290930 - The Westward Tide

The second season of Empire Builders began the night of September 30, 1929. The program had been off the air for 13 weeks. During that time, the primary script writer for the program, Edward Hale Bierstadt, worked diligently at putting together many more continuities.

Newspaper advertisement appearing in the New York Times, September 30, 1929

As a means of stirring interest in the new season of the young radio series, the GN ran an advertisement (see illustration above) in many newspapers around the country where the broadcast was aired. These ads were typically placed on the radio page of the newspapers’ entertainment section. The GN also distributed a simple 16-page leaflet in significant numbers.

 

In the inaugural season, the fledgling radio series was comprised of a variety of themes. As reported in earlier blog posts, the Great Northern Railway used Empire Builders to promote significant events concerning their railroad service to the Northwest. On another occasion, the radio broadcast showcased the Portland Symphony Orchestra. Radio dramas comprised the bulk of the broadcasts. Most of the dramatizations were based on true stories of the early explorers and settlers of the Pacific Northwest. This included fur trappers, soldiers and sailors, missionaries, and explorers such as Lewis & Clark, David Thompson, and Pierre de la Verendrye. These stories were intended to introduce the listening audience to the colorful early history of the northwest and to therefore set the stage for an expansion of themes that the new season began to exploit.

With the first broadcast of Season 2 – “The Westward Tide” – Empire Builders gave the listeners a completely fabricated story that made a case for corporate America to invest in the resources of the West. Here’s how the GN’s leaflet (as mentioned above) described the setting of the story:

The first program of this series deals with the Pacific Northwest generally and its industrial possibilities. Its principal scene is laid in the Directors' Room of a large Eastern manufacturing company. This company has grown until it is necessary that they have additional facilities and a directors' meeting has been called to decide where their branch factory shall be built.

At their meeting Tom Baldwin, a young business man, explains the many advantages of the Pacific Northwest and the story closes with him and his bride traveling westward on the Empire Builder to supervise the construction of the company's new factory.

Although the 30-minute sketch was admittedly superficial, the story’s antagonistic character Mr. Edwards served up a number of perfectly reasonable counter-arguments to Baldwin’s proposal. The Edwards character could have been portrayed in a cartoonish manner with no real basis to his concerns. Instead, the story’s protagonist, Tom Baldwin, had to counter Edwards’ concerns with substantial reasons for the company’s Board of Directors to consider. The primary scene of the story pitted young Baldwin and the elder Mr. Edwards as these men and their fellow Directors made a decision as to whether their company should build a new plant out west. Here’s a sample of their repartee:

TOM - I'm fed up on facts that mean dollars and cents to you, Mr. Edwards, as well as to the rest of us. The Pacific coast states are nearest the Orient, South America, Australia, Alaska, Siberia and India. These regions comprise two-thirds the population of the world as well as the greatest wealth of undeveloped natural resources.

EDWARDS - Foreign markets, eh? I was waiting for that. Europe is our heaviest buyer.

TOM - True. But we are finding it increasingly difficult to meet competition in Europe. And we are not alone. American industries must look for their greatest expansion in the markets of the Oriental countries and the Latin Americas. There we can compete with Europe. Already American manufacturers are recognizing this fact and getting established on the West coast.

EDWARDS - You're dreaming. Industry is here. Iron and steel are here; labor is here; long experience and efficiency are here.

TOM - You don't know the West. I can show you plant after plant that is operating at less cost than similar plants here - many of them producing a better product.

 

With this story, the Great Northern was effectively delivering a sales pitch to Eastern companies to expand their business to the territory served by the railroad. Rather than merely jumping up and down yelling “build out west, build out west,” the GN used the drama to debate some of the honest concerns of doing so. The debate did not dig too deeply, but there is little doubt the intention was to at least plant the seed of considering commercial advantages for economic growth in a territory the GN already served.

As it turns out (you saw this coming, didn’t you?), one of Tom Baldwin’s most staunch supporters at the Board meeting was a fellow referred to simply as … wait for it … The Pioneer. Actor Harvey Hays, “the man with whiskers in his voice,” was back on the air with the Empire Builders. The Old Timer spun his ubiquitous yarns of yesteryear and cajoled the Board of Directors – including the curmudgeonly Mr. Edwards – into supporting Tom and his bid to have the company build its new plant “in the west.” No doubt, it was to be built somewhere directly along the line of the Great Northern Railway.

The Old Timer (once again referred to in the script as the “Pioneer”, his alternate sobriquet) told stories of his youth and a couple of western entrepreneurs who made a strong impression on him. The men were identified in the story as John A. McGlynn and Judge Girvin. As was so often the case with stories written for Empire Builders, McGlynn and Girvin were real-life characters of the early West.

Comments found at the end of the leaflet explained the purpose of the leaflet and how interested parties could obtain more copies:

Believing that manufacturers and shippers, particularly in the West, will have more than just a casual interest in this first program of the Empire Builder series, the Great Northern has had a quantity of these published. If you desire extra copies, write to A. J. Dickinson, Passenger Traffic Manager, Great Northern Railway. St. Paul, Minnesota.

The back cover of the leaflet listed all the stations of the NBC Blue Network on which Empire Builders could be found. You’ll have to excuse me now. I need to find a stamp to send for my extra copies of the leaflet.

 

I hope Mr. Dickinson still has some left . . .