 On the cavalcade of America, Dupont presents Burgess Meredith and Carl Sandburg in Native Land. O sun, moon, stars, and you wind's clouds rain mist. Listen to me, listen. The voice you hear is the voice of a poet. No dead poet, no half alive poet trying to sell you a world of his own, but the kind of poet who will happen only once in your native land in your lifetime, Carl Sandburg. Whether you know him or not, it is certain you have seen him because he is always among you. And whether you like poetry or not, you listen to his poetry because you wrote it yourselves. And so it is that we are proud to welcome to our show tonight your poet, Carl Sandburg, the prophet and biographer of your native land. With Native Land, Dupont, maker of better things for better living through chemistry, brings you a new kind of radio program about America. Tonight you will meet America by looking inside a poet. And because there is something inside a poet more than just words, we will need some good actors to help us see what that something is. Burgess Meredith is that kind of actor and he is the one we have chosen to do most of the work. And so on Native Land, Burgess Meredith, star of stage, screen and radio, is your narrator. Monday, September 22, 1941. A number on a calendar arrived at after a million years of watching the stars, of telling the time of harvest by a shadow foreshortening and the time of planting by the sun in the equinox. September 22, 1941. We will start the beginning. For the beginning was the land and the stars moving overhead. And that is today, this week, the land America, a beginning. And the land is what people have made of it. What people are making of it in this fourth week of September, the year of our Lord, 1941. The people, people from Maryland to Minnesota, New Hampshire to New Mexico, questioning, answering, discussing, talking, back talking. What would you do if you was me? Take a crop loan from the government and plant my full acreage. They do say there's going to be a shortage. How's this for a nifty idea? A magnetic mine to attract other magnetic mines and blow them all up. But how are those people over there going to eat this winter if we don't feed them? He'll let them starve. What I want to know is, what are we going to be doing five years from now? Ten years from now. The people of America are trying to say something and someone is listening. A poet, Carl Sandberg. Who is Carl Sandberg? How did he get that way? It is time we found out. He explains himself and he explains you too. He tells his story and he tells your story. This man is speaking to you now, so listen, it might be important. I was born on the prairie and the milk of its wheat, the red of its clover, the eyes of its women gave me a song and a slogan. Oh, prairie mother, I am one of your boys. I speak of new cities and new people. I tell you the past is a bucket of ashes. I tell you yesterday is a wind gone down. A sun dropped in the west. I tell you there is nothing in the world only an ocean of tomorrows. A sky of tomorrows. Carl Sandberg remembers a time when America had even more tomorrows. A time in Galesburg, Illinois when some of the prairie was still grass. In the home of his father, August Sandberg, the immigrant swede who could not write his own name. Farley, you come here. Stop reading that book. No, you get that pencil, that indelible pencil. We gonna send that letter now to Texas on the farm out in Pony County, Kansas. Here they are, papa. No, no, I write this nice, Farley. Tell the county treasurer in Pony County, Kansas. First the money order. Pay the taxes for this year, 1888. Range it to three, section four, township alarm. No. No, you sign my name to the letters, Farley. All right, papa. No, let's see the letters. Yes, yes. That looks nice, Farley. No, no, you go back to your book. You bet I will, papa. You bet. No, wait, Farley. Someday you know more about what's going on here today. No, I tell you. Keep this in mind. Keep it in your head while I tell you. Work. Yes, hard work is good for you if it is work you like. And maybe your mama is right. Go to your books, learn to write. Maybe that is something too. Maybe that is a big thing, the biggest of all maybe. That was a beginning, that was a thought. But a poet must do a lot of listening before he begins to talk. Sometimes a poet has to go places and sometimes he has to stay in one place for a while before he starts out. Sometimes he must drive a milk wagon for a year or two before he catches a train. Sometimes it's better that way. For Carl Sandberg it was better that way. Oh, Senator Nyer. Whoa. How