Radio Script #558

Little Talks on Common Things

December 30, 1962

Long before the days of Gallup polls, the newspapers liked to make comparisons of voting statistics. The presidential election of 1885 Was an especially sweet morsel in Republican mouths because they had for four years smarted under the defeat in 1884 of their plumed knight from Maine, James G. Blaine. Back in that 1884 election campaign the rhyme you shouted in the street depended upon your party affiliation. If you were a Republican, you yelled: “Blaine, Blaine, James G. Blaine, Plumed knight from the State of Maine.”

But if you were a Democrat, it went this way: “Blaine, Blaine, James G. Blaine, Continental liar from the State of Maine.”

Grover Cleveland’s close victory over Blaine had been a bitter pill for Maine Republicans to swallow. So, when Benjamin Harrison in 1888 ousted Cleveland from the White House, there was great rejoicing in Maine. But, pointed out the Portland Press, Maine’s leading Republican newspaper, it was not unusual for a Democratic president to be defeated for re-election. Here is that newspapers appeal to history: “The defeat of Cleveland recalls some interesting precedents in Democratic politics. Since the days of Andrew Johnson the Democratic party has never re-elected a President. When Andrew Jackson ended his second term in 1836, Martin Van Buren became his political heir. But when he was renominated in 1840, Van Buren was badly defeated by Old Tippecanoe, William Henry Harrison. Although the Democrats elected James K. Polk in 1844, they did not venture to renominate him. What is more, their nominee, Lewis Cass, was beaten by the Whig candidate, Zachary Taylor. In 1852 the Democrats got back into the White House with Franklin Pierce, but they dared not renominate him in 1856. They were successful, however, in electing the man they chose, James Buchanan.”

Then in 1860, with the Democrats hopelessly split on the issue of slavery, the new Republican party, successor to the obsolete Whigs, elected Abraham Lincoln.

“The fact is that the Democratic party was, in those antebellum days, a party of the South with a few northern strongholds like New York City. Experience dictated that their candidate should not be a southern man, but after he was elected he was expected to uphold southern principles, because only in the South lay the Congressional influence that could sustain his administration. The same situation prevails today, though few Democrats are astute enough to see it. The Democratic party is still a southern party, which succeeds only when it has a firm alliance with New York. It was inevitable that Cleveland, elected by southern votes, should as President conform to the wish of his free trade supporters in the South, just as his predecessors conformed to the South’s views on slavery. He has failed, as every Democratic president since Jackson has failed, to secure a second term. That fact is an interesting feature of American politics.”

The Portland Press printed that article in 1888. Another quarter of a century would elapse before the Democratic president would be re-elected, except for Cleveland’s return in 1892, and that was not immediate re-election. The man who broke the custom of allowing a Democratic president only one term was Woodrow Wilson in 1916, and he came very near to missing reelection.

On election night in November, 1916 Charles Evans Hughes went to bed assured that on the next morning he would be declared President. But at that late evening hour the California vote, though expected to go for Hughes, had not been officially recorded. The next day it was learned that California had actually gone for Wilson, and California’s electoral votes made the difference between victory and defeat for the confident Hughes. But if Wilson had not been substantially helped by the slogan, “He kept us out of warn — a war that not even Wilson’s best efforts could keep us from entering in 1917 — he might have shared the fate of other White House Democrats since Andrew Jackson.”

It was left for Franklin Roosevelt finally to stifle that hundred-year-old Democratic hoodoo. He was not only re-elected by carrying 46 of the 48 states in 1936, but won two subsequent re-elections to: become the only man in our history to have more than two presidential terms. And he is likely to be the last, for a constitutional amendment now limits any president’s tenure to two terms.

It will be interesting to see what happens in 1964. In the 132 years that will then have passed since the re-election of Andrew Jackson in 1832, only in war time has any Democratic president been re-elected. If Kennedy wins re-election in 1964, he will be the first Democratic president to be re-elected in peace time in 132 years.

Seventy-five years ago a distant relative of mine was doing business in the line the Marriner family followed up through my father’s owtt day in the early years of this century. James Marriner was head of a grocery firm called Marriner and Company, doing business at 203 Federal Street, Portland. His ad in the Portland Press featured his Crown Liquid Coffee. The ad said: “Hot coffee free! During the coming few days we shall furnish our customers and all others who will call with a delicious hot drink made from the celebrated Crown Liquid Coffee. This compound of best mocha and java has the flavor of the finest roasted coffee and is made by the only known process by which the full strength can be -extracted from coffee and still maintain its excellent qualities when exposed to the atmosphere. This preparation is put up in neat form and is sold for 25 cents, 50 cents and $1.00 per bottle. Try it, and you will agree it is the most economical coffee ever placed on the market.” I wonder if anyone can come up with any earlier reference to instant coffee than that 1888 ad.

