Radio Script #209
Little Talks #209,
January 10, 1954
Almost every literate American sees each rronth’s issue of the Reader’s Digest. It seems hardly necessary, therefore, to mention anything printed in that magazine. YeT a brief statement in the current issue expresses so clear’iy and so forcefully a point of view about our economic life which I have been trying to defend again and again on this program that I want to repeat it tonight. The Digest calls it a creed. Here, then, is an avowal of belief that is good for any of us.
“I do not choose to be a common man. I tis my ri ght to be uncotrrnon, if can. seek opportunity, not security. do not wish to be a kept citizen, humb led and du lied by havi ng the state look after me. I want to take the ca 1- culated risk; to dream and to bui Id, to fall and to succeed. I refuse to barter i ncenti ve for a do Ie. I prefer the cha Ilenges of life to the guaranteed existence; the thrill of fulfillment to the stale calm of utopia. I will not trade freedom for beneficence nor my dignity for a hand-out. It Is my heritage to think and to act for myself, enjoy the benefit of my creations, and to face the world boldly and say, ‘This I have done’. All this is what it means to be an American.”
The authorities at Good Wi II Homes thi nk was scarcely fai r to Watervi lie in my recent corrments about ear Iy days at Good Wi II • A I though it is true that there was no Watervi lie citizen on the board of directors at the time to which I referred, and although the subscription list I saw for one particular year gave no Watervi lie name, we must in all fairness point out that, from the start of his work, George Hinckley received prompt and continuing support from peop Ie of WaTervi lie.
Evidence of this early support is shown by a program put on at the Watervi lie BapTist Church on the evening of December 20, 1894. Fire had destroyed the little bui Iding which Good Wi II used for church and school. In the fire a stack of winter cloTh i ng, collected for the boys, had been burned. To pay for new cloth i ng thi s Watervi lie group planned a benefi t enTertal nment. They announced the event inverse, as fo I lows :
“At Good Wi I I They had a fire,
Destroying The boys’ warm winter aTtire;
The debt on The new remains unpaid;
To lift iT now we Invite your aid.
So put in The bag that we send TO you
Some pennies (or nickels or dimes will do).
One for each year of your I I fe ThaT I s pasT,
One for the first as well as the last.
The secret The bag will never unfold
Should you wish that your years remain untold.
Then come i f you can I if you I re we I I and hearty,
I f not, p lease send some other party.
There’ll be somethi ng to eat and a mus I ca I treat
To pass the hour wi th fly i ng feet. IT
On the program was music by a male quartet, which was comprised of students or recent graduates of Colby. Unfortunately the program does not give their names, but two of them may have been Joel Slocum and Chester SturtevanT. Mr. Sturtevant,afterwards a trustee of the college, as his son Is today, was for many years presidenT of the Liverrore Falls Trust Company and one of Maine’s leading Baptist laymen. Perhaps the rooST i nteresti ng Item on the program is listed “Japanese Poetry — Mr. Y. Ch I ba J! • Through the interest of Colby missionaries in Japan, Mr. Chlba had come to America and had entered Colby as a student in 1892. He spent the summer of 1894 at Good WI I I, to earn money toward his college expenses. That summer he lived in George Hinckley’s home, and was wry active In all sports and soc i a I II fe of the Good Wi II boys. Ret urn I ng to Japan, Mr. Ch I ba became president of a Christian theological seminary in his own country.
Colby College has always gl ven strong support to Good Will. Today a full tuition scholarship is available each year to a Good Will boy or girl at1ending Colby. In the very first Issue of the little magazine called “Boy’s Fund”, which later became the “Good Wi II Record”, Colby College placed an advertisement signed by its Li nco I nesque pres I dent, George Dana Boardman Pepper. A present member of the Good Will staff reca lis gol ng to Presl dent Pepper’s home with Mr. Hinckley and there finding Dr. Pepper reading a Hebrew Bible. Well, anyhow, Wa1erville in general, and Colby In particular, have always been friends of Good Wi II.
Among the changes that time has wrought is the disappearance of the car-riage maker. There were two of them In Bridgton when I was a boy. My favorite was a clever man with tools, Ansel Pratt. He would make any sort of vehicle from a two-whee led gi g to a four-seated buckboard. Hi s specl a Ity for speedY production was farm wagons, but his pride and Joy were the fringe-topped surreys, which he took plenty of time to build. In 1902 my father persuaded this man to make, as a Christmas present to my brother and me, a magnificent set of doub Ie runners. I f I had a n I cke I for every ml Ie I have hauled those sleds up h I I I and raced them down, I wou I d fee I more comfortab Ie about 0 I d age securi tv .
Of course we di dn ‘t always wal k up the hi II with those sleds. We were ever on watch for a feamof heavy sleds, drawn by a pair of horses, returning empty up the hi II after taking a big load of hemlock bark to the Bridgton tannery. A kindly driver would let us hitch our sleds on behind and take It easy up the hill. We always fe It those drivers owed us a rl de, because we were I nconveni enced I n our s lid I ng by the ruts out I n the snow-cove red road by the I r bridie-chains. Now any young people listening tonight have no Idea what mean by a bridle-chain, and I suspect a lot of middle aged people may be just as uninformed, especially if they live in the city. But the older folks, out in the country, or who once lived there, know full well the value of a bridlechal n in haul i ng heavy loads on sleds. So I am not gol n9 to te II you young folks what a brid~le-chain is. Ask the older people.
