Consciousness Across the Void 1973 Part 1
- Transcript
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This is the apocalypse. For the next forty five minutes the strategic air command and voluntary cooperation with soviet authorities will conduct a cataclysmic orgy of self destruction during which the world's major cities will be reduced to a thin layer of radioactive dust. I repeat this is only the holocaust. Had this been a test, you would have been instructed to go right on doing whatever you were doing before this broadcast began this concludes the history of Western civilization. [Music] [Music] [Music]
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[Music] [Music] You are listening to consciousness across the void. Well, Mr Nixon's impeachment is proceeding according to schedule. It's true the president does have a slight touch of the Watergate flu. Probably a psychosomatic illness that,
uh, that he's gotten as a result of recent events. I, somebody asked me if I felt sorry for Nixon and I said 'yes, I feel sorry for anybody that's in a bad situation.' Then I thought about it for a few minutes and, I, it occurred to me, yes, I feel sorry for Nixon, and I really do feel sorry for Nixon, but in the same sense that I feel sorry for Hitler because he lost World War Two. This may sound a little bit facetious but, uh, I'm not being facetious. When sometimes people are so absolutely determined to destroy their own lives and the lives of other people in the process that there is quite literally nothing I can do to stop them. This is due to the fact that we're all free. Nixon is free to mess up his own life and unfortunately he's free to mess up quite a few other lives in the process. I have an article here, an editorial, from the
New York Times for Sunday, June seventeenth nineteen seventy three. And I thought I was doing some radical things about Watergate before I saw this. The New York Times puts me to shame here. It's much better stuff than anything I've said about it and, uh, I'm supposed to be a radical. The name of this article in the New York Times about Watergate is called 'Subverting America' and I think it's worth listening to, and thinking about. "If political," this, I'm quoting from the article now... "If political tyranny ever comes to America it is likely to arrive not in the guise of some alien ideology such as communism or nazi-ism but as a uniquely American way of preserving this country's traditional values. Instead of tyranny being the dramatic culmination of radical protest and revolution, it can come silently, slowly like fog creeping in on little
cat feet as TS Elliot put it. The Watergate scandal is a profoundly sinister event because in so many of its aspects it reflects an authoritarian turn of mind and a ready willingness on the part of those at the highest levels of government to subvert democratic values and practices." This is the New York Times talking. "Tyranny was not yet a fact but the drift toward tyranny, toward curtailing and impairing essential freedoms, was well underway until the Watergate scandal alerted the nation to the danger. That is what Senator Lowell Weicker Connecticut Republican had in mind when he referred on the opening day of the Senate hearings to the perpetrators of Watergate as men who almost stole America. What would constitute tyranny in the United States? It would involve producing Congress to a peripheral role in making government policy, discrediting the political opposition,
suppressing the more aggressive forms of dissent, intimidating television, radio, and the press, staffing the courts with one's own supporters, and centralizing all of the executive power in the hands of the President and his anonymous totally dependent aides." And that is a pretty good description of how it's been, uh, how it is done how it's been done in other countries. Uh, that's my parenthetical comment on that. Uh continuing, with the times article "during his years in office president Nixon has made discernible progress toward all of these objectives." And that is true. "There is no evidence that he aspires to dictatorial authority for himself but there is abundant proof that he seeks to alter the balance between the power of government and the liberties of individual citizens. There is evidence too that Mr. Nixon's guiding philosophy is that the ends justify the means. Virtually all the major figures in his political entourage,
campaign manager, deputy campaign manager, chief fundraiser, white house counsel, personnel attorney, white house staff chief, domestic policy chief, and appointment secretary, have now been implicated in an allegedly illegal or unethical behavior. So many gangster, gamesters pulling dirty tricks cannot be an accident. Their presence in the top level of the Nixon administration reflects a philosophy of ruthless pragmatism." And you can read fascism, if you wish. Uh, again that's my parenthetical comment. Continuing with the Times editorial, "a lively competition between the two major parties is at the heart of the American political experience. To rig that competition in an election year by trying to frame the chairman of the other party, by tapping the telephones, stealing the mail, and bugging the offices of the opposition politicians, and by
