Radio Script #151
Little Talks On Common Things
June 1, 1952
More than once on th Is program we have tal ked about Inf I ation, that econom i c s I tuat I on when too much money chases too few goods. On Iy the most reactionary of business men contend today that there should be no government control.
You won’t find one business man in a thousand who wants to see the old, un restra i ned “publ I c be damned” days of the nineteenth century. But when you get inf lat Ion that Is government-I nduced and government-prolonged, that Is something a lot of people have a right to condemn. It is something that affects all of us — producers, distributors and consumers alike. Under the guise of what Is called a planned economy, we have seen what we Yankees usually mean by economy thrown out the window, and mounting debt let in the front door. We have seen deficits met by increasing floods of printing press money.
A couple of Negro waiters were discussing inflation the other day. One said to the other, “Sam, I ‘se got a ten dollar gold piece I didn’t turn in back in 1933, but now they tells me It’s only got five dol lars worf of gold in It. What wants to know, Sam, is where’s the rest of that gold gone to.”
“Well”, said Sam, “ah don’t rightly know, but ah reckon It’s mos’ly powdered eggs.”
There are two fundamental facts about Inflation that we persist In forgetting. First, inflation cannot be stopped without a balanced govemment budget. The government as well as its citizens must live within Its income. Second, the great over-all need in economics is increased production. Production has always been and stl II is the best answer to high prices. That, of course, is the reason why rabbits are cheaper than mink.
There are men in Congress today — though the i r number is stili sma II -and these men belong to both political parties — men who are striving honestly and persistently to stop government waste, to balance the budget, +0 stimulate production and crush inflation. But they cannot succeed without the vigorous support of the citizens of America.
I have Just been looking at the program of the 58th Commencement of Colby Col lege, held on Wednesday, July 23, 1879. Yes, 73 years ago Commencement was held in the middle of the summer.
That Colby class of 1879 had some members who became very well known in Maine and even farther afield. Two men who were long distinguished citizens of Waterville had parts on that canmencement program. They were Charles E. Owen, long the head of the Christian Civic League, and Edwin Carey Whittemore, pastor of the First Baptist Church, secretary of the Maine Baptist Convention, president of the Trustees of the Waterville Public Library, historian of Colby College, and editor and principal author of the Centennial History of Water,… vi I Ie in 1902.
Another prominent member of the class was Hannibal E. Hamlin, son of Abraham Linco In’s vice-pres I dent, the first Hann i ba I Ham I in. George Merriam, a Baptist minister who, in his long and useful life, held only three pastorates, the last being one of more than thirty years In SkONhegan, was also In the class of 1879.
The last surviving member of that Colby class died only a few months ago. He was Wi lIiam W. Mayo, at one time associated with George Hinckley at Good Will, then for many years the head of Opportunity Farms, the harte for homeless boys in New Gloucester.
Speaking of old programs, I was noting recently the old printed sheets announcing the annual prize speaking exhibitions at Coburn in the years 1873 and 1874. That was before the school took the Coburn name, when It was sti II called Watervi lie Classical Institute. On those programs are some names which many of our older people wi II remember. In 1873 the first speaker, reciting John Q. Adams’ oration on the character of Lafayette, was Charles F. Johnson, who became Un i ted States Senator and federa I judge. Bert Getche II gave Horace Gree ley’s speech on labor; Laura and Myra Fi fie Id both spoke; George E. Murray of Lebanon, who was to become also a distinguished Colby alumnus, gave Charles Summer’s oration on the abolition of war; and Fannie Philbrick spoke on Unwritten History.
One of the listeners wants to know when we are going to say someth Ing more about words. We II, here it is. I wonder how many of us know the true mean Ing of some very fami I jar phrases. Take, for Instance, the. phrase “a strait. and narrow path”. That kind of path may be very winding Indeed, a very maze of curves and twists. How is that possible, you ask? How can anything that Is straight be also crooked? The answer is that the word in the saying is not “straight”, but the old word “straltll , which meant narrow. But then, you may insist, the saying is foolish. Why say narrow twice, because, if strait means narrow, the saying is “a narrow and narrow path”? The answer to that is even more interest Ing.
