Archival Dispatch: Pershing's Retirement Address, September 12, 1924
The National Defense Test Day recording already held by The Archive of American Radio preserves speeches, telephone roll calls, and General John J. Pershing's farewells to four corps commanders. Reviewing the full surviving recording supplies eight named speaker credits and a separate technical crew credit for John J. Carty.
Recording inventory
| Field | Recording details |
|---|---|
| Program | National Defense Test Day Program |
| Recording | General Pershing's Retirement Address |
| Date and listed time | September 12, 1924; 9:15 p.m. EST |
| Surviving duration | 88 minutes, 58.625 seconds |
| Presentation | United States Department of War; telephone links supplied by AT&T |
Series: badadb01-b9d8-4aa7-9998-3c9232171ba3. Recording: 5522a188-4941-411c-b8bb-1f630d1b8d5a.
The revised synopsis reads: “On the eve of retirement, Pershing exchanges reports and farewells with four corps commanders over a nationwide telephone and radio link.” It contains 137 characters and draws on the full surviving recording and its captions.
Speakers and technical crew
Each speaker receives a role and the credit Self. Carty also receives a separate crew entry for work Pershing credits to him during the program.
| Person | Role | Credit |
|---|---|---|
| General John J. Pershing | Host | Self |
| John W. Weeks | Host | Self |
| General John J. Carty | Host | Self |
| Major General Charles M. Saltzman | Announcer | Self |
| Robert L. Bullard | Guest | Self |
| Harry C. Hale | Guest | Self |
| George B. Duncan | Guest | Self |
| Charles G. Morton | Guest | Self |
| General John J. Carty | Director | Telephone and broadcast arrangements |
Pershing speaks with Bullard in New York, Hale in Chicago, Duncan in Omaha, and Morton in San Francisco. The National Archives' Third Annual Report, 1936–1937 identifies their recorded voices alongside Pershing and Saltzman. Carty's Director credit describes the telephone and broadcast arrangements acknowledged by Pershing at about 31 minutes. Pershing's portrait is selected as the primary credit image.
The opening announcer, individual telephone operators, and a later speaker whose name is corrupted in the automatic captions remain unidentified. The notes retain those limits; names mentioned in the audience do not establish speaking credits.
The newspaper schedule
The Birmingham Age-Herald explicitly prints 9:15 p.m. E.S.T. for the program and names WCAP, WEAF, KSD, and WFAA. That time is preserved as printed. September 12, 1924, page 2.
The Evening Star lists the Washington program at 9:15 o'clock and identifies Saltzman, Carty, Weeks, and Pershing as speakers. Its coverage also names WOAW, WFAA, and KGO. September 12, 1924, page 36.
These citations come from the radio-log lookup's newspaper page crops. The Birmingham listing supplies the explicit time zone; no local listing has been converted to Eastern time.
What survives
Western Electric recorded the event onto discs. Two sides were lost during processing, according to the Library of Congress recording essay. The reviewed transfer therefore preserves the surviving recording, with that loss documented in its notes.
This is one special event. The missing disc sides do not establish numbered installments of a serial, so they do not create speculative story parts in the catalog.
The War Department receives the program's sponsor credit. The full surviving recording contains no commercial sponsor spot. WCAP, WEAF, and KGO have separate broadcaster records.
Verification
The full recording and captions were reviewed through the closing sign-off. The audio returned HTTP 200, and its measured duration of 5,338.625 seconds differs from the stored 5,338 seconds by less than 0.02%. The existing MP3 was preserved. Speaker evidence, crew attribution, newspaper sources, and the missing disc sides are recorded in the episode's metadata notes.
The metadata change contains the speaker links and research notes. This dispatch covers the single recording listed above.