 Proudly, we hail. New York City, where the American stage begins. Here is another program with a cast of outstanding players. Public service time has been made available by this station for your army and your air force to bring you this story. As proudly we hail, Thomas Edison. This is entitled, Man of Genius. A true story about Thomas Edison. Our first act curtain will rise in just a moment, but first... Here's a word to the young women high school graduates of 52. Love and loyalty to one's country have never been the exclusive attributes of men. Women too have shown evidence of their devotion and courage. Now, more than ever before, the United States Army and United States Air Force needs young women. Go to your nearest United States Army and United States Air Force recruiting station. Have a talk with the recruiting sergeant. Find out how you can best serve your country and yourself. Volunteer for service in the WAF, Women's Army Corps, or WAF. Women in the Air Force today. And now your army and your air force present the proudly we hail production, Man of Genius. I'll bet that Thomas Edison had something to do with your life today. How? In at least a dozen ways. For one thing, you wouldn't be getting the clear reception on your radio right this second if it hadn't been for him. Or if there's a light burning in your house this minute. How about a second of thanks for Edison? Our story starts in the year 1856 in the home of Thomas Edison. Many people knew this great American, but no one as well as his mother. Let's imagine that she is telling his story. I'm Thomas Edison's mother. Never could bring myself to call him Tom. You see, when he was born, I had quite a fight on my hands to name him Thomas. I wanted to name him after that great saint. You remember the one who doubted at first and then received great faith? As it turned out, Thomas, my Thomas, was a lot like that. He had doubts, doubts about himself and doubts about what he could do. But as he grew older, his doubts were replaced by faith. Faith in what could be accomplished for mankind. They say that Thomas is a genius. I guess every mother thinks that about her son. But when Thomas was just a small boy, we'd move from Milan, Ohio to Port Huron, Michigan. There was a teacher who thought anything but that. Thomas told me the story and what the teacher had done. Thomas? Thomas Edison, I've been talking to you for five minutes. What? Oh, excuse me, I must have been dreaming. Dreaming? Your father doesn't send you to school to dream. Now stand up and recite your lesson. Remember how it started. You can't remember. Thomas Edison, you can't remember anything from one minute to the next. Well, you just gather up your books and go home. And you can tell your father for me that you're plum-addled. You're not worth keeping in school. You startled me. Perhaps this time something stalled you. I'm Thomas Edison's mother. I'm very pleased to meet you. You won't be when you hear what I've got to say. But if you think I was too harsh with Thomas... You don't deserve to be a teacher. You're given an opportunity that very few people in the world have... to work with a child and help shape his destiny. Today you did everything you possibly could to break a child's spirit. Mrs. Edison, I don't think you have the right to talk to me that way. Thomas sits here and dreams. He doesn't pay the slightest attention to what I'm saying. Have they instructed you to tell children they're adults... that they aren't worth keeping in school? Well, if all the children acted the way Thomas does... looking out the window and dreaming and never knowing his recitation. What kind of a school would I have? I think I know what kind of a school you have right now. You say Thomas isn't worth keeping in school. Well, I say he's worth much too much to keep in his school. I'll teach him myself at home. You've practically destroyed the boy's faith in himself. But I'll restore it. Where's Tom? Down in the cellar, as usual, working on some experiments. I don't know. It's a good thing, I suppose, that the boy's interested in chemistry... but it seems to me he spends an awful lot of time down in that shop of his. You don't know how much it means to me to have Thomas interested in learning. Well, it's been months getting that love instilled in him. Well, that's all very well, and I'm proud of both of you. But my dear, this hobby of Tom's is getting to be a pretty expensive thing. But it's worth it, isn't it? Well, maybe so. But my grand business isn't bringing in enough to equip a laboratory... the size Tom seems to want. Let's see if it's worth enough to him to get a job to support his experiments. Well, sure, Tom. What is it? Pop, I want to quit. What's the matter? Howing potatoes too hard on you? I told your mother you'd have to earn your own money for your experiments in nine minutes. But if you don't want to, we'll... Oh, it's not that I don't want to work, Pop. But there isn't any money, real money, in hoeing potatoes. Well, it seems to me what you're making is a good bit for a lad your age. Now, when I was a boy... I know, Pop, but I've heard about something better, and I'd like to do it. I went up and talked to the station master today and asked him if I could sell a Detroit free press on the trains running between here and Detroit. He didn't like the idea very much at first, but I talked to him into it. Can I do it? Son, I don't know what your mother will think about your gallivant and back and forth in those fast