 starring Madeleine Carroll in That They Might Live, an original radio play on the cavalcade of America. At a time in our history when women are doing the work of men in many fields, in science, industry, and medicine, we recall another time when women had no equal place in the work of the world. Our story tonight is about a pioneer in medicine who fought to help achieve this equality. Her name is Marie Zakhevska, a courageous Polish girl who became one of the greatest woman physicians and a pathfinder in American medicine. Our play was written by Norman Rostin, who based it on an original drama by Jane Douglas. Starring Madeleine Carroll, our story begins in the old world and ends in the new. It begins in the year 1850 in the operating room of the famous Royal Charité Hospital of Berlin. Yes, Doctor? They have finished. You may take the patient back now. Well, we can scrub up now, Doctor. Was it successful? He will live. Yes, a very delicate operation. You have performed this great skill. I'm proud of you, Marie. Thank you, Doctor Joseph. It is because you have taught me so well. What I have taught you is a little thing. What you yourself have is most important. The feeling for medicine, the love, the willingness. Such things cannot be taught, Mary. They are as music. I wish the other doctors thought as you do. I noticed Dr. Mueller did not stay long. He came only to find fault with you and spread lies. Dr. Mueller has a disease called prejudice. He believes a woman cannot be a doctor. He is waiting for me to die so he can take my place as director of the hospital. But I have other plans. You, Mary, shall become the new director. I, the director? You are capable. You are worthy of it. But are you afraid? No, I am not afraid. Good. It will not be easy for a woman. They will fight against you at every turn. But you will continue the work, our work. You have the fire that burns inside the heart. Do not let it go out. Promise? I promise. How is he now? Dr. Yosef has been dead since morning. Oh, and Mary? She is inside with him. She has not slept these past two nights, trying to save him. She will not be so important now. It's a disgrace for a German hospital to be run by a Polish woman. The whole city is laughing at us. Quiet, here comes Dr. Murler. Good day, doctor. Has the body been removed? No, doctor. Mary Jachesk has inside. May I go now? I will speak with her myself. Yes, doctor. Dr. Murler, Dr. Yosef is dead. Yeah, I know. He was a great man. Unfortunately, he was too extreme in his ideas. We shall make some changes at once. I may as well tell you now your appointment as director of the hospital has been in his synthesis of this morning. No, you cannot mean that. The Steven and the Bane hope that by humaning him, the doctor's life might be prolonged. You dare to do this to steal from the dead? We have suffered enough from you and your exalted ambition. Who are you, the daughter of a Polish midwife? How dare you speak to me like that? You were all born peasants. You should remain so. Get out. Get out of here. There have been no women doctors in Germany. Go to America. That is the place for fools. I will go there. I will go to America, where the air is cleaner, where women are free. Goodbye to your prison, forever. I'm sorry, madam. It will not do you any good to come back. I've told you many times. There is no opening in our hospital for a woman doctor. Perhaps you can tell me where I'm going. There is no hospital in all of New York City that will take a woman doctor. It's just the way things are. But my letters of recommendation, my certificates, you have not even opened them. Yes, I don't have to. It would not matter. I told you months ago. I'm sorry if I appear impolite, but it's the only answer. Yes, I'm beginning to believe that. Thank you, Mr. Director. And may I ask, have you a practice of any kind? No, I have taken in sewing in order to live. My sister and I, you see, I must find a position in the hospital soon. The most I can do, madam, is to give you a list of doctors to whom you can write. They might be able to help you. Thank you. I will try. I must keep on trying. I am sorry, Netta, to have to tell you this. But there is no more work to be had. My sister Elena and I have to close our little sewing shop. Oh, it's a shame when honest women can't earn a living. And even when they worked as hard enough to feed body and soul, only $3 last week. There was only $3 for myself and $3 for my sister. Oh, but it's not you I'm blaming, Ms. Elena, or your sister's a doctor. Taken in a poor woman like me, and many's the