Viva song salute to President
Roosevelt to head Bill of Rights program
By Si Steinhauser
“Viva Roosevelt,” a song saluting our President, who speaks on a Bill of Rights broadcast at 10 tonight, is Xavier Cugat’s musical contribution to Pan-American solidarity. The conga-rhumba maestro penned the music and Al Stillman wrote the lyrics. It is scheduled for an early Cugat broadcast.
President Roosevelt will head America’s observance of the 150th anniversary of the Bills of Rights at 10 tonight. Former Chief Justice Charles Evans Hughes will also speak. Leopold Stokowski will conduct a symphony orchestra and Broadway and Hollywood stars will enact a drama written by Norman Corwin.
All Pittsburgh stations will carry the full-hour broadcast.
Orson “The Great” Welles will be shoved off his regular 10 o’clock period by the Bill of Rights program but he’ll do a tricky stunt and bob up at 7:30 on KDKA’s “Cavalcade of America,” the story being “The Great Man Votes.” Orson should feel great about his role.
Early in January Jack Benny will start doing his Sunday broadcasts from training camps on the West Coast. And he’ll give the boys a show between his 7 o’clock broadcast and midnight repeat.
If you are mad at the Japs – and who isn’t? – consider Gabriel Heatter and Raymond Gram Swing who had planned December vacations off the air. Heatter really gives ‘em what he describes as “you know what” on his broadcasts. For keen insight we prefer Heatter. For knowledge of the places in any part of the world he talks about we prefer John W. Vandercook. The latter sounds to us like the best informed of all commentators. He came to radio a mike-scared rookie and now he’s just about tops.
The Japs are aping Hitler’s Goebbels with their radio propaganda. Already they boast of American prisoners and allege that the prisoners charge Roosevelt with forcing war upon them. They charge that America is tied hand and foot by lack of raw materials which only the Far East can provide. One of the speakers is a woman, apparently a traitorous American like our former Pittsburgh girl on the Berlin stations. They broadcast in English, Spanish and Portuguese, the latter two poorly.
The Japs have stepped up the power of their stations beamed toward America.
Think about Christmas for it’s coming, says William Saroyan the playwright, who promises his story “Something I Got to Tell You,” for broadcast on the holiday night via Columbia.
Good old America. Where else but here could the “O’Neills,” celebrating their tenth year of broadcasting today, including in their cast so many nationalities and faiths? The Levys, Baileys and O’Neills have had a lot of fun together.
Saturday’s “Jones and I” cast had to round up a new boy to replace 16-year-old Jerry Tucker who didn’t show up for rehearsal. But he left a note: “I’m joining the Canadian Army.”
Don Wilson spins a yarn about the sponsor who offered Bob Garred and him contracts to handle football games, as an announcing team. The big chuckler says they rejected the offer because no broadcast booth was big enough to house them. Don stands six feet two and weight 240. Garred is six feet three and weight 220.
The Sunday night Screen Guild Theater has been renewed through the first four months of 1942. By that time the Pittsburgh sponsor will have contributed $1,120,000 to the Motion Picture Relief Fund. Stars give their services, the money providing a home for less fortunate members of the profession.
Ray Shaw, New York sculptress commissioned by NBC to carve replicas of the hands of famous conductors spent the weekend in Pittsburgh with Dr. Fritz Reiner’s hands as her subject.
Although all radio amateurs are banned from the air for the duration Uncle Sam wants them to retain contacts for emergency service. Pittsburgh’s “hams” have been summoned to Common Pleas court room No. 3 in the City-County Building Wednesday at 8 p.m. Defense Coordinator Frank Roessing will speak. An emergency network will be discussed.
Pope Pius will lead the world prayer, Christmas morning at 5:30 a.m.
A salute to Vic McLaglen and Edmund Lowe for their all-out “Let’s take a pokeo at Tokyo.”
Ernie’s on the road now, his column resumes soon
Rambling Reporter starts journeys again after long leave of absence due to wife’s illness
Here is good news for Pittsburgh Press readers who have been phoning and writing to ask when Ernie Pyle would be resuming his column.
The Roving Reporter is back on the road again. His wife is on the mend.
A few months ago, Ernie was in Edmonton, Alberta, ready to fly to Alaska via the new stepping-stone airports carved out of the Western Canadian wilderness. But word came that Mrs. Pyle had suffered a sudden and severe illness, so he flew to her bedside at Albuquerque, New Mexico.
Weeks later, when Mrs. Pyle was up and around, he made arrangements to go to the Orient – to Honolulu, Manila, Hong Kong, Chungking, over the Burma Road and down to Singapore, and on to Java and Australia and New Zealand.
But at the last minute the government cancelled the bookings of several Clipper passengers, including Ernie, to make room for some materials urgently needed in the Far East. That particular Clipper landed in Hawaii about the time the Japanese bombardment of Pearl Harbor was ending, and has now returned to the West Coast.
Today Ernie is in San Francisco. His first column will appear in a day or two in The Pittsburgh Press.
CANDIDLY SPEAKING —
Civilians rush to aid in defense work
By Maxine Garrison
Last week I went up to the City-County Building to sign up for Civilian Defense – belatedly, I admit.
(Like so many other complacent citizens, I’ve been thinking for months that I must do something about this immediately – and every day I proceeded to put off action until the next.)
Well, it would have done your heart good to see that lineup. Men and women of all ages. Stenographers on their lunch hour, retired businessmen, mothers who’d snatched a couple of hours away from their housework, shy old men, confident young men, mink-coated women and ankle-socked students.
They stood in line quietly, uncomplainingly. They knew almost nothing about what was needed to be done, but they hoped they could help to do it.
I don’t mean to say that our citizenry, as one man, is sprouting wings. There were under-the-breath mutterings about getting back to the office in time, an occasional flutter about just what answer to give a question. But everyone did stay, and everyone did answer the questions.
Cooperative spirit grows
At this point, to be brief, the cooperative spirit is in the ascendancy. There is confusion, as there is bound to be at the outset of any undertaking so vast. But, much more than that, there is understanding and the will to help.
Interested, I talked to one of the workers. She told me that one of the most heartening things was the fact that almost all volunteers state their willingness to do anything they are able to do. With the exception of a run on air raid warden posts, there is a realization that people must be fitted in where the need is greatest.
About that air raid warden business. The post seems to have attached a certain glamor to itself. The cruel fact is that at the present at least, men are preferred for that particular duty, and women volunteers will be much more helpful if they concentrate on the myriad other activities.
Everybody and his second cousin is signing up. Some have special talents, some don’t, but all are willing to work.
Everybody offers help
Some idea of the diversity among applicants may be gained just by a glance at the records of the very first three to arrive after the office opened.
One was a typical old-stock American, one was a melting-pot American whose prized citizenship papers were growing shabby with age, one was a Negro from Georgia.
The last-named had formerly been a gunmaker in Georgia. For five years here he had been on the WPA. Now unemployed, he offered all his time, without any expectation of pay, to getting guns ready for service if he was needed.
The second man, retired after many years of skilled work with steel, offered nis services as an interpreter. He could read, write and speak Slovak, Danish, Polish and Russian. (it is unusual to find anyone skilled in even one of those tongues!)
The first-named, a traveling salesman, thought perhaps he could serve best as a speaker, helping to acquaint people with the work necessary.
The diversity is that of the United States itself. The heartening response is that of a free people still free to help themselves.