sabotaging the campaign activities of opposition candidates, and collecting information to blackmail them, to try to rig the outcome of an American election in this despicable fashion is to subvert self government. It is as subversive as the actions of any communist agent or ku klux klan lynch mob." This is from the New York Times. "In his testimony before," and this is what, this is it what- they point something out here that burns me up. "In his testimony before the Senate Watergate committee, Jeb Stuart Magruder explained the ethical basis of the administration's actions on the grounds that public officials had beco- had become 'somewhat enured' to illegal activities after years of contending with anti war protesters who violated the law deliberately." And I remember when Magruder said that and it burned me up at the time and I didn't know why consciously at the time but, uh, this editorial explains why it, uh, aggravated me so much. "But
those who openly and peacefully violate the law in obedience to their conscience do so because they believe their moral witness will help society to change an unjust law or an unjust policy. Such protesters emulating Gandhi, Thoreau, Martin Luther King, and other apostles of civil disobedience are prepared to go to jail for violating the law, even though they think the law is unjust." And Nixon and his group were not openly violating the law. They were, uh, covertly violating the law. They were not prepared to go to jail and they were not acting out of conscience they were acting out of an attempt to grab power. "Only revolutionaries who want to overthrow society commit violent," I'm continuing subverting America, "Only revolutionaries who want to overthrow society commit violent or terroristic acts and then seek to escape capture and conviction. Civil disobedience casts up some difficult moral and legal
questions but it affords no pretext or justification for government officials and politicians in the governing party to violate the law in secrecy and then cover their misdeeds with perjury. Such misdeeds are not acts of individual conscience. They are expressions of the gangster mentality that typifies every authoritarian political movement. There are those who find Watergate 'boring' and think the media are devoting too much attention to it. But since the dawn of human history, Pollyanna has always been more popular then, than Cassandra. What matters is not whether some Americans are weary of the evil tidings of Watergate but how it affects their thinking about their own responsibilities as citizens and about their government and their country. Watergate was a series of crimes and conspiracies against individual liberty, against the democratic electoral
process, and against lawful government. Only when the great majority of citizens know the full story of these crimes and conspiracies can the restorative work of reform and renewal begin." For some months now I've been predicting the impeachment of Mr. Richard Nixon and, moreover, I've been advocating the impeachment of Richard Nixon for his crimes. Uh, precisely obstructing justice and, uh, attempting to sabotage a free election. And the reasons, the reasons that, uh, I would like to see him impeached were put out, set out in this article. For a long time, he has been, as they say, uh, 'trying to reduce congress to a peripheral role in making government policy, discrediting the political opposition, suppressing the more aggressive forms of dissent, intimidating television, radio, and the press, staffing the courts with his own supporters, and centralizing
all of the executive power in the hands of the President and his anonymous totally dependent aides.' And one of the more profound revelations to come out of the Watergate hearings was John Mitchell's testimony last week. And the thing about it was not that Mitchell directly implicated the President but that in order to avoid directly implicating the President, he had to admit that he is a fascist. Uh, and I, I mean this literally and the term fascist can be used literally. Fascism does have some theory behind it. It originated in Italy with Benito Mussolini and its theoretical basis is the worship of power. It is that, been, gaining more power is the, uh, is the ultimate basis for all of one's actions and that this criterion
overrides other criteria. And when Mitchell got up and was asked, uh, what about ethics? What about the possibility of, uh, destroying Nixon's second term? What about, why did you arrogate to yourself, uh, making the decision not to tell him that the White House was involved in the, in the Watergate burglary? Mitchell said, well, ethics and all that had to go out the window because, uh, we wanted and Mr. Nixon to get elected and that was, uh, that was the basis for his decision. Uh, grabbing power. I'll have more to say about Watergate a little later. Right now, we have, uh, Columbia's own Homer Humbug with us in the studios. Being a sensitive soul of exceptional moral purity, Homer
