The World and Everything in It: June 24, 2024

MARY REICHARD, HOST: This is our last week of the June Giving Drive. It’s your gifts that make this program possible, so if you’ve given already, thank you! If you haven’t yet, I hope you’ll give prayerful consideration to it before the end of this week.

NICK EICHER, HOST: The address is wng.org/donate. Now your Monday program!

MARY REICHARD, HOST: Good morning! Today we’ll meet a self-described feisty old lady says you can fight city hall even if you have to convince the Supreme Court first! 

GONZALEZ: And I believe in standing up, even if I stand alone …

NICK EICHER, HOST: Also, today, the Monday Moneybeat. The AI revolution. Are we looking at a replay of the dot-com crash of the 1990s? David Bahnsen is standing by. Later the WORLD History Book. Today, the public-school prayer case.

KENNEDY: It is important for us, if we’re going to maintain our Constitutional principle, that we support Supreme Court decisions even when we may not agree with them.

REICHARD: It’s Monday, June 24th. This is The World and Everything in It from listener-supported WORLD Radio. I’m Mary Reichard.

EICHER: And I’m Nick Eicher. Good morning!

REICHARD: Up next, Kent Covington with today’s news.

SOUND: [Weather siren]

KENT COVINGTON, NEWS ANCHOR: Weather » Authorities in northwestern Iowa sounded tornado sirens over the weekend to get the attention of residents after a levee broke amid heavy rains.

SOUND: [Rushing water]

That sent a torrent of water gushing through the town of Rock Valley.

SOUND: [Rushing water]

The Sioux County Sheriff’s Office posted on social media."We are setting off sirens in [Rock Valley]. This means to evacuate your house if able."

Mayor Kevin Van Otterloo:

OTTERLOO:  People were going on the roofs because the current was getting too strong. Um, until Sioux city rescue got here. 

Flood waters continued to rise through the weekend in Iowa and in South Dakota where Union County emergency management director Jason Wescott told residents:

WESCOTT:  If you feel that you're in harm's way at your residence and you see water coming at you, leave at that time. Um, the county currently is about maxed out on being able to do water rescues at this point.

South Dakota declared an emergency after days of torrential rains. And Iowa has declared a disaster in more than 20 counties.

Israel Defense Minister in Washington » Israeli Defense Minister Yoav Gallant is in Washington today. He’s set to meet with Defense Secretary Lloyd Austin.

Gallant is a rival of Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu inside the ruling Likud party. His visit comes as Netanyahu says the Biden administration is choking off the supply of ammunition to his country amid the war in Gaza.

NETANYAHU: [Speaking Hebrew]

The prime minister said Sunday that “four months ago, there was a dramatic decline in arms supplies from the U.S. to Israel.”

The White House says it has only withheld heavy bombs over concerns about civilian casualties in Gaza but insists everything else is being shipped as it ordinarily would be.

Presidential debate » President Biden and former President Trump will face off this week in their first debate of 2024. CNN will host it in Atlanta on Thursday.

LANDRIEU:  I expect President Biden to do an excellent job, just like he did in the last two debates.

Mitch Landrieu is co-chair of President Biden's campaign. He told NBC’s Meet the Press:

LANDRIEU:  This race is going to be tight, everybody knows that. And it's important for the country to see the difference between these two men.

Landrieu asserted that President Biden is fighting for everyday Americans, while Donald Trump only cares about himself.

Trump in Philly, polling update » Meantime, Trump campaigned in a critical swing state.

TRUMP:  Hello Pennsylvania, it’s good to be with you. 

He rallied supporters in Philadelphia Saturday night.

TRUMP: I’m thrilled to be back in the birthplace of American freedom with thousands and thousands of proud, hard-working American patriots, which is what you are.

Polls show Trump leading in Pennsylvania by about 2 points.

He’s up by roughly the same margin in Wisconsin and by about 5 points in Georgia, Arizona, and Nevada.

Michigan is effectively tied, but recent polls suggest Trump may be expanding the map. A GOP presidential candidate hasn’t carried Virginia in 20 years, but the two most recent polls show the race there tied.

