Radio Script #108
Little Talks On Common Things
May 13, 1951
A listener recently asked me whether consumption of alcoholic beyerages was on the increase I n the Un i ted States today. The I i staner sent me some figures for 1911. In that year the total consumption of distilled spirits amounted to 135,000,000 gallons, and the ·beer consumed fi lied two billion gallons.
Now, be I I eve It or not, accord I ng to the Worl d Almanac dt stl I led liquor production in the United States reached its height in spite of seyere restrictions In the last year of the Second World War, 1945, when the Bureau of Internal Revenue reported taxes paId on the production of 1,175,000,000 gallons. In 1946,1947 and 1948 the figures dropped until In 1948 they were down to 420,000,000. Then In 1949 they shot up. aga I n to 450,000,000. I have not seen the figures for 1950.
Now these figures are badly misleading. The gallons of liquor on which federal taxes are paid fal I far short of the total consumption., They take no account of the vast quantity of Imported liquor, and they Ignore the completely Incalculable amountof illegally made liquor. At any rate we can assure our listeners that consumption has not decreased since that boom year of 1911 in the lIquor industry. One thing Is sure; we would be very much better off If we had a lot less of It. If it I s any comfort to fo I ks who wou I d I I ke to see more sob ri ety, we do have the figures for retail sale of liquor in the three years of 1947, 1948 and 1949. While prices I n genera I ,. Ii q uor inc I uded, have been goi ng up, the tota I do II ar reta i I sa les of liquor have been going down. The total in 1947 was $1,916,000,000; in 1948 It had dropped to $1,854,000,000; and In 1949 I t had taken an even sharper drop to $1,760,000,000.
The figures for tobacco p-roductlon are rather interesting. If you want to check my accuracy about them, take a look at page 665 of the World Almanac for 1951. I tis i ncredi b Ie to me that In 1948 more snuff was produced in the Un I ted States than in 1920; but here are the fl gures: for 1920 they were 34,349,000 pounds; for 1948 they were 40,809,000 pounds. The production of plug, twist and fine cut tobacco have stead! Iy aecreased since 1920, as has also the production of cigars. I tis of course the boom In ci garettes that accounts for the ove ra II ! ncrease. From 47 billion In 1920 the annual manufactur:’E) of the little coffin-nails has grown to 387 billion. In 1948 a total of a billion and a half pOlllds of leaf tobacco saw more than th ree-fourths of I t go Into ci garettes.
I never fully realized what tobacco could mean to the whole economy of.a people until I recently visited Colonial Williamsburg. The life of that Virginia capita I of 200 years ago, so carefully and beautl fully restored by Mr. Rockefe Iler’s millions, depended entl rely on the tobacco plant and the success of Sir Walter Raleigh In making Its use popular In England.
I n Willi amsburg they te II you frank Iy why they honor S I rWa Iter, though he never set foot on Amari can shores. They know Just wtly the prl ncl pa I I nn was ca lied the Raleigh Tavern, why portraits of Sir Walter and his Lady are prominently dis played In the old capitol building. It was not because he helped found the abandoned lost colony down the Bay at Roanoke Island, nor because he had some Interest In the plans for Jamestown. It was because he made tobacco popular at the court of Good Queen Bess, and soon afterward wi th a II gentlemen of Merrie England.For tobacco became the life blood of Virginia. Some of those Williamsburg Inhabitants of 1951 wi II tell you they are very sure they know why Virginia In 1751 could have a Jef … ferson, a Madl son, a Mason and a Monroe. Because she was the home of the wealthbringing tobacco, they will tell you, Virginia just had to be the Mother of Presidents.
A lot of our people stili seem to think the Labo.r Government of Britain has been badly used and gross Iy mi srepresented. Perhaps It has, but weQJght not to be deaf to such remarks as those made by an ordinary English merchant in a small town~ a man who all his life had hated the reactionary Tories — a man who looked for better days under labor rule. That man sal d: ”The outstandi ng feature of our socfalistgovernment is its glaring inefficiency. Under our old system, If a COllipany became too inefficient, it fal led and something else took Its place. When you abol ish profi t as a yardsti ck of efti clency I what do you put in r ts place?”
We I I, what do you? Every critic of capitalistic society has pointed to it as a gross example of man’s inhumanity to man, arrogant exploitation of human life. Socialism, they said, would cure all that. But what of England today? The outstanding characterIstic of the present British government is its growing callousness toward the very thing it most loudly professes — ordinary hUman welfare. It is the beginning of the same kind of callousness that marks Stalin’s Politburo or Mao’s government in China. Take the British food situation, for instance. Vegetables that people a few miles away sorely needed have been allowed to spoil in the fields. One British housewi fe raised this piercing lament: “Ask Mr. Atlee why our chi Idren don’t get as good food as we got in the worst days of the war”.
Regardless of what happens to the individual, the system must have Its way. A British social worker on the government payroll was recently showi,ng a foreign traveler a group of big, government houses under construction. “Didn’t you tell me”, the trave ler asked, “that some fami I ies are re luctant to move Into these apartments?”
”Yes”, said the social worker, “they don’t like giving up their smallapantment houses, where the man had a bit of a garden to putter about in the evening. But this is the way we are going to do it. We ‘I , make them learn to like it.”