time I aid here. Well, it's a mighty pleasant way to work. When you see your boss working right with you and sharing what comes in, it's been the nicest job I've had. And we like you very much, Netta. Oh, I'll get along well enough, ma'am. To think a fine woman like yourself, a doctor, mind you, has the soul for a living. Like my Timothy was saying, neither he was saying a man would be better off in Ireland, digging potatoes. Well, God bless you all. Goodbye, Netta. Goodbye. I'll drop in for a cup of tea, now and then. What will become of her? I don't know. What will become of us, Mary? We are in America nearly a year. You are a doctor. Then why are you not a big doctor here, Mary? The hospital do not want me. My letters are not answered. My doctor's sign outside is faded. There are no patients. I don't know, Elena. I don't know. I should not have spoken. Why do we fool ourselves? They laugh at a woman doctor here the same as in Germany. Now that we cannot so, how else are we to leave? We still have that money in the envelope. Yes, the money we brought and did not touch, the money to go home with. But, Mary, you cannot think of going back. If we use this money and then there is nothing, we will be here as in a prison without friends alone. Mary! Oh, oh, come here, my little sister, my darling. Let me hold you. I have frightened you. Yes, we have been away too long. It is time to go back. I will open it, Mary. It's a new sewing order, perhaps. Come right in, ma'am. How do you do? I'm sorry, madam. We have been obliged to close our dressmaking shop. Some other seamstress, perhaps... But I have not come for a seamstress. I have come to see Dr. Mary Zaschevska. Doctor? Oh, why, of course. Would you sit down, please, in this chair? Elena, will you leave us, please? Yes, doctor. And now, how can I help you? My dear, I'm so sorry to disappoint you. I know how it feels, but I'm not a patient. I don't understand. I'm Dr. Elizabeth Blackwell. I received your letter some time ago in Boston. I'm very happy to meet you. Dr. Elizabeth? The great Dr. Blackwell? Yes, I did write you. I had her almost forgotten about my letters. It has been so long. I had resigned myself to dressmaking. I know. I understand what you've been through. Is there no way out to prove by our work that we are doctors as good as any? Then they would not laugh. I see you were not beaten, Mary. I'm glad. We must not weaken. We must walk into their forbidden hospitals and let our skills speak for us. If only there was a chance to do that. I would do that. I would show them. You wrote in your letter about a woman's medical hospital. It's my dream, too. It has brought us together and we should work together. You mean for our hospital? Yes. It may take time, years, perhaps. But the day must surely come. There must be a place for women in medicine. How do I thank you? I have no words, my good friend. My heart is silent with a thousand words. I know, Dr. We reach out and help one another. And in that way, each becomes stronger. We need your strength. There are many battles ahead. Fight with us. I will, Dr. Blackwell. All that I have, all my knowledge, all that I can do, I shall bring into the battle. There is no turning back. You are listening to an original radio play entitled That They Might Live, starring Madeline Carroll on The Cavalcade of America. Four years have passed. Dr. Marie Zakchevska, played by Ms. Carroll, is now a resident physician in the New York infirmary for women and children, founded by herself and her benefactor, Dr. Elizabeth Blackwell. As our play continues, Dr. Zakchevska is examining a children's ward in the infirmary. What is the ward, just as you directed? We still have the new curtains to put up, the ones with the nursery rhymes printed on them. Oh, oh, and remember the new toys. They are very important. I will, Dr. The children must feel that this is their home. Every small detail will help. First, we must take their fear away, and then... Oh, I have been looking for you. Dr. Blackwell wishes to see you. She's waiting in her office. Thank you. I will check the ward later now. Yes, Dr. What is it in the bedroom? Sit down, Marie, for a moment. I have some wonderful news for you. I have just received a letter from the New England Female Medical College of Boston. They've asked for you. For me? What do they want of me? They want you to become the new director of the hospital. Director? Of an American hospital? Oh, but, Elizabeth, I cannot leave. We started together. There is so much to be done here. The ground is already broken here. I can carry