 The DuPont Company brings back to the air the Cavalcade of America. Speaking for the DuPont Company is the widely known news commentator, Gabriel Heater. Good evening, everyone. I'm happy to welcome you to a new series of Cavalcade of America. In behalf of its sponsors, the DuPont Company of Wilmington, Delaware. I feel it a real privilege to be here tonight, as anyone would on a program which is one for many awards, since Cavalcade made its debut in 1935. Tonight's The Cavalcade of America will present a story of a beloved American figure, Knute Rockney, a story to captivate every American heart. And in evenings to come, you'll hear stories of such Americans of today and yesterday as the beloved humorist, Will Rogers and Mark Twain, baseball's famous Christy Matheson, the distinguished journalist and editor, Edward Buck and many more. DuPont is proud to announce as our historical advisor for the Cavalcade of America, James Truslow Adams, author of The March of Democracy, The Epic of America and a vast number of other works including Founding of New England, which won the Pulitzer Prize for the best book on history a few years ago. And now as the curtain goes up on the new Cavalcade, Don Voorhees and the orchestra play the hit tune from Cole Porter's musical comedy You Never Know at Long Last Love. Ladies and gentlemen, another new personality will be with us in this Cavalcade series. His name is Tom Chalmers. Many of us I'm certain will never forget his remarkable work as narrator in that epic film, The River. He's a figure in the world of opera and the stage too. We're happy to have him with us on The Cavalcade of America. Tom Chalmers. Thank you Gabriel Eater. It's indeed a privilege for me to be associated with The Cavalcade of America. As you said a moment ago, this evening's story is about Knuth Rockney and it comes I believe at a particularly appropriate time. Certainly the place of sport is firmly entrenched as a builder of men and of men's character in The Cavalcade of America. And wherever American football is played, the spirit of Knuth Rockney is a legend. The Rockney legend has become a symbol of the finest tradition in American sport and the world of football will always honor the great coach who devoted his life to the making of men in the shadow of the golden dome of the University of Notre Dame. Knuth Rockney was born in Vos, Norway, March 4th, 1888. His father Lars brought the family to Chicago about the year 1893. At that time Chicago was a city of cobblestone streets and you could catch a horse car out to the lagoons where they were holding the world fair. In this bustling and colorful city Knuth went to Brentano grade school and over in the Logan Square neighborhood played with other boys like himself. He began to notice on Saturday afternoons that the bigger boys were playing what was to him a fascinating game. Signal 8, 38, 12. Hey get out of the way Cotton Top. I'd like to play too. You'd like to play. Get that will you gang? Listen Runt, we're playing football 3, no game for you. Get out of the way, take a stroll in the park. Wait a minute please. I've watched you playing before, just let me try. You have to know this game Shorty. What do you know about football? Not the rules and everything, but you could explain them to me. Hike yourself home you belong Toehead. Yeah on your way. Okay line up fellas, we're going for a touchdown. Hey wait a second, you guys got one more man than our side. We'll take the Toehead. Well gee thanks. Alright alright, but look alive will you? Now get down here beside me. Alright. What's your name kid? Luke Rockney. Keep your head up Cotton Top. I'm coming right through you. Dive at his legs, that'll get him. I understand. Signals, 21, 16, 54, 6. Get him canoes. Alright. Adam boy canoes. That's Billy, I'm gonna stop them cold. That was easy. Too many crickets. You sure caught on fast Bonnie. Good work canoes boy. Do you feel alright? Yeah, sure I feel alright. Let's do it again. Football became the center of young canoes life. In grade school and at Northwest Division High School he played football and played it well. After finishing high school canoot had no money for college. But after washing windows, working on a ferry boat and mail clerking in the Chicago Post Office he saved a thousand dollars whereby he went to Notre Dame. In Soren Hall he met his roommate Gus Doray and they both went out for football. But Rockney studied hard for his chemistry courses at Notre Dame. He got in the dramatic society and played the flute in the school orchestra. He went out for track and in senior year edited the college literary annual. During the summers he and Doray used to work at Cedar Point on Lake Erie. Between chores they could relax on the beach. What are you doing with that football Rock? I'm gonna use it for a pillow. It's a life. One more year at Notre Dame. Yeah, seniors. I got a hand it to you Rock. Sure works your way through college. Cleaning up after lab period, night watchman, waiter. You have to get that degree in chemistry. I