Radio Script #152
Little Talks On Common Things
June 8, 1952
This is our last broadcast of the season. If all goes well we shall be back on the air September 14th. But for the next three months you will get relief from hearing our talk about inflation and taxes, corruption and deficit spending, as well as about clock reels and ox slings and narrow gauge railroads. But don’t forget that I am still looking for such material. I hope, during the summer, our many helpful listeners will put me on track of a lot more interesting items of the olden days.
It is well to keep reminding ourselves that the taxes which hurt most are not the open ones like the state sales tax, nor even the federal income tax. They are rather the taxes hidden away in the price we pay for commodities. Just think what the price of certain articles would be if there were no tax on them. Coal would be $9 a ton; a 50¢ pack of playing cards would be 29 cents; gasoline would be 12 cents a gallon; bread 9 cents a loaf; milk 14 cents a quart; and a $28 auto tire would be $19.
We don’t eat a mouthful, buy a single thing, or go anywhere that these hidden taxes do not take their toll. After a thorough study the Tax Foundation produced the figures to show that a family of three persons with an income of $70 a week pays a federal income tax of $300, and is likely to complain a lot about it; but the same family spends $800 a year in hidden taxes, and says nothing. Ignorance is bliss.
We hear a lot about the cost of our schools and the underpaid status of our teachers. There is no question about it; compared with other occupations our teachers are grossly underpaid. We ought to spend a lot more money on our schools. How are we going to do It without making the tax burden worse than It already is? That is the $64 question. Let us take a look at the standing of Waterville among Maine’s 21 cities in respect to the support of public schools. In per capita expenditure per pupil, Waterville stood ninth in the school year of 1950-51, the latest for which complete figures are available. It cost us $142.10 for each pupil in our public schools. The most expensive school system was in Bangor, where the cost was $154.42 per pupil. The cheapest was Belfast, the only one of the 21 cities with per capita cost under $100. Belfast’s was $99.04.
That we don’t strain ourselves for our school expenditures in Waterville is shown by a comparison with Presque Isle. We have more than twice Presque Isle’s valuation, $17,159,000 compared with their $8,251,000. Yet Presque Isle must care for 1,960 public school pupi Is compared with our 2,125. In 1950-51 our total expenditure for school maintenance was $301,970; Presque Isle’s was $272,098. We had a 45 mill tax rate; Presque Isle’s was 38.5 mills. We had only 9 more teachers than Presque Isle, 98 compared with their 89. Yet our per capita cost was $142.10 wh i Ie Presque I s Ie’s was on Iy $138.83. What is more, in the year since 1949-50, our per capita cost had increased by $4.50, while Presque Isle’s had decreased by $3~42. In respect to state valuation Watervi lie is the sixth city, crowding Biddeford for fifth place. Biddeford’s valuation In 1950- 51 was $17,247,000; ours was $17,159,000. But in respect to total school expenditures we stand a poor seventh, and are pretty nearly pushed into eighth place by Bath, whose valuation is only two-thirds of ours.
In Waterville we are doing better for our schools than we did in 1940 -a lot better — but we haven’t anything to crow about when we set our accomplishments beside Maine’s twenty other cities.
Mr. D. E. Decker, 80 year 01d resident of Clinton, reminds me that the old records of the town of Canaan are worth looking at. If I can get permission of the town authorities, I want to examine those records some day. At first Canaan, Skowhegan and Bloomfield were all one town. Early town meetings were held at farm houses, frequently at the home of the Weston fami lyon the west side of the Kennebec. At one time the town hired a minister, who came all the way from Massachusetts on horse back and then rode circuit over the three towns. A part of his pay was an agreement to help him put In his crops and to plow a certain number of acres of land for him. One year Canaan raised $300 for all the bridges in what is now all three towns. In another instance the town persuaded a land owner to al low public traffic through his pasture, provided the travelers would close the gate behind them. All of those things Mr. Decker tells me, What he says whets my appetite for a look at those Canaan records.
As we close our broadcasts for the year, I want to pay my respects again to a town far away from Waterville, the town of Peebles in Scotland. Last fall I told you about their famous Beltane Festival and Riding of the marches, now want to tell you how they finance it. There is no public commitment; all is paid by income from the various events the sports, the dances, the concert, the fancy dress parade, the flag day, the Cross Kirk service, and other features, And as we would expect from honest, frugal Scotsmen, every expenditure is carefully watched.
Last June the events of the week brought in a total of 1,622 pounds, 1 shilling, 7 pence. The expenditures came to 167 pounds less than that; and that this had been the case year after year is shown by the treasurefts report of the total balance in the festival fund of nearly 1,500 pounds. The Beltane Festival, with its full week of activities each June, is conducted by an official group called the Peebles Festival Committee, and they are very busy right now preparing for their 1952 celebration. No matter how carefully finances are conducted and no matter how large a surplus, there are always complaints about the management of any public affair. As Benjamin Franklin once said, “There are croakers in every country always boding its ruin.”