Scarcely an issue of any Maine paper appeared 75 years ago without some reference to horse stealing, which was then relatively as common as car thefts are today. Here is one such item from an old issue of the Portland Press: “A daring attempt to steal a horse was made Tuesday night at the West End at the residence of Mr. Arthur Norton. Mrs. Norton heard a commotion in the barn. Thinking something wrong, she called two men who were passing. When they reached the barn, they found it had been entered by thieves, who attempted to steal a horse and carriage. Frightened away, the thieves left the horse, half harnessed, standing unhitched on the stable floor.”

Referring again to Grover Cleveland#s defeat in 1888, I was interested to learn that the Lewiston Journal was apparently the only paper to give Cleveland’s own account of his loss. That Lewiston afternoon daily published what Cleveland was said to have told the Washington correspondent of the New York Herald.

“You ask”, said Cleveland to the reporter, “to what cause I attribute our loss of New York. I have to say it was mainly because our opponents had the most votes. I assure you I am not indifferent to the result, but I insist it is not a personal matter. It is improper to speak of such an outcome as either victory or my defeat. It was a contest between two great parties, not between two men. Both sides were battling for well defined principles. One party has been victorious, the other party has lost. That is all there is to it. Because Cleveland had been the first president to marry in the White House, and because his bride Was a very attractive woman, popular with all the nation, the reporter asked the President, “How does Mrs. Cleveland take your defeat?” “She feels just as I do about it”, replied the President. “We both know that defeat brings its compensations. We shall now have some time to ourselves and can live more like other folks.”

Today when it is a common summer sight to see women of every age in Bermuda shorts on Waterville’s Main Street during July and August, an item that appeared in the Lewiston Journal in 1888 is of some interest. Here is what it said: “Costumes of ladies on the way to climb Mount Katahdin created a sensation.” As the reporter put it, “The ladies in the party did not wait until they left the edge of civilization to doff their gossamers, but appeared on the street in patten clad in bloomers.” Then after a long account of the climb and the descent, the story tells us: “Before returning to Patten, the company devoted the last evening to repairs. One lady had to mend the knee of her bloomers. Another’s bloomers were so badly torn that they had to be mended while she still wore them, because of course in the presence of the gentlemen of the party, she could not take them off.

Not often does one encounter old-time newspapers published in English that come from any part of the world except Great Britain, the United States, or some , major British possession. But such was Britain’s control of Egypt half a century ago that there was then published in Alexandria, not in Arabic, but in English, a newspaper called the “Egyptian Gazette”. It was my good fortune to receive last summer the gift of that paper’s issue of January 20, 1906.

Like all British newspapers of that time — and, in fact, like most of them today — there was no news on the first page. That space was devoted entirely to ads. And every ad on the first page of that Egyptian paper announced the offerings of some steamship line. There were 24 such ads, not including the announcement of the world famous travel bureau, Thomas Cook and Sons.

The Norddeutscher Lloyd (that is, the North German Lloyd line) had weekly service between Alexandria and Marseilles. On ships of the same line a passenger could take passage for Naples, Genoa or Antwerp, as the ship stopped at Alexandria on its way from Port Said.

The German East Africa line could pick up passengers at Alexandria for Aden, Zanzibar, Durban and Cape Town. The AngloAmerican Nile Steamer plied regular trips up the great river to roruutoum and the White Nile. The Anchor Line had steamers to ports in India, Europe and the Americas. The Orient-Pacific Line connected England with the Far East. The Kedirral Mail Line had service to Greece and Turkey, to Palestine and Syria, and through the Red Sea to Aden.

As for Thomas Cook and Sons, they featured their Nile excursions: “The large and splendidly appointed steamer, Rameses the Great, will leave Cairo on January 23 for Luxor, Aswan and Philae. Thomas Cook interpreters, in uniform and always in attendance.”

Let US close tonight with what that Egyptian Gazette had to say about Egyptian trade with the United States: “Yankee manufacturers are becoming aware of the Egyptian market. They are, however, handicapped by their hard and fast rules about giving credit .They have much to learn in that area before they can compete with European merchants trading in Egypt.

We have noticed that the taste for American specialties, such as office furniture and refrigerators, has greatly increased, and if the Americans will adopt European credit methods, there is much business awaiting them here.”

And with that comment on American trade with Egypt long before Nasser was born, we must say Good Night for Old Times’ Sake.

Year: 1963