Many of our English proverbs and familiar expressions rome from the Bible and are therefore only translations of biblical expressions originally expressed in Hebrew or in Aramaic Greek. Now a favorite Hebrew device for emphasis is what is called reduplication, saying the same thing twice in different words, for the sake of pounding the point home. “Wisdom is the principal thing, therefore get wisdom; with all thy getting get understanding.” “Enter not Into the path of the wicked, and walk not in the way of evil men.” “I have not obeyed the voice of my teachers, nor inclined mine ear to them that Instructed me.” ”Watching at my gates, waiting at the posts of my door.” “She was a wIdow and her husband was dead.” “The man was bl ind and he could not see.” So when we say a strait and narrow path, we simply mean a very narrow path, and have no reference at all to one that goes In a straight line. 00 you remember the quoted line from poetry, “There Is a lady pass ing fa I r”?
It doesn’t mean that the lady Is parading by. It Is the old English use of pass I ng I n the sense of surpass ing Iy, and the express ion means, “there goes a girl exceedingly handsome and attractive”.
“One touch of nature makes the whole world kin”. There’s a good old saying~.
What do you think it means? Most people think it means the objects of nature have a universal appeal; that everyone takes the same de) Ight In a sunset, for instance. But the meaning is just the opposite. The expression originated with Shakespeare, who used it in Troilus and Cresslda. In it Shakespeare used the word touch in one of its common meanings of his time, In the sense of blemish or fault. “One fault of nature makes the whole world kin”.
Old you ever think about the phrase in the marriage ceremony Tlti” death us do part”? Why isn’t it, “tl II death us does part, or shall part”? The sense doesn’t warrant the use of the subjunctive lido”, because there is no doubt about the outcome; the parting will some day be certain. The answer is that the original phrase was “ti II death us depart!l, the word “depart” being used in its: old active sense of to separate. “Ti II death us depart” meant “unti I death separate us”. Somehow as time went on and the word depart lost its active meaning of separate, the “depart” became “do part” in spite of its bad grammar.
What did our children read 80 years ago, in the years before even the Alger or the Henty or’the Sophie May stories were popular? A few of them, like my own father, were reading Cooper’s Leatherstocking Tales, and copies of Little Women were in most households. The great heyday of the dime novels and the nickel magazines — Nick Carter and Deadwood Dick and Frank Merriwell and the Liberty Boys of ’76 — had not yet come. What kind of reading did children have in 1 8701
A former resident of Watervi lie, Karl Kennison, for many years the dis … tinguished chief engineer of the Metropolitan Water District in Boston, has sent me a number of chi Idren’s publications of that time. One of them is a paper pamphlet of 16 pages, entitled “The Story In Verse of the Children in the Wood”. It was published by J. A. Merriam and Rufus Merri II at Concord, N. H. in 186’7 _ I t had been p repa red by somebody whose I n it I a I s were H. S. B., and the preface reads:
“L1 tt Ie Ch I I dren: It is wi th much pleasure I am ab Ie to p resent to you this story_ Should it serve to instruct you and cause one heart to earnestly strive against a too strong desi re for riches, and to guard against wrong doing, shall be fully repaid.”
Most of us heard at some time in our chi Idhood the story of the chi Idren in the wood, but few of us heard it in the crude, doggerel verse of this Concord edition. “Now ponder we II, you parents dear, The words which do write; A doleful story you shal I hear, Wh i ch time brought forth to I I ght • ” You know the story. A dying man left his two chi Idren to the care of his brother, and decreed in h is wi II that if the uncle survi ved the ch i Idren, he should Inherit their money_”He ba rga i ne d with two ru ff I ans rude, Who were of furious mood, That they should take these chi Idren young And s lay them in the wood. If Then the ruffians fell Into a dispute and finally a sword fight. The kin … der one ki I led the other, then left the children alone in the wood, promising to return. An old lady found them.
“She kindly took them by the hand,
And to her home they went;
She loved and kindly cared for them,
And they to schoo I she sent.”
Then such disaster fel I upon the wicked uncle that
“On a voyage to Portuga I
Two of his sons did die;
And, to conclude, himself was brought
To utter mi sery.”
Then in the two final stanzas the author had to make sure that his warning to al I guardians went home with a punch.
“Come, a I I you executors,
And overseers, else,
Of ch I I dren that be fatherless,
And infants, mi Id and meek.
Take your example by this thing,
And yield to each his right,
Les t God, with such – I I ke mise ry
Your wicked deeds requi te.”
