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Speaker 1 [0:01]
From Forest City, North Carolina, we bring you the 1957 Voice of Democracy Awards Program. The broadcast you're about to hear was recorded Saturday night at the Forest City High School, as the 1957 state winner in the Voice of Democracy Contest was announced. Musical selections are by combined segments of the glee clubs from Cool Springs High School in Forest City and Central High School of Rutherfordton-Spindale directed by Miss Martha Thomason and Miss Frances McCardwell, the principal addresses delivered by Major General Capus Waynick Adjutant General for the state of North Carolina. The next voice you hear will be that of Lee [Canigh], state JC chairman of this year's contest.

Lee [0:48]
On behalf of the North Carolina Junior Chamber of Commerce, I extend you a hearty welcome to the climax of the 11th annual voice of democracy contest sponsored by the Jaycees, the National Association of Radio and Television Broadcasters and the Electronic Industries Association. And during this program this evening, you're going to hear the winner and two runners up, announce the winner will present in person the winning script on the subject. I speak for democracy. Since September throughout our state, the Jaycees have been promoting this year's project. And I'm very happy to report that a total of 73 clubs conducted contest and 203 North Carolina high schools, resulting in a total of 8,181, 10 11th and 12th grade students thinking, writing and speaking of democracy, when you hear the winner script, please consider the fact that 8180 other young people in our state, and three quarters of a million over the nation have written and spoken on the same subject. Think if you will, the influence the sincere thought and concentration on the values of a free democracy may have on the young people of our country. And then you will know the purpose of the voice of democracy contest. Ladies and gentlemen, it is my pleasure now to introduce a man who has been of a measurable assistance to me in staging this event. A man well known throughout our state and our nation, a leading businessman, publisher and radio executive, my boss, Mr. Adam Anderson, Mr. Anderson.

Adam Anderson [2:47]
Many thanks Lee [Canigh]. And greetings friends. Forest City is highly honored to have the pleasure of being host to the North Carolina Voice of Democracy Awards Program. And this atomic age when cold wars rage throughout the world, for the survival of the principles of democracy, or communism, I think it is particularly fitting that we have a contest among our high school students of North Carolina, the nation on the timeless subject of I speak, for democracy for this significance awards occasion. We are particularly fortunate in having a great North Carolinian and a great American as our guest speaker. For a number of years he has written he has spoken and he has labored for the causes of democracy. He's a native of Guilford County, and he was educated at the University of North Carolina. For quite a while he served as the editor of two outstanding North Carolina Daily newspapers, the Greensboro Daily Record and the High Point Enterprise. Later he served with distinction as the chairman of the North Carolina Highway Commission. And since that time, he is saved with equal distinction as the United States Ambassador to Nicaragua, and to Colombia in Central America, where he really spoke for democracy. Since returning to the American soil four years ago, he has filled other very important posts and recently he was appointed by Governor Luther Hodges as the Adjutant General of North Carolina. It is my great pleasure and privilege to present to you, a distinguished editor, a great statesman, and a public servant. Major General Capus Waynick.

