310105 - Prosperity Baby

Recording status – recorded, in circulation

In 1921, the “Great War” was over, and many businesses in America were concerned about moving on from a national war footing to a renewed atmosphere of prosperity. During wartime, some manufacturers had profited by supplying the nation with the necessary materiel with which to wage war, but most of those lucrative government contracts dried up soon after Armistice Day. The end of the war brought much change to the economic landscape of the country. Editorial commentary in the employee magazine of the Rock Island Railroad addressed the issue:

During the war and after the Armistice, due to hysteria, high wages, scarcity of workers, etc., a condition was created which tended to make everyone loosen up in production, discipline, morals, etc., and now that we are gradually returning to a state of normalcy, we find it hard to return to pre-war conditions.

In Chicago, Illinois, a group of advertising men from the Chicago Tribune newspaper convened a meeting at the end of 1920. It was their aim to come up with a campaign of some kind to help inspire their community to light fires under the machines of industry and take back our country’s economic prowess. They saw what they felt was widespread and unwarranted pessimism in the business community, and general lethargy in both management and the workforce that bred inefficiencies. So it was they hit upon a catchy slogan, one that was trumpeted on the pages of the Chicago Daily Tribune, and repeated time after time in other editions of the paper, and eventually in other papers in other cities, throughout the new year. The slogan was simple, but it caught the imagination of the whole country: “1921 Will Reward Fighters.”

Display ad from the Chicago Tribune, January 3, 1921.

Ten years later, after nearly a full decade of growing prosperity in the United States, the stock market had famously collapsed, and the Great Depression that followed soon after wiped out many businesses, banks, and individual investors alike. Depression of the emotional variety was taking its toll on the populace. Yet in the face of all this despair, many politicians, companies, clergymen, and other entities tried valiantly to reassure the public that happy days would soon return.

On January 5, 1931, the Empire Builders radio series went on the air with not merely another radio drama, but a fervently uplifting message to all its listeners. The radio audience was encouraged to discard pessimism and embrace optimism for a more prosperous future. The story aired that night was mostly about a businessman named Bert Pond, and the well-being of a little baby that he found himself looking after onboard the Empire Builder train. The greater message of the story became that of how his choices as a businessman impacted so many other lives, and how a spirit and strategy of confident optimism were bound to reward his employees, his customers, and the entire community. The message also made the claim that such a change in attitude would surely profit Bert Pond, too.

The performers featured in this broadcast included Harvey Hays as the Old Timer; Lucille Husting as Laura Gray, the social worker; Bob White as Bert Pond; and Bernardine Flynn as the troubled mother. Betty White (Betty Reynolds White) portrayed the baby.

The title of this night’s broadcast was “Prosperity Baby.” Although a copy of the recording of this broadcast is circulating on the internet, nearly every source that offers it has named the story incorrectly. Most sites call this program “Bert Pond, Worrier and Baby,” some call it “Million Dollar Baby.” Okay, once again, a well-meaning person has taken a legitimate and understandable stab at applying an appropriate name, given only the audio to go by. But once again, the Great Northern Railway had an altogether different name for this play. The skit was considered worthy of being repeated a few months later. At that later time, they called the story “The Billion Dollar Baby.” So if you search the vast World Wide Web looking for this radio broadcast, you will likely locate at least some variation of one, two, or all three of those names.

The continuity that I have located contains neither the opening nor the closing announcements. These sections of the continuity are where announcer Ted Pearson delivered his inspirational admonition to the show’s listeners to buck up, put on a happy face, and get after the business of making this country great again. Kinda surprising he didn’t get himself elected president or something.

In the preamble to the night’s story, Pearson told the audience:

Tonight’s Empire Builders playlet comes to you as a reminder that with all the talk about depression there still are people and organizations that are too busy working for the good times to wail about the hard times. The territory served by the Great Northern Railway is busy creating prosperity. And the Great Northern Railway itself is lending a hand in this constructive endeavor. The Great Northern Railway has made available to producers and shippers throughout this great northwest empire a transportation service that represents the acme in dependability and efficiency. Among the services provided for shippers by the Great Northern are fast through freights on the long hauls between terminals, speedy package car service between important shipping points, swift long-distance refrigerator train service for food products, specialized equipment to serve such industries as the iron mines of northern Minnesota, the copper mines of Montana, and the lumber interests of Washington, Oregon, and Idaho. Great Northern freight representatives, as well as travel bureaus, are located in many of the cities from which this program is broadcast. These expert traffic men would be glad to serve you.

