Radio Script #156
Little Talks On Common Things
October 5, 1952
By this time you know I am one of those hopelessly old fashioned persons who feels concern about the national debt. know plenty of professiona I economists tell us not to worry. We only owe the debt to ourselves, and besides we are a fabuIous I yri ch country. Without pretending to fathom the intricacies of the economic argument as to whether a nation as well as an individual or a corporation can go bankrupt, let u~.take a ~Iook (It. a. few~ undel’l!:a~;~~~!tt~ •.. 1 n 1918 J”he l1C1tionaJ wealth.of ” <~ ” ” ” , – ,” ” ‘ -,,’ ~.
The United States amounted to 215 bi I Jion. dollars. Our national debt was then S2 bHllon-, or 38 per cent of the natlonalwea1th. By 1951 our wea fth had more than quadrupled, rising to 968 biqlon, but the debt had increased more than Sfold to 511 bllJ ion”.so that the percentage of our nai”lonafwealth absorbed by debt, Instead of being 38 per cent” was now 53 per cent, more than one do I … ·l arl:f:F–everytwo.
What do we mean by nat lona 1 wea Ith? . ,What composed that 968 b I II i on do 1- .’arsi n 1951? The stafisticians, Jne lude eight items In the list • The largest is homes, amo~nt f ngfu{’90 b iff i on do 1 ‘ars • Then Comes I an d at 160 billion; other bu I J dings, .138 bill ion; mach I nes, factory equ i pment and ra I 1 roads, 110 bi II ion; and gold heic:t in the United states, together with assets abroadt 44 ” ,{“j , , ‘ ~ hi 11 ion. That makes the sweet tota I of 968 b.i II fon. And we owe more than ha If of it — more than balfof all our great nation’s tangible assets.
Last week we left HezekiahPrince talking with George Craigie at his man.,. sion on Brattle Street In old Cambridge. Now we must get Hezeklah on his way, From Cambridge he rode straight through to Kingston, Rhode Is land, where was his own paternal home. His father and mother In fact were both stili I iving and very glad to see him. Like most members of the Prince fam; Iy, they were healthy and long-lived, Hezekiah’s father living to the age of 8B.. his mother to 96.
Next Hezekiah visited his sister at Plympton. She had married a descendant of Governor Bradford of Plymouth and was the mother of nine children.
Hezekiah next passed through Pawtucket, crossed the river to Providence, and kept on to Plainfield, Conn., a ride of 34 mi les. When he left Plainfield on December 4 it was snowing and drifting badly. He lost his way in the storm, but finally reached Tracy’s Tavern, after journeying only 13 mi les.
Hezekiah certainly had a lot of relatives, for on the next day he stopped with his brother Kimball in New London. He evidently had a good time there, for he stayed six days. The two brothers visited Fort Grisworld which had been captured by Benedict Arnold in 1782 and where he had brutally put to death the surrendered garrison. Says the diary, HMany evidences sti II exist of the traitor’s acts in the plunder and destruction of New London1′.
In riding from Norwich to New London~ Hezekiah passed through the little Indian vi Ilage where dwelt literally the/ast of the Mohicans, the tiny rem·nants of a once powerful tribe. “They have”, said Hezekiah, “a neat little wooden church, and their dwellings are much like those of our own Penobscot tr i oe at Bangor. The i r famous ch ief Uncas died about 1690. His rema ins are buried in a I ittle roadside graveyard in Norwjch.l~
By December 12 Hezekiah had reached New Haven which he calfs ;;a thriving, n j ce-Iook j ng p I ace, with beauti fu I shade trees and gardens:t. The nearer he got to New York, the better he found the roads. When he reached East Chester he wrote: !II find the roads improving; made 43 mi les today quite easy; my horse fres h and act i ve as whe n I first s ta rted:1 • The next day he te I I s us that he crossed Kings Bridge, and by a smooth road along the North River travelled down Bowery Lane. He learned that th i s route and Broadway were the two best roads lead ing to the city of New York.
Hezekiah did not stop over night in New York. He had no relatives there and didn’tlearn of any sights he considered worth going out of his way to vi s it, His on Iy comments on the Ameri can metropo J is were as follows: r’At Bowery Vi Ilage I ca I led at a tavern and drank a tankard of good 01 d Dutch ale.
