Stephen Vincent Benet

We're on to day four of the RUSC old-time-radio parade, in which Joy and I will be featuring a show every day on RUSC in the run up to one of the most important days in the history of America, our day of Independence.

In July 1943 Dupont Cavalcade saluted 167 years of American freedom and presented Listen To The People by Stephen Vincent Benet starring Ethel Barrymore.

Listen To The People sounded a prophetic warning when it was first presented on the 4th July in 1941 broadcast in co-operation with the Council For Democracy over the NBC Blue Network, and here we hear it in retrospect.

Below is the first verse of this wonderful poem, which also appeared in Life magazine on 7th July 1941. You can click on the link to see the article and it may also interest you to scroll through the rest of the historic Life magazine, I was truly fascinated.

This is Independence Day,
Fourth of July, the day we mean to keep,
Whatever happens and whatever falls
Out of a sky grown strange;
This is firecracker day for sunburnt kids,
The day of the parade,
Slambanging down the street.
Listen to the parade!
There's J. K. Burney's float,
Red-white-and-blue crepe-paper on the wheels,
The Fire Department and the local Grange,
There are the pretty girls with their hair curled
Who represent the Thirteen Colonies,
The Spirit of East Greenwich, Betsy Ross,
Democracy, or just some pretty girls.
There are the veterans and the Legion Post
(Their feet are going to hurt when they get home),
The band, the flag, the band, the usual crowd,
Good-humored, watching, hot,
Silent a second as the flag goes by,
Kidding the local cop and eating popsicles,
Jack Brown and Rosie Shapiro and Dan Shay,
Paul Bunchick and the Greek who runs the Greek's,
The black-eyed children out of Sicily,
The girls who giggle and the boys who push,
All of them there and all of them a nation.
And, afterwards,
There'll be ice cream and fireworks and a speech
By Somebody the Honorable Who,
The lovers will pair off in the kind dark
And Tessie Jones, our honor graduate,
Will read the declaration.
That's how it is. It's always been that way.
That's our Fourth of July, through war and peace,
That's our Fourth of July.

Just a little reminder, that you can share any of these shows with a friend. Simply click on the "Share this show with a friend" link for each show. It's a great way to introduce your friends to old time radio, and Joy and I are happy to offer a few days free trial to your friend too!  

Happy listening my friends,