We Stand United and other Radio Scripts (1940-1942)

By Stephen Vincent Benét

This early work by Stephen Vincent Benét was originally published in 1942 and we are now republishing it with a brand new introductory biography. 'We Stand United and other Radio Scripts' is a collection of radio scripts, including 'Your Army', 'A Child is Born', 'The Undefended Border', and many more. Stephen Vincent Benét was born on 22nd July 1898 in Bethlehem, Pennsylvania, United States. Benét was an accomplished writer at an early age, having had his first book published at 17 and submitting his third volume of poetry in lieu of a thesis for his degree. During his time at Yale, he was an influential figure at the 'Yale Lit' literary magazine, and a fellow member of the Elizabethan Club. Benét was also a part-time contributor for the early Time Magazine. Benét's best known works are the book-length narrative poem American Civil War, John Brown's Body (1928), for which he won a Pulitzer Prize in 1929, and two short stories, The Devil and Daniel Webster (1936) and By the Waters of Babylon (1937). Benét won a second Pulitzer Prize posthumously for his unfinished poem Western Star in 1944.

• Language: English
• Publisher: White Press
• Release date: Apr 24, 2015
• ISBN: 9781473374133

Book preview

We Stand United and other Radio Scripts [1940-1942]

by

Stephen Vincent Benét [1898-1943]

Copyright © 2013 Read Books Ltd.

This book is copyright and may not be

reproduced or copied in any way without

the express permission of the publisher in writing

British Library Cataloguing-in-Publication Data

A catalogue record for this book is available from the British Library

Contents

Stephen Vincent Benét

WE STAND UNITED

DEAR ADOLF

1. LETTER FROM A FARMER

2. LETTER FROM A BUSINESSMAN

3. LETTER FROM A WORKING MAN

4. LETTER FROM A HOUSEWIFE AND MOTHER

5. LETTER FROM AN AMERICAN SOLDIER

6. LETTER FROM A FOREIGN BORN AMERICAN

THANKSGIVING DAY—1941

A TIME TO REAP

THEY BURNED THE BOOKS

THE UNDEFENDED BORDER

LISTEN TO THE PEOPLE

A CHILD IS BORN

YOUR ARMY

TOWARD THE CENTURY OF MODERN MAN

Stephen Vincent Benét

Stephen Vincent Benét was born on 22nd July 1898 in Bethlehem, Pennsylvania, United States.

Benét was sent to the Hitchcock Military Academy at the age of ten and then continued his education at The Albany Academy in New York. He also attended Yale University where he received his M.A. in English.

Benét was an accomplished writer at an early age, having had his first book published at 17 and submitting his third volume of poetry in lieu of a thesis for his degree. During his time at Yale, he was an influential figure at the ‘Yale Lit’ literary magazine, and a fellow member of the Elizabethan Club. Benét was also a part-time contributor for the early Time Magazine.

Benét’s involvement with the University literary scene led to a decade-long judgeship of the Yale Series of Younger Poets Competition. He is also responsible for publishing the first volumes of work by authors such as James Agee, Muriel Rukeyser, Jeremy Ingalls, and Margaret Walker. In 1931, he was elected as a fellow of the American Academy of Arts ad Sciences.

Benét’s best known works are the book-length narrative poem American Civil War, John Brown’s Body (1928), for which he won a Pulitzer Prize in 1929, and two short stories, The Devil and Daniel Webster (1936) and By the Waters of Babylon (1937). Benét won a second Pulitzer Prize posthumously for his unfinished poem Western Star in 1944.

Stephen Vincent Benét died of a heart attack in New York City, on 13th March, 1943, and is buried in Evergreen Cemetery, Stonington, Conneticut.

WE STAND UNITED

This declaration was read over the CBS Network by Raymond Massey at an America United Rally sponsored by the Council for Democracy at Carnegie Hall Wednesday evening, November 6, 1940.

