"The March of Time"
Last Program -Friday 9 February
TIME'S Editors thank the thousands of subscribers and nonsubscribers who have taken the trouble to express in writing their regret that "The March of Time"--TIME'S radio program--is going off the air. Herewith, a few of the pleas from high and low that "The March of Time" be continued. Impressively sincere, they point a problem (See Press, p. 30).
Telegrams
Sirs:
UNDER NO CONDITION DEPRIVE THE AMERICAN PUBLIC OF THE EDUCATION AND PLEASURE DERIVED FROM YOUR FRIDAY NIGHT BROADCAST.
J. R. HAWKES
Portland, Maine
Sirs:
TONIGHT I HAVE BEEN IN AFRICA ASIA EUROPE AND AMERICA LET TIME CONTINUE TO MARCH ON INDEFINITELY.
WENMAN A. HICKS
Pittsburgh, Pa.
Sirs:
PLEASE PULLEASE LET TIME CONTINUE MARCHING ON OVER THE AIR EVEN AT THE EARLY HOUR OF FIVE THIRTY PROGRAM INDISPENSABLE AS ENTERTAINMENT AND FOR ITS UNIQUE DRAMATIC EDUCATIONAL POWER MY BUSY DOWNTOWN OFFICES ARE EQUIPPED WITH RADIO BUT TIME IS ONLY PROGRAM, WE TAKE TIME TO HEAR I HOPE YOU GET MILLION PROTESTS AGAINST DISCONTINUING.
HARRY A. EARNSHAW
Los Angeles, Calif.
Senator's Secretary
Sirs:
I sincerely hope that "The March of Time" will never leave the air. It is by far the most realistic, interesting, entertaining and educational program that is broadcast. "The March of Time" must march on.
MAURICE B. PASCH
Secretary to Senator La Follette United States Senate Washington, D. C.
As an army marches on its stomach, so under existing circumstances a radio program can keep marching only on somebody's dollars. Whose?--ED.
Out the Window
Sirs:
If "The March of Time" goes off the air my radio set goes out of the window with a bang that will be heard from Madison, Wis., to the east end of New York's 42nd Street.
"The March of Time" is vibrant and volatile, pithy and pert, with a minimum of advertising chatter. Would you force your listeners to a life of listening to tooth paste propaganda and vacuum-headed crooners?
ART TILLER
Tiller News Service, Inc. Madison, Wis.
Whether or not Radiowner Tiller throws his radio out the window does not affect TIME, the weekly newsmagazine. But radiomanufacturers take note.--ED.
Payments Stopping . . .
Sirs:
Please, please, don't go off the air.
Your program is one of the few reasons I have for not stopping payment on my radio, and allowing the firm to have it back.
SOPHIA B. OPPENHEIMER (MRS. M.)
Baltimore, Md.
Stopping . . .
Sirs:
The next payment on my radio is due Saturday, Feb. 27. "March of Time" goes off Feb. 26th. Just right! Let them come and get the machine! Why keep it after your program goes off? O. J. HAMMERSMITH Fargo, N. D.
Stop!
Sirs:
If "The March of Time" stops, the payments on my radio stop.
In which case I might be able to afford FORTUNE. . . . But hang on to your 8:30 Friday contract, will you, TIME?
So people do write to radio broadcasters!
Fuge, TIME!
WILLIAM LEWIS
Millbourne, Pa.
Radio for Sale
Sirs:
Your announcement last night regarding discontinuing undoubtedly the best program on the air was met with nothing less than a young war.
... If such comes to pass, our radio will probably be advertised for sale for any amount less than a dollar--for who would want a radio with no "March of Time" to look forward to?
Think it over--and have a heart.
CHARLES B. PHIFER
Charlotte, N. C.
Let radiomanufacturers have thoughts, hearts.--ED.
Bulova Watch
Sirs:
The possible discontinuance of "The March of Time" feature is to me the most regrettable occurrence in radio history.
BEN F. SWARTSBERG
Bulova Watch Company New York City
It would not be so regrettable, if there were many another program equally good. --ED.
Nuisance
Sirs:
Please continue to broadcast "The March of Time." It is one of the few programs on the air which make a radio set any more than a plain nuisance.
