Radio Script #116
Little Talks On Common Things
September 30, 1951
You have often heard me speak of my native town of Bridgton. Well, this summer it showed its superiority over my adopted city of Waterville, and ironically enough paid tribute to this Kennebec city. Waterville people have missed their summer band concerts. It seems there were no funds to provide such a luxury. But Bridgton, with only about one-seventh of Waterville’s population, conducted all summer weekly concerts by the Bridgton Community Band. At one of those concerts eight of the eleven selections were compositions of R. B. Hall, Watervillets famous bandmaster and composer. In a little town In Cumberland County one could hear Hall’s spirited marches, but in his own city’ of Waterville the band was silent.
Do any of you follow one or more of the rural Maine weekly newspapers? In them you can find many an amusing item. Here are a few that I recently gleaned: “Grandma Wilkfas was being escorted home from baby-sitting by her son-in-law 0ne night last week, when she heard a noise ahead of her in the driveway. She asked him what it was. He said it was nothing but a tree squeak. Grandma turned on her flashlight and two tree squeaks ran grunting across the lawn. She says, since her son-in-law is a country boy, he must know what he is talking about, but them tree squeaks looked an awful lot like hedgehogs to her.”
Classified ad: ”We specialize in Italians and hot dogs.”
The correspondent for one of the small communities to one Maine weekly writes: ”When I went for the cows Saturday night I found Old Roxie choking on what from the looks of things I took to be an apple. So I rushed back to the barn for a piece of garden hose I keep for just such cases. I ran down the cow run from the barn and down the lane to where Old Roxie stood. Major, our collie dog, was right with me- Just as I was going to prod the piece of hose down Roxie’s throat to push the apple down, I fell over the old dog. It tickled Old Roxie so she coughed up the apple. ”
The same correspondent also writes: “By way of the grapevine I hear that the culprits who scattered nails on the road up this way were caught. One of them got the seat of his pants warmly tanned.”
Our hopes that Congress would reduce the appropriations for wasteful government spending have not been realized. The same old pork barrel legislation went on all summer. Senator Douglas, Senator George and a few others tried valiantly to stem the tide, but to no avail. Now the point about this reckless government spending that we can’t seem to get through our heads is that it is our money the spendthrifts are throwing around. This spending is a hidden drain on every family pocket-book. But there is another point equally important. In time of national emergency, when the very safety of our nation is at stake, unnecessary spending by government agencies is a verifiable fifth column working from within to do the very thing Stalin most wants to see done — ‘break the back of the American economic system.’
Not one American in a hundred realizes that tax collections in 1949 — before Korea — exceeded the highest peak of tax collections during World War II. The war peak In taxes was reached in 1945, when tax totalled $52,500,000,000. In 1949 the take was 55 billion dollars, and the Korean campaign had not yetstarted. Now just think that over. In 1949 you and I were contributing to federal, state and local governments more money than we did when our country was fighting a global war with 11,000,000 men under arms. Last year In addition to income taxes the average family paid $700 in other taxes, most of them hidden and indirect. Twenty years ago the spending of our federal government amounted to less than two-thirds of the income of the residents of California. In 1949 that spending was equal to the entire income of all the states west of the Mississippi.
You have heard me complain before on this program about the huge number of government employees. To say there are more than two million of them doesn’t mean much. So let’s put it in a more concrete picture. Those employees, whose salaries you and I pay, occupy floor space equal to 170 Empire State Buildings, each 102 stories high. It is an old saying that what we don’t know won’t hurt us, but in this matter of taxes what we don’t know does hurt us a lot. It Is not the state sales tax, that we hear so much griping about, which really hurts. That is a visible, understandable tax, whether we approve of it or not. But it is the hidden taxes that pile up all along the way from the raw material, through manufacturing processes, on the transportation and distribution of articles, right down to the finished product on the retailer’s shelves.
Here are a few facts you will find hard to believe, but The National Tax Foundation, which keeps up a constant study of taxes, assures me they are true. There are more than 100 taxes on a dozen eggs sold in a city; there are 116 taxes on a man’s suit of clothes; but as usual the woman beats the man, because there are 150 different taxes on a woman’s hat. The 56 billion dollar appropriation for the armed services will bear some scrutiny, because those biggest of all our spenders, the procurement divisions of Army, Navy and Air Force are no models of frugality. Yet few of us will quarrel with the fundamental principle that we must expect to spend a lot of money for national defense. The taxpayer, on the other hand, has every right to ask: “Is the money being spent as efficiently as possible?”
Most government agencies are monopolies. ‘They have no competition and thus no fear of l0sing money or of going out of business. The result is almost unbelievable inefficiency. For instance, while private Insurance companies handle 1,762 policies per man year, the Insurance Service of the Veterans Administration is only 25% as efficient as the private companies, handling only 450 policies per man year. Patients having tonsils removed in civilian hospitals stay an average of one and one-half days. In the Army and Navy hospitals the average stay is 16 days. Does it make sense to an ordinary business man that the Army should take 288 separate steps to process a simple order for buying onions, putting that order through 18 subdivisions and having it handled by messengers 110 times?
