Listen America; Norman Corwin

The University of North Carolina presents little America directed by John Clayton and produced by John Healy for the University of North Carolina communication center. Irwin director to do this series we went to 13 of the top authors of this country and asked them if there was something they would like to say at this time to the radio audiences of America. We told them that of course there would be no censorship from the University of North Carolina. But they could so like anything it could be a big one or every day as they chose and they could write it up as they wanted to play a dialogue a talk. One of these authors was Norman court when Mr. Corwin agreed to do this. He wrote for us a documentary study of the contribution made to the growth of America by the Jewish people. Did the American Adventure start in Philadelphia in 1776 with the great covenant of

Independence. Or does some of it go back to bleak Arabian wasteland down into shares of history to the roots of another compact. This program looks at the American Adventure as a bridge between two continents contracted half a world and 4000 years apart yet a bridge crossed daily by all the inhabitants of our land. Alone. The man from another country is living in your own land with you. You're not making eye for him then you need to use the whole poem among you. You shun and I mean you don't know why you are in the land of Egypt. The stones of the earth rip the memories of ages lost and dead. But in our renewable bones the past is living marrow of soul joining and wondering the parched sky of the Nile the gritty winds of wildernesses the voice of the trumpet all the thunderous cloud on the brow of the mountain and the soil that mothered the seed

of the commandments the liar in the hands of the trouble to David the temple shining in the Sun Temple of Solomon shining in the sun. The prophecies stern and tender the joys and lamentations the peace that the prophets promised the doom beyond their pointing fingers but also the peace that the prophets promised. How beautiful upon the mountains are the feet of him that bring this good height that publishes your peace and bring us good tidings of good. But how seldom upon the mountains where the feet of them that brought good tidings for evil overtook them. The turn of the adversary came Nebuchadnezzar in the Caesar's blood of the just and cries of children milk of mothers books of the law fed to the slaughter charred in the Ashes stretched on the rack of the Inquisition the sacred prob I was told by faith act of faith in the name of the Lord. Bleeding eyes for the love of God. Broken bones for the God of

love. Sanctus sanctus sanctus sanctus the Inquisition was without appeal having its informers in every house probing into the secrets of every fireside judging and executing its heart about the Krays without responsibility. It arrested on suspicion tortured till confession then punished by fire till all the operators by which the sinews could be strained without cracking the bones crushed without breaking the body erect exquisitely without giving up its ghost was put into operation. The executioner envelop in a black robe from head to foot practiced his arts of torture and destruction. Get from this holy Spain goal from us Jew. You are right he even strain. We are the true. Do not defend saints with your mock. Get out this very night tear down the lock get from this holy land infidel to spill your line in the sand and your

blood to get from this sacred place. And I don't not way I leave behind not a trace to hide nor hair. A year of exposure and. Fourteen ninety two. But also a year of discovery. As one gate closed another opens to places with names I'm known to them before Mexico Brazil Peru Jamaica sort of cayenne there the exiles when seeking peace only to be pursued and hounded by the Holy Office of the Inquisition and by wars among the powers and again they were dispersed to still other lands. Thus in the year 654 the privateer Saint Charles of French extraction carrying 23 Jewish refugees from Brazil made its way to a New Amsterdam to the city of Peter Stuyvesant.

We humbly request that your honors permit us like all of the burgers to enjoy the same liberty allowed to all of the burgers to serve in the militia and to keep guard like all of the burgers to trade everywhere like all of the burgers to enjoy the identical rights of all of the burgers signed David fresco just by Da Costa Salvador done Toronto and I have been listening to Jacob Cohen on Rica's. Thumbs down on their request delay. More opposition with the petition was finally granted the Spanish became a Dutch American while seasons marched in Indian file down from the north and up from the self. While burgers muscled and women baked in the womb gave him the cough and took the world beyond Manhattan fretted nations jostled for new acres the British came the Dutch went and the Jews stayed on the Jew was in America. I president of Harvard College in this years 16 55 established Chan the language of Hebrew under the education of the

English and Indian you in knowledge and godliness the sojourner making his way through forests across untamed rivers over trackless hills to a village by the English name of a new part to a Greek named Philadelphia. Spanish Savannah be a Quaker. I heard tell there was an Israel I'd come to the settlement and being eager to behold one of God's chosen people there which I never had beheld before. I journeyed to his place and found his name to be Joseph Jonas. I came up to him and walked around him and looked him over good. And I said to him at last. So we are no different to other people. I didn't Young America the age of this ferment of freedom deep in subsoil feeding the grass roots nurturing the land freedom freedom more precious than the treasures of empires not to be bought by a trading man. Not to be sold to a food not a device of clever ones not a pawn of the powerful few but the birthright and the award and the reward of all.