Capus Waynick [5:36]
Mr President, Mr. Anderson, ladies and gentlemen, it is refreshing to be involved tonight, in a program centered about the competition of young men and women of high school age who are expressing their faith in democracy. The competition is nationwide. It is my privilege congratulate those who have won the awards in their districts and in this state. I am honored to have this opportunity and pleased to express here my very best wishes for success of our state entrant in the national competition. But all the congratulations will not be showered upon those who won in the competition. They are extended also to all who competed because it would be impossible for any of you who entered this competition to come out of it without a new sense of democratic values. The fact that you have studied and reduced your thinking to written form means that you've had a liberal course of instruction in the essence of the force that we call democracy. Today is the anniversary of a better experience for this democratic nation of ours. 16 years ago, today, an autocratic government launched a sneak attack at Pearl Harbor. Even while our government in all sincerity, was negotiating for the preservation of a just peace with Japan, this day in which a great president of the United States declared with live long in infamy because of that surprise attack, is a proper anniversary, to challenge us to a re study of the Democratic concept and its present force in the world. Perhaps all of us need to have a re study of the Democratic concept. What does faith in democracy mean? What should it mean? Is it necessary for us too soon, Vox Populi, Vox dei II, that the voice of the people is the voice of God, in order to have confidence in more and more democracy in human affairs. I do not think so. It would be irrational to expect us to conclude that the people are always right, when they express their will. We've had too much experience with mass error to be deluded into the belief that the majority always is right. I think we can be aware of the imperfections of human judgment without losing faith in democracy. One of the great American apostles of democracy Thomas Jefferson, was fully aware that the majority could be wrong, that the voice of the people was not necessarily the voice of God. The history of mankind is replete with instances in which individuals have stood out in stern, and unswerving loyalty to an ideal against the will of a mass. And Thomas Jefferson was well versed in history. But this American statesman, one of the great of our race, still pleaded the righteousness of democracy and government and the danger of its betrayal. He urged that the people be trusted with ultimate political decision. But he also advocated better and better education to the individual, in order that the verdict of the mass might be quite a correct verdict as often as possible. It was Jefferson who wrote that if he had to choose between the government without newspapers, and newspapers without government, that he would choose the latter. He was paying his respects to the importance of a medium for the spread of information and the education of people to meet their democratic responsibilities adequately. Jefferson said that the best of governors become dangerous and tyrannical if left to their own devices. Without the corrective force of the voice of the people. I am sure that today Jefferson would expand his statement to include with newspapers new media of communication to the people, one of which is represented here tonight as a sponsor for this event. RFO of course, to the National Association of radio and television broadcasters, their affiliates, producers and merchants of radio and television sets, I am sure that he would have embraced in his comment datian, the Junior Chamber of Commerce, one of the most effective instruments of democracy that exists in the country. I reappoint this reference to the emphasis a great Democrat, placed on means for informing and educating the people is to stress the fact that such instrumentalities are as important as and perhaps more important today than they were when he first gave his appraisal. All the early Americans were not democratic in their faith. Many of them wanted to establish a monarchical government, some were anxious to restore dependence on England. In fact, while the quarrel was hot, and before the War of Independence, Jefferson himself expressed the fervent hope that differences would be reconciled and the old relationship under certain restrictions would be restored. After the Revolution, however, Jefferson consistently held to it, that we should repudiate European political methods and create a new kind of government based in faith in man's capacity for self rule. He wrote, and I quote, I am persuaded myself, that the good sense of the people will always be found to be the best army. They may be led astray for a moment, but will soon correct themselves. The people are the only sensors of their governance, and even their errors will tend to keep these to the true principles or their institutions to punish these errors too severely would be to suppress the only safeguard of the public liberty. The way to prevent these irregular inter positions of the people is to give them full information of their affairs, through the channel to the public papers, and to contrive that those papers should penetrate the whole mass of the people. What he said then about papers, of course, applies with equal force, to our newly devised media of communication. Jefferson continued, the basis of our government being the opinion of the people. The very first object should be to keep their opinion, right. Is if people become inattentive to the public affairs, you and I, Congress, and assemblies, judges and governors, shall all become wolves. It seems to be the law of our general nature, in spite of individual except exceptions, and experience declares that man is the only animal which devours his own kind, for I can apply no milder term to the governments of Europe, and to the general prey of the rich and the poor. A quotation from Jefferson. Division existed among the founders of the American republic, about how our government should be established, and how it should function and division exists today in all parts of the world. They are well define but presently submerged political force in Europe, a kind of association of a certain brand of political philosophers believes that government should be strong, resourceful, and peculiarly fit, and aristocratic control in which the masked man would have very little influence, and no real power. With this group in the shadow, and communism out in the open and rampant, it cannot be said that the world is safe for democracy. Under these conditions, it's very important how you who have participated in this competition feel and think about how the world shall be governed. Just a little while those of you have been studying to prepare for this competition will be charged with responsibility for developing a rule of action for your state, your country and human society generally. That is why it is stimulating to hear your personal reflections about the significance of democracy and its future. I note that the rules under which you competed, stipulate that your handling with a subject must be positive and affirmation of faith and the justification of it.