Some of the 0 I d wall s of the Stuyvesant mans i on house, whi ch was burned by the British, are sti II standing,also the old pear tree planted by the governor.
The houses of Bowery Lane are small, with porches in front, the street lined with trees gl istening with the scarlet autumn leaves, and between them gl impses of the East River with a swarm of boats,”
Not stopp i ng in New York, Hezeld ah pushed on to Paterson, New Je rsey, where his brother Christopher lived. He had to cross two rivers by ferry on the way, but he arrived at Paterson before dark. Although Hezeklah was only 22 years old he already had a brother both old enough and wealthy enough to retire frombu$iness. He tells us that Christopher: was a retired shipmaster living on his income in Paterson.
A sight Hezekiah considered well worth recording were the factories at Passaic Falls. llThese factories”, he says, “were a great curiosity to me. They cost $500,000; employ five hundred men on Marshall ‘s machinery works. The cotton factory is carried by one water wheel, working some seven thousand spindles, cards, spins and weaves 200 pounds a day~ dropping about 50 rolls a minute. The jennies spin 144 threads at once; the looms weave thirty yardS a day. A II the mach i nery is so accurate I y adj usted that any part may be stopped and started again without interfering with other parts.
At Princeton Hezekiah stopped a whi Ie to view the famous battle ground. but he says not a word about someth i ng much more famous the re -“. the Co liege of New Jersey, later to become the great Princeton University. He is surprised to find many slaves in New Jersey, but notes that emancipation is strongly advocated.
The next day Hezekiah crossed the Delaware River at almost exactly the spot where Washington crossed it when he surprised the Hessians at Trenton.
The next day he rode into Phi ladelphia, saw the phi lanthropist, Stephen Girard, and even more impressive persons. Let’s have it in his own words: “President Washington and his cabinet were objects of my curiosity. I had seen Washington when he was in Boston In 1789. He is now, as he was then, tal I ,:::u superb, slightly corpulent, but straight and dignified. His dress coat was buttoned to his chin, and his buckskin breeches and top boots were a perfect fit. Gen. Knox imitated him closely in dress. Knox recognized me and greeted me cordially. I took a look at the members of Congress in their seats, visited the museum, and the grave of Franklin, who died three years ago. Politics is the all-absorbing theme herein Phi ladelphia. Gen. Knox introduced me to Mr. Bi ngham, who has just purchased a mll fi on acres on the upper Kennebec. He wished me to act as his agent in surveying and settl ing these lands, but I was ob I i ged to dec I I ne .”
On December 24th Hezekiah left Phi1ade Iphia” crossed the Schuylki II River on a floating bridge, and notes that he passed through pros.perous farming coun …. try settled by Germans. He stayed the night at Christianier .. Delaware. Now you have heard me say more than once that Chrsitmas was not regularly observed in our country until about the time of the Civi I War. The diary of Hezekiah Prince’s horseback journey bears me out. He records his doings and the continuation of his Journey on December 25, 1793, but in it is not a single mention that it is Christmas Day. He wrote: “I find quite a difference be … tWeen the Eng I ish and the Dutch sett Jers here. The former are nervous and active, always on the move. The Dutch are corpulent, less active, and Jook as~. sleepy as their peaked roof yellow houses.”
On December 27 Hezeklah was in Baltimore, where he found the harbor .’f … frozen over and navigation suspended. With many rich merchants 1 Baltimore had -the only bank south of· Phi ladelphia. We wonder if Hezeklah can be correct in -that, when we consider such places as Williamsburg and Charleston, stlil farther south. On the 29th Hezek i ahwrote: ,tWe crossed the rope ferry and rode through an almost interminable forest for 35 miles to Blandensburg where we put up; scarcely any inhabitant along the whole route.”
How strange it seems to us to hear a description of the site of Washington, written by a Maine man as he saw the p lace before there was any city there at all. Remember he had only a few days before left the national capital which in 1793 was Phi ladelphia, and there he had seen President Washington, General Knox, other cabinet officers, and the whole Congress. Now on the thir~’ tieth of OecemberHezeki ah wrote: “We rode to the p I ace intended for the new Federal City. It is yet nothing but a forest, with here and there long I jnes of felled trees where the streets are to be, A few workmen’s shanties stand cl ustered near the capitol bui Iding and the President’s house, neither of which has reached above the foundation walls, and it is said $200,000 have already been expended. It is a dismal place, swampy and wet. They intend to ca J lit Wash i ngton.
