Radio: Cause

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To wealthy, trim, fiftyish Mrs. Rushmore Patterson of Manhattan and Washington, sometime Prohibitionist, occasional poet, politician, busy bee, life in the last 25 years has been just one Cause after another. Two months ago, with no immediate Cause to occupy her, ardent Mrs. Patterson had time to contemplate something that had been bothering her. What this thing was she was not sure, but it had something to do with foreign isms, and was probably due to hard times.

"I felt it so strongly I just burst!" she says. "I got busy." Soon, after running up quite a telephone bill, she had a committee organized—Red-fearing Laborites William Green and Matthew Woll, Redbaiting Dean William Russell of Columbia University Teachers College, TVA's Foe Wendell Willkie. Soon contributions trickled in (from $1 to $1,000) for a radio venture called U. S. Drama, Inc., to foster 15 (time free) programs dedicated to preserving "the true spirit of Americanism . . . the blessing of free initiative."

First program, broadcast over MBS on a quarter-hour contributed by Manhattan's WOR on the eve of Flag Day, was designed to appeal to Americans of Italian ancestry. Main speakers: two Italian urchins from Greenwich Village (one planned to exercise his U. S. freedom of initiative to become a prizefighter) and Italian-born New York City Treasurer Commendatore Almerindo Portfolio, who rose from a $2-a-week messenger to the presidency of the Bank of Sicily and the head of a cloak & suit concern (which in 1924 he gave to six employes). Commendatore Portfolio's talk was rapturous, anti-nobody, fairly brief.

The fanmail response to the first program was not great, but included notes of appreciation from such listeners as Supreme Court Justice James Clark McReynolds and Little Steelman Charles R. Hook, ex-president of the National Association of Manufacturers.*

Last week U. S. Drama, Inc. put on Irish night over MBS, featuring William J. Bailey, the Singing Fireman, rendering Rose of Tralee, and famed ex-Governor Alfred E. Smith, the unhappy Democratic warrior, who pitched right into Communism.

To generous radio station WOR, time donated to pure Americanism is time well-spent. But free time attacking a specific political view usually means, in radio's unofficial code, more free time defending it. Last week, just before Mrs. Rushmore Patterson rushed off to South Dakota to attend ceremonies with the Gutzon Borglums at Mt. Rushmore† (named for her late, great lawyer father, Charles E. Rushmore) WOR officials queried her as to the future trend of U. S. Drama, Inc. She revealed that she hoped to present Liberty Leaguer John W. Davis in a program soon. The officials wondered if it might not be circumspect to put someone of opposite political faith on the program, too — perhaps a New Dealer.

Snapped Mrs. Patterson : "I can't think of any New Dealer of whom I approve."