Radio Script #72
Little Talks On Common Things
June 11, 1950We had originally intended that tonight’s broadcast would be our last until September, but we have agreed to continue for two more weeks. On June 25, two weeks from tonight, we shall suspend the program until fall.
Maine should be very proud of Senator Margaret Smith, and not merely because she rated the leading article in this week’s issue of Time, and had her picture on the cover of News Week.
Just because she seldom speaks on the floor of the Senate, when she does speak, unlike many of her colleagues, she has something to say. What she said last week rightfully made the front page headlines allover the country.
It was time somebody said it, but it took a lot of courage. The sniping, petty politics touched off by the McCarthy charges has gone altoge.ther too far. Ordinary Americans back home in every one of the 48 states are confused, saddened, and disgusted by the way the politicians of both parties have played pblitics with American security on the one hand and the American right to freedom from the slanderous tongue on the other hand.
Did you read what Mrs. Smith said? Let me quote a few sentences. “I speak”, she said, “as a Republican. I speak as a woman. I speak as a United States Senator. I speak as an American. I think”, she continued, “it is high time for the United States Senate and its members to do some soul-searching — for us to weigh our consciences on the manner in which we are performing our duty to the poeple of America — on the manner in which we are using or abusing our individual powers and privileges. I think it is high time that we remembered that the Constitution speaks not only of freedom of speech, but also of trial by jury instead of trial by accusation.”
Mrs. Smith’s was an earnest, plain-spoken plea for integrity and sanity in our efforts against Communism. She condemned with equal vehemence the whitewashing of suspected traitors on the one hand, and the unsupported accusations of a witch-hunt on the other hand. There was real punch in her words when She said: “Today our country is being divided by the confusion and suspicions that are bred in the united States Senate to spread like cancerous tentacles of “know nothing, suspect everything” attitudes. The Democratic party has initially created the confusion by its complacency to the threat of Communism here at hame, by its oversensitiveness to rightful criticism.
But certain Republicans have added to the confusion by political exploitation of fear, bigotry, ignorance and intolerance. Democrats and Republicans alike have unwittingly played into the Communist design of “confuse, divide and conquer”.
Yes, we assert unhesitatingly and emphatically, Margaret Smith’s speech of June 1, 1950 was one of the few really great speeches delivered in the united States Senate in modern times, easily the greatest since Senator Vandenberg made his impassioned plea for the united Nations charter. Mrs. Smith’s was a speech that rose above party and prejudice, above all the pettiness of name-calling and white-waShing. It was the utterance of a true American. We are indeed proud that this cpurageous speech was made, this act of high Americanism taken, by the lady Senator from Maine, who cames from this very Kennebec Valley, to which this weekly program has been so largely devoted.
Those old reservoirs under the Waterville streets have a long and honorable history. I have thus far been unable to learn when they were first constructed. But just before his death Gene crawford, who mapped the locations of all of them, assured me that there were eleven, same of them very old. For sentimental or other reasons voiced by the local firemen same years ago when permanent surfaces were put on certain streets, at least three of those old reservoirs were not filled in, but were left just as they were, except that the covers were reinforced, or double covers were placed.
One of the most neatly constructed is in front of the Sacred Heart Church on Pleasant Street. It is built of brick, much as were the old cisterns both inside and outside many farm houses. It was spring fed, but even if it had been artificially filled it was so well built that it would hold water for some time. One of the biggest of those old reservoirs was in City Hall Square, now Castonguay Square. It has never been filled in. When it was last opened, everyone wondered why it hadn’t caved in long ago, for its top was made of wood logs. Now it has a secure, solid cover. It is 35 feet in diameter and 12 feet deep — when last opened it still had six feet of water in it.
Mr. Crawford believed most of the reservoirs were self-filling, but some of them may have had water poured into them, hauled up from the Kennebec or the Messalonskee.
What is even more interesting is the information that there was a public water supply of a kind long before the Waterville Water Company took water from the Messalonskee, as I told you several weeks ago. Preceding that event came the activities of the Ticonic Aqueduct Company. On the Bangs lot on College Avenue, where the new market has just been· constructed, was a very old and very bountiful spring. So sure of the fact was Mr. Crawford that he warned the builders of the modern structures in that vicinity that they would surely strike water which would hamper their operations. They scoffed at the idea. But sure enough, they did strike such a flow of water that they had to pipe it off into the city sewer before they could resume building.
That tremendous spring was the source of supply for the Ticonic Aqueduct Company. The original aqueduct is said to have been simply bored logs like the old wooden pipes that used to carry water from well to barnyard trough on many a farm. Later the rotting wood was replaced by lead pipe and it was a piece of the lead pipe of that old aqueduct which Mr. Crawford found leading into the reservoir in City Hall Square when he opened up that big receptacle some thirty years ago.
It was last November when Mr. H. F. Sturtevant first wrote me from his home out at Ten Lots. At that time I put on the air an urgent request about the origin and develoment of that neighborhood, but I got no response at all.
