 Dear Adolf, a letter to Hitler, the national broadcasting company in cooperation with the Council for Democracy presents Dear Adolf, 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 third of the series, presents James Cagney, distinguished actor of screen and radio, relating the views of an American laborer as he addresses a letter to Hitler. Dear Adolf, and it isn't in fancy words, written around the clock by the working steps of America. The guys with grease on their faces who know what work means. It's written in steel and plastics, cabarendes and tungsten, liver buckets and fuel templates, planes and guns. How about it, you guys at law stores? Okay, hand it on to Adolf. How about it, sheet metal? Don't waste that time with busy, hand it on to Adolf. How about it, production, inspection, engineering, all the finishing and fighting? That ship coming on, and eight hours from now, that ship will go off, and another one comes on. And eight hours from then, same business, because this is an American war plan, and it's making war. But that is impassable. Yes, and, sap, don't give me that baloney. Sure, we got a 40-hour week, base pay, and wouldn't your shredded workers like to have one? But how much did you work last week in your plan, Jimmy? 52. How about you, shorty? 48. Mike? I don't know how long I work it this week till I got to the paycheck. Maybe 56, 60. I know I work overtime because we, we got a rush to job, and she's got to get rushed. 48, 52, 60. Well, why are you doing it? That kid's raising them. I get paid money over them, don't I? So what? The old woman, she telling me, she want to fix them up the house. She say, Mike, get her to let out of your pants and her work on the rush to job. Ah, she need to be fixed. Just what I suspected. Just what I've always said. Apathy, selfishness, greed. Eyes that never looked me for on the paycheck. Laborers sleep in the switch. Oh dear, oh dear. Don't you realize that why you get paid for overtime are brave American boys fighting and dying? Don't even tell us. We know. We got brothers in the army, a navy. We got sons and nephews and guys that worked at the same bench with us. We aren't spilling off about them, but we aren't forgetting them. We don't like the bunk and the oil and the big words. We don't like star spangled orations that don't add up. But we know what we're doing, and we know what they're doing. Every time we throw a switch or pull a lever, every time we set up a new job, every time the whistle blows for the new shift, we know what we're doing. Over 20 million of us. And don't you be fooled about that. Did you ever sleep in what they call a hot bed, Mr? A bed that never gets changed because as soon as you get out of it, the guy from shift three gets in. Did you ever work in an asbestos suit in front of the hot steel? Did you ever work on high iron? Did you ever climb the pole? Did you ever go down the mine shaft in the cage and wonder now and then about the guys last week who never came up from shaft six? Do you ever see a man's hand chewed into red pulp just because he slipped up for a split second? Then don't talk to us, Mr. We aren't softies and we aren't pamphlets. We're working stiffs and we're tough. That's where you made your mistake about us, Adolf. You thought we weren't tough. You thought dough was all we were after. And you thought we couldn't think. Well, we're thinking now, and we're thinking about this war. We aren't thinking about it in slogans, acts the axis and set the rising sun. I guess they're all right as advertising, but we're thinking about it like this. I'm a mechanic, live in Seattle. If there wasn't a soul in this war at first, no, not even on the need for victory. And I heard a broadcast listing the names and trades of 20 Norwegians shot by the Nazis because they tried to escape to England. One of those men was a mechanic. Every time somebody grumbles about the war, I think of that mechanic in Norway. I think about him and me. Got that one? Okay, now stick this one in. It's from an airplane plant. I have two sons who are in the American Army. I don't want to see them fail for lack of equipment. And here's where we're turning off the stuff. Every time I complete my particular work on an airplane assembly, I speed it on the way to my son's. And here's something just a little different. He isn't a skilled worker. He's nobody you ever heard of. He's just a rag peddler. Yes, I said rag peddler. But over here, Adolf, even rag peddlers can have the ideas of their own. And he says, I am an old man and an individualist. I was born in Germany. My trades are many. But now rag peddling is my only desire. In the dark streets and alleys, I see plenty rags of human minds. And once in my bundle of rags, I find your book, Mein Kampf. I read it because I want to know what it's about. After I finish that book of hate and nonsense, something happens inside of me. I have a strange desire to live till the biggest rag collecting job in the world is done. And I know it will be done. We will take your rags on par value, Mr. Hitler. The world will see you naked, the medals and uniforms of your