Radio Script #129
Little Talks On Common Things
December 30, 1951
Recently, when I was riding up and down an escalator In a Boston department store, I got to Th Inking aboUT esca lator clauses In American industry. The me>tive behind those escalator clauses, now affecting more than three mil lion workers, Is laudable. It is, of course, an attempt TO keep real wages reasonably in paee with money wages — That is, to keep the money received consistent with the cost of commodities. The PresidenT’s Council of Economic Advisors said, ”The maintenance of real wages during inflaTion cannot in fairness be dlsal lowed.” thaT statement may well be open to debate. In fact It might more truthfully be said that The maintenance of real wages during inflation cannot be allowed. By th Is tl me most peop Ie know why we are havl ng Inf latl on. S I nee we cannot increase our total production fast enough to meet defense needs In addition to clvi lian needs, That means increasing scarcity of goods in clvi lian demand. But the money rece I ved by the workers for the product I on of defense materl als Is ·avallable In ever increasing amount to compete for the goods that are in scarce supply. More money Is put inTO the hands of the people to buy less goods. So prices go up. ThaT is inflation.
Now if anyone group of people enjoys wage escalators that automatically gear wages to the cost of living, they enjoy discrimination aT the expense of the rest of the people. If the favored group, having a retenTion of real wages, can buy goods at i”f lated pri cas without any sacri fl ee, they are gi van unfai r advantage over the many mill ions of other Americans. That is an unfai r distribUtion of the sacri fices we are al I expected to make because of defense mooi Ilza … tlon. The on Iy rea I I y fai r way to hand Ie inf lation I s to prevent it. But once it is under way, the burdens should be reasonablv distributed among al I groups of our peop Ie.
let us take another look toni ght into that old Subscri ber’s Bus i ness Di rectory of 1861. That is the book which fl rst came to my attention through Mrs. Theodore Kloss showing me her copy In which were pasted those Interesting cooking recl pes same book. Then Mr. lewis Whipple shQled me a complete, unmutllated copy of the I t was then that I learned the book had apparent Iy been pub fished through subscriptions, and that only those business and professional men who subscribed got their names in the book.
What was my delight to find under Bridgton the name of Dixie Stone, dry and West India goods, groceries, paints, 01 Is, and crockery. Dixie Stone was the man who, for more than fl fTY years, conducted the store that came into my father’s hands in 1890. It was Dixie who used to bring Jamaica rum up through the Presumpscot Canal and over the lakes to Bridgton landing. I never heard of his seiling gingerbread, as did that merchant down In Augusta early In the century, but before Maine adopted prohibition in 1851 he certainly sold a lot of Jamaica rum.
By the time my father acqui red the store, that business was done. The nearest he came TO it was J,amaica ginger. What would strike many of us today as strange, even eccentric, was my father’s prejudice against cigarettes. All his life he never smoked and never Touched liquor. But in his store he sold plug tobacco, twist tobacco, fine cut tobacco, and cigars. But no cigarettes. No sir, not one of those coffin nails would go over his counter. By the time when he closed out the business in 1912 and moved to Massachusetts, cigarette smoking had become common and accepted, but sti II no cigaretTe was ever sold in that store as long as he owned it. Eccentric as it all seems today, it would take a very bold man to assert unreservedly that my father was wrong. What has the cigarette really added to American clv’ I I zat i on?
Now let’s get back to the Subscribers’ Directory. Here’s a look at the Waterville pages. The listof those subscribers Is lead by Edwin Noyes, Supt. of the A. K. and P. K. R. R. The second name is that lawyer whose 4ger diary entertained us a few weeks ago, Solyman Heath. Other names are N. K. Boutelle, physician; John Ware, President, A. K. and P. K. R. R.; A. A. Plaisted, cashier of Tlcon Ic Bank; Webber and Hav! land, i ron founders; C. K. Mathews, brother of the man whan Dr. Coolidge murdered; C. Wi lIiams, proprietor of the Wi lIiams House, where the autopsy on Ed Mathews’ body was performed. Some unusual occupations in the Waterville list are George H. Atkins, oyster saloon; S. C. Lassell, forger for locomoti ves; Laforest Simpson, gunsml th. Down In Vassalboro some of the labe Is were even more unusual. Everybody knew the boat builder, J. D. Lang, who is I isted simply as manufacturer. But who remembers Henry Goddard, mop handle man; Hi ram [be, plowman; and T. B. Nichols, egg man? Believe it or not, in the Sidney list is a man labeled as shipmaster. He was Charles Coffin.