Humbug has become distressed at today's laxity of morals. Homer, who is Colombia's answer to Socrates and Aristotle combined, has written an essay on ethics. In this priceless treatise, Homer illuminates the path to virtue for all right thinking Colombians. I, I might point out that Homer's opinions are not necessarily my opinions, but that should be obvious. Take it away, Homer. Virtue is a rare commodity nowadays. But so is gasoline and fresh air. Boy, I'm sounding just as profound as Eric Sevareid. Everywhere I walk I am impressed by the stifling atmosphere of moral pollution. Yes, even here in the most civilized moral city of the cosmos there's a laxity of decency. It's not just the young people who were acting irresponsibly. The old fogies and geriatrics aren't behaving themselves either. Therefore, since I'm one of the unblemished few to still tread our city streets, I feel it's my civic duty to implicate higher ethics in my fellow
townsman so they may walked the path of virtue rather than into the proverbial abyss. To begin with, people are too materialistic. They should realize that while money can't buy happiness, it can sure make you comfortable while you suffer. I've always firmly believed in the triviality of other people's wealth. People should think loftier, more ethereal thoughts. Unfortunately, most people are obsessed with indecorous thoughts of debauchery. That's right, indecorous thoughts of debauchery. The obvious solution to this problem is for people to eat less food. This will have two beneficial effects. First of all, if people are hungry all the time they will contemplate food rather than indecorous thoughts of debauchery. Second of all, there will be less of the demand for food and hence my grocery bills will go down. And here's another problem, some people probably intellectual eggheads or crazy hipsters, tell us that people are too morose and unhappy nowadays. They say we should all smile more often. Well, they are all wrong.
We should all snap, snarl, scowl, and lear more often. I know what undercurrents of hostility flow through most people and you're smiling faces don't fool me one single bit either. Another symptom of the decadence of our age is the fact that people are always griping about the most trivial details. Gripe, gripe, gripe. That's all they ever do is gripe. You have no idea how much these nattering nambie pambie complaining people irritate me. These complainers fill me with great distress, make me bite my nails, and cause me insomnia. I just can't seem to get any peace of mind lately. Also, a great danger to virtue is the number of crackpots running loose in our community. Any pretentious fool who can speak in solemn tones is allowed to have his say. He could probably even speak on the airwaves. The folks of Columbia are being forced to lend their ears to the worst sort of sophistry and humbug imaginable. And let me tell you something, too. And I say this to you in a very stern tone of voice. You may think that wisdom is an antiquated relic of the
past. But let me sagaciously inform you that wisdom is an undying virtue not to be scoffed at [cough] or coughed at either. In order to correct the deplorable situation nowadays and to return to old fashioned decency I want all right thinking Colombians to repeat the pledge of virtue after me. Alright, all right thinking Columbians, I want you to repeat this after me on the air and, uh, we can exclude from, you know, the right thinking Columbian's from that, we can exclude the long haired frilly, ah, you know, liberal types from the east coast and what not. I mean, I want, you know, solid, you know, one hundred percent Columbian's. Okay, here it is. I promise to do my best to honor my mother and my father, to think kindly of Ol' Mizzou, to behave like a native of Columbia rather than a barbarian from Jefferson City, to help old ladies across the street, to be pure of heart and cleanly of mind, to buy less food, and to think only lofty thoughts. I promise to do these
things in those names of unalloyed virtue; Mary Poppins, Debbie Reynolds, and Thom Andersen. Thank you, Peter. Thank you, Homer. Your mic isn't on, is it? Thank you, Homer. Nixon, uh, nixon's toadies and groupies and followers, followed him for eight, for twelve long years after his defeat in 1960 and for eleven long years after his defeat for the governorship in 1962. Nixon, at that time said you won't have Richard Nixon to kick around anymore. Well, his followers then elected him, extorted sixty five million dollars, well, they didn't extort all sixty five million of those dollars but they extorted quite a few of them for his campaign, and George, and George McGovern was defeated.
But then, then they got they, they became tired of their, their hero. The American people were were rather bored one summer. There were nothing on but re-runs on the television that summer. And so, the Watergate hearings occurred. I think that next summer instead of holding a new scandal they will probably re-run watergate. But Nixon, Nixon's downfall finally occurred brought about by his own lack of awareness and his own lack of concern for the people of the world and the people around him. And the reporters and people who had brought him as far as he as they had were the ones that helped him on his road to final oblivion. Dick Nixon was their motto and Dick Nixon they did.
