 The Cavalcade of America, presented by DuPont. This evening, the DuPont Cavalcade presents the story of the first American citizen, Benjamin Franklin. Our program is appropriately timed for this week marks the dedication in Philadelphia of a national shrine to the memory of Benjamin Franklin. Tomorrow at the Franklin Institute, a new heroic statue of Franklin will be unveiled as a fitting memorial to perpetuate the spiritual presence of the great philosopher in a stronghold of scientific progress. As a special guest at the close of our program, we have Mr. Irone DuPont, who is one of the Board of Managers of the Franklin Institute, and who will review some of the contributions science has made since Franklin's day. As an overture, Don Voorhees and the DuPont Cavalcade Orchestra play, I live the life I love from one of the mask and wig productions of the University of Pennsylvania. The DuPont Cavalcade moves forward. Years before the American Revolution, Benjamin, youngest son of Josiah and Oviah Franklin, was born January 17th, 1706 on Milk Street in one of the largest towns of the colonies, Boston, Massachusetts, whose population then was about 10,000. 16 years later, in the printing press of his elder brother James, under mysterious circumstances, he began the literary career that was to last over 60 years. It is early in the morning. Benjamin is starting the day's work at Collins. Another apprentice discovers a folded paper shoved under the door. Look here, Ben. Another letter from Mr. Silence DuGood. Leave it on the ground for my brother to find. I wonder what the old James Ritt this time. The old towns are talking about her pieces in the paper. Wait until they read this one. It'll give those empty heads and Harvard a good rattling. How do you know, Ben? Have you read it already? As a matter of fact, Collins, I wrote it myself. In a disguised hand, like Ben. Oh, another missy from our Mr. Silence DuGood. Well, read it, James. I'm a god with curiosity to see what she'll scold about my miss. Oh, my. Go about your work, boys. Yes, it's not for young years. Talk into this. She's writing of people who send their sons to Harvard. She says, most of them consulted their own purses instead of their children's capacities. Most part of those who were traveling with her were little better than blockheads and dunces. Well, she's out of here. Have you any suspicion who she may be, James? Well, some say she's a disgruntled spinster and others that she's the widow of a minister with a young son in Harvard. I've published two appeals to her to reveal herself, but Benjamin, where is that paper with the last advertisement for Mr. Stugud? She was here this morning. Was she not Collins? Why? She was here. In fact, brother, she is still here. What impudent nonsense are you talking? I say that Silence DuGood is hiding in this room. Well, where is she? Behind my leather apron. What? You young rascals! In fact, my worthy brother, Mr. Silence DuGood is none other than myself, Benjamin Franklin, whose articles and witty comments were published in praise. It's quite true, Mr. Franklin. Benjamin wrote them himself in a disguised hand. Well, but now there's my state of mind. Take that, boys! You young good for nothing, and that! Oh, oh, stealing my time. It's affecting your work. Seeking yourself the high young Kakarola, now you dare! And dare! And dare! That will teach you a lesson. You beat me all you want now, James. But someday I'll run away from here. I'll have myself a newspaper of my own that everyone will want to read. Not long afterward, Benjamin Franklin did run away to Philadelphia, and before long he was publishing his own newspaper, and the famous poor Richard Zalmanac. He signed him now at 26, the most widely read and quoted writer in the colonies. He has his own printing shop, and is married. With his busy body commentary on current events, he has become the first columnist in America. Still wearing his red flannel shirt and leather apron, he trundles his paper through Market Street and a wheelbarrow to his little shop, where we find his young wife Deborah, stitching binding and tending counter. Open the door for me, Debbie. How you do look, Benjamin. Cutting that paper through the street on a wheelbarrow like a common apprentice. It's a very good example. Brings attention to my industry and pleases the merchants and good folk who buy my paper. You never did have a care to your looks. Well, do I remember the first time I ever saw you walking along the street with two great sticks of bread poked out of your pockets? Little did you think when you laughed at me then that I was going to be the town's most successful printer and journalist? Hey, Debbie. You've proved to every one what you could make of yourself, Ben. Even your own family. That brother James of yours who beat you so and drove you to run away from Boston. Really? I owe James great deal. I often fancy his harsh and tyrannical treatment, but the means of impressing me without aversion to arbitrary power that has stuck to me. Come in. Oh, William. Good day to you, Master Coleman. Good day to you both. Come in, William. What's the newest with you? I stopped by to go with you to the Junto. And I've just finished reading your almanac, Ben. Everyone is laughing at its humor and praising your good sense. I particularly like this saying, early to bed and early to rise makes a man healthy, wealthy, and wise. Aye, and he himself never gets more than six hours sleep, Mr. Coleman. Truly, Mr. Franklin. Remember, Debbie, keep