got a letter from the coach this morning. Being captain of the football team next year Rock there's something you ought to know. Plenty I ought to know. Notre Dame's playing Army. Army? This season. Army's a powerful outfit Rock. A lot heavier than that. Means a lot to Notre Dame. First big game in the east. Wabash, Ohio Northern. We're up against real competition now. Competition? Well just a workout for Army. We'll be lucky to hold down the score. All right. We're gonna lick them. Gus, I've been studying up on this football business. You know. And I got an idea. Listen. Eastern teams don't take much of the forward pass. Midwestern tactics. They build beef teams. Just keep hitting the line and out punning each other. Let's pass the Army dizzy. Yeah. Pass Rock. Your quarterback on the team Gus. I'll be at end all right. Look. How about practicing up on that pass? Here? Sure. Take this football. Come on Gus. I'll go out for it. Okay? Sure Rock. There it is. Perfect. Nice catch. Try it again Rock. Okay. Let it go. Pass it further this time. All right. This one will have a zip on it. That day on the beach at Cedar Point, Dorae and Rockney developed the forward pass. And later in the fall, they had so systematized it that Notre Dame defeated a powerful Army team 35 to 13. Army used it a few weeks later to defeat what appeared to be a better Navy team. Rockney's theory and the basis of his whole conception of the game was that football required brains rather than brawn. After Knut graduated, Magna cum laude with a BS in pharmacy, he taught chemistry at Notre Dame working with the great chemist Father Newland. He also was assistant football coach. One day on the practice field, he saw a tall boy drop kicking about 50 yards in ordinary shoes. Hey bud. Yes? Where are you from? What do you miss? Playing any football in high school? Don't care for football. Rather play baseball. What are you doing out here kicking those drops? Exercising. What makes you come to Notre Dame? Friends. Get yourself a suit tomorrow and come out with a freshman. You ought to make a good football player. All right. Do you think I can help? I think you can. What's your name? Gip. George Gip. Rockney trained George Gip and the boy played on the Notre Dame team during the seasons from 1917 to 1920. Later, Rockney wrote of him, I hope I'm pardoned for speaking in this paternal way of the boy because I felt the thrill that comes to every coach when he knows it is his fate and his responsibility to handle unusual greatness. The perfect performer who comes rarely more than once in a generation. After his last brilliant season at Notre Dame, George Gip contracted a cold that became a mortally infected sore throat. Rockney stayed constantly at his bedside. Well, Gipper, old man, how's it going? Not... not so hot, I guess, Rock. Gipper, I've got something to tell you. What is it, Rock? I just got word. Walter Camps named you all American fullback. Rock? Yeah, Gipper? It's all right. I'm not afraid. Sometime, Rock, when the team's up against it, when things are wrong, the breaks are beating the boys. Tell them to go in there with all they've got and win just one for the Gipper. I don't know where I'll be then, Rock, but I'll know about it, and I'll be happy. Notre Dame, seven, Nebraska, nothing. Notre Dame, 19, Carnegie Tech, nothing. Notre Dame, 25, Princeton, two. Notre Dame, 35, Georgia Tech, seven. Notre Dame, 28, Army, nothing. It was the beginning of the Rockney era. His great Notre Dame 11s fired the imaginations of thousands. High school, prep, and college squads began to adopt the Notre Dame system. One day, Rockney saw four frisky boys working out with the Notre Dame freshman team. He began to train them carefully, and after almost three seasons of brilliant playing, these four boys thrilled thousands at the Army game in 1924 with their unequal speed, grace, and precision. Grantland Rice immortalized them in American football when he roped. Outlined against the blue-gray October sky, the Four Horsemen rode again. The Four Horsemen of Notre Dame, Harry Stooldrayer, Don Miller, Elmer Leiden, and Jimmy Crowley captured the heart of American football and their colorful career reached the climax during their last game at the Rose Bowl against Stanford in 1925. Outside the Notre Dame dressing room, everybody was talking about the frills of the first half. Old grads crowded around Rockney. You like living out here in California, huh? Sure do, Rock. Came out after graduation. Oh, say yeah. All right, if I go into the dressing room with you. Well, sure, come on. You used to be on the team. What's going on? Listen, one of the Four Horsemen, isn't it, Rock? Yeah, arguing with the manager. Let's go over and get in on it. All right, sure. I said I want a new belt. You heard me. OK, OK, but turn in the one you've got. That's the rule. Why should I? I have to keep the rules. Why shouldn't you? Just a minute, young man. Who do you think you're talking to? Do you realize that's one of the Four Horsemen? Oh, you don't