Radio Script #114
Little Talks On Common Things
September 16, 1951
It is good to be back on the air again and greet our many friends of the radio audience. Except for one quick trip to Connecticut, I haven’t been out~ side of Maine all summer. Although I have been at Ifff office a part of nearly every week-day, I have had a lot of leisure time and a very enjoyable July and August. When peop Ie ask me why I d I dn It take a month’s vacation far away from Maine, I think the answer of the proper Bostonian lady on Beacon HI II fits my case very well. ”Why should I travel?” she asked. “I am already here.” Yes, Why indeed should a Maine man go away from Vacationland In the summer? The time for us to take our vacations Is In the winter or spring. That’s what I did when I went to Wi II iamsburg last April.
What a lot of griping we heard all summar about our Watervi lie streets. The sidewalk superintendents who were sure they could do the reconstruction faster than it was done were numerous and vociferous. But Mayor Squire and his city go- . vernment gave clear and unanswerab Ie exp lanati ons of the seeming de lay. The trouble with many of us is that we want the things we want without Inconvenience. Then when once we get those things, we forget all about the inconvenience. What a comfort it is to ride over Charles street or Getchell Street or up North Main Street today.. Now. really, wasn It it worth wai tlng for? Some day we I II be ab Ie to say the same about Pleasant Street, Boul8 lie and Rooseve I t Avenues.
I hope many of you had a chance to atl8nd the Lakewood lJ:teafe~ffi·i5 summer. It was one of Lakewood’s most successful seasons. Apart fran the guest stars, who a I ways add I uster to the various plays, the regu lar co~any was the best si nee the days of Arthur Byron, Thurston Ha” and Jessamine Newcomb. But I wonder how many agree with me that, In sp i te of good act ing, the plays themse I vas, by and large, aren’t so good as were the plays of twenty years ago. As drama, today’s plays are too often frivolous and inconsequential, and sometimes outright boresome. The outstanding production of this Lakewood season was “Miss Mabel”. It was not solely the superb acting of Li II ian Gish that delighted the huge aud ience, but qui te as much the fact that R. C. Sherrl ff had gi ven Miss Gish a real drama in which to reveal her talents. The psychological problem posed by that play Is one that the professors of ethics can quarrel about for some time. Is intention to murder justi fied, if murder is the on Iy way to accomplish a known good which Is completely unselfish and can in no way benefit the perpetrator? Many a person who saw that p lay at Lakewood must have asked hi,”,” self, what would I have done In Miss Mabel’s place?
Mrs. Thomas Burleigh of Roosevelt Avenue has shown me a prized copy of the Watervi lie Journal of September 23, 1834, publ ished by Mr. Burleigh’s ancestor, John Burleigh. The Journal was one of Watervi lie’s earliest newspapers, a weekly, and this particular copy Is No. 40 of Volume One. John Burleigh had evidently got enough of the newspaper game in Waterville, for he published in his paper the following announcement:
“Printing establishment for sale. The subscriber, wishing to close his business in this vi I lage, the ensuing winter, and knowing from experience that It requl res a long time to sett Ie newsplaper bills, offers for sa Ie the prJ ntlng office of th’l!s paper. Possession will be given at any time. Also for sale, the house he occupies; it being large and near the Academy, is well sl tuated for a boarding house. (Signed) John Burleigh.”
Mrs. Burleigh has a lot of information about the old shipyard at Vassalboro. The most famous ship ever bui It there was said to be the Ocean Bi rd, a brig launched In 1848. It was the only ocean ship ever to leave Vassalboro, and throngs of peop Ie congregated to see her start on her mal den voyage. She was owned by John D. Lang, grandfather of Miss Sarah Lang, Watervt lie’s beloved school teacher who died only a few months ago. The ship’s master was Captain Gustavus Dickman. Mrs. Burleigh has a copy of the articles of agreement by wh I ch the crew signed on. Pa rt of i t reads as fo I lows: “I t i sagreed between the master, seamen or mariners of the Brig Ocean Bird of Vassalboro, whereof Gustavus Dickman Is the present master, now bound from the Port of New York to the morih of the Zambia River In Africa, from thence on a general freighting and trading voyage of the term of six calendar months, that no sheath knives or profane language shall be allowed on board.”
For wages the second mate got $20 a month; the seamen $.15 a month. On the return voyage the log showed that a negro boy agreed to serve on the Ocean BI rd for one year at a month Iy wa!!J8 of 25 cents. That return cargo I nc I udad 8,000 bushels of peanuts, said to have been the first peanuts ever brought to the Unlted States.
I recent I y encountered a curi ous Item ina copy of the Bangor News prJ nted more than fi fty years ago. Let me read you tbat I tern: “Probab Iy there Is not another case in the history of our state simi lar to one that occurred recently in Bangor. There a woman married a widower with three chi Idren. The man is one who never worries over his debts; in fact he is Inclined to take his ease and let some other fellow do the rushing around. When he married the second time, he stl II owed the undertaker for his first wife’s funeral. The new wife did not like the idea of that long unpaid bill. So she found work washing clothes at the unde rtake r’ s home, unt I I she had worked off the fu II amount of the b I II. We wonder If in all Maine there Is another case where a second wife paid fora fl rst wi fe’s funera I.”
