Bureaucrat: Gunsmoke (January 29, 1956)

“Bureaucrat” is an episode of Gunsmoke, the old-time radio show, first broadcast January 29, 1956. Listen free on Stupid Potato.

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What happens

A bureaucrat named Rex Proctor arrives in Dodge City with authority from Washington to reform the town, which has received bad reports. Proctor believes strict rules—including a deadline restricting armed men to one part of town and requiring guncheck—will bring order, while Marshal Dillon argues that the frontier operates differently.

Dodge City, Kansas, at the train station, streets, and Marshal Dillon's office

Characters: Matt Dillon, Chester Proudfoot, Rex Proctor

Listen for: The clash between Proctor's by-the-book bureaucratic approach to law enforcement and Dillon's frontier pragmatism; Dillon's mysterious plan to teach Proctor a lesson.

Written from the episode itself; it never gives away the ending. Every recording is remastered for the stream: cleaned of rumble, hiss and mains hum (and the old TV whine where we found it), then levelled in two passes to steady broadcast loudness, so one show is never quieter than the next.