say. Why, everybody knows that. Hey, fellas, he's one of the Four Horsemen. One of the Four Horsemen. I guess my old belt's OK. Everybody down. All right, now listen. Well, here it is, the first half. I know you scored more touchdowns in Stanford. Pop Warner says Stanford's not playing us. Made more first downs. That's like saying they don't count runs that come across a plate in baseball. Just the men standing on the bases. Very funny, Crowley. That Stanford defensive half smeared you more than once out there. I ought to have cut back. I had no idea he was so fast. That wasn't your mistake. That was it, all right. Oh, no. How could he know who he was tackling? You'd only let him see those newspaper clippings you've got about how good you are. He wouldn't have dared touch you. Well, you're all right, Crowley. Well, Rock, I better be getting back to my seat. Nice to see you again. Good luck. Rock, come over here a second. All right. Make it easy, boys. Yeah, what is it? A little tough on the Four Horsemen, weren't you? Crowley and the boy who won the new belt. Listen, the Four Horsemen are the best backfield in football. I'm proud of them because they've kept their head. Look, boys don't pay any attention to sermons, see? You've got to teach them in their own coin. Give them a quick comeback. Well, it's the same lesson more effectively, that's all. You've got a point there, old man. Thanks, Rock, and so long. Goodbye. All right now, boys. Listen. Now, I tell you, we're not going to win this next half unless we have teamwork. That's what counts in this game. Teamwork. We've got to get ourselves set up as a unit. We do that. Why? We've got nothing to worry about. All right now, after we've seen the kickoff, I want you to use those heads in there all the time. I want that line in there, charging low. Take your man out of every play. Come up fast, come up fast. I want you boys in the backfield hitting that old line in there. Right side, left side, right left, right left. That's what we're going to get them going. When we get them going, men, we're going to keep them going. We're going to push them right down that old field, right down that field, open that goal line. That old little game spirit. They can't stop us. Nobody's going to stop us. They're going in there, and the first kickoff. They're going to drive, drive, drive, drive, get them. Come on, get them, get them, get them. Colute Rockney always sent his teams out on the gridiron inspired. He taught those boys how to play smart, strategic football, yes. But Rockney took football and made it the proving ground for training a boy's character. A boy learned how to take the breaks without getting sore or swelled headed and found that pluck and quick thinking in a situation counted. He was after a touchdown or success in later life. But Rockney's Notre Dame teams didn't always win. There was that game in 1925 when army walloped the fighting iris 27 to nothing and Rockney had to take a beaten team back to South Bend. Fine time to get in, Rock. 4.30 in the morning. After that army defeat, we're all kind of glad to slip in before daylight. Students usually come down to welcome the team back, don't they? Sure. After victories. Don't forget we lost that army game. What happened to the boys in New York, Rock? We just met a better team, that's all. Army like this proper. Well, we're in. Holy cat, Rock. Look at that crowd. It's the whole student body. It's this hour of the morning. Come on. Let's go on the back platform. Sure. There's real spirit for you. A lot of people from South Bend here, too. All right. Don't you people ever go to bed? You don't know. You don't know what this reception means after Saturday's game. Nice to win to come back after a licking and find you cheering as if we'd won our greatest triumph. Well, it's too much. I just want to say that a team can't help working its head off of you people. You can't beat that old Notre Dame spirit. Rock knew as an energetic man. Quick thinking, witty and brilliant. His understanding of boys was uncanny. There's that army game in 1928. Between the haves, the Notre Dame team is exhausted. The boys can't see how they'll hold that mighty cadet 11 for another half. Rockney frowns and takes off his hat. Boys, the score is nothing, nothing. We've been beaten by Georgia Tech in Wisconsin. Sportswriters say the army is going to trim us to a fairly well. I'm going to tell you something I've kept to myself for years. None of you knew George Gipp, but you knew what his tradition stands for at Notre Dame. Well, about the last thing he said to me was, Rock, when the team's up against it, when things are wrong and the breaks are beaten, the boys tell them to go in there with all they've got and win just one for the gipper. I don't know where I'll be then, Rock, he said, but I'll know about it and I'll be happy. I haven't anything more to say. Okay, boys, let's get one for the gipper. Come on. Out through the lower corridors of the stadium stormed an inspired Notre Dame team. Running out of the field before