Radio Script #255
Little Talks On Common Things
February 27, 1955
My ignorance of economi cs is so profound that I get lost I n any attempt to figure out what is happening to our nati ona I economy. I suppose it I s my stubborn Ma i ne dl spos I tion as we II as weak menta Ii ty that prevents my understanding how, In the long run of the years, a nation, any more than an Indivldua I, can get prosperous by go i ng deeper and deeper I nto debt. So I just fee I uncomfortab Ie about the facts of our natlona I spendi ng.
In the past 15 years our national debt has tripled. In the past five years it ha s I ncreased by 22 b I I I Ion do I I a rs • When we add together what i s owed by the federal government, the states and the local governments, the businessesand the farms, and finally the debts of individuals, we get the shockin9 tota I picture of American debt, and face the astoundi n9 fact that I t has increased by 159 bi II i on dollars in the past five years. On January 1, 1950 the total was 448 billion; on January 1,1955 it had risen to 607 billion.
How long can th is go on? Are we a I ready usl ng up too much of tomorrow’s income? Of course borrow i ng must be a part of modern economy. From the greatest industries to the corner store, business today Is done on credit. No sane person questions its necessity. The question is quite different. It is, “How high can debts be pyramided before the whole structure falls?”
Well, as I said at the start, I don’t know. What I do know Is, too few of us are like the ear I y sett lers of the Kennebec Va Iley, who became pretty sta I wart ciT I zens by exerc is I ng what they be I I eved to be the stern duty to do without whaT you can’t pay for.
How dl d we come to get a free bridge between Watervi lie and Winslow? In the early years of -the 19th century, when bridges were first built across the Kennebec, they were all toll bridges. They were no-t put up by local taxes or by appropriations of the state, but by private corporations which sold shares to the public for -the funds to bui Id the bridge, then sought to pay dividends by co I I ect i ng to I Is •
As I have told you before, Waterville was late in getting its first bridge across the Kennebec. Both Augusta and Skowhegan had the i r bri dges 15 to 20 years before ours. The original bridge between Watervl I Ie and Winslow, from the very first cal Jed the Ticonic Bridge, was bui It in 1824 at a total expense of $6,500. The proprietors — that is, the stockholders — headed by Ti mothy Boute lie, so Id the stock loca II y and put up -the bri dge. I twas throughout a wooden structure; not even the piers we re of stone. I t proved neither high enough nor strong enough to withstand the river floods. Sections of it were constan-tly being washed out and repairs caused heavy expense.
The bridge had been up only two years when a big freshet carried it completely away in March, 1826. The proprietors were full of courage, however, and i mmed i ate lyre bu i I t the structure. I t stood for 5 i x years, when it was smashed to bits by -the biggest flood that ever hit the river from the earliest records unti I 1936 — the great freshet of 1832.
For severa I years peop Ie reverted to crossi ng the ri ver on boats and rafts as they had done before 1824. Lack of financial support and the heavy cost of maintenance made the proprietors hesitate about putting up another bridge. From the start the attempt to span the river at Ticonic Falls had been a financial failure. Investors made no rush to put their money on what had obviously become a losing venture. In 1835, three years after the big flood, Timothy Boutelle bought 15 shares of the Bridge Company’s stock for 25 cents a share.
Somehow the Company was reorgani zed and another bridge was bui It. But year after year it needed repa i rs. Because the company wanted to spend as little as possible, the repairs were niggardly and public complaints were loud.
Meanwh i Ie, in the western part of the state, especi a I I y a tong the Saco River, the movement to free the bridges from tolls had become pronounced and had secured i ncreasi ng Iy popu lar support. So at the town meeti ng In Watervi lie on March 10, 1851 the following vote was passed: ”The town of Watervi lie will pay the sum of $3,000 towards securing the surrender of Tlconlc Bridge to the County of Kennebec, to be used and supported by this county as a free bridge, provided the further sum necessary for that purpose be raised by subscription, and provided that the county commissioners accept said bridge to be used andsJ..Ipported by the County. ” James Stackpole was made cha I rman of a committee to work with the legislature and the county commissioners to carry out the plan.
Nothing came of it, however, unti I the bridge was badly damaged in the spring freshet of 1855. Then what happened is related in an old subscription book now in the possession of Mr. A. F. Drummond. It shows that a completely new bridge, with stone piers and sound timbers, all covered, was the new plan — and It was to bea free bridge.
The old subscription book begins with these words: “We, the undersigned, each in consideration of the promise of the others, hereby promise severally to pay to such persons as may be appointed to receive the same, the sum set against our names for the purpose of building and keeping in repair a free bridge across the Kennebec Ri ver between Watervi lie and WI ns low, and we a Iso agree that any surplus which may remain after bui Iding such bridge shal I be a fund for the purpose of keeping such bridge in repair. Watervi lie, June 12, 1857~’ The three largest subscribers were business firms: Meader and Phi Illps, Elden and Herrick, and J. and H. Percival. Some of the largest individual subscribers were Josiah Drummond, N. R. Boutelle, Samuel Appleton, Simon Wing and Stephen Frye. Apparently Josiah Drummond was the man who kept this book and secured subscriptions. The total shown is $2,005. We do not know how mucn Tnese puujic-splrITe~ citIzens set out to raise nor whether other subscrip- . tion books were in circulation for the same project. We only know that soon after 1857 the bridge was free from toll.
