 It is disquieting to look upon the river for the first time, but one is never prepared for the things that partake of infinity. Mark the steady current. Listen to the soft rhythm of the waves. It's like some cosmic timepiece patiently counting the centuries, ensuring that we keep our appointments among the stars. Kneel here in the sparse sand and dip your hand into the warm water. For a moment you are one with a fisherman near Paduca who snatches his protesting quarry from the dark safety of the riverbed. For this instant of time you are a brother to a young boy south of Memphis who stands knee-deep in the water and tempts his dog to follow, and the river does not end where the land ends. This floating twig may one day come ashore at Rio or Gibraltar. Everything lies downstream in Shanghai, for this is the doorway to the world. The National Broadcasting Company in cooperation with the Alfred P. Sloan Foundation presents Doorway to the World, the seventh in a series of programs Heritage Over the Land, describing the remarkable changes that have lately come to the American South. In order to document this 20th century revolution, NBC correspondent Henry Cassidy made a trip through the South and recorded the voices and the sounds that have accompanied the changes. Some subtle, some as compelling as a clap of thunder. Today Mr. Cassidy reports on the chain of rivers that feed down to New Orleans and the part they play in this southern renaissance. Mr. Cassidy. For a starting place, let me take you to the office of Bob Massey of the International Harvester Company in Memphis, Tennessee. We could see across the river, into Arkansas, south, almost to Mississippi. Mr. Massey had seen many dawns across the river and often marked the shadows of sunset reaching out from the opposite shore. I asked him what changes have come to this city and what survives. Memphis still is a great cotton center, but the changes the past 10 years have been tremendous. Industry has been expanding in Memphis. New paychecks coming into the community. The city still retains a great deal of the old south, however. The old days are roused about on the river gone. The river's still flowing along its own placid way, carrying a great deal more of the finished goods of industry these days, though, but a lot of steel, a lot of automobiles, farm equipment moving down the river. A lot of steel, automobiles, farm equipment moving down the river. In a sense, that sums up the story we have to tell, for it's within the memory of men still living when cotton, lumber, the products of the farms that rolled out of the river were the only traffic on this twisting road. In those jettlerless hurried days, men were content to regulate their affairs by the speed of the current. A great deal of the produce was simply loaded on barges and floated downstream. Two great wars, the war between the states and the First World War, seem to touch it as lightly as the breezes that ripple the surface of the water, but the change was coming as surely as a spring thaw follows the snow. It was Howard Keane of the Firestone Synthetic Rubber Plant in Lake Charles, Louisiana who set the stage. The first chemical development in this area followed closely the development of a ship channel from the Gulf to Lake Charles. That development of the ship channel was one of the few wherein the area itself provided the money to dig the channel. The money was raised among the peoples of this area. They did it to increase the possibility of industry in the Lake Charles area. And so they began to build a new dock where earlier a few wave rotted piles had offered scant hospitality to the passing traffic. A deepened channel, road crews working on the cobblestone streets that run down to the riverfront. This is an age of organization. The old systems that had been adequate when Mark Twain piloted his old sidewheeler were no longer effective. A plan was needed and men with boldness and vision to carry it out. Here is the voice of one who answered the call. I was sent down here by the Associated Press in 1939 after several years in Europe including a year covering the Spanish War. I was a little tired of writing war news and that kind of thing. And when I got to Louisiana, the famous Louisiana political scandals had just broken down here and there was a lot of very sensational news and very little constructive news. It occurred to me that it would be a fine idea if we could develop something along a constructive line, not only for news but for the citizens of this area. The port was in the process of reorganization and originally I conceived an idea of having some kind of an exposition in Louisiana to celebrate sort of the rebirth of the port. But because of the war it was postponed and eventually abandoned altogether and changed into the idea that now is international house. This is Charles Nutter, Managing Director of International House at New Orleans, Louisiana. As a newsman and a good one, he knows a good story when he sees it. Knows too that big headlines sometimes begin in simple ways. What is behind these galley proofs of type, these giant photographs? What is