not, not. I have to do it all over. Not? Then I suppose you are learning in your English class? It's very good, America, Mama. Where's my lunch bag? Now, your oatmeal. I like it to be safe. I got it, Graham. Goodbye. Oh, not, Graham. You must have always sticked for a language. Shut up, Ma. Don't be a square. He went to school from 8.30 in the morning until 2.30 in the afternoon. After school, he was in a bakery until midnight. At midnight, he began his homework. Saturday and Sunday, he studied his freshman and his sophomore studies. He allowed me to have one movie a month. A metaphor is a figure of speech, which... Oh, English, Mama, I'm going to fail. I know it's hard. The first three months, he didn't fail any of it. But by the mid-year, he passed. In June, he brought in his final report. Three average in all my subjects. English included. Oh, that is good, Joe. That is very, very good. It was a breeze, Mama. You have to take these things in your pride. Nonchalance, that's the word. Yippee! Joe, Joe. Where's Joe? He's the neighbor. Mama, I'm sorry. The neighbor. Mama, I passed my freshman test. I passed my sophomore test. I passed my junior test. Joe, Joe, Joe. Stop! I'm a senior. I'm a senior. Yippee! You sent for me, Mr. Burst? I did. Have a chair. Thank you, sir. Now, I can hardly recognize you. You were the same young man who came to this school two years ago. I didn't mean to kick the fucker ball through the window. I'll pay for the damage, Mr. Burst. The Board of Education of the City of Hartford will certainly thank you. But, um, that isn't why I sent for you. Oh, no? Joe, what's your average? Well, a high B, sir. Why isn't an A average? Well, sir, I was working pretty hard and, well, I tricked the bakery and decided to have some fun in my senior year, fool around with soccer and debating. I'm sorry, Mr. Burst. I guess I slackened up. Joe Gerber, why do you think I sent for you? To scold me? No. Joe, sometimes I... I think being a high school principal is a kind-less job. And then, when I'm feeling really sorry for myself, a Joe Gerber comes along. You're embarrassed, aren't you? Yes, sir. Young man, I've watched you. Your teachers have watched you. You made us proud. I'm Joe Gerber. The faculty of the Weaver High School is happy to nominate you for a Jacob L. Fox Foundation scholarship to be used toward the payment of college expenses in any college you select. Mr. Burst, I... That's correct, so your average was only a high B, not an A. But, Mr. Burst, Mr. L. Fox and the judges were concerned as much with character as with Mark. Joe, Joe, what's your hurry? I can't tell my mother. I want to tell her I'm away. He chose Grand Salier Polytechnic Institute and he matriculated in the School of Aeromedical Engineering. I'll tell it to you, not with pride, but like a prayer. By the end of the fifth year of college, my son Joe, not a boy anymore, a man now, came to me and kissed me and whispered in my ear, Mama, at Grand Salier, there's something called a God-Shore Power Scholarship. I want it, Mama. It means my tuition until I get my degree. You don't have to say it, I know. Now, I would cry. Good news, you should laugh, be happy. I'm happy. I am happy for myself. But I would cry for all the dead mothers and all the dead children, all the dear and the important who are never given to see America. All right, Mama. Forgive me. I spoil your happiness. It's not your time. No, it's all right. No, you have won the right to be happy now. Yes, ma'am, I've bought the tennis rackets and I've joined the soccer squad. I'm going into debating and I've lined up some dates. I'm an American. I'm going to college. I'm going to study and I'm going to have fun. Yes, ma'am. Now, let's see. Dear mother, as I wrote in my last letter eventually, it's almost as good as being home. I'm fooling around with the soccer team and I've joined the debating society and my roommate Norm and I go to dance. Maybe I've been having a little too much fun, but don't worry. Well, I'll have to stop now and get back to an engineering problem. I should have finished three weeks ago. Norm sends his best regards. Hey, Norm, you got a three-cent stamp? I'm studying. Have you got a three-cent stamp? Yeah, they kill people for less in the dressing room. Which door? Pressure P and the velocity V at all points. Oh, here it is. Hey, when are you getting around to that airfoil problem? Well, now don't rub it in. Norm, it isn't that the problem is tough. No, I don't mind the tough ones, but this is the old series of unmetrical curves. It's tedious, that's what it is. To solve a problem like that, why should a man have to read points and interpolate curves all over the place? Who's storing? I'm saying that the problem that requires scales, slide rules, dividers for practice... Yeah, to work, but Norm, it doesn't make sense. Instead of all those gadgets, there