News from Our Archives

Newsman by heritage as well as training and experience is John McCutcheon Raleigh, author, foreign correspondent, and new KMOX news reporter and analyst. Raleigh is heard on KMOX’s “Headline Highlights” broadcast Monday through Saturday, 7:45-8:00 a.m., and Sunday through Friday at 12 noon. The former is sponsored by the Griffin Manufacturing Company and Bond Clothing Company while the noon commentary is presented in behalf of Planter’s Peanuts and Peter Paul, Inc.

Born in Helena, Montana, Raleigh attended Purdue and Columbia Universities, after which he did free-lance magazine articles, short stories and radio scripts, later joining the foreign staff of several prominent newspapers.

When the war broke out, Raleigh went to the front with the German armies, presenting international broadcasts as well as continuing his newspaper reporting. He made a careful study of the German army, its organization, its guarded military secrets, and its weaknesses. One of the reports he later made regarding this military machine was used as a supplementary textbook in military courses in this country.

Raleigh also delved deep into the home life of the German people, learning their problems, the truth about the food stored away, the graft and cruelty, the deeds of the SS, its creed and code in Poland, Czechoslovakia, and in Germany itself. This intensive study resulted in the keen insight into Germany revealed in his book, “Behind the Nazi Front,” and in such magazine articles as the Saturday Evening Post’s “Your Son Will Not Return! Heil Hitler!” and Readers Digest’s “Eye Witness Brutality.” A similar study of events in the Pacific led to another book about that area, “Pacific Blackout,” when Raleigh later went to that theater of operations.

Raleigh was CBS correspondent in Bavaria, Java, as well as head of the United Press Bureau in the Netherlands East Indies. Early in January, 1942, he was assigned to Darwin, Australia, and as the war progressed, his reports emanated regularly from Sidney, Melbourne, and from General MacArthur’s headquarters, to which he was attached.

Raleigh’s news career has carried him to the exciting, event-packed areas of the world. In Europe, he watched the ebb and flow of the battle for Gydnia, entered Warsaw where he met and talked with Hitler, was one of two American correspondents detained by the Gestapo in Munich the day after the Burger Kraukeller (beer hall) explosion there. In Shanghai, he served as a member of the Shanghai Volunteer Corps when the Japanese were starting their pre-war “bombing incidents,” was in Hongkong and Amoy, China; in Manila; in Tarakan, Borneo; Palembang, Sumatra; Singapore, Surabaya, and countless other centers of news activity.

Raleigh’s postwar career centers around an intense study of world developments, built upon the intimate knowledge he has of countries. He is a man who lives his work and consequently is in great demand as a public speaker. In 1945, he spoke before 23 groups ranging from 25,000 people gathered at Wold Chamberlain Field for Army ATC ceremonies, to Rotary Clubs and school graduation exercises.

(Originally published in KMOX Mike 12/1946)

One of radio’s busiest and most successful entertainers is Al Bland, veteran KMOX comedian, dialectician, philosopher and creator of the highly amusing “Blandwagon.” Patterned after the highly successful show of the same name which Bland created and broadcast for seven years in Cincinnati, The Blandwagon is heard each afternoon, Monday through Saturday at 3:45 p.m. over KMOX.

This daily quarter-hour program of recorded hit songs of the day is interspersed with the homey wit and philosophy of Al Bland and the fun-provoking figment of his own imagination, “Mose,” the mythical studio janitor.

A versatile emcee, comedian, actor and accomplished dialectician, Al Bland is a veteran of 18 years in radio, the last three spent on station KMOX. Formerly he appeared on Stations WCMI, WPAY, WKRC, WMAL and WCKY, where he was program director for more than two years. Since joining KMOX, he has been featured on such programs as “The Old-Fashioned Barn Dance,” “Al Bland and the Ranchers,” and “Open House” (formerly “Breakfast at the Park Plaza”). Prior to the creation of “The Blandwagon,” he broadcast the popular “KMOX Victory Panel,” a popular late night-time feature.

(Originally published in KMOX Mike 1/1946).

It was a Saturday night, January 31, 1925. Radio, though becoming more common, was still in its infancy. In St. Louis, the St. Louis Post-Dispatch owned a station. So did St. Louis University, Stix, Baer & Fuller and Concordia Seminary. It was only natural that another newspaper might want to generate some publicity.

So the St. Louis Star reached an agreement with the owners of WIL, Benson Broadcasting. While no details of the agreement have been found, copies of the Star from that time refer to WIL as “The St. Louis Star Station.” Its center of operations was the Star Building at 12th and Olive. The call letters had just been changed from the original WEB, and the Bensons used their relationship with the Star to gain a lot of promotional print.

Two days before the big event of January 31, the Star’s front page carried the headline “Tune In on The Star, WIL, Saturday Night.” A huge photo spread the next day trumpeted, “Here Are the Entertainers on the First Regular Program to Be Broadcast By WIL, The St. Louis Star.” Those pictured included announcer Billy Knight “The Little Ole Professor,” guitar duo Wolgast and Girlie, The Arcadia Peacock Orchestra, Okeh recording artists the Arcadian Serenaders, Johnny Maher “The Smiling Songster,” monologist Chester Gruber, and four men who called their group The Missouri Belle Quartette. The show was broadcast at 10 p.m., and the station flexed its technical muscles by taking listeners to the city’s Arcadia Ballroom for the performances of the Peacock Orchestra and Arcadian Serenaders.

The newspaper did its best to promote all aspects of the broadcast, even running an article the day before titled “Latest Equipment Used in WIL, The Star’s New Station.” The accompanying article said “…observers of the skyline looking eastward from the great traffic thoroughfare at 14th and Locust Streets Wednesday received a distinct shock on observing that a huge antenna had risen from a lofty mast upon the roof of the Star Building, 300 feet in the air.”

The station’s studio and office were on the eighth floor of the building. “The walls and ceiling of the studio are lined with acousticelotex to shield the microphone from harmful vibration and improve the tonal qualities of the chamber. This feature is further enhanced by a heavy felt under the carpet, on top of additional layers of Celotex.”

There was no Sunday edition of the newspaper, so the reporters had a full day to come up with the follow-up story to the event: “Radio Fans in 16 States Laud Concert by WIL.” There were three sub-heads: “First Formal Program Broadcast by the Star Saturday Night Was Enjoyed in All Parts of the Country.” “Clarity of Tone Makes Favorable Impression.” “Quality of Offerings Also Pleases, According to Hundreds of Messages Received.” The article described a flood of “hundreds of telegrams” from states as far away as New Jersey, Louisiana and Wyoming.

It wasn’t easy listening to radio in early 1925, as evidenced in the article’s final paragraph, which attested to the sporadic nature of broadcasts: “Tomorrow evening the station will be silent, but on Wednesday night another attractive program will be given. Thursday night is also a silent night.”

(Reprinted with permission of the St. Louis Journalism Review. Originally published 7/1999)