This excerpt is taken from a well-known vintage radio episode, where the host narrates the gripping tale of how the president of a prominent sports club once attempted to abduct the Kaiser, following the conclusion of The First World War.
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00:00In the old-time radio series, Sports Newsreel, the host, a trained actor, recounts a strange story involving a kidnapping attempt on the German Kaiser, in the aftermath of the First World War.
00:13Now, on HistoryRadio.org, we bring you a segment from that sports broadcast.
00:20The following program is being short-waved overseas by the Armed Forces Radio Service.
00:25C-O-L-G-A-T-E, Colgate presents Phil Stern.
00:29With a Colgate Shave Cream Sports Newsreel.
00:32Phil Stern, the Colgate Shave Cream Man, is on the air.
00:35Phil Stern, the Colgate Shave Cream Man, with stories rare.
00:39Take his advice and you'll look keen, you'll get a shave that's smooth and clean.
00:42You'll be a Colgate brushless fan.
00:45Good evening, ladies and gentlemen.
00:46This is Bill Stern bringing you the 286th edition of the Colgate Shave Cream Sports Newsreel.
00:50Our guest tonight is the president of the New York Yankees, Mr. Larry McPhail.
00:53But first, portrait of a soldier's souvenir.
00:57Twenty-seven years ago, when the First World War was ending and Germany was beaten,
01:03the most hated man in the world was the German Kaiser.
01:06He was just as hated as Hitler is in this war.
01:09And yet, in the last war, when Germany was beaten,
01:12the Kaiser fled from Germany and took refuge in neutral Holland.
01:16The Allies knew where he was, but they made no move to get him.
01:20And that's the way things stood.
01:21Until one night, shortly after the war was over,
01:23eight American soldiers were seated around a table in a French restaurant
01:27when they decided to do something about it.
01:29If the Allies wouldn't go after the Kaiser, well, they would.
01:33Sure, sure, he was in a neutral country, but so what?
01:36Hadn't he started this war?
01:37All right.
01:38These eight American soldiers would do what the Allied armies had failed to do.
01:42These eight American soldiers would go get the Kaiser.
01:45The more the eight Americans talked about it, the more determined they became.
01:49Until finally, one of them, a boy named Larry McPhail, stood up and someone shouted,
01:53Sit down, McPhail!
01:54But Larry McPhail stood his ground.
01:56We've been doing a lot of talking, he said.
01:58But if you're going to kidnap the Kaiser, let's get started.
02:01And so it was that eight Americans in two automobiles set out to kidnap the Kaiser.
02:08They headed for the Dutch border.
02:09And in the eerie light of the early morning, they crossed that border into Holland.
02:13But cars roared through sleepy towns, stopping only for gas or food.
02:17Three hours later, they were only 100 miles from the little village of Amaronegan,
02:21where the Kaiser was living.
02:23And two hours later, they were there.
02:25Cautiously, they stopped their cars, got out, and cut all the phone wires leading to the castle.
02:31They approached the front gate, where a German sentry stopped them.
02:35But they talked their way past him.
02:37And finally, finally, unbelievably, they were actually at the front door of the Kaiser's castle.
02:43It was Larry McPhail who knocked on that door.
02:46The door swung open, and the eight American soldiers stepped inside.
02:50The Kaiser was in the next room.
02:53He agreed to come in and meet the Americans,
02:54when suddenly the Germans discovered that all the phone wires had been cut.
02:58Immediately, the eight Americans knew that their plans had gone wrong,
03:02and that they'd better get out of there and get out fast.
03:03And they did get out.
03:05Getting out empty-handed.
03:07Empty-handed?
03:09No, not quite.
03:11For on the way out, Larry McPhail grabbed an ashtray off the Kaiser's smoking table.
03:16It bore the Kaiser's imperial crest,
03:18and it was the only souvenir those eight American soldiers had to show for the time
03:22when they'd almost kidnapped the Kaiser.
03:26When Larry McPhail came back to the United States,
03:29he brought the Kaiser's ashtray back with him.
03:31And then a strange series of visitors began to arrive at his office.
03:36They were all Germans, and they all told him the same thing.
03:40He'd taken the Kaiser's lucky ashtray.
03:42The Kaiser was superstitious,
03:44and he regarded that particular ashtray as his good luck charm.
03:48He wanted his lucky ashtray back.
03:50It wasn't that the ashtray had any real value.
03:53It was just that the Kaiser regarded it as his good luck charm,
03:56and the Kaiser became so insistent in 1941 that he'd get it back
04:00that he sent a special German emissary all the way over to America to get that ashtray back.
04:06And this German emissary told Larry McPhail,
04:09Mr. McPhail, I represent His Imperial Highness the German Kaiser.
04:13I am prepared to pay any reasonable amount for his ashtray, which you have.
04:17You see, he regards it as more than an ashtray,
04:20as a sort of good luck piece.
04:22I see you have it on your desk.
04:24That was as far as the German got.
04:27Larry McPhail lost his temper.
04:29He told the German that the Kaiser's good luck ashtray would never go back to the Kaiser.
04:33And with that, Larry McPhail picked up that ashtray and smashed it.
04:38Maybe the Kaiser was right.
04:40For when that ashtray was smashed, his good luck ran out.
04:45The Kaiser died on June the 4th, 1941.
04:49Call it a coincidence, if you will,
04:50but the Kaiser died a sudden death on the very day his good luck ashtray
04:55was smashed by Larry McPhail.
04:59And now, speaking from Washington, D.C., is Larry McPhail in person,
05:04the man who once tried to kidnap the Kaiser,
05:06the man who today is the president of the mighty New York Yankees, Larry McPhail.
05:10Good evening, Bill.
05:12There is one thing you forgot about that ashtray.
05:14What's that, Larry?
05:15Well, when I got the Kaiser's ashtray, I had to get it so quickly.
05:19I didn't have time to remove the lighted cigars that were in it.
05:23I just shoved the whole thing in my pocket,
05:25and those lighted cigars ruined a perfectly good trench coat.
05:29Ha-ha.
05:29You have just heard a segment from a 1945 sports newsreel,
05:53and a story involving a kidnapping attempt on the German Kaiser,
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