Radio Script #130
Little Talks On Common Things
January 6, 1952
As we enter into the new year of 1952, it seems as if public morality had never sunk so low. The scandals in the Bureau of Internal Revenue. the influence peddlers in Washington, the raw deals in the RFC, all bring to light a condition of graft and corruption that extends widely through our government., Why is this the case? What is happening to personal confidence and public trust? It takes neither a social analyst nor a psychiatrist to tell us what is fundamentally the trouble. It is the old story of human greed and human frailty, but it is a new story of the kind and quantity of temptation. It is the price -an extremely high price — that we are thus paying for the extension of government power into almost every phase of our lives.
We have no excuse for the businessman who bribes a public official or even one who pays fees to the five percenters who claim influence in the agencies or even in the White House itself. We do not excuse; we merely seek to explain why the temptation placed upon them is greater than businessmen have ever known before. Today a businessman can be fined or sent to jail for working his employees too long, for paying them either, too much money or not enough, for charging too high prices. He can be given or denied loans. He can prosper with the help of government allotted materials or go broke because the materials are denied him. His tax deductions for business expenses can be accepted or turned down. Intricate laws govern his business activities. Now the point is that all of these regulations over the businessman are administered by human beings persons who can be harsh or lenient, watchful or neglectful, play fair or play favorites. To the businessman a contract or tax adjustment may mean thousands of dollars. It may keep him in business or drive him out of it. How great then is the temptation to use a favor or a fee where the hand of an equally human and fallible official’s ready to receive it.
Meanwhile the government itself is spending billions upon billions in the armament program. The present Truman administration in six short years has spent 304 billions. Congressional Investigations have shown that by no means all of the orders represented by these billions were placed on merit or for the lowest price. Those investigations have all too clearly revealed that, as spending grows, political pull, strategically placed mink coats, TV sets, airplane trips, and free vacations accompany the growth. Of course we need a deeper sense of moral integrity in public life. But let us not forget that it gets harder and harder to maintain that integrity if we keep on putting more and more power in the hands of government officials. As men in the Washington agencies get more and more opportunity to reward or punish, more and more control over the daily lives of all of us, the greater is the temptation to reach those officials by favors, gifts, or outright bribes.
It is not a pretty picture that the investigators are turning up day by day: the picture of unsavory Individuals, some even with prison records, able to get choice licenses, able to line up scarce materials, because they are very chummy with officials of high rank. Not only must we try to have honest officials; we must also find some way to keep so many officials from getting so much power.
This is the year when we celebrate the 150th anniversary of the incorporation of Waterville as a town. The Citizens Conmlttee of 100, appointed by the outgoing mayor, Hon. Russell Squire, under authority voted by the City Government, will hold its first meeting in the administration of the new mayor, Hon. Richard Dubord. That meeting will be held in the Municipal Court Room, City Hall, Thursday evening of this week at 7:30. It is an important meeting, for the committee must decide what kind of celebration shall be attempted, when it shall be held, and of what the program shall consist. Every member of the committee should make a special effort to be present.
As a child I somehow escaped what so many of my contemporaries endured -repeated doses of Mrs. Winslow’s soothing syrup. We nCffl know that this patent medicine never cured anything, that it simply drugged infants into such a stupor that they stopped crying. But our grandmothers certainly swore by it. A little booklet called Mrs. Winslow’s Domestic Receipt Book was recently shown me by Mrs. Mary Stobie. It is for the year 1876, though the inscription reads: “This book will be issued annually, with entirely new receipts. By preserving the issues and sewing them together, you will have in a few years the best collection of receipts in the country.”
On the Inside cover the old-time remedy Is heralded with these words: “Mother! Mother! Mother! Are you disturbed at night and broken of your rest by a sick chid suffering and crying with the excruciating pain of cutting teeth? If so, go out at once and get a bottle of Mrs. Winslow’s Soothing Syrup. It will relieve the poor little sufferer immediately — depend upon it. It gives rest to the moTher and relief and health to the child, operating like maloce.”
