The Innocent Years Part 2

e [Music] in the genial appable year of 198 a genial appable candidate for the presidency Roosevelt Secretary of War William Howard T the nation's first golf playing Statesman all three 140s of him the Poetry of the press sizes him up a solid man both for and a is he who's known as Mr T because of bias against the third term Roosevelt declines to run but he handpicks Taft to succeed him Taft campaigns on an admirable background as federal judge first governor general of the Philippines staun supporter of the Roosevelt policies which he promises to continue he likes people people like him William Jennings Brian carries the Democratic Banner Brian the great commoner once he electrified the nation with his cross of gold speech for the free coinage of silver twice before he has run for the presidency unsuccessfully and now despite his uncommon power as an orator he is unsuccessful again the times are right for a William Howard cast in The White House the financial Panic of 197 has abated and the nation is prospering and expanding with the coming admission of Arizona and New Mexico to the union tath will be the first president of all 48 states says the New York son never did any man come into the presidency before with such Universal Goodwill a time of innocence and security a Boston newspaper prints a sweeping generalization on the state of the nation everyone is busily happily getting ahead Fifth Avenue comes to regard itself as the equivalent of the rud laap and Bon Street why not oh [Music] looking back on the Fashions of the time Consuela Vanderbilt will one day write how Charming they all were in their picture hats and organdies so incompatible with Comfort but so becoming oh you beautiful doll you great big beautiful doll h [Music] it isn't all picture hats and organdy feminism is on the mark a growing Revolt of women against tapoos and restraints in general and for the right to vote in particular the suff Jets are dismissed by some as a band of silly excited exaggerated women but in their parades are the Rumblings of deep social change the ascendancy of the woman in American life as one protests I am tired of being ladylike we've been ladylike for 6,000 [Music] years after dark the theater the theater of Min Madden Fisk M Adams and Maxine Elliot of John Drew otus Skinner and George M Kohan and of the ever popular Lillian Russell who starred at Tony pastors well before the turn of the century and who is still the American beauty queen of comic Opera and respectable burlesque but from the palace in New York to the stages of a thousand tank towns Coast to Coast theater means Ville variety that runs the whole gamut from big time Broadway to 100 Small Time acts which once seen are soon forgotten [Music] a [Music] but bevill's dancing days are numbered a trick of making photographic images move something called the mutoscope a peep show of animated pictures has been discovered as Beville dances out the movies Come Dancing In [Music] many Minds create the motion picture but one of its most fertile innovators is Thomas ala Edison the wizard of Meno Park inventor of the electric light inventor of the phonograph folder of 800 patents on the mechanical Marvels that are changing and enriching American [Music] life from the Edison Company becomes the first movie to tell a complete story the first feature film The Great Train Robbery overnight a fading flickering novelty becomes a new form of mass entertainment mass produced the techniques of the 20th century expand the ancient craft of Storytelling beyond the wildest imagination of the Arabian Knights a thousand and one tales of romance mystery and Adventure come from the assembly lines of new dream factories called Studios the silent pictures speak a universal language [Music] in California where the sun collaborates with the camera the movies go on location to capture scenes No Studio can hold [Music] admission 5 cents at the Nickelodeons and the poor man's entertainment becomes the major American Pastime a readymade Escape into a new world of fantasy and fun with stars like Mary pford little Mary Queen of the movies lilan Gish innocence in the wicked City Claire mcdal a lover [Music] scorn Charlie Chaplain High humor and low [Music] comedy the movies discover new laws of Comedy if a Chase is funny a riot is funnier if a cop is funny a gross of cops are hilarious [Music] [Applause] but the fictions of the screen are no match for the authentic drama of the time for [Music] reality April 196 the worst earthquake ever recorded followed by fire that makes a double catastrophe Jack London gives the world his eyewitness account not in history has a modern Imperial City been so completely destroyed San Francisco is gone nothing remains of it but memories and a fringe of dwelling houses on its outskirts San Francisco is like the crater of a volcano around which are camped tens of thousands of refugees all the cunning adjustments of a 20th Century City have been smashed by the earthquake all the shrewd contrivances and safeguards of man have been thrown out of gear by 30 seconds