Radio Script #278
Little Talks On Common Things
November 6, 1955
President Eisenhower’s illness makes it highly improbable that he wi I I be a candiclate for a second term. But even before his coronary attack, many people believed he was too old to run again. Even the President himself warned his party leaders that he would be 70 years old before he could finish a second term •
Now this al I raises the question: How old is old? Admitting that the American presidency is an exacting job, cal ling for a healthy man, what is the experience in other nations? In some of those other countries the job of government head is like walking a tight-rope, and that certainly would seem to be no job for old age. But, as AI Smith used to say, let us look at the record. Winston Churchi I I, acknowledged to be the greatest statesman of our times, served as Prime Minister of Britain ten years after he was 70 — not continuously for those ten years but, what is more important, returned to power again after he was 75.
A man who had already suffered the harrowing demands of the presidency, Herbert Hoover, kept on doing important tasks for the government unti I his completion of the final report of the Hoover Commission a few days after his 81st birthday.
Konrad Adenauer, the strong man of Germany, staunch friend of the West, is nearly 80. Part of the Soviet starl ing and procrastinating about German unity is bui It on thei r hope that old age wi II soon get Adenauer out of the way_ One nat i on whe re the king is no figurehead is Norway. The re the roya I duties are constant and important. King Haakon has ruled over that nation for 13 years since his 70th birthday_ In fact that birthday came right at the time when Norway was under the iron heel of Hitler, and Haakon was a king in exi Ie. Unlike a much younger monarch, the King of Belgium, the old king of Norway never bowed to the Naz is, kept constant I yin touch with the Norwegi an res i stance, and triumphantly saw his country’s liberation in 1945.
Whether or not you approve of Syngman Rhee., pres i dent of the Repub Ii c of Korea, you must admit that he is a vigorous, dynamic leader at the age of 80.
Contrary to popular bel ief, the American presidency has not been a ki Iler of its men. Almost half of our presidents, 15 of the 33, have lived beyond their 70th year after leaving the White House. The longest lived of them all., John Adams, died at the age of 90, on the same July fourth that saw also the death of Thomas Jefferson at 83. James Madison lived to be 85, John Quincy Adams 80, Martin Van Buren 79 and Andrew Jackson 78.
Finally this fact mayor may not be significant: Since Zachary Taylor~ more than a hundred years ago, no President of the United States has died of natural causes whi Ie he was sti I I in office.
No one now living remembers the sensation caused by a young lady at Kents Hi II Seminary 90 years ago, but whi Ie it lasted, the fvlary Louise Greene case was a cause ce I eb re th rough out Ma i ne . On a hi I lin Aub urn the re s ti I I stands a gran i te monument with th is i nscri pt i on: “M. Loui se Greene, age 22 years, daughter of Jonas and L. M. Greene of Peru, Maine. A student five years at Kents Hi II, a member of the graduating class of 1866, who perished here in May, with i n two weeks of graduati on. A martyr to the prej udi ce and capri ce of man.!l
The story of Mary Loui se Greene i nvo I ved the reputati on of a ce lebrated school and the honor of its principal, the love of a father for his daughter and his hatred of that school principal because the girl had quite correctly been discipl ined for a confessed offense.
Today, 90 years afterwards, our information about the case comes chiefly from the files of the Lewi ston Journa I. On May 29, 1866 the Journa I noted ina short paragraph the fact that a young, unnamed woman was missing.
On June 2 appeared an editorial headed r!fvlissing; A Sad Case”, naming the young woman as Mary Louise Greene, a senior at Kents Hi I I. On June 9 the paper informed its readers That the authorities had learned of the purchase of poison by the missi ng gi rl. Dai Iy from June 10 to 13 the Journal recorded continued search for the missing student. On the 14th it announced that the search had been abandoned. Perhaps no one would ever know what happened to Louise Greene.
Four months later, on October 13, a body, identified as that of the missing Louise Greene, was found in Auburn, at the spot where the monument now stands. The next spring The girl’s father, Jonas Greene, published a pamphlet entitled “The Crown Won but not \A/orn”. Here in the words of that pamphlet is the father’s own account of that tragedy:
Han May 23, 1866 Mary Loui se Greene, a student at The Fema Ie Co liege at Kents Hi II.. left that i nsti tuti on ina wretched state of mi nd, trave led to Lewiston, was seen weeping in Auburn, purchased poison, and mysteriously disappeared. Her father, for many anxious weeks, searched in and around Lewiston for his lost chi Id. He employed detectives, circulated handbi 115 and photographs a II over the sTate. The kind peop Ie of Lewi ston, Auburn and Li sbon generously assisted him in searching the woods, the canals and the river — all to no purpose. Finally her bJeached remains were accidentally discovered in a lonely spot in the forest in Auburn, the following October.”
You wi J I note thaT Father Greene sa i d that Loui se left Kents Hi I J ina wreTched state of mi nd. What had caused that wretched STate? Loui se had entered the school in 1861. After a preparatory course of “two years, she entered what was then ca lied The Fema Ie Co liege Department, whe re she conti n ued until May, 1866. Ouri ng the I ast year of her stay she had frequent Iy broken the ru Ie requ i ri ng no student to I eave the Hill wi thOUT per’lIIi 5S i on.
