 The cavalcade of America sponsored by Dupont, maker of better things for better living through chemistry, presents Jose Ferrer and Everett Sloan in My Friend McNair. Before we begin our play, here's a tip on how you can make discarded furniture into beautiful new objects with Dupont Duco finishes. The answers transfer magic, the redecorating hobby that's sweeping the country. From grandfather's old hat rack or chest of drawers, you can easily make colorful new pieces of furniture with gay peasant designs. All you need for a few paint supplies from your Dupont dealer. And be sure to ask him for your free copy of the new 64-page booklet, Transfer Magic. It's packed with ideas, color photographs, and easy how-to-do-it instructions. And now for our play, My Friend McNair. Ours is the story of a symbol of freedom and a man who fought a war for that symbol. Ours is a story of a symbol of freedom which became a living reality to an ex-soldier and the wife of a prisoner of war. Dupont on the eve of the anniversary of our independence presents My Friend McNair, written by Tammy Carter and starring Jose Ferrer as McNair and Everett Sloan as Joe Merley on The Cavalcade of America. I am one of those characters who serve your java and crumb buns over the counter at the Deluxe Diner on 3rd Avenue and 22nd Street. Merley's the name. Joe Merley. Pleased to make you a queen's. What I got in mind is to tell you what happened to me last 4 July. I am not what you might call a patriotic type person, but I got to admit that what happened was not only very interesting, but also very patriotic. It's getting late on the night of the 3rd of July and the last customer has hit the road. I'm about to close up for the night when the door opens and in comes a messenger girl. Is there a Mrs. Burns here? You bet. Telegram for you, Connie. Telegram? For me? I don't know anybody who'd send me a telegram. If your name is Mrs. Edward Burns, it's for you. Well, don't make with the shakes, Connie. Yeah, give me the wire. You sign for it. There you are, girlie. Buy yourself a cigar. Thanks. Well, uh, don't you want to read your telegram, Connie? No, Joe. Maybe it's about Ed. Maybe he's... Oh, don't be ridiculous. Probably your sister got a baby or something. Everybody's sister always gets a baby and everybody thinks it's something terrible. Here, open it. You open it, Joe. You read it. Uh, sure. Oh. About Ed ain't it, Joe? It's about Ed, Connie. Well, go on and tell me. It's all right. Tell me. Oh, it's fine, Connie. He's a prisoner. A prisoner of war. Oh, Joe. Oh, what are you looking so sad about? It's swell. He's out of the war. He can't get shot anymore. It's swell, Connie. Stop it, Joe. You don't have to talk. Go ahead, Connie. Cry. It's good to get it out of you. What am I gonna do, Joe? What am I gonna do? You're gonna sit down and have a cup of coffee and put yourself together. I didn't want him to go, Joe. He didn't have to go. Didn't make sense of him going or anybody else. The whole war don't make any sense. I hate the war, Joe. I hate what's happened to Ed. I hate what's happened to you. Don't go feeling sorry for me, Connie. Save it for Ed. How can you talk like that? You lost the leg, so how can you talk like that? Maybe that's the reason I do talk like that. Let me tell you something, Connie. I think Ed's in on a good thing. A good thing? Yeah. I'm saying it's a good thing and I got a piece of plastic where I used to have a leg, so I gotta write the talk. A talk is no good. Connie, I wanna tell you something. Something I never told anyone before. It's about my friend McNair. What's your friend McNair gotta do with me? What's it gotta do with Ed? No, Connie. The only thing I do know is my friend McNair was the only guy ever drew a bead on this water. It made me understand it a little bit. There's nothing anybody can say. It's gonna make me feel it's okay. Well, what can you lose if you listen to me? First time I meet this here, McNair, right away, I figure he's a little touched in a dome. It's the night we're inducted and he's lying in the next bunk to me and he's got a grin a yard wide on his pan. I don't like it. Well, I made it, Joe. What do you mean you made it? Made what? The army. Everybody makes it, McNair. Believe me, it's very non-exclusive. Yeah, I know. They turned me down twice on account of my eyes. This time I talked my way in. Are you trying to tell me you wanted to put on a little brown suit? Oh, brother, and how? Enlisted? Yep. You came in on papers? Uh-huh. Now I've seen everything. Uh, pardon