By DAVID ACORD
Everyone knows about the intense criticism Orson Welles received in the wake of The War of the Worlds broadcast. But few realize that he had almost as many defenders as detractors. Although newspaper coverage of the event made it seem as if almost every American citizen was angry with CBS and Orson Welles, the official record paints a very different picture.
In fact, the responses received by the FCC were almost perfectly split between praise and condemnation of the Mercury broadcast. All told, the Commission received 372 protests against the program and 255 letters and petitions supporting it. Once the individual names on the petitions were counted, the total number of pro-War of the Worlds missives came to 350, just 22 less than the total number of negative responses.
Many pro-Welles supporters were pithy and articulate, and keenly aware of the dangers of censorship. Here are some of the more interesting defense I came across during the research for my book, When Mars Attacked.
J.V. Yaukey from Aberdeen, South Dakota, worked in the state employment office. “I suppose that by this time you have received many letters from numerous cranks and crack-pots who quickly became jitterbugs during the program,” he wrote to the FCC. “I was one of the thousands who heard this program and did not jump out of the window, did not attempt suicide, did not break my arm while beating a hasty retreat from my apartment, did not anticipate a horrible death, did not hear the Martians ‘rapping on my chamber door’, did not see the monsters landing in war-like regalia in the park across the street, but sat serenely entertained no end by the fine portrayal of a fine play.”
Rowena Ferguson of Nashville wrote: “This is to protest against any government agency taking seriously or being unduly concerned about the Mercury Theater broadcast … It was a splendid work of art, and any effect it may have had upon superstitious, short-sighted people should be regretted but ignored. Certainly it should not lead to any form of radio censorship. The evils of a censorship are more far-reaching and harder to handle than instances of error in judgment on the part of broadcasters.”
Roland Fitzgerald of San Francisco penned an equally eloquent defense of free speech. “The man who controls, by censorship, everything that is broadcast, would have as much power as any living dictator, for he could mold public opinion to suit his personal desires,” he warned the FCC. “A law to prevent ‘Panic Broadcasts’ however good it might seem, would but be the forerunner of a law to prevent news broadcasts which might excite the people, then a law to prevent news broadcasts which might influence the vote of the people, and finally a law which would allow the person controlling censorship to cause to be broadcast only such items as suited his personal schemes.”
William P. Glavin of Baltimore was more blunt in his assessment. “It is my personal opinion, stated more than once, publicly in the Baltimore Evening Sun, that the average American, not withstanding his public free education, is a humbug, a blatherskite and a moron. He cannot sit to read a book for two hours, could give you no review if he read it, and cannot sit for ten minutes to hear what is said, proof being, that at least four times ‘War of the Worlds’ was announced as fiction.”
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