An American Crusader - Elijah Parish Lovejoy

"For what avail the plow or sail or land or life if Freedom fail?" - Ralph Waldo Emerson

Starring Franchot Tone and Gail Patrick in play by Robert E. Sherwood. The story of Elijah Parish Lovejoy

Elijah Parish Lovejoy was an American Presbyterian minister, journalist, newspaper editor, and abolitionist. He was shot and killed by a pro-slavery mob in Alton, Illinois, during their attack on the warehouse of Benjamin Godfrey and W. S. Gillman

According to John Quincy Adams, the murder "[gave] a shock as of an earthquake throughout this country". "The Boston Recorder declared that these events called forth from every part of the land 'a burst of indignation which has not had its parallel in this country since the Battle of Lexington.'" When informed at a meeting about the murder, John Brown said publicly: "Here, before God, in the presence of these witnesses, from this time, I consecrate my life to the destruction of slavery."

The Free Company presented original radio plays written by its members Maxwell Anderson, Sherwood Anderson, Stephen Vincent Benet, James Boyd, George M. Cohan, Mark Connelly, Archibald Macleish, Orson Welles, Elmer Rice, William and Robert E. Sherwood - Nine of them Pulitzer Prize Winners.

They called themselves The Free Company of Players. Principal Actors: Burgess Meredith, Henry Fonda, John Garfield, Edmund Gwenn, Nancy Kelly, Tim Holt, Eduardo Cianelli, William Trach, Clinton Rosamon, Charles Bickford, Melvyn Douglas, Clair Trevor, Edward Ellis, Margaret Hamilton, Franchot Tone, Gail Patrick, Sidney Lumet, Myron McCormick, Alan Dineheart, Elia Kazan, Eric Burroughs, Harrington Lewis, Georgette Harvey, The Juanita Hall Singers, Harry Carey, William Davidson, Ray Collins, Agnes Moorehead, Everett Sloan, Paul Stewart, Erskine Sanford, Norman Corwin, Canada Lee, Luis Van Rooten, Paul Green, Edna Mae Harris, Marietta Kantie, Paul Muni, George M. Cohan, Paul Henreid, Eddie Ryan Jr., Lily Valenti, Betty Jane Tyler, Frances Chaney Writers: William Saroyan, Marc Connelly, Robert Sherwood, Stephen Vincent Benet, Walter Van Tilberg Clark, Orson Welles, Archibald MacLeish, Maxwell Anderson, Sherwood Anderson

Originally Broadcast 3/931941
Episode 3

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