The book let seems to have been the joint product of Jeremiah Curtis & Sons and John L. Brown & Sons, both of whom held several patents for medicines. So we find Brown’s Bronchial Troches for coughs and colds, especially recommended for singers and public speakers; Brown’s Vermifuge Comfits and Worm lozenges, guaranteed to get worms out of chi Idren’s intestine.1 tracts; and Brown’s Household Panacea and Family Liniment, which was sure to cure cramp in the limbs, rheumatism in all Its forms, neuralgia, worms, tooth ache, sore throat, pain in the stomach, bi Iious col ic, cholera, chapped hands, spinal comPlaints, chills and fever. It was, says the ad, purely vegetable and all-healing.
Now let’s take a look at some of the recipes in this 1876 publ icatlon. Some of them certainly provided for healthy appetites of big fami lies. Here, for instance, are the Ingredients of a single cake: one pound of flour, one pound of butter, one pound of brown sugar, ten eggs, two pounds of currants, one-half pound of cl tron, nutmeg and cinnamon to taste. Here’s another cake: one pound of flour, one pound of sugar, one-half pound of butter, four eggs, one cup of cream, one pound of raisins, nutmeg and cl nnamon. Here’s one ca lied imperl a I cake: one pound of flour, one pound of sugar, one pound of butter, one pound of raisins, stoned and chopped, one -half pound of blanched almonds, one-quarter pound of ci tron, eight eggs, two g lasses of Wine.
These were all what we would call fruit cakes and expected to be rather rich, but qere is one with no fruit at all. It is called Rai I road Cake: one pound of flour, one pound of sugar, eight eggs, one-half pound of butter, one teaspoon cream of tartar. How many of you ever heard of pork and apple pie? Here is the recipe: line a tin basin with pastry. Nearly fl II It with quartered apples; spice with pepper, and cover with thin slices of salt pork. Put a paste on top and bake an hour I n a mode rate oven.
Among the miscellaneous — not the cooking — recipes is this one: How to cure sma II pox without ca I ling a doctor. For adu Its gl ve one tab lespoon of brewer’s yeast in 3 tab lespoons of sweetened wate r th ree t I mas a day, and keep the patient on a mi Ik diet. Th is wi II cure without leaving a pock mark. What a time our grandparents used to have with tough meat! No wonder the old recipe books contain many d I recti ons for tenderl zing meat. Here is one: To those who have worn down their teeth masticating poor, old, tough, cow beef, we wi II say that carbonate of soda will be found a remedy for the e’li I. Try it, all you who love delicious, tender dishes of beef.
Apparently artl ficfal coloring of butter was uncommon in 1876. A quarter of a century later I can remember some of the colorless butter that came into my father’s store from the surrounding farms, but by that time'” the best butter makers were using the vegetable coloring that came In small bottles. But back in 1876 we find this recipe to make ye Ilow butter in winter: put in the yolks of eggs just before the butter comes, near the end of the churning. This practice is kept by many as a great secret, but its great value requires publicity. That centennl a I year of 1876 was a year of financia I depress ion. Consequently we are not surprised to find in the booklet this heading: “A Few Hints for Hard Times”. Here are the hints: Rutabaga, grated and prepared as you dp cabbage, makes an excellent substitute for that article. Today, when cabbage is about as cheap as turnips, that advice strikes us as strange. Here’s another: pumpkin pies can be made wlthout”‘- mt Ik, by using water instead. We think they are as good as when made of milk. Custards can also be made with water, instead of mi Ikj also puddings, especially the baked India pudd I ng. Just add a few pieces of butter. Did you ever hear of “almacks”? I cannot find the word in any dictionary.
