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Dear Adolf 42-07-05 (3) Letter From An American Laborer
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Dear Adolf 42-07-05 (3) Letter From An American Laborer
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Stephen Vincent Benét
Dear Adolf. A letter to Hitler. The National Broadcasting Company, in cooperation with the Council for Democracy, presents Dear Adolf, a series of six narrative letters written each week by Stephen Vincent Vinay, one of the nation's greatest writers. These broadcasts are based upon actual letters written to Hitler by Americans. Today's program, the third of the series, presents James Cagney, distinguished actor of screen and radio, relating the views of an American laborer as he addresses a letter to Hitler. Dear Ada. Dear Ada. Dear Adolf. Tip number three. Welding tip number three. Dear Adolf, we're writing you a letter and it isn't in fancy words. It's written around the clock by the working stift of America. The guys with grease on their faces who know what work means. It's written in steel and plastics, carborundum and tungsten, rivet buckets and fuel templates, planes and guns. How about it you guys at raw stores. Okay, engine on the Adolph. How about it? Sheet metal. Don't waste our time, we're busy. Send it on to adult. How about it? Production inspection, Engineering under Adolf. Experimental metal. Bench, finishing and fighting. Got no time to cab. We're busy. Send it on to adol. How's it coming? Final assembly. Can't you read the shark, you donkey. The figures keep climbing, don't they? And the on adolescence. That's the old ship going off and the new ship coming on. And eight hours from now that ship will go off. And another one comes on. And eight hours from then. Same business. Because this is an American war plan and it's making war that is impossible. My good man, you cannot make war. Your work has only worked 40 hours a week. I am ready in your paper. Listen, SAP, don't give me that baloney. Sure, we got a 40 hour week base pay and wouldn't your sweated workers like to have one? But how much did you work last week in your plant, Jimmy? 52. How about you, Shorty? 48, Mike. I don't know how long I worked it this week till I got a paycheck. Maybe 56 or 60. I know I work overtime because we gotta rush the job. And if she's gotta get rushed. 48, 52, 60. Well, why are you doing it? That kid's raising em. I get paid money overtime, don't I? So what? The old woman, she telling me she want to fix them up. The house. She say, mike, get her the lead out of your pants and work on the roasted job. The house she need to be fixed. Just what I suspected. Just what I've always said. Apathy selfishness, greed. Eyes that never look me on the paycheck. Laborer sleeping a switch. Oh, dear, oh, dear. Don't you realize that while you get paid for overtime, our brave American boys fight fighting and dying. You needn't tell us. We know. We got brothers in the army and Navy. We got sons and nephews and guys that work at the same bench with us. We aren't spilling off about them, but we aren't forgetting them. We don't like the bunk and the oil and the big words. We don't like star spangled orations that don't add up. But we know what we're doing, and we know what they're doing. Every time we throw a switch or pull a lever, every time we set up a new job, every time the whistle blows for the new shift, we know what we're doing. Over 20 million of us. And don't you be fooled about that. Say, did you ever sleep in what they call a hotbed, mister? A bed that never gets changed. Because as soon as you get out of it, the guy from shift 3 gets in. Did you ever work in an asbestos suit in front of the hot steel? Did you ever work on high iron? Did you ever climb the poles? Did you ever go down the mine shaft in the cage and wonder now and then about the guys last week who never came up from Shaft 6? Did you ever see a man's hand chewed into red pulp just because he slipped up for a split second? Hmm? Then don't talk to us, mister. We aren't softies and we aren't pampered. We're working stiffs and we're tough. That's where you made your mistake about us, Adolph. You thought we weren't tough. You thought dough was all we were after, and you thought we couldn't think. Well, we're thinking now. And we're thinking about this war. We aren't thinking about it in slogans. Axe the axes and set the rising sun. I guess they're all right as advertising, but we're thinking about it like this. I'm a mechanic, live in Seattle. Guess I wasn't so sold on this war at first. No, not even on the need for victory. Then I heard a broadcast. Listen to the names and trades of 20 Norwegians shot by the Nazis because they tried to escape to England. One of those men was a mechanic. Every time somebody grumbles about the war, I think of that mechanic in Norway. I think about him and me. Got that one? Okay, now stick this one in. It's from an airplane plant. I have two sons who are in the American army. I don't want to see them fail for lack of equipment. And here's where we're turning out the stuff. Every time I complete my particular work on an airplane assembly, I speed it on the way to my sons. And here's something just a little different. He isn't a skilled worker. He's nobody you ever heard of. He's just a rag peddler. Yes, I said rag peddler. But over here, Adolph, even rag peddlers can have the ideas of their own. And he says, I am an old man and an individualist. I was born in Germany. My trades are many. But now rag peddling is my only desire. In the dark streets and alleys, I see plenty rags of human mind. And once in my bundle of rags, I find your book, Mein Kampf. I read it because I want to know what it's about. After I finish that book of hate and nonsense, something happens inside of me. I have a strange desire to live till the biggest rag collecting job in the world is done. And I know it will be done. We will take your rags on par value, Mr. Hitler. The world will see you naked. The medals and uniforms of your Herrmann Goering. The ropes of your Heinrich Himmler. And all the rags you accumulated will be collected. The rags of fear. The sufferings of your tortured Europe will go with the swastika on the big rag pile. Adolf, your time has come. I want your rags. I am old and I know when things are good and when they are rotten. And now back to another war plant and another workman. I've been buying war bonds with every spare dollar. I've been working on my war job with every ounce of strength. And let me tell you this. Hitler won't win while the boys in plant four keep working. Got it, Adolf? That's us. More than 20 million workers. 