UK election » Meantime, British Prime Minister Rishi Sunak and his Conservative party are facing an uphill battle in next month’s election in the UK.

SUNAK:  Can you really afford Labour's thousands of pounds of tax rises? I want to keep cutting your taxes. That's a choice that everyone has in front of them in a couple of weeks time.

Sunak appealed to voters again Sunday with Labour Party leader Keir Starmer hoping to oust him from the prime minister’s residence at Number 10 Downing Street.

SUNAK:  So as I'd say, don't let Labour sleepwalk into Number 10, scrutinize their plans, ask what it means for you and your family.

But with polls showing the Labour Party up by as much as 25 points, Starmer says Sunak can start boxing up his belongings.

STARMER: This election is effectively over. The Conservatives are gone. They're doomed. They're on the way down. They're going to fall even further. They will lose the vast majority of their seats.

Sunak recently called an election for July 4th, much earlier than many expected.

Russian police, civilians killed by gunmen » In Russia, gunmen opened fire on two Orthodox churches, a synagogue and a police post in two cities on Sunday. The attackers struck in Russia’s southern republic of Dagestan. The largely Muslim region has a history of armed militancy as terrorist acts.

No group immediately claimed responsibility, but the local governor suggested terrorist cells were behind the attack.

I’m Kent Covington.

Straight ahead: Big decisions from the Supreme Court on this week’s Legal Docket. Plus, the Monday Moneybeat.

This is The World and Everything in It.

MARY REICHARD, HOST: It’s The World and Everything in It for this 24th day of June, 2024. We’re so glad you’ve joined us today. Good morning! I’m Mary Reichard.

NICK EICHER, HOST: And I’m Nick Eicher.

Before we get going today, a reminder that we’re down to our final week for the June Giving Drive. We do these drives twice a year and they are crucial reality checks for us: they tell us whether the WORLD audience perceives that we’re delivering on our mission.

And so in a very real way, we’re renewing our commitment to one another. We commit publicly to do the work, and you commit to making it possible.

REICHARD: Another way to think of it: Your gift in the June Giving Drive is like a vote. It says, yes, I’m willing to support the kind of journalism I believe in. Government support or big foundational support tends to erode the tie between the journalist and the community—and we see that in public broadcasting, as you have pointed out, Nick. But I think it’s more than even that. You can see that overall mainstream news media are in crisis. They’ve broken faith. And the public has lost trust.

EICHER: Oh, I think so. This is really a problem across the industry. None other than Peggy Noonan had a column in The Wall Street Journal about it last week. There’s nobody more mainstream media than she is, and I’d like to quote a few sentences:

“The past two decades, accelerating over the past four years, newsrooms have increasingly become distracted from their main mission, confused about their purpose. Really, they’ve grown detached from their mission. … More disturbing, major stories go unreported because they don’t relate to the personal obsessions of the editors and reporters, or to their political priors.”

Isn’t that something?

REICHARD: Well, this is why we’re here. We believe there’s an important and really ought to be a prominent place for Christian journalism in the marketplace of ideas. Genuine journalism that starts from a perspective with Christ at the center.

And the support of Christian people will ensure that it has such a place. So in a sense, it’s up to you.

Many have already done that, and we’re grateful. But so many wait right up to the end, and maybe that describes you. If so, would you during this last week, think deeply, pray earnestly, about your part in the June Giving Drive.

EICHER: wng.org/donate.

It’s time for Legal Docket.

We’re in the final week of the term of the U.S. Supreme Court. Opinions are coming down fast and furious.

Last week, nine opinions, and we’re NOT doing them all today—otherwise, we’d have to take too light a touch.

So we will break these up over today and tomorrow.

REICHARD: Easier on the listener — haha — and the reporter.

So I’d like to begin with the biggest splash: a gun case called US v Rahimi. You can be forgiven if you don’t remember last week. We had a gun case where we stressed it was a matter of interpreting a statute and so was not a fundamental Second Amendment case.

This one today, this one is a bona fide Second Amendment case. And it went 8-to-1 to uphold a law that bans domestic abusers from owning guns.