Anyhow, here In the 1876 Receipt Book is a redpe for almacks: Take 4 dozen rl pe plums and sp lit them; two dozen app les and two dozen pears, pee led and cored. Stew all together without water. When well b~tended, take out the plum stones and stir in three’~ pounds of sugar. Boi I gently, stf rring often, for an hour. Then spread on flat di shes, and dry et ther in the sun or in a cool oven. When nearly dry, mark it in square cakes. Sounds rather good at that, those a I macks.
~ome ti me ago on “th is program I referred to the Canada Road. At that time I did not know it was Lewis Whipple’s grand uncle, Jim Jackman, who supervised the clearing of that famous road in 1828.
Before that date cattle raised in the settlements north of Skowhegan, as we II as those a II a long the Kennebec down to Merrymeeting Bay, were dri ven to the Brighton Market near Boston. For Instance in 1817 when Abner Coburn, the benefactor of Coburn Classical Institute, was 14 years old, his father collected a drove of catt Ie in the settlements above S,kowhe:gan, and young Abner was one of the drovers, trudging on foot from Skowhegan to Boston and back home again. Not unti I Uncle Jim Jackman cleared the Canada Road from The Forks north of the Bingham Purchase to the Canadian line, and a road was brought south from the St. Lawrence to meet it, were Somerset cattle driven to the nearer and more profitable Quebec market.
In 1827 the Maine Legislature appropriated money and contracted with Uncle Jim Jackman to supervise the road building. Sumner Wh ipp Ie, who was born in 1817 and lived unti I 1902, wrote for the old Somerset Reporter several articles about the old days in what is now Jackman. He says he was told the following incident by an old man, Charles Grant, who as a young fellow had worked on the road.
When the job was nearing the Canadian I ine and they were getting an opening wide enough for a team to go th rough, the crew ran short of rum. Capt. Jackman — as Uncle Jim was usually called — ordered a man to go to Canada for a supply. The man returned wi th a barre I of rum and there was rejoicing in the camp. It was a very hot day, and the sun was pouring down into the opening they had cut in the forest, and the work of removing roots, stumps and boulders was arduous. The men de~nded frequent rest. But Capt. Jackman kept them going with, “Boys, we’ll take another dri nk of rum and then a II get to work, because we must hurry up and finish this road. We must have it to get the silver through. We need that si Iver very much.”
The reference to silver is verified by SurmerWhipple’s recorded memories of his own ch I I dhood • “The Humph reys, then II v I n9 InS kowhegan”, he w rote In one of those old Somerset Reporter articles, “dealt in horses and cattle. As they came horne from Quebec they s topped at father’s a I I night. When they came in, they brought thei r saddle bags. In the evening they talked of the succsss who! ch was I n the sadd Ie bags, all in s i I ver. The ch I I dren had to see I f they could lift It. I, being the oldest of a large family, could do so ($1,000 In silver weighs approximately 64 pounds), but when about half way down the line of children they came toone who could not 11ft it, nor could any of the smaller ones. “Not only cattle, but dried app les and other produce went over the new road to be exchanged for precious si Iver in Quebec. In lent the Maine fishermen reaped a harwst, for Sumner Whipple tells us, “Then the Frenchmen, unable to eat meat during the 40 days of Lent, came in long trains to purchase our cured band ~alted fish.”
Captain Jim Jack..” after the road was built, saw the need for a tavern in that region. So he built a house in the southeast part of Jackman Plantation, sawing out the boards with a whipsaw — a very slow procsss. Here he Ilwd for 15 years. After he was 75 years old he went to California, but returned after a few years, settled up his affairs in Maine, and went to Kansas to live with his daughter, Mrs. Solon Ward. There he died at the age of 83. AI I that is left of Jim Jackman’s 0ld home bes I de the Quebec highway, a short distance beyond Parlin Pond, Is a c:e liar hole. The once cultivated fields have reverted to wilderness, but along the Canadian border, men say, still stalks the ghost of Jim Jackman, shouting to his road crew, “Hurry up, we must finish the road and get the silver through.”
Year: 1952