 The Candle Tate of America, presented by DuPont. All great Americans were born long ago. Time is impervious to genius, and genius is never confined to any particular era in history. In our own times lived a young man who will be remembered long after our generation has passed away. It seems only yesterday that he sat at his piano and composed the melodies that the nation sings today. He voted himself in the passionate fire of his heart to American music, and American music was enriched because of him. His name recalls first a chord, then a tinkling tin pan alley tune, finally an opera. His name, George Gershwin. Trumbler of the Elevated, the raucous cries of children playing in crowded streets, a peddler shouting their way of old world women doffeting on the door stoop of crowded gentlemen. The ceaseless babble of humanity in the melting pot of Manhattan in the year 1910. At the corner of Delancey and Pitt Street, a boy turns into an ice cream pot and marches into the back room where a mechanical piano is pounding out the last measure of a ragtime tune of the day. Out of his pocket, the boy fishes a nickel and drops it in the slot. What do you do there? I'm not hurting anything. Well, you might. You keep away from the piano. I put my nickel in. I guess I can listen, can't I? You can listen, but you're not supposed to touch the keys. You get out of order. I wasn't hurting the old piano. I was just following the keys to see how the notes go. Well, you follow them right out of here. Here. Here is your nickel back. Such were the first music lessons of an American whose name before many years all the world would know, George Gershwin. It was a great day in the Gershwin family in New York's Lower East Side when Mrs. Gershwin bought a piano on which the children were given lessons. George's teacher said he was making great progress. Sometimes he'd overstay his hour, earnestly struggling with his gifted but difficult young pupil. Now, comments. Stop it, George. Stop it. Oh, gee, I forgot. I didn't mean to play like that. Motard in ragtime. Mrs. Gershwin, Mrs. Gershwin. Yes? Yes, what did you do? Oh, boy, George, he's ragging again all the time. He has such talent. Wonder if he cares? No, he makes fun with it. George. No, you listen to me, Mr. George Gershwin. Yes, sir? When I come next week, you play Motard just like he has written in the notes. I'll keep an eye on George, Professor. You'll do better next time. Good. I go now. I'll be the same, Mrs. Gershwin. Mr. George, aren't you ashamed? How do you expect to play the piano to don't follow the notes? I'll see you to the door, Professor. Go on with your practicing, George. George Gershwin never did play Motard as a complete satisfaction of his long-suffering teacher. The Native American rhythms blended themselves in the mind of George Gershwin with the raucous discord of the East Side, the hectic, throbbing beat of a 20th century metropolis. The 15th George Gershwin was a young man with a pretty definite idea about what he wanted to do. He knew that there was one place where his kind of music was being written and bought and sold. The noisy grass petitioned officers around Times Square, in Pan Alley. One evening, coming home late to dinner, he faced his father across the table. George, there's something I have to say to you. Maybe I could just as well say it now. Go ahead, Dad. Don't mind me. George, I have just seen your report card. Oh, that. Yes, George. Poor in algebra, poor in grammar. Is that the kind of marks for a son of mine to bring home? Dad, listen. You listen, George. You won't get anywhere hanging around those Broadway places all the time. Well, maybe not. But maybe there's something more than algebra and grammar. How can I keep my mind on school when there's music? But, George, a good education is something too. I don't know. I think everybody isn't cut out for school. Look at Irving Berlin. I was talking to him this afternoon. Irving Berlin, the songwriter? Did you really meet him, George? Sure I did. He says a couple of my tunes are all right. And when Irving Berlin tells you that, well, Dad, it's... I... What's on your mind, George? I'm quitting school. Yeah, and I can get a job at Remix, plugging songs for vulnerable people. $15 a week. Not much, but it's music. You're quitting school, but... Oh, I've got to. What about it, Dad? George, I don't know. I know, I must, Dad. This is the thing. I'm sure. Remix. Hooper's jazz singers, Broadway producers. Wearing with an olium fin as they clap past the reception desk. To sit in smoke-filled boobs and hear the new songs of Tin Pan Alley, pounded on piano's daily hammered-out-of-tune by weary song-plugger. Such was George Gershwin's introduction into