To get back to the subject of carri age makers, let’s see about some of them in the Kennebec Valley a hundred years ago. In 1856 there were four of them in Watervi lie, the best known of whom was Joseph Marston. I n West Watervi lie (.10akland.) were two. Si,x bui It carriages in the several vi I I ages of Vassalboro.
Charles Ames was the best known of three of these artisans In Fairfield. Mitchell, Dinsmore and Company made carriages at Bloomfield, and across the river in Skowhegan were four bui lders. Over in Smithfield were three, Including Nahum Morse. Up at Norridgewock were Hale and Hilton, and Horatio Marshall. The Robeys, Joseph and Wi Illam, turned out vehicles in Readfield, as did Simeon Robbins in Rome, Alfred Thomas in Pittsfield, Sumner Whipple in Solon and Thomas Clark in China.
let us now take another look at Fairfield sixty years ago. What was going on in that town in 1894? On February 13 the Fairfield Journal reported, “Holman Day of the Lewiston Journal was in town yesterday”. Surely now In 1954 not everyone has forgotten Holman Day. His “King Spruce” still ranks as one of the best novels of the Maine woods. In later days he lost his !TOney in i I I-timed movie ventures and died in poverty. Only through the kindness of his classmate Harvey Eaton did he get a decent burial. Is It possible that Maine will some day forget his books as It h as a I ready forgotten the neg I ected grave of Ho I man Day?
In the Journal of Apri I 3 we learn that “Col. Robert Ingersol I wi I I lecture at City Hal I, Watervi lIe on Abraham lincoln on Wednesday evening, Apri I 11”. 01 d the churches of Watervi I Ie boycott that lecture by the athe I st, I ngersoll? Some day we must look up the record in the Watervl Ue Mal I and see what happened. Ingersoll’s lecture on Lincoln, by the way, made much of the fact that Lincoln belonged to no church. He could not get around the equally de fin i te fact~’ however, that Li ncol n was a deep lyre Ii gl ous man. On May 13 the Journal said: “Mrs. C. G. Totman has an exhibit of painted china that musT please the most fastidious.” We can tell you, sixty years later, that famous china is now the prized possession of Mrs. Christine Hume. We learn, from the July 3rd Issue, that “Howard Totman has moved into the house in the Is land, so long occupied by his grandfather, Nahum Totman.” That item interests us especially, because it was the house in which William Bryant died, and I isteners on this program know how fond I have become of Wi Iliam Bryant.
We have previously mentioned that, with the bui Iding of the street car line, the Amos Gerald interests constructed an amusement park at the southern end of the Island and called It Island Park. One of Its features was a weekly concert on Sunday afternoons. On May 28,1894 the Fairfield Journal gave due nOTi ce of the fi rst concert of the season, but left I ittle doubt In the reader’s mi nd about what happened. It sa i d: ”The openi ng sacred concert at I s land Park was we II attended Sunday afternoon. The e lectri c cars brought four loads from Waterville. What music they had was good, but for some reason the orchestra was not all there, and but little music was rer:\dered.”
Just note what fifteen cents would get you in 1894. On March 28 the Journa I p r i nted Th is announcement: “Cbn ‘t forget to get your suppe r ton i ght at the Universalist dining room. Cold meats, hot rolls, pie and cake — 15 cents.”
What was done at the Fairfield town meeting In 18941 For the first time in nany years, the schools got a better app’f’cprlation than the roads, but only Slightly better. For schools the town raised $3,500, for repair of roads and bridges, and for building new highways, a total of $3,400. An article to build an I ron brl dge was turned down, but the town dl d vote to borrOf $3,000 to repair the old wooden bridge between Mill Island and Bunker Island. Sxlty years ago our Maine towns were looking for new industries, just as they are Today. Fairfield voted to grant five years exemption from taxes to any new Industry.
I have more than once told you how much I owe to Mr. Arthur Ellis of the RI dge Road for his va I usb Ie contributi ons to th I s program. I was pleased, therefore, to note I n the Fa I rfle Id Jouma I of December 18, 1894 th Is item; “A very pleasant company gathered at the home of Mr. and Mrs. Arthur Ellis on the RI dge last Thursday event ng, to ce lebrate the .fl fth anni versary of the I r marriage. Friends and neighbors presented the couple with a handsome chair.”
On November 27 the Jouma I referred to the grandfather of the owner of th is rad I 0 stat Ion. I t sa I d : ”The basement of the Ope ra House has been rented to F. H. Brown for a pant factory. About January first he will remove there with all his machinery, and will double, perhaps triple, his present force.”
So many years have elapsed since the Spanish-American War that I suspect few of our young peop Ie today have the s lightest I dea what I t means to say “femember the Maine”. The sinking of the. battleship “Maine” in Havana Harbor precipitated that war. It is thus especially interesting to learn from an Item in the Fai rfleld Journal In 1895 that a Fairfield man had a prominent part In the launching of that battleship.’: The.”Maine!! was comparatively new when she was sunk in 1898, having been launched on July 1, 1895. It was on May 7, 1895 that the Journal carried this brief Item: “General Seldon Connor wi II make the presenTation address when the silver plate Is given to the new cruiser “Maine”, which will be launched on the first of July.
A gli””se at customs and mores of sixty years ago is given us by a Journal Item in August of·1895. It says: “If the girls who walked the streets of this vi 1 I age last Wednesday afternoon, smoking cigarettes, knew what a dlsgusti ng sight they were, we th ink they woo I d not repeat the act.”
Year: 1954