trains all day long. Well, you talk to her, Pop. I know she'll let me do it if you tell her you think it's a good thing. You ought to be quite a salesman, Tom. All right, all right, I'll talk to your mother. But I've known her a great deal longer than you have, and there are times when it's pretty hard to convince her. Hi, hello, Mark. I'm just waiting here for Tom. You see him on the train? See him on the train? I certainly did, yes, indeed. He sold me a paper I already had a copy of. Talked me into buying this box of candy for Myra. Oh, you sure have handed that, son of yours? Yes, he's got a real business head, all right. Oh, yes. You know, he's hired three other boys to ride on the other trains and sell everything from fancy vegetables he picks up in Detroit to fresh butter from here in Port Huron. Hi, Pop. Oh, hi, Tom. Oh, we haven't been waiting too long. I had to check up on my sale. Everybody get going, Tom. Your mother will have supper waiting. Pop, I had the most wonderful day of day I ever had. You sell a lot? Oh, sure, but that isn't what I mean. Oh, what do you mean? I went into the station at Detroit and the telegraph operator showed me how his key works. Now, Tom, Tom, you know your mother has asked you not to talk to everyone who works around those stations. But this was different, Pop. Oh, boy, I can't wait till tomorrow. He said if I didn't bother him too much, I could watch him send messages tomorrow. I could just operate that key for one day. That's all I'd ever ask for. Stop, Detroit. So long, Mr. Wilson. Oh, aren't you going back on the run with us, Tom? Nope. I'm going to watch the messages being telegraphed. I'll see you on the four o'clock run. All right, Tom. I'll watch your boxes. Thanks. Here I am again. Now, look, Sonny, I've got more to do today than a cook at thrashing time. And on top of everything else, my wife just brought my little boy down here for me to watch. Maybe I could help you do something. Well, now I tell you, if you'll go out on the platform and see what my son's up to, that'll help a lot. Then later, maybe I can show you how this key works. Oh, boy, sure. Right away. He's just a little tyke, only three years old, so keep an eye on him. I will, sir. Come back here. Get off the track! Are you all right? Little fella, how's he? He's all right. We both are, I guess. You caught him just in time. You saved his life. Bobby! Oh, Bobby! I don't know how to thank you. You're a lucky man. You owe a lot to young Tom here. I don't want anything for you. He's lucky I was here. I'm not a rich man, Tom, but I do have something you want. You're welcome to it. I'm going to make you the best telegraph operator in the Midwest. Oh, boy, do you mean it? I never meant anything more in my life. You just come in here every day for an hour or so and I'll teach you everything I know about the key. Galway! I guess I'm just about the luckiest kid in Michigan. After that, he had the bug. He'd had his hands on one of those telegraph things and there wasn't any use telling him anything different. He made a full set of instruments for himself in a Detroit machine shop before he'd finished with a course from the operator in Detroit. At 15, he was a full-fledged telegraph operator. And then that tragic time in the life of every mother when her son decides he has to leave home. He went wandering around the whole blessed Midwest getting experience so he could be a first-class operator. He wrote home faithfully and told us about some of the experiences he had. Dear Ma and Pa, today was pretty awful. I was sitting around the station here in Memphis and it wasn't a thing to do. It suddenly occurred to me that maybe, maybe it would work. Let me see now. If I get the next station to send me a message, now if you'll just send that back in one minute, it got to work. Got to put this extra piece of wire in here and time it just right. Just about time. One, two seconds, three. There he goes. Now to send my message back, right over the same wire at the same time. Hey, you there, what are you up to? Hmm? Oh, Mr. Michaels, I didn't hear you come in. I guess you didn't. It's more your town pulary, huh? Mr. Michaels, I think it works. What works? What are you talking about? The wire. I've just sent two messages over the same wire. Two messages? I never heard such rot. You're busy playing here with a train doing it in four minutes. Hey, we don't want dreamers like you around here. Now get out! You can send two messages on one wire. Now, I'm going to prove it can be done if I get fired from every job in the country trying. And we began to think maybe he would get fired from every job. That time, I can't remember what city that was. They gave him a room above the station. But Thomas didn't sleep in it very much, apparently. He set up a laboratory right away and kept trying experiments. Every minute he was off duty that he could keep awake. He spilled some acid one day and it leaked through the ceiling. Scared the station master half to death. I can't say I blamed him. But he didn't have to say the things he did to Thomas. Thomas came home suddenly one day. We hadn't seen him for almost a year. He was bigger and quieter somehow. All his traveling and experience seemed to make him more mature than the other boys his age. It was after supper that first night he was home that we were sitting in the parlor. Just sitting without talking very much. And then Thomas looked up. Mom, I'm going away again. Oh, Thomas, you just got home. Can't you stay put