Here's strange to me. Maybe you know the joy that I never knew. JEMISON and Jefferson and. Proclaim liberty throughout the land until all the inhabitants of

St.. The bell of liberty and the whole of independence in the City of Brotherly Love spoke to the world with two voices one metallic newly cast. The other he break an ancient or when the father sought an inscription to impress on the Liberty Bell they chose ten words from the Book of Leviticus words addressed to the Jewish tribes through Moses. Throughout the land unto all of you have there now. Proclaim liberty throughout the land to all the inhabitants thereof. Thank you to Philadelphia. Together with Thomas Jefferson of Virginia and John Adams of Massachusetts proposed for the great seal of the United States of America a picture of the children of Israel crossing the Red Sea and

underneath the legend rebellion to tyrants is obedience to God. I wear your Madrid like an Irish Christian church Gor his starting and by profession I say to all and sundry that it was he bred a martyr which cemented the foundations of American democracy. The Exile was in America but the King's agents were also in America and British TV was in Boston Harbor. We hold these truths to be self-evident. But all men are created equal that they are endowed by their Creator with certain inalienable rights and among these are Life Liberty and the pursuit of happiness. Against the organ the scepter the buckler and the shield bar ordered the horses harnessed. The foot soldiers stood forth and rose up to battle the land trembled and was in pain.

The Mighty Ones were beaten down and fled apace and the Lord made bare his holy arm in the eyes of all nations. America like a pure spring rising in the earth welcoming each new state the tributary streams swiftly flowing with massive turns and never a sluggish meander cascading here and flooding their polluted seldom returning always to its majestic course America with her ardor and passion rugged as her mountains multiform and moody as the clouds of her skies colossus of the mingled the fugitive the rejected and among her children adorable people mixed with all races yet lost in. Up from the floor of the desert to the thorns of the wilderness the blankness of the ghetto living by no one's leave now rooted in earth. Grocers merchants miners soldiers sailors peddlers. They

rolled painted walls sold candy packed meat prayed and remembered the Dead Sea remembered the entrance slanders the enemies without cause. The durable people praying in front pulls guns along in case of hostile Indians. Old Faithful live in new cities and roll lonely places living. No one's leave now rooted in earth belonging. I was president of Yale University speaking before the Connecticut assembly in this year of 1793 declare that the United States is truly American. I came and settled in Alabama and 1785 and found in the city of Montgomery I lived among the Quiggin million for 50 years and I was satisfied that they were originally descended from a lost tribe of Jews. I was so satisfied in fact that I now have it as well.

We the congregation of Jesuit Israel of Newport Rhode Island first synagogue in America are proud that the general assembly of our state once convened under our roof and it was we who sent to President George Washington the letter which drew so historic a reply in this devotion. For all the blessings of civil and religious liberty which we enjoy under an equal and benign administration we desired to send up thanks to the Ancient of Days beseeching him and that the angel who conducted our forefathers threw the wilderness into the Promised Land. May graciously conduct you through all the difficulties and dangers of this mortal life. And when like Joshua full of days and Imus You are gathered to your father. May you be admitted into the heavenly paradise to partake of the tree of immortality to the Jewish congregation of Newport Rhode Island. It is now no more of a toleration this book a novel as it was by the indulgence

of one class of people that another enjoyed the exercise of their inherent natural rights. But happily the government of the United States gives to bigotry no sanction to persecution no assistance. Signed George Washington President of the United States. Daniel Boone had a profitable and amicable dealings with Jacob Cohen and Isaiah Isaacs. Sometimes they spoke Yiddish which I had great difficulty in understanding the Touro of Louisiana fought in the army of Andrew Jackson at New Orleans and later was privileged to make possible the erection of Bunker Hill monument by a certain contribution I Levi-Strauss was a pebble among the California minus. Yeah I think it out too late to give us X just for the working man. The boys liked me and they called me Levi. The fans made a hit and got to be known up and down the state and all around everywhere as Levis.