me for pointing, but what did you have in mind? Evening up the score for a lot of guys. Victims of fascism. You were a refugee from Czechoslovakia or something? We're all refugees in America, aren't we? Except the Mohawks and the Seminoles. Don't make jokes with me. I'm only asking a simple question. Well, there's no simple answer, Joe. I wish there were. It just happens that I've seen this war coming for a long time and I've had a stake in it for a long time. A friend of mine got killed in Spain. Hitler gave it to some more in Austria, the London Blitz. I couldn't sit by. No, I guess you couldn't. How about the way you know people in all those places? I'm a writer, Joe. For the movies? No. No, I write about history. American history. Sounds pretty horrible. Maybe it is, but I like it. I was in the middle of a book and I'm keeping on with it. What's the book about? The Liberty Bell. Remind me not to read it. Might not be as bad as you think, Joe. Might give you some idea of what you're doing here. Might make it easier. Might make it finish sooner. This I am for. You won't believe this, Joe, but the guys who wanted the Liberty Bell in 1751 are just like the guys sleeping in this barracks. Sure. Take Isaac Norris, for instance. The fellow who wanted it the most. He was just an ordinary guy, but he wanted to make his passion for Liberty concrete and loud. Turn off the record, McNair. I am not interested. I'm gonna knock off some sleep. Well, that's how it started, Connie. Oh, this is silly, Joe. You and McNair. What have you got to do with me? What have you got to do with Ed? Well, I'm coming to it, Connie. Believe me, kid, I think it's gonna help. Words can't help, Joe. Yeah, that's what I figured. But McNair's words did after I got used to them. First, I thought he was nuts. Nuts about that Liberty Bell because I get my ear chewed off about it for breakfast, dinner, and supper. Even when I didn't want to listen, I heard all the facts about that bell. You know what they wanted to write on it? I don't care, Joe. Proclaimed Liberty throughout the land onto all the inhabitants there. Quite a hunk of words, huh? Joe, are you crazy? What are you telling me about the Liberty Bell for? Funny thing, Connie. That's exactly what I said to McNair when we was on a quartermaster detail on the railroad siding unloading 100-pound sacks of potatoes. Are you crazy, McNair? What are you telling me about the Liberty Bell for? Okay, I'm sorry. I'll stop. You're positively cuckoo on this subject, aren't you? Yeah, a little. Somebody dropped you on your coconut. It was in my blood, Joe. The great-grandfather McNair who sent that bell ringing down the ages. Are you kidding? It's the McCoy, Joe. Well, my great-great-great-grandfather was a well-known horse thief. Oh, enough with these potatoes already. I can't do anymore, McNair. I'm pooped. Okay, sit down. I'll do the rest. Why are you giving me? You're a writer. You can't joke these tubers around. I wasn't a writer, Joe. I was wrestling champ at Harvard. You rastled for the Harvard? Yeah, now I'm rastling for the Uncle Sam's. Boy, the way you pick up those sacks like there were marbles. This is very hard for me to believe. I'm getting very impressed with you, McNair. Oh, impressed enough to listen to a little more history, Joe? Well, to give my dogs a rest, I would listen to anything. Start up with that Liberty Bell again, McNair. I'm ready. Okay. Now, we almost didn't get it. It was a close decision. How was that? Well, it happened something like this. In Philadelphia, one fine winter morning, the assembly met to vote on the Liberty Bell, and the speaker had to keep pounding his gavel for order. Then he cleared his throat and said sternly, Gentlemen, gentlemen, the clerk will read the result of the vote on the resolution to procure a bell of a weight of about 2,000 pounds, the cost of which we presume may amount to 100 pounds sterling to be hung in the belfry of the state house. How did it come out? In favor, 141. Opposed, 132. That was a photo finish. I bet there was murder. Well, there were certainly a lot of people who hoped something would happen. Like, for instance, what? Well, they hoped perhaps it wouldn't ring. You see, Joe, some wanted the bell to shout Liberty through the air in a loud, clear voice, and others wanted that voice to crack. Well, come on, give on. What happened? The bell was made in England and shipped to Philadelphia. So they decided to test it in the courtyard before hoisting it into the tower. I guess it was a heavy hunk of