Radio Script #657

Little Talks on Common Things

September 12, 1965

Another summer has passed and here we are again to open the 18th year of Little Talks on Common Things.

Most of the month of July I spent in what is usually the sweltering valley of the Potrmac, Washington and its environs are places people move out of during July, if they possibly can. Since my daughter has a fully air-conditioned house in Alexandria, Virginia, I felt justified in risking that awful Potomac heat. To my surprise I encountered weather the like of which old residents of the area claimed they have never before experienced. In nearly four weeks on the Potomac I saw just two really hot days. On all other days it was comfortably cool and in the evening actually so chilly that one had to wear a sweater when sitting out on the patio. I got quite a kick out of checking temperatures daily in the Washington Post, noting that day after day, the mercury registered two or three degrees lower in Washington than in Augusta. Maine. So I think I will claim not to be a weather prophet, but a weather controller. Of course my visit was responsible for that splendid cool weather!

Let us begin this season’s broadcasts with a glimpse at a Portland newspaper that came out almost exactly a hundred years ago. In its issue of March 31. 1866, less than a year after Lee surrendered at Appomatox, the Portland Transcript had something to say about the weather, just as I have commented on Potomac weather this year. The Transcript said: “Winter has come back with a vengeance. (Evidently it was going out like a lion because that was the last day of March.) Six inches of snow fell on Sunday and the jingle of sleigh bells is again heard in the streets. There is still five feet of snow in the woods.”

At the close of the Civil War hoop skirts were the height of fashion. The Transcript said: “A lady of this city has invented an attachment to the hoop skirt for elevating the dress in a manner both convenient and economical. If it is adopted, sweeping the sidewalk with costly dresses will go out of style.”

I suppose, when we read about unruly children in big city schools, about physical attacks on teachers and general disruption of classrooms, we think it is something new and start our usual glorifying of the good old days. But let us not believe that the 1960’s was the first decade when pupils have ever been rebellious. The Portland Transcript tells us how the kids acted in Maine’s largest city in 1866. Listen to this account: “There was rebellion at the Center Street Grammar School last week. In the temporary absence of the principal, the boys rose up against the female teachers, turned them out of the building, and took possession of the school house. Those children need a little wholesome discipline.”

Is it too old fashioned to advise a little wholesome discipline today? It was at least thirty years ago that I heard a noted American preacher say, “There is just as much obedience in the American homes as there ever was. The only difference is that today the parents obey the children.” Today we put it a bit differently. We say, “There are few delinquent children; the trouble is the abundance of delinquent parents.”

One editorial in that 1866 issue of the Portland Transcript seems at first glance to be right on the button today. It said: “President Johnson has done well to allow his cabinet to speak for him.” Despite the fact that Rusk and MacNamara and other secretaries frequently do speak for the President, LBJ ;s quite capable of speaking for himself and does so more frequently than any president since FOR.

But you see that editorial did not refer to Lyndon Johnson, who would not be born until many years after that paper was sold on Portland streets. It referred to Andrew Johnson, unlucky successor to Abraham Lincoln, who would soon be impeached by the House of Representatives, and saved from being ousted from the presidency only by the votes of a few men who put honesty and integrity above partisanship.

And one of those men was Senator William Pitt Fessenden of Maine.

It is surprising how many parallels with today one finds in that hundred year old newspaper. Just as Aroostook people now await eagerly the construction of a gigantic sugar refinery at Easton, so in 1866 sugar refining was in the news. The Transcript said: “The new sugar refinery being erected near the glass works on Canal Street progresses rapidly and will be a notable addition to Portland manufactories.”

Another parallel is that of buying transportation tickets at a discount, if purchased in quantity, just as one does now at the Augusta and the Bangor toll bridges. In 1866 the horse cars had come to Portland, and instead of paying five cents for each ride, one could buy eight tickets for a quarter. Probably people frequently lost those tickets, loosely placed in a coat pocket. Anyhow the Transcript announced: “A patent ticket holder for horse car tickets is a handy invention. Buy one at the Horse Car Depot for only ten cents.”

