Stewart made his fourth appearance on this Scouting program this year. The first newspaper preview is from the Wisconsin State Journal, Madison, WI, on the day of the broadcast:
This second clipping is from the New York Times:
Notice that the Wisconsin State Journal lists it as a one-hour program, while the New York Times shows it scheduled for just a half-hour. Both are more than likely correct. Although the program is not in general circulation, it is available at the Library of Congress. When we listened to it there, it was very obvious that the one-hour show was actually two half-hour shows. It would have been very easy for a radio station to play just one half of the show. The first half was titled Forward on the Liberties Team, while the second half hour was called Tomorrow’s America. Stewart only appeared in the second part.
What follows is a detailed description of the Stewart portion of the program.
It begins with a voice stating that “every 37 seconds, somewhere in America, a boy becomes a scout.” After this introduction, Jimmy Stewart begins the program.
Stewart: Good afternoon. The great French philosopher Dennis Diderot once observed…
A voice, with a French accent, says that children are essentially criminals, but their physical strength limits their ability to carry out that criminality.
Stewart: Now, even though Diderot was one of the greatest geniuses of his time, his statement may well be open to argument…conceivably, it is wrong.
A female voice responds, “Wrong, it’s ridiculous…”
Stewart: However, we need only look around the world today at Korea, Red China, the Kefauver Commission, race riots, to realize that essentially, criminality in all its forms, is the housing of a childish mind in an adult body. It is, therefore, with the maturing of the children’s mind that Americans are concerned.
Next, there is a short skit in which Mr. Calluchi, a businessman, pays two boys $3 each to deliver handbills announcing his sale around the neighborhood. One of the boys wants to just throw the handbills in the garbage, but the other thinks they should follow through on their promise to deliver them. They do throw the handbills in the garbage, saying, “Business is business.”
Stewart: Yes, business is business, and our whole world is based on trusting other people. Unless there is trust, our whole machinery of living flies apart and, seems to me, that the future of the entire human race depends, in the ultimate, on each individual member. In the case of Mr. Calluchi and his handbills…
In a continuation of the previous skit, we hear Mr. Calluchi complaining that he has no customers for his sale. He paid $20 to have the handbills printed and a total of $6 to have them delivered, and still no customers.
Stewart: As a matter of fact, Mr. Calluchi went out of business. The sale, which flopped, that was the last straw. And a small part of our economy broke down because two boys couldn’t be trusted to do something they’d promised and they’d been paid for in advance. Two boys who will grow up to what? I remember very well quite a long time ago when I was a scout, our scoutmaster was talking to us one evening about being trustworthy. He used an analogy I’ll never forget.
We are then treated to the scoutmaster’s analogy. He says that when you put a stamp on a letter, you trust the U.S. Mail to deliver it. You know that it will be delivered. He tells the boys that it should be the aim of every scout to be as trustworthy as the U.S. Mail.
Stewart: When we look at our children and think of their future, the closest thing to our heart is that they grow up to become mature, happy, successful citizens. The scout law, which all Boy Scouts pledge themselves to obey, consists of 12 simple words which teach a profound lesson.
We hear a series of boys deliver each word of the scout law…a scout is trustworthy, loyal, helpful, friendly, courteous, kind, obedient, cheerful, thrifty, brave, clean and reverent.
Stewart: The future of a democracy hangs on the character of its citizens. And scouting is very proud of its contribution that it has made over the past 42 years, towards the training of 19 million young citizens. But what is scouting? How do boys learn the real meaning of their oath and law? Well, as a former boy scout myself; I…let me try to tell you parts of the very colorful story.
A short skit emphasizes that a scout is a friend to all and a brother to other scouts.
Stewart: In August of 1951, in a beautiful valley in Austria, 13,000 scouts from India, Ceylon, Greece, Egypt, South Africa, Denmark, England and scores of other countries, joined hands in friendship with the scouts from America. Arm in arm they marched these scouts of the 7th World Jamboree. And there in that valley, at a campfire, each American scout broke a small candle to share with a jamboree friend from another land. And, in the stillness of the night, while he lit his candle, each pledged himself to keep the fires of freedom burning, to build a stronger brotherhood of youth through scouting friendship. There were many other thrilling sights and great moments, but some will never be mentioned because they were single person-to-person incidents, almost too sacred to chronicle.