thousands of spectators, they again faced a confident army 11, but the tide was turned. Notre Dame playing fierce, indomitable football swept the cadets back to their own goal line. Conquering 12-6 as the shout went up, that's one for the gipper, and Rockney's Notre Dame was on the march again. Notre Dame 26, Northwestern 6, Notre Dame 14, Navy 7, Notre Dame 35, Pittsburgh 19, Notre Dame 14, Indiana, nothing. Rockney had an American way of doing things. He wanted to improve what he found. He taught boys to become men, to overcome odds and respect others. To him, that was important in a boy's education. Rock spoke about education often, sometimes before cheering Notre Dame men at mammoth campus rallies when the big blue and gold pellets flooded from the ceiling and the band played in the crowded hall. This is not for me. Those cheers are for the Notre Dame spirit. Speaking for our teams at Notre Dame, the fighting Irish, all over the country, we've gotten to learn that southerners aren't lazy, that northerners aren't cold, that Midwesterners aren't hicks. I should have known better than Indiana schools. But that's the important contribution of education and American sports. And so as each football season draws to a close, let us remember we've taken one more step in this process of understanding. Let us remember that what we're doing here goes out beyond the campus of Notre Dame. Let us remember that the American spirit of good sportsmanship carries with it high and fervent ideals. And let us remember that the noblest work of man is forming the character of man. That we must strive with whole souls, with burning hearts and implacable minds to promote the clean, patriotic development of our youth. That ours is not only fine sentiment, inspiration and color, but deep and lasting responsibility. And to the glory of that great name, Harry Stooldreyer, one of the four horsemen, wrote a Canute Rock name. As you would wish it, we, the Notre Dame boys, are going to carry on for you. We're going to try to spread your doctrines and your ideas. If we're able to give to our boys just a small part of the many things you have given to us, we shall have done something for you. Can't you see it, Rock, as we see it? That the boys we teach will go out and teach other boys. And they, in turn, will teach others. It'll be beautiful, Rock. The Rockney tradition. Frank Curidio, Mississippi State. Frank Thomas, Alabama. Rip Miller, Navy. Adam Walsh, Bowden. Noble Kaiser, Purdue. Harry Stooldreyer, Wisconsin. Marty Brill, the Sal Institute. Margie Schwartz, Kratom. Jimmy Crowley, Fordham. Tom Keneally, Rutgers. Slip Madigan, St. Mary's. Elmer Layton, Notre Dame. Canute Rockney's boys. Those are some of them. There are scores of others keeping alive the legend of Rockney in American football. Gabriel Heta, what are the lessons of life that men learn in the give and take of clean American sport? To stand up and take it in good weather and bad. To keep fighting no matter what handicap we carry. As millions of Americans have been doing night and day, waiting for a turn. That's my news tonight. The better days which are coming down a road to meet us. Maybe you don't care for figures any more than I do. But there are times when they tell a story as compelling as any you'll find in fiction. A story of better times. Every business barometer tonight points one way forward. And if you look around, you'll see it and feel it. Expressed in two words. Returning confidence. The confidence we all feel and share tonight in America. All right, here's a headline in millions. Eight million dollars. Which do point to spending for a new textile fiber plant in Seaford, Delaware. Just a little town. Like towns you know all over America. And showing so well what happens when business has foresight and courage to invest in America's future. Yes, it requires investment to put men to work. The chemical industry has to invest more than 8000 dollars in plant and equipment for each and every employee. Today in Seaford, Delaware, surveyors are busy. Busy with their equipment on a 340 acre site of a new DuPont project. And all over town you find busting activity. Happy confident faces. The butcher, the baker, the druggist, the gasoline station on the corner. All sense a return of confidence. All know that they too will share in the better times on the way. In about a year from now, when the plant is finished, it will create work for more than 1000 men. Steady jobs for men who face new opportunity. Jobs born of research and a hunger for better living. Men producing a new material discovered by DuPont Research. The most welcome headline of all. Men working. Because American industry genius and enterprise reach out every day toward new frontiers of better living. Your home and mine. The better living born in a wonderland of chemistry and inspired by a timeless DuPont pledge. Better things for better living through chemistry. Next week at the same time, DuPont again presents the Cavalcade of America. This is the Columbia Broadcasting Station.