Radio Script #264
Little Talks On Common Talks
May 1, 1955
This program, which is so largely devoted to the old days, has never recommended that ,. lie go back to those days. We like to remember them, but we have no desire to repeat them. Yet, a lot of folks think the American people are worse off today Than they were fifty or a hundred years ago. Before you subscribe to that view, you had better think twice.
Take just the matter of wages. Everybody knows that wages are higher today.
A few days ago I picked up a volume that showed the pay of our state officials in 1905, exactly 50 years ago. The Attorney General got $1,000 a year, the State SuperinTendent of Schools $1,500, the State Treasurer $2,000. Many offices, which today rate from $7,000 to $10,000 a year were then listed at the commonest rate for all state officials, $1,000.
Not long ago AI Ian Rucker of Cambridge, Mass., made an exhaustive study of what happened economically in the United States from the opening of the First World War in 1914 unti I two years after the Second World War in 1947. This was a period when industry was making its greatest advance in American history. Mr. Rucker found thaT, on a man-hour basis, the output of men and machines in American manufacturing increased 160 per cent; and that the real wages of workers, measured in terms of purchasing power (not just the dollar amount of wages) increased 157 per cent. In the same period the relative prices of .manufactured products, measured likewise in terms of hourly wages, decreased 60 per cent. In short, the study shows that real wages of workers have advanced at almost the same rate as has The improvement in production. Furthermore, in 1914 the share of national income which went to the owners of business in the form of dividends was 6 per cent, but in 1947 it amounted to only 3 per cent.
It is easy TO complain about the materialism of our age, our absorption with success, with bigness, with things. Of course they are not the great essentials of American life. They are not democracy and freedom, they are not America’s great ideals, nor even her Bi I I of Rights. Yet in all fairness we / ought not to forget what Wendel I Wi I Ikie told us a few months before Pearl Harbor:
“Only the productive can be strong, and only the strong can be free.”
The Colby Oracle is now the col lege year book, which contains annually photographs and information about each member of the graduating class, al I of the college organizations, many informal snapshots, and other information that alumni like to pore over years afterward, after the gray hairs have come. Rising costs being as they are, that year book now sel Is for $6.00 a copy.
It was not always so. recently came across the second issue of the Oracle ever produced. It was just a four-page, newspaper size sheet that sold for seven cents. The head i ng says: ‘The Orac Ie. Pub I i shed by the Students of Colby University, \\’atervi lie, Maine, November, 1868.” That was just three years after the end of the Civi I War.
What we now cal I fraternities were listed as secret societies. There were then just two: Delta Kappa Epsi Ion and Zeta Psi, neither more than 25 years old. The Dekes then had 21 members: 6 seniors, 4 juniors, 8 sophomores and 3 freshmen. One of those freshmen became a very prominent alumnus, whose sons and grandsons later came to Co I by. He was Wi I der Wash i ngton Perry of Camden.
The Zetes had 18 members: 5 seniors, 4 juniors, 4 sophomores and 5 freshmen.
Prominent among the organizations was the Boardman Missionary Society, of which J. K. Richardson was president. One of its projects was a Sunday School class on the Plains.
For mus i ca I interests there were the Mozart Qui ntette Club and the Co liege Choir. The latter, led by H. W. Ti Idon, consisted of 12 voices — all male-,of course, because women had not yet been admitted into Colby in 1868.
Two literary societies, both of which had originated in the 1820’s, were sti II active in 1808. Tne LiTt:=cary rr”alerntTy, lea by Nicholas Atkinson, had 23 members, whi Ie its rival, the Erosophian Adelphi, had 24.
Three months before th is issue of the Orac Ie appeared, there had just graduated, in the Class of 1868, the man who through the years was known by more Colby alumni than any other Colby man who ever lived. I refer, of course, to Julian D. Taylor, who taught Latin at the col lege for p3 years. When this Oracle came out he had just begun his teaching, and was the youngest member of the Colby faculty with the rank of tutor. The Oracle tells us that, in the fal I of 1868, he had only six col leagues on the faculty: President James T. Champlin, who taught phi losophy; Samuel K. Smith, teacher of rhetoric and librarian; Charles E. Hamlin, professor of chemistry and natural history; Moses Lyford, professor of mathematics and natural phi losophy; John B. Foster, professor of Greek and Latin; and Edward W. Hal I, professor of modern languages.
The college calendar in 1868 was quite different from that o.f today_ The fal I term began the first week in September and continued unti I December 23, just two days before Ch~istmas. Then came the long winter vacation, giving the students opportunity for earnings by teaching in the common schools. Not until February 17 did college resume work. That term ended on May 12, followed by a short vacation of two weeks. Then on May 24 began the summer term, ending with Commencement on August 11. Perhaps we have no clearer picture of economic conditions in Maine 90 years ago than is revealed by that college calendar. The best time to earn money to help oneself through col lege was not in the summer, but in mid-winter. The college had no long summer vacation, but did have one of eight weeks in the winter.
The Oracle gives some statistics about Dr. Taylor’s class of 1868. The average age was 24 years, 9 months. The oldest member was 29, the youngest 20.