 

Following the usual musical bridge and sound effects of a speeding train, listeners were transported to a passenger car on the Great Northern’s Empire Builder train as it rolled along in Montana. The Old Timer had just bumped into an old pal of his, mill owner Bert Pond (played by Bob White). The usual pleasantries included Pond’s observation that the Old Timer was looking as well and spry as ever. The Old Timer responded by explaining that he didn’t worry much about things anymore. In contrast, Bert Pond grumped about how he was worried about all sorts of things, that his present state of affairs was “rotten … I never saw times worse.” The Old Timer tried to cajole Pond out of his oppressive doldrums by reminding him how things really were challenging in earlier days. Then the Old Timer really laid it on Bert by bringing up Ella Semple.

OLD TIMER:     And then you had to borry my rig so’s you could go a-courtin’ Ella Semple?

 

POND:               … Wel-l-l, maybe times were about as hard then.

 

OLD TIMER:     About as hard! Say! How about that night the Ladies Aid gave the box supper? And Ella waited outside the meetin’ house in the snow and cold until they were all through sellin’ them boxes … Account of you not having any money to buy hers.

 

POND:       (slowly)       Yes-s-s … I always thought that was mighty nice of Ella.

 

OLD TIMER:     It sure was, Bert. You know, it always seemed odd to me that you two didn’t get hitched up … long about then. Maybe if you had you wouldn’t be such a mournful, contrary old codger now.

 

POND:               Hmmmmmm! Well, I reckon we would’ve … only that year … times were so hard.

 

OLD TIMER:     Times wa’ant too hard for Ella, Bert. Wa’ant it in ’94 she up and married Joe Pike, over in Bonner’s Ferry?

 

POND:               ‘Twas June of ’94. You see … a … I’d been waitin’ for times to pick up a little more.

 

OLD TIMER:     I see. Joe Pike wa’ant much set on waitin’ was he? And he wa’ant any better fixed than you were, either, Bert.

 

Oh, Bert. Tut-tut. If you weren’t such a hopeless old Ebenezer Scrooge. But the economic hard times alluded to in the radio play were in fact real. This country saw a serious economic depression in the 1890’s, set off by what was termed the Panic of 1893. During that period, some 15,000 businesses failed. A number of railroads went under, including the Northern Pacific, the Union Pacific, and the Santa Fe. All three eventually recovered and/or were restructured. Notably, Jim Hill’s Great Northern Railway did not go under. But that’s another story.

 

The Old Timer reminded Bert that times were rough in 1920, too, but that things rebounded and Bert made out just fine. Still, Bert clung to his pessimism (mixed with a healthy dose of fatalism). He declared that he was on his way to his mill, and that big changes were about to happen.

OLD TIMER:     Now what’s goin’ to happen when you get there?

 

POND:               I’ll tell you what’s goin’ to happen. First off, I’m goin’ to fire that durned moonin’ nephew of mine faster than cat-fits.

 

OLD TIMER:     You are! Why, he’s your superintendent, isn’t he?

 

POND:               He won’t be after I get there.

 

OLD TIMER:     Why, I always thought you was right fond of your nephew. What’s come up?

 

POND:               Plenty. But the main thing … well … you see about a week ago I wired him to cut the payroll in half.

 

OLD TIMER:     Scatter my chipmunks, Bert. You didn’t do a thing like that, did you?

 

Pond’s nephew wasn’t too keen about his uncle’s strategy for reigning in costs. Characters on Empire Builders rarely uttered anything you could really call a profanity, but they kind of meandered up to the brink in this dialog.

 

OLD TIMER:  Hmmm, a telegram. What’s it about?

 

POND:            It’s the wire he sent when I ordered him to chop the payroll. Read it. It’s only two words long.

 

OLD TIMER:  All right Bert. Thanks. Hmmmmm. It says:  hmmmmmm … GO … TO … You’re right, Bert, only two words. Reckon he didn’t need to finish it, did he?