ought to be one single instrument to do all the work. Of course, Professor Einstein. One instrument that'll bend up and down and around curves. Hey, why not, Norm? An elastic rubber ruler save hours of time. I'll bet a nickel I could calibrate it. Here's a nickel. Hey, what are you doing with your pajamas? Okay, they're your pajamas. What are you doing with that elastic band? I'm going to make a rubber ruler out of it. I'm going to make me a scale that can flow with a curve, expand, contract, turn around a corner, and look out, I'm in a hurry. We continue our story, starring Cornel Wild as Joe Gerber. Joe, studying at Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute, was still a young man in a hurry. And so, one day, when a complicated engineering problem came up, Joe improvised an elastic ruler out of his pajama belt. Joe, what are you doing? Finishing my problem. Who are you kidding? What do you mean, finishing? Finish. To complete or bring to an end. To complete by doing all things requisite or desirable. Don't give me that business, Gerber. You haven't finished that problem. I haven't, Tom. Take a look. I see it, but I refuse to believe it. You mean you worked it off? With this scale made out of the elastic in my pajamas. I'll be a cock-eyed monkey. How do you know you've got the right answers? Take it. See? Einstein, what are you going to do with that elastic? Use it again. Homework is going to be a thing. Homework is going to be a thing from now on. I get this. It's an invention, huh? Sure. What has Gerber brought? Hey, how about making me one? Dear mother, do you remember how, when I was a kid in Vienna, I found the way of electrifying the doorknob? And do you remember how the maid dropped the tea tray and how you spanked me? Well, spanked me again because I just invented something else. Don't worry, my professors are very happy with it. I'll tell you all about it when I come home. Go away from my kitchen stove. Just a minute. I'll be through. What do you think you're doing? Eating a coil spring. You're going to eat it? I said, eating, not eating. Oh. My pajama elastic wasn't a scientific instrument. Besides, its stretch was limited. But if you pull a spring like this one, the distance between each coil and the next coil increases proportionately to the entire expansion of the spring. Even if I understood what you were talking about, I would refuse to believe it. It isn't complicated. My only sound is complicated. Do you want me to explain it? No. It'll only take a minute. Don't explain it. Even a child would understand it. Now, it used to be a channel. Get away from my soul. Ma, you know what the spring can do once I've got the distances color-braided on it? Don't you use such language in this kitchen. I could squeeze the scales together and measure Abraham Lincoln's nose in the calendar over the sink, and I would be able to tell you how tall he was. And that is important, you know, huh? Well, I don't know. With this instrument, you can take a drawing or a graph and translate it into inches or meters or centimeters or anything. Now, get out of my kitchen. I will take my room to you. Ma, I hate to say it, but you don't have an inquiring mind. My house! It was like a foreign language. But he wrote from college to say that his professors were excited about it. Gerber, your variable scale doesn't merely improve upon a slide rule, but upon any other instrument already in existence in something different. He doesn't replace anything science already has. He'd add something altogether new and uncomfortable. Joe came home for a holiday. He wasn't interested in talking or reading. He still did it all over the house. Ma, I think I'll drop over to the place where I worked last summer and talked to the boss. He didn't fool me for a minute. There were some girls who worked there. Hello, Joe. Oh, you sound disappointed. I guess it's because the girls are up to lunch, huh? No, no, Mr. Cuffleman. In fact, I came over just to chew the fat with you. How's college? A lot easier. I found a way of beating a combination of slide rule dividers and protractors. You don't say. Look, if you start talking calculus to me, I'll throw you out on your ears. Mr. Cuffleman, you know, I've got an invention I'd like to show you. I call it a variable scale. I'm a businessman, not a scientist. Is it any good? Well, my professors think so. I'm making models for all of them. Have you patterned it? If it's any, well... Patterns, what? Well, of course. If it's any good, you ought to have a patent on it. Someone mentioned that, but I don't have extra money these days. Sure, I've known you for a couple of years, and I like you. Suppose I lend you the money. Well, it's very decent of you, Mr. Cuffleman, but a patent isn't important. Oh, you're wrong, Joe. A patent means that the United States says, Joe Gerber, you're a bright young fellow. And