11 million union members all over the USA. Yes, I'm talking about unions. I'm talking about CIO and AF of L. I'm talking about every union man in this country. Because we know what you do to unions, Adolph. You don't fight them and you don't debate with them. You wipe them out. Hide and hair. Over here, a union button's a union button. In Germany it means your controlled labor front. In Japan. It never existed. In Italy, well, can you imagine a Muslim union? There's just one thing about unions you've taught us, Adolph. They can grow only in a democracy. They can grow only on free soil. They can't grow inside your new order. This is what happens to them in your germany. Calling local B241, Berlin. Calling local B241, berlin. No answer. There's no answer. No answer from any local. No answer. Address unknown. All patriotic workers are now members of the labor front. All unions are now part of the labor front. There are no other workers, no other unions. Hans was secretary of the local. Have you heard what happened to Hans? Concentration camp. Term indefinite. Otto. He was treasurer. Otto. Otto died. Gustav was on the shop committee. Gustav. Forced labor in Poland. Typhus. That's the way it is in your country, Adolf, and in the countries you've conquered. That's the way it isn't going to be here. 11 million union men are against you, Adolf. Day shift or night shift or middle shift, they're against you, and they're going to get you. And that doesn't go just for the unions. It goes for all labor. Let me tell you just one little story, Adolf. When Chrysler built its first tank plant, you don't get balmy weather in Michigan in the winter. But the guys on the job gave up holidays and weekends to stand and slush knee deep, pouring 51,000 tons of concrete. It snowed and they blew on their fingers and put up 6,500 tons of steel in 70 days. And that was a year before Pearl Harbor. Well, what do you suppose those guys are doing now? Picking buttercups? They did it for overtime pay. Well, let's see your labor front match it. And confidentially, Adolph, it wasn't all for the overtime. Distressing racketeers, labor czars. Corruption, intimidation. Horrible. Awful. Distressing. Scandalous. Yeah, we hear you, too. We hear the voices that make for division. We hear the voices of those who would set class against class, whites against Negroes, Christians against Jews. And we know they're playing Adolf's game and we're onto them. We hear the voices of those, not many, but a few who would rather beat labor than Hitler, rather muscle in on labor than save the United States. And our answer to them and you is yes. That's coarse. It isn't refined. I guess we're not very refined when we get mad, Adolf, and we're getting madder every day. The worse you make it, the madder we'll get. We know about the guys in those tankers that you've been sinking. They were working guys like us. We know about the guys who died number 10. A lot of them used to be working guys like us. There's a cap floating out on the Atlantic with a union button on it. There's a kid who was a smart mechanic, but he won't come back for his toolkit since the Japanese sniper got him. Well, they were us and we're them. There's no cockeyed labor front in this country. There's no Gestapo pushing us around. We've adjourned the big strikes for the duration. We're doing that freely. We're giving up extras and working overtime. We're doing that freely. We're back of the president and back of the government and we're sending you a letter 20 million workers long. It's written in steel and flame in the planes that fly the oceans and the bombs that drop in the planes, in the ships that slide down the waves and the plants that work night and day, day and night. It's written in brains and muscles and skilled hands moving fast on the assembly line, in war bonds and war stamps and the sweat and grind of the ship. It's written in plain American and it's signed, yours to blow you sky high. American labor. How about at assembly line? Can we get on to radar? The time ship talk. How about it? Production maintenance, B center wings. Sending it on. The time's passing. How about it? 20 million workmen. Handing it on to Handing it on. You have just heard Dear Adolph, starring James Cagney. The third of a series of six narrative letters written each week by Stephen Vincent Binet. Presented by the National Broadcasting Company in cooperation with the Council for Democracy. The program was directed by Lester o' Keefe with original music composed by Tom Bennett, conducted by Joseph Sto Pack. These broadcasts are based upon actual letters written to Hitler by Americans. Won't you send in your own letter to Dear Adolf? Listen next week to An American Housewife and mother's letter to Hitler, with Helen Hayes as narrator. Copies of today's Dear Adolf letter from a laborer may be secured without cost by writing directly to the Council for Democracy, 11 W 42nd St, New York City. This program has come to you from New York. This is the National Broadcasting Company.