hair mongering, the ropes of your Heinrich Himmler, and all the rags you accumulated will be collected. The rags of fear, the sufferings of your tortured Europe, will go with the swastika on the big rag pile. Adolf, your time has come. I want your rags. I am old, and I know when things are good and when they are rotten. Back to another war plant and another workman. I have been buying war bonds with every spare dollar. I have been working on my war job with every ounce of strength. And let me tell you this, Hitler won't win, while the boys in plant four keep working. Got it, Adolf? That's us. More than 20 million workers, 11 million union members all over the USA. Yes, I'm talking about unions. I'm talking about CIO and AFL. I'm talking about every union man in this country. Because we know what you do to unions, Adolf. You don't fight them and you don't debate with them. You wipe them out, hide and hair. Over here, a union button's a union button. In Germany, it means you're controlled labor front. In Japan, it never existed. In Italy, for hell. Can you imagine a Muslim union? There's just one thing about unions you've taught us, Adolf. They can grow only in a democracy. They can grow only on free soil. They can't grow inside your new order. This is what happens to them in your Germany. Calling local V-2-4-1 Berlin. Calling local V-2-4-1 Berlin. All patriotic workers are now members of the labor front. All unions are now part of the labor front. There are no other workers. No other unions. That's the way it is in your country, Adolf. And in the countries you've conquered. That's the way it isn't going to be here. 11 million union men are against you, Adolf. Day shift or night shift or middle shift. They're against you and they're going to get you. And that doesn't go just for the unions. It goes for all labor. Let me tell you just one little story, Adolf. When Chrysler built its first tank plant, you don't get balmy weather in Michigan in the winter. But the guys in the job gave up holidays and weekends to stand and slush knee deep, pouring 51,000 tons of concrete. It snowed and they blew on their fingers and put up 6,500 tons of steel in 70 days. And that was a year before Pearl Harbor. Well, what do you suppose those guys are doing now? Picking buttercups? They did it for overtime pay? Well, let's see your labor front match it. And confidentially, Adolf, it wasn't all for the overtime. Distressing, racketeers, labor czars, corruption, intimidation, horrible, awful, distressing, scandalous. Yeah, we hear you too. We hear the voices that make for division. We hear the voices of those who would set class against class, whites against Negroes, Christians against Jews. And we know they're playing Adolf's game. And we're onto them. We hear the voices of those, not many, but a few who would rather beat labor than Hitler, rather muscle in on labor than save the United States. And our answer to them, and you, is... That's course. It isn't refined. I guess we're not very refined when we get mad, Adolf. And we're getting madder every day. The worse you make it, the madder we'll get. We know about the guys in those tankies that you've been syncing. They were working guys like us. We know about the guys who died on batan. A lot of them used to be working guys like us. There's a cap floating out on the Atlantic with a union button on it. There's a kid who was a smart mechanic, but he won't come back for his tool kit since the Japanese sniper got him. Well, they were us, and we're them. There's no cockeyed labor front in this country. There's no Gestapo pushing us around. We've adjourned the big strikes for the duration. We're doing that freely. We're giving up extras and working overtime. We're doing that freely. We're back of the president and back of the government, and we're sending you a letter 20 million workers long. It's written in steel and flame, in the planes that fly the oceans and the bombs that drop in the planes, in the ships that slide down the waves and the plants that work night and day, day and night. It's written in brains and muscles and skilled hands moving fast on the assembly line, in war bonds and war stamps and the sweat and grind of the shift. It's written in plain American and it's signed yours to blow you sky high American labor. You have just heard dear Adolf starring James Cagney, the third of a series of six narrative letters written each week by Stephen Vincent Benet, presented by the national broadcasting company in cooperation with the Council for Democracy. The program was directed by Lester O'Pete, with original music composed by Tom Bennett, conducted by Joseph Stopak. These broadcasts are based upon actual letters written to Hitler by Americans. Won't you send in your own letter to dear Adolf? Listen next week to an American housewife and mother's letter to Hitler with Helen Hayes as narrator. Copies of today's dear Adolf letter from a laborer may be secured without cost by writing directly to the Council for Democracy 11 West 42nd Street, New York City. This program has come to you from New York. This is the National Broadcasting Company.