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for yay I speak verily unto thee that unless this civilization wakes up will be doomed. The universe will smite it into the ground and the cosmic administration will reassign everybody on the planet Earth to a different planet, to a different karma or to the same continuation of the karma we've earned on this planet. I can feel the galaxy spinning. I can feel the Earth spinning around the Sun, around the star, that's on the edge of this galaxy. Megalomania has captured my soul. On the love list today I love Dave and Dan and Jan and Steve and Russell and
Sharon and Celeste and Beanie and Tokin' Ronnie. The Alaska pipeline that last report was going to go through. America was going to continue with its car ego planetary destruction trip. Americans continue to delude themselves concerning their oil consumption. Everybody in America knows that, that this country's consuming vast quantities of oil. Consuming all the oil for all our descendants for thousands, perhaps millions of years and they, they complain because they don't have enough oil, they're not consuming enough oil. They delude themselves and tell themselves that the tank is not running dry and, uh, the oil companies, of course, are using the, this spoiled brat attitude of the American people in order to, in order to, to, uh, destroy and ravage the
Alaskan wilderness. Thawing out the tundra, laying pipelines that will carry that would carry hot oil at tremendous pressures across earthquake zones, disturbing the migrations of caribou, to say nothing of, of, of using up all the planet's oil. That oil's there on the North slope. It's not going anywhere. We can use it in a hundred years or a thousand years or ten thousand years when we need it for our tractors so that the, so that we don't all have to go out and hoe our food. This, this planet cannot feed as many people as it has unless there's gasoline for the tractors. If we burn up all the gasoline for the tractors, and it's already happening, tractors are already running dry in the fields. Then, uh, millions of people will starve because it's not possible to raise as much food without mechanized agriculture as it is, uh, with it. And, uh, yet, uh, just to ride around back and forth people are willing to put this trip all
not only on themselves but on their children and their grandchildren and their, their children's children. And yay, I say verily unto thee, if this civilization doesn't shape up, doesn't straighten up and fly right, it is indeed doomed. Doomed perhaps to a cataclysmic apocalyptic destruction that will be very obvious and dramatic. Or perhaps, uh, doomed to a lesser more subtle forms of punishment by the universe. Living in an ugly paved desert environment where all the land has been strip mined, where all the caribou have been killed, where all the birds, uh, have been wiped out by insecticides, where there's no, uh, no oil, no resources of any kind. Not with a bang, but a whimper. But perhaps with a bang. I warned Richard Nixon. I told him when Brezhnev was here and when he was given a
week's recess from his, uh, impeachment proceedings that if he didn't sign some kind of, if he didn't start dismantling his bombs that he was very likely to get impeached. Well, Nixon wouldn't listen to me. He did not dismantle the bombs and now he is suffering the consequences of his decision. He's in the hospital or so we are told with the Watergate flu. I read in the newspaper recently that a war cult shrine, right here in Missouri, is, was destroyed by fire. The headline in the Missourian, the same Missourian for Friday July 13th 1973 that says 'Nixon In Hospital' also says millions of files lost in military center fire. [clears throat] This is Overland Missouri near St. Louis. Millions of military records of discharge of retired army, navy, marine corps, and air force personnel were destroyed or damaged Thursday by fire
by fire in the military personnel records center here. Included a general services administration spokesman in Washington said the sixth floor of the building, where the fire broke out shortly after midnight, houses service records for more than twenty million American men and women with service between World War One and Two. The fire, I think, is now still smoldering, uh, I believe it spread to the fifth and fourth floors and destroyed several million, uh, army records. Included were five million records from World War One, nine million from World War Two, and six million between World War Two and 1960 including the Korean War. There were also records of the three hundred thousand Vietnam era veterans. Warrior cult, I reckon. And slowly smoldering as it inevitably would and as one could predict. It's a hopeful sign. Perhaps the species will survive.
