Inheritance - Their Rights and Nothing Else

Inheritance was a joint production of the National Broadcasting
Company and The American Legion and it's Auxliary. The timing of
the production is significant. This was the height of the 'Red
Scare' era, during which The American Legion of the era-- with
the assistance of several powerful right wing Conservative
senators and congressmen--orchestrated the notoriously infamous
'Red Channels' pamphlet which purported to 'out' alleged
communist sympathizers in the name of 'national security.' The
Red Channels pamphlets prompted the development of several
informal--and entirely illegal--blacklists of the era, especially
in the areas of union organizing efforts and The Arts. This was
by no means a Government-sponsored or sanctioned activity. Rather
it was a political and economic activity instigated by powerful
Congressmen and Senators in the pockets of Anti-Union lobbyists
and Defense Industrialists. That the Federal Government of the
era was either too co-opted or too politically cowardly to
discourage this practice remains a national disgrace. But the
fact of the disgrace continues to color virtually every aspect of
the history of the Performing Arts, Literary Arts and Fine Arts
of the era.


 A cynic might characterize this series as a face-saving
effort by the saner heads at The American Legion. Their
connection to the infamous Red Channels pamplets had long been
disclosed by the time the series aired. One might conjecture that
both NBC and The Legion hoped to blunt the criticisms leveled at
both organizations during this era. Given the almost non-existent
promotion of the year long undertaking, the complete absence of
detailed Radio listing information during its run, and the
complete absence of any publicly announced connection between the
broadcasts and their sponsors gives greater credence to this
hypothesis. In fairness, these were also the waning years of
Radio's influence; Television was--and would remain--the new
novelty. Inheritance premieres over NBC Inheritance premiered on
April 4th 1954. Airing for a total of fifty-seven installments,
the production itself was extremely well-mounted--as might be
expected of a year-long sustained network production. The huge,
mostly West Coast casts comprised most of Radio's finest voice
talent of the era.


 The music direction, while not particularly 'A'-List, was
well-suited to the production. The productions were reasonably
historically accurate--yet predictably jingoistic for the era. As
with the Ladies Auxiliary to The Veterans of Foreign
Wars-sponsored American Trail series of the previous year,
functionaries of the respective supporting organizations would
give a brief, topical message throughout the series. The
opportunity to recite one's patriotic beliefs seems to have been
a focal point of most of the 'post-script messages' of the
series. As a 'message series' Inheritance may have slightly
missed its mark--through no real fault of its own, but as a
reasonably accurate anthology of patriotic historical vignettes
the series holds up quite well. As one of the last 'vanity'
productions of the era, the exceptional array of Golden Age Radio
West Coast talent makes for a fascinating snapshot of the waning
years of California's contribution to Radio's wealth of great
actors.


 The writers that contributed to the series were also
remarkable for their era. The writing staff included, among
others, Ernest Kinoy, Karl Swenson, and George Lefferts. The
appearance of two noteworthy science-fiction writers'
contributions to an historical anthology series is interesting
enough in itself, but the contribution of the 'Nancy Hanks'
episode by Karl Swenson--as a writer--is just as interesting.