Radio Script #251
Little Talks On Common Things
January 30, 1955
Last week I told you that I am wholeheartedly in support of the proposed calendar reform which wi II give us four quarters of exactly equal length. Tonight let us see what are the advantages of the new calendar.
In the first place, this is perhaps the most Important gain: every calendar day in every year wi I I a Iways fa lion the same day of the week. I to Id you on the broadcast a week ago that New Years Day would always come on Sunday. Since it is customary to declare the following day a holiday whenever such a day falls on Sunday, New Years would always be a long weekend holiday. The day before New Years Sunday would be the unnamed 365th day of the preceding year — the day not assigned to any day of the week, but declared a World holiday. So the weekend hoi iday would include World Day, Sunday and Monday. World Day would, of course, come between Saturday, December 30 and Sunday, January 1. There would be no December 31, for, as I explained last week, December would have only 30 days the only months with 31 days being the four months that begin the quarters of the year: January, Apri I, July and October.
How often have you tried to figure on what day of the week a given day wi II fa II three years hence? I f you haven’t at hand one of those devl ces ca lied a perpetual calendar, you start with the knowledge that each month next year wi II start one day’s difference from this year. But is it one day later or one day earlier? After some looking at calendars you decide it is one day later.
January 1 began on Friday ·i·n 1954 and on Saturday this year. So it must begin on Sunday in 1956. Now you’re under way. New Years wil I fal Ion Monday in 1957. But wait a minute — 1956 wi II be a Leap Year. So in 1957 January will come not on Monday, but on Tuesday. JUst about then you are getti ng di s- gusted enough to give up. It’s as bad as figuring out times around the world.
Is it earl ier when you get there later, or later when you get there earl ier? Do you not agree that It would at least help our nerves if every date a1ways came on the same day of the week?
Perhaps the most important practical gain would be to business and Indus- ‘ try. Every business statistician will tell you that it is now impossible to get up an accurate financial comparison between two supposedly identical periods in different years. It cannot be done, simply because no two such periods are ever identical in respect to the calendar. Suppose you compare, for retail trade analysis, the period between Thanks{living and Christmas In 1954 and 1955. The number of days is exactly the same, but in 1954 only four of those days were Saturdays. In 1955 five of them will be Saturdays, one of which will be the very day before Christmas.
Or suppose you want to cons ide r J u I y, 1955. Hop i ng that we don’t have a repetition of the rain and cold of last summer, but the warm sunny days we usually get in July, has the calendar itself anything to do with a business man’s plans? Yes, indeed. He cannot merely look at his records for any previously sunny July, and then make a prediction. He must notice that July, 1955 has five Saturdays and five Sundays. That fact cuts out at once ten expected business days, for Saturdays in midsummer are becoming increasingly useless for trade.
Arthur Kaufmann, head of Gimbels’ great department store, advocates the new calendar because it would eliminate our present seven kinds of Januarys, fourteen kl nds of Februarys, and seven kl nds of every other month. Mr. Kaufmann says: “The change would make planning more intelligent, save expense, and resu I tin lower p rices to the consumer.”
Next week I sha II te II you about some of the objections to the proposed calendar, and what I think are strong answers to those objections.
I suspect there is not a sing Ie student now enro lied I n co liege who knows how the white mule came to be the college mascot. When I graduated from Colby in 1913 the col lege had no mascot. Because of the prominence of its two graduates, Peary and MacMi I lan, in Arctic exploration, Bowdoin had just adopted the polar bear. The Maine black bear and the Bates bobcat were also in the future.
Even when returned to the college as a member of the facu Ity in 1923, there was sti I I no Colby mascot. In fact it was that very autumn of 1923 when the white mule appeared, but I assure you my return to Colby had nothing to do with it. For several years preceding 1923, the Maine sports writers had come to view Colby as a dark horse. So on November, 1923, the Colby Echo appeared with the following editorial:
“Co I by is trad i ti ona I I y the dark horse in ath let I c contests. We do sometimes win, but the dopesters never expect us to. We have always preferred to bewa II our prospects, make our opponents overconfi dent, then surprl se everybody by unsuspected power. Lately we have been winninq enough to make the prophets hesitate to predict a Colby defeat. In other words, Colby Is changing from a dark horse to some other kind of creature which may well be typified by a white mule.
“Why indeed shou I d we not have a mascot, and what bette r one than a I itt I e white mule? Whether it is practically possible to procure a white mule in time for the Bates game is prob lemati ca I, but let’s try. Why rot assure our vi ctory by parading behind a white mule?”