your eyes wide open before marriage and half shut afterwards. Oh, be still, Pappy. Please pour Richard out of it. But he did say there are three faithful friends, an old wife, an old dog, and ready money. And he has neither dog, nor ready money, and neither am I old. If I could write just for my reader instead of my wife. She takes them all to herself, poor Debbie. Who may this be? Come in. Good day to you, sir. Good day to you. My name is Frank Pierce. I've traveled up from the Carolinas to see Benjamin Franklin, publisher of the Gazette and of poor Richard's almanac. Why, he's the young man in the leather apron who let you in. This young man, the famous Mr. Franklin? I'm glad to welcome you, sir. This is my friend, Mr. William Coleman. How you doing, sir? How you doing, sir? And my wife, Mr. Deborah Franklin. How do you do, Franklin? You say you have heard of poor Richard in the Carolina colony? Oh, yes indeed, sir. People say today there are two books you may find in every man's family. The Bible and poor Richard's almanac. I know Richard by heart, myself, is my daily guide. A penny saved is a penny earned. When thieves fall out, honest men get their due. Three moves as bad as a fire. Necessity never made a good bargain. There you see, sir, they're well known to me. And also, you said, if you would have your business done, go. If not, send. And that is why I have come to see you, myself. And rightly so. Well, what may I do for you, my friend? Well, we have very few printing presses in our colony, sir. I've heard that you, sir, have invented your own matrix, that you carve your own woodcuts and even mix your own ink. Well, I would learn from you something of our craft. You see, I want to establish my own printing shop as soon as I have the means. Perhaps I may be able to help you do that. Let's all help one another. My friend here helped me to get me my first start. Mankind is all one family after all, and good will should prevail. If I help you, you in turn may help the next one, and so on, in an endless chain of friendly kindness and aid. I don't like to hurry, Ben, but we're due at the Junto. Oh, the Junto, Mr. Pierce, is composed of young men like ourselves, mostly leather aprons and no fuss of feathers. We meet each Friday for mutual entertainment and counsel. Tonight, I believe, I have something of importance to present for discussion. Ah, Ben, every night you have something of importance to present. Truly, Mr. Pierce, his is the finest mind in the colonies. At one of the Junto meetings, the first public library in America was born from the fertile mind of Benjamin Franklin. Through his energy and genius came the first organized volunteer fire department, the first police system, the first move toward paved and lighted city streets, the first city hospital, the University of Pennsylvania, and the American Philosophical Society. At the age of 42, Franklin had worked hard, saved his money, and sold out his business, all that he might be able to retire and pursue his scientific studies and experiments. We find him now at the beautiful home he had built for his family out on the banks of the Delaware River. After seven years of happy retirement with his children and Deborah, he is absorbed in his new experiment with electricity in the air. For pity takes, Pappy, what's that noise? My bells, Debbie, my bells. A thunder storm is brewing. I have wire-strung for my lightning rod to give the warning, and it came. Ah, more silly things with your experiments. Mr. Leet said at the meeting the other day that your lightning rod was a tinkering with Providence. And I'll never forget how you made it all ridiculous running around the cow pasture with William Astorokite, a man of your age and dignity. Ah, Debbie, if you only knew what my little kite proved that day, didn't the King of France send me a personal letter commending those first experiments? Ah... I should think you'd tire of sticking around the house, tinkering with wires and whatnot when you could be at the very top of your trade. These last seven years have been the most successful and productive years of my entire life, and the happiest I might say, too. You see? Here comes my storm. I've lasted, Debbie. Good evening, Julia, Mr. Franklin. Good evening. And to you, Mr. Franklin. Good evening, Mr. Curtis. Hi. Seems to be gathering rain. Did you bring the storm with you, Mr. Curtis, or did the storm bring you? I'm afraid there is more than one storm brewing tonight, my friend, and one that is not of the elements. I've only just come from the assembly. They have named two commissioners to leave at once for England to present their grievance against the Penn family taxation to the King. They still claim exemption through the Old Indian Treaty. But there's the later one, I'm certain. Mr. Franklin, the assembly feels that you know more about this matter than anyone. And also, you're acquainted in England for your... from your early days. Your position as Postmaster General gives you authority to represent us over there. And tonight, you have been appointed commissioner with Mr. Isaac Norris, Speaker of the Assembly. Let Norris go. I have my scientific work here laid out for years to come. And I've retired. A man cannot retire from the service of his country when his aid is needed. We ask you not to decline this appointment. It's a crucial time, Mr. Franklin. Listen to my lightning bells, Curtis. You know, I proved positively when I took down my lightning rod that several inches had been burned at the top. And