The pageant slaves bottoms so chained and tasked the compromises Lincoln-Douglas Dred Scott the firing on Sumpter are rather abhorrent to brother. The campaign shrapnel thrashing Americans into the mud of their own feet. Jews were there in the fighting. Three were in the raiding party of John Brown. Nine reached the rank of general one of whom marched with Sherman to the sea. BENJAMIN. Lawyer serve the Confederate government as attorney general then Secretary of War then secretary of state. There were seven Congressional Medals of Honor Code one group involved Heller. Tell us they were in the ranks by thousands. The war was over the state's intact out of the long deluge of adversity the architect's. Westward toward the golden door they flocked out of impassive lands to countries out of bleak Poland to the Russian steppes out of a psychopathic Germany in the black villages of Romania

suffered him taking with them their pitiful luggage and their noble along. By millions and by steerage crossing the Gulf of Ages to the shores to the haven at the meeting of the river and the sea to the outstretched arms of the mighty woman. Mother sighed. Your huddled masses yearning to breathe free the wretched refuse of your team. Send these the homeless tempest tossed to me. I left my life. The American is more than a Golden Dawn. The streets themselves were paved with silver angels directed traffic hands full of rubies lay in the gutters. Kindness grew like native corn untended in the fields. All men were equal. Did not the declaration promise this. The soup kettle of democracy was bottomless. And the sun shone warmly on all Jews.

The mirage faded on approach. The sun was not warm in the sweat shop. The water was cold in the flat. The wage was a bone to a hungry dog that had run from a drunken master. There was no home where the buffalo roam where the sewing machine and clatter of mother father and children stitching into the night into the morning and Jewel exploiting Jews. There were no rubies on the hand but spots on the lawn. New bondage under big town fellows writing peers out of. And out of human trafficking in the needle trade came the trade union. The Jew rising as in Canaan to set his house in order. Strikes and anguish agitation speeches editorials negotiations for shorter hours better pay and improved sanitation. New terms for criminals as stern as in love that. Rights for labor not a loan for government workers cabinetmaker is Prayers for all Americans Jew and Gentile then and to come.

And slowly the miasma of them arrives no longer much Americans they became these immigrants. Not without struggle not without sweat and sweat shops. Without division among themselves. But without the need of help. The brothers left behind in the Old World. Like their fellow Americans they rose and fell on the tides of fortune. They tended to the welfare of themselves and other. Federated and their communities in lodges and societies built temples and schools like their countrymen they fought in the assorted wars and paid for them as well. But not all of us will play since Eden has been without a blemish on it and no people either. The silver now and then turn to draw the line was mixed with water. From the earliest days there where the praise where they some were Tories some were slave traders some pirates mere smugglers some are criminals some knaves. Not all their fellow Americans were washed in the blood of the lamb either. Even in high places

the ancient libels enemies without cause assorted anti-Semites as of as of other lands names now faded or fading Butler Brownlow Henry Wilson for William buckles and the ancient libels rabbi of a little congregation in the town of Messina upstate New York was brought to police headquarters for questioning by the mayor on a day in 1928. He said a little girl had disappeared and wanted to know if it were true that she was offered a human sacrifice in connection with their Day of Atonement which was approaching. Fortunately the last girl was found in the woods next day. Her life in the lab. The clan a quota system. Country clubs restricted clientele the Social Register white Christians only equality for all for only set for one or two and they go in the Indian and then of course the due for everyone the open door all welcome all alike except the

chink and several more including spigot of democracy for all for all except for 6 or 8 we love our neighbors. Everyone except for those we hate. Is no prominent part of the river. It has dropped on the town and second it was never like the festering land. The programs were like a national sport but hate was a plague never conquered. What a voice was never raised against bigotry. William Penn say that it is better to be of no church than to be bitter against any. Oliver Wendell Holmes tell you that the mind of the bigot is like the people of the time. The more like you pour on it the more it will contract. I'm afraid when police commissioner of New York City was requested to a special place protection for a public meeting addressed by the German I granted that my last meeting only policemen who