We th i nk today’s ch i I dren listen to some pretty thri I I lng, nerve-tlng ling yarns on the radio and see a lot of horrors on television, but we wonder If It is any worse than the mixture of gore and sentiment that was dished out to kids a century ago.
Then there were the goody-goody books — the stories of the Li ttle Lord Fauntleroys and their feminine counterparts, who never got into mischief, were always obedient, and didn’t have to be constantly reminded that crime doesn’t pay. Such were the contents of a chi Idrein’s magazine called “r.1erry’s Museum”, published by E. H. Fales in New York in the 1860’s. The issue sent me by Mr. Kennison is No.1 of Vol. 53 for January, 1867. The magazine I ists four editors, a II obvi ous Iy pseudonyms. Perhaps a II four were the same person. They were Robert !’Jerry, Hiram Hatchet, Uncle William and Aunt Sue.
Now let’s take a look at one of the cults that fascinated our grand-parents.
In the 1860’s phrenology was In its ascendancy. By examining the head, carefully measuring all the lumps and nodes, the phrenologist could tell al I about your past, p resent and future. Fow ler and We II s, 389 Broadway, New York, advertised in 1866 a variety of books to help the layman understand the won.derful new science of phrenology. There was the Annual of Phrenology and Physiognomy for 20 cents; a chart for recording various deve lopments for 10 cents; a Defense of Phrenology for $1 .50; a book ca I led “Matrimony or Phreno logy::app lied to the selection of a conoenial companion for life”, 50 cents~ A huge tome, handsomely bound and said to contain more than 1,000 illustrations sold for $5.00, a lot of money In those days. It was called “New Physiognomy or Signs of Character, as man I fested through temperament and externa I forms, especl a II y in the human face divine”. For $1.25 one could ~et a phrenological bust, showing all the organs of the brain fully developed. Finally for $1.50 a year, he could get the monthly issues of the Phrenological Journal, which dealt not only with the science of phrenology, but, according to S. R. Wells, Its editor, was “devoted to phys i 01 ogy, phreno logy, psycho logy, soc i 01 ogy, educat ion. art, literature, and measures to reform, elevate and improve mankind”.
Our listener and correspondent who calls himself “111”, knowing of my interest In the year 1847, has written me about some items he has found In an old day book and journal of a farmer who lived In Vassalboro at that time, a hundred years ago. The Journal notes that on October 21, 1847 the man hauled a load of what he spells “llome” — a load of loam — from Augusta to Vassalboro for 50 cents. Now that spe Iling Interests me very much, for It proves that this Vassalboro farmer a full century ago pronounced the word “loam”, the modern standard pronunciati on, not “loom”, as I t was a Imost un I versa Ily pronounced in my boyhood town, and as we sometimes hear it In rural communities today~ Our 111 fe I low comnents on the re latt ve stabll i ty of prices over the years, as revealed by these accounts. Of course some items changed with the seasons. Says my friend 111, ”When the price of eggs dropped to 10 cents a dozen, did the farmers se II the i r hens In di sgust? They did not. They sort of pastured them out and wasted little grain on them unti I the price’ of eggs went up again”. As for the stabl i Ity of prices, I can personally declare that 111 Is right.
We don’t have to go back a hundred years to show that. My personal acquaintance with a country grocery store was in the first ten years of the twentieth century. In that whole decade Arm and Hammer Soda was always 7 cents a pound; Cmam of Tartar was 10 cents a quarter pound; common crackers were 8 cents a pound and soda crackers 10 cents; all spices were 8 cents a quarter pound package, except ginger, which for some reason sold for only 7 cents. Year in and year out Seward Brand A laska Red Sa Imon was two cans for a quarter. The f tnest Mocha and Java coffee was 35 cents a pound; the yellow labeled cans of Excelsior coffee were 25 cents; and you could buy a bitter Rio coffee for 20 cents. In ten years those prices never varied. Nor did those fine old emblems of the country store, whole salt fish. Whole pollack, weighing from three to five pounds, with the yellOW meat and the forked tai Is, were six cents a pound.
Whole cod, weighing from six to nine pounds, with thicker, whiter meat and square tai Is, were eight cents a pound. We are not tryin9 tonight to point out how cheap commodities were in the old days. We are rather emphasizing their stability and predictability. A man’s wages were low in those days, but he cou Id be pretty sure what the necessities of life would cost him next year as well as next week.
Year: 1952