 

Bert Pond blamed much of his nephew’s rebellious attitude on the affections of a young lady – a social worker named Laura Gray. The Old Timer perked up at the name, but didn’t let on that he knew she was on this same train. The Old Timer excused himself and trundled off to find Laura.

 

The train came to a stop at the Libby depot. An agitated young woman approached Bert Pond and asked him if he wouldn’t hold her baby just for a minute. The crotchety old coot took hold of the infant just as the mother started choking up and whispering good-bye to her baby. Pond must have been too preoccupied still with his own worries to recognize something was odd about the woman’s behavior. Moments later, the train began to pull out of Libby. The young mother had jumped off the train and disappeared. Pond was left there in his coach seat holding a fussy infant.

 

Meanwhile, the Old Timer tracked down Laura Gray, with whom he had apparently been conversing earlier in the journey.

LAURA:            Back again, Old Timer. Good!

 

OLD TIMER:     Yes, and I reckon I’ve got some news for you, Miss Gray.

 

LAURA:            Don’t be so formal, Old Timer. Call me Laura. And what’s this news you have for me?

 

OLD TIMER:     Well … you know, after I left you here in the observation lounge I ran into an old time friend of mine … Bert Pond!

 

LAURA:            Jim’s uncle?

 

OLD TIMER:     Yep. Jim’s uncle.

 

LAURA:            Oh.

 

OLD TIMER:     He’s goin’ to Milltown too. Seems he’s got one of his cautious streaks on. Plannin’ to do a lot of whackin’ and slashin’ on the payroll and such.

Laura let on that she knew about the telegram that Pond sent his nephew, and then admitted that she might be to blame. She told the Old Timer she thought Pond’s intentions were absurd, with business down only seven percent. The Old Timer corrected her, saying Bert Pond had just informed him business was down eight percent. Laura soon revealed how she had inserted herself into the present unpleasantries.

LAURA:            That shows how close he keeps track of things. It was eight percent under a month ago. But December sales cut it to seven.

OLD TIMER:     Hmmmmm. You seem to keep a pretty close check on things, Laura.

LAURA:            Of course I do. I’ve seen the statements and the order sheets. I’ve seen the inventory of reserve stock – and it’s down to almost nothing and advance orders are already picking up. I tell you, Old Timer, there isn’t justification for any cut in payroll.

OLD TIMER:     I’ve been tryin’ to tell Bert that, Laura, but I dunno. Sometimes I think Bert can’t see any farther’n the end of his nose. And he’s stubborn as the itch.

LAURA:            I know. But Jim won’t cut the payroll. I told Jim if he carried out those orders of his Uncle’s … well, that I wouldn’t marry him. There!

The Old Timer pointed out that Laura had put her fiancée between a rock and hard place. He walked Laura through the predictable outcome if Jim didn’t cut the payroll as his uncle ordered.

LAURA:            How do you mean?

OLD TIMER:     Well, if Jim don’t make the cut, I reckon Bert will fire him. Then if you marry Jim, he won’t have no job to keep up a home on.

LAURA:            It isn’t Jim’s job I’m worrying about, Old Timer. It’s the jobs of those other workers at the mill, men with families, children … and maybe nothing put aside. It’s the children and mothers who’ll suffer most if …

This cheerful discussion was abruptly interrupted by Jackson, the porter, who came up to them in a rush looking for the Old Timer. He told the Old Timer he had been all up and down the Empire Builder looking for him.

OLD TIMER:     You have? What about, Jackson?

JACKSON:        About the baby. It needs you.

OLD TIMER:     Baby! Baby! What baby, Jackson?

JACKSON:        Mistah Pon’s baby.

OLD TIMER:     Bert Pond’s baby! Scatter my chipmunks, Jackson, what on earth are you talking about?

JACKSON:        Mistah Pon’s don’ got a baby, Mistah Ol’ Timah. It’s about a twelve poun’ baby girl … and cute! Lawsy!

OLD TIMER:     Good heavens, Jackson. This sounds scandalous.

JACKSON:        Wus’sn that. It’s calam … calamitous.

OLD TIMER:     I’m afraid I don’t quite understand.