the Mururoa French nuclear hydrogen bomb test is still scheduled although it has been delayed somewhat by the enormous wave of protests that are sweeping Europe, Australia, and New Zealand, and Japan. The Mayor of Hiroshima has protested the French hydrogen bomb test off the Japanese coast, uh, which is in a earthquake zone. Dr. Linus Pauling, I heard on the radio this morning four o'clock, this morning. There was an interview with Dr. Linus Pauling and he was talking about the the radioactivity that will be released into the atmosphere if this test is conducted the uh hydrogen bomb exploded in the atmosphere releases vast quantities of carbon fourteen it converts nitrogen and carbon fourteen, and strontium ninety. Human beings assimilate this radioactive carbon radioactive strontium and
radioactive iodine. Dr. Pauling recommended for the people in New Zealand, and Australia that they might be able to take extra iodine, and extra calcium so that their body would assimilate a little bit less radioactive material into the bones. This radioactive material that will result from this test assuming it is carried out causes cancer and birth defects. It seriously pollutes the the germ plasm pool, the gene pool of the planet earth and it can predictably cause numerous cases of cancer. Doctor Pauling's figures were that if the french tests are carried out in the atmosphere instead of underground where there would cause far less radiation, but it would cost a few million more dollars to do that you see, so they're going, the french, are still planning to do them in the air, but if they do, do them in the air. Fifty thousand cases of cancer will result worldwide according to Dr. Pauling's figures. And
50,000 babies will be born with birth defects, will be born deformed. Just like the thalidomide babies. And protest is sweeping Europe it's interesting how protests sweeps Europe. When I was in Europe I happened to be in Spain, and there happened to be protests sweeping Europe concerning attempts by Basque nationalists to secede from Spain, and Franco was having some Basque people hanged, or shot as an example. And the people of all the rest of Europe are protesting. The French were refusing to deliver milk to Spain. Demonstrations were being held were being held in all the major cities. Of England, France, uh Germany, the Netherlands, and huge demonstrations were being held in Spain uh supporting Franco.
It's just, it's kind of interesting how Europe communicates with itself. And right now the same thing is happening over the french nuclear bomb tests in the pacific the Merouroa tests. The English have refused to deliver mail to to France, refused to take things across the English Channel. The Spanish are protesting and refusing to..to trade with France. The people in Holland have protested very vigorously, and are also refusing to deliver mail to France. This protest has resulted in the tests being delayed, but as of, as of this morning the tests are still scheduled to go on. This civilization for a long time now we've been living on borrow..borrowed time, this civilization has. Uh at the very latest, we passed the break even point in 1969. I believe the universe was willing to give us a certain
grace period. During which we had the opportunity of waking up, taking apart all these bombs and just uh burying the pieces or or or storing them for the day when we can generate electricity with them without creating uh a long lasting nuclear pollution. This point was passed, I think at the very latest, in 1969. Somehow, we made it all the way through the fifties. In 1945, the early forties, I mean the late forties. It looked very much like there might be a nuclear war, but somehow it didn't happen. During the fifties there were times when things got very tense. In nineteen forty eight Stuart Symington advocated uh in his speeches dealing with the problem of the atomic bomb right then and there. We had, we were the only country that had the bomb at the time, and Churchill, and Symington both advocated going into Russia telling
them they were going to dismantle their bombs and telling them we were going to dismantle ours we're going to deal with a problem right then and there but nobody listened to churchill or to simonton and somehow we made it through the late forties somehow we survive the fifties through an extremely improbable series of unlikely circumstances we survive the entire turbulent period of the nineteen sixties how we did will probably never be known but now it's nineteen seventy three and oh and the only thing that's keeping us alive that is keeping you and me alive keeping human beings alive on this planet and western civilization is sheer improbability itself there are so many hundreds of millions of stars in this galaxy so many hundreds of millions of suns for planets to revolve around that no matter how unlikely and event is it will occur somewhere so no matter how improbable survival is we do have to assume that we will survive
