Radio Script #300
Little Talks On Common Things
April 8, 1956
On November 14, 1948 Little Talks on Common Things first went on the air.
Two weeks later the Keyes Fibre Company accepted sponsorship of the program as a public service. The program has never been interrupted by company advertising — only the brief single sentence at the beginning and at the end, both saying simply that Keyes is the sponsor.
So on thi4s 300th broadcast, in the eighth year of the program, I want to devote the entire time to the Keyes Fibre Company. The idea is mine; no officer of the company has asked or suggested that it be done. I submit that my idea is appropriate to the long accepted theme and spirit of the program. What little things are more common than dishes? They have accompanied meals for many centuries. What longer continued slavery has the human race seen to equal the housewife’s bondage to the dishpan? A I I ha ii, therefore, to the company which has given us the disposable dish, and the more luxurious keepable dish that won’t break in the washing.
Like most big oaks, Keyes Fibre grew out of a tiny acorn, but the oaken figure doesn’t hold in this instance, for the acorn was a maple chip. From the ear I i est days in his father’s mi II at Lempster, New Hampsh i re, Marti n Keyes had been interested in making articles from wood and wood products. Whi Ie employed by the Indurated Fibre Company, makers of pap~er-mache” tubs and pai Is, in northern New York, Keyes observed that workmen in nearby factories ate their lunches off of pieces of maple veneer. That observation was the birth of a great idea. Why not make plates out of veneer?
It was only one more step for Keyes to conceive the better idea of making paprus plates by forming pulp on a die. Coming to the Central Maine area, he bui It a tiny shack on the site of the Shawmut pulp mi I I run by Lawrence, Page and Newhal I. In 1905 he bui It a sma I I mi I I beside the rai I road track in Shawmut and installed four machines. There were only seven employees. In 1908, with 34 employees, Keyes bui It the first unit of what is now the company’s main plant near the Watervi I Ie-Fairfield line.
You al I know that Keyes Fibre today is one of Maine’s great industries. I could give you a lot of huge figures about their plant and production, but you would forget them before this broadcast ends. So let me give you a few comparisons, some of which I’m sure you’ll remember.
If the cases of products made in one year at Keyes were pi led on top of each other, they would make 6,000 pi les each as high as the Empire State Sui 1- ding. If the individual pieces made in one year were placed end to end, they would encircle the earth fourteen times. The amount of wood ground annually at the Shawmut plant would bui Id more than a thousand neat ranch houses. Keyes’ payrol I in 1955 amounted to more than it cost to bui Id the whole rai I road line that first entered Watervi lie from Portland. Every year Keyes makes enough Savaday and Chinet disposable plates to serve three meals a day to every man, woman and chi Id in Maine, New Hampshire and Vermont.
We are fortunate to have with us tonight the President of the Keyes Fibre Company, Mr. Wallace Parsons, whom every worker at Keyes and every citizen of this community knows fami liarly as Deke.
Deke, people often ask me just what Keyes Fibre makes. I know you currently manufacture more than 280 different items. What are some of them?**
Deke, Keyes Fibre products have been well known for many years to bakers, packagers and other manufacturers. They haven’t been so easi Iy accessible to retai I customers. Is the company doing anything about that?
You have heard from the top management of Keyes Fibre through its president, Mr. Parsons. But in modern industry labor is just as important as management, and Keyes couldn’t have achieved its present world prominence in its line without a loyal, devoted group of workers. Representing those workers on the program tonight is Mr. Ralph Robbins, President of star Local No. 449 of the International Brotherhood of Pulp, Sulphite and Paper Mi II Wor ers.
Ralph, I recently read in the Pulp, Sulphite and Paper Mi II Workers’ Journal a statement in which you are quoted as predicting that Keyes Fibre stock wi II increase in market va I ue substanti ally duri ng the current year, and you said you made that prediction on the basis of the company’s positive approach to the future. Just what did you mean by a positive approach?
Ra Iph, the newspapers gi ve much pub Ii ci ty to di sputes between labor and management. They don’t give much space to the cases of quiet, friendly relations between the two. What can you say about those relations at Keyes?
Ralph, I understand Keyes has an enviable safety record. What can you te II us about that?
I have heard about a plan called the Keyes Credit Union. What is it?
Not a I I the important peop Ie connected with Keyes Fi b re work in p I ant or off ices nor even on the Board of Di rectors. I n the Keyesfami I y one must i nelude Chet Dunlap, who operates the new Pie Plate restaurant on the Keyes property, just as he operated the old restaurant that was torn down to prepare for a widened highway. Chet is such a famous short-order cook that I often wonder how Keyes emp loyees ever get a chance to eat even in h is much larger new restaurant. Every time I go there, the room is fi I led with people who have no connection with Keyes. Just the same, whenever you go for a meal at the Pie Plate, just remember it is a part of the whole Keyes Fibre outfit. And don’t try throwing any dishes at Chet even when he praises a horse of which you don’t approve. Chet’s dishes are Keyes’ best savables — they’re not throw-aways.
Now back for a moment to Mr. Parsons. We have seen Keyes expand wonderfu II yin recent years. want to ask you, [)eke, is that expans i on pretty we I I over, or do you expect to see the company continue to grow in production and sales, and consequently in the social results of efY1)loyment and payrolls?
Fri ends, it wou I d take a fu I I hour of th is program even to begi n to te I I you about the marvelous development of the Keyes Fibre Company. But we haven’t any such hour. Our time is up. So we must close this deserved salute to a great, world renowned industry which began nearly sixty years ago when a young man named Martin Keyes noticed that workers ate their lunches off pieces of maple veneer. And on that old time historic event, we say good night for old ti mes’ sake.
No record was kept of the answers given by Wallace “Deke” Parsons and Ralph Robbins to this question and those following it.
Year: 1956