This was what’s known as a “facial challenge” meaning the challengers are saying the law violates the Second Amendment on its face. That it’s unconstitutional at all times and under all circumstances.

For example, imagine a law that prohibits news outlets from publishing any political opinion pieces critical of the government. That’d be unconstitutional on its face, because it directly violates the First Amendment.

EICHER: Here, a court placed a restraining order on a man named Zackey Rahimi. A man, who, to put it charitably, is not what you’d call a good guy.

Under federal law that restraining order said Rahimi could not possess a firearm for the duration of the order. The law is section 922 of 18 United States Code. So remember, section 922, for a reason that will become clear in a moment.

But Rahimi sued, arguing that taking away his guns under 922 before he’d even been convicted violated his Second Amendment right to keep and bear arms.

As mentioned, Rahimi is not the guy you’d trot out as your spokesman for your cause.

You can hear that’s what was on the mind of Chief Justice John Roberts when he said this back in November to the lawyer for Rahimi.

CHIEF JUSTICE ROBERTS: You don’t have any doubt that your client is a dangerous person, do you?

WRIGHT: Your Honor, I would want to know what ‘dangerous person’ means at the moment.

ROBERTS: Well, it means someone who’s shooting, you know, at people. That’s a good start. (laughter)

Rahimi had a documented history of assaulting, you know, people, of multiple random shootings, and of drug dealing.

REICHARD: On the other side was a much more sympathetic group: The Battered Women’s Justice Project. This group joined a friend of the court brief supporting the government in opposition to Rahimi. The brief noted that a woman living with a domestic abuser is five times more likely to be murdered if he has access to a gun.

Christina Jones is a lawyer with that organization. I called her up.

CHRISTINA JONES: Collective sigh of relief at this 8:1 decision. And the court had no trouble concluding that this statute survives Rahimi’s challenge to its constitutionality.

Jones said the decision clarifies the conditions that have to be met before a court removes firearms from someone:

JONES: And the court held that an individual found by a court to pose a credible threat to the physical safety of another may be temporarily disarmed, consistent with the Second Amendment. The ruling emphasized that the Second Amendment right was not a right to keep and carry any weapon whatsoever, in any manner whatsoever, for whatever purpose. Noting, from the earliest days of common law, firearm regulations have included provisions barring people from misusing weapons to harm or menace others.

One argument on Rahimi’s side was that suspending constitutional rights requires due process. That’s more than what’s required for orders of protection.

Jones says that’s not the proper focus here.

JONES: We're not talking about taking someone's rights away permanently in most cases. We're talking about for the time in which the protection order is in place, the time in which we know that women are most in danger. This is a public safety issue for us.

EICHER: This is a major clarification of a decision two years ago that said Americans have a right to bear arms outside the home, a right that’s well-established in the nation’s history and tradition of firearm regulation.

This ruling in Rahimi shows the high court will uphold some restrictions; it means gun laws don’t have to stick precisely to historical precedent to be valid.

REICHARD: Now back to Section 922 before we leave this case. 922 is the law under which Hunter Biden was convicted this month, another subsection of it. As for Rahimi, he’s serving 6 years in prison.

EICHER: Next opinion … it’s a dispute that has taken a decade for the courts to resolve, and we’ll explain it in about 45 seconds.

Texas v New Mexico and Colorado. It’s a water-rights case, huge controversy in the American west. The chief justice and Justice Brett Kavanaugh agreed with the court’s three liberals, and that allows the federal government to intervene in an agreement among states.

The ruling was 5-4 upholding the federal government’s challenge to a consent decree among Texas, New Mexico, and Colorado. They’d agreed on how to apportion the waters of the Rio Grande. But the Supreme Court sets that agreement aside, explaining that the federal government has a stake here, in part because of treaties with Mexico.

REICHARD: Dissenters Neil Gorsuch, Clarence Thomas, Samuel Alito, and Amy Coney Barrett said the ruling “defies 100 years of this Court’s water law jurisprudence.”

Opinion three with one more to follow: Gonzalez v Trevino. It involves a self-described feisty old lady who tangled with city hall.