Now Mr. Sturtevant writes me again, eager to know where there is any record of the founding and early history of his community. He says that some 150 years ago 2,000 acres of land were taken in that region, divided into ten 200-acre lots, and thus settled. Mr. Sturtevant once had an historical sketch of the community, loaned it to a newspaper for publication, but it was unfortunately lost before a published record could be made.
Mr. Sturtevant says tradition has it that the first settlers at Ten Lots came up the Kennebec River to what is now Waterville and thence blazed a trail through the woods to their 200-acre allotments. On his place Mr. Sturtevant has a number of old-time things that I am going out to see some day this summer: old fashioned two-tine hay forks, doors with hand-made locks and hinges, and other relics from the days of long ago.
Mr. Sturtevant remembers much about the old preaching services at Ten Lots. The pioneers there were staunch, religious people, and the records of several Waterville churches show that more than one revival had its origin at Ten Lots. Although the earliest of those revivals was long before Mr. Sturtevant’s time, he recalls many traditions about them, handed down from the folks who lived there when George Washington was still alive. One of the proudest traditions of Ten Lots is that for several years its preacher was Samuel Francis Smith, author of “America” — the same Samuel Francis Smith who was once the pastor of Waterville’s First Baptist Church and a professor at Colby College.
Now among our listeners tonoigbt there must be someone who knows where we can find recorded, accurate information about Ten Lots. During the summer we want to make a thorough investigation, and we need your help, so that when we come back on the air in the fall, we can give you the straight facts about the history of that interesting community.
Two subjects we ought to discuss next fall are the ·qpauta~qua and the even earlier Lyceum Lecture courses. Just by way of a starter, let’s right now take a look at the Lyceum course of lectures offered in Waterville in the winter of 1888. It consisted of five lectures for which the patron bought a course ticket for one dollar. On January 18 Rev. Theodore Gerrish gave a lecture on the Battle of Gettysburg, to which the weekly waterville Sentinel devoted a full column. On January 25 Rev. O. P. Gifford spoke on “The Problem of Life”. That certainly was a convenient lecture title. Under it the lecturer could talk about almost anything under the sun.
Rev. George A. Crawford gave a lecture on February 7 about “The Land of the Rising Sun”, Japan, from which country he had recently returned. The next week Hon. A. G. Hall talked on English cathedrals. For the final lecture the women of the town, according to the Sentinel, turned out in large numbers, for on February 20 Mrs. Mary Livermore spoke on the subject “Concerning Husbands”.
Is there anyone now living who attended any of those lectures in 1888?
For several weeks in that winter of the big blizzard the weekly Sentinel carried an ad which must bring back a lot of memories to our older citizens. Let me read that ad to you.
“Take the First Horse Car which leaves Waterville Post Office and in five minutes you will be in front of the nicest and lowest priced house lots ever offered in the Waterville market. City water is close at hand, and the land is well-drained. These lots, remember, are right on the line of the horse railroad soon to be. Hall and Philbrook, Arnold Block, Waterville.”
In 1888 Waterville boasted a big, open air skating rink. Wall and Branch, its propr~etors, advertised two acres of solid ice, lighted by electricity, neat and warm rest rooms, refreshments and hot coffee. The rink was situated on the Gilman Bog, directly back of the Congregational Church. Entrance was from Temple Street near Main. The proprietors assured the public that the rink was in every way fit for ladies and children. Season tickets were $3.00 for gentlemen, $2.00 for ladies and children. Skates could be rented or purchased on the spot.
Ice hockey was then called polo. A news item tells us that “A game of polo is advertised for tonight between the Granite Cities of Augusta and the Elites of Waterville at the Elite rink. There will be skating before the game, which will begin at nine, and a dance afterwards with music by Scribner’s orchestra. ”
The following week’s Sentinel proudly proclaimed the victory of the Elites over the Granite Cities, and reported that the dance was a gala event lasting into the wee small hours.
It was in 1888, as most of you know, that Waterville became a city. What perhaps most of you don’t know is the long, bitter fight lasting many years, before it adopted a city charter. On January 26, 1888 the Sentinel told the whole story. Three days before, on January 23, occurred the last town meeting, called especially to vote on the proposed charter. L. D. Carver, S. S. Brown, F. A. Waldron and C. H. Redington were chosen ballot clerks, and were charged with the duty of seeing that all votes were legal and properly checked. The voters deposited simple Yes or No ballots. When the vote was counted, the charter had been adopted by 543 to 432. The church bells were rung and the proponents of a city government held a big celebration.
The opposition had indeed been bitter and both sides had worked strenuously to get out the vote. The resulting total of 975 ballots was 200 more than had been cast in the previous charter contests. In fact there had been three of those previous futile attempts to make Waterville a city, all tried at the regular town meeting in March. In 1884 the vote was 223 for and 344 against; in 1885 it was 337 for and 394 against~ A year later in 1886 little interest was aroused, for the total vote was smaller than the year before, 265 Yes and 344 No. The proponents decided not to bring the matter up at the regular meeting in 1887 but to prepare for a special election in January, 1888. Their strategy was crowned with success.
Year: 1950