Original subtitles

♪ I see a land

♪ With liberty for all

♪ Yet still I know, the truth will rise and fall ♪

♪ Ooh yeah, yeah

♪ That's just the way it goes

♪ A word now to the wise

♪ The world was made to change

♪ Each day is a surprise

♪ I'm looking at life through my own eyes ♪

♪ I'm searching for a hero to idolize ♪

♪ Feeling the pain as innocence dies ♪

♪ I'm looking at life, through my own eyes ♪

♪ I take my heart into battle

♪ Give that Freedom Bell a rattle ♪

♪ Get my independence on

♪ Declare it on the dotted line ♪

♪ Let Philadelphia freedom bring ♪

♪ And patriotic voices sing

♪ Red, white, and blue, never give up ♪

♪ You represent America

♪ Hoping and praying for a brighter day ♪

♪ I listen to my heart and I obey ♪

♪ How can I see it any other way ♪

♪ I'm looking at life, through my own eyes ♪

(fireworks booming and whistling)

- [Announcer] Today on Liberty's Kids...

- [Henri] He called Dr. Franklin

a fraud and a blowhard!

- [Montgomery] Library, philosophy, college, almanacks,

all very amusing,

but my money's no longer worth anything.

I'm tired of this war,

and Ben Franklin, as much as any other man,

started us on this road to ruin!

(melancholy horn music)

- [Sarah] Dearest Mother,

as my long journey ends

and I approach Dr. Franklin's Philadelphia,

I grow increasingly uneasy.

Though I believe deeply that I am where I belong,

the pain of so recently leaving both you and Father is,

I must admit, difficult to bear.

(melancholy music)

- [First Mate] Mind the rigging!

- [Woman] We're finally home!

- [Sarah] I'm embarrassed to say it,

but I feel ever so alone.

(passengers chattering)

(bell tolling)

- Whoa!

Hmmph!

And what of my friends here?

What will James, Moses, and Henri think of me now?

Probably that I'm a silly girl

who keeps changing her mind

about who she really is.

Moses?

(sighs)

(chuckles) Oh!

- [Moses] Slow down, James!

- Prices are still so high, Moses,

I don't see how we can...

Moses?

- Sarah?

- Uh, hi!

- Sarah!

(both laughing)

Sarah, what, why?

- Because I finally realized something.

I realized, I am an American.

- Welcome home.

(foot tapping)

(dramatic music)

- Well, it's about time, isn't it?

- James, I feel so wonderful, even you can't ruin it.

- What? Hey!

- Aren't you glad to see me?

(giggles sheepishly)

(Sarah laughs)

I have so much to tell you about.

John Paul Jones, and England, and Mother,

and Parliament, and two ocean journeys

with the worst food I ever ate and hmm...

Where's Henri?

I thought that...

- [Henri] That's it!

- [Charles] Hey, stop it!

- [Both] Ow, ow! (scuffling)

- Take it back!

- Never!

- You are a liar!

- Am not!

- Are too! - Stop it, both of you!

- Sarah? (yelps)

I got you now!

- [Charles] Do not!

- [Henri] Do!

- [Charles] Put me down!

I'm gonna tell my father!

(boys grumbling and scrapping)

- He called Dr. Franklin a fraud and a blowhard.

- Henri, he's just saying that to make you angry.

- I am not!

- Well if he is, it's working!

- Stop it! Now!

Now, how did this start?

- When Charles said bad things about Dr. Franklin,

I said "Take it, back or else!"

He wouldn't, so I taught him

a lesson he'll never forget.

- Ha!

- Doesn't Charles have the right to his own opinion,

even if you disagree with it?

- Yes, but...

- That's part of being free.

Haven't you learned anything

from Moses and Dr. Franklin?

- I guess.

- Then maybe you should apologize

for starting the fight.

- I'm sorry I punched you first,

but you're wrong about Dr. Franklin.

- I am not!

- Stop shouting!

Why do you think Dr. Franklin

is a fraud and a blowhard?

- I don't know.

My dad told me.

- I want to show you something.

Look around, Charles.

What do you see?

- Junk?

- See?

- In a way, he's right, Henri.

It used to be junk.

- Until Dr. Franklin got his hands on it.

- Did you know Ben Franklin is an inventor?

- No...

- Moses, play for him, play for me, please?

- Truce?

- Fine!

- Fine.

- All right, then.

(clinking and scraping)

(glass hums)

- How do you do that?

- This is an invention of Dr. Franklin's

called the glass armonica.

See how the different sized glass bowls turn together

as I rotate the crank?