Not all the news in the Portland Transcript was local, or even confined to this country. In 1866 the famous missionary, David Livingstone, was in Africa, but everyone knew where he was. It was not until five years later that he disappeared into the heart of the continent, and James Gordon Bennett of the New York Herald sent his star reporter, Henry Stanley, to find him, and spread abroad those famous words of greeting, “Dr. Livingstone, I presume”. What the Portland Transcript in 1866 had to say about the great missionary concerned neither his mission work nor his travels. It concerned African game. This is what the Transcript said: “Dr. Livingstone’s account of African animals is very interesting. The hippopotamus, we are told, feeds on grass alone. Its enormous lips act like a mowing machine and crop the grass close. In the swamps are vast herds of elephants. The Livingstone party counted 800 elephants in sight at one time.”

That issue of the Portland Transcript boosted the fame of a magazine, new in 1866, but still being published today. The Transcript said: “The Atlantic Monthly for April comes out bigger and better than ever. Among its contributors are Henry W. Longfellow, Oliver Wendell Holmes, Nathaniel Hawthorne, and Mrs. Harriet Beecher Stowe, a brilliant galaxy of writers. ”

You have often heard me say that if one wants to get a clear picture of life a hundred years ago, he will get it best not from news accounts in the papers, but from the ads. I assure you that 1866 issue of the Portland Transcript is no exception.

As one would suspect, the Civil War had left its influence even upon the advertisements.

In 1866 a lively business was being conducted, especially by lawyers, in helping veterans of the war and their families secure pensions. Here is one ad in the Transcript: “U.S. Claim Agency. William H. Fessenden. Additional bounty for soldiers who have served two or three years. Additional bounty for heirs of deceased soldiers of two or three years enlistment. Heirs are entitled to bounty in the following order: widow, minor children, father, brother.”

Only a few years before 1866 Maine had established the state’s first normal school at Gorham, soon followed by the school at Farmington. The Transcript in 1866 told its readers: “The fall term of the State Normal School at Farmington will commence with an examination of candidates on August 22, under the direction of Principal G. N. Gage.”

One of those Transcript ads is of special interest to anyone concerned with the history of Waterville. The ad said: “Fairbanks Premium Standard Scales, made under supervision of the original inventor. Every variety: hay, coal, platform, counter, druggist’s, confectioner’s, butcher’s, grocer’s, and gold weights. Our agents in Portland are Emery, Waterhouse & Co.”

Now we like to recall that Fairbanks, the scale man, began his career in a small factory on the bank of the Messalonskee below what is now the Memorial Bridge on Kennedy Drive. Long before 1866 the factory had been moved to Vermont, and the scales were being distributed from a big warehouse in Boston.

Only six weeks before that Transcript issue of August 18, 1866 came from the press, Portland had been swept by the most disastrous fire in its history. My own family was affected by that fire. My father, then 5 years old, lived with his parents and his seven year old sister in a rented tenement on Portland’s Fore Street. They lost all their furniture and clothing in that fire.

In an article headed “Aftermath of the Great Fire”, the Transcript said: “More than three million dollars of insurance has already been paid, and many claims have not been settled. Total losses exceed ten million. About 450 rations of food are still being issued daily to the homeless. People have responded generously to appeals for aid. So far $461,000 has been raised for the benefit of the fire sufferers. The City Government will widen the streets and in the land bounded by Pearl, Congress, Franklin and Federal Streets, will layout a magnificent public square. New buildings are already rising out of the ashes. Never before has Portland seen such piles of lumber as now fill the wharves along Commercial Street.”

As we close this program that begins the 18th consecutive year of Little Talks, let us be again reminded that it could not be put on the air without the generous sponsorship of the Keyes Fibre Company. A few minutes ago I talked about ads, but this is no ad for Keyes Fibre. Never, in all the years of these broadcasts, have they ever boosted a Keyes product. The company has sponsored this program solely as a public service. We believe that Little Talks on Common Things is the oldest, still going radio program in the country that, from its very first appearance, has never changed sponsor. If that is true, both WTVL and the Keyes Fibre Company have established some kind of record.

Year: 1965