it Charlie, you are doing here? We are attempting to promote better trade relations with the entire world through the Mississippi Valley, the states and ports. It's our idea to colorate better business relationships through friendship and through reciprocal arrangements, not on the governmental level but on the business level. And in doing so we try to bring businessmen here to see how we work, go visit them, try to educate our own business leaders and we try to reach businessmen throughout the world to tell them what is available to them in the Mississippi Valley region. This is a non-profit civic organization. There are no charges for the help that we afford them. We have had millions of contacts with business leaders during that 10-year period. We try to bring businessmen together but not to conduct any business. After we get them together it's strictly up to them what results. The trademark, which is a sister organization, is a display and exhibit. We try to get foreign governments and foreign business leaders to bring their goods here and exhibit them so that businessmen can come from all over the world and see what they have, not only here but from elsewhere. And two work together. I think this is a very solid, very constructive move and if peace is to be maintained in the world it seems to me it'll be on the business level and that's what we're working toward. And he is not alone in the task set out before him. Others add their voices and their hands. News of their work has spread upstream and down, filtered back even to the small landings on the streams that feed ultimately into the widening river. Youngsters watching the river from the high bluffs have a new promise now and the older ones, wise in the ways of the river, see a new chapter beginning to unfold. Ships from these river docks calling at the ports of the world, it's not a new dream but the fulfillment was a long time in the making. Here is one who remembers the river in the years just after the First World War. Harry X. Kelly, president of the Mississippi Shipping Company, the Delta Line. This company was organized in 1919 particularly to establish service to Brazil. At that time there were British ships and Japanese ships carrying coffee from Brazil to New Orleans but there were no ships under the American flag and the businessmen of New Orleans thought there should be southbound service with American flag ships and the company was organized particularly to develop business to and from Brazil. After that about a year the service was extended to include Uruguay and Argentina. After World War II when we found that there was no direct service to West African ports and that there were commodities there which were badly in need in the Mississippi Valley we established a line of ships operating to and from West African ports. In addition to our company there have been many new lines established. There are great many more sailings to the far east than there formerly were and great many more sailings to South Africa and various other parts of the world which have developed in the last 10 or 15 years. New Orleans is now the gateway for the entire Mississippi Valley. There's an estimate that the exporters and importers in the Mississippi Valley serve a total of about 70 million people. Masca Gula, Mississippi perched on the edge of the Gulf or more properly on the Mississippi Sound embraced by two small necks of land that protect the sound from the waters of the Gulf. This is a special day, a ship launching at the huge Ingalls Shipbuilding Company. It looks like a gay holiday, flags everywhere, there's a ban the workers address many of them in their Sunday bets. One finds it hard to believe that anything so somber as business enterprise has anything to do with this festive occasion. We're here to watch the launching of a new ship and the moment is almost around. At this time we'll ask the Reverend M. L. Smith, pastor of the First Methodist Church of Moss Point, Mississippi, to ask the invocation. Let us pray, O God, we thank Thee for the sounds and for the organization and for the labor and for the skill that has gone into the making of this beautiful and great ship. We pray that it may be one more of those great things that will help to bring a better life to our civilization. Wherever this ship goes, may its crew have thy guidance and thy help and grant, O God, that the world may become better and better by such ships as this that go to sea. We ask in the master's name, amen. The ship, it's a Navy LST, perches on the ways like a seaborn creature anxious to return to its element. A smiling, awkward, bedecked lady stands on a small platform at the bow with the champagne close at hand. In a moment all the planning, all the labor will be fulfilled in a giant splash of the waves and the sight of this graceful thing of steel and wood, of wire and the miracles of chemistry riding the surface of the water. But first, time to chat for a moment with one of the men who dreamed this dream and worked to see it come true. Mr. Monroe Lanya, president of the Ingalls Shipbuilding Company. Well, our Pascagouli Yard, which is one of our