It’s good news for that lady, Sylvia Gonzales. She claimed authorities arrested her in retaliation for her criticism of the city manager of Castle Hills, Texas.

Gonzalez spent a day in jail on a charge of mishandling paperwork. She said the whole thing was trumped up and had the effect of violating her right to free speech—the government retaliating because it didn’t like what she said.

So I gave her a call the afternoon that she got the news:

GONZALEZ: Oh, I was so happy that that they saw the truth of what happened to me, and even though we never went to discovery with my attorney, I had a lot of evidence on what they did. … They hid behind qualified immunity, and they broke the law and put me in jail when I did nothing criminal.

EICHER: The lower court had ruled against her, finding she’d not given good-enough evidence to prove her arrest was political retribution.

One of her lawyers at the Institute for Justice Marie Miller explains the Supreme Court’s decision:

MARIE MILLER: The bottom line is that the Fifth Circuit's decision in Sylvia Gonzalez's case limiting the type of evidence that she can present to only comparator evidence, which is basically evidence that another person did the same thing, but wasn't arrested. Limiting the evidence to that is not permissible. You have to consider other types of evidence that retaliation took place here, including Miss Gonzalez's data that she presented in court.

What this case does is refine a precedent that’s been in force for five years. That said if an officer has probable cause to arrest someone, that person cannot sue on grounds that the real reason was retaliation.

But the court tweaked that a bit to say there have to be exceptions, and requiring Gonzalez to give examples of people who also mishandled paperwork but weren’t arrested “goes too far.”

So now Sylvia Gonzalez goes back to lower court, and she’ll be allowed to present her evidence that she says will prove she was retaliated against.

She’s ready:

GONZALEZ: I'm an old lady. I'll be 78 in August, but I’m feisty. I’m feisty. I believe in what is right, and I believe in standing up, even if I stand alone, even if I'm scared, I'm going to stick with it. It hasn’t been easy, though.

REICHARD: This final opinion for today is a win for the government in a tax dispute.

A majority of seven justices in Moore versus U.S. says a provision of the 2017 Tax Cuts and Jobs Act is constitutional.

Here, a couple named Charles and Kathleen Moore invested in a company that provides equipment to poor farmers in rural India. The company did well, and reinvested profits back into the business instead of paying dividends to investors. But that 2017 law levies a tax on the marginal increase in the value of the stock even before the taxpayer sells it and enjoys the profit.

The Moores balked at paying $14,000 in taxes on money they hadn’t received. So they sued.

I called up constitutional scholar Ilya Shapiro for analysis:

ILYA SHAPIRO: The Supreme Court said that tax is okay. It's constitutional, because there's long standing precedent that the court can attribute income either to the corporation or to the individual taxpayer without them necessarily seeing any of that money.

EICHER: Seems unfair, but Shapiro says there’s a shred of good news:

SHAPIRO: In dissent, Justices Thomas and Gorsuch pointed out that the court sidestepped the issue that it took the case to resolve, which is whether realization is necessary for an income tax to be constitutional.

I think that's right. Gut anyway, the way that the Court wrote up its opinion makes it very narrow. So this case got a lot of attention because people were thinking that the court would pronounce on the constitutionality of a potential wealth tax or a tax on paper profits. Those that you don't make it into your bank account, but let's say you own shares or your house that appreciates on paper. Can the government tax you on that? The court did not answer that question. Did not say the government can't do it. Did not say the government can. And so just a very narrow ruling on that particular quirky 2017 provision about profits from U.S. controlled foreign corporations.

REICHARD: But what if a taxpayer doesn’t have the money on hand to pay taxes on income he or she hasn’t actually received?

SHAPIRO: Well, presumably most people investing in foreign corporations do have an extra, in this case, $14,000 lying around. That's the presumption at least. But just like you can be land rich and cash poor, if you can't pay your assessed property tax, you have to figure out a way.

In other words, too bad! But that’s on Congress, not necessarily the courts.

And that’s this week’s Legal Docket!

MARY REICHARD, HOST: Coming up next on The World and Everything in It: The Monday Moneybeat.