Page 121 was missing from Mrs. Kloss’ copy of the directory; so when I referred to the Fairfield subscribers listed on page 120 knew nothing about those on the missing page follOWing. Mr. Whipple’s copy brought them to light. There I found myoid acquaintance of the Bryant diary, Wi lIiam’s oldest son Cyrus, who is I isted in 1861 as farmer. John P. Connor is given the same occupation. George Woodworth was then the Fairfield station agent and John Nobel was postmaster. Unusual occupations showed up in Fairfield as well as in other towns. H. B. Maynard was bateau bu i I der and Henry Coil um was ti np late worker. Dan ie I Chase is listed simply as captain. Up I n Skowhegan Coburn and Wyman were the most prominent attorneys. Abner Coburn, benefactor of Coburn Classical Institute and one-time governor of Maine, was president of the Skowhegan Bank. Alonzo Coburn, on the other hand, is listed simply as fanner. The town had a saddler, William Tucker.
Recall ing the wonderful trips I used to have as a boy, going with my father to the wholesale grocery houses in Portland, I was curious to see which of those fi rms knew so well at the turn of the century were In existence as long ago as 1861. I found Just one company that had the same name In 1861 that it had in 1900 — Charles McLaughlin and Co. But the beginnings of other familiar firms were apparent in the earlier names. J. and D. W. True was of course the later D. W. True Co. Davis, Twitchell and Chapman became the Twitchell Chaplin Co. W. and C. R. Mi II i ken turned into the Mi III ken Tom I inson Co.
It is interesting to note that at least four business houses operating in Portland in 1861 are sti II operating there under the same names 90 years later in 1951. They are Kenqall and Whitney, Emery and Waterhouse, James Bailey an’dCa. and H. H. Hay was p leased to note among the names of Portland attorneys one Watervi lie man and another who had a lot to do with Watervi lIe a dozen years before. The first was Josiah Drurrmond,one of the most famous of Waterville attorneys, and the outstanding Masonic leader of Maine, who by 1860 had moved to Portland. The other was George Evans, the Gardiner attorney who had defended Coolidge at the murder trial of 1848.
Of the eleven Portland hotels listed in the 1861 directory Just one is in existence today — the Falmouth. The old U. S. Hotel is now the Edwards and Walker store In Monument Square, and the Preble House was torn down to make way for a business block. I have no idea what became of the American House, the International House, and the Commercial House, to say nothing of George Hay’s Temperance House, J. P. Miller’s Albion House, and John Holtt’s Grand Trunk House.
My paterna I grandmother was a Dyer, and th Is 0 I d directory 9i ves a lot of space to both the Dyers and the Marriners at Cape Elizabeth. Silas and George Marri ner were bOTh sh i pbull ders; Jabez Marriner kept the genera I store; Mi Iton Dyer was town clerk, but a II the other nine Dyers named In the di rectory were farmers. In the Gorham section of the directory 1 found the name of my maternal great-grandfather, Eben Blake, and of his father Ithial Blake. I never knew great-grandfather Eben, but I did know his wUe, great-grandmoTher Sa·r.ah, who Ii ved to the age of 92, when I myse 1 f was 12 years 01 d. She was a great story . r’ teller about the old days in what was then wi ldemess at West Gorham, and some of her most thri 1 ling yams concerned great-grandfather Eben’s experiences driv ng an ox-team between Standish and Portland. Once, according to her account, a wi Idcat attacked the oxen; on another tri p the team was stal ked for miles by wol ves. But somehow great-grandfather a Iways managed to come through Slafe.
