 The Johnson-Wax Program Words at War with Clifton Fadiman The makers of Johnson's wax for home and industry in cooperation with the council on books and wartime proudly present words at war Bringing you another dramatization of an important war book and here to introduce our program is one of the keenest judges of good books in America Clifton Fadiman Good evening tonight's dramatization is the next to the last in the current sponsored series of words at war in Two weeks your old friends Fibomagee and Molly return to this spot on the dial This evening we present a thought-provoking program in this series Which is dedicated itself to bringing you the opinions and the stories of writers who've had a close-up view of a world at war But before our story a word from Jack Costello, you know friends There are probably more good reasons today than ever before for taking proper care of the finish of your automobile The older it gets the more it tends to break down and even rust at vital spots Secondly one of these days you'll be ready for a trade-in though that's still some way off But it's certainly wise to keep the paint job in good condition Which you can do by occasionally cleaning and polishing your car with Johnson's car and you One thing you like about car and you is that it's relatively easy to use Carn you both cleans and polishes with one application two jobs at once It's a liquid which dries on application to a powder and when the powder is removed It takes the dirt and road grime with it leaving a satin smooth finish. That's beautiful and easier to keep clean I'm sure I don't need to add that you and your family will enjoy your car lots more when it's cleaned and polished Remember your dealer still has Johnson's car and you spelled C.A.R. and you all right, mr. Fadiman we on words at war are more than a little proud of the books which we've been able to dramatize for you We feel that these books have shown how Americans have reacted to and have helped put down tyranny all over the world We're proud of these stories which have told of Americans winning a war. You've seen the papers lately, mister The papers say we're winning the war. Well, maybe they're talking about another war. I don't know I'm talking about the war We're fighting to make this world a cleaner safer Decenter place for us and our kids to live in that the war you mean well, and I say we're losing that war Sure, we've cracked the Siegfried line, but there are other battles that are important, too I say we're losing them because our newspapers carry pictures of zoot-suiters Graduating from reform school to sing sing instead of from grammar school to high We're losing the war because there are 14 and 15 year old girls serving their vicious apprenticeship picking up servicemen and bar rooms I say we're losing because our slums are getting bigger instead of smaller more numerous instead of fewer more corrupt and disease-ridden And gang run than the day the war started these are battles We're losing mister and listen their pickets fighting with police and management fighting with labor and whites fighting with blacks And your dollar fighting with my dollar and you say we're winning the war Well, we're not that's proof. We're losing. We're losing. We're losing Sounds like a fanatic doesn't be well, maybe he's excited, but he's not far wrong No Those conditions do exist and unless we're careful those battles will be lost And it doesn't take a fanatic to get excited about them either a Very cultured gentlewoman got excited about them too because she made a trip through America and saw them herself So excited that she wrote a book about it for she saw in these bitter battles a Portent of evil for America's future The lady is mrs. Agnes E. Meyer the book is journey through chaos It's a picture of America in a battle for its future and for its life. I Saw the things our friend talks about I saw race tensions in Detroit and slums in every city. I saw delinquency from Buffalo to San Francisco Well, then why don't you get excited? Tell them about the shack cities and the packing box cities and the tents cities and the hovels of pascagulla With one outhouse for 10 families and the basement rooms of Detroit and Buffalo and Washington DC With two families in a room and men sleeping in shifts Tell them about the epidemics lying in wait the crime that's born the death that creeps out of those slums Oh Yes, I saw those things too and I asked why must people live like that Why must American harbor these slums clustered around the factories like fungi around a tree trunk? Poisonous and spreading always spreading why must we tolerate these huge stew pots cooking up race riots and disease Delinquency and crime. Why aren't these shack cities these wreaking slums cleared out? Why aren't decent livable homes built for these people? So I asked and I got my answers Nuts most of these people are hillbillies. They've always lived that way. Don't you know, there's a war on there's no time No materials to build homes for these people forget it. Some people are made for the slums So spoke the careless ones the unidentified mass of the people who don't think and don't care But there were others who did identify themselves others who do think and How madam I am a politician, but I've got my duty like anybody else Why if we build homes for those workers, you know, what's gonna happen? We're gonna be left with a ghost town when the war's over That'll mean lower real estate values and lower real estate values mean less real estate taxes for the city treasury And well How do you like that reason? You know any politicians who think like that Well, maybe this next man is your neighbor. Look, I'm a regular resident of this town If we build homes for these these outsiders, you know, what's gonna happen the war will end and boom They'll sit right in those houses and go on relief. That means more of a tax load on us old residents I Say leave the slums as they are and when the war is over those folks go back where they belong Go back where they belong And now your reason mr. Resident of Washington, DC Well, we know those ten in a room alleys slums are a disgrace to the capital of the United States But we can't do a thing if we start investigations We would