Record on Record

One evening last week in the Tropical Room of Chicago's Medinah Athletic Club a hundred newspapermen and a posse of local Republican bigwigs assembled to hear a radio broadcast. What they were going to hear was a secret that few knew. That it was going to be "sensational," that it was going to be broadcast over-station WGN of the bitterly Republican Chicago Tribune and 66 outlets of the Columbia network, was common talk.

Promptly at 8:30 p. m. Benson K. Pratt, GOPressagent, stepped to the microphone to say: "Tonight, ladies and gentlemen, Arthur H. Vandenberg of Michigan, an outstanding Republican leader and a member of the United States Senate, is here to conduct a 'fireside chat.' "

Solemnly facing the microphone. Senator Vandenberg began: "I respectfully address myself to Mr. Franklin Delano Roosevelt in his personal capacity in this campaign as a candidate for re-election to the Presidency of the United States. May I ask you, Mr. Roosevelt, to refresh my recollection as to precisely what you said regarding the Constitution of the United States when you were inaugurated as President?''

Suddenly from loudspeakers near the microphone came a familiar golden voice in all its natural resonance. There was no mistaking it. It was the voice of Franklin Roosevelt himself and it said: "I, Franklin Delano Roosevelt, solemnly swear that I will faithfully execute the office as President of the United States, and will, to the best of my ability, preserve, protect and defend the Constitution of the United States, so help me God."

Mr. Yandenberg replied: "That was a supremely solemn obligation, Mr. Roosevelt. . . . I ask you how one can ignore Constitutional doubts, however reason able, and yet preserve, protect and defend the Constitution of the United States?"

Mr. Pratt interrupted: "Ladies and Gentlemen . . . Mr. Roosevelt, the candidate, is here in voice but not in person. Through the miracle of science his voice has been preserved. Therefore, whenever you hear him talk again during this broad cast it will be his own actual voice, taken from the air in 1932 and 1933 at the time his statements were made and brought to you tonight in this most unusual radio program."

Hill Blackett, another GOPressagent in Chicago, had spent six weeks digging up phonograph records of Presidential broadcasts to recall to listeners, in full verisimilitude of tone and voice, Franklin Roosevelt's promises in times past. Mean time Columbia Broadcasting officials who discovered what was going to happen only ten minutes before it began happening, had gone into a dither. Hastily they found a reason for not broadcasting the GOProgram: Columbia has a rule against broadcasting "electrically transcribed" programs on national networks. They announced that "Senator Vandenberg's Fireside Mystery Chat" had therefore been cancelled. Listeners heard the announcement of cancellation but their reception of the "Mystery Chat" continued. In their frenzy Columbia's executives had decided that it might be less expedient to suppress the broadcast than to run it. Finally Columbia's Manhattan office made up its independent mind, cut off the program for good from 22 stations in the East and South. The gathering in the Tropical Room and listeners to the other 44 Columbia stations heard the whole half-hour dialog between Michigan's brilliant, bitter Senator and the spooky canned voice of the U. S. President:

Senator: Mr. Roosevelt, may I respectfully ask what you said about taxes when accepting your nomination in 1932?

President: Just one word or two on taxes, the taxes that all of us pay toward the cost of government of all kinds. Well, I know something of taxes. For three long years I have been going up & down this country preaching that government--Federal and state and local--costs too much. I shall not stop that preaching. . . . I propose to you, my friends, and through you to the nation, that government of all kinds, big and little, be made solvent and that the example be set by the President of the United States and his Cabinet.

Senator: But, Mr. Roosevelt, this is 1936 and we are still spending two dollars for every dollar the Treasury takes in. But let's get along--speaking of agriculture, our important interest in the philosophy of artificial scarcity. You said this very interesting thing

President: We are stricken by no plague of locusts. . . . Nature still offers her bounty, and human efforts have multiplied it. Plenty is at our doorstep, but a generous use of it languishes in the very sight of the supply.

Senator: Indeed, yes. Our "scarcity" does not come from "locusts." It comes partially from drought--and more generally from your Secretary Henry Wallace. . . . The platform upon which you were elected said (I quote): "We advocate an immediate drastic reduction of Governmental expenditures . . . to accomplish a saving of not less than 25% in the cost of Federal Government." And what did you say?

President: That admirable document, the platform which you have adopted, is clear. I accept it 100%.

For the novelty of debating the President's record with the President's record Senator Vandenberg would have got considerable press attention anyway. But when he had the great good fortune to be taken off the air by Columbia, he found he had made the front page up & down the land.

Next day Republicans demanded another half hour's broadcast because their air time had been mangled. Columbia refused, answered that there would be no charge for the bungled broadcast.

This file is automatically generated by a robot program, so reader's discretion is required.