are you, Carl? Hi, Mr. Jenkins. How are you, Mr. Peckin-Paw? Howdy. Carl, when you come around to my office and talk to me? Sometime. Well, I mean it, Carl. Maybe we can help you or make something of yourself. Now you're just driving a milk wagon. That's all. How do you mean? Well, well, how do you know? Maybe you're cut out for a lawyer or a preacher. When are you gonna wake up? Oh, I don't know. Maybe tomorrow. Idiot, there's an eye, you old fool. Hey, ask me, Joe. That Sandberg boy got funny ways. I never sit here, son. I know. Where you coming from? Galesburg, Omaha, Denver. What's your line? Line? Business, boy. Business. Oh, I haven't got any. Not yet. Is this your first trip on the Overland Express? No. No, but I rode inside this time. I wanted to see what it looked like inside the coaches. Then bummin'. Well, you can do better than that. Say, maybe I could introduce you in my line. Gules, my name. I'm Carl Sandberg. My line is celluloid collars. There are more than 50,000 mail carriers in the USA, and there's not one that won't buy a celluloid collar if you've got a good line. A good man can sell them two collars. One for Sundays. Tell me about Chicago. Well, there's 2,396 mail carriers, and that's not counting substitutes. But what do they say to their wives when they get home at night? Do they say my feet hurt, or do they say it's good to be home? I don't follow you. Oh, say, you must have some line of your own. What is it, shoes? No, not entirely. I don't know what it is exactly. People, maybe. People, yes. Only Chicago Daily News. I can't imagine what you can possibly want to interview me about. How can a professor who specializes in what words mean hope to compete with the murder stories in your page? You might. Who knows? Well, Mr. Sandberg, I'll tell you what I know about the word Chicago. It comes from the dialect of the American Indian tribe that first settled here. It means the place of the skunk, the river of the wild onion smell. Chicago. My profession? Well, I haven't got any. What do you want to know? You ain't going to print any story about me, sonny. What is it? Something that's very important to me. What's important to you? Oh, nobody will ever know. When I fill out blanks for one thing and another, I write Housewife. What does that mean to you? I'm the woman, the home, the family. I get the breakfast and pay the rent, telephone the doctor, the milkman, the undertaker. Shall I go on? You'll go on, I think. Yes, you'll go on. Chicago. How old you are, honey. It's how old you look. It ain't what you got, it's what you can get away with. You can fix anything if you get the right fixes, sure. Hush, baby, hush, baby, I don't know a thing. Place of the skunk, river of the wild onion smell. I'm the woman, the home, the family. Short change artist, beat him up. Let it ride, shoot it all. She called Bull to cargo. Red men gave a name to a river. The place of the skunk, the river of the wild onion smell. She called Bull. Out of the payday songs of steam shovels, out of the wages of structural iron rivets, the living lighted skyscrapers tell it now as a name, tell it across miles of sea blue water, gray blue land. I am Chicago. A name given out by the breaths of working men, laughing men. A child, a belonging. I will die as many times as you make me over again, says the city through the people. I am the woman, the home, the family. I get the breakfast and pay the rent. I telephone the doctor, the milkman, the undertaker. I fix the streets for your first and last ride. It is wisdom to think the people are the city. It is wisdom to think the city would fall to pieces and die and be dust in the wind. If the people of the city all move away and leave no people at all to watch and keep the city. It is wisdom to think no city stood here at all until the working men, the laughing men came. A newspaper game is a good platform for talking at the people, but is it a good listening post? Is it a good marketplace to meet the men? Yes and no, it depends who you are. If you are Carl Sandberg, yes. If you are of the people, yes. For the people of America were trying to say something, and at last someone was listening. Carl Sandberg wrote it down, put it in a book, called it the people, yes. There was never anything like it. People talk right out of the printed pages. You can hear them. In the long flat panhandle of Texas, far off on the grassland of the cattle country, the wind brings a norther. And in the shivering cold, they say... Between Amarillo and the North Pole is only a barbed wire fence. Out here the only windbreak is the North Star. The people