the world of professional musicians. One day, the receptionist led a slick-haired dapper youth into the cubicle man by George Gershwin. George? Yeah? George, this is for the stairs. Oh, hello. Can his sister have a song and dance act? I know. Don Goodwin, too. Well, thanks. I've been looking around for something snappy enough to sing and dance to you, see? Well, here. Here's one that might do me for the stairs. No, no, no, no, no. That's not the idea at all. You see, I... How about this? Now, that's not bad at all. How much is it? Well, it's not published yet. It's the number I wrote myself. You wrote it? Well, you ought to get that published. Do you write songs all the time? Yeah, when I can. I don't want to plug tunes all my life. Well, I hope not. Not if you write them like that. I could just sell a few. I can't help composing. Sometimes, the way music gets hold of you... Yeah. Yeah, I know. Now, the trouble with guys like us is we've got too much we want to do, and the time such by is too fast. I'm 17 already. Don't I know it? I'm 18 myself. I've got to get going. All right, so far. I want to be a musical comedy. Yeah? I want to write one. And I will. Wouldn't it be funny if I wrote one for you someday? Well, that suits me all right. If I ever get to be a star, believe me, I'd like nothing better than to dance to your music. I think you've got it. Oh, thanks. I'll remember that. Well, let me know when you get that number, probably. Okay, it's there. And thanks for dropping in. Okay, goodbye. Bye. Don't in. Chief, I've been thinking. I've played some of my tunes for some of the customers, and they liked them well enough to buy them. You were hired to play our tunes, not yours, Gerson. Well, maybe I shouldn't have, but why don't you take a chance on one of my tunes? Publish just one and see what happens. I'm sorry, Gershwin. We're not interested in your stuff. If composition is what you want to do, there's no future for you here. Well, that's the way you feel about it. I'm working in the wrong place. Cashier will give you your salary. Goodbye, Gershwin. Months of pounding the pavements looking for work that year. The insistent hectic rhythms of the metropolis ringing in his ears, George Gershwin felt for the first time the loneliness of a human spirit in a 20th-century big city. Then one day he happened into the offices of Harms Incorporated, published as a music. He played a song for Max Dreyfuss. Dreyfuss looked interested. Well, Mr. Dreyfuss? Frankly, Mr. Gershwin, I don't like it. It's got something that makes me think you'll do better. It's the kind of thing I've never heard before. I'll tell you, I'll take a chance on you. I'll hire you for five years. Five years? What I said. We want rights on everything you do, of course. That's all. In the meantime, let me give you a tip. I know a fellow who's doing a musical. I speak to him about you, doing some tunes for it. Show opens in Syracuse. There's not much time, so get busy. In Syracuse, New York, the musical comedy Half Past Eight advertised its opening. The curtain rose late. The featured Broadway chorus failed to appear. They hadn't been paid. From the wings, George Gershwin could see the faces of the front row customers, and they didn't look any too pleased. He watched the curtain ring down on the comedy sketch, and frowned anxiously as the disgruntled comedy team left the stage, and headed straight for their dressing room without waiting for an encore, which you all, obviously, wouldn't have wanted. All right. Looks bad, Gershwin. Yeah. We're in creations the next act. Boss, there ain't no next act. What do you mean? They can't do that to me. They can't. Well, they did. What'll we do? Delay the curtain? We find somebody else? We don't dare. Listen. Push a piano out there on that stage. Piano? That's what I said. Well, okay. If you think it's going to save this, flop at George. Now, Gershwin, listen to me. This is your act. My act? What do you mean, my act? Get out there and play. Oh, I can't do that. Listen, I'm no great Shakespeare piano. I haven't had time to talk about that. Go on. Do your stuff and make it good. Listen, you're crazy. I can't do it, I tell you. You hear that? They'll tear down the theater. They'll tear down the theater. All right, but I don't know. I don't know. Bring down that curtain and click with play. Get that piano off. Joe, throw on the house lights. What a big help, Gershwin. What was that brag you were kicking around out there? The tone. I just made it up. Right then. Made up. At a time like this, you have to go out there and make something up. That's great. That's what I think. I kind of like it myself. The stage wasn't worth the war tags, but Swarney, the tune