'War
of the Worlds'
by Bill Miller for
the Mail Tribune
Monday, November 4th,
2019
The sun had set behind the Jacksonville
hills. Sunday was almost over, and the boy had not finished his homework. If
only he could listen to Charlie McCarthy on the radio.
 |
| Charlie McCarthy |
With a click, the Crosley radio in the
living room corner began to hum. An announcer’s voice faded in. “The makers of
Chase and Sanborn Coffee bring you Edgar Bergen and Charlie McCarthy.”
The boy, pencil in hand, stretched out
on the carpet and began his homework. But then — a woman began to sing. Time to
turn to something else until Charlie came back.
As his mother entered the room, she
heard what sounded like a news reporter.
“Ladies and gentlemen, this is the most
terrifying thing I have ever witnessed. ... Wait a minute! Someone’s crawling
out.”
Mother turned up the volume.
 |
| Radio Cast, War of the Worlds, October 1938 |
Snake-like creatures were coming out of
some sort of cylinder and, with streaming jets of flame, burning barns, cars,
and people.
A government official who sounded like President Roosevelt
confirmed that this was an invading army. Was this the long anticipated attack
of the Nazis?
A neighbor woman was banging on the
door. “They’re wiping out the East Coast!” she screamed. “We’re next!”
The mother called the Mail Tribune. A
reporter assured her that the newswires were quiet and nothing was happening.
She turned back to the radio, where a
reporter was pleading, “Isn’t there anyone on the air? Isn’t there anyone?”
There was a pause and then another
announcer. “You are listening to a CBS presentation of Orson Welles and the
Mercury Theatre on the Air in an original dramatization of
“The War of the
Worlds” by H. G. Wells.
The next day, Oct. 31, 1938, newspapers laughed at those “elite easterners” who had exposed their ignorance.”
Mail Tribune humorist Arthur Perry
poked fun at “those hometown half-baked morons” and reported that “everybody
scared by that radio broadcast on Sunday is now back from the hills and out
from under the barn.”
The Ashland Tidings reported that City
Attorney Frank Van Dyke had called the police station three times, worried that
the Granite City was in danger.
Not everyone thought the Sunday evening
panic
was humorous.
In a long Mail Tribune editorial, Editor Robert Ruhl defended hysterical radio listeners, reminding smug readers, “It is always so easy to be wise AFTER the event. BUT do you remember that extraordinary broadcast of the burning
Zeppelin that graphic, breath-taking eye-witness
account?”
was humorous.
In a long Mail Tribune editorial, Editor Robert Ruhl defended hysterical radio listeners, reminding smug readers, “It is always so easy to be wise AFTER the event. BUT do you remember that extraordinary broadcast of the burning
The Hindenburg Zeppelin had crashed
only a year and a half before, but the horrified reporter’s voice was still
fresh in everyone’s memory. “Oh, the humanity!”
The Tidings called the panic “making a
Mount Ashland out of a mole hill.”
In an unscripted epilogue given the
night of the broadcast, 23-year-old Orson Welles had apologized. “We
annihilated the world before your very ears and utterly destroyed CBS. You will
be
relieved, I hope, to learn that we didn’t mean it, and that both
institutions are still open for business.”
Could Martians really invade the Earth?
Reporters sought assurance from science.
“It is a remote possibility,” said
University of Oregon astronomer Hugh Pruett. “But don’t be alarmed. Mars is so
far away it would take hundreds of years for a space ship to travel that far.”
Years in a spaceship, perhaps, but what
if they traveled on imagination?
Writer Bill Miller is the author of
“History Snoopin’,” a collection of his previous history columns and stories.
Reach him at newsmiller@live.com.