The most talked about incident of the summer did not take place in Washington or Korea, In Berll n or I ran, or even I n San Francisco, but at a quiet p lacs on the west bank of the Hudson above New York. Lots of we II knCMn un J ve rs I ti es — VI rginla and Stanford .. for instance — have the honor system, whereby students pledge themselves neither to give nor receive assistance in examinatloos, and to report to the honor commi ttee of fe II ow students any vi 0 I at Ions .. they see.
ViolaTions do occur .. and the student honor committees do dismiss fellow students, but The newspapers never hear of It. Whether i t w~s because so many a total of ninety — were involved .. or be cause high pressure football played apart, or for some other reason, the auth oritles at West Point decided to make public the violation of the cadets’ own system of honor code. A I most at once every man on every· Mal n Street fn Amarica felt free to express his unlnfonned opinion. Some of the most asinine remarks about the Incident were voiced on the floors of Congress. For rmt part, I refuse to argue whether West Point should or should not have an honor ·system, or whaT Its penalNes should be. I want merely to set the re cord straight by pointing out a few facts. First, the honor system at West Point : ‘\. is nOT something Imposed by superior authority. It exists through no order from the Pentagon .and through no choice of the commandant of the Academy and his staff. It was created by the Cadet Corps I tse If, and has been carried on wi th the full consent and enthusiastic approval of each succeeding generation of cadets. Second, although nhiety is a large number to be Involved In the vlolatioo, let’s give some of our attention to the two thousand mdets who we re not I nvol ved. And third, there Is strong significance In the action taken unanimously by the honor board of the cadets themselves, who Insisted that they so strongly believed in the worth and efficiency of the honor system that they woul d themse Ives resign from West Point In a body unless the violators of the code left the Academy.
Many people are telling us that the incident at West Point is Just a sample of the moral break-dOltn in our whole nation, and there is much to support that view. The b ri bi ng of p layers by the gangsters of the betting fraternity has done irreputable damage to intercollegiate basketball. The Kefauver Committee, about whose work I want to talk to you some night, has revealed not only the suspected I Inks between crime and government, but an unsuspected tie between crime and legitimate business. It is Indeed proper that, when we think of the West Point cadets, we remember that they attend a government school, whose conmanding offi cer Is responsible to the Secretary of the Army, who in tum Is responsible to the Secretary of Defense, who finally has responsibility directly to the President of the United States. It is equally proper that we consider what kind of example is set those West Po J nt cadets by the Wh I te House and the Pentagon. ‘n the Wh ite House the President directs an institution that can set the tone for the nation. Now in that same Wh I te House Is MaJ. Gen. Harry Vaughan, the Pres I dent’s mi Ii tary aide, concerning whom there Is recorded testimony that he helped friends who wanted government favors. He helped them get priority flights to Europe, per .. mits to bui Id race tracks, to import molasses. He received gifts of deep freezers, which he passed on to members of the cabinet. Only John Snyder of the Treasury Department refused the Vaughan gifts.
One of Gen. Vaughan’s friends was the notorious John Maragon who was convicted of perjury in connection with the disclosures of Vaughan’S favors. Maragon went to jai I, but Vaughan went up the ladder from Brigadier General to MaJ or Gene ra I • The President’s aide on matters of appointments is one Donald Dawson. U. S. News and Wor I d Report for August 17 poi nts out that Dawson has tw ice spent rentfree vacat i ons ina $30 a day Flori da hote I — a hote I that rece fved a big loan from the reconstruction Finance Corporation. Everybody wonders how Mrs. Merl Young, the White House stenographer, got her royal pastel mink coat, worth $9,500. They know only that while Mr. YOLWlg ostensib Iy bought the coat for $8,540 from a New York furrier who also borrowed from the RFC, the price was charged to an associate who also had dealings with the RFC. But nobody wonders about General Davi d Crawford ~t the Detroi t Tank Arsenal, who al lowed a defense contractor to pay his Washington hotel bill and hand him expensive gifts, or about General Feldman, head of the Army Quartermaster Corps, who was involved with the notorious five percenter, James Hunt. No– body wonders, because Generals Crawford and Feldman are back In their old posts wi th the same high rank. Occasionally th Is moral de I inquencv f sso flagrant that not ewn the highest influence can cover it up. General Bennett Myers, deputy chief of Army AI r Force Procurement, was caught awarding contracts to a fl rm that he owned himself. He served a sentence for inducing a wliness to comnlt perjury, and he now faces charges of I ncome tax evas Ion.
Now the point I want to make Is not the obvious one you are expecting. For you expect me to say, what can we look for In the behavior of West Point 08- dats, when responsible officials In the very government that runs West Point act as we have Just described? Isn’t It In the whole American air today to say, “Anyth I n9 goes I f you can get away with It?” No, that is not my point at all. What I want to say Is this. I f we beIleve our nat ion Is I n danger of mora I decay, if we want to see less of trimmingand corruption and deceit In high places, let us thank our lucky American ,stars that we have left in th Is Ameri ca at least one p lace where a man ‘sword Is stl II his bond, where honor is placed above gain, and where violation of man’s own agreed codewf II not be tolerated. More power to that great institution — the U. s. Military Academy at West Point!
Year: 1951