for a while? Where do you want to go after this time, Tom? I want to go east. New York probably or Boston. What can you do there that you can't do right here in Port Huron? Well, the Western Union telegraph company is in Boston for one thing. I believe that if I went to them with my ideas and some of my inventions, they'd listen to me. Can't you write them a letter, Tom? Well, that's a good idea. Then they could tell you if it's worth your while to go all that distance. No, Mom, I've got to go and show them. It sounds like dreaming when I put it all on paper. But I've got models to show them and drawings and I can build other things in their laboratories if they'll let me. I guess I just wasn't meant to stay put. Thomas, are you asleep? No, Mom. Come on in. I couldn't sleep either, thinking about you going away. No, don't carry on about it, Mom. Things aren't as far away anymore with trains and all running all the time. Oh, I've resigned myself to you going, Thomas. But I've been thinking, lying there in the dark tonight. I've been thinking that I don't really know what you're doing, Thomas. Mainly because I don't understand it. I could teach you history and English and things like that. But you figured out chemistry and physics for yourself, remember? Sure. I remember you couldn't seem to make head or tail of it. Well, Thomas, I'm still ahead of you on some things. And that's what I wanted to say tonight. I've seen so many very poor people before we ever came out here. Saw them in the cities and on the farms. People who never seem to have a chance in life. I don't know if these inventions of yours are good, but I hope that they'll not be for the rich and for the privileged. Make something that everyone will profit from, Thomas. Make that a test of what you build. If you do that, we'll never really be separated. If you'll do that, it'll be worth all the loneliness I feel. I don't know if my inventions are any good either, Mom, but if they are, they'll help everybody. That, I promise you. You are listening to the proudly we hail production of Man of Genius. We'll return to our story in just a moment. Have you noticed the new trim, wack uniform worn by the young women who are serving in the Women's Army Corps? This new uniform not only stamps the wearer as being smartly dressed, it also indicates that she is doing her part to keep America strong. If you are a young woman between 18 and 34 and can qualify, you are urged to do your part in making unity, strength, freedom a reality. Go to your nearest United States Army and United States Air Force recruiting station and enlist in the Women's Army Corps today. You are listening to Proudly We Hail. Now we present the second act of Man of Genius. And so Thomas went to Boston. Years passed. In the rush of news on the eastern seaboard, his idea that a wire might carry more than one message at a time fell on fertile ground. The double transmitter was in action by the spring of 1868. Then Thomas had another idea and he went to New York to tell some men in Wall Street about it. Thomas must have felt like a duck out of water with all those great men of finance gathered around his schedule. I don't know. Now Edison, just how will this thing help us? Well, as I see it, this machine could be manufactured at a fairly low cost. You could each have one in your office. It's the same principle as the telegraph. An operator would sit down by the board in Wall Street and as soon as stocks were sold or bought would transmit the price fluctuations out to the owners of the machines. That way, you'd know instantly what the stocks you're interested in are doing. I think it might be... Edison, I think you've got a good thing here. Yes, it would certainly mean a great saving for me in the long run. I'd say go ahead and let's get started manufacturing these things. Why, there isn't a broker in the country who wouldn't have to buy one immediately. We'll buy this, Edison. Looks to me as if you're not a crackpot inventor after all. Get on in, Edison. I'm delighted to see you again. I wasn't sure you'd remember me. You made me a lot of money with that ticket-tape machine of yours. What's on your mind now? I'm conducting an experiment, a brand new idea. Tomorrow, out in my laboratory in New Jersey. Frankly, I'll need money for it if it works. I'd like to have you out there for the trial. That's a funny-looking object, just a sort of cylinder covered with tinfoil. What does the thing do? The thing must talk. I'll bet you a hundred dollars it won't. Maybe you are a crackpot after all. I don't even have two dollars, but I'll bet you that barrel of apples in my office against your hundred. You're on. Turn the crank and make it talk. Do it again. All right. I'll send you a check in the morning, Edison, but I want to make the check a lot bigger. I want a piece of that... A phonograph is what I call it. Man, you ought to be on top of the world. What's the matter with you? You look as if you lost your last friend. Oh, it's crazy of me, but... Well, I'm a little scared. Scared? What of? It worked, didn't it? That's just it. It worked the first time. I've always been afraid of things that worked the first time. The phonograph was born too easily. Things didn't always come easily for Thomas. Only because he dreamed years, decades, generations ahead of himself. He'd write us about his dreams. A man in Europe has invented the machine by which he takes an instantaneous photograph. Let us suppose that he photographs Henry Ward Beecher every