George Gershwin made up that night on the stage of the Syracuse Theater, later became a tune that made a fortune for its publishers. Americans sang it, whistled it, and loved it. Gershwin was becoming a name to be reckoned with in popular music. He'd moved to this family to a new uptown apartment in Manhattan. Then one winter morning in 1924, a plump, broken man with a wax mustache was rehearsing his band in New York's Palliroyal Cafe. Paul Whiteman and his great orchestra. George Gershwin bits it in the nearby table. Take a smoke. I'm glad you dropped in, George. I wanted to ask you if you've got that number finished yet. I'll tell you, Paul, it still needs a little work. You haven't got much time. I'll set the date for the concert or anything. I don't know. You've got to get that number in shape. I think it's great using those blues themes. I've been planning to see the audience concert for quite a long while now. Not to do on it yet. Boy, I'd better get busy. But George Gershwin of Tin Pan Alley was used to working under pressure. He had a few melodies in his head and he started to work. One morning in the Gershwin apartment. Come on in, Dad. Am I closing the door? George, I just read it in the paper. I see it. Look, George, the music page. Listen. Paul Whiteman, impresario of the jazz band, has recently startled critics and public alike by announcing that he will give a concert of American jazz with a jazz composition in one of the serious forms by Tin Pan Alley. George Gershwin, I didn't get that far. Do you think they don't like it? Oh, it's all right. You know, anything new, they've got to cover themselves in advance. Well, is your piece finished yet, George? Well, it's coming along. Listen. Not for something. But what do you think they call it? I guess something like Blue Symphony. I don't know. Rat City in Blue, maybe. Something like that. Well, as you work hard on it, George, it might be important. On the afternoon of Lincoln's birthday in 1924, a glittering skeptical audience is assembled in the Eolian Hall and listened politely through the first half of the program. Then out on the stage told a lanky youth who bowed stiffly, formally sat down at the piano and waited for Hush fell over the audience. Paul Whiteman tapped his baton, his arms swept upward. The new kind of music came from the orchestra and surged into the hearts of the astonished audience. Music they'd never know. Music they'd never heard. It was jazz, it was American. In Pan Alley, Waded to the Blues. Jazz Time in Symphony. America 1924. Rat City in Blue. It would be played in every country in the western world. Played by great symphonies. Played by cheap little jazz bands. Played in countless homes by people of every age. It would become the most popular symphonic piece by any American composer. And would forever enshrine George Gershwin in the memory of music lovers of his generation and of generations to come. In the Rat City in Blue, Gershwin fashioned a musical triumph from the spirit and tempo of American life. One day he talked to the dean of American Musicians, Dr. Walter Damron. Your music is remarkable, Mr. Gershwin. Truly remarkable. But what I was going to suggest was that you compose something especially for my New York symphony. Something a little more serious. Say a concerto. I think you have it in you to become a writer of more serious music. Well, I could try, doctor. Of course, I've got the music for George White's scandal coming up. All hang the scandals. You don't belong in Tin Pan Alley only. You should belong to the real world of music. Well, Dr. Damros, it may sound funny to you, but I really believe in the Tin Pan Alley kind of music. I believe in the other kind too, of course. But Tin Pan Alley is mighty close to the real source of music. People. That's what I've always believed in. And I'm afraid I'm boring you, Dr. Damros. You shouldn't have got me started. I think your views on music are most extraordinary. But if you think you're going to get out of writing that concerto for me, you're mistaken. George Gershwin did write a concerto. A concerto in F, which was played by the New York Symphony Orchestra and was highly praised by the music critics. But the Gershwin music that was hummed, sung and played across the length and breadth of America was the seemingly endless succession of Tin Pan Alley tunes, each more successful than the last. Somebody love me. Then in 1932, George Gershwin wrote the score for the Pulitzer Prize-winning musical comedy, an American political satire, and it marked the coming of age of American democracy. His lively tunes and lyrics helped lift the nation out of the daldoms of depression. That was a V.I.C. And when it opened on