have to condemn most of these houses and those evicted families would just move in with others and make it more Crowded still or they'd sit in the street and say the district government was and I this or and I that that's why We're leaving well enough alone Well, how do you like that and it's all true I assure you But wait before you get too angry with those cynical people. Let me tell you something else that's equally true There are enlightened American communities that have tried to solve the slum problem one of them is mobile In that town they built a housing project a settlement of comfortable clean airy homes for the factory slum dwellers And when some of the slum families were offered these homes Well, their answers were hard to believe Why don't you leave us alone? But don't you understand sir? The government has built these homes for people just like yourselves They're clean and nice and you'll like living there. You want to move fact is they ain't gonna move please Mrs. Slokum, maybe you can make him see don't you want a cleaner place for you and your children a real stove instead of this can of gasoline? We don't want to move no place where they're gonna stick their nose in our business. Oh, we know the law We know they want us to move into them new houses so they can tell us what to do, but that's not true Look You just gotta move we know our rights. There's a free country. We don't have to move unless we want and we don't want Yes, sir. This is a free country by gosh. I ain't nothing else. I'm a free man. So go on get out of here. Let's alone And that ladies and gentlemen really happened yes, they can refuse to move yes They can live in squalor if they're American right and many of them intend to continue exercising at American right These groups have banded together in war center slums because of zoning laws because of excessive rents elsewhere and Often because conditions in our country have accustomed these people to that kind of life and a Single word lies at the root of the congestion problem. Can you guess what it is? Try to guess it's an important word. I Was aware of it again and again as I traveled through America as I came face to face with the problems of delinquency and class antagonisms and labor management troubles That one little word lies at the root of terrible problems Which you've erupted in Chicago in Detroit in cities unnumbered and As the slums grow so too do the other evils grow disease class quarrels and Most deadly of all for America's tomorrow Delinquency delinquency ha maybe being a woman you haven't seen the call houses with a 14-year-old girls in them Maybe you haven't seen the police line-ups with 16-year-old suit suitors up for rape and robbery and assault and car Thiefry and how about the delinquency rates up 56% and the roving gangs of razor club toting youngsters on the streets of America Somebody's to blame and somebody should pay. Yes. I decided someone was to blame and somebody should pay But it looked to me as though the children would be the only ones to pay Because when I started asking questions, I received a lot of same answers We have to tend to our war jobs. We can't keep track of our kids. Give them a straight and reform school That'll straighten them out. Yeah, but most reform schools don't make better kids. Just better criminals So I stopped talking to fathers and mothers and in Buffalo in Cleveland in Portland and Mobile I heard new catchphrases like latch-tea kids and victory girls And I went to the people who had invented these words the police and the newspapers and the agencies fighting delinquency And they invited me to the places that spawn delinquency and I even went with them on their inspection tour We want to talk to you now you ain't talking to me Oh, yes, I am come in He admits he has a gang I know he's the one who beat up my son today because look he's wearing my son's watch chain Ah, well, why should that panties have a watch stand in a watch and we can't have and another thing We'll show these guys from across the tracks that they can't kick us around no more. We take what we want now We take what we want now Isn't that the birth cry of fascism or am I wrong? Maybe it'll be all right after the war when people are home more and out of the war factories and able to take care of their children And then again Maybe they won't be able to wipe out the bar room mistakes of their errand girls Yes, I was in a ballroom too with a detective Yes, I was in a ballroom too with a detective Hi, baby have a drink on me That's the second kid. How old are you? This badge is what's it to me? How old I am none of your business. This is a free country Oh, suppose I guess 16 that'd make it too young to be in here In fact, that would make you break in the law. See I didn't know how young she was officer I wasn't trying to pick her up. I only offered her a drink. I I didn't I I'll see you later Hey, you behind that bar arresting you for selling liquor to a minor. Here's your summons Hey, wait a minute. Do I have to ask with their point certificate every time I sell a drink? Hey, all right Don't push I'm coming now. Why don't you kids try having your fun at home home? That dump the lady went to work in the aircraft factory a liquid by hanging around these places There was the answer from the children themselves Home wasn't worth going home to in what's wrong with bar room the nightclub that they're good enough for our folks And I asked why there wasn't something done to take them out of the bar rooms Give the children places of their own like playgrounds and canteens And of course There were more of those familiar replies Well, of course, we'd like to build those things for the kids, but you find juvenile delinquency at its worst in war centers And in a war center, we need the time and the space and materials for war work First things first, I say it's our patriotic duty I see Then there were merchants too who encouraged children to stay out of school by offering them jobs They asked me can you blame me for trying to keep my business going? Help is so hard to get I'll take anything Yes anything Even the seeds of America's tomorrow But those seeds are going rotten and they promise a crop of crime and moral blindness and disease a Fine