two yards, is one of the five largest yards in America. We have ten shipways and nine outfitting buoys, and I believe that our capacity is rated about third or fourth in the United States. We employ, at present, while operating five of our ten ways, approximately 5,000 men. That is approximately 50% of our capacity. There has been expended here, including government facilities, and that finished by the corporation, something like $10 million. The value is a number of million. As a New Englander, I am familiar with the great shipyards that dot the rocky harbors from Maine to Connecticut. Yards still in operation that turned out sailing ships for the China trade after the Revolutionary War and graceful gun-laden vessels that did battle with the British in 1812. So I was curious to learn why this familiar craft should be spreading out now to this new section of the land, why I wondered had this new place been chosen. It was William Guest, executive vice president of Ingalls, who gave me the answer. We preferred to stay on the Gulf Coast as close to the steel mills at Birmingham and we selected Pascagoula because it is on the inter-coastal waterways and enables us to bring in steel as we desire from the Birmingham mills by water. Also the weather, and particularly the mild winters, had a great deal to do with the location. Particularly in welding, painting, and various operations, there are certain restrictions on doing this work in extreme cold weather. In the Mississippi and our operations here, we've had very little interference from freezing weather. And who, Mr. Guest, and Mr. Laña, buys the ships that slide down these ways? The bulk of the work is in Navy work, consisting of LSTs, LSDs, and one large icebreaker, a prototype. However, we still do have four vessels to be delivered to the United States Maritime Administration of the Mariner Class. And we have some barges on contract. We also do considerable amount of special pressure work for chemical and process industries. At the close of the war, we were one of the few shipyards in America who did not receive a single cancellation. We built the majority of the C3 class of cargo vessel, which was the largest and fastest dry cargo vessel in the world. Nearly every major shipping line in the world has some of English ships. The average wage in the yard is approximately $1.95 an hour. The payroll at this time is running on approximately $25 million a year. And we have expanded in payroll since we have been in Pascagoula, approximately $175 million. But our conversation was quickly interrupted. Mr. Guest was needed to start the ceremony. Ladies, gentlemen, distinguished guests, on behalf of our management and my fellow workers, we extend to you the highly welcome to our yard to participate in this launching ceremony of the LST 1165, which is a 147 ship launch at this yard since we transferred our major shipbuilding activities to Pascagoula. It's now my pleasure to introduce our sponsor, Mrs. Ralph K. James. Very glad to have you here, Mrs. James. Thank you, Mr. Guest. I'm thrilled to be here. It's a wonderful experience and a great honor and privilege to sponsor the fine ship. And I would like to wish the ship well during her entire Navy career. Now everybody keep their fingers crossed that I break the bottle. All right, we'll do that. There's a signal for all clear. James is ready with the bottle. The launching ship takes place. Here she goes. An LST 1165 is sliding down the wave. The champagne's everywhere. In just one moment, those of you around will hear, they launch the drag chains, pick up the retard ship speed as it gets into the river. Now settling in the water. LST 1165 is now waterborne. And there are new voices to be heard along these rivers. Walk the little docks at Hannibal, where a youngster named Sam Clemens played hooky from school to ponder the lesson that the river teaches. Louisville and Memphis, St. Louis and Baton Rouge. The words are different, but the message is the same. I think our future of the American Merchant Marine is closely tied in with the future of our foreign trade. And as most people know, about 10% of our gross natural product is exported. I think we definitely have to have an American Merchant Marine to guarantee that this trade gets to foreign markets. Captain John Clark of the Delta Lines. We're very proud of our port here. We think it's a very efficient port. We've been given a lot of favorable publicity recently in comparison with other ports of the United States. More and more industries are coming down south. We have the great Mississippi Valley to draw from. It's a natural outlet for trade through a great part of the United States. I think we have a great future down here. And this voice, Harry S. Harden, Senior President of the Board of Port Commissioners of New Orleans. He has listened to the echoes that still sound from the old days when the river traffic moved down with the slowness of the current and the gentle passage of the years. Have you marked the changes? Oh, there's been a very substantial change. I was raised here on the riverfront when they never had a warehouse. There were