NICK EICHER, HOST: Time now to talk business, markets and the economy with financial analyst and advisor David Bahnsen. David is head of the wealth management firm the Bahnsen Group. He is here now and David, good morning!

DAVID BAHNSEN: Good morning, Nick. Good to be with you.

EICHER: David, in a moment I want to ask you about your most recent Dividend Cafe where you get into the economics of Artificial Intelligence, and we’re seeing there’s gold in them there hills. But as far as concrete happenings in the markets or data in the economic world over the last week, I want to begin by asking whether you saw anything rise to the top?

BAHNSEN: You know, it's sort of a lull in the cycle right now, in the sense that the Fed got done having their meeting where everyone knew they weren't going to touch rates, either hiking or reducing them. There's no real companies releasing earnings result right now, because we're near the end of the second quarter, so we'll wait until the middle of July for the quarterly earnings season to begin. That gives us a good understanding of where corporate America is in terms of profitability and their own outlook and guidance going forward.

And in the economic cycle, there wasn't a ton of releases this week. I think across the news cycle, a lot of people are focused on the presidential debate that's coming up, and you're starting to see some things from each respective candidate around their policy vision. I don't think any real big surprises there.

But, Nick, last week, I guess if there was something I would say was most interesting, it is still in the data around manufacturing, industrial production. It's so fascinating to me that there's a kind of mixed bag of data on the economy, mixed bag of data on labor and jobs, and now we're really seeing the same thing in the manufacturing sector. While construction and housing remains dormant—and frankly, the whole housing outlook looks incredibly underwhelming—there are signs of life that pulling out of this manufacturing slowdown may be coming. And the industrial production number was better than expected, and yet it just seems to have a hard time getting multiple months in a row of reflecting the same thing, to kind of validate the data.

So, I think that from a macroeconomic standpoint, where we stand, that's probably where I would highlight the biggest information of the week is just mixed data around manufacturing, which mirrors the mixed data we see in so many other economic categories.

EICHER: Aright. We know investors and financial journalists have this one thing in common: and that is attraction to shiny objects. Nothing is shinier right now than AI, artificial intelligence. There are the infrastructure builders, there are the consumer-products companies. Apple, for example, had its Worldwide Developers Conference and touted the fall release of a new operating system that would feature AI, that is, “Apple Intelligence.” But now that you’ve devoted an entire Dividend Cafe column to AI this past week, David, you’ve clearly been thinking about this for quite awhile. So give us a couple big-picture takeaways.

BAHNSEN: Well, first of all, I want to thank you for teeing it up by saying that I've been doing a lot of thinking, because you are right. It's been me thinking, not a computer thinking for me. And I guess that joke will parlay into a more important point, which is that I don't believe there is ever going to come a time in which artificial intelligence is actually disintermediating the really human things.

Now, part of what I just said is a tautology. It's by definition true: artificial intelligence is not human. And the really human things are human, and therefore AI cannot disintermediate virtue. And I would argue, to a certain degree, the truly ontological elements of a human being cannot be replaced by a computer. So that's one of the first takeaways that I've become increasingly convinced of, is a lot of the hand wringing over AI sort of dystopian nightmares as to what it could do to our society, I sort of categorically reject. And in fact, feel a great deal of confidence that those of us who have a Biblical vision of the human person need not be afraid.

Now, when you talk about it from an investor standpoint, the AI investor angle, so far, has not been about the use of AI, not even remotely. It has been about the backbone of AI. The analogy I use is that if AI is like food, the investors are making money in the ovens, but they're not making money in the restaurants. They're not making money in the actual delivery of the plates of food. It's the back end. And it's impossible, Nick, to look at this without making it analogous to the late 90s that we, all of a sudden, realized this internet revolution was coming—I don't think anyone realized exactly what it would mean—but we knew that it meant something different for the cable companies, for the telephone companies, for fiber optics, and ultimately the devices that would be a part of it.

I see a big parallel there between some of these backbone AI companies that have gone up hundreds of percentage points in a very short period of time, that some will be total failures, some will succeed and be the major player in the backbone of AI, and yet are just simply caught in a valuation bubble right now.