on alone. But the new ground, the pioneer ground, that is for you. Oh, it will not be easy. You'll find the same prejudice. But if you can hold on and prove yourself... I can only have the chance. Do you remember long ago you said if you could only meet them on the field, you'd show them? This is your chance, Dr. Marie Zashevska. Our chance. For every doctor in the land will be watching you. Yes. I have studied and worked and waited. You are right, Elizabeth. The time is here to prove ourselves. Now, at last, we shall prove to all that we are equal with men. I am ready. I can't sit here and wait. I can't just wait while my wife is in there. Something's wrong. Please, Mr. Adams, be quiet. It's over an hour. She's so young, she's a child. She can't stand pain. Everything possible is being done for her. She was all right at first since she came home. She was feeling fine the first week. Baby, too. And all of a sudden, no reason. I've got to go inside, please. You may go in now. How is she, Doctor? How is she? Stay, sonny. Don't just stand there. We did all we could. We tried. We tried our best. Believe me, what else can I say? I'm dead. I think she was feeling fine at first. Why? But what happened? Why didn't it happen? I must say, die this way. It's wrong. Somebody's to blame. Somebody. I'm sorry. There's a hospital. She shouldn't have died in a hospital, not in a hospital. Look, isn't your fault, Doctor? Nobody's fault. May I see her, please? Yes. He was wrong, Nurse. It was our fault. Our formal, Doctor. It's not true. We let her out too soon. There was no space here, no room, not enough equipment. We have to fight for every single item, every strip of bandage, every bed. It isn't right. It isn't right. Marie, Doctor, the directors are downstairs. And something's happened. I don't know what, but there's a meeting. I know. They have come again with their talk about money. But this time, I shall do the talking. Please remember, Doctor, that we have considered your activities with some deliberation. The female medical college had been going along quite well before you took charge and introduced microscopes and test tubes and those newfangled thermometers. All the while, that's what they are. We have to train our students, sir. We're the most modern. There's too much training. That's the trouble. We don't turn them out fast enough. We do not turn out mere commodities, Mr. Herrick. We turn out doctors, a new kind of doctor, a very proud and capable kind. May I interrupt? Since you have been here, Doctor, you have expanded the medical school for women. A very dubious project. Your experimentation must stop at once. Remember, we are first the hospital. Then, if you please, an institution of charity. Charity? Is medical training charity? No, it is justice. Justice to the sick and to the poor. You're too much concerned with the poor. I must be, sir, since they cannot be wished away. You're a very headstrong woman, Doctor. We will not countenance a woman who insists on impractical ideas. So you do not like my ideas. It is easy for you to sit around this fine table and call my ideas impractical and past judgment. What do you know of the world and its misery? Listen to me. Half an hour ago, a young mother died in this same building. She need not have died, gentlemen. She was discharged too soon after childbirth because we lacked beds. We lacked one bed, a thing made of iron. And an innocent woman has died. Well, come now, Doctor. It's hardly our fault. If one day it is your fault. You say I must not experiment. You say I must not train doctors. You say we must not expand our wards. I tell you again, we need more doctors, more equipment, more space, yes, and thermometers, too. This is no time for inventory, Doctor. What shall we speak of then? Of the weather? Shall we speak of good food and clothes? While every moment blood is lost, life is being lost? You were talking idly and dangerously, Marisa Shepescombe. I am talking of the dignity of human life. I am talking about pain and blood and death and suffering. And I shall continue until the day I die. Do you understand? Or are these things only words to you? Just a minute, gentlemen. This angry discussion is getting us nowhere. And I am inclined to agree with Dr. Szebska. She should get more equipment and more space. But we can't run a hospital decently. Let us not run it at all. What's happened to you, Sewell? I have changed my mind. I think there's more to be said, and I intend to see it. Look here, Sewell. Are you trying to take the part of that crack-brained doctor? How dare you