many railroad tracks, and a lot of freight came into New Orleans on side whalers and old stone wheel boats, and was unloaded on the shell banks on the river, covered by tarpaulins. We're just completing a $21 million program that we started about two years ago, two and a half years ago. We're also completing a new $3.5 million worth at the foot of Napoleon Avenue. We have just let a contract for a new $3 million worth at the foot of Salier Street. Eight months ago, we completed the $2.5 million worth which we turned over to the United Fruit Company for their use. But of course, one cannot seek to know the river without knowing the strange and fascinating city that lies at Journey's End, New Orleans. Since time out of mind, a place of enchantment and mystery, the New Orleans of the fabulous Mardi Gras and the romance of lovely ladies observing the visitor from behind intriguing masks. We sought to know this place, and inevitably our questions led us to one who knows the city perhaps as no other does. And even as a guide in some old cathedral sometimes takes a bantering tone through long association with beauty, so this man spoke with an easy familiarity of fantastic things. May I present Mr. Charles Dufour, New Orleans newspaper man. You know, we in New Orleans say that our town is founded in 1718. Actually, it was started in 1717, but the actual living facilities weren't set up for a year or so. We like to think of it as an old and cultured community, and of course it is. Its history doesn't need embellishment. There's no sense in going out and painting the old lily, a gilded, refined gold, because New Orleans has a law which is genuine without bringing in the folk law. For example, you'll hear a lot of people talk about Canal Street. That's the big old street down there, our Broadway, 171 feet from Sidewalk to Sidewalk. One of the famous streets of the world. Well, that's named Canal Street, people will tell you, because there's a canal under it. Well, the truth of the matter is it's named Canal Street for a canal that never was dug. Then we have some stories about our famous old custom house, which was built by General Beauregard, then Major Beauregard, and the story is that it's built on cotton bales. The truth of the matter was that when they were building the custom house, they said in the foundations, they had a lot of planks there, and they had a grill of logs of which concrete was poured, and to seal up the logs they used cotton rope, which was woven right on the spot from cotton bales that were brought there. So somebody passing in a hack must have said, look, they're building that thing on cotton bales. Well, you know how a story goes. History is really written by nobody who's on the scene, generally writing about something that didn't exist. Tell us, Mr. Dufour, about the famous French Quarter. I like to think of New Orleans as a city of contradictions. And the reason we call that the French Quarter is very interesting. It was built by the Spaniards. We have a lot of contradictions here in New Orleans. For example, one of the famous spots in our French Quarter built by the Spaniards is the French Market. And the reason we call it the French Market is this. It was a Choctaw Indian site for their market work, and on it the Spaniards built a market. It's largely peopled by Italian merchants who get their vegetables from the German coast, which is up the river from New Orleans, and it was rebuilt by WPA American money. So obviously we in New Orleans call it the French Market. There are two things I should say that are very interesting about New Orleans. One of the French writers of New Orleans of about those 30 or 40 years ago said that the first man to jump ashore after the landing was a tax collector. And of course, that always struck me as very amusing because a tax collector seems to be with us yet in all languages. My guess is the second man to leap ashore after the tax collector in New Orleans was a man who was sitting in the back of the boat and yelled to one of his friends, three to one he doesn't make it. Because we've had a long tradition of the games of chance here in New Orleans, and I imagine that you will find, in fact you can find in the early history of the city, one of the first ordinances under the American domination the city fathers set out to correct gambling in New Orleans. That has been a periodic, as we say in the newspaper business, a standing head now for about 150 years. We hear a lot about New Orleans gamblers. What part does gambling play in the economy of this city? I hesitate to say that gambling contributes to the economy of anybody except the gamblers. You know, it's a funny thing about gambling. One of the greatest gamblers New Orleans ever had is one of its most fabulous character, Bernard de Marini. Bernard de Marini was of the blue blooded French, and his father had vast estates and vast monies. And when Louis Philippe visited here in 1798, the Marini's shouted him with money. He was broke. He was a bourbon prince out of a job, and so they shouted him with money. And in return, Louis Philippe introduced a unique pastime into this