Capus Waynick [15:32]
You are specifically charged not to spend your energy in denunciation of other forms of government. In speaking for democracy, are in considering how we may support democracy, it is not sufficient merely to believe in the principle. Positive action and consistent intellectness are needed to make democracy effective. It is possible to start with a political system which professes to depend on the will of the people for guidance and gradually to work the system into policies and practices which really defeat expression of the will of the people. Perhaps that is why through the years, we have insisted that a frequent return to fundamental principles is essential to liberty. In a complex society, we find it difficult to apply the will of the people to government with the direct effectiveness of a New England town meeting. For instance, in this country, we have emerged into a new new world out of an era of confidence, simplicity, as far as America is concerned. For a long time, we assumed that the world could be made safe for democracy, and that no power could arise strong enough to threaten its destruction. Some years ago, we talked much about fighting a war to make the world safe for democracy. That was the slogan with which we went to battle. We finished the contest feeling perhaps we had put down the last great threat to the progress of democracy in the world. We have had a very rude awakening. Democracy faces its greatest testing right now. And we'll face it continuously into an unknown future. It is true that the forces which are seeking to throttle democracy are not candid. In the evaluation of democracy. On the contrary, they have adopted the shibboleths of democracy. The Russian government claims to be a dictatorship of the proletariat, and charges that our nation has deserted democracy for Imperialism. These false claims should not deceive. But unfortunately, they do deceive some. They have obscured the fact that communism as it exists in Russia, is truly the wolf in sheep's clothing, representing the greatest betrayal of democracy in history. The informed world knows how little the people of the Russian Empire have to do with making decisions about their own government. But a frequently restated lie can be dangerous. It is not apparent that in the top thing we call a Cold War, that the really the democratic forces of the world are gaining ground, in the bid for the hearts and minds of mankind. In 1950, it was my privilege to appear on several occasions on the program of the Voice of America. At that time, I suggested to some of the young men in the program making that perhaps we had failed to identify our primary Cold War target. It seemed to me that the primary target should be not communism, but totalitarianism an attack upon totalitarianism not new but as old as human government could be convincing. An attack on communism as a secondary target we could make logical and probably effective, but to lecture a hungry orient on the eve of his socialistic economic system, in which he might hope to be part owner of his own factory and store seemed to me to invite failure. There is a yearning in every man for personal dignity and a sense of importance. It's not difficult to prove that under totalitarian government, the individual is deprived of this sense of power and responsibility. The press to press home the conviction that totalitarian power is dangerous, and should be put down appeared to me to be our most important and propped up proper objective in the Cold War. Obviously, we are face to face with greater uncertainty in respect to how the world shall be run than ever before in history. We have treasured the idea that we could bring a society build a society in which every man good, have a kingly personality, we confront the possibility that we may have to fight again with extremely dangerous weapons, if democratic for inaction or to prevail. Under these conditions, reflections such as yours about democracy seemed to me to be laden with high potentiality. Democracy can be lost by failing to understand it, and to appreciate both its weaknesses and its power. And once subdued, in a political system under which the man is a chattel of the state, who can feel confident that the people ever could arise again and sing. Those who believe in the corrective power public opinion and in the basic righteousness of the popular verdict must study the weighs in means of making really effective their democratic faith. Those who have that faith will deploy efforts to defeat democratic process are sub-verdict and must be active in promoting every educational policy move that promises to strengthen the capacity of the people to make their will known and effective. The political dangers that men like Jefferson pointed out, do not change basically, with the centuries. It's as true today as an 1800. That an expression of an informed public opinion can rectify what is wrong with government. And without such a force, democratic processes become clumsy, and can be defeated. Recent developments in the world show the danger of failure to establish and maintain means for the expression of the popular will. The world trembles in fear of the possibility of a third great destructive World War. And yet people in the mass in every nation in every corner of the earth want peace. This includes the people of Russia. An American reporter recently returned from a lengthy European visit, describe, quote, the feeling of futility among the people in quotation expressed by a young woman in Athens when she said, even if the people read the truth, they can't do anything. It is a political leaders who decide what happens to all of us and who caused all the trouble. This reporter wrote, people as people are not mad at anybody to the point of wanting to go to war. They are tired of fighting and wanting destruction. The people are for the most part friendly and helpful to strangers in their midst. Not only Americans but Europeans from other countries. That's the end of the reporters quotation. My friends, it is alarming to reflect how small a number of men can make the decision in present world society between peace and war. It is a decision upon which the lives of 10s of millions of people depend. But the means are not in hand for the people who want peace, to ensure that there will prevail with respect to peace or war. This statement is not made in the spirit of pessimism. But to suggest that we still are far from be having government of the people follow the people and by the people. It has not perished from the earth but neither has it prevailed in the affairs of mankind. Does it not challenge us to correct what ails our democratic institutions with more democracy and to do what we can to advance the day when the people's right to decide their own fate will rest securely in the people's hands. And how can this be done? The method is not easily determined. But we have every reason to believe that there is no other assurance of lasting peace than that to be found in increasing the sweep and effectiveness of democratic action. Under present conditions even in countries where democracy is exalted political decisions dealing with dangerous problems remain the privilege and responsibility of too few people under present conditions, the scientific developments which are mankind will all the gleaming inexhaustible energy of the sun can be appropriated and used and debauched by the ambitious and sometimes power mad few somehow this must be made impossible if we are to have security and a truly good society can anyone offer a more promising device for such assurance than the device Jefferson proposed that that people be trusted to regulate their own governments ours is the higher responsibility if we believe with him and others of like conviction to hunt for ways and means to make the peace loving people supreme.