Broadway, George Gershwin was the most envied man in show business. But success exposed him to glitter and glamour, to adulation and luxury. And he realized that through them he was losing part of himself and forced his mind to grasp the world of reality. It was music that was his real life and which brought him back to himself. Music and the dream of the folk melodies that had fired him as a young man to composition. And it was in Charleston, South Carolina that George Gershwin found that music. For some time he'd wanted to write an American folk opera. He'd begun it but he'd lacked what he wanted to have. And now he was to recapture that inspiration. Not in a Manhattan penthouse, not on Broadway, but in the clustering shacks of South Carolina, as he wanted there with novelist de Beau's Hayward. One night as George Gershwin's stay was drawing to a close, they walked along the shore of one of the sea islands off the Carolina coast. There was a fire running on the beach up there. That means the shouting has begun. They're curious people, these gullies. They descended from a tribe brought over from the west coast of Africa about the beginning of the 18th century. They've taken English and given it the color of their own speech. There's a little voodoo in it and a lot of music. Yeah, that sure is. Hey, I never heard anything like this. Can we go on a little closer? Come on. Hayward? What is it, George? Hayward, I'm afraid I sound like a fool. But this is it. He put the people of Charleston's catfish row and his music into an opera, and their singing, their humor and tragedy was like all of America suddenly crystallized into great music. Like the true and matchless artist that he was, Gushman brought to American music the imprint of his genius and the vivid reflection of his times. He's gone, but his music will remain with us forever. The great Gushman music. And in it are still the strange dissonant harmonies that George Gushman had heard as a child in Manhattan's Lower East Side. The elevated, the cries of the children playing on the sidewalk, the wailing voices of peddlers shouting their wares through the teething streets. The ragtime and the blues. The folk music of America blended into a modern rhapsody. Now, ladies and gentlemen, Basil Reisdale with a story from the Wonder World of Chemistry. Not long ago, a visitor who had spent some time going through various stupont plants and laboratories was asked what he found most interesting. Was it the dyeworks where rainbows of color are made from coal tar? Was it the amazing machine in the research laboratories that actually measures the size of molecules? Or was it the transformation of limestone, coal and salt into neoprene, the man-made rubber? No, he said. I'll admit that all those wonders made me gasp, but I happen to be especially interested in people. The thing that impressed me most was the feeling of teamwork and loyalty as evidenced by the interest stupont people take in the work they're doing. There must be a reason for it. Well, quite a lot of the reason for it is found in the annual report that was recently sent by President Lamont DuPont to the 76,535 stockholders throughout the nation who own the DuPont company. During 1938, the company voluntarily spent approximately $11 million for protection of its employees against financial loss from sickness and accident for pensions, life insurance and vacations for measures relating to their industrial health and safety and for bonuses. This was in addition to the $3,650,000 acquired by law for such purposes as social security, unemployment benefits and compensation for engines. DuPont's expenditures go way beyond those requirements of the federal and state governments. And then, when you turn in this annual report to the history of business conditions over the past 10 years, still more light is shed on the reason for this spirit of loyalty. Despite the fact that DuPont's average sales prices this past year were about 31% below the 1928 level and despite a substantial increase in the cost of raw materials during the past few years, the average hourly wage paid to DuPont wage workers in 1938 was about 46% greater than in 1928 when times were said to be booming. So all in all, there is a record that those 76,000 stockholders may be proud of, a record that goes beyond coal statistics and has to do with the health and security for the future, the peace of mind and general happiness of some 47,000 employees who in turn do their share for the nation at large by helping to create better things for better living through chemistry. Next week at the same time, the Cavalcade of America. Good night and best wishes from DuPont. This is the Columbia Broadcasting Club.