The program was directed by Paul F. Hannah and the music was by Paul Whiteman.

WE STAND UNITED

There is one great issue before us—an issue that concerns every man and every woman in the United States. I am going to talk about that issue as simply and plainly as I can. What I myself think and feel—one man speaking alone—is, and can be, of little moment. But the cause for which we are met tonight—the reason why we are here—is a momentous cause and a momentous reason. As a great American once said, from the floor of the Senate, in a time as troubled as ours, Hear me for my cause!

Yesterday, in this country of ours, we held an election. Fifty million Americans went to the polls and decided upon the Americans who are to lead and govern this nation for the next four years. They did not go with guns at their sides—or with despair in their hearts. They were not driven or hounded there by armed guards or secret police. They went of their own free will, believing—and sometimes bitterly—in one party or the other, but with freedom to choose between the two. I saw them—we all saw them. In barber-shops and schoolhouses—in community centers and little untidy stores—all through the length and breadth of the continent they voted. It was a serious task and they took it seriously. You could see that in their faces.

I do not know how you felt about that voting—we are still so close to the heat and clamor of the campaign. But I know this for myself. The sight of those long lines of men and women, quietly waiting their turn outside the polling places—the knowledge that everywhere, all over the country, all the people, not just a few, were getting up and saying who and what they wanted—it filled me with an extraordinary pride. For it meant that democracy worked, and worked in a crisis. It is only once in four years that we see the whole people. We saw them yesterday.

I am speaking without bias of party. Had the election gone the other way, I would not alter one word of what I have said. I say and I repeat that yesterday democracy performed a great and essential act. In spite of omen abroad and turmoil at home, in obedience to the Constitution and with respect for law, the United States chose its leaders. To those who say that democracy is a failure—to those who say that all democracy must be weak, divided and corrupt—and you know the names—that is our first answer—and it is like a block of forged steel. To them we say: We have been able to do in peace what you could only do by force—we have been able to do by a mark on a piece of paper what you do by the gun and the whip. We have not been afraid of hearing both sides of a question. We have heard both sides and acted as a people. We shall never abandon that right.

Now that is a great thing to have done. It is a very great thing. And yet, in another sense, it is only a beginning. I shall try to say why that is so.

This campaign has been a very bitter one. We had better face that fact and admit it—we would never have built this country if we had not been willing to face facts. On both sides—not just on the one side—false and cruel things have been said. On both sides—not just on the one side—party spirit has gone into partisanship and partisanship into hate. The smears and the dirty stories—the lies and the rotten eggs—all the charges and countercharges of the last months—they were there and we know they were there.

In ordinary times, that doesn’t matter so much. You call my candidate a horse thief and I call yours a lunatic and we both of us know it’s just till election day. It’s an American custom, like eating corn on the cob. And, afterwards, we settle down quite peaceably, and agree we’ve got a pretty good country—until next election. But these are not ordinary times.

These are not ordinary times because there is a crisis in our national life. It was not brought about by the election and it has not passed with the election. We have decided to arm as we have never armed in peacetime. We have decided to call our young men to military service as we have never called them in peacetime. We have done this because, in a year, we have seen the fall and ruin of free nations, and a new creed of barbarism on the march. We can no longer take our own way of life for granted—we know that it may be challenged. And we know this too—and know it ever more deeply—we know that freedom and democracy are not just big words mouthed by orators but the rain and the wind and the sun, the air and the light by which we breathe and live.

How shall we defend them—how shall we defend ourselves? We know one thing—Abraham Lincoln said it more than eighty years ago and he was speaking of this turbulent, endlessly seeking country of ours. He said: A house divided against itself cannot stand. We cannot be a house divided—divided in will, divided in interest, divided in soul. We cannot be a house divided and live.