know what the land knows. The old timer on the desert was gray and grizzled with ever seeing the sun. For myself, I don't care whether it rains. I've seen it rain. But I'd like to have it rain pretty soon sometime. Then my son could see it. He's never seen it rain. That baby in Cleveland, Ohio, in Cuyahoga County, Ohio, why did she ask Papa? Papa, what is the moon supposed to advertise? Where did we get these languages? Are we learning a few great signs and passwords? The honorable orators, the besets of thunder, the tycoons, big shots and dictators, flicker in the mirrors a few moments, and fade through the glass of death. But the people... Why didn't you zigzag your car and miss him? He was zigzagging himself and out guessed me. Are you guilty or not guilty? What else have you? Are you guilty or not guilty? I stand mute. The people, yes. They told Carl Sandberg, any Texas girl is worth marrying because no matter what has happened, she's seen worse. They told him, I'm holding my own, I ain't lost hope yet. They told him the lies of champion liars, too. The people told Carl Sandberg tall tales and he told them right back to the people. They have yarns. Of a skyscraper so tall, they had to put hinges on the two top stories so as to let the moon go by. The corn crop in Missouri, when the roots went so deep and drew off so much water, the Mississippi riverbed that year was dry. Of pancakes so thin, they had only one side. Do tell, you don't say so. Gosh, all fish hooks. Tell me some more. I don't believe a word you say, but I love to listen. Yes, sir, read. The way out there in the petrified forest, everything goes on the same as usual. The petrified birds sit in their petrified nests and hatch their petrified young from petrified eggs. The people, yes. Carl Sandberg heard a woman tell her daughter, shake the tablecloth out of doors after sunset and he will never marry. Better born lucky than rich, they told him. Kill cats, dogs or frogs and you die in rags. The people in cities had forgotten the old sayings and they talked a new lingo. Who was telling you we were brothers? How come you get on this side of the street? Go home and tell your mother she wants you. Go home and get your umbrella washed. Then get your face lifted. You think you're going to get this for nothing? Nobody gets nothing for nothing. You can't kiss yourself in here. This corner is mine. Say, this corner is mine. I own my living. I make enough to get by and it takes all my time. If I had more time, I could do more for myself and maybe for others. I could read and study and talk things over and find out about things. It takes time. I wish I had more time. The people, yes. The people on the land in the city is the people yesterday and the people today this week, September 22nd, 1941. What do you read? Got the money, Martha? Here you are. Um... Just one gallon, please. One gallon? Just to get us in Lake City. Kind of low on cash. Come quite a ways, Texas. Understand those metal plants in Lake City are working full blast. Yeah. Government orders. Working day and night. They... Give them any jobs, huh? Oh, you'll get a job, all right. You can find a place to sleep. Flight 4 Lieutenant Wade on manubas reporting to division headquarters. Flight 4 Lieutenant Wade flying 10,000 feet over Albuquerque. Theoretical objective sighted 1024. Bombed and destroyed. That is all. What would you do if you was me? They do say there's got to be a shortage. What are you going to be doing five years from now? Ten years from now? That's terrible. This week, September 22nd, 1941. The people, yes. The people of Carl Sandberg. The learning and blundering people will live on. They will be tricked and sold and again sold and go back to the nourishing earth for root holes. The people so peculiar in renewal and comeback. You can't laugh off their capacity to take it. The mammoth rests between his cyclonic dramas. The people is a tragic and comic true face. Hero and hoodlum. Phantom and gorilla twisting to moan with a gargoyle mouth. They buy me and sell me. It's a game. Sometime I'll break loose. Once having marched over the margins of animal necessity. Over the grim line of sheer subsistence. Then man came through the deeper rituals of his bones. To the lights, lighter than any bones. To the time for thinking things over. To the dance, the song, the story. Or the hours given over to dreaming. Once having so marched this old Anvil the people, yes. This old Anvil laughs at many broken hammers. There are men who can't be bought. There are women beyond purchase. The fire born are at home in fire. The stars make no