because if we do survive and if we havent an assumed that we would we'll obviously be in trouble but it's not any skill on a part of any world leaders not any humanity or compassion or rationality it's not any technical perfection thats keeping us alive because there is no technical perfection five russian airplanes civilian aircraft carrying the very elite of russia's society the people they need most their planners their bureaucrats their ministers of agriculture of communication and transport uh these airplanes have crashed these people have been killed and these airplanes for the very best products of russian engineering technology their missiles are no better than their engineering and it's well known that russian engineering isn't even as good as american engineering it's also well known that america's nuclear weapons systems are far from failsafe in spite of the pentagon's assurances that they don't plan to have any accidents well an
accident is by definition an unplanned occurrence Of course they're not planning to have any accidents. Nobody ever plans to have an accident. If these things..these things can be taken apart..taken apart, survival itself is so tantalizingly close and yet so far away one man one single human being the president of the united states could take the dramatic and necessary first step in the continued evolution of the human race of declaring that america would start the dismantling of its nuclear arsenal we would declare that since we have overkill ratios of fifteen that we would..we would dismantle three..three-fifths of our bombs. were still have enough to kill everybody in the world three times and that would be enough for even most bloodthirsty kill advocates and then we could see if the other countries didn't also start dismantling their bombs we could
just simply go ahead and dismantle all our bombs in a week probably in three days and say look world this is the example were setting we invented these things we're taking them apart we think the human race has a chance to survive but we've gotta wake up and start doing it and get on with the job but since since since we're not taking any steps to ensure our own survival we continue to live only due to the sheer improbability itself and due to this life on the earth becomes more and more improbable more and more surrealistic with every passing day we're getting close the lids have come off the boxes as we said in a story in lahore tell our lives have come off the boxes and everything is jumping from from one box into another
there are no longer any boundaries boundaries are disappearing and everything's melting together we're getting very close there other interesting stations on the radio KBIA sometimes has interesting things on as another station called WBBM this is news radio chicago and the way you find a WBBM if you if you have an am fm radio i assume you're at least listening to one now what you do is you set your radio or switch on fm tune to play KFMZ and then switch to am without moving the tuner and then you can and then you will hear WBBM on news radio chicago you can only hear it at night because they increase power at night and the atmospheric conditions permitted to be heard and they have news twenty four hours a day and that's that's one way that i'm able to
keep up with a lot of events going on in the news you might enjoy listening to that i'm not i think i'm helping KOPN by telling you there are other good radio stations uh on the radio in columbia and in united states theyre on your ether on your on your dial on your spectrum because people who get a hope uh and into the habit of listening to their radios saying instead of being in the habit of listening to their television set and everybody will benefit people of KOPN people of uh all the people who are opposed to consumerism since the takes much less consumption to produce a radio than it does to produce a television set i got my radio out at the uh I believe its the broadway shopping center and on west broadway where they have that drive in movie theater uh i believe it was allied radio and it cost twenty dollars
dollars and its just a small am fm radio i can pick up salt lake city i can pick up new orleans i can pick up mexico i can pick up chicago and uh its its many interesting things are heard i i don't know whether contributions have been coming in little better lately are not for you who who have already subscribed for your $10, please ignore what I'm saying now contemplate your navel or something but if you havent and this is this is all of to pay the electricity nobody here gets any money what money you send in we we use to pay for the electricity and the rent and the water and we do the radio thing ourselves just for the love of it if you do not pay for the electricity that you and we are using then
obviously the station will cease to exist since the electricity does have to be paid for and if KOPN ceases to exist columbia will be doomed to an eternity of top ten and she will sink back into the dark ages end of commercial i have an interesting article from the st louis post dispatch here from the poplar bluff the title of the headline says state starts crack down on vice in poplar bluff poplar bluff june eighteenth this is from post dispatch prostitution long tolerated as an economic benefit in this all america city in southeast missouri has come under state scrutiny in recent weeks an investigation by the post dispatch and officials of the missouri liquor control board
