Radio Script #247
Little Talks On Common Things
January 2, 1955
Last week I referred to the support of education by the National Association of Manufacturers. Tonight I want to show you how the sarre attitude is taken by the U. S, Chamber of Corrmerce. A few years ago the Chamber organi zed its Committee on Education, a body which has done much, by radio and television programs, publications and other devices. to acquaint the American people with educational needs, They have focused attention on the growing school population on the one hand, compared with the increasing shortage of teachers on the other hand.
Many of our I isteners tonight are aware of President Eisenhower1s determination to get at this question of education by considerations at the grass roots. Everyone of the 48 states has been asked by the Pres i dent to review its school problems and its resources to meet them. Maine wi II make such a study, and already committees are being set up in the individual communities to survey the local prob,lems. Such a committee has been organized in Watervi lie and I s a I ready at work.
The thousands of businessmen who comprise the U. S. Chamber of Comrrerce are supporting this grass roots study of educational needs with whole-hearted enthusiasm.
A few weeks ago their official bulletin had this to say:
‘TWe urge a II commi ttees on educati on and bus i nessmen everywhere to put first things first and contribute time, thought and energy to these state education conferences. Loca I and state leaders know what thei r schoo Is requi re and they know best how to meet those needs. Business leaders everywhere have a stake in and a responsibi lity for the validity of the report which their state sends to the White House. During the coming decade: our schools wi II playa prominent part In training the leadership we must have If our nation is to rerna i n both democrat i c and strong.”
The bitter controversy over non-segregation in the South is the harvest not only of slavery, which was supposedly abolished 90 years ago, but even more of the shamefu I acts of reconstruction perpetrated by a vengeful North.
One bit of evi dence that shows the ki nd of action wh i ch even the grandsons of Southerners have not yet forgotten is in the possession of Albert ~100re of Fairfield. It is a letter written to Mr. fvbore’s grandfather by Simeon Pierce of Selma, Alabama, and is dated ~1arch 31,1870. It says: “Please find enr~ closed a photograph'”of one of the jurors under the reconstruction act. I can assure you that it is a perfect likeness. I hope you wi I I have the kindness to show it to some of the ”Trooly Loyal”.
By the ”Trooly Loya I” the wr,iter meant the northern element wh i ch supported the carpetbaggers and demanded that, without education or experience, Negroes be put at once Into responsible positions.
The photograph referred to is sti II preserved by Mr. Moore. It shaNS an aged, qbviously confused Negro, dressed in ragged coat and trousers, posed in a photographer’s studio of the time. A newspaper clipping which Mr. Pierce of Alabama enclosed in his letter to his acquaintance in Maine tel Is how this man got on the jury. The c Ii pp i ng I s not from a southern paper, but from a Neb raska publication, the Omaha Herald. Probably reconstruction control of the southern press at that time made it necessary to publ ish this account in some friendly northern paper. Anyhow here is what the Omaha Herald said about the poor, befuddled Negro In the picture:
”When th is industri ousgent leman was summoned by the sheri ff, he was engaged in cultivating a garden In Selma. He dropped his hoe, his knees smote together, and a cold perspiration broke out on his brow. He protested to the sheriff that he “hadn’t done nuffin’, and it took a long time to make him understand that he was not be I ng arrested, but had been picked to serve on the jury. You can I magine with what confidence we can now appeal to our intelligent juries.!’
Ei ghty-fi ve years after that letter trave led from A labama to Ma ine we see only too clearly who was the ultimate loser as a result of those stupid acts of reconstruction. The loser was not the carpet-bagger, not the Southern white man who felt so disgraced and insulted. The real loser was the Negro.. the victim a I I ke of s I ave ry and reconstruction. The ignorant I uneducated too I of both sides, he has had a long, uphi II struggle for schooling, for employment even approaching an equal basis, for recognition of his essential human rights. The poor Negro in that photograph of 1870 is the symbo I of an exp I oi ted peap Ie about whom the Supreme Court of the United States has at last said they must not be segregated in their right to education.
Now that our long cherished Hoi lingsworth and Whitney has become a division of the big Scott Paper Company, it is well to remind our listeners of the hum,b I e beg Inn i ng of the H & W Company I tse If.
On April 5,1862 a partnership was set up by Ellis Hollingsworth and Leonard Whitney, Jr. Sentimentally at least, I have a formal interest in that partnership. Let me tell you why. In 1635 a man by the name of John ~/hltney came from the Westmi nster part of London to the new Iy sett led Boston on ~~assachusetts Bay. With the Saltonstalls he settled a few mi les up ,the Charles River at Wate rtown .
One branch of the family remained at Watertown, and there two hundred years after John Whitney had arrived, his descendant, Leonard vlhltney, Jr. was born.