And when I touch the edge of one of the bowls...

(glass sings Yankie Doodle melodically)

- Oh!

(clapping)

Thank you kindly.

- Moses, tell him about this.

- Do you know what this key did, Charles?

- Uh, unlock the door to the crown jewels?

(Henri chuckles)

- Not exactly, but it opened another door,

to a new world of electricity.

(lightning crashes and zaps)

It was in 1752, when Dr. Franklin was 46 years old.

(lightning crashes and zaps)

(dramatic music)

- [Ben] As soon as any of the thunder clouds

come over the kite, the pointed wire

will draw the electric fire from them.

When the rain has wet the twine,

so that it can conduct the electric fire freely,

you will find it stream out plentifully from the key

on the approach of your knuckle.

- He caught sparks, so what?

- For one thing, in case you don't believe

Dr. Franklin is a man of courage,

the next man who tried the same experiment died.

And what a discovery Dr. Franklin made!

As we learn to control those sparks,

we'll be able to use their energy.

- To power boats!

- Or drive carriages, without horses!

- Or even help to cook, Charles.

Dr. Franklin tried it once.

Like many scientific experiments,

it did not work out well.

It was two days before Christmas.

Dr. Franklin was hosting a dinner party.

- [Woman] Demonstration this evening.

- [Man] Why, Dr. Franklin's inventions are fascinating!

- [Man] His whole theory!

- [Man] Oh, yes!

- [Man] I have a Franklin stove, myself.

(turkey gobbles) (dinner guests chatter)

- [Sarah] He did not like to see

an animal suffer needlessly

and hoped to use electricity

to end its life painlessly.

(turkey gobbles fearfully)

- [Guests] Oh!

- Dr. Franklin! - Let me help you.

- Oh my, are you all right?

- Oh yes, perfectly fine.

(turkey laughs)

(all laughing)

- I want to try that!

- Yeah!

- Absolutely not.

Electricity can be very dangerous.

- James' parents died in a fire

started by an electrical storm.

- To prevent fire started by lightning,

Ben invented this.

- A lightning rod.

With Ben's new device attached to the roof,

the lightning bolt was attracted

to the point of the rod.

The electricity traveled down a copper wire

into the ground.

Of course, in Ben's house,

he sent the charge through an apparatus

that rang some small bells.

In a large storm, the bells could ring for hours.

- I want to invent things

like Dr. Franklin someday.

- Me too!

I wish I had a fancy education like he did.

- Fancy education?

Let me tell you about Ben's fancy education.

(door slams open)

- What kind of lies

are you filling my son's head with?

(dramatic music)

Come here, Charles.

- They're not lies, sir.

Would you like to hear for yourself?

- I insist on hearing for myself,

so I can be sure to correct them.

- Charles just told us

Dr. Franklin had a fancy education.

- Wonder where the kid heard that?

- Sir, that is simply not the case.

Dr. Franklin grew up in Boston,

directly across from Old South Church

in a home filled to bursting

with 12 brothers and sisters.

Ben was crushed to learn his family

could no longer afford to send him to class.

He was nine years old.

- Like this, Father?

- [Moses] His father put him to work

in the family business, making candles.

Ben spent the money he earned

on his greatest love, books.

Ben Franklin had no fancy education, Charles.

Ben Franklin taught himself.

- Does your family borrow books

from the Library Company of Philadelphia, Charles?

- Of course.

- Ben Franklin founded it,

along with the American Philosophical Society,

the Union Fire Company,

the College of Philadelphia,

and the Pennsylvania Hospital.

- Charles, have you ever had the misfortune

to be sick or injured?

- Never, the boy's strong, like his father.

- You're both lucky.

And if you lived in the days

before Dr. Franklin founded that hospital,

being healthy would have made you even luckier.

Many poor, ill, and insane people

were reduced to wandering

the streets of Philadelphia.

It was a terrible situation.

(coughing)

(gentle music)

Now, in the Pennsylvania Hospital,

there's a place for the sick.

Just as importantly,

people started learning how to be doctors.

This awful war gave them a chance

to learn firsthand about the human body.

(melancholy music)

(patients moaning)

Seeking to ease the terrible suffering,

they've taken to the battlefields.

There, they've been confronted

with every injury and sickness you could imagine,

and then some.

Thanks to our doctors' newfound experience,

people are being cured of illnesses

and healed from injuries

in ways that were never possible before.

- Mr. Montgomery, did you ever read

Dr. Franklin's Poor Richard's Almanack?

- Hmm...