Crossing the Potomac, Hezekiah proceeded to Alexandria and Colchester, passing within two miJesof Washington’s home at ~1t. Vernon. From Colchester Hezekiah says he went over miserable roads, through a miserable God-forsaken region to Fredericksburg. From that place he rode along the banks of the Rappahanock River and dined with a planter at Bowling Green. The planter was both a slave owner and slave trader, having over a hundred Blacks on his place when Hezekiatidlned \.)l\’f/j·hhrl. Of the country he wri tes: “From A lexandria to Fredericksburg the travelling was bad, the settlers unthrifty, the society in a bad state. At Fredericksburg I noticed a change for the better. The soli is more ferti Ie; splendid forests of white oak adorn both sides of the river. Large fiel ds of tobacco appear, and all a long the road are negroes roll ing barrels of tobacco to market.!l Though Hezeklah didn’t know it, this was of course the famous Tobacco Road. Our traveler passed next day the birthplace of Patrick Henry, and the old tavern whe re the young Henry once tended bar.
From Hanover Court House to Ri chmond the corduroy road was so bad that Hezekiah lost his way, and instead of travel ing only 16 mi les between the two places he covered more than 40 mi les before he came Into the new Virginia capital. It was new, because after more than a hundred years at Williamsburg, the capital had been moved to Richmond only a few years before Hezekiah’s ar~ rival. Hezekiah was impressed by the new brick capitol bui Iding, with its portico and studded with columns reaching to the eaves. Jefferson had procured the plans in Europe, and there was nothing else like it in America.
What was Hezekiah doing way down in Virginia, so far from his New England relatives? I told you the Princes were a w’f’dely dispersed fami Iy, and the diary soon reveals that Hezekiah was seeking close relatives even down beyond the Potomac. On January 3 the diary records: !1I have arrived at the end of my long, but pleasant and instructive, journey of more than 1,200 mi les. Here, not far from Manchester, lives my brother Noah, with his wife and two chi Idren. He has 15 s laves, all I ightly worked, comfortably clothed and fed, and seeming.c.. Iy happy. Yet Noah is among those slaveholders who favor emancipation. The example of The North in liberating their slaves is doing its work, and the rest of the states. I am confi dent 1 wi II soon set the i r Negroes free.”
How Ii tt Ie Hezekiah knew what the future he Id in store. He could not possib I y foresee the invention of the cotton gin. wh i ch wou I d change the whole economy of the South, mak i n9 sl aves extreme I y va I uab Ie and so necessary in the eyes of the southern planter~ that a bitter war must be fought to settle the issue which, in 1793, Hezekiah Prince was sure he saw on the way to peaceful so I ut ion.
Hezekiah didn’t think much of the poor whites with whom he came in con~ tact. Of them he writes: lIThe poor whites, or crackers as they are called, are but I ittle in advance of the Negroes. They are descended from criminals, imported and kidnapped laborers sent to America in early days. They are not exact I y s I aves, but indentured se rvants. The I ash is app lied to them as free I y as to the Negroes. When released, they usually become vagabonds. They are lazy and shiftless, and are the legitimate progenitors of the tmean white trash’, desp i sed even by the Negroes.”
Hezekiah didn’t think much of the famous southern hunting parties, although he was the owner of a fast horse, was a capital horseman, and renowned at home s a crack shot. He writes, and this is the last item in the diary: ffl joined but few of their hunting parties; they cannot for a moment be compared with such sports in the forests of~1aine.!!
Hezekiah had spent twenty-two days on that journey from Thomaston, Maine to Ivlanchester, Virginia. On January 25, 1794, after a good, long visit with Brother Noah, our Ma ine trave Iler sol d his horse and equ i pment, proceeded to Ri chmond and took passage on the schooner Betsey for Fai rhaven, Massachusetts.
Arriving at that port near New Bedford on February 3. Hezekiah hired a horse and gig and drove to his father’s homedn Kingston, Rhode Is land. There, with his parents, he spent the rest of the winter. Not unti I Apri I 8 was he back in Thomaston, more than four months after the start of his horseback journey,
Year: 1952