FIFTEEN YEARS "HARD"

Radio Record, 8 April 1938, Page 14

FIFTEEN YEARS "HARD"

What "Alexander's Ragtime | Band’ Means To Originator Oj "Music and Memory". Session

Special to the "Record"

By

Norman

McLeod

Y HEN a man has a good idea, there's usually a good reason for it. Inspiration is the afterbirth of experience. : Neatest radio idea to come out of the blue for many moons was Alex. Scott’s "Music and Memory" session heard from 2ZB on alternate Sunday afternoons at 3 o’clock. The story of why that session was born is as strange as the session itself is apt. ‘Most people do associate certain times with certain events in their lives," said Mr. Scott when I asked him where the brainwave came from. "I’ve found that out in a dozen ways. "But the real germ of the idea of a ‘Music and Memory’ session came from an experience of my own. A painful experience. ‘ "As long as I live Ll will never forget ‘Alexunder’s Ragtime Band.’ I first heard it on a hurdy-gurdy-outside a courthouse in Paterson, New Jersey, just as a judge sentenced me to 15 years’ imprisonment along with a fine of 10,000 dollars!"

A T that time Fir. Seott was earning a precarious deadlihuad. by editing a local weekly paper, and-here is the storv as he told ‘it to me.

while I glanced over a bulky albuin pasted with front-page | stories. Once "Alexander Scott" made banner headlings ° in every newspaper of note in America. Some even ran him in quarter-page cartoons. © "TVX -newspaper," he said, "was a harmless, insignificant "-yag with hardly any circulation. -F had ¢éme from New York at the instigation of a friend to take the job on. He thought there were-‘possibilities in the thing for me, and that if I-didn’t make a uame for myself. as a writer, I would at least gain experience, -He was right. I did both-got the name and experience. I landed in jail, got my picture in every paper in the U.S.A. and even:made bits in the overseas cable news. ° . "It was like this. Only a few weeks after I took over the little paper, a great strike broke out in the silk industry in Paterson, New Jersey. Soon there were 80,000 silk workers out. Clee a , "What a chunce for a young, budding, deseriptive writer looking for a place in the New York magazines! Ont. [ went with my camera and pencil. | ‘ . "What I saw made me very angry, The police had lost-their heads, they were running all over the place chus ing anybody who looked like a striker. on

"Several highly respectable journalists and a big business man from New York, not at all in sympathy with the strikers, were arrested and charged with ‘sassing’. policemen. "J WROTE up a story and printed some pictures in ny little rag and poked fun at the police. All the New York who had sent reporters did the saine ; but what happened to me was just a shame. Five thousand copies of my little

paper were confiscated by the police and L was thrown iute the cell, "Out on bail, a day or two later, I went to a justice of the peuce and swore 9 wur-

rant of arrest against four police officers on a charge. of ¢ theft. They hud confiscated my papers without a seurcb warraut. The New York dailies made a terrific joke out of this: ‘Four policemen arrested,’ and so on. Later, I "was charged with inciting hostility to the Government. and was sentenced to 15 years’ hard labour and a fine of 10,000 dollars. "Pretty good. Oh!-and I certainly wished that I was out on that hurdy-gurdy riding round with ‘Alexander's Ragtime Band.’ "Wye CRY newspaper in. America condemned the sentence -und the Paterson police-and published in full the offending article and pictures, which were mild compared with their own criticism," . "Vifteen years’ hard labour! The Press of America made such a fuss about the business, however, that wheu we took it to the Superior Court of New Jersey, the indictment was thrown out, along with the sentence, and the judges complimented me on the stand I had taken to uphold the American Constitution, "We hear ‘Alexander’s Kuglime Band’ quite a lot these days-those old tunes are still the best--and every time I dv, I see that scowling judge giving me 15 years!"

‘Four Policemen Arrested |