Radio stars (Oct 1938)

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As a matter of fact, the thing was surprisingly simple. I said to Heber Grant that if be should send out one hundred missionaries to talk to ten people a day for nine years, he still wouldn't be able to reach as many people, or in so impressive a manner, as I could reach for him in thirty minutes. We agreed that we should have a family well-versed about their church. The family was carefully selected, and the results were good. To the people of the country, Mormonism has, as a rule, meant simply polygamy, but one thing I brought out in the broadcast was that there has never been a time in the history of the Mormon Church when more than two percent of the members have practiced polygamy. There are hundreds of stories which I might use here ; perhaps one of the most interesting, and certainly one of the most dramatic, is that of the visit to the old Witches' Jail in Salem, Massachusetts. There is a story. Some two hundred and twenty-five years ago, a certain Rebecca Nurse was tried for witchcraft. She was old and ill, and she had led an exemplary life for some seventytwo years. Despite age and infirmities, she conducted her own defense in a manner that to this day inspires admiration. Nevertheless, she was sentenced to be hanged by the neck until dead, and was imprisoned in the little dungeon just below the room from which I conducted the broadcast. Two hundred and twenty-five years later, on that spot, there stood beside me a woman named Harriet Nurse Keenan. She was the eighth generation descended from Rebecca Nurse. As we stood and talked to millions of people, it developed that when she was a little girl in school, when the class reached the point of studying about the Witches' Delusion, a very foolish teacher said : "You know, we have a little girl right here in our class who is the great-great-great-great-grand-daughter of a witch." Ever after that, in the play-ground and about the town, the present Mrs. Keenan faced the jeers of other children. Thus the persecution of Rebecca Nurse had come down through more than two hundred years to rest on the slender shoulders of a child. If variety be the spice of life, my life is well-seasoned. Out in San Francisco came a typical instance of this fact. I invaded the home of the Chinese Six Companies— the first invasion ever allowed, incidentally. I called on the elders of that strange organization, made my proposal in English (I hope), and then sat on a hard chair in silence for thirty minutes while the venerable gentlemen chattered away in staccato Cantonese like so many machine guns. They finally decided that I would be allowed permission, provided I would write and submit all copy to be used. I wrote it, submitted it and then threw it away. Then, on Sunday night at program time, we sat down as usual, without copy. It might be of interest to know that no where in this country have I received more courteous, gentlemanly treatment than among these Chinese of San Francisco. I was admitted in many places where the average American might well be barred, and got to see more of the life of this fine group of Americans than is ordinarily touched even at the hem. We can be proud of these neighbors. In connection with this visit, Chang Wah Lee, who played the character of Ching in the motion picture, The Good Earth, and a young Chinese-American lawyer named Wong were my guides, instructors and "stufrers", for surely there is no better food in all the world than the real Chinese food. They took me to places reserved for the Chinese themselves, and the food there was far different from the food one usually gets as Chinese. Wong went even so far as to aid in the selection of a marvelous set of pajamas for Mrs. Belcher, which same she prizes greatly today. These rambling ways of mine sometimes find me in places where I have adventures of my own, as well as enjoy those of others. I left New Orleans in a plane bound for San Francisco, just in time to bump head on into the flood at Los Angeles, en route. What a night that was ! We were grounded at midnight in Palm Springs, a hundred and thirty miles east of Los Angeles, and were placed in cars to make the rest of the trip over the mountains. Rain came down in sheets and there seemed no end to it. It seemed as if the heavens had opened on a permanent basis. We hit Los Angeles in time for an hour's sleep before taking the train (the last one out) for San Francisco. Water was over the cow-catcher as we went through the city, and when we had gone the magnificent distance of twenty-four miles, we halted abruptly. The line had washed out ahead and, as we sat there, a bridge went out behind us. All day we sat, and into the night. The rain continued unabated until about dark, then slacked a bit. There I sat .... no show .... no chances of doing one on Sunday from Los Angeles, due to interrupted communications, and nothing arranged ahead of me in San Francisco. Time was fidgeting and something had to be done. Finally I got a wire open to San Francisco and to my good friend, Bertrand Couch, Immigrant Inspector for the Port of San Francisco. He's better known as "Frisco Bert", and if anyone in San Francisco could help, it would be Bert. He didn't miss. After I had finally got a bus back to Los Angeles, and taken the first plane out, there was Bert. It was a Thursday afternoon and Bert had an heroic program all set up in the alley. He had obtained for me the young policeman in San Rafael who had single-handedly broken up the biggest dope ring the West Coast has ever known. Who was it that said what about a friend in need? As I think back through the warp and woof of American life that I have encountered, I see before me that unique 70