 Dear Adolphe, a letter to Hitler, the national broadcasting company in cooperation with the Council for Democracy presents Dear Adolphe, a series of six narrative letters written each week by Stephen Vincent Benet, one of the nation's greatest writers. These broadcasts are based upon actual letters written to Hitler by Americans. Today's program, the sixth of the series, presents the distinguished star Joseph Schildkraut, who will relate the views of a foreign-born American as he addresses a letter to Hitler. Dear Adolphe, rice chancellor, rice leader, rice destroyer, you know my voice. It is the voice of the peoples you have crushed and starved and shot, the voice of the peoples of Europe, head down but unsubdued, the voice of suffering peoples tricked into war on your side by their rotten and stupid rulers, the voice of suffering peoples beaten down by your armies, but waiting, waiting, waiting in terrible patience for the dawn and the liberation and the end of you, Adolphe Hitler. It is underground that voice in Europe, it borrows like a mole underground, it whispers like the night wind through the air, it doesn't speak loudly yet, but when it speaks, your hangman dies. But my voice comes from America, not from Europe. I speak to you, I speak to my fellow Americans, I speak for the alienborn, I speak for many stocks and many mother tongues, I speak for old, famous cities and peasant villages, for the lands where custom is old, for the fields have been tilled for many generations, the lands of our mother's milk and our father's endeavor, and I speak for the men and women who left these behind to come here. We came here to this country as children, why we came here only a few short years ago, we came with no English at all, with a few words picked up somehow, with the painful scholarly phrases you learn in books, and the scraps of old fashion slang we were so proud of knowing. We came in different clothes, different haircuts, homesick, excited, weary, looking forward, wondering, wondering if it was true, if it could be true, if America was what they said, if we would be welcomed or hated, given a place or despised, for roots are hard to tear up, Adolf, even for bread or freedom. The heart looks back for a while, even when the body has crossed an ocean. Was it true what they said, that this was a land where your stock or your birthplace or your name didn't matter beside what you were and what you could do? Was it true we'd have rights like the rest and a chance like the rest? Was it true that we could be America? Here my friend from the Lebanon. In my village in Lebanon when I was a boy, when the governor's carriage passed down the street, everyone jumped up and saluted. If you didn't salute, well, then you were due for trouble. Ours was a subject country and when our village elders found themselves oppressed, they would raise helpless hand and say, oh, it's your governor and your God. And there was no appeal from God or the governor. So when I came here at 20 with others of my compatriots, when you're little of many things, there would doubtless be governors here just like our governor. So a man examined my papers at the port of Boston, and I stood before him shaking in my boot. He was an official governor, but when he had finished with my papers, he got up and shook me by the hand. He wished me good luck in my new country. I have never forgotten that. I will never forget that. What did we find here? We found that neither race nor birth nor faith stood in the way of our advancement. We found a land that taught us the meaning of liberty and made of us three men. Now we have no other hope and no other cause. Here my friend who was born in Hungary. America is my country, and America is the home of my children. We'll be the home of their children. My eldest daughter is in love with an Irish fellow, and she told me she dreams about him in English. This surely is my country when my daughter loves an Irish fellow and dreams about him in English, and speaks to me about him in Hungarian. I know how to read, but my wife never learned how. But we both know we don't have to lick the boots of our bosses, and when my daughter's fellow, he's in the army. When he writes her a letter, it makes us all happy. What else can I tell you? I'm a citizen. I can vote. I never could do that in the old country, and I go to church, and there are no spies looking at me, and I can speak to God, and I don't have to mind Hitler. America must win. She will win. Here my friend from Germany, Adolf, the Germany you slew. I fight you because you taught me the full meaning of a verse by the poor chiller. Es kommt der Frömmste nicht in Friedenleben, wenn es dem bösen Nachbarn nicht gefährdet. A saint cannot live in peace if his wicked neighbor does not like it. I was a pacifist once, an intellectual, a thinker. You drove me out of Germany. I took refuge in France. For the first time there, I began to know what freedom is. Then you invaded France. I took part in that terrible retreat. I know what you did there. I do not want to talk about that, but I know what you did. In the end, by great good luck, I was rescued and came to the USA. And there I saw what amazed me, an organized democracy, defending its freedom. Hitler, you will never understand what America means to us. You may boast of your ability in keeping the appearance that everything is well in Germany. This society here would break down the moment when everybody should say everything is well. It gets things done by criticism and discussion by 130 million people criticizing, discussing and