The number engaged to be married was 5, of whom 2 were engaged to Watervi I Ie ladies. Religious preference: Baptist 11, Methodist 2, Unitarian 1, no preference 4. I ntended profess ions: mi n i stry 6, law 3, bus i ness 1, journa I ism 1, undecided 4. Two ~ere sons of clergymen, nine sons of farmers, four sons of businessmen, one the son of a lawyer, and one of a sea captain.
It is difficult for the modern col lege student to comprehend how restricted and how fully required was the curriculum a hundred years ago. In fact 1868 was a notable year at Colby, because it marked the first entrance of elective studies into the curriculum. On this point the Oracle said: “We hai I with peculiar satisfaction the change in the program by which elective studies have been added to the course. More are promised if these are found beneficial. That such wi I I be the case we have no doubt. A I I students do not des i re to pursue precisely the same course, and we believe the addition of these studies wi II act as a sti mu I us to greater effort.
The most noticeable characteristic about this 1868 Oracle is the complete omission of intercollegiate athletics. One sport had indeed bit the campus at that time. In 1865 John Moody had introduced the new game of basebal I, but there were as yet no games with Bowdoin.
The Orac Ie notes, however, the exi stence of severa I i nforma I baseba II clubs. One was the Delphies which, in the previous summer, had maintained a good record in games with the Herculeans of Winthrop, the Sheri dans of Norridgewock, and the Crescents of Bangor. Some of the scores read rrore like football than they do like modern baseball: Herculeans 66, Delphies 46; Delphies 59, Sheri dans 26; Delphies 39, Cobbossee Club 28; Delphies 40, Crescents 30. The Orac Ie account, however, ends on th is dolefu I note: HJ n the i r I ast game, wh i ch was wi th the Odd Fe II ows of Kents Hi I I, the De Iph i es made a very low score, los i ng by 84 to 19.
Of that Delphic nine in 1868, C. W. Foster was captain and catcher. The pitcher was Fred Wi Ison. There was also the freshman baseball club, headed by E. K. Dunbar, with Wi Ider Perry as its pitcher. The Marmot Baseball Club had T. G. Lyons as captain and pitcher.
Finally, let us see what the Oracle said about the appointment of one of their own contemporaries to the college faculty: “At our last Commencement in August 1868, the Trustees made a valuable addition to our corps pf instructors in the selection from the graduating class of Mr. Julian D. Taylor. He is a young man of fine abi lities and already bids fair to maintain as ‘instructor the high standards he rna i nta i ned as a student. H is co I lege compan ions most hearti Iy approve this wei I-merited honor and wish him much happiness and a long life in his sphere of usefu I ness.” L itt Ie cou I d they dream — those Orac Ie editors of 1868 — that their expression of good wishes would be fulfi I led in the longest teaching record made by any college teacher in America, continuous teach i ng in the same co liege for 63 years.
A contemporary account of a Kennebec flood — one to which I have given Ii tt Ie attenti on before ton i ght — has recent Iy reached me ina letter from Lakeland, Florida. This account of the Freshet of 1896 59 years ago — was written by Paulina Curtis Waldron, whose grand-niece, Mrs. Lelia Chamberlain of Lakeland, Florida, has sent me a copy of Mrs. Waldron’s report. This is what she wrote:
‘~hroughout February and early March the old Kennebec flowed serenely beneath her covering of ice, but March came in a stormy lion. Wind and rain melted the snow fast, and Watervi lie rece i ved word that the ice was breaki ng up.
Above the Ti con i c dam he came i n large blocks. Th rough a day and two ni gh ts rain fel I unceasingly. Morning of the second day showed a rapidly rising river. By the fo I low i ng ni ght peop Ie became app rehens i ve as they saw one high water mark after another covered by the rising stream. fv4en were out on the piers of the rai I road bridge, strengthening it with iron girths. All day Sunday we watched the river steadi Iy rise. That night public apprehension increased, because the driving rain let up not a bit. At three o’clock Monday roorning the fire alarm blew a general call, summoning all men to perform flood rescues, for cellars and lower floors of dwelling houses were deluged. For / hours the men rolled out, carried out, threw out househo I d goods unti I the most threatened places had been vacated.
“Day light on Monday, March 2 revea led an exci ted ci ty. Women carne out, some in old calico dresses, some in Sunday best, others in less worthy clothes, to walk up and down Front Street to see the great cakes of ice lying on top of one another between houses at the Head of the Fa lis. The ri ver was one great mass of ice cakes.
“No sooner had I looked upon the ri ver in its awfu I wrath than I fe It actually seasick and gave up al I thought of doing my Monday washing. Our boarders had a holiday except Arthur Trask. He, poor fel low, worked hard throughout the storm, to make a safe passage for trains. But it was not long before all trains were stopped. Our rai I road bridge held, but the Th:onic highway bridge went out. So did the bridge at Gardiner.
T’I sha II never forget how the ri ver looked a II that d readfu I Monday. Fragments of houses and barns, sheds and hen coops, trembled and bobbed in mad rush down the river, amidst the huge blocks of ice. Logs in countless numbers pounded against the bridge abutments and pi led up on the banks. The old steamboat wharf on the Plains was smashed to kindling. The electric cars were stopped, and to make the night even more awesome, all power fai led. The damage a long the Kennebec wi I I run into many thousands of dol lars.”
Such was Mrs. Waldron’s account of the Freshet of 1896.
Year: 1955