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BROADCAST ON WNYC TODAY IN…
1924: Captain Herbert Hartley of the S.S. Leviathan tells 'sea tales.' The ship's orchestra, under the direction of Nelson Maples, also performs in the studio. Between 1923 and 1924 the band played for Victor Records.
1935: Brig. General Billy Mitchell testifies before a congressional hearing held in New York about patent racketeering. See below.
1950: Soldier and statesman George C. Marshall speaks at a birthday party for Dr. Chaim Weizmann which doubles as a ceremony marking the third anniversary of the British decision to pull out of Palestine. He compares the people currently settling in Israel to the American pioneers. Note: In 1948 as Harry S. Truman's Secretary of State, Marshall had opposed U.S. recognition of the new state of Israel.
2003: On this edition of The Next Big Thing, Marianne McCune reports from Mexico City on the labors of “public writers,†and news anchor-gone-comedian Bob Wiltfong provides some enlightenment. We also hear some excerpts from a play about a woman writing her last letter, presented by the play’s creator, filmmaker Frederick Wiseman, and performed by actress Kathleen Chalfant.
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Brig. General Billy Mitchell Speaks Out
Following up on October 1935 hearings at the Fifth Avenue Hotel, Mitchell tells congressmen and the WNYC listening audience that tax dollars for aircraft go to "a few financial manipulators," who have taken control of the industry. Mitchell, who is considered the father of the U.S. Air Force, says Army air officers are "suppressed and coerced by their non-flying superiors," making it impossible to get free and unbiased opinions from them, allowing aircraft dealers and "financial manipulators to get away with murder, literally and figuratively, by killing the pilots and passengers in unsuitable planes." (Photo: Library of Congress NYWTS Collection)
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LITTLE-KNOWN FACTS
The Slimey Bastard and WNYC
"Bustling around various city institutions, frightening fish and penguins at the Aquarium, startling kangaroos at The Bronx Zoo, are several men from WNYC, currently engaged in putting together a series of recorded documentary programs based on the machinery of our great municipality.
The engineers, announcers and directors from WNYC, carrying their recording apparatus, have so far had complete and unquestioning cooperation from all denizens in city institutions, with one single exception. The electric eel, in the Aquarium, WNYC's program builders decided was to go on the air. He was to ring a small electric bell with his current, but Mr. E. couldn't see it that way and has been stubbornly uncooperative throughout. WNYC will be happy to hear from anyone with ideas on forcing electric eels to function... "
Source: Leonard Carlton writing in The New York Post on February 18, 1939.
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