Radio Script #158
Little Talks On Common Things
October 19, 1952
Last year we said a lot about waste and extravagance in the federal government. We don’t pretend that what we said has made any difference, but if some of us don’t go right on calling attention to this flagrant government spending, nothing will ever be done about it. When enough people get truly concerned and tal k turkey TO the i r Congressmen ~ we sha II get acti on.
In the fiscal year that ended on June 30, 1952 our government in Washington collected In taxes 62bilUon dollars. Now much of that vast sum had to be spent, of course., to provide the minimum services government must provide, and a great deal of it. went .for defense materials and personnel that most of us ardently support. But a lot went also for unneeded materials, for padded payrolls; for extravagant ~ntertaining~ for duplication and sheer waste.
That single year’s tax col lection — 62 hi II ion dollars — is so much money that we just can ‘t comprehend I t. But we can stop a minute and cons,lder some of the things that could be done with 62 bi II ion dollars. For one thing, it would payoff a I I the mortgages on a lithe farms and homes in the Un I ted states • It would completely maintain every inch of Our 3 million miles of highway~ and bu rid a II the new ones needed for the next ten years.
Sixty-two billion dollars would build 2,000 new $10,000 homes In every one of the 3,070 counties in the United States. It would buy every family in the country a $300 teJevi s i on set, a washing machine, an e lectri crefri gerator., and a $500 vacat ion. If that money were all in hundred dollar bi J Is, one man, counting it 40 hours a week, would take 77 years to finish the job. If it were all in si IVer dollars and loaded into freight cars, 50 tons to a car, it would require 36,530 cars and make a train 307 mi les long.
Well, anyhow, the next time you are asked to add your voice to the many who are demanding more prudence and more business like methods in our government spending, before you decide to remain silent, shrug your shoulders, and let the mad revel go right on …. – just stop a minute and remember that 62 bill ion dollars.
There recently came to my hands the printed report of the Maine Methodist Conference for the year 1844. As ear Iy as that ~1ethodi sm had made marked progress in Maine. In the whole state they claimed 26,000 members. In those days, before railroad travel, the church divided the state into six districts, called the Portland, the Readfield, the Gardiner, the Augusta, the Bangor and the Bucksport.
The largest fVjethod j st commun i ty was not Portland, but Farmington. r..10re than 400 of the fa i th Ii ved in Durham and in Orrington. A Ithough Augusta and Hal lowell each had more than 300 Methodists in 1844, Watervi lIe had only 35. “‘,S yet it had no establ ished Methodist church, but was a center for mission preaching by an itinerant Methodist elder. Rockland is not mentioned in the (,j’st at all, though Thomaston had 48 members, Friendship lSD, and the island of Vinalhaven 116.
Apparently the Methodists were having trouble 108 years ago with their school at Kents Hill. One resolution passed by the conference reads as follows:IIV/hereas th i s conference has dec lined the tender of trust from the Trustees of the fvlaine Wesleyan Seminary, be it resolved ( 1) That. if the -trustees of the Sem i nary sha I I cont i n ue the j r effort to carryon the school and sha II appoint an agent to co Ilect funds for the re’ ief of the Institution, we wi I I gladly cooperate with the agent. (2) That, if an agent be appointed for the above named purpose, we recommend that the agent delay the collection of subscriptions he may obtain until a sufficient amount be subscribed to relieve the institution of all its embarassment.
“Fortunately not al I Methodists and other friends of Kents Hill were so pessimistic as were the men who attended that conference of 1844. Because a few devoted souls were determined that the school should not die, it didl ive on and grew into the fine., strong institution we know it to be today. Kents Hi II was not the only concern of the Methodist conference of 1844. They were having trouble with the Odd Fellows. 50 they resolved; “We .consider ourselves bound to avoid all questions and measures for or against the Odd Fel .. lows, since these questi ons sti r up e~c itement and strife among our people. We wi II not attend nor encourage meetings of Odd Fellows, and this conference wi lI consider any of itsmembers~ who disregard this resolution as offending against the ,authority of the Conference.”
That.Methodist Conference tnet seventeen years before the CivIl War~lt was the very year in fact when a young lawyer out In 5pringifJe Id, III inois was elec;:;;> ted a representati va to Congress. No one then had the s Ii ghtest susp i cion that ” ~ ,
Abraham Lincoln would lead the nation through its greatest internal conflict over the question of slavery. But Maine Methodists had their opinion abOut slavery as far back as 1844, and they expressed it thus:
”We are conv ineed of the great evi I of slavery, and we are determined to use all Christian and constitutional measures to get rid of it. Whatevermay be the unhallowed spirit manifested by some of our southern breThren against the doings of’ the northern portion of the church, we st! II hope and ardently pray that, under serious consideration ·of this great evil, they will Join with us in e ffortsfor its destruct I on.”
The other day got to thinking about changes in Maine population during the past 60 years. The eensus :ff}9ures are interesting. In. 1890 there were only six communities in the state that had more than 10,000 people. They were, in order of size, Portland, Lewiston, Bangor” Biddeford, Auburn and Augusta. Waterville was tenth in size 60 years ago. Ahead of her were Rockland, 8ath, and Calais. Yes, in 1890, Rockland had a thousand more people than Watervi lie.
In 1950 the order of the first three cities was the same — Portland” Lewiston, Bangor — and how they had grown. In 1890 their combined popUlation was just over 75,000. In 1950 Portland alone had more than that — 77,000-~ and the three together were the homes of 150,000 peop Ie, But, after the first three cities, the passing 60 years saw marked changes in the rank of Maine communities. Biddeford, fourth in 1890, is now seventh, and Maine’s fourth city is Auburn. In fifth place today is a city that did not even exist in 1890, South Portland. Augusta held its position,sixth pJace both in 1890 and in 1950. Waterville had gone up two steps, from tenth place to eighth. \¥estbrook had grown tremendously, tripling its population in the 60 years, 50 that it is now in ninth place.
The coast towns beyond Port land haven’t fared so well. In sp i te of the booms of two world wars, Bath dropped from seventh to eleventh position, and Rockland from eighth to fifteenth. Today Camden, Thomaston and Eastport actu,… ally have fewer people than they had in 1890. Bel·fast has only 800 more. In Central Maine Hallowell has only 200 more people than it had 60 years ago, Gardiner less than a thousand more, and Fairfield about a hundred more. Skowhegan has about a thousand increase p and Madison about 300. This all reminds us that t4aine is sti It a state of small communities. We have only 12 places today with more than 10,000 people, compared with six places of 10,000 sixty years ago. The World Almanac I ists all communities in the United States with more than 2.,500 population. In that list there are Just 51 Maine towns and cities. In only 51 of Maine’s nearly 700 towns are there as many as 2 ,500 peop Ie •
Now don’t tet these figures discourage us. We are indeed a small state, with fewer than a mi Ilion people …. – but in our products we hold a high place. \>Je have the best potatoes, the best bl ueberrles, the best sweet corn, and the best lobsters in the worl d. We are fast becoming one of the great ch i cken centers of the nat I on. And the very best of Ma ine products — Ma ine boys and girls — have made distinguished records in every state in the Union. The historian Toynbee ca lIed Ma ine a state of woodsmen I watermen 1 and hunters. Artemas Ward, who was born up in the town of Waterford, called Maine a state of mind. Our own f.btor Vehicle Division calls it Vacationland. But it Is really a land of rushing waters and turning Wheels, of farms and orchards and dairies, of elm shaded villages and stretching evergreen forests — a land peopled by folk who stU I believe in an honestday1s work~ and that the way to prosperity for a family and a government alike i sto spend just a little less than you earn.
Year: 1952