DEAN C. DENMAN, M. D.
Monroe, Michigan
Calamity
Sirs:
I consider taking off "The March of Time" from the air, not only a great deprivation to countless thousands of us but a veritable calamity as well.
There are so few good things on the air nowadays, things that a person of brains and culture can enjoy. To us, as to any number of others, it was the finest, most worthwhile thing on the air. We looked forward to it so eagerly from week to week. Won't you change your mind, please?
RUTH I. ALDRICH
Madison Public Schools Madison, N. J.
Sirs:
It will be a veritable Calamity if you take "The March of Time" off the air. Why are you giving it up?
ELIZABETH WHITING
Chatham, N. J.
Why? Because TIME'S advertising appropriation is not an inexhaustible fund. --ED.
Epochal
Sirs:
Do not discontinue this epochal "March" unless it is absolutely necessary. Radio broadcasting, still in its infancy, will have slipped back into the cradle if the air loses this milestone.
CLARENCE (BOB) HEBERT
Huntington Park Signal Signal Publishing Corporation Huntington Park, California
Not absolutely necessary; but from the cold, canny dollar-and-cents point of view of the Business Department, no longer expedient.--ED.
Loss
Sirs:
I realize that TIME, itself, may well dispense with this feature as an advertisement, but your radio audience can ill afford to lose such a pleasure and such a delightful source of information as to what is going on in the world.
Don't discontinue it.
A. W. LADD
Astoria, N. Y.
TIME will listen to any reasonable plan for its continuance.--ED.
Shut-in
Sirs:
Don't--please don't discontinue "The March of Time" program--this plea from a shut-in whose only news comes over the radio. Please add my small voice to those others who need you.
MRS. S. KELSEY
Butte, Montana
Petitions
Sirs:
We the undersigned members of the editorial staff of the San Antonio Evening News, vote a great big unqualified "Yes" to the question if TIME'S weekly news broadcast should be continued.
Your timely TIME radiocasts are paralleled only by the excellence of the magazine itself.
S. TOPPERWEIN OSCAR OWENS
F. BLUBES C. F. HUNT
J. C. OSEIN HAROLD YOUNG
EDWARD B. COPE RAY NEUMANN BEN BAINES WM. F. SALATHE
A. W. WALLISER
San Antonio News San Antonio, Texas
Petitions also from clubs, hotel managements and guests, schools, business firms, hospital staffs and patients, apartment house tenants, etc.--ED.
Friend Lost
Sirs:
It's my favorite feature on the air and I look forward to it as it's my main outlet to the important news of the world. If you take ''The March of Time" off the air you lose a friend to TIME.
JOHN H. MALONE
Sparland, Illinois
Truly Damned
Sirs:
One of Pittsburgh's daily newspapers carried the item, with great regret, that you were leaving the air. I am terribly disappointed. You know that radio has often been branded as a moron's source of entertainment, and in the majority of instances this would seem to be the case. Perhaps your withdrawal has been influenced by this thought. But, when sponsors such as you leave the air, the radio can then be truly damned for all its moronic worth.
Your program is an intelligent effort to distribute news, and give one the real feeling of its portent. Anyone can get up and read news dispatches; there are many of these on the air. . . . But, to have news happenings re-enacted: with all their life; giving the listener a physical feeling of living with the news--that is something. . . . You have grouped a body of men and women who have given your program the excellence which it deserves.
GEORGE WUCHINICH
Pittsburgh, Pa.
The Pittsburgh Press news item: "Sad, sad news. The March of Time quits marching next month. To the everlasting credit of the sponsor, it should be noted here that the March of Time was perhaps the finest dramatic presentation ever on the air."--ED.
Art v. Blatancy
Sirs:
You MUST NOT take "The March of Time" off the air! It is by far the most original program on the air: the first real radio art,--and as advertising, how far removed from the uncouth blatancy of most radio advertising.
KENNETH B. WEBB
Hightstown, N. J.
Fireside
Sirs:
Keep "The March of Time" on the air; it is the outstanding feature of interesting and informative radio entertainment: it puts life into the news and brings the news of the world direct to the fireside of the home.