tin, all right. Yeah, you bet. They struck at it with a hammer. Bong, it went. And then, bong again. And then suddenly it croaked like a frog. No. The first Liberty bell was cracked. I don't care whether the Liberty bell was cracked or not, Joe, it hasn't got anything to do with me. Please, Connie, I'm not just beating my gums. Maybe McNair will help you. There ain't anything else you can do, is there? No, Joe. There's nothing else I can do except just sit and wait. Just wait for Ed to come back, if he ever does. He'll come back if you believe in something. You gotta believe in something, namely, to wit the way those guys believed in something. Like McNair was telling me when we're sitting on a deck of a transport in the North Pacific, a whole bunch of us and a special service officer puts up a nose bullet. Hey, says we're getting close to Bazzardi. Yeah, we've been in Italy in a month. You're out of your mind. Well, Selene, you'll never give up. They bombed Malta again last night. Malta, did I ever tell you, Joe, that the fella who made the Liberty bell was born in Malta? Ah, please, with that Liberty bell again. Joe's your pigeon, McNair, but if I hear one more word I'll push you overboard. Now, listen, gents, I am not an excitable tight person, but this dialogue I am not fond of. He's got you nuts, too, Joe. This is my own personal private business. If McNair wants to talk about the Liberty bell, he talks. And you listen. Blow it out, you jabobo. Me for the PX and a chocolate bar. Wait for me. Thanks, Joe. Thanks for coming to my defense. Ah, salami. Whether you know it or not, I don't believe in freedom of speech the way they do in Malta. That's why Hitler's wasting his time. On this, I would not be willing to bet my allotment check. Joe, you can kill people with bombs, but those that are left fight better, fight more. That apply to the Japs and Germans, too? No, it applies only to people who are fighting to keep or get the rights without which life is worthless. You will have to pardon me, my friend McNair, but this sounds to me like rice pudding. Sure, because you've never been without those rights. You take it all for granted. The letter carrier that brings your mail and the man who takes your garbage, the free clinic and all the rest. Men invented them and died for them. And they have to keep on dying for them. I should die for a letter carrier? Exactly, Joe. I've made it simple. You've made it even simpler. You are listening to Jose Ferrer and Everett Sloan play My Friend McNair on the Cavalcade of America sponsored by DuPont, maker of better things for better living through chemistry. One of which is DuPont Neoprene Synthetic Rubber. News was released yesterday that the DuPont company has made the process for manufacturing Neoprene available to Russia at the request of the United States government. This evening's Cavalcade is the story of Joe Merley, an ex-soldier and now a counterman in a New York diner, and of his friend and comrade-in-arms McNair. To console the wife of a prisoner of war, Joe tells the story of his friend McNair and of his strange preoccupation with the mute but living Liberty Bell. As our Cavalcade play continues, Joe played by Everett Sloan and McNair played by Jose Ferrer on a transport bound for the Aleutians discussed the bombing of Malta. I wonder if any of them were left on Malta. Oh, the Malta? No, no, the Pass family. The Pass family? You're not listening, Joe. Of course I'm listening. You just said... You're kidding. Go ahead, McNair. What about the Pass family? John Pass made the Liberty Bell. He took the original one and melted it down and came up with another one in January 1753. Ah, so at last we finally got ourselves a bell. Did it work? It worked, but even John Pass didn't know how well. Even John Pass didn't know that he had created a bell that would ring forever. And your great-great-great-great-grandfather rung that bell? He sure did. The first Andrew McNair was quite a guy, but his wife Sally could wind him around her little finger. Things don't change, do they? I guess they don't. Sally wasn't opposed to her husband's political ideas. She was afraid of them, afraid of the future. Him? Him? I am afraid of nothing I helped shape was the way he put it. It is when matters are left to chance that I am afraid. Afraid and angry. Say, he sounds like a president of quite a few colleges. Now, Joe, he was self-taught, a blacksmith. Yeah? Yeah. And on special occasions, he would ring the bell on the old meeting house. Oh, a part-time job, huh? Can't