In Apri t, 1866 Principal Torsey had a serious talk with the girl concerning her attitude toward the school’s regulations. On the evening of May 21st Dr. Torsey was informed that Louise Greene had taken articles of clothing and money belonging to other students. Two days later the girl confessed to the principal that she did take the clothes and tbe-money. As a result of that .intervielt/, Miss Greene agreed to leave the school.
Lou i se Greene was no ch i I d. A I ready 22 years 0 I d, she was fu I Iy responsible for her actions. She told Dr. Torsey she would go to her uncle’s home in Lewiston and would write her father from there. Dr. Torsey told her he could not consent to such a course, that she was of age and could go to her uncle’s if that was her decision, but that she could not do so with Dr. Torsev’s approva I. Fi na Ily Lou ise agreed to go to her own home in Peru, and it was arranged for her to leave Kents Hi I I ear I y that afte rnoon.
About two o’clock on that May 23rd, Dr. Torsey learned that the girl had indeed left the Hi I I, but for Lewiston, not for Peru. He immediately sent a student with Miss Greene’s sister to her parents’ home in Peru, instructing the sister, who was a I so a Kents Hi ” student, to te I J her father the whole story.
Loui se Greene’s wretched state of mi nd on May 23, 1866 was therefore that she was charged with theft by the school authorities, that she confessed to the theft, that she was of age, agreed of her own accord to leave the school, and now had to face her father. Rather than face him, she started for Lewiston.
On the train from Readfie Id to Lewiston the gi rl wrote a letter to her younger sister, the gi r I whom Pri nci pa J Torsey had directed to te II the story at home. In that letter Louise said: T7Or. Torsey informed me this morning that I had better leave today; ‘not expulsion’, he said, ‘we won’t cal J it that .. but you had better go home’. My bitterest agony is for the dear ones at home, on whom must fal I some share in this disgrace. Satan, or some evi I spirit, must have led me into this. can feel myself really gui Ity of but one crime taking five dollars from Miss Church. had no intention of stealing the clothes. For every article I took I had lost one in the wash. My lost ones were unmarked. Was it strange that I should take others, also unmarked, in the i r stead? Y?
On the same train Louise wrote another letter, addressed jointly to all her schoolmates at Kents Hi I I. It said about the same as the fetter to her sister, attempting to explain the possession of another’s clothes, but confessing to taking the five dol lars.
When Jonas Greene learned of his daughter’s departure from the Hi II, he naturally bent every effort to find her. He eventually got into a bitter controversy with Dr. Torsey, whom he charged with cruelty and with responsibi lity for the girl’s death. Public opinion, as usual, took sides, and the trustees of Kents Hill f i na I Iy fe It ob Ii ged to make pub Ii c answer to Greene’s charges.
Greene had published a pamphlet. Now the trustees brought out o~e of their own. It took up each of Greene’s complaints and made candid answer to al I of them.
It showed conclusively that Louise had confessed to theft, had left the school by her own decision, had agreed to go home to Peru, but had gone to Lewiston instead, and that she was of legal age to make her own decisions.
The bitterness of the Greene fami Iy toward Dr. Torsey is revealed in a note written to the principal on the day after the girl’s body was found. This note was written, not by the angry father, but by the usually more even tempered mother. There is no evenness of temper in her words to Dr. Torsey. She wrote:
“S i r: The vi cti m of your vengeance, persecuti on and tyranny was found dead in Auburn yesterday. Our opinion of you is that you are a base scoundrel and a black-hearted murderer.
JlIjst a year later the mother wrote to Dr. Torsey again: ~IOne year ago today, Louise received her death-blow from you,. fleeing from your presence as from a tiger. We sti I I think you a black-hearted murderer. Nothing but the influence of a rich, powerful and corrupt Methodist denomination could save you, in th i sinh uman tragedy, from un i versa I condemn at ion.
Near Iy a century has passed since the scanda I at Kents Hi I I. We can now look back upon it objectively and say what a pity that this tragic young woman’s mistake and misfortune had to be dragged for months through the public press because of her father’s unfounded attacks on the head of her schoo I. A II those attacks accomplished was to make what was already shameful for the fami Iy much more than it need have been.
Ti me i s the great hea Ie r . The part i c,i pants have a I I been long in the i r graves, and The whole sad affair is forgotten, save for the words on the Auburn monument, “A martyr to the prejudice and caprice of man.”
Last week I asked whether anyone had ever heard of a poor auction in Maine. Immediately Mr. R. B. Cates of Col lege Avenue,. Watervi lie, comes up with the information. He has discovered that at a town meeting held in the town of Unity in 1804 — a century and a ha I f ago — the fo I low i ng votes were passed:
VOTed, that the poor be sold to the lowest bidder.
VOTed, to set up the Widow Hopkins at auction, she being one of the poor of the Town. This was done and the bid was four cents a week for her keep.
I am ashamed to say that is worse than anything Samuel Hopkins Adams records as having happened along the Erie Canal in his grandfather’s day. Think of it! Four cents a week! What miserable,. starvation usage that poor widow must have suffered. How proud the town fathers of Unity must have been at their four cent barga i n t D. E. Decker of Clinton also remembers his father’s telling about poor auctions in that town. One such auction, according to Mr. Decker’s father, concerned an aged pauper whom the successful bidder kept out of doors sawing wood unti I the poor man’s feet were frozen.
Wel” anyhow, the poor auction has long been a past, not a present, disg~~.
Year: 1955