second and that we take down his sermon on the tin foil matrix. The pictures and gestures of the orator as well as his voice could be exactly reproduced and the eyes and ears of the audience charmed by the voice and manner of the speaker. Why, old dramas and operas can be produced in private parlors. And, Ma, I'll see that they're in the parlors of the poor too. In the parlors of the poor, that might very well have been the motto Thomas lived by. Particularly when he went through the years of torment and experimentation over the incandescent lamp. Frankly, I never understood but half of what he was talking about when he wrote us about his new invention. Miss Edison tried to explain it to me, but my head just used to swim with all the terms and processes and such. It was in most of the papers though. Listen to this if you want to hear about a lot of foolishness. Thomas Alba Edison inventor announced today that his New Jersey laboratory has stopped all of the manufacturing to engage in research on a new incandescent lamp. Mr. Edison's fame for the invention of the ticket-tape machine of the electric phonograph said that electricity can be harnessed to light and heat homes. Edison added that the lamps could be processed inexpensively enough so that they would be within the reach of any workman. Wouldn't you think a grown man could better spend his time in honest day's work than in trying to fool the people? I've heard it said that I'm simply looking for publicity. That's true. I guess maybe I should have called in some of the men from the newspapers for today's experiment. You think it'll work, Tom? I don't know. We've tried just about everything, Cliff, to get just the right material for the filament. The materials in this lamp make it cheap enough, just glass and copper and a piece of cotton thread. When I think of the months we spent trying to figure out how to pump the air from a glass globe. It'll be worth all our work and loss of sleep if it works. It's lighted up. Measure the resistance. 275 ohms. This is all the power we dare hope for. Well, it's more than I thought we'd get. Now, let's see if the lamp will last. Been four hours, Tom. Yes. Well, that isn't long enough to make it practical. It'll have to burn more than that. Tom, you've got to get some sleep. Been here all night and half the morning. What about yourself, Cliff? That's not fool ourselves. We both know that we couldn't leave this lamp. We've got to know how long it'll burn. Flickering, Tom. It's going out. There it goes. It's all over. Well, 45 hours, just a few minutes more. It's great. Great, Tom. Great. Yes, but not enough. It has to burn at least 100 hours, or only the very rich will be able to afford them. Let's go to work. To help man visualize the meaning of his revolution and illumination, Thomas Alva Edison set up 400 lights in the streets and houses around his laboratory last night, all connected to underground conductors run into the dynamos in one of the shop buildings. The crowd, which gathered for the unusual greeting of the New Year, 1879, came in special trains from New York to see for themselves. The visitors were dazzled by the brilliance of the lights and says it'll be available to the public at reasonable cost. He predicts they will be in thousands of holes before the next New Year. You see, Marcy, just like I said, when I first read about this man Edison, he's a fellow to watch, I said. Well, I was right. Yes, they all believed in him after that. They followed his next inventions and next ideas in the newspapers and they talked about him in reverent tones on the street corners and his name became a household word. Henry Ford put it this way. The age of industry should be called the age of Edison. Modern industry would be impossible were it not for the mobility of our artificial power and the facility of our communication and transportation due to Edison. Tom gave America a new declaration of independence, not in words, but in the nature of a kit of tools by the use of which each and every person among us has gained a larger measure of economic liberty and had ever previously been thought possible. Tom has done more toward abolishing poverty than all the reformers and statesmen since the beginning of the world. He gave man the means to help himself. Perhaps greater than all else was his example in linking science with our everyday life and demonstrating that through patient unremitting testing and trying any problem may eventually be solved. Maybe Thomas Edison put it best himself simply and in words that any man could understand. Nothing is impossible. We merely don't know yet how to do some things but nothing is impossible. Here is a brief word to the young women who will graduate from high school this year. Why not get an early start with a job that gives you the feeling of being of real service to your country? You'll enjoy that feeling in the Modern Women's Army Corps. Besides, you'll be in a job that will be a little different every day and you'll be getting the finest technical training in the world. So don't let opportunity pass you by. Visit your nearest United States Army and United States Air Force recruiting station today. And a transcribed in cooperation with this station by the United States Army and United States Air Force recruiting service. This program featured a cast of outstanding players. This is Kenneth Banghart speaking and inviting you to tune in this same station next week for another interesting story on Proudly We Have.