JACKSON:        Mistah Pon’, eveh since he’s had the baby, he’s been wantin’ this and wantin’ that and wantin’ t’other thing … and he doan know whut it is he is wantin’.

The Old Timer moseyed back to find Bert and the baby. Bert continued with his grumping, this time due to the baby, who was finding comfort in holding onto his nose.

OLD TIMER:     I’d sort of gathered from Jackson that the baby was frettin’ and here I find her cooing and smiling as fine as you please.

POND:               That’s cause she’s got hold of my nose. She likes to hold onto it.

BABY:               Gurgle.  Coo.

POND:               If I don’t let her she whibbers.

OLD TIMER:     What?

POND:               Whibbers! Whibbers! She whibbers until I let her hold my nose again.

OLD TIMER:     Oh! Whimpers.

After a spell, Bert set the baby down on the coach seat next to him, but she resumed her fussing. The Old Timer told Bert he’d better pick up the baby again, but when he did, he determined something was amiss.

OLD TIMER:     Bert, I guess you don’t know much about babies. But … a … by the way, did you happen to see any package or letter or anything that might have been left with the baby?

POND:               Well now, there was a package. But I gave it to the porter to throw out. Nothin’ in it but some dish towels.

OLD TIMER:     Dish towels? Hmmmmmm. I reckon, Bert, that that was a mistake.

(BABY FRETS)

Dish towels. Bert didn’t seem to understand too much about babies. Or diapers. Bert pretty well threw in the towel, in more ways than one. The Old Timer determined it was high time to fetch Laura and enlist her help. When they returned, the Old Timer made the awkward introductions between Laura and her fiancée’s uncle. Laura announced that she was going to take the baby off (presumably to change its diaper). In the absence of any able GN advertising department men to step up to the microphone, the Old Timer once again filled in.

OLD TIMER:     I reckon the maid on the Empire Builder can maybe help out in just such an emergency as this, Laura. You see …

LAURA:            Why yes, –

POND:               Say, don’t keep that baby too long. It ain’t yours.

LAURA:            (icily) Nor yours, Mr. Bert Pond.

With Laura gone with the baby, the Old Timer took the opportunity to poke old Bert with a few jabs of his own. Bert declared his disdain for the baby’s mother, dropping the baby off like that with a stranger and then just disappearing.

OLD TIMER:     Well, Bert, I wouldn’t be too critical … until I knew somethun’ about what her problems were.  (ironically)  Maybe she’s had … a … eight per cent cut in her income … and’s reducin’ overhead.

Laura returned with the baby girl, who was now neat and clean and snoozing away. Bert Pond and Laura Gray continued their verbal parrying and thrusting, which worked up to an increasingly unpleasant pitch when Laura started calling him names.

POND:               Why … why … what do you mean, me a pessimist?

LAURA:            Worse than that, Mr. Pond … you’re a calamity howler. You’re one of the very men who make depressions, who go about at the least flurry frightening business, trade, lopping off payrolls. Oh, maybe you think you’re an industrial leader … but you’re just a big, industrial scarecrow.

POND:               B-b-b-but Miss Gray. Don’t you know times are hard. I’m cutting my payroll because …

LAURA:            You never cut expenses. You just cut wages. Every man, woman and child in America is on your payroll, whether they have jobs or not. Directly or indirectly you have to help them, feed them, clothe them. The sick, the aged, the orphan and the foundling like this baby here are on your payroll, and Old Timer’s payroll, and mine.

POND:               Why, I never heard of such a thing.

LAURA:            Oh yes you have, but you haven’t listened. Why America’s payroll, its invisible payroll, runs into millions, even in the best of times when every able-bodied man is employed.

You kind of get the impression the writer of the play had been reading Dickens. Well, true to the classic Dickensian come-to-Jesus paradigm shift, Bert Pond allowed as how he hadn’t looked at things that way.

LAURA:            I know you haven’t! You’ve only thought in terms of profits and dividends instead of in terms of human life and happiness. And when you don’t think in terms of happiness and life you’re cutting profits. Sad, suffering, unhappy people … don’t buy much.

OLD TIMER:     Laura’s right about that, Bert.

POND:               Well.

LAURA:            Right now you’re profits have fallen only seven percent. If you’re sensible Mr. Pond, they won’t drop any more. They’ll gain.

