Radio Script #147
Little Talks On Common Things
May 4, 1952
Some of us are acutely aware that, if we ever get a socialist state in America, we shall get it by gradual infiltration, not by sudden revolution. That is why we are so much concerned about the Pres i dent’s order for the government to take over the steel industry. It Is not wages and prices in steel that is the vital ilssue involved. It is the threat of government operated Industry instead of privately operated industry. Of course there are honest, sincere persons who th ink we ought to have socialized Industry — that the government ought to operate al I the basic avenues of production. But a lot of us don’t agree with that position, and if we don’t agree we ought to make our voices constantly heard.
The evidence from Russia ought to convince the most hardened socialist that the socialized state becomes inevitably the bureaucratic state, that instead of having more freedom, the people have less. The trouble, of course, is that the group who get into power in the socialized state are just as subject as any of the rest of us to the age-tested maxim: Power co.rrupts, and absolute power corrupts absolutely.
So we say let the courts, Including the Supreme Court of the United States, decide clearly and definitely this highly debatable question of the presidential power. Can the President, without legislation and on his own decision about the nature and severity of the emergency, legally put under government 0peration any industry in the country? Perhaps he can. You and I have no right to say. The courts must decide. And let’s not forget this: on their decision may, indeed, rest the question whether private enterprise and its cherished freedoms will prevail in America.
I want to thank the more than 60 listeners who have telephoned or written about the airship accident at the Central Maine Fair. Next week I’ll give you a full account of just what happened on that fateful second day of September in 1908.
A distinguished citizen of Watervi lie has written another book. Carl Weber, who has resided for more than thirty years on Burleigh Street, is unquestionably the world’s foremost authority on Thomas Hardy. Now don’t ask me who Thomas Hardy was; ask your neighbor. You will find a lot of people who have read The Return of the Native, or Tess of the O’Urbervi lies, or the Mayor of Casterbridge, though they may never have attended college for a single day.
Carl Weber’s latest contribution to the ever mounting commentaries about this great British novelist and peat is called “Hardy and the Lady from Madison Square”. You don’t have to know a thing about the Wessex novel ist to find this a fascinating book. It tells the story of Rebekah Owen who, as a young woman, became so impressed by Hardy’s novels that she was determined to make his acquaintance. Here she was on one side of the Atlantic, he on the other. She was unknown; he was already famous. She was a woman and conscious of the etiquette of her time; he was a man and one notoriously difficult for a stranger to approach.
How Rebekah Owen wangled an introduction to Hardy, how she became an accepted close friend of both the novelist and his wife, and how estrangement finally occurred, is a story which Dr. Weber manages with great skill. This lady from Madison Square even persuaded Hardy to change certain passages in his books when they appeared in later editions. Did Rebekah become emotionally entangled with the novelist? Read the book and judge for yourself. You will get somewhat annoyed by Emma Lavinia, Hardy’s wife, but you may suspect that Emma Lavinia was herself more than annoyed by the lady from Madison Square.
By The way, it was Just 75 years ago, in 1877, that the Seaside Library, a cheap reprint series published by George Munro, began bringing the works of Thomas Hardy to the attention of the average Maine reader. Thomas Bailey Aldrich, who had a summer home near Camden, was editor of the Atlantic Monthly, when In 1 882 — 70 years ago — that famous magazine brought Hardy into thousands of homes. In that year the Atlantic published as a serial Hardy’s novel “Two on a Tower”. One of the Maine readers who first saw that nove I in the pages of The Atlantic was a doctor’s daughter down in Berwick, who was destined to become a recognized novelist herself. The young lady was Sarah Orne Jewett, who later made out a list of what she called ”Books That Have Interested M3 t1.
At the very head of the list she put Thomas Hardy’s “Far from the Madding Crowd”. One of Hardy’s novels made a deep impression down in Gardiner. Harper’s Magazine serialized ”The Mayor of Casterbrldge” and thus brought that story into the home of another Maine doctor, A. T. Schumann. He promptly purchased the novel in book form and Just as promptly loaned it to a high school boy in Gardiner, named Edwin Arl ington Fbbinson. That was how the great writer of Wessex was introduced to him who was to become Maine’s great poet. Robinson’s debt to Hardy he always gratefully acknowledged, and the reader of both men can detect a number of resemblances. In 1895 Robinson wrote a sonnet which he entitled “Sonnet for a Book by Thomas Hardy”. Although Robinson’s introduction to Hardy was through “The Mayor of Casterbridge”, and he soon read also “Tess” and “The Woodlanders”, he considered “The Return of the Native” Hardy’s best novel. A lot of less renowned readers agree with him.
Some time I want to tell you the most interesting story of all about Hardy In Maine — the story of how the Colby College Library became the center for the world’s most famous collection of books by and about Thomas Hardy. But enough about Hardy for tonight. We must leave the library story for a later broadcast.
A few weeks ago I promised to tell you more about the Shakers. Well, here it is. The Shakers are a singular people — singular in more than one sense, for they neither marry nor are given in marriage. That, of course, is one reason why they have become nearly an extinct sect today. Even in my own boyhood the Shaker colony at Sabbath Day Lake in the town of Poland seemed made up largely of old people. With no children of their own, the Shakers had to recruit ‘from . the outside, and their way of living — noble and self-sacrificing as It was-attracted few converts.