Lee [29:28]
Now ladies and gentlemen, the big bomber has come for the announcement of the winners, the 1957 Voice of Democracy Contest in North Carolina and none other could be more appropriate and the present these prizes to our winners this year than our own president of the North Carolina Jaycees. Mr. Jack Sharpe, Jack Sharpe, ladies and gentlemen.

Jack Sharpe [30:00]
Thank you, Lee. First of all, I would like to take the opportunity to congratulate on behalf of the North Carolina Junior Chamber of Commerce not only these 10 Winners represented in the finals of our democracy contests for this year, but all of the 8181 students who participated in the contest and all of those who helped them their teachers and advisors, and all those who worked so many hours in the JC clubs throughout the state, and putting on this contest, we in the Jaycees are extremely proud to have a small party in such a big project as this one is. And now it's my extreme pleasure to announce the third place winner the North Carolina boss a democracy a second runner up goes to Miss Barbara Hancock from Union Mills Second District.

Jack Sharpe [31:25]
I was just reminded of a very big item. Third place is a check for $100. Our first runner up second place a check for $175 goes to Mr. Don Prince from Asheville, North Carolina.

Jack Sharpe [32:03]
Our first place winner a check for $250 and who will represent North Carolina in the National Voice of Democracy Contest from the fifth district in North Carolina, James R. Copeland the third from Burlington.

Jack Sharpe [32:40]
Also along with the check, James goes this beautiful trophy signifying you as the state winner inscribed on it presented by the North Carolina Jr. Chamber of Commerce. Also with the wording Voice of Democracy, with the sponsors of it the Electronics Industries Association, the National Association of Radio and Television Broadcasters and the US Junior Chamber of Commerce this trophy goes to you sir.

Lee [33:13]
And that isn't all one of our co sponsors. The North Carolina Association of Broadcasters also are offering awards to our top place winner. And so it's my pleasure, this time to introduce to you the President of the North Carolina Association of Broadcasters and general manager of WIRC in Hickory, North Carolina, Mr. Ed Smith.