POND:               Gain!

LAURA:            Absolutely. The world’s just about ready to start buying again. As supplies have gone down, demand has gained. Supplies are down. Why your own reserve stocks are almost vanished. And your part of the world, Mr. Pond, will start buying more than ever before from you if you don’t keep them from it.

POND:               What d’ye mean, keep them from it?

LAURA:            By cutting production, efficiency, quality and most of all, buying power. Believe me, the world does want to start buying again. It doesn’t only want to, it’s got to. And it’s got to start right in 1931. If you want it to buy from you you’ve got to be ready with the goods.

Well, you go, girl! Laura kept pouring it on until Pond finally crumbled. She worked him up into quite a lather and then turned his heart and mind to a new perspective. Not only was he not going to cut the payroll, he was going to add to it! Just wait ‘til Bob Cratchit and all the assorted little Cratchits hear about this! Oh, wait … wrong story.

With abundant smiles all around, the orchestra came up with some nice music to close out the story. A vocal trio carried the broadcast to the closing announcement with a few spirited bars of “Cheer Up, Good Times Are Comin’.”   The music faded, and then Ted Pearson cleared his throat, stepped up to the microphone, and tied a neat bow on the Great Northern Railway’s depression-defusing morality play.

ANNOUNCER: Ten years ago, when hysterical people were weeping over a so-called business depression, a great metropolitan newspaper came out boldly with the slogan "1921 Will Reward Fighters!" Every reader of that newspaper saw himself as a potential fighter. Every manufacturer and every businessman who read that slogan took heart. Nineteen twenty-one did reward fighters. Nineteen thirty-one, too, will reward fighters. Business is far from dead. It must be fought for. And those who fight will reap the rewards now, as ten years ago.

The Great Northern Railway and the Western Pacific Railway are jointly engaged in a fifteen million dollar project, notably, the California Extension, now under construction and to be completed and ready for operation early next year. The Great Northern Railway faces this year of 1931 with confidence.

And now you see how the Chicago Tribune and its optimism campaign ties in directly to this radio play. I don’t know to what degree the Great Northern Railway actively tried to pick up the Tribune’s 10-year-old banner of boosterism and halt the Great Depression in its tracks. But what I do find intriguing is that this broadcast, more than any other they put on the air, carried such a blatant message to the listeners that exceeded the usual appeal to use the Great Northern Railway for shipping and travel, and to do their part to help pull the country up by its bootstraps and climb out of the economic downturn.

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A couple of years ago, a Journalism professor at Missoula’s University of Montana, Ray Ekness, got a hankering to recreate an old time radio show. He started with the classic “War of the Worlds” put on in 1938 by Orson Welles and the Mercury Theater. Later, he looked around for other suitable radio stories, hoping to find one or two that focused in some way on Montana. One radio play that he located was this night’s broadcast of Empire Builders. Both the audio and the continuity (or at least a faithful transcription of the show) can be found online. Ekness enlisted some other folks at UM, and worked with the talented staff at Montana Public Radio to produce a two-story compilation, resulting in a one-hour broadcast. Their final product paired this Empire Builders story with an episode of “Quiet, Please” (ironically written by W.O. Cooper about spooky doings at a Butte copper mine - see this Empire Builders blog entry for a report on an earlier Butte story by Cooper, the 300210 Empire Builders broadcast: http://empire-builders-radio.blogspot.com/2015/02/300210-butte.html).
The two-tale broadcast was aired twice, early last year. The broadcast can be streamed online at the MTPR web site: http://mtpr.org/post/mtpr-radio-theater-airs-classic-big-sky-dramas

Since their source material consisted of the misnamed products still floating out there on the tangled interweb, the folks at MTPR understandably titled the Empire Builders story as “Billion Dollar Baby.” Again, the correct title of this story as it aired on January 5, 1931, was “Prosperity Baby.” The Great Northern aired the story again in May of 1931, but retitled it "Billion Dollar Baby" at that time - but even then, at least one newspaper of the day reported the skit would be "Million Dollar Baby."

Oy vey, as my Scandinavian ancestors used to say.

 

 

Until next time, keep those dials tuned to Empire Builders!