Life in a Shaker colony was wholly communal. There was no private ownership of property. The whole community was a family with one common purse, into which went the profits of everyone’s labor, and out of which the wants of all were equally provided. When a person Joined the community, whether he had a thousand dollars or only one, he put it all into the common fund. The members of a Shaker community all ate at the same table, lived in the same house, dressed in the same fashion, shared al ike in the common work, and benefitted equally by the common wealth. Interestingly enough I never heard of a loafing Shaker. Perhaps they found some who could not adapt to the life and would not carry their share of the load, and perhaps those persons quietly left the community. But, frankly, never heard of such an occurrence either at Alfred or at Sabbath Day Lake.
The Shakers were indeed diligent workers. As farmers they excelled. It was often said, long before the days of scientific agriculture, that a Shaker Colony could get more from the soil than any other farmer. They had the finest stock, the best cultured fields, the sturdiest plants. They cared for both plants and animals with great tenderness, as if they were humans. If a Shaker saw a plant drooping, he would shift its position and give it special care, as he would to a chi Id, and gave as his reason “just to make the plant more comfortable and happy”.
A I though the Shaker communities were usually called Shaker villages by the neighbors, the visitor at once noticed a marked difference from the ordinary village. That was the total absence of separate dwelling houses, cottages and little shops. Not only did the inhabitants live together as one family in one large building; they all worked together in one large workshop. In one Shaker village, for instance, the chief Industry was a broom shop. The same community had a big dairy house, a granary, a seed shop, a boys’ shop, and what they called the aged brethren’s shop.
The largest building in any Shaker village was, of course, the dwelling house, containing al I the public rooms and the dormitory; one wing for men, the other for women. They ate al I meals together, at one long table, the men at one end, the women at the other. There was no conversation at meals. After a silent grace, in the manner of the Quakers, they ate each meal in complete silence. The Shakers got their name from a practice connected with their worship. The service had no public prayers and no preaching. They sang hymns and, like the Quakers, allowed any member to speak if he had anything special to say. Then, with the singers in the middle, the whole body of worshippers would move up and down the room in a kind of rhythmic trot, keeping time to the singing. This sort of march or dance, in which everyone shook himself in unison with all the others, caused people to call them the Shakers. The ceremony itself was deep-seated in their belief. They said, as King David had danced before the Lord, so during their dance the spirit of the Lord took possession of them.
The founder of the Shaker sect was Ann Lee, born in Manchester, England in 1736. Child of poor parents, she worked in a cotton factory as a girl, then married a blacksmith, had four children, and finally became interested in a small society formed within a group of Quakers. Dissenting from the calmer and more conservative beliefs of the regular Quakers, this group became stirred by the great religious revival which swept England in the middle of the 18th century. They boldly proclaimed the near approach of the second coming of Christ.
In 1770 Ann Lee began to speak like one inspired, and members of the little society came gradually to believe that Christ himself had reappeared In her. They gave her the name of Mother in Christ. In 1774 Ann declared she had received a revelation directing her to go to Ameri ca, there to establish the ,~church of the Second Appearing. In spite of many difficulties, Ann did establish the first American Shaker colony at Waterville, New York. From that colony spread many others, including the two In Maine — at Alfred and at Sabbath Day Lake.
Many a student of Shaker beliefs has noted the interesting simi larity between their veneration of Ann Lee and Roman Catholic veneration of the Virgin Mary. But there is a big difference. Mary, Mother of Christ, occupies the position of the great intercessor, the holy, immaculate mother who can plead with her son for any sincerely penitent mortal. The Shakers, however, considered Ann Lee as the human embodiment of Christ’s second appearing. As one devout, elderly Shaker put it: “Mother Ann was divine as Jesus was divine. God appeared in human form first in Jesus. But God is not male alone; he is dual, both male and female, both father and mother. God the Father was revealed in Jesus; God the Mother was revealed in Mother Ann. This was the Second Appearing.”
You would suppose the Shakers would have been hard put to answer one question. It was this: “If all the people in the world became Shakers and marriage ceased, where would the next generation come from? Wouldn’t all human life on earth come to an end?” In reply, the Shakers insisted that the solution of that problem was not their concern. Their duty was only to do right and leave the consequences to God. Did not the Bible tell us that God could, if he pleased, raise up children to Abraham out of the stones of the field? And anyhow, the world has to come to an end sometime. Some Christians say It will end by being burned up. “It seems to us”, said the Shakers, “that our way is a lot pleasanter”. It is said that never, at one time, did all the Shakers in all the Shaker villages in the world number more than 6,000 persons. It says a great deal for so small a sect that they have made for themselves a lasting name of incorruptible honesty and un~asing diligence. Many of their practIces seem to us both unsocial and irrational, but we may well be reminded of the memorable saying of John Sterling: ”The worst education that teaches self-denial is better than the best education that teaches all else and leaves self-denial out.”
Year: 1952