EICHER: And, so I want to pick up on that: the valuation bubble and ask you to define it. But setting the context, you talk about the historic comparison to the 90s and the tech bubble and dot-com crash that followed the rise of the tech billionaire. And so now we have this dominant player NVIDIA today attracting all kinds of investment. But in the 90s we had Cisco, which also was one of the tech-bubble companies. For defining terms, let’s talk about stock bubbles. What do you mean when you say that?

BAHNSEN: Sure. And so part of the problem with the word "bubble" is it doesn't actually have a clear, unambiguous definition. A lot of times the bubbles, I think that they become more definable in hindsight than when you're actually going through it. Look, you mentioned Cisco a moment ago. That's the company we're talking about that I put a chart up of its incredible correlation with NVIDIA's rise up and rise down. But the very important thing is that Cisco is not a failure.

Microsoft is now up a ton in the last seven years. But where it was in 2016 is the exact same place it was in 1999. How does a company like Microsoft and Cisco, that did nothing for that period of time but make money, but grow earnings, but grow revenues? They outperformed the expectations that everybody had, and yet the stock was way, way down. The only reason that happened is because it was way, way up to start with, and up to a point where, right now, you have to believe that NVIDIA is going to grow earnings 2,000% again to kind of catch up to its valuation. If its massive, huge amount of earnings is generating now, were to stay the same, it would take 60 or 70 years to recover their investment.

Now, the earnings will keep growing, but they will not grow at a rate necessary to justify that valuation. That was the lesson of Microsoft and Cisco coming out of 1999. And I want to be clear, those were the winners. Those were the companies that succeeded out of the internet. The companies that failed we now make jokes about. They're gone in the ash heap of market history.

EICHER: All right. David Bahnsen, Founder, Managing Partner and Chief Investment Officer of the Bahnsen Group. You can check out David's latest book. It's titled, Full-Time: Work and The Meaning of Life, and you can check it out at fulltimebook.com. I hope you have a great week ahead. 

BAHNSEN: Thanks so much, Nick.

NICK EICHER, HOST: Today is Monday, June 24th. Good morning! This is The World and Everything in It from listener-supported WORLD Radio. I’m Nick Eicher.

MARY REICHARD, HOST: And I’m Mary Reichard. Up next, the WORLD History Book. Today, NBC broadcasts a series that is for the first time ever a Western. Also, a Supreme Court decision on the practice of prayer.

EICHER: But first, South Africa doubles down on segregation. Here’s WORLD Radio Reporter Emma Perley:

EMMA PERLEY: On June 24th, 1950, the South African government draws lines in the sand with new legislation. Literally.

The Group Areas Act forces native South Africans, Indians, and other ethnic groups to relocate to poorer and smaller geographic regions. Audio from a 2021 interview by SABC News with a woman remembering how it uprooted her family.

AUDIO: I was probably about 7 or 8 years old when we got forced to move out of Simonstown. And for me it was very hard because when we moved to Oceanview, we had no freedom. You were forced to be moved into a flat …

Decades earlier, the government enacted policies targeting nonwhite South Africans. The 1923 Natives Urban Areas Act forced black South Africans out of cities unless working for a white employer. And after the 1948 elections, apartheid—an Afrikaans word meaning “apartness”—became the official position of the minority white regime. Audio from a 1957 interview with South African Foreign Affairs Minister Eric Louw, courtesy of Getty Images:

INTERVIEWER: Will you intensify your present policy of racial segregation?

ERIC LOUW: We’ve carried out our policies, a number of measures have been put on the statute book … whether any further measures are to come, it’s impossible for me to say at the moment.

The forceful relocation of millions of black South Africans causes armed resistance. And the government quashes many insurrections for more than 40 years, until finally apartheid finally ends in 1994 as the regime caves to intense international pressure.

Next, a group of parents sues school board president William Vitale in a lawsuit … against prayer.