were Jews and passengers cabinet members senators governors was appointed to high office or elected by a majority of Americans the majority that refused to forget the covenant of the Continental Congress and in the meantime growth time in the long course of Jewish history and so many Jews been concentrated in one spot on the island once called New Amsterdam and its sister Baron the Jew was an American. In this epic of rejoicing and knowing the voice recalls and prophesies it was not one man only who stood up against just to destroy is it if the generation they stand up to destroy us. Understood the madness how it comes back like an uncompleted and in the generation that followed the war to end war still another man stood up against them. But a strike by a list of all along whom Pharaoh was an amiable landlord.

Hannah barefoot lad he was hatched in the dung that was drowned in a maggot Supreme of the festering hate hired by the ravenous dregs of the planet and who should be scourge but the nation less. Easy. Convenient but hardly original. Where have we heard this before in languages where have we seen it before. In what lands. Seeking in kind of the patent on cowardice conquered his way to the conscience of multitude stirred from complacent to realize too late the FULL of the Jew was the FULL of the world and now it was circular. Now there would be war not to end. To begin a new one. The sound of battle was in all lands the whole earth cut asunder. The Lord was still a man of war and he made the weak to be strong his right hand Dyfed in peace is the enemy. His Wrath consume them as stubble. The chariots again were splintered in the blood and followed for the six million Jews were gone from Europe the Jew was still in America.

He looked abroad saw the pitiful ruin of the remnant saw them wading through rubble homeless and lens of memory and he dredged his pockets to buy them passage in a strip of stony earth in the sun baked land where a promissory Psalm still beckoned the lyric prophecy of Jeremiah and the clouds and he in the sky to Israel will gather him and keep him. Again I will always miss America herself. The United States of America the best friend of the Jew in modern times assisted the ancient prophecy in the councils of the United Nations and became by official decree the first government in all the world to extend the facto recognition of the new republic of Israel welcomed her to the widening president. The durable people mixed with all races yet lost in non sound posts to the world for the God of the mountain vessel of the commandments brazier of reptiles they

as wild seraphic fire carrier of the Hebrew of the Psalms and sages words surviving the crush of conquest and millennia. Words on altered and awake on the lips of America with every Sabbath with every do believe with every gift of man with every calumny. The past does not depart. But moves among us. Together we read tomorrow from archaic scrolls the dust of ages gone. The ancient slanders the ghosts of Cosmos enemies commend us to the future charging us to turn our faces against old wrongs and to repeat no folly on the high plateau between two covenants as shining as the oceans on each end lives a nation doubly blessed. The words of Sinai and of Philadelphia are with us. Here in America quiet as ours and examine the

content. Yet the winds of the globe are gusty over. The rim of our sky. Friends with clouds of. Lightning is on our threshold and the engines of war keep warm at the ready. The sword is still eager. Fear is a few hours of blistering fission. But God knows more than military secrets. He who made nuclei also made men. He who has shown his Rasta iniquities also makes. Her forget the scattered bones and broken Tabernacles cover the sink holes of despair. See well to the present and the future we'll see. Cleanse the wound and leave it to the sutures of time and let us have done with menacing insinuate love and conscience in our every scheme and make of each iron gate. A golden door. Then beautiful upon the mountains will be the feet

of him that bringeth good tidings of good unto all the inhabitants. Then shall our seed inherit liberty unto the fathers generations of America. For the past half hour you've been listening to a program written by Norman Carr when the series is listen America directed by John Clayton and produced by Johnny Lee for the University of North Carolina communication center. Earl when director this series is produced on a grant in aid from the National Association of educational broadcasters made possible by the Educational Television Radio Center on each program of the current series one of the best of our American writers will present his views on the theme of his choice either dramatized or more directly as he chooses. And Mr. Korwin program the part of the historian was played by Earl when Charles Kuralt speaking. Original music for the ballad was composed and performed by John Parker Jr. Our

actors are students professors and townspeople of the university community. Listen America is recorded in the studios of the department of radio television and motion pictures on the campus at Chapel Hill. This is B end E.B. Radio Network.