Tucked into this old subscription book are two loose pages, apparently the accounts of someone connected with Josiah Drummond, but whose identity cannot be determined. The first item reads: “October 7,1852. I paid 25 cents for a passage from Ha I lowe II to Watervi lie to Captai n George Jewe II up the Kennebec River in the steamer Clinton”. Then comes: “Octqber 18,1852, paid 2 cents toll across Ticonic Bridge to the toll keeper. October 9, I paid Charles Rhodes 25 cents for mending my coltts halter some time in June, 1852 at his shop on Fort Point in Winslow. I paid one cent toll to cross the Sebasticook bridge to the toll keeper, Miss Leonard. October 22, I paid 9 cents to the Bowling Alley boy for setting up pins at the bowling saloon and ten cents for breaking a glass which holds the curtain at the side of the window.
“November 3, 1852, I paid to the ticket master at the depot in Waterville $1.50 for a ticket from Waterville to Danville Junction, and there I paid at the depot to the ticket master 40 cents for a ticket from the Junction up to Oxford on the Atlantic and St. Lawrence Railroad. November 5, I paid at the company store of King and Perkins five cents for a bottle of ink to write with.”
As many of you listeners know, Josiah Drummond was one of Maine’s most prominent I awyers and emi nent Masons. It was therefore with great de Ii ght that I recently encountered a letter written by Mr. Drummond long before he gained fame. It was, in fact, written from New York on October 25, 1850 when Josiah Drummond was only 23 years old. How he happened to be in New York he doesn’t say. But he wrote a lively, jovial letter which began thus: !tWell, here I am in New York and a pretty cons i derab Ie, smart Ii tt Ie vi I ‘age it I s too. II He tells how he went from Waterville to Boston, stayed with relatives, and then went on to New York. He says: “Ear I yin the morn i ng George and I went to the depot of the Western Ra i I road in Boston. Before ha I f past seven we were off and going some. We stopped only five times ti II we arrived at Springfield, a hundred mi les from Boston, in less than three hours, including all stops.
Ain’t that going some? The country was rather pretty, what I saw of it, but the farms did not look better, nor were the’re so many of them as in the Val ley of the Kennebec.”
On the way between Hartford and New Haven, Josiah says he saw what he cal Is a curious sight — a salt meadow covered with stacks of salt hay. He says the meadow was severa I mi les long and at least a mi Ie wi de and the numerous stack looked like pictures of Hottentot camps. “I made a quick estimate of their number”, he wrote, “by counti ng the te legraph posts as we went by, and deci ded there must be between 12 and 15 thousand of those hay stacks, each containing a fu II load. They were bui I t up f,rom the ground and in many piaces the water stood around them, but not touchi ng the hay. 11
Now that section of the letter gives us pause. Does Josiah mean that he had never seen before a salt meadow with hay stacks? On the rai I road line between Portland and Portsmouth those stacks have been a common sight to every traveler, certainly since 1890. Is it possible they were not there In 1850?
Or does Josiah mean, not that the sight of a salt meadow was unfamiliar, but that the surprising thing was its size and its number of stacks?
When the tra in stopped for 25 rl!j’nutes at New Haven, Jos i ah found a happy result of his membership in a Colby fraternity. He says: “Happening to see a student of Ya Ie Co liege weari ng a ‘bug’ and so a member of our secret co liege society, I made up to him, took his hand and gave him the grip. He resided in the city and pressed me earnestly to stop, but I only stayed ti II the cars started again. But I had a pleasant chat — so much so that I forgot all about dinner which ought to have had during the stop.”
Now you listeners who know how easi Iy and speedi Iy trains enter Grand Central or Pennsylvania Station by the underground tunnels, Just listen how Josiah Drummond got there in 1850. “At three o’clock we arrived within six mi les of the New York depot and the city began to appear, and it looked some large, I can assure you. We had to run very slowly, and when we got nearer, they hitched a span of horses tQ each car and pu II ed us In. f!
Josiah makes a comparison between New York and Boston· with which many of us can fully agree a hundred years later. He says: “New York Is not like Boston.
Its streets are wider, straighter and more regular, and every corner is numbered. In Boston I would get lost a dozen times, but not once In New York.
Here it Is much different In other ways also. You see Dutch signs, French signs, Spanish signs, and even Italian well mixed up among the English. And splendid stores, as far beyond anything in Boston as Boston’s are beyond Thomas Frye’s.”
Jos i ah cou I dn ‘t get used to the noise. IT I n the morni ng, however late you may have been up the night before, you cannot sleep much after six, the noises from the street are so loud and so conti nuous.”
Already at the age of 23 Josiah Drummond was showing the gift for easy, homely comparisons which characterized much of his mature writing in later years. He wants the readers of his letter to get an idea of the size of New York. “Broadway is as long as from Unc I e John’s to the Corner, and a fourpence will give you a ride the whole length of it. A walk down and a ride back will give one a good chance to see the natives. It would take a month to go al I over this city. You can get some idea of It by Imagining all the space from Fort Halifax to China Vi Ilage to be covered with bui Idings and laid out in streets.”
Just the year before Josiah Drummond made this trip to New York, Solyman Heath and his young son had taken the long covered wagon trek to California.
The I.ure of go I d was the big top I c of conversation even I n New York; so we are not surpr i sed to have Jos I ah te II us as fo I lows : “I have had a good chance to go to California offered,me at $300 a month, as a kind of law clerk. But, as the steamer salls today, I hardly think I shall go.” Josiah did go to California, but returned to Watervi lie in 1852, set up practice here, and became the town’s most prominent attorney, unti I he left for even greater prominence as a lawyer In Portland.
What most interests us today Is that, when young Josiah Drummond in 1850 saw New York for the first time, he got Just the same kind of thrl I I that anyone gets today on his visit to that metropolis. Though Josiah saw no skyscrapers, no Radio City, rode In no subway or elevated train, he found New York Just as amazing and thri Iling as the visitor finds it today.
Year: 1955