Ed Smith [33:48]
Thank you very much, Lee. It certainly is a pleasure for the North Carolina Association of Broadcasters to have a place on this fine program here tonight. Our individual stations numbering some 90 odd radio stations and seven television stations have long taken a vital interest in this Voice of Democracy Contest yearly. That is evidenced by the way our stations have provided recording facilities and have helped the Jaycees and local communities with the elimination contests on the local level. This year, our association as a whole decided that we should offer two nice prizes to the first place top winner in the statewide Voice to Democracy Contest. And I'm very happy to do that at this time. I'd like to call James R. Copeland the third of Burlington up to the mic again and let me present you James with this portable radio set from the North Carolina Association of Broadcasters and also this portable television set from the North Carolina Association of Broadcasters. I want to extend you my sincere congratulations on your great achievement I want to express our congratulations to all the other finalists in the second and third place winners and if I have just a moment here I'd like for James to give us a word about what career he's chosen. What are you going to do after college James?

James Copeland [35:37]
Tell you sir, my father's in a textile business. I'd like to go into that but if not thinking about being a lawyer.

Ed Smith [35:43]
Well that certainly is appropriate I know there are a lot of people in the United States today who want more and more scientists if I could make a suggestion as a result of your victory in this contest. I'd like to see you become a coast to coast commentator to interpret to our radio audiences of the future space travel and satellite congratulations again

James Copeland [36:10]
Thank you.

Lee [38:44]
For your pleasure and inspiration we take pride in presenting this year's winner and the Voice of Democracy Contest the state of North Carolina, James R. Copeland the third with his winning script, James Copeland.

James Copeland [39:08]
I speak for democracy the voice of democracy is a mighty voice because it is made from the tones of individuals who speak their own thoughts. And from the group chorus which speaks as a united choir. Christopher Columbus, looking at the dubious spaces of the sailors around him spoke the first words for democracy when he said selloff although he was unaware of the fact his was democracies first voice because his was the voice of vision. A voice not content to remain static but ever striving to move forward. Democracy has the voice of freedom also. A voice which has had many individual's spokesman Roger Williams, insisting that all who colonized Rhode Island should have religious freedom. Paul Revere warning that the British were coming. Nathan Hale, regretting that he had but one life to give to his country. Thomas Jefferson pinning the Declaration of Independence, Abraham Lincoln, in a speech at Gettysburg, Woodrow Wilson, striving to make the world safe for democracy. General MacArthur saying to the embattled forces on the Philippines, I shall return. These are just a few of freedoms voice that have spoken for the Democratic idea. In our democracy, we not only have voices of freedom, but voices of action also. Take Betsy Ross sewing our national flag Molly pitch loading a musk Luther Burbank and George Washington Carver working to produce better plants for human use. Albert Schweitzer giving the Magic Touch of his fingers to the keyboard of an organ and to the surgeon scalp so that men in darkest Africa might have a chance to see the lights of truth and freedom. And Dr. Jonas Salk perfecting a vaccine. So the children especially can walk and run, unmaimed by polio. Again, these are but a few of the voices of action, but they represent all people of achievement in the entire free world. Yes, democracy has many voices. The workers talking in the factories, the teachers conducting their classes, the doctors prescribing for the sick, the newsboys calling Extra Extra, the newscasters sending their messages across the airwaves. families gathered around the dining room table. Yes, all these are democracies voice. Voices that must not be silenced. Yet, which we are all too often up to take for granted. Today I speak for democracy because it is not only interested in what I am, but what I can become. Because it doesn't grant me a living, but an opportunity to earn one because it charts no road to happiness, but allows me to seek My own road. And because it gives me the key to freedom. When I accept this key, I accept it as an object which can unlock the door to the responsibilities and privileges of freedom when I want to use them and which can lock these values up when I abuse them. I speak for democracy because it is the only free voice in the world today. A voice that resounds across Planet Earth proclaiming that all men were meant to be free because democracy allows me to speak to thoughts of my own choose to become as much of a person as ability and hard work will allow, to remain an individual in the united group. I speak for it today. I speak with a free voice a clear voice an enthusiastic voice. For without democracy. I should not be allowed to speak at all.

Speaker 1 [44:46]
You have been listening to a delayed broadcast of the North Carolina Voice of Democracy Awards Program. You have just heard the state's winning script by James R. Copeland the third, 12th grade student from Burlington. He will now be entered in national competition representing North Carolina this program came to you from Forest City.