twitching of the Earth's crust [Music] will Irwin's dispatch from the scene is an epito the old San Francisco is dead the gayest lightest hearted most pleasure-loving city of this continent [Music] and later in Ohio and Indiana some of the worst floods in American history follow in the wake of storm and tornado above Dayton Ohio a Dam breaks a city is overwhelmed hundreds die a [Music] now political upheaval visits the American scene with Theodore Roosevelt's return in June of 1910 after 15 months abroad shooting lions and elephants in Africa consorting with kings and queens in Europe the colonel comes home to a royal welcome in New York as the world's first citizen Teddy Roosevelt steps back into the national Limelight thousands and not only in New York let the ex-president know they wish him to be president again Roosevelt is receptive he feels his policies are being forgotten and his advice ignored by the man he put in the white house between the two Republican leaders the one-time close friends Roosevelt and T the struggle for Domination grows with time into an storic split in the party says Rosevelt in the presidential campaign of 1912 my hat is in the ring the fight is on and I am stripped to the buff unable to win the regular Republican nomination which again goes to task he strikes out on his own feeling as he puts it like a bull moose his self-styled Progressive faction becomes known as The Bull mov party and in a rip roaring campaign he Rouses his followers we fight in honorable fashion for the good of man kind we stand at Armageddon and we battle for the Lord the fighting Colonel campaigns on a program of welfare legislation and the vote for women and not even the bullet of a wouldbe assassin in Milwaukee interrupts his Whirlwind tour but the split in the Republican party is fatal the Roosevelt rallies more followers to his cause than TA in the end it is the Democratic candidate woodro Wilson who PS more votes than Roosevelt and Taff together Roosevelt's third party dissolves he admits the fight is over we are beaten for the first time in the 20th century a Democratic president takes office woodro Wilson a striking contrast to the outgoing task scholarly or steer a reformer the profound change in political leadership in Washington is symptomatic of Graver times to come in America in the world formerly president of Princeton University and Progressive governor of New Jersey woodro Wilson is intent on solving America's domestic problems by eliminating what he considers special privilege and by curbing the power of the monopolies he calls his program the new freedom but woodr ironically finds himself deep in international Affairs as soon as he takes office in Mexico American interests and American lives are endangered by political uprisings armed clashes and Anarchy after more than 3 years of what he calls watchful waiting woodro Wilson is compelled to to order American troops to the Mexican border National Guardsmen and regular Army troops head for the Rio grant their mission to pursue and capture the Mexican revolutionary leader Poncho via who has been raiding across the border Killing American soldiers and civilians destroying American Property the American people demand he be brought to the United States for trial and Punishment their patience is exhausted 15,000 troops prepare for Action South of the [Music] Border this is not a war it is a punitive Expedition but before Pancho via and his hard riding guillas can be punished they must first be tracked down across difficult unfamiliar terrain and captured Brigadier General John J persing orders his troops into the Chihuahua Desert with the saber wielding 11th United States Cavalry in the van [Music] [Applause] [Music] the changing pattern of War a forecast of tomorrow the airplane put into action by the United States Army for the first time but the new machine in the air is no more effective than the traditional foot soldier on the ground in finding the Lawless The elusive pcho casualties on either side are few and the fruitless hunt for the outlaw Peters out overshadowed by the drift of world events the war that has broken out in Europe the Great War cancels the significance of a mere border skirmish United States withdraws from Mexico withdraws from [Music] yesterday once again from Sagamore Hill Comes The Voice to which the nation has listened since the century began Theodore Roosevelt urges his countrymen to prepare for the conflict he knows must come and once again they listen it is his last great service and President Wilson says events have made US citizens of the world there can be no turning back we are provincials no longer there is no turn back but there is pause on the brink of the future Americans with the ordeal of world war still before them with their sense of self-sufficiency as yet unshaken emerged gradually reluctantly from their provincial past as the innocent years Fade Into history but on the great days of remembrance like the 4th of July the old Joys the old simplicities survive and every heart beats true under red white and blue PA a [Music] [Applause] [Music]