crop from which to harvest the leaders of tomorrow's brave new world to guard us against any possible dictators of the future and again That one little word had cropped up Have you guessed yet what it is This is Clifton Fadiman Johnson's wax is bringing you an adaptation of Agnes E Meyers book journey through chaos Perhaps many of you are shocked by the revelations made here There are those who will say and rightly that there are bright spots in the picture But there are cities which are pushing aside prejudice and self-interest to help stamp out the evils of boiling in America And they would be correct. Mr. Fadiman. There are such bright spots I saw them like oases in the deserts But they had to fight the same little word that I asked our listeners to search for behind Delinquency behind congestion the word that forms the bases for another American evil Hatred of group for group class hatred now. You're talking about a real headache Why they're 10 cities in America right now just a can for race riots segregation and discrimination and pussy-footing politics these things are dynamite sister and I tell you in no time at all They'll explode into death and destruction on a thousand peaceful streets in this country And you know I'm afraid that much of what our ranting friend says is true. I know I saw it and so Again, I asked questions and again. I got my answers You gotta keep them in their place. Maybe but is there a place the dirtiest slums in America and you want to take for these people Sure, I know you want us to live next door and next you want us to move in with them give them an inch and I'll take a mile That's right. How would they like to be over in Germany? Wait up, lady Don't listen to those platitudes those half truth and half lies have poisoned America's thinking too long Tell the listeners the truth. Tell them about the Jim Crow cars Yes, and don't forget the taboos against Negroes voting in the South and tell them how Germany and Japan sell the rest of The world on the story that our racial practices are exactly like theirs And tell how colored races the world over believe it because it's true and while we're talking let me tell you a story I heard today Yes, yes, I've heard those stories There are hundreds of such stories around some true some half true some easily believed because they could be true Yes, I've heard those stories and I've seen Jim Crowism and segregation and discrimination Stories about them have been around for years, but what actual good have they done towards solving our racial problem? Well, there's no denying it. There is discrimination down south. There is injustice down south But wait a minute you northerners don't sit back and smoke complacently about your southern neighbors I want to tell you something. It'll surprise you and I'll defend and prove this statement at any court in the land It is the south that is making the biggest strides toward the solution of the race prejudice problem and the north That's making it in the opposite direction. I Repeat it is the south that is making the biggest strides toward the solution of the race prejudice problem and the north It's moving in the opposite direction Here's the kind of stuff you hear up north listen if we let these guys get up at it They'll soon be taking our jobs. That's why we keep matters certain jobs. We've got to protect those jobs for us We've got to keep them in their place So mr. Northerner look around you the race prejudice problem is in your lap and you're bungling at worse than the south ever did And what is underneath it? The same word that caused the south's discrimination I grew sure and sure of it as I near the end of my trip that one little word is the main reason for America's war time Trouble it's a word which causes congestion to link itself with and give birth to juvenile delinquency Which makes juvenile delinquency grow out of and at the same time promote race hatred and then Blanketing the whole intertwined with living side by side with those things is the common fight The all-american fight which goes on in the homes of shack town and sugar hill the mining towns of Pennsylvania and the factories of the Midwest Management versus labor now you're talking about the most serious problem we face today Well, look at the strikes in this country and look at the employers using the war effort as an excuse for standing at labor And look at the petty squabbles and what happens to America's war effort while labor and management fight There's absenteeism and broken contracts and refusal to arbitrate and all together one big mess now wait a minute You can't condemn either management or labor with a blanket indictment But it's also true You can't travel through the boom towns of America without finding the evidence of too many fights between management and labor Here a picket line. They're a closed shop headlines of accusations against both sides demands for a national service act And of course we read about it and fail to realize it as one intelligent leaders said the labor management Problems and points of friction arising now would have taken 50 years to arise in the normal course of things The war is telescope time and made minor things pile up on each other So become more irritating and seem more serious, but there are few who recognize this few of the people I talk to anyhow They'll always be a fight between capital and labor But perhaps if both labor and management realize that one cannot do without the other Labor isn't the hands of the racketeers. Oh nonsense. Most labor leaders are honest and conscientious I tell you industry isn't going to give an inch unless it has to And As I investigated and asked more questions, I realized here that in labor management relations The vicious little word was clearer than ever The word at the root of the nation's trouble was a part of the policy of both sides For instance in a squabble between a Midwest in union in a war industry an argument arose All right, man, all you fellas with application cards, okay step over here for your physical examination We're not taking any physicals Jim, but it's new company policy. It's for your own good you guys our union voted No, Jim. Oh boy. This is a good one physical examinations for your own good