speak that way of me? Calm yourself, calm yourself. Doctor, remember, we represent this hospital. You are not this hospital and cannot speak for it. It stands and will stand, even if this room were to go down in fire with all of you in it. She's right. I tell you, she's right. Thank you, Mr. Sewell. Let someone stand and tell them who they are. I've met them before. They breed in every country, in every generation. They live on the misery and ignorance of their fellow man. They stand in the path of progress and try to stop it. But they will fail. They will learn that the world goes forward, humanity goes forward, and they may as well try to hold back a flood. We will not be silent forever. The age of darkness is no more, gentlemen. Well, I think I've heard it. So you are leading. Then run to the warm safety of your home. Shut the doors, bolt them well, draw the blinds, bar the windows, and try to sleep if you can. Try to sleep, yes. For I will not. Doctor, I am with you. I was proud to be in this room with you. I was proud to be a member of the human race. I have lost everything. And yet there is a kind of peace around my heart. But I must find somewhere to start again. Would you start again, doctor? Would you be willing? Yes, if I had only a small building with bare walls and no equipment, I would start again. I would be heard from. Let me help you. Your work is absolutely necessary. I'm a rich man. We can get more money if we need it. And I'm convinced that people will not allow your work to die. To start again from the beginning. How many times have I done that? Yet it must be done again and again until our building stands in the sunlight. We shall start again, Mrs. Ewell. And women must one day triumph free from ignorance and prejudice to do their share of the world's work. Mary Zashevska did start again with a spirit of many names behind her. Anne Preston, Harriet Hunt, Mary Jacobi, and Elizabeth Blackwell. And there were new names to come, new hands to take the torch and carry it forward. Marie Curie from Poland, Edith Kavel from imprisoned Belgium, from Russia, the heroic voice of Simonovskaya, from China, the glorious name of Shumayon crying out. We, the women, will bind up the wounds and keep the men fighting for freedom. And yet to come were the women of America, ready with their comrades in this great mission, in peace or side by side with men in battle, so that they might live. And now our star, Miss Madeline Carroll. It has been almost 100 years since Mary Zashevska lived. Tonight I would like to present to you a woman physician of today. She is Dr. Emily Dunning Barringer, who opened the doors of the General Hospitals of New York City to women doctors. She also was the first woman ambulance surgeon in New York, Dr. Barringer. Thank you, Miss Carroll. It has been a long time since that first ambulance call, since those youngsters on the east side yelled, get a man, get a man. We have come a long way. It is about those boys as well as what women are doing in medicine that I am thinking about tonight. Those boys have grown up now. Many of them have sons in the service of their country. Along with your own sons and husbands and fathers. It is the greatest drive for manpower in history. In this supreme struggle for our way of life, these boys and men are going to need the finest medical care we can give them. We need more doctors. Washington has commissioned 60 women to serve with the WAVES. And similar commissions are being given to women physicians now serving with the WAACS. The women physicians of America are taking their place beside the men. These commissions are a step in the right direction, we believe. But we are fighting also for the recognition of complete equality as to rank and professional status within the medical reserve corps of the Army. For commissions for practicing women physicians that would allow them to stand shoulder to shoulder with their male colleagues in America or on foreign duty, wherever they are needed. We ask to carry our share. Thank you. Next week, ladies and gentlemen, Cavalcade salutes our Navy in a special program entitled In the Best Tradition, starring Orson Welles. It'll be a broadcast not only to commemorate Navy Day but to observe the 100th anniversary of Navy Ordnance. Don't forget next week, Orson Welles is Cavalcade's guest in a special Navy Day program. The orchestra and musical score tonight were under the direction of Don Voorhees. This is Clayton Collier sending best wishes from DuPont. This program came to you from New York. It's a national broadcasting company.