you figure out why? Shilling, Joe, about 20 cents. People wouldn't do it today. Guys only figured out way in history. It wasn't history when it happened, Joe. It was everyday stuff. The first McNair was like anybody living today. He could have driven a hack or run an elevator or made pants. People in history don't make pants. They're always generals, presidents, or kings. Now, Joe, it's the ordinary people who make history. Only nobody ever writes about them. When they do, they put them on a pedestal. Take Tom Jefferson, for instance. He was just an ordinary guy. Not so ordinary. He wrote the words, didn't he? The words of the Declaration of Independence? Say, I thought you didn't know anything about history, Joe. Well, natch, but everybody knows the Declaration of Independence. Oh, do they, Joe? Well, uh, how's it go? Well, uh, when in the course of human events, it becomes necessary for one people to dissolve the political bands, which, oh, uh, this here thing happened on the 4th of July. No, no, on the 8th. On the 8th? Yeah. On the 4th it was read to the Continental Congress, but the people of Philadelphia didn't hear it until four days later. Look, you mind if I read you something, Joe? This is the part I'm up to now. I ain't going nowhere. Proceed. Okay, amazing. Now, here we are. They stood in the Belfry, Sally and Andrew McNair, listening to the Declaration of Independence. Sally's voice was strange. What does it mean, Andrew, she asked? Andrew spoke gently. It means we're free, Sally, and our son and his and even his. Sally's eyes hardened, but it means something else she cried, war and death and hate. What good is a freedom that costs so much? Sally, he said so very quietly, don't you see that you pay double the price if you don't fight? This war, this revolution are not our choice. They're forced upon us. We accept the battle or we accept the chains. Our son will not look well in chains, Sally. She looked at her husband and said, no, Andrew, our son will not look well in chains. She looked toward the courtyard and then she cried desperately, Andrew, it's time. He's finished reading. Ring the bell, Andrew. Ring the Liberty Bell. Beautiful, Joe. Real beautiful. I told you my friend McNair was quite a citizen. Where's he now, Joe? Did you ever hear from him? Well, not exactly. Not by mail. But there are other ways, Connie. What do you mean, other ways, Joe? I wasn't going to tell you this part, Connie, but I'm started and I can't stop. McNair and I climbed down those nets at 6.26 a.m. in the morning and got on that LCI headed for the beaches of Attu. It was raining like nothing you ever saw in your life. Only you couldn't see nothing because the fog was like smoke and the motor of that landing craft kept spluttering. I was standing right up close to McNair. Hey, McNair, would you mind going back and seeing if you can find my stomach? I left it on the ship. You'll be able to get it yourself soon. Won't take long to clean this out. Don't give me no pep talks, McNair. I'm not in the mood. You know what I think, Joe? I think a whole lot of guys are watching us. I can hardly see you. How can anybody else? I don't know. I still think so. My great-great-great-grandfather McNair, his wife Sally, and a lot of others. McNair, you're the world's champion open and closed screwball. And all I can say is you better close your face before I push a grenade in and... Save it for the Japs. Look, we're almost there. How long we've been here, Joe? Too long. Looks like we've gotten separated from our platoon. That sniper's trying to separate us for good. And we got to get out of here. Yeah, if we follow the ridges, the medics will soon be sorting our dog tags. Well, then we don't follow the ridges. But I'm a soldier, not a mountain goat. They've set up a machine gun. Oh, fine. That puts them in command of this valley. I will never get up. I'm willing to settle for back in that up. Listen, Joe, if we can scale along that cliff line, we can get behind them. A few grenades and the pass is clear. You do all the scaling in this outfit. You've got a lot of goats helping you. Personally, I'm all alone. Okay, Joe. Here I go. Hey, McNair. Wait for me. Hey, McNair. You're crazy, McNair. Then go back, Joe. You think I'd let you go alone? You'd come back with poison ivy. Stop talking, Joe, and start climbing. This is far enough, ain't it? Yeah, just about. Here we go. This one's for you, Grandpa. Hit that dirt, Joe. There they go to that Jap, ancestors. Look out, Joe. There's one behind you. Hey, McNair. McNair, did