REPORT FROM ILLINOIS

[Music] report from illinois well we sure got our hands full we can tell you about peoria land of the corny gag and the bulldozer boy how that town's changed [Music] and there are the northern factory towns like elgin working around the clock so that you'll have all the time you need and what about the river country and rock island where some of you used to spend lazy days sailing down the mississippi with your girl but where life is focused now on the big guns made out of the arsenal they're historian itself to cairo and the rich south land known as egypt how they've banked the shores dredged the canals how they think maybe old man river is harnessed at last and we can't skip the war towns like park ridge where overnight the cornfields turned into airfields where every day now get out and try their wings springfield mirror of the whole state where long stretches of wheat lie over the coal mines where war plants roar against the screech of railroad yards and what about the town where jimmy dykes boys are sweating out the first division again where the stockyards are working night and day and the yard men have to sleep right in the slaughterhouses healthcare so short big changes in the farm country too new crop even sunflowers down in piet county they've planted 500 acres gonna use the seeds for oil maybe breakfast food too yes to tell the story of illinois there's town and river and corn and coal too rich a land too much to choose from [Music] so we blindfolded ourselves stuck a pin in the map and came up with a little river town down by the ohio name of galconda and we're sort of glad we did because gokanda is a kind of toy sized illinois all itself this is the moment in galconda's day she wakes up mornings to the 618 roaring through her quiet fields the illinois central carrying in boxcars of the world outside to golk honda folks on the land and in the tunnel but setting a pace too dizzy for golconda where life moves more like this [Music] quiet time old town today especially so it's youth has gone to the bonens in cologne ask ed wallace station master he can tell you how the breath of life has left the town but the motions of life keep on it'll be two minutes early for the 618 he has been for 30 years ed's on the draft and ration board and all the threads of golconda's life pass through his calm firm hands [Music] she's on time up goes the stop on there's ed to greet the engineer this is pretty big business here everyone takes it seriously and there's no time lost wheels grind to a stop and this conversation takes place every morning well paul what do you have for me today four sacks of feed three bones of leather a sack of mail just the usual things and that's it ready okay let her go the daily needs and raw stuffs of golconda's 1300 lives fit comfortably on this small railway truck ed here knows just where gokanda stands in the scheme of things and he's proud of it not very big low today but that's the way it goes take a little in and send a little out first stop female postmocked apo or fpo gets delivered to a father who has hardly time to read it before his shift comes on one of illinois's thousands of miners his job is down under the land slicing away at the black gold that stokes the allied fight you've read enough about coal we have only this to add this country mined more coal in 44 than in any other year and this with 27 000 fewer workers than she had the year before but illinois lives on the land too on a rich black top soil that yields wheat and rye and oats and corn like you'll find nowhere else in the world good land that nurtures golconda's only blue bloods the sleek cattle that gives thick cream sweet as a berry and fresh fragrant butter just the same chores done the same way you farmers used to do them before you traded overalls for sun tans and skivvies [Music] weighing pouring canning and shipping to become the powdered milk you had at ciao last night sundown the long silver cans ride back to the station a fair trade for the feed sacks that came in on the morning train golconda's no boom town the glove factory's been there sometime but now it's gi gloves made by ex-servicemen and the girls of golconda they don't have much to do nights and days they're mostly accounted for down here shaping and stitching warm leather mitts the kind you navy joes wear on zero days and now a fourth export 75 empty places at the supper tables of gaulkanda last count and more coming remember when you left with those greetings from the president and the sewing kit from aunt lucy the picture of your girl [Music] [Applause] bob ken george walter ray on their way to take their place beside you a song a simple godspeed from their friends and they're on their way thank you girls that was just fine i'm sure the boys will carry this song wherever the army and navy chooses to send them [Music] back at the station ed details golconda's day on a small slip of paper a summing up that echoes what happens all over illinois every day in the small towns for big towns and chicago well i have a car cool four cans of cream two dozen cartons of navy gloves for you today and i've got a little surprise for you too you