Voice of the People

The People's Ratty, selling Mennen's shaving cream, talcum powder, et al. to Sunday afternooners on MBS's nine-station network, is a weekly cross-patter of sense and nonsense run by veteran Commentator John B. (for Bright) Kennedy in a 192-seat theatre 50 stories up in Manhattan's Chanin Building. The nonsense part is a studio audience participation quizz game called "quixie-doodles" conducted by Comic Bob Hawks. Sample: "Could a baseball game end in a 6-6 tie without a man touching first base?" Answer: "Yes, if the game was played between two girl teams." The sense part is a weekly question of public importance, debated earnestly before the microphone and then put before radio listeners at large.

Last Sunday's People's Rally was important for two reasons: 1) it marked Radio Wheelhorse John B. Kennedy's 15th year on the air; and 2) it sought public opinion on whether the Neutrality Act should be changed to permit shipments of arms to nations which have been attacked. To take the affirmative on last Sunday's question, Kennedy picked in-&-out Liberal Oswald Garrison Villard, was surprised to find Villard an out-&-out neutrality man. Keeping Villard to say the nays, he then got Nation Correspondent Louis Fischer for the affirmative.

Said Fischer: "The Neutrality Act ... is wrong in principle. We sell airplanes to France . . . because we want her to be stronger if attacked by a Fascist aggressor, but we refuse airplanes to Democratic Spain, which has already been attacked by two Fascist aggressors." Said Villard: "The purpose of this Act is to prevent our being drawn into war. . . . America must stay at peace. Who are we to set ourselves up to judge which side is right and which side is wrong?"

Said 60% of the People's Rally balloters: The Act should be changed.

Real neutrality problem of the People's Rally any week is keeping Mennen's out of the argument. This circumspect Journalist John B. Kennedy has thus far managed adroitly in a rich, forensic brogue (with occasionally dropped aitches) that has been on the air longer than that of any news commentator except CBS's H. V. Kaltenborn. His first radio stint took place in 1924, over WJZ, when he was 30 and associate editor of Collier's. In 1925 Collier's installed him on the Collier's Hour that continued until 1931. After Collier's Hour went off the air NBC hired Kennedy as a staff commentator. His biggest season was 1934-35 when, hired out to Packard, Continental Oil, Lucky Strike and RCA Victor, he collected $100,000.

Quebec-born, of a French Canadian mother and an Irish engineer father, ruddy, grey-maned John B. is 45, lives comfortably in suburban Larchmont, N. Y. plans to taper off on radio work to devote his time to developing a fictional sleuth to succeed Chesterton's Father Brown.

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