has disclosed the scores of men are engaging scores of women are engaging in prostitution in several taverns and hotels downtown the prostitutes officials say regarded by some in the business community as assets to the city's economy. The city which has a population off sixteen thousand is the trading center for a wide area. Actually Poplar Bluff has a population of twenty five thousand there is political gerrymandering are involved in the uh manipulation of the census figure which is why the post dispatch has an erroneous census figure one former police officer described poplar bluff as the vice center of southeast missouri i know myself the poplar bluff used to be called little chicago that it was a railroad town around the turn of the century and other law enforcement officials said in an interview that he had seen hundreds of prostitutes come and go in this town in the last few years a spokesman for the liquor control board said his agency has begun a drive to eliminate
prostitution in taverns one prostitute named linda said in an interview that she was encouraged by a tavern owner to work from his establishment because her customers spend money they're just she was not permitted to use her own room in a downtown hotel instead the hotel owner requires the men to rent other rooms as a result of the investigation beer license of two clubs one less than a block away from police headquarters the other within two blocks have been suspended for prostitution related offenses prostitution has been going on there for at least thirty years that i can remember said a liquor control board spokesman we're going to try to stop it wherever we can the post dispatch investigation disclosed that there had been periodic but unsuccessful attempts by st louis hoodlum elements to organize the prostitutes and extort money from them police have told of being offered bribes by some prostitutes to permit them to operate without official interference one of the latest attempts by st louis area hoodlums
to penetrate prostitution here was made several years ago by william B tex redden who along with his wife joyce was killed in rural jefferson city rural jefferson county in august nineteen seventy one redden was described by law enforcement officials as one of the largest and most active organizers of prostitution in the st louis area a police official said a number of prostitutes had complained that redden and another man had threatened them with physical harm if they did not hand over a percentage of their earnings quote "we had enough problems without those two" the official explained. we brought them in for questioning and told them to get out of town and they did other sources said st lewis D shoulders of st louis racketeer who was slain last august near branson had been seen in recent years in the area but his activities couldn't be traced at the time another police officer told of having been offered fifty dollars a week by a prostitute named donna
and her procurer to ensure that she would not be arrested the officer said he had refused and had warned them that they would be arrested if Donna was caught engaging in prostitution. Some authorities complained that the influx of prostitutes into the area in recent years had been responsible in part for an increase in the use of narcotics such a connection was discovered by st louis police investigating the murder of marvin G spradling twenty six years old of poplar bluff last august twenty nine in his room at the quality inn motel fifty one twenty oakland avenue spradling whose murder remains unsolved had told friends in poplar bluff several days earlier that he was going to st louis to arrange the purchase of a large quantity of narcotics spradling a known police character had been released a short time earlier on ten thousand dollars bond after being arrested in a narcotics raid in poplar bluff at the time of his murder spradling was carrying the telephone number of the broadway tavern
two hundred twenty eight south broadway the taverns in poplar bluff the taverns beer license was suspended on may eighteenth for forty eight days after an undercover police officer was solicited for prostitution and taken to a room upstairs accompanying spradling to st louis was jimmy cawdell another known poplar bluff police character his wife evelyn was a bar maid in the palace spradling had been known to associate with prostitutes there mrs cawdell who also was in st louis at the time admitted to police that she too had worked as a prostitute in the palace her husband also had been arrested with spradling in the poplar bluff narcotics raid in addition authorities have uncovered a connection between prostitution here and in the fort leonard wood area by here they mean in poplar bluff where vice was conducted openly until last fall and that time warfare between two opposing gangs for control resulted in state and federal investigations law
enforcement officials here said that a number of women had traveled from this area to pulaski county to work in a house of prostitutes during a period's at the post authorities say prostitutes come from as far away as california to work in poplar bluff which was named one of eleven all american cities for last year by the national municipal league in the Saturday evening post. Linda, the prostitute interviewed, said she was from arkansas and had come here about six months ago to work as a prostitute the tavern in which she works is in the three hundred block of south main street a block from city hall and the poplar bluff police department sounds like the van noy to me me she said three or four other prostitutes worked out of the governor she was interviewed there tavern owner quote never saw any never says anything to us