for 17 years, no one can infringe on what you've done. A patent is protection, Joe. Encourage me. Now, you talk to a patent attorney and find out how much you need. Yes, but why should you... Because I think you deserve every break. When you came here from Europe, we didn't lose. Europe lost. And you find out how much you need. Well, I'm grateful more, grateful than I can say, but I've already borrowed money for books and clothes. I'm not going to borrow another cent. Pay it back in 20 years. It's still a debt. I'd gladly give it to you as an outright gift. Well, thank you. I wouldn't take it, sir. I know. Look, suppose this thing is any good. And it might be. And then a lot of people can use it. Maybe the Army and the Navy and the Air Corps. Joe, how would you like a partner? You mean I'd go into business? Sure. Of course, you'll need money to finance you. You're saying I can start a business just with an idea? And a little finance. But that ought to be easy because you've got a good idea. It happens quite a lot in this country, Joe. Mr. Copleman, I don't know what... Just leave the model with me. I'll have it appraised by engineering consultants. If they agree that your invention has possibilities, you've got a partner. And money for patents and developments and much. Joe, maybe you think you've discovered America. You're only beginning. He was still a student at the Wensleyer Polytechnic Institute where the new corporation was organized. Joe, let's call it the Gerber Scientific Instrument Company. Now, here are the papers of incorporation and the contract. And hold on to that patent because that's your protection for the next 17 years. Oh, I'm very happy. You ought to be, kid. You're the president of a corporation. Now go back to school and do your homework. Because of the accelerated course instituted during the war, Joe graduated from Wensleyer in two and a half years. He got his bachelor's degree in aeronautical engineering and his sixth job as bright field working with the United States Air Force engineer. Hey, Joe, let's work on this airfoil problem. Here we have a new little gadget that'll make some of our problems stuck through. Well, let's have the box, huh? Here you are, sir. All right. Hey, what'd you say your last name was? Gerber, Joe Gerber. Oh, it's a real coincidence. The name on this box. That's quite a sheet out with me, huh? Yeah, it's a coincidence, all right. Wouldn't be a relative of yours, would it? Well, my closest relative, me. Huh? A sense of humor, mister? No, sir. You're not fooling? No, sir. Well, tell me something about this thing. Well, it can be used for spacing rivets. It can be used for reading art scales, non-dimensional curves. It can be used for interpolation for determining the pitch of screw threads for laying out airfoil sections, making construction layouts, things like that. Things like that, huh? Mr. Gerber, something tells me you just applied the answer to an engineer's prayer. In America, there have been many inventors and they've made great and wonderful things and there will be many more. I'm proud that Joe is among them, so he isn't a great invention, but it is something good and useful. Joe and I, we came to America in the time of our need. We sought the American dream and like so many others, we found it. This is Cornell Wilde. How would you like to meet the real Joe Gerber? That applause is for you. Thank you. Joe, what are you working on now? Six new inventions, Mr. Wilde. Six. Are you kidding? No. We hope to have patents on them before the end of the year and whatever happens to those inventions will they turn out to be good or bad? I should always remember that America took us in and not only gave us a home, but an opportunity. In my own way, I have tried to fulfill an obligation. Once I thought it was my obligation alone, but now I realize freedom is everybody's job. Thank you. Thank you, Joe Gerber and Cornell Wilde. Next week, the DuPont Cavalcade will present two distinguished stars of the screen, Bob Reigns and Agnes Morehead. Our DuPont story, Mr. Peel and the Dinosaur, tells of a discovery that astounded the early American painter and scientist, Charles Wilkins Peel, and his delightful wife Elizabeth. Be sure to listen and be sure to support the American Heart Association in its campaign to combat heart disease, which is said to be some species. Today's original DuPont play, Young Man in a Hurray, was written by Morton Wishengrad. Cornell Wilde will soon be seen in the forthcoming RKO production, Sons of the Musketeers. Music was composed by Arden Cornwell and conducted by Donald Voorhees. The program was directed by John Zoller. The DuPont Cavalcade of America comes to you from the stage of the Balasco Theater in New York and is sponsored by the DuPont Company of Wilmington, Delaware, maker of better things for better living through chemistry.