Another branch of the family migrated to Maine, settling first at Cape Elizabeth and then at Gorham. There I n Gorham, about the same ti me that Leonard .. Jr. was born in Watertown, Calvin Whitney, Leonard’s distant cousin, was born. CaJ- vin Whitney was my maternal grandfather. So by a considerable stretch of relationship, I can say that a relative of mine was one of the co-founders of the H & W Company.
At fi rst the Company operated a paper mill only at South Braintree, Mass. and a bag factory at Watertown. After a few years they added a mi II at Gardiner. In 1882, after both partners had died, the company was incorporated as the Hollingswct>rfh and Whitney Company. At that time the combined product of a/l of its mil Is was nine tons a day.
In 1892 they decided to start a mil Ion the WinsloW side of the river near Ticonlc Falls. In 1893 what were then called the Taconnet and Mohegan Mi /Is were opened, the first of what was to become the present big Hollingsworth plant. In 1900 came the addition of the Algonquin Sulphite Mf II, and in 1903 the company bu i It the Abenaqu i Mi lis at Mad i son for the manufacture of ground wood.
In 1930 an arti cle in pra ise of H & W appeared In the Watervi lie Senti ne I. It pointed out that the company’s production had increased from nine tons a day In 1882 to a comb ined tota I of 580 da i Iy tons — 290 tons of paper. 165 of su 1- phlte and 125 of ground wood. The Sentinel pointed out that in that year of depression, 1930, H & W were employing nearly 1,500 workers, distributed an annual payroll exceeding two million dollars, and had annual production of ten million.
Proud Iy the Sent i n~ I of 25 years ago po tnted to H & W’s exce I lent re I ati ons between management and workers. The Senti ne I sa i d: !lNo other ml II in Ma i ne uses its emp loyees so we” as the H & W. The Taconnet Clubhouse, located a short distance from the mi II, is open to its emp loyees enti re Iy w ithdut charge.
It is managed by an association of employees who meet entertainment and other expenses by collecting a small fee for billiards, pool, and bowling. The clubhouse was built by the company and offers the employees a comfortable library with over 3,000 volumes, many newspapers and magazines, a room with 1wo pool and two bi II iard tables, a bowling ppace wiTh two fine alleys, sh<:Mer baths with soap and towels furnished. Outside are two tennis courts kept In fine condition duri n9 The season for the use of emp I oyees.
WaTerville as well as Winslow thought a lot of the H & W 25 years ago. We can assu re the new owners, the Scott Pape r Company, that loca I affect I on for H & W has not diminished with the years. Our citizens of 1955, like those of 1930, sTi II regard H & W as a progressive, I ively, and decidedly human company.
When did the fi rst rai I street cars appear in Watervi lie? Because many of you know the electric cars appeared in the 1890’s, it may surprise you to learn that The first rai I street cars of any kind did not appear unti I 1888. They’ were, of course, horse cars. The first car came to Wate rvi I I e from Fa i rf Ie I d on June 24, 1888. The driver of its two horses was Theodore Stevens, who as late as 1932 w.as conducting a mi Ik route In Waterville. When Stevens drove that first trip of the horse cars, his passengers included the officials of the .road and leading business and professional men of Fairfield. The whole parTy, Inc I ud I n9 Mr. stevens and the conductor, Zedd i c Shaw, had dinner at the E I rrrwood.
The horses were stabled in a building where the electric car barns were later bu i It, at the corner of Mai nand Newhal I Streets in Fa I rfie I d. At one time the company kept 35 horses. A ‘pai r usua Ily made on Iy one round trip a day.
In winTer, to buck the mountain drifts, four horses Instead of two pulled the car. The cars were unheated, and the floor was sometimes covered with straw •. ; No windshield protected the driver, who faced the elements openly, just as did h is horses.
The old horsecar line extended from the junction of Bridge and Main Streets in Fairfield to the corner of Silver and Main In Waterville.
The wheels of the car were set under the center of the body, and the big horses pulled it easily over the rails. The capacity was forty passengers, and it was fu lion near Iy every trip. The car stopped anywhere a long the I ine that a passenger wanted to get on or get off, but the company did everything to discourage stopping part way up a hill.
Horsecar servi ce was from 6 A .M. to 10 P.M. In the afternoon they ran every ha I f hour, cars pass I ng each other at a turnout ha I f way on the line.
Amos Gerald, Fairfield’s energetic promoter, bui It the line. Horses propelled the cars for only four years. In 1892 It was electrified and extended and thereafter became Waterville and Fairfield’s electric car line. It is interesting to me tt)at at the very same time when I was riding on a horse car In Fryeburg — the horsecar pictured on the jacket of “Kennebec Yesterdays” — the street cars of what is now my home town of Watervi lie had a I ready abandoned horses and were operated by e lectri c current.
Year: 1955