Paul Harvey's "If I Were the Devil" Still Rings True

Paul Harvey's "If I Were the Devil" Still Rings True

For those not familiar with his name, Paul Harvey Aurendt who went by the professional name Paul Harvey, was a conservative radio broadcaster and newspaper columnist.

At the peak of his influence, Harvey reached some 24 million listeners to his ”Rest of the Story” comments, millions more listeners than Rush Limbaugh and with nary a single “slut” comment during his long career.

Paul Harvey News was carried on 1,200 radio stations, 400 Armed Forces Network stations, and hundreds of newspapers, and his commentaries and newspaper columns have been frequently reprinted in the Congressional Record.

He was named “Commentator of the Year,” “Person of the Year,” “Father of the Year,” “American of the Year,” elected to the National Association of Broadcasters National Radio Hall of Fame, appeared on the Gallup poll list of America’s most admired men, and was awarded eleven Freedom Foundation Awards and the Horatio Alger Award.

Perhaps none of Harvey’s contributions to broadcasting and Americana is as noteworthy as what he said 47 years ago.

Harvey died at the age of 90 in 2009. He is sorely missed in America today and will long be remembered for his prophetic “If I Were the Devil” broadcast warning to Americans on April 3rd, 1965. In that brief commentary, Harvey focused on virtually ever ill that has beset the United States since he articulated them.

Paul Harvey’s 1965 reflections in their entirety, as published by Fox News:

He said, ”If I were the Devil . . . I would of course, want to engulf the whole earth in darkness. . . so I should set about however necessary to take over the United States.

“I would begin with a campaign of whispers. With the wisdom of a serpent, I would whisper to you as I whispered to Eve: ‘Do as you please.’

“To the young, I would whisper, ‘The Bible is a myth.’ I would convince them that man created God instead of the other way around.

“I would confide that what is bad is good, and what is good is ‘square’.

“In the ears of the young marrieds, I would whisper that work is debasing, that cocktail parties are good for you. I would caution them not to be extreme in religion, in patriotism, in moral conduct.

“And the old, I would teach to pray. I would teach them to say after me: ‘Our Father, which art in Washington.’

“If I were the devil, I’d educate authors in how to make lurid literature exciting so that anything else would appear dull and uninteresting.

“I’d threaten T.V. with dirtier movies and vice versa. . .
(Read more at http://www.genelalor.com/blog1/?p=18613.)