cooperating. And that is why you will never win this war. The American people are fighting for their way of life. They cannot be scared into panic. They will not be brought to their knees by your war of nerves. They become more decided every day your war goes on. They know they have no way, but to win it. Yes, I'm afraid you've been deceived about us, Herr Reich's Chancellor, Hitler. I'm afraid you've been badly deceived. Yes, you bought a few traitors here and there. You planted a few spies. You caused a few deluded men and women to doubt democracy. While you've even tried your oldest trick on us to get us fighting among ourselves, labor against management, protestant against Catholic, Christian against you, native born against foreign bond. But we, Adolf, we have a litmus paper and the test of democracy. We, the many, the uncounted, the ordinary, who quietly take our pledge to the flag you hate and the freedom you hate and the rights of man that you hate. No, all is not perfect here, Herr Chancellor. But I'm a free man, and so I can tell you the truth, and I will. Yes, they talk about hunkies and daigos, mix and polacks. They say, oh, we've got a many foreigners around here. They say, well, what can you expect with all these foreigners? Yes, that's quite true. And yet, Adolf, no matter where I go, no matter what bad accent I speak, I can say I am an American and no one will dare to laugh. These are good American names. Stone, Marshall, Salt and Stahl, Magruder, Frost. These are good American names, too. The Guardia, Eisenhower, Adamic, Knudsen, Nimitz. They are all good American names, Adolf. And as we say in America, that's all. Period, Adolf. Well, I can't explain this to you, because there is no way of explaining it, and your crazy mind wouldn't understand any how. I can say that those who fight for freedom in the United States Army today have a great name in the world. But still, that isn't enough. You see, we are quietly alien-born, because after all, Adolf, we are still learning. We're even a little child, and our children come back from school so assured, and yet, with questions, while you're proud of those children, we see them grow big and free, taking rights for granted, and that's fine. That's just what we want, Adolf. But even they do not know quite the price of freedom, as we know it. Not even they. We hear those long in the land who talk of their country, our country. We know who speaks true and who speaks false, and we listen well to those who speak true, Adolf, for their fathers made this land. But even many of them do not know the price of freedom, as we know it. Not even they. We, the pilgrims of a thousand unnamed and forgotten mayflowers. Our freedom and our citizenship was bought with all we have. It was bought with a dream in our mind, the dream of a free, lucky country, where life would be good and human beings equal. It was bought with travail and poverty and the wrenching up of old memories and fear and hope and faith. Yes, Adolf, with a great price, we bought this freedom, and that price seems little today. We've paid again and again how rice chance lay, Hitler. Skin for skin we would pay it. Ten times over we would pay it, Mr. Hitler. There was a town called Lideche, Adolf Hitler. We know what happened to that town. There was a city named Rotterdam and a city named Krakow, and that is why you're against you, Adolf Hitler. We, the alien born, the new Americans, whose children shall be Americans against you and against you forever, against you living or dying, against you waking or sleeping, against you every minute, every hour, every day. You would bring to this country the things we escaped and hated. You would poison the air and the water and the minds of our growing children. Why, you would drag them back, not even to the life we knew, Adolf. No, but to the life of a sheriff, the life of a slave. But we have tasted liberty, Adolf. We've seen liberty walking the streets. No, right. We were not at Lexington or Gettysburg. Of the names that we make today shall be names as shining, all over the country they answer, the Americans, the alien born, all over the country they answer for the free world, the good thing, the old tradition and the new. I pledge your allegiance to the flag of the United States of America. Those eight of our Greeks, Italians, Croats, Slovenians, Americans, those eight of our Romanian, Bohemians, Russians, Latvians, Norwegians, or Americans, those eight of our Danes and Swedes, Irish, French, Staniots, Americans, Americans, bumbling voices, voices with accents, very heavy accents, every accent, but meaning it, meaning every word. We, who are the tests of democracy, the litmus paper of democracy. I pledge your allegiance to the flag of the United States of America. And that is all how rice chants like Hitler. That is all dear Adolf. Period. You have just heard Dear Adolf starring Joseph Schildkraut, the last of a series of six narrative letters written each week by Stephen Vincent Benet and presented by the national broadcasting company in cooperation with the Council for Democracy. The program was directed by William Sweets with original music composed by Tom Benet and conducted by Joseph Stobank. These broadcasts are based upon actual letters written to Hitler by Americans. Your letters commenting on the series will be appreciated. Copies of today's Dear Adolf letter may be secured without cost by writing directly to the Council for Democracy 11 West 42nd Street, New York City. This program came to you from New York. This is the national broadcasting company. Thank you.