country called craps. Well, Bernard de Marini's enthusiasm was such that he was always guessing the wrong numbers that came up on the little cubes. As a result, he went broke. So if you want to say that gambling is a part of our life in New Orleans, I'll say you are indubitably correct. If you want to say it has contributed to its economic well-being, I ask you to interview a gambler, not me. Then tell us about the influence of the French in this city. Now we like to talk a lot about culture, our French culture in New Orleans. Now frankly, I hope I don't annoy too many of my dear Creole friends. And let me say for the, at that point, the word Creole may have stumped a lot of you people. The word Creole means a pure blooded white descendant of French or Spanish or any European, for that matter, born in the New World. We have English Creoles and we have German Creoles up here, what we call the German coast up above New Orleans. There are many, many, many families today which have French names which actually are Germans and they were known as German Creoles. I'll give you an interesting little story. This is a digression, but I think you'll be interested. Back in 1721, John Law brought a lot of Germans over. And one of the Germans to come over was a man named Johann Zweig. Now when he landed, the little French parish priest asked him all their names that came down the line. He knew not a word of German. So he said, Zweig, Zweig, what is Zweig? Well, Mr. Zweig was befuddled. He didn't know what he was talking about. Finally, he understood at last that the priest was trying to find out what his name was. So the man in exact operation reached up and plucked a branch of a tree and he held it up in front of him. Ah, said the priest, La Branche, La Branche. So Zweig, which means twig or branch, became La Branche in the annals of Louisiana. And today, the La Branche family is one of the Creoles, of the Creole family who are basically Zweig. That is a perfect example. But to get back to the original theme, we talk and we boast considerably about our French culture. I regret to say that we have a tradition for French culture, but our French culture as such is dying out. The French that was universally spoken in New Orleans is now spoken comparatively by a handful of people. I would say the French culture is being replaced by the general culture of America. But with this exception, New Orleans is a port city and port cities do not lose their cosmopolitanism. Well, we're a polyglot community now. I mean, you can find names from every one of the United Nations. And that gradually has taken over and somehow or other the French influence has waned. But one need wander only a little way into this city to find the places that have intrigued travelers since the days when Napoleon flew his tricolor above the city hall. Brennan's restaurant on fabulous Bourbon Street, it was in the early hours of the morning. The dishes of a truly magnificent supper had been cleared away and the diners were enjoying the music of a band as typical of this city as the wrought iron grills in the old houses that stand proudly against the feudal years. My host, Owen Brennan, was telling me about one of his most famous visitors. The highlight of all the people that I've ever met in the French Quarter, the greatest thrill I got was so unexpectedly I was called out to an automobile one night to meet, and it was a real friend of mine. Well, as I stooped down to see who was in the automobile, it was Franklin Roosevelt, our former president. It really was a thrill. And when I told my boys about it, they wanted to know when's Hoppe coming around. I see where the French Quarter can keep in step with any progress that New Orleans has to offer. The music began to come up before he had finished speaking. It was a moment or so before I recognized it. Then, of course, Dixie. But Dixie, as I had never heard it played before, played here in this capital of the old sun. It became a symbol to me, this music, a symbol of the change that has come to this land to all the lands below the straggling line of Mason and Dixie. Here, one may come to find a past that still survives as is fitting, but there are changes too. Listen to this music, for in this rhythm, as in this city, there is a blend of the past and the present. Old houses, heavy with history, standing within sight of the river that stretches off toward tomorrow. Dip your hand into the warm water. It touches Rio and Gibraltar. The river does not end where the land ends. London lies downstream and Shanghai. This is the doorway to the world. You have been listening to Doorway to the World, the seventh in a series, Heritage over the Land, describing the changes that have come lately to the American South. This series, done in cooperation with the Alfred P. Sloan Foundation, is written and directed by William Allen Bales, produced by Miss Lee F. Payton. Dick Dudley speaking. Next week, the story of power, the force that brings light into the shattered places, returns the wheels of the new industries. It is anticipated that later series will deal with changes in other sections of the country.