In 1860 no less than five railroad lines ran out of Portland: the Grand Trunk with a staTion on India Street; the Portland, Sam and Portsmouth, with its depot on Commerci a I Street; the Kennebec and Portland, wh I dl had Its sta .. tlon on Kennebec Street close by the station of the York and Cumberland on the same street; and the Androscoggin aAd Kennebec, which used the Grand· Trunk station on India Street. This was long before the days of Portland’s Union Station, and in fact before the bui Idlng of the Portland and Ogdensburgll which became the Mountain Division of the Maine Central.
It’s a long time since said anythIng on this program about my favorite sub~ ject of word origins and word uses. Let’s turn to a few of those tonight. The word staTionery, strangely enough ll originates from a custom when few people could read and write. Scriveners — often they were clerical monks — set up what they ca lied stations I n the churchyards and market squares, where they read letters ser:1T to people who could not read, and wrote letters at the people’s dictation. In time, as more people learned to write, paper and other materials were sold at these stations, and the dealers became known as stationers. The word academy had its origin In Greek mythology. Helen, stolen by Theseus I was recovered by Leda, her mother, wi th the aid of an Athen ian named Academus.
The gratefu I Spa rtans purchased a grove on the outski rts of Athens and presented it to their benefactor. It later became a public garden called the Grove of Academus. Late in the fourth century before Christ, Plato lived in a house adjoining this grove, where he often walked and talked with his pupils. He did th i s for forty years; so peop Ie came to ca II Plato’s schoo I the Academi a, academy. One of the interesting things that has happened to a few English words concerns nouns beginning with N. As time went on the initial N of a few of these nouns was slipped off to join the article Aj hence a napron became an apron, a nauger became an auger, and a numplre an umpire. Even adder used to be nadder.
Do you know how we got the term blackmail? It was this way. Robbers along the Engl ish-Scottish border levied tribute on merchants and travelers in exchange for protection. In Scotland the term for rent was mail. Rent or mail might be paid In silver, orin cattle or grain. Si Iver rent was white mall. Payment in cattle or grain was black mai I. These robbers preferred payment In cattle and grain, to feed their men and horses. Hence enforced payment for protection or the withholding of damaging information came to be called blackmail.
Most people know that the King James Bible, in the thirteenth chapter of First Corinthians, says “faith, hope, charity”, whereas the revised versions say “faith, hope, love”. Clearly what we understand by spiritual love comes much nearer the mean lng than does the word charity. How did chari ty ever get into the trans I ati on I n the first p lace? The Greek word Is agape. When St. Jerome trans I ated the New Testament into Lat! n in the fourth century, he was determined to avoid the Latin amor as a translation of agape, because in Latin amor was not only the general word for love, but also represented the God of erotic passion. So Jerome subst’rtuted carltas — a very unfortunate choice, because in 4th century latin it was a colorless, vague word, simp Iy a substantive from the adject i ve cara, dear or precl ous — so that the usua I mean I ng of carl tas was dearness or preciousness. Fran caritas we get our English word charity, which has always meant about What It means today — the merciful giving of alms.
The term criss-cross Is of extreme Iy Interesting orig in. You probably knO* the old folded boards from which children learned the alphabet two centuries ago were called hom books. Invariably the first-fold was decorated with a cross. It was usually placed Just before the letter A. Sometimes the whole alphabet was ar-nanged In the form of a cross. The cross ttse I f was called the Olrlst cross, to distinguish it fran the letters that followed, and the row of letters forming the alphabet was called the Christ Cross row. Just as tn the modem pronunciations of Chris-tian, Christmas and Christopher, Christ Cross was always prooounced criss-cross. Ultimately It took on the meaning of a series of crossing lines. Some words of dignified meaning today had very low origil’ls. The next time you hear anyone bragging about being a constable, remind him that the word originaIly meant tender of the stab Ie, and when you see anyone perked up about being a steward, tell him the first stewards were sty wards, keepers of the pigs.
And with -these words about wo rds, we bid you goodn i ght •
Year: 1951