our house was never harmed during the last storm. Every house should have one. The Speaker of Norris has said that he cannot go. You'll be gone only a short time. You're not going to England, Pappy, surely? I must, Debbie. They will make me the lightning rod to divert the Penn family out of here. It's all right. We're perfectly safe. I love a good storm. But I don't want you to go without me, Pappy. And you know I'm afraid of the sea. I shall only be gone a few months, my dear. Only a few months. A few months became ten years and a half. Except for one brief visit home, Benjamin Franklin remained in England as the principal representative of the American colonies during the crucial period before the Revolutionary War. He helped bring about the repeal of the Stamp Act, and he sought a peaceful solution to the increasing bad feeling between the colonies and the mother country. He returned in 1775, believing his mission a failure. His beloved wife had died the previous winter, but he is tenderly greeted by his daughter Sally, who is living in his old home on the Delaware with her family. We never disturbed anything here, or in your library, father. Mother wouldn't let us. She was always expecting you back. And I was always expecting to come back to her, my child. Sit here, dear. Ah, the same old chair. Yes. How it fits me. Oh. Father. I have always accompanied now, Sally, by my faithful gout. It never deserts me. Tell me of your voyage home, dear. Was it very rough this time? Terrible. I shall never cross the ocean again. But I made some amazing observations, Sally. There is a warm stream of water I have discovered, almost a great sweeping river that flows directly to the Atlantic Ocean and causes the mild climate of England. But, Daddy, how did you ever find that off? I devised my own method of sounding with a thermometer at varying depths. I call it the Gulf Stream. Wonderful. And tell me about visiting Europe. They say you were fated and acclaimed everywhere. And you met kings and queens and statesmen and scientists. Oh, I was so proud of you, Daddy. Well, I am glad. You know, they are using my lightning rod now on Buckingham Palace and the Queen's Palace and on the Ducal Palace in Venice or besides many, many more all over Europe. They call me the Thundermaster. The Thundermaster. And our mother used to scold about your little bells. She was very patient with my tinkering about the house. But it all came to good use, Sally. Now I have been elected to the Royal Society of London and the Royal Academy in Paris and the Society of Experimental Science in Leighton. That little string of my kite has led me a long flight. Well, Father, it's right that they should all honor you. They were all very nice to me. Who's that? Just the children, Father. Don't play at the end of the garden, children. Don't stop the mighty, eh? I enjoy hearing my grandchildren's voices. What was that song they were singing? Something that started in Boston after the tea party. Everyone is singing it now. In Flettington and Concord more than ever. I'm not so full of support. Whoever that may be, I won't let you be disturbed, Father. My father is resting, sir. He only returned yesterday from a long voyage from England. I'm to deliver this to him at once, Mrs. Bates. Bring me the message, Sally. As you wish, Daddy. Here. Thank you. It looks important. What do they want of you, Daddy? Oh, yes. This is imperative, my dear. I have been chosen as one of Pennsylvania's five delegates to the Continental Congress. They are organizing for war against England. But you're too old, Father. Old and probably good for nothing. But as the storekeepers say of their remnants of cloth, I am but a fag end, and you may have me for what you please. My old friend Colonel Washington has been named Commander-in-Chief of the Army. I cannot refuse to give my services at his command. One year later, in September 1776, with the American cause facing defeat for lack of funds and supplies, the Continental Congress unanimously elected Benjamin Franklin as Special Commissioner to France, whose alliance he was instrumental in securing. It was nine years before he set foot on his native shore again. On September 14th, 1785, he arrives home on the London packet. Beloved and renowned, he has been named the first American citizen. Cheering crowds swarmed the same old Market Street in Philadelphia, where he had arrived 60 years before as a runaway apprentice. The Committee of Welcome is waiting for Dr. Franklin in the ship's cabin. He did more to win the war than any one man. Oh, what about Washington? And where, I ask you, sir, would Washington and the rest of us have been if Dr. Franklin hadn't persuaded King Louis to the smart tune of 26 million francs? My excuse, he comes. Welcome, Christ. Welcome, Dr. Franklin, to your native land again. God just be praised and thanked for all men. Are you satisfied with the peace terms, doctor? There never was a good war or a bad peace. What kind of a voyage did you have this time, sir? Dreadful. Dreadful. I was in my cabin most of the time, writing on a new paper. The cause and cure of smoky chimney. Doctor, we are electing you Chairman of the Philadelphia Common Council, and you will undoubtedly be chosen later for the highest office in the state. Yes. Yes, they have eaten my flesh, and it seems they are resolved to pick my bones. Perhaps you would all like to hear my epitaph. Oh, I'm sure you have many years before you, doctor. I am, I amuse myself by writing it. I seem to have intruded