When that editoria I was written dark horse Colby was on the way to a football championship. She had already tied Bowdoin and beaten Maine. Only the Bates game lay ahead. Although Bates had at that time not defeated Colby for 17 years, the Co I by students took noth i ng for granted. Bates had its strongest team in years, and anything the Waterville students could do to put increased spirit into their team they were ready to try. Hence the Echo editorial was approved. Students scoured the countryside and on a Kennebec farm finally located a mule that, after considerable scrubbing, looked reasonably white. Adorned with blue and gray trimming, the mule led the Colby band and student body on to the fie Id.
The game was nip and tuck battle, which seemed doomed to a 6 to 6 tie, when Ben Soule, the Colby captain, kicked a field goal in the last two minutes. The lucky mascot had established his place. Ever since that 1923 Bates game Colby Teams have been known as the wh i te mu Ie.
Natura Ily in the next issue after that game the Co Iby Echo ri ghtfully claimed credit. It said: “Our editorial sugoestion concerning a white mule seems to have been enormously successful. The Colby mascot enjoyed every minute of the game, and his kicking proclivities inspired Bi II Millett and Ben Soule to unexce I led punts and a pe rfect fie I d goa I. The Co I by dark horse has 90ne and the whi te mule is here to stay , II
More than once Colby has been laughed at for havino as a mascot an animal noted for I ittle except stubbornness — an animal without pride of ancestry or hope of posterity, Such critics ought to be reminded of how a great national figure once came to the defense of the Colby mule.
Just 30 years before the mule fi rst appeared at that Bates game in 1923, there had graduated from Colby a man who became a world famous geologist, served for thirty years as head of the U. S. C~ological Survey, and was the first chairman of the Federal Power Commission. That man was George Otis Smith who, after his retirement from government office, gave distinguished service to his college as chairman of the Colby trustees.
In 1923, whi Ie sti II in \~ashinqton, Dr. Smith read the Echo editorial, learned of the victory over Bates, and immediately wrote to the Echo the following mighty support of the selection of the mule as a col lege mascot:
“Go TO the mule, thou athlete. Consider his ways and be wise. The mule is brainy and clever. Intellectually he is superior to the horse. The mule plans and coordinates his activities. He is quick starting, but holds himself in reserve for the long pul I. He has great stamina. The mule enjoys play for its own sake, They are cunning and crafty, yet never lose their tempers in play.
The mule keeps in training. He eats sparingly and never gluts himself when tempted by abundance of food, as many horses do. He is a booste r of the team.
Once one of his cheer I eaders starts an outburst, every mother’s son joi ns in the chorus. Yes, Colby athlete, consider the mule and be wise.”
It will be 65 years next July since the steamboat “City of Waterville” made its eventful maiden trip, which I have described in some detail in HKennebec Yesterdays”. I wonder if there is now living more than >one person who made that tri p. A I bert Drummond, reti red Watervi lie banke r, is the one survi vor of whom I am sure.
In 1937 the Waterville Sentinel published a reminiscent account, in which it said that only four men who made the trip were then livino — A. F. Drummond, Dr. J. Fred Hill, Fred Arnold and Fred P. Heald of Hinckley. The Sentinel published a photograph of Dr. Hi II holding a picture of the old steamer, with Fred Arnold standing behind him looking at the picture over the doctor’s shoulder.
A fact wh i ch I have recent Iy learned, and did not know when I wrote “Kennebec Yesterdays”, is that the City of ~/atervi lie was the last of four simi lar boats to navigate the Kennebec. Her predecessors were the Zack, the Balloon and the Rivers ide. The Ba I loon, as mi gh t be expected from he r name, blew up in an explosion. The Riverside was pulled up high and dry at a Waterville dock, and after her i ron was sa I vaged was left there to rot. These boats we re never meant to carry passengers, but on Iy for frei ght. The City of Watervi lie, last of the four, was a keelIess, flat-bottomed craft, which today would be called a glorified scow. She was 90 feet long, with a 20 foot beam, and was moved through the water by a big stern wheel. She wasn’t much of a vessel and she was no success. Her investors never got any return, except the fun of that ride from Bangor to Watervi lie, by way of the Penobscot, the Atlantic, and the Kennebec.
But she is worth remembering, that cumbersome old tub, the City of Watervi lie, because she represents the last, futi Ie gasp of river traffic on the Upper Kennebec.
Year: 1955