In the next short skit, two scouts exchange neckerchiefs and find that they have very much in common even though they were from different countries. As “Auld Lang Syne” plays, Stewart continues.
Stewart: And so boys from all over the world marched back, not just to their homes so widely separated, but also to a destiny that will build for themselves toward a free world of tomorrow for all people.
“Auld Lang Syne” continues and ends.
Stewart: We’re all extremely concerned with Korea, well, this is a good thing. We should be concerned. However, I’ve often felt that when a soldier goes out to fight, he at least knows there’s a possibility of his being killed. But when a child starts out to school, or when a family starts out to a picnic, death is the last thing that’s even thought of.
We hear the sounds of a car accident and, as Stewart speaks again, we hear the sound of a woman crying.
Stewart: This past December, the one millionth American was killed in a traffic accident. This ghastly figure is almost twice the number of Americans who have been killed in all our wars put together — 35,000 of them every year. A small city obliterated every 12 months. Now it’s taken us 50 years to kill our first million, but we’re improving, mind you; it will take us only 30 years to kill our second million.
In a short sketch, we are told about the scout’s safety week campaign. Scouts will help younger students home from school and make sure that they obey traffic lights.
Stewart: As a part of their public service duties, included in the scout slogan, “Do a good turn daily,” scouts across the nation are working hard to lower the ghastly toll of human life taken by the automobile.
Over music, we hear voices saying, “Get out to vote.”
Stewart: Physical scientists, those who make the atom bomb possible, are very aware of the fact that what happened to us politically, will determine what happens to us every other way. Our toughest and most elusive problem is how to organize society. Scouts are taught that politics is not a game to be played so that we get whatever we want for ourselves or a game in which men are expected to behave like grownup children. A scout is taught the importance of government and the true significance of democracy. Democracy comes from a Greek word meaning “power of the people.” And as a realistic project in participating citizenship, and a significant good turn to the nation, the scouts will help to get out the vote in the 1952 presidential election.
We hear a few scouts placing “Register and Vote” signs in a business.
Stewart: Across the nation, posters encouraging citizens to vote will be placed in store windows, railroad stations, bus depots, post offices, hotel lobbies and churches by the Boy Scouts. And to tell you about this great campaign to get out the vote, I have a very special guest I want you to meet. An old friend and a man whose personal vision is making this magnificent project a reality — the Chief Scout Executive of the Boy Scouts of America, Dr. Arthur A. Schuck.
Dr. Schuck says hello to Jimmy.
Stewart: Chief, we all recognize the significance of this get out the vote campaign. Will you tell us something about it?
Dr. Schuck explains the campaign to the listeners.
Stewart: But, how is this to be done, Chief?
Dr. Schuck continues his explanation of the project. When he completes his speech, we hear a short segment of music. Then we hear boys putting out flyers to vote and explaining to an older woman the importance of voting.
Stewart: As well as providing the right influence in character building and in the struggle towards adult maturity, scouting is a lot of fun.
Dr. Schuck talks of games and skills building teamwork and the ability to follow rules.
Stewart: However, to an 11-year-old boy, games are just plain fun.
We hear a group of scouts playing games.
Stewart: Only one of dozens of active, indoor games played with no equipment by scouts everywhere. Scouting, of course, means different things to different boys.
Some scouting activities are listed in a short skit — tracking animals, cooking, camping, etc.
Stewart: Perhaps the most popular activity in scouting is camping. Every year over a million boys get the opportunity to spend some time sleeping under canvas by a lake or in the forest. The camping and hiking activities are carefully supervised by scoutmasters, camp leaders, along with the ordinary fun of everyday camping and being with the gang. Scouts learn to catch the quick flash of a deer’s tail as it disappears into the woods or to see a muskrat before it dives for an opening in its house, or to recognize the squirrel or the song of the wren. Many a present day biologist or physicist, science teacher, got his start as a Boy Scout naturalist on a camping trip. And this thought brings me to the subject of merit badges. All of us here on this Earth are looking, seeking and straining after one thing — it’s happiness. The attaining of happiness is, sadly, simple and tragically difficult at the same time. Many millions of Americans, until they reach the age of 35 or 40, are filled with ambition and fire. Many of us realize our dreams were nothing more than just dreams after all and we become depressed and discouraged with the fact that life is leading relentlessly towards anticlimax. Now in scouting, all boys are encouraged to earn merit badges. The choice of subjects is almost limitless.