and your union turns them down Why I know it sounds silly and the papers will probably eat it up, but we're standing our ground What if your doctors find TB among some of the men or cancer or something else? Well in that case, they shouldn't be working. You know that they should be under a doctor's care Sure, but what if they have no money for a doctor's care and after the war labor ain't so scarce an industry can pick and choose You think they're gonna pick guys with TB and cancer and other stuff on their cards. No, brother Sorry, we have to protect ourselves They have to protect themselves from the word it underlies every move of management and labor Have you guessed the word? Then listen and I'll tell you It's fear Fear fear of management for labor and labor for management fear of motives and fear of moves and fear of unemployment and fear of poverty Congestion and delinquency class hatred and the conflict between labor and management Intertwined and inseparable and underlying them all one emotion fear You Think we want to live in the slums Well, some folks who call themselves decent would probably mow us down if we tried to move into their pretty neighborhoods If we let them move in from the slums, they'll be left on relief rolls when the war is over They'll push property values down. They'll ruin us Fear neutral fear on both sides of the railroad track Oh, I want to take care of my kids, right? But I've got a job in a war factory. It's the first time my family's been able to earn a decent living and I can't give it up Fear of tomorrow and a million mother's hearts a willingness to take a chance with a child's fate Just to earn a few dollars to put the family an extra jump ahead of the landlord of the butcher Give my name and they'll take a mile. We got to protect our jobs from them because I hear they'll work for nothing We got to keep me in their place Based on the color of a skin fear that the white man will try to take back the freedom one in wartime Fear that the Negro will try to keep it fear of man for man Why should we workers give up privileges when our boys are fighting a war to preserve those privileges that doesn't make sense Why should we let these union men walk in and tell us how to run our business? It's our business our money We want to run it our way So there is the picture I saw of America blocked and twisted by fear People move or won't move because of fear and they leave their jobs or won't leave their jobs because of fear And they won't give in or won't give up because of that word fear and now Mrs. Meyer Can you tell us the answer to fear in America? Yes, Mr. Fatiman We can conquer anything in this country of ours if our hearts and minds are in the job Look at the army's magnificent victories. How do they do it by teamwork? There's good teamwork in Cleveland and Oregon and Springfield math and in Wichita too and other cities as well And there are undisturbed that have never had a strike Yet these islands of progress are set in an ocean of fear that cripples and retards progress the country over And the future is shrouded in uncertainty But teamwork and reason and understanding will banish that fear Teamwork Working together the fighting of fear by each individual american as he comes into contact with the problems which confront him Those are the things which will wipe fear from the lexicon of freedom forever Well americans, you've heard another words at war program and while it's fresh in your mind I'd like the privilege of adding a footnote like our other words at war dramatizations. It's handled some pretty touchy stuff It's pointed out things that some of us all too often are inclined to hush up Don't talk about such things. We say keep quiet about them and maybe they'll go away But when we do that We're like the man that continues to sit on a keg of tnt hoping desperately that it won't blow up Or at least that it won't blow up soon Or the thing to do when you're forced to sit on a powder keg is to empty the powder out of it And you can't do that by wishing you've got to act So don't stop with just applauding outspoken programs like words at war Read the books we dramatize and then when you're fully informed Add your might as an independent citizen to the effort now being made to make america a nation at which No foreign propagandist can point the finger of scorn Thank you Mr. Faderman will be back in just a moment to tell us about next week's show But first with summer officially gone You'll be spending more time indoors and your household problems will change a little But there's one room where traffic never seems to let up and that's your kitchen It's linoleum floor surfaces come in for pretty hardware and they really need to be protected They need the kind of care you can give them so easily with johnson's self-polishing glow coat If you protect them regularly with glow coat, they'll last six to ten times longer In addition, they'll always look bright and cheerful and sparkling and their colors will endure It takes very little effort to achieve these results because glow coat is self-polishing It needs no rubbing or buffing. You simply apply glow coat and let it dry If you're a regular glow coat user, you know what conservation means If you're not try johnson's self-polishing glow coat this week Especially on your linoleum and asphalt tile floor coverings And now what about next week show mr. Fatiman next week ladies and gentlemen We bring you a book with one of the most beautiful titles i've ever heard joseph driscoll's pacific victory 1945 About the only thing to make the title more beautiful than it is would be to change the date to 1944 1945 About the only thing to make the title more beautiful than it is would be to change the date to 1944 Now this is clifton phatiman inviting you to join us again next week when we bring you pacific victory 1945 Tonight's dramatization of journey through chaos was written by peter harkins and featured k strutsi The production was directed by anton leader music was composed and conducted by morris memorsky Next week the johnson wax company brings you another in the series words at war featuring another great wartime book pacific victory 1945 jack costello speaking. This is the national broadcasting company