- [James] Dr. Franklin published the first edition

of Poor Richard's Almanack when he was 26 years old.

It contained all the usual weather reports,

recipes, and predictions.

What set it apart were the lively writing

and witty sayings.

- [Ben] A penny saved is a penny earned.

There are no gains without pains.

A learned blockhead is a greater blockhead

than an ignorant one.

He that lies down with dogs

shall rise up with fleas.

- Library, philosophy, college, almanacks,

all very amusing, but my money's

no longer worth anything.

I'm tired of this war,

and Ben Franklin, as much as any other man,

started us on this road to ruin.

- Mr. Montgomery, you have to understand

where Dr. Franklin's deep commitment

to freedom comes from.

He wrote, "In 1770, my brother James

returned from England..."

- [Ben] With a press and letters

to set up his business in Boston.

I signed indentures when I was but 12 years old

to serve as an apprentice

for the next nine years of my life.

- Presenting this week's issue

of the New-England Courant!

(clapping)

Featuring the latest column by

Mrs. Silence Dogood.

Listen!

"I reflected in my mind on the extreme folly

"of those parents who,

"blind to their children's dullness

"and insensible of the solidity of their skulls,

"will need send them to the Temple of Learning,"

by which she meant Harvard College, ha-ha-ha!

Isn't that hilarious?

- It's very funny, all right.

- I'd love to know who this sharp-tongued lady really is.

- James, I am Mrs. Silence Dogood.

I've been writing that column

and slipping it under the door

in the middle of the night,

watching everyone laugh at my words

but never being able to take credit for them.

Do you know how that feels?

(paper tearing)

- [Moses] James grew increasingly abusive

with his 17 year old brother.

- Aren't you finished yet?

I don't want to be here all night.

- I'm hurrying, I'm hurrying.

(fabric tears)

(letters clatter)

- You idiot!

You did that on purpose!

- It was an accident.

- I don't believe you,

and I've had enough of your disrespect!

- [Moses] Dr. Franklin left soon after.

- He never forgot his brother's

harsh and tyrannical treatment, Mr. Montgomery.

That's where Dr. Franklin got

"that aversion to arbitrary power

"which that has stuck to me through my whole life."

- It's also one of the reasons

he's taken such a strong stand against slavery.

- Slavery is the economic

foundation of our southern states,

and many of us in the North

have made our profits from slave labor, too.

With all respect, sir, whoever freed you,

made a mistake.

That said, I admit you do make solid points

about Benjamin Franklin.

- You are entitled to your opinion

about slavery, sir, though by what you say,

you would deny me mine.

- Where's Charles?

Where's my son?

- And where's Henri?

(boys laughing) (playful music)

- [Rider] Look out, I can't control him!

(horse whinnies)

(all gasp)

(dramatic music)

- [Sarah] Henri!

- Sarah, I almost didn't get to hear you

tell me about your trip.

(Moses groans)

Moses...

- Thank you. sir.

I am glad you are a free man.

- You are welcome, and I hope someday

you will say that to an African man

who did not just save the life of your son.

(dramatic music)

- [Ben] Dearest James, Sarah, and Henri,

I know you wish you could see me,

but as you can't, I will describe myself to you.

Figure me in your mind as jolly as formerly,

and as strong and hearty, only a few years older.

Very plainly dressed,

wearing my thin, gray, straight hair

that peeps out from under my fine fur cap.

Think how this must appear

among the powdered heads of Paris.

Still, they mob me.

(courtesans laughing and chatting)

- On behalf of the British crown

I would be most--

- Good evening.

(gasps)

- I don't believe it!

(speaking in foreign language)

(speaking in foreign language)

(woman titters)

- Comte de Vergennes,

Ben Franklin at your service.

- Dr. Franklin, what a surprise.

Welcome to Versailles.

- A man of my years is happy to be welcomed anywhere.

(courtesans laughing)

But I tell you this.

There have been unknown people,

as great as any of the most famous.

However, my dear friends,

if you would not be forgotten

as soon as you're dead and rotten,

either write things worth reading,

or do things worth writing.

And children, I'm quite certain that you shall.

(bright music)

♪ Looking at life through my own eyes ♪

♪ Searching for a hero to idolize ♪

♪ Feeling the pain as innocence dies ♪

♪ Looking at life with my own eyes ♪

♪ I take my heart into battle

♪ Give that Freedom Bell a rattle ♪

♪ Get my independence on

♪ Declaring on the dotted line

♪ Red, white, and blue, never give up ♪

♪ You represent America

- [Kids] Cookie Jar!