When the treasurer of the Peebles committee offered his report at their annual meeting last winter, he said: “One person could not understand where the expenditure came from in connection with the dances. All he could see was that we had bands and halls to pay for. He did not seem to appreciate that to provide hundreds of dozens of bottles of minerals and trays and trays of cakes, pies, etc. a I so entailed the paying out of money.”
The town provost also put in a word designed for the ears of the critics. He said: “The treasurer’s report has been explicit, and the expenditure for the various Items speaks for itself. The public does not fully recognize the amount of money which is required annually to carry through the ceremonies.”
In Waterville we find it a tremendous job to carryon a week’s celebration once in fifty years. What would happen to us if, like the folks of Peebles, we had to do it every year?
I wonder if persons in Waterville and vicinity who like to sing fully appreciate the opportunity offered by the Waterville Sesquicentennial. On Sunday, July 20, the opening event of that week’s celebration is to be a great sacred concert, in which all religious faiths will cooperate in recognition of Freedom of Religion Day. Every person who likes to sing is asked to enter the chorus, which it is hoped will number 150 voices.
The nucleus will be the Waterville Area Chorus of which Mrs. Edward Colgan is the head, but her group will be augmented by church choirs, other singing groups and individuals. No one is excluded; every singer is welcome. The chorus will be directed by Prof. Peter Re, the man who di reeted the Colby College Glee Club for its several public appearances during the past year, including its notable Monsanto broadcast.
The proposed sacred concert to inaugurate Watervl lie’s celebration of its 150 years will succeed or fail in accordance with the response of singers and groups to Join the huge chorus for this one event.
More than once I have referred to the old-time schools. I have given you information out of the old school reports of Waterville, Winslow, Fairfield, Oakland, and Vassalboro. Tonight let us examine a report of schools in Albion nearly a hundred years ago. It Is a report of the superintending school committee of Albion for the year 1861-62. The report begins: “The schools in town for the past year have been in a very flourishing condition. Not withstanding we have been visited by the malignant disease, giptheria, and 17 of our scholars, from various districts, have found a youthful grave, still the school interest has been kept up and all have done well:
As in other towns of that time, Albion had several school districts — 14 to be exact — each presided over by a school agent, Just the way Elisha Wood was agent for a Freedom school district in 1858. The three members of the committee in charge of all the districts, and to whom the 14 agents were responsible. were George Wilson, O. O. Crosby and W. C. Crosby.
As I have told you before, these old school reports contain very frankstatements. For instance, in this report we read that in District 7 the winter term was taught by Atwell Taylor of China. The comment is: “We think Mr. Taylor is a good scholar and strove for the advancement of his pupils; but being young and inexperienced, he failed to maintain the order essential for the best interest of the school.”
Of District 13 we read that the teacher tried with all her power to make the school interesting, but the pupils did not respond very well. In District 14 we are told that Miss Anna Hanscom of China, who had the summer term, tried hard to keep a good school, but the pupils, being rather roguish, progress was not sufficient from making the school appear backward at the end of the term. Of District No.3 the report says: “This school commenced with good interest and continued about eight weeks. But with so much ice, the fondness for skating got the ascendency, and the parents seemingly willing to have it thus, the latter weeks of the term were not very profitable.”
The report for District 5 was decidedly mixed: “Several of the scholars, the teacher told us, had not whispered during the term, and all had been marked high for deportment. The improvement was good, but if anyone should see the schoolhouse, we think they would wonder how school could keep going, much less make any improvement. In our opinion that schoolhouse is a disgrace to any community.”
In the same pamphlet with this school report is printed the report of the Selectmen of Albion for 1861-62. The total income of the town for that year was $2,190.30. Its total expenditures for ordinary maintenance amounted to $1,907.26 showing a credit balance of $283.04. But, alas, that was only a paper balance as we shall see in a moment.
The evil War had now been waging a little more than a year. The towns were becoming hard pressed to supply their quotas of soldiers. As yet there was no draft, and the only way the towns could raise their quotas was to pay bounties to volunteers. In that one fiscal year between the town meetings of 1861 and 1862 the little town of Albion had paid out $2,800 in such bounties, $900 more than all the maintenance expenses of the town. This left the town more than $2,500 in debt on the one year’s transactions.
It was this policy of paying bounties to volunteering soldiers which nearly bankrupted the Maine towns and which caused the state to place a constitutional debt limit of five percent of valuation on all Maine municipalities. Then when we realize how uneasy the Maine boys were when they returned from southern battlefields to the rocky Maine farms, how eagerly they answered the call of the West, we can understand why in the five years between 1865 and 1870 Maine lost ten per cent of her population.
But 80 years afterward Maine is still here and doing pretty well, thank you.
We Maine folk are a sturdy breed and don’t quit easily. We may live in a climate that consists of two seasons, winter and the Fourth of July. We may have pastures where they have to sharpen the sheep’s noses so they can graze between the rocks. Some of our villages may be so small that they are accused of taking in the sidewalks after dark. But, believe me, we are still proud to live and work in Maine. And you can’t beat that notion out of the head of a Maine-iac with the tire of all creation flattened out for a crowbar.
And with those solemn words, we bid you good-night until September.
Year: 1952