about not working in the place linda said he keeps telling us that we shouldn't solicit the men but that we should let them solicit us." She explained that the owner had told her that by removing the element of solicitation authorities would have difficulty proving prostitution chief of police william pierce agreed that solicitation was a key factor in prosecuting prostitutes the woman continued that she often made as many as four to six dates a night in the tavern and that she maintained a list of steadies the owner told us that we should try to get our dates to spend some time in the place so that they would spend a lot of their money in..in the bar" she said. The prostitute said she was not required to pay a percentage of the money she earned to the tavern owner see she said she took the men to the hotel where she resides about a block down the street but she added the owner of the hotel keeps telling us that we can't take them to our own rooms that we have to make them rent another room there for three
dollars i guess it's because the owner wants to make some money out of it too she said that she like most of the other prostitutes she knew worked as an independent and did not have a procurer although a couple of men have tried to get me to work for them residents of the city have complained about open solicitation for prostitution in recent years one man a former policeman who asked that his name not be used said he had been approached by three women in one block one evening recently one he said was a sixteen year old girl whom he knew one of them came up to me and asked me if i want to spend a little money and have a good time she recalled and this was within a stone's throw of police headquarters. pierce the police chief said the department took what he considered to be a realistic attitude toward prostitution quote prostitution is a misdemeanor and the maximum fine is one hundred dollars he explained
if we have to provide them with an attorney and all that then we spend more money than we take in he said he had been approached by some businessmen who have suggested that the department quote "go easy on the girls because they spend a lot of money in our stores another police official explained some of the businessmen want it here because it attracts business most of them the prostitutes i never bothered because they don't bother anyone but the ones who are rolling every married guy who comes along because they know he won't complain are the ones that i'd go after the other governor whose license was suspended was the triangle club two ten cedar street which also is near city hall a license was suspended for eight days this month after an undercover agent was solicited for prostitution and that ends the post dispatch article vice crackdown in poplar bluff state starts crack down on vice in poplar bluff and there's a little filler here is that
i will read for what its worth called housing problem london upi Leonard Vincent, an architect and town planner, told a symposium that Britain would have to to build the equivalent of eighty new cities of one hundred thousand inhabitants each to handle its estimated population by the end of the century i'm peter stokely you've been listening to a somewhat attenuated and lengthened version of consciousness across the void due to the fact i think well somebody didnt come in was it bonnie anyway im going to go of the air now and put on some music and somebody else will come on
- Contributing Organization
- KOPN-FM (Columbia, Missouri)
- AAPB ID
- cpb-aacip/518-9g5gb1zf3x
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- Description
- Episode Description
- Commentary by Peter Stokely, "one of KOPN's earliest pundits" (from cpb-aacip/518-v97zk56q5t reel box). Topics include the Watergate scandal, ecological concerns, local and national news.
- Rights
- Copyright New Wave Corporation/KOPN Community Radio. Licensed under a Creative Commons Non-Commerical 4.0 International License (https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc/4.0/).
- Media type
- Sound
- Duration
- 01:03:09
- Credits
-
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Host: Peter Stokely
- AAPB Contributor Holdings
-
KOPN-FM - KOPN Community Radio
Identifier: rro0022 (rro0022)
-
KOPN-FM - KOPN Community Radio
Identifier: cpb-aacip-518-9g5gb1zf3x.wav.mp3 (mediainfo)
Format: audio/mpeg
Generation: Proxy
Duration: 01:03:09
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- Citations
- Chicago: “Consciousness Across the Void 1973 Part 1,” KOPN-FM, American Archive of Public Broadcasting (GBH and the Library of Congress), Boston, MA and Washington, DC, accessed December 12, 2024, http://americanarchive.org/catalog/cpb-aacip-518-9g5gb1zf3x.
- MLA: “Consciousness Across the Void 1973 Part 1.” KOPN-FM, American Archive of Public Broadcasting (GBH and the Library of Congress), Boston, MA and Washington, DC. Web. December 12, 2024. <http://americanarchive.org/catalog/cpb-aacip-518-9g5gb1zf3x>.
- APA: Consciousness Across the Void 1973 Part 1. Boston, MA: KOPN-FM, American Archive of Public Broadcasting (GBH and the Library of Congress), Boston, MA and Washington, DC. Retrieved from http://americanarchive.org/catalog/cpb-aacip-518-9g5gb1zf3x