There you have it — the fundamental disregard of human rights and human preferences. “Take it and like It”. That is socialism In action in Britain. Do you want it in Ameri ca1
It has been some time since we referred to homely old Yankee expressions I ike “leaning toward Sawyer’s” and “not worth a Hannah Cook”. let’s dig out a few more of those spri ghtl y, tangy say I ngs toni ght. Af1er what we have been through with the weather this spring, we ought to apprecl ate grandpa’s meanl ngfu lsi mi Ie I “I t’s longer than a wet week”. When you can’t find some jill> lement that you’ve put away, dl d you eve r say of the hi dl ng p lace, “It’s as handy as a pocket In another man’s shl rt”?
Up In my native part of Maine the old folks didn’t talk about March coming in like a lion and going out like a lamb. “March is much more liable”, my grandfa the r Wh I tney used to say, “much more I I ab Ie to come I n like a I i on and go out Ii ke the devi In. When someone would say of a new storekeeper or a new minister or even of a.new second wife, ”Well, a new broom sweeps clelan”, my great;’;:grandmother Blake, whom I remember well because she lived until I was twelve years old — my great-grandmother would speak up sharp and clear: “Sure, a new broom sweeps clean, but an old one knows the corners best.”
Through the ages, in all lands, there have been caustic proverbs to describe persons of rather poor In1elligence. Here are a few of the good old crisp ones from wes 1e rn Ma f ne: “He chops with the head of his axe” j “He hasn’t got a b ral n In his body nor any place to put one”; “He don’t know nawthln and allus will”. Or take this one: “You say she’s got brain fever? Can’t be. How can an angleworm have water on the knee?” The bigoted person of unyielding opinion Is said to be “so narrer-minded he 1can see through a keyhole with both eyes”. And I have always liked an expressfon that shows how clearly the old timers understood the connection between poverty and laziness: “It’s a poor back that can’t press Its own shl rt.”
Does anyone know the date and other facts concerning a wedding that is said to have taken place on the old covered bridge over the Sebastlcook at Winslow? That brIdge went out In the freshet of 1901; so the date must have been earl ter than that. The story goes that one day~ as SquIre Josiah Bassett was leaving his WI ns low home to go to Watervl lie on bus I ness. he” met a young coup Ie Just after he crossed the bridge. “Aren’t you Squire Bassett?”, the young man asked. The Squtre admitted his identity. ”We’re looking for you”,went on the young man. “We want to get married.”
Squire Bassett was In a hurry. He had a lot of business to do tn Waterville. But he cou I dn ‘t res i st the young b rt de’s appealing face • So he came to a qui ck decision. He wasn’t going all the way back to his hOll19 on Lithgow Street; he wasn’t even goi ng back to the Bassett store. But he wou I d accommodate the coup Ie.
“Let’s go back to the brl dge”, he sai d. So there, under the she Iter of the COyered bridge, he pronounced the words which made the couple man and wife. That. In substance. is the story. Did It really occur? When? At what time of day? What were the names of the brl de and groom? Who were the legal witnesses? .Can anyone put us on track of the answers? Who has any definite, dated Information about that wedding on the Winslow covered bridge? I have devoted time on this program to several Kennebec tOtlns. Next week it Is Benton’s tum. There’s a grand town that deserves your attenti on. It is Benton next Sunday.
S I nee I have been referring to Rufus Jones, the great Quaker leader, some listeners have asked me wh i ch of Dr. Jones’ many books I II ke best. We II, I must con fess that I have not read them all , but of the ha I f dozen wh i ch I have read, I like best “A Small Town Boy” and “A Call to What is Vital”. The latter was published only a few months before he died, but because it contains his completely matured philosophy of life and the rich harvest of all his living, I think it is his best writing. Something of that phi losophy was revealed by the impression made on him when he was on Iy nine years 01 d. Ft re almost comp lete Iy destroyed the vi II age of South Chi na. He te lis us that, the night after the fi re, as he wa I ked a long the street and gazed at the smoldering houses, the gaunt lone chimneys, and the gapl ng ce II ar holes, he fe It sorneth ing had gone out of h is life, never to return.
Then, as the long years ‘rolled by, he came to see In that boyhood fire the evidenca of how fleeting and transitory, how soon wiped out, are many things we hold important, and how much greater, therefore, I s our need for someth ing that cannot be wIped out. Rufus Jones found that something in unalterable faith in a living God. He knew the mean ing of the comforting hymn, “Death and decay in all around see; 0″ thou who fadest not, abide with me.” Dr. ,Jones .. ,was master of memorable Illustrations. He often compared man’s experienca with God to that of a person climbing Mount Everest. “At fi rst”, he said, “there are many routes which gradually converge, and up to a cartaln point there are many ways to trave I (by way of beauty, or of truth, or of goodness), but at the very last for the final climb there Is only one way, the way of prayer. The mystl c has been there, and he comes to te II us that beyond the conjectures and inferences about the reality of God is the consciousness of enjoying His presence.
”Have a sense of what is vi ta I”, the Apost I e Pau I w rote to the church at Philippi. If you want to know what that vltal’Hving Is, read Rufus Jones’ last book, “A Call to What Is Vital”.
Year: 1951