The issue goes beyond battleships and airplanes—it goes beyond tax bills and laws—it goes into the heart and mind of every one of us. Each one of us is responsible—not one of us can shirk his own responsibility. In the troubled years to come, we must have unity and a united nation—not the blind unity of the slave state, but the deliberate unity of free men. And, if we really believe in democracy, we must begin to seek that unity now.

I know the task is hard. It is hard to put aside partisanship. It is hard to give up the easy wisecracking jeer that divides and destroys. It is hard—very hard—to have worked sincerely and wholeheartedly for a cause and to have lost. Most of all, it is hard to put aside personal prejudices. And yet we must put these things aside.

There is one essential thing. We have a great past to help us, in putting these things aside. This election, hard fought as it was, has been but a mimic battle. It has been bitter—but the struggle between Jefferson and Hamilton was bitter—and yet both men were able to labor for the good of their country. It has been bitter—but the Civil War was bitter—and yet, at the end of that war, the idol of the South, Robert E. Lee, laid down his sword forever and spent the rest of his life, not in bitterness and anger, but in working for peace and concord and a united land. That was a harder thing to do than any of us are called upon to do today. Yet he did it, and so doing, won a victory of the spirit as great as any victory he had ever won on the battlefield. Stephen A. Douglas died campaigning at the side of his old adversary, Abraham Lincoln. Let us be bold enough and free enough to follow the great examples—the men of good will and honor who put aside little ways and petty hatreds to build the American dream.

And, first of all, let us take two words we have heard a great deal of in the last two months—take them and bury them deep. The first is dictatorship and the second is appeasement. They do not apply to us—they do not apply to this nation or to the government of this nation. With God’s grace and with the strength of a united people, they will never apply to this nation. Let us dig their graves here and now, with a long strong spade.

No administration that ever ran this country—not even Washington’s—has done so without opposition and criticism. That is just and right and our way. But there is something which is neither reasoned opposition nor reasonable criticism—a sort of sit-down strike of the mind which says: The score went against me. Very well, I won’t play ball. If any of us—any man, any group, any class—could ever have afforded such an attitude, we cannot afford it now. We cannot afford the creeping paralysis that destroys the effective will of democracy—the paralysis carried by hate and rancor, between class and class, person and person, party and party, as plague is carried through the streets of a town. I am speaking bluntly—I know you would not wish me to speak otherwise. For this paralysis of will—this sit-down strike of the mind—has attacked and ravaged other nations. We cannot afford to let that happen here.

Let us say this much to ourselves, not only with our lips but in our hearts. Let us say this:

"I myself am a part of democracy—I myself must accept responsibility. Democracy is not merely a privilege to be enjoyed—it is a trust to keep and maintain. When by idle word and vain prejudice, I create distrust of democracy itself, by so much do I diminish all democracy. When I tell my children that all politics is a rotten machine and all politicians thieves and liars, by so much do I shake their faith in the world that they too must build. When I let loose intolerance, whether it be of race, creed or class, I am letting loose a tiger. When I spend my time vilifying and abusing a duly-elected government of the people because I did not vote for it, by so much do I weaken confidence in government by the people itself. Rich or poor, young or old, Republican or Democrat, I cannot afford these things.

I cannot afford them because there are forces loose in the world that would wipe all democracy out. They will take my idle words and make their own case with them. They will take my halfhearted distrust, and with it sow, not merely distrust, but disunion. They will take my hate and make of it a consuming fire.

Let each one of us say: I am an American. I intend to stay an American. I will do my best to wipe from my heart hate, rancor and political prejudice. I will sustain my government. And, through good days or bad, I will try to serve my country.

DEAR ADOLF

This is a series of six scripts prepared for the Council on Democracy by Mr. Benét and based on original letters addressed to Hitler by representative farmers, businessmen, laborers, housewives, soldiers, and foreign-born Americans.

The entire series was broadcast over the NEC Red Network on successive Sunday afternoons beginning June 21, 1942 (with the exception of July 19th), and ending August 2, 1942. The series was directed by