myself into the company of posterity, when I ought to have been a bed and a sleep. The body of Benjamin Franklin, printer, like the cover of an old book, its contents torn out and stripped of its lettering and yielding, lies here, food for worms. Yet the work itself shall not be lost, for it will, as he believes, appear once more in a new and more beautiful edition, corrected and amended by the author. Benjamin Franklin never realized his ambition to retire from active public life. After his return, he served Pennsylvania as chief executive of the state, filling that office on three occasions, and taking active part in the constitutional convention of 1787 in Philadelphia. Until his death on April 17th, 1790, at the age of 84, he never ceased his scientific labor, writing incessantly on his pamphlets and books for the improvement and betterment of mankind. No American ever led a more useful and productive life than Benjamin Franklin, first citizen in the cavalcade of America. When Benjamin Franklin was in France, he often visited the laboratory of the famous French scientist Lavoisier, where a young man named Elefaire Irénée Dupont was working. Later this young man emigrated to America, and in 1802 he established the Dupont Company on the banks of the Brandywine Creek in Delaware. Tonight, one of his great-grandsons is with us in the studio, Mr. Irénée Dupont, vice chairman of the Dupont Company's board of directors, who continues the association between the names Franklin and Dupont through his service on the board of managers of the Franklin Institute, Philadelphia, which this week is dedicating a national shrine to Franklin's memory. Mr. Dupont, if Benjamin Franklin, as he suggested in his own epitaph, were to return today, what accomplishments of Dupont chemical research do you think would interest him most? Benjamin Franklin was very much interested in agriculture. He carried on experiments in improving the productiveness of his farm near Burlington, New Jersey, especially by means of crop rotation and liming the soil. Franklin would be astonished at the present great production of chemical fertilizers. The more so because no one of his time dreamed that nitrogenous fertilizers could be made from such raw materials as air and water. It would amaze him to visit the Dupont plant at Bell, West Virginia, where this complicated process is carried on at pressures as high as 13,000 pounds per square inch. And he'd be pleased that products so valuable to agriculture can be produced by this chemical route at a lower price than by any other. Mr. Dupont, what other chemical discoveries would Franklin regard as important contributions to better living? I think the observant Franklin would be astonished at the low cost of modern coal tar dies and equally astonished at their brilliance and fastness or ability to resist fading. 25 years ago America was almost entirely dependent on Europe for dye stuff. Now the Dupont company and other American manufacturers produced dyes equal to any others produced elsewhere. And the dye stuff industry has given us other things besides dyes, hasn't it, Mr. Dupont? Yes, indeed. Chemists found that the same processes or raw materials used in making dyes would also yield an endless variety of so-called organic chemicals. One of the most widely used of these is tetraethyl lead, the compound that takes the knockout of gasoline. Other organic chemicals supplied by the Dupont company to rubber companies help make our present-day automobile tires last three or four times as long as the tires of a few years ago. This calls to mind the new man-made material, neoprene, a compound very like rubber, but in certain ways eminently superior to rubber. All natural rubber comes from tropical countries thousands of miles away, but neoprene is produced by Dupont chemists from coal, limestone and salt. A great advantage to this country should our supply of natural rubber ever be cut off. A somewhat similar case is camphor, essential to the plastics industry. This material was formally imported from the Orient where it was obtained from camper trees. Today Dupont produces camper from southern pine trees at a price that freezes from a threat of foreign control. Mr. Dupont, it's easy to see that chemistry has come a long way since Franklin's time. What do you see for the future? No one can tell just what new developments will emerge from research laboratories. In Franklin's time progress was slow, for even such a genius as he worked largely alone and had very limited facility. Today research chemists work in cooperating groups in well-equipped laboratories and have available the accumulated knowledge of those who have preceded them. Though we cannot predict the specific results of their labors, it's certain that we have only begun to uncover the possibility. The most important point is that all these new industries born of chemical research provide jobs for thousands of people and produce an endless stream of new and better products for our comfort and convenience. Thank you Mr. Dupont. The facts you brought out throw new light on the work that the Dupont company is carrying forward to create better things for better living through chemistry. Child welfare, a story of the growth of an organization in this country devoted to improving methods of caring for children and understanding juvenile problems will be the subject of our broadcast when next week at the same time Dupont again presents the cavalcade of America. This is the Columbia Broadcasting System.