SOUND: [CHILDREN RECITING THE PLEDGE OF ALLEGIANCE]

For decades, children often started their school day by reciting the pledge of allegiance and praying for God’s blessings. In most cases, children could opt out of saying the prayer if they weren’t religious. But New York parent Steven Engel took issue with the practice itself. Audio here from the Supreme Court documentary For the People in an interview with Daniel Roth, whose father Lawrence joined the lawsuit.

ROTH: I do remember being terribly self-conscious about not saying it. I felt terribly awkward.

The controversial lawsuit, Engel v. Vitale, eventually reaches the Supreme Court. On April 3rd, 1962, the Court hears oral argument, and releases their 6-1 decision on June 25th. They rule that prayer in public schools violates the First Amendment. Lawrence Roth remembers the day clearly.

ROTH: Well, the case ended. But that was the beginning of, let’s say, the widespread notoriety.

The ruling causes a public outcry as many Americans view the decision as an attack on the freedom of religious exercise. Several states continue to mandate public school prayer and Bible reading after the decision. And President John F. Kennedy addresses the national frustration.

KENNEDY: It is important for us, if we’re going to maintain our Constitutional principle, that we support Supreme Court decisions even if we may not agree with them. In addition, we have in this case a very easy remedy, and that is to pray ourselves.

The ruling becomes one of the most unpopular in the history of the Supreme Court, but demonstrates America’s shift toward secular values after World War II.

HOPALONG CASSIDY INTRO: “Here he comes, here he comes, there’s the trumpets, there’s the drums, here he comes. Hopalong Cassidy, here he comes! Oooh …

Lastly, 75 years ago on June 24th, NBC premieres the Hopalong Cassidy television series. Film actor William Boyd stars as the suave Bill Cassidy, a cowboy gunslinger who captures troublemakers and rescues damsels in distress on his horse Topper. Though he shares the name of the literary rough-and-tumble character written by Clarence E. Mulford, Boyd’s depiction on screen is much more refined. Audio here from PeacockTV.

MAN 1: So you’re Bill Cassidy.

CASSIDY: Yep.

MAN 1: Came just in the nick of time didn’t you, Cassidy? Cassidy, Cassidy! That’s all I’ve been hearing ever since I joined the Bar 20.

CASSIDY: It's alright son, no thanks needed.

But Boyd didn’t set out to make a TV show. He first filmed 66 movies as Bill Cassidy during the 1930s and early ‘40s. He was so invested in the franchise that he sold many of his own assets to acquire the film rights—even mortgaging his own house. And although Hopalong Cassidy was eventually canceled owing to declining revenue, Boyd thought the cowboy hero still had a future. He approached NBC with an idea to broadcast the films in a television series. So NBC edited them down to one-hour episodes and re-released them in 1949.

CASSIDY: Oh forget it kid, forget it. I can hop along with the best of ‘em.

Hopalong Cassidy was a hit, reining in endorsement deals and merchandising agreements. Together with NBC Boyd produced new episodes tailor-made for TV.

AUDIO PeacockTV: [Cowboys singing]

The show ran from 1949 to 1952 and its success spurred the production of other Westerns such as the Lone Ranger and The Roy Rogers Show.

AUDIO PeacockTV: [Cassidy theme outro]

That’s this week’s WORLD History Book. I’m Emma Perley.

NICK EICHER, HOST: Tomorrow: More analysis of recent Supreme Court decisions. And, honeybees are no longer at risk of extinction in the U.S. We’ll meet a beekeeper who is doing his part. That and more tomorrow.

I’m Nick Eicher.

MARY REICHARD, HOST: And I’m Mary Reichard.

The World and Everything in It comes to you from WORLD Radio.

WORLD’s mission is biblically objective journalism that informs, educates, and inspires.

The Bible says: Deliver me from my enemies, O Lord! I have fled to you for refuge. Teach me to do your will, for you are my God! Let your good Spirit lead me on level ground! —Psalm 143:9-10

Go now in grace and peace.

WORLD Radio transcripts are created on a rush deadline. This text may not be in its final form and may be updated or revised in the future. Accuracy and availability may vary. The authoritative record of WORLD Radio programming is the audio record.