Founding of Rhode Island (Voice In The Wilderness)

Boston, April 30. The banishment of Roger Williams from Massachusetts ended officially today. With a stroke of his pen, the governor of Massachusetts rescinded the decree of the Bay Colonies General Court, which in 1635 gave the outspoken radical of his day six weeks to get out of town.

The NBC University of the Air presents We Came This Way, a new historical series for our listeners at home and overseas. With John W. Vanderkook as narrator, we bring you chapter 9, Voice in the Wilderness, and We Came This Way.

What is the sound of intolerance? What shape? Intolerance has many shapes, many sounds. The foaming noise of a word. The word of a fine-edged blade falling in a slot. A blade to leaden spitting machine guns in a village square, below hiss of gas in a sealed up chamber.

All these are the sounds of intolerance. All these and many more. But down through history one sound above all others has been the symbol of the persecution of man by man. The sound of fire.

Sometimes the flames of intolerance of devoured books. Sometimes they have eaten up the houses of which man shelters himself against the storm. And sometimes, there was a boy in London once, three centuries ago, who was playing the streets on a windy morning in March, was interrupted by...

That come from Smithfield Marketplace. Let's go see! What's up, sir? Can you tell me what's up? Yes, I believe I can, lad. Husband, he's got a child, send him away. Well, earlier he learns of the goodness of his rulers, the better it'll be for him.

What do you call, lad? Roger, sir. Roger Williams. Now, look there, Roger. By that pile of faggots, and... Oh, here's the sheriff of London to tell you himself. Whereas the Reverend Father in Christ, the Bishop of London, At the limit over one Bartholomew Leggett is a blasphemous erudic to our secular power to be punished with condine punishment.