JOHN M. LA RUE
Cincinnati, Ohio
Ringside
Sirs:
"The March of Time" has been the most stimulating and distinctive feature on the air, virtually a ringside seat at history in the making.
Yes, by all means, reconsider your decision.
WM. A. KROENER
Oakdale, Illinois
TIME'S managers have done little else for the past fortnight.--ED.
U. S. Navy
Sirs:
I think I may say that every vessel in the U. S. Navy at sea counts upon your broadcast as means of keeping in touch with vital subjects.
C. H. RIPLEY
Chief Radio Elec. U. S. Navy
Naval Operating Base
New Orleans, La.
TIME regrets the Post Office has no ocean-deliverv.--ED.
Subscriber-Subsidy
Sirs:
Incident to your threat of a moratorium for "The March of Time,"
Surely, it cannot be that TIME, too, is "depressed"!
May I suggest the alternative even,--a subscriber-subsidized "March of Time"!
In any event, let "The March of Time" march with TIME!
EBEN MACKENZIE
Saint Paul, Minn.
Should a few (400,000 TIME-subscribers) pay for the entertainment of many (9,000,000 radiowners) ?--ED.
School Children
Sirs:
As a long-TIME reader I urge continuance of "The March of Time." Countless school children are your beneficiaries.
TYLER KEPNER
Director of Social Studies High School Brookline, Mass.
Backward Step
Sirs:
Don't you dare go off the air.
Your Friday night "March of Time" is one of the few really inspiring, instructive and intelligent programs the people get via Radio.
Let TIME take no backward step.
JOHN J. FOSTER
Del Rio, Texas
TIME backs out of nothing except expense for advertising which it no longer needs.--ED.
Government-Subsidy
Sirs:
I have always been hoping that you would see your way clear to giving us these splendid half-hours twice, or even three times, each week. I even had dreams that the government might be persuaded to subsidize your ambitious news programs so that we could receive them every evening, dramatizing the news events of the past twenty-four hours.
JOE COHN
Monrovia, Calif.
In England 2,731,968 Britons pay $2.50 a year for the privilege of receiving programs of the government-subsidized British Broadcasting Company. Last year (TIME, Mar. 30) British censors refused the air to a re-enactment of the Arctic rescue by Soviet Russians of Italian General Umberto Nobile and other survivors of his polar dirigible flight (1928), ruling it would be Pro-Red propaganda.--ED.
House to House
Sirs:
I have made a house to house canvass in our block and find nineteen of the twenty families all wishing that you continue this program. Out of nineteen families you have ninety-three listeners.
B. W. LOHMAR
Assistant Cashier
First National Bank
Minneapolis, Minn.
Blather, Blurbs, Buncombe
Sirs:
Amid all the blather, blurbs and buncombe hurled through the ether at a long-suffering public, the TIME program has literally stood out like the proverbial "good deed in a naughty world." . . .
Please cast my ballot . . . with an emphatic "Yea"!
D. ARTHUR BOWMAN
Saint Louis, Missouri Bedlam
Sirs:
In these days of bedlam, it is up to someone to teach the people to use their brains and as an educator your broadcasts were good. If you take your radio shows off the air, you will deprive the public of one of the best means of knowing the world's events.
Your magazine and radio entertainments are needed. It is up to you to keep a badly wanted educational feature going.
R. L. SWITZER
St. Louis, Missouri
Poet
Sirs:
Time marches on, 'tis we who stay To hear the tidings you portray.
There's scarce a program on the air With yours in interest can compare.
For hushed attention from the start Pays tribute to dramatic art. If TIME should cease to broadcast now, Some thousands would protest,--and how!
FLORENCE FISHELL
Chicago, Illinois
"The March of Time" is, of course, an advertising campaign. Its specific purpose having been accomplished, TIME'S Business Department sees no need to continue to spend some $6,000 a week on this particular form of advertising. But it now appears that the advertising is considered by many to be a public service. Whose the responsibility to continue it -- TIME'S? TIME-subscribers'? the radio chains'? a philanthropist's? the government's? TIME will gladly cooperate in producing "The March of Time." But TIME will pay for radio advertising only when it desires such advertising. Obviously TIME cannot be expected to buy advertising when it does not want it, in order to perform public service.
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