Every business and professional person knows the importance of records. Of course the government must keep records. But what can we say of a record system so great and so comp Ii cated that more than one government agency has not on Iy ad … ml tted, but has rl ghteous Iy avowed, that it Is eas ier for them to start an Investigation allover again than it is to find the papers on the same subject once Investigated and completed? Yet, what can we expect when the government uses 18,500,000 cubic feet c:I storage space for records which, according to fl ling experts, are nearly half of them completely worthless? Those dead records occupy the equivalent of six Pentagon Buildings, and the Pentagon Is the largest office building In the world.
The simple fact is that government spending today Is so big we must all pay the bi II. It Is our money they are spending, not somebody else’s. No one Is getting a free ride. When wi II the American people rwally wake up to what is happening?
The footba II season has now begun, and we are remi nded of intercollegiate football in Maine, as reported in the. newspapers of half a century ago. At that time each Maine college played two games with each of the ather three colleges, fill ing out the season with games against the preparatory schools. In 1896 the Colby schedule carried ten games. Besides the six with Bates, Bowdoin and Maine, Colby played Andover, Exeter, Berwick Academy and a university that has since abandoned football, M. I. T. That ten game schedule began on September 30 and closed on November 18. Only three games were played on Saturdays; seven were played on Wednesdays. Two games were played In the second week in October; two I n the last week of that month. On October 7 Colby played M. I. T.; then th ree days ,I ater, on Octobe r 10, went up aga I nst Ma I ne. On Octo-ber 28 the team met Exeter; then on Iy three days later on the 31st took on Maine for the second time.
Someti mes the games were not so long as they are now, but without the forward pass and the open field plays, the bodi Iy contact was terrific. The old flying wedge, which was sti II in existance in my high school days, was a human battering ram that gave both offense and defense a lot of punishment. The game with M. I. T. In 1696 consisted of only 30 minutes of playing time, two 15 minute halves. Colby won 4 to 0, which was the score of one touchdown, made by Colby’s right halfback Gibbons.
Colby was dol ng we II that year, for on Iy three days after the M. I. T. game, her eleven beat Mal ne 10 to o. But the team struck troub Ie when they met Bowdoln. The Brunswick boys were victorious 12 to O. The Watervi lie Mall sai d of the contest: “Colby was fal rly beaten. Her men were outplayed at every point by the Bowdoin footballists. Colby’s line was easy for the Brunswick boys, who also made long gains around the ends. Colby’s interference was pretty rocky. It would be unwise, however, for Colby to lose heart over the defeat. let It be the first and last of the season. There is stuff In the Colby eleven to beat Bowdoin yet. When the Bowdoin team comes here next month, she should be paid in he r own co in. ”
So the Colby crowd waited eagerly for November 11, whIch was then, of course, Just an ordinary day, not Armistice Day. t’eanwhl Ie something went wrong after the Bowdoin game so tllat the Colby coach resigned in a huff. So Marshall of Dartmouth departed and Hopkins of Brown took his place. In those days athletlcs were distinctly student activities; the college administration did not emp loy the coaches; they were hi red and pai d enti re Iy by the Ath letic Associ ation. That policy explains the following report In . The Waterville Mail of O~:, tober 29, 1896: “At a meeting of students yesterday afternoon iT was decided to engage W. B. Hopkins of Brown to coach the football team for the remainder of the season.”
Apparently Hopkins put new life Into the team. On October 31, when he had been on the campus only two days, they defeated Maine 4 to O. Then on November I’ 4 they beat Bates 8 to o. So on November 11, when the Brunswl ck hosts invaded Watervi lie, the Co Iby team was at the peak of form. To the amazement of Impar’;’ ti al spectators they he Id the much superior Bowdoin team to a tie score of 6 to 6. It was not an official victory, but It was a mora lone.
Is college football better or worse than it was tn 1896? There are argu … ments on bothsldes of that question. In these days when the sport has become so highly commercialized, there is something to be said for the old days.when the game belonged to the boys.
To remind us of how some of ollr common th Ings were greeted by our grandfathers, when those th I ngs were new, let me read you a brief statement in the Ma i ne Farmer’s A Imanac for the year 1878:
”Wi II wonders never cease? We have regarded the electric te legraph as the greatest wonder of our age, but now comes a greater wonder yet – the telephone. Not ma·n;r Signals, but the very sounds of the human voice, are reproduced so that we have the curious phenomenon of two persons sl tuated at a distance of many miles from each other carryl ng on a conwrsati on and recogn I z tng each other’s voices as well as If they were In the same room. During the first pub’ Ic exhl … bltlon of the Instrument, a ballad sung by a young lady del ighted an audience six miles away.”
What would that young lady of 1878, to say nothing of the Almanac writer, think If they could see television today?
Next week , have a rea’ treat for you. I want to ta’ I you then about the diary of a Forty-NI ner, the fl rst-hand record of a Maine man who went to Ca 11-fomla in search of gold. And with that promise, I bid you good night.
Year: 1951