he get you? Yeah, Joe. The belly. Well, that's his last belly. Believe me. You handle that banner like they'd torture Joe. I had a little trouble getting it away from him. Give me your slight scratch. Get yourself a powder off. Yeah, I'm getting it. And I'm putting it on you. Here's something, Joe. A artillery. Something else. The wind. I hate to say it, Joe, but I hear a bell. No bell, McNair. No bell in a thousand miles. Yeah, Joe. I hear it ringing. I don't hear nothing. I'm pulling the rope, Joe. All those who fight and have fought and will fight, they're pulling it too. Please, McNair, please, you'd get a hammer. It's a warning to all those who hear. We won't be slaves. We won't stand by and watch while the few try to destroy the many. We won't, will we, Joe? Please try to keep quiet, will you? Can you hear the bell? It's louder, Joe. It's ringing clear and free now. Joe, if you can't hear it now, you will someday. Some fourth of July, maybe, or the night before you die. But someday you'll hear it. Someday you'll hear it. Well, Connie, did you ever hear such a thing in your life? No, never. Always with the liberty bell until he died. Can you tie it? Did you ever hear the bell, Joe? I don't think so. Wait a minute, Joe. I hear it. I swear to you, I hear it. I hear it ringing. You do? This will make my friend McNair very happy. Thank you, Jose Ferrer and Everett Sloan. Now, here is Ted Pearson speaking for DuPont. Independence Day is an American day. Yet, in a sense, our Independence Day belongs to the whole world. For the assertion that every nation has a right to a free and independent life carries within it an assertion of the right of every human being, never mind his nation or his color or his religion, to a free and independent life. That is democracy. The belief that every human life on this planet is infinitely valuable, infinitely precious, that there shall be liberty and justice for all. We forget all too often how startlingly new democracy really is. That's why it still isn't perfect, because it's so new. People used to believe there were two kinds of human beings, superior and inferior, master and slave. Backward nations like Germany and Japan still believe this to be true. They represent an old, cruel, ugly prejudice that we have left far behind us. They are truly our enemies. In this war, all the progress toward democracy that we've achieved so far, all our progress towards a still better world in the future, is at stake. The soldiers fighting in this war, like their fathers who fought before, are fighting so that we can continue towards democracy to strengthen it so that we shall never again be halted. When we win this war, we'll be free to move ahead and to move even more swiftly. A recent DuPont cavalcade closed with these words. There are dark places on this earth, and men have gone there, gone east and west to loneliness and fear and sometimes death. And they have gone in truth beyond the limits of time, for they bring home tomorrow. No one who knows history, no one who realizes how long and how terribly hard the struggle towards democracy has been has any doubt about why we are fighting this war for keeps. We, who bring you the cavalcade of America, do so in the hope that you have gained a heightened sense of America's history because of these broadcasts. The cavalcade of America is sponsored by DuPont, maker of better things for better living through chemistry. Next Monday evening, cavalcade presents from Emporia, Kansas, the story of William Allen White, a small town man who was a celebrated editor and a friend of everybody from presidents in the White House to the folks in the corner drug store. Will White, in the words of the tribute paid yesterday by the Columbia University Graduate School of Journalism, was a champion of writers and causes. With his own words, he tooled the thoughts of each day and made them label for a better world. From Emporia, Kansas will star Parker Fennelly and Frank Reddick. This evening's cavalcade orchestra was conducted by Donald Burrys. Barbara Weeks played the role of Connie. This is Roland Winters sending best wishes from cavalcade sponsor the DuPont Company of Wilmington, Delaware. Monday night is good listening on NBC. May we suggest that next Monday evening you tune to your NBC station to hear the Firestone program, information please, the bell telephone hour, and the DuPont cavalcade of America. The cavalcade of America sponsored by DuPont came to you from New York. This is the National Broadcasting Company.