noise. You can't hinder the wind from blowing. Time is a great teacher who can live without hope. In the darkness with a great bundle of grief. The people march in the night and overhead a shovel of stars for keeps. The people march where to what next and what next. And so we are going to end our program this evening with the words of one of history's truly great men, Abraham Lincoln, spoken by one of the truly great Americans of our own time, Carl Sandbrook. What I am going to read to you was written by Abraham Lincoln 79 years ago. But it has the breath of life in it as sure now as then. These are Lincoln words for now for this hour. Quote The dogmas of the quiet past are inadequate to the stormy present. The occasion is piled high with difficulty and we must rise with the occasion as our case is new so we must think anew and act anew. We must disenthrall ourselves and then we shall save our country. Fellow citizens we cannot escape history. We of this congress and this administration will be remembered in spite of ourselves. No personal significance or insignificant can spare one or another of us. The fiery trial through which we pass will light us down in honor or dishonor to the latest generation. We shall nobly save or meanly lose the last best hope. The way is plain a way which if followed the world will forever applaud and God will forever bless. The people of the United States own more automobiles than those on the rest of the earth. Tonight's story of chemistry at work in our world is of interest to everyone who owns an automobile and everyone who rides in one. The government has asked American automobile manufacturers to limit their production. Your automobile, always a valuable possession is more valuable today than ever before and whether you plan to keep your old car or buy a new one it has become a patriotic duty now to take better care of it. Taking care of a car simply means keeping it at its highest level of efficiency. What are some of the things you can do to keep your car running at its best with the least appreciation? Well, a clean spark plug gets more energy out of the charge of gasoline in the cylinder. A wise car owner drives at a reasonable speed and makes sure his oil is at the correct level. Tires should be kept at the inflation recommended by the manufacturer because a soft tire wears rapidly on the road. And don't forget, proper acceleration and deceleration have a lot to do with tire wear and gasoline consumption. These are a few of the things you can do. In doing them you'll go gently on your pocketbook and contribute at the same time to national defense. Something else you can do is to protect your car by safeguarding its finish. DuPont number 7 polish, Duco wax and Speedy wax are designed by experts for just such a job of protection. That's what they're made for. Then there's the cooling system of your car. The temperature inside an automobile motor often reaches 2,000 degrees Fahrenheit. That's 20 times as hot as a blazing summer day. Water, because of the efficient way in which it absorbs heat, is used to carry this tremendous heat away. In fact, water is so efficient for the purpose that it must be used even in winter, but it must be kept from freezing. This is where antifreeze solutions come into the picture. Antifreeze keeps the water in your cooling system from freezing. DuPont antifreeze solutions 0, 0x and 5 star also keep rust from forming. Again, with efficiency in mind, here's a friendly word of advice from the DuPont chemist. Have your dealer tighten and clean the cooling system of your car, and use antifreeze in accordance with directions. Don't put antifreeze into your radiator too early. Don't put it in too late. The nominal summer garage or service station will charge you to check your water pump and hose connections for leaks is well worth your while. This is the friendly suggestion of the chemist who brings you better things for better living through chemistry. This is Burgess Meredith again, ladies and gentlemen, hoping that you have enjoyed tonight's presentation of Native Land and the Cavalcade of America. Next week we will bring another of this new kind of program on the Cavalcade of America. I will again play the narrator, and our star will be the celebrated actress of the American Theater, Judith Anderson. On tonight's program, the orchestra and original music was under the direction of Don Buries. The score was composed by Arden Cornwall. On the Cavalcade of America, your announcer is Clayton Collier, sending you best wishes from Dupont. This is the red network of the National Broadcasting Company.