We hear boys naming the subjects for many merit badges.
Stewart: …and many, many, many, many others. Adults I know who were once scouts, feel that their entire lives were influenced by their merit badge work. Dr. Paul Sipel, who went with Admiral Byrd to the South Pole, first became interested in science through his merit badge work. And there are thousands of doctors, radio engineers, forest rangers, musicians, mechanics or writers whose ambitions were first kindled while they were scouts earning their merit badges. Every scout is given an opportunity to earn merit badges in whatever subjects he feels interested; and also, he’s urged to investigate others about which he knows nothing. His merit badge work will remain with him and influence him perhaps all the rest of his life.
Music and a skit follow with an older man using his carpentry skills.
Stewart: I think the most touching story I ever heard about the influence of scouting on a boy came from a scoutmaster in Hollywood. The lad was a tenderfoot scout and after a troop meeting one night, he approached my scoutmaster friend and from the way he behaved, edged around the subject, the scoutmaster knew he was terribly upset and something serious was bothering him.
In a short sketch, the boy tells his scoutmaster that he cheated in school. The scoutmaster tells him to tell his teacher what he had done. He does, and the teacher gives him a second chance.
Stewart: Yes, a boy learns many things from scouting. Many skills may seem unimportant at the moment and require the chemistry of time to bring about their true value. A scoutmaster in Minnesota recently received a rumpled letter, stained with Korean mud, written by one of his former scouts whose tiny campfire tonight is shielded from the eyes of the communist enemy.
In the part of the letter that we hear, the scout tells how he is using his first aid skills as a medic in the military.
Stewart: A scout is obedient. The great men of history have learned to obey when they were young. They learned to discipline themselves before they could give orders to others. Obedience is a manly quality and a scout is taught that. A scout is shown how obedience means self-control, strength of character. One time after George Washington had successfully defeated the British Army, an officer asked the General’s mother…
A man’s voice asks, “How’d you raise such a brilliant son?”
Stewart: His mother touched on none of Washington’s qualities as bravery, honor or character, as she replied…
A woman’s voice simply states, “I taught him to obey.”
Stewart: Well, we could go on and on, but let’s take a look into the future of scouting. Dr. Schuck, I’ve been hearing rumors about a big three-year program in scouting. Can you tell us something about it?
Schuck outlines the high points of a plan called “Forward on Liberties Team,” which will have 13 million boys in scouting by 1954.
Stewart: And the providing of that training is a great challenge to scouting in the coming years isn’t it?
Dr. Schuck says that it is and outlines how it will be accomplished.
Stewart: The more than two million current members of the Boy Scouts certainly have a rich experience to look forward to as they go forward on liberties team. Now one of those lads, a brand-new member of troop 187, of Fairfax, Virginia, is standing right here with us now. His name is Richard Lee Hunt and he enjoys a rare distinction — he is the 19 millionth member of the Boy Scouts of America.
Dr. Schuck welcomes the boy and then the two of them, along with all the others present, give the scout oath.
Stewart: Remember, every 37 seconds somewhere in America, a boy becomes a scout. If your son is not a scout, urge him to join. Explain to him the fun and fellowship he’ll enjoy, the lessons he will learn and the friends he will make by becoming one of those lucky lads who joins the Boy Scouts of America.
The credits at the end of the program are for both segments of the show and include:
Glen Rice – producer
Fred Weihe – director
Harry W. Junkin – writer
Bill Rippe – announcer
The cast included: Denise Alexander, Ruth Newton, Sylvia Davis, Rich Carvell, David Anderson, Jack Grimes, Bill Quinn and Luis Van Rooten.
