Radio Script #663

Little Talks on Common Things

October 24, 1965

On this program I have several times referred to the student strike of 1903 at Colby College. For a number of years the annual freshman reading, always held in the First Baptist Church of Waterville, had been rudely interrupted by invading sophomores, who tossed to the audience copies of the War Cry, a scurrilous sheet produced each spring by Colby’s sophomore class. Sometimes alarm clocks were concealed allover the church, timed to go off one after another at short intervals.

At the freshman reading in 1902 the disturbance had been so bad that President Charles Lincoln White announced that any repetition in 1903 would call for stern disciplinary action.

Of course no college students would ignore such a challenge. Sure enough, at the 1903 speaking the first speaker, Karl Kennison, had hardly gotten under way when sophomores invaded the church. President White immediately adjourned the meeting.

Not another speaker was heard. The next day the entire sophomore class of men was suspended from college. Juniors and seniors supported the sophomores by refusing to attend classes. Then the freshmen, innocent victims of it all, joined the strikers.

Nor were the girls silent. Commencement was drawing near, and the senior girls notified President White that, since the senior men refused to participate in commencement unless the sophomores were reinstated, the girls too would not be present for graduation exercises.

The situation was saved by two members of the faculty, Professors William Bayley and Arthur Roberts. Their many conferences with student leaders and patient work with fellow members of the faculty paid off. The President announced that, when college reopened in the fall, the sophomores could return. The seniors agreed to attend commencement, and peace was restored. The net result was that between the date of the freshman reading in late May and Commencement in late June, the sophomore men got an unexpected vacation.

Until a few weeks ago I had never seen a copy of the War Cry that precipitated that strike. Among the many items turned over to me by the widow of Arthur Robinson, Colby 1906, was a War Cry for each year from 1902 to 1906. Actually the one issued by the Class of 1905 in the spring of 1903 was not called the War Cry. Its name was “The 1905 Whoop”. Its leading editorial showed little respect for the administration. It said: “We wish to state that we aim to hurt no one’s feelings. We call to Prexy’s attention that we have said nothing about the three demons which he so strenuously objected to in our dramatic production. We realize we must not jeopardize our scholarship aid. We have offered the President of our worthy institution to make the College a present of all proceeds of this publication, but he has not accepted our offer. We can only assume that he objects to what we publish before he has seen it.”

As usual, the paper’s jibes were directed chiefly at the freshman class. One editorial said: “What a show Colby would have missed if the Class of 1906 had not swarmed over the campus. Such a rare conglomeration of freshmen one simply cannot imagine. They have to be seen to be appreciated. There is every conceivable variety, from dwarf tyrant, from roaring lion to piping grasshopper, from shrinking mouse to performing monkey. We are grateful to 1906 for providing such enjoyment of the ridiculous.”

An entire page of that 1903 paper was devoted to a burlesque program of the freshman reading. Some of its humor would be considered very crude today. At that time it was common practice to substitute derogatory epithets beginning with the initials of a victim’s first and middle names. Thus in the 1903 program Karl Kennison was called Kussed Righteous Kennison. Another Waterville student, Harold Leon Pepper, was presented as Hellish Looking Pepper, speaking on the subject, “The Modern Bombast”. Roscoe Emery, later to become newspaper publisher and prominent citizen of Eastport, was designated as Rube Lugubrious Emery, and Arthur G. Robinson became Always Gaming Robinson, speaking on “My Record”. Virgil M. Jones, who was to have a distinguished career as an educator in New Jersey, was depicted in charge of the Banjetic Orchestra, furnishing music for the occasion and he was called Virgin Mary Jones. All rather crude, but in those days it was considered funny.

The strike of 1903 ended the annual interruptions of freshman reading, but it did not end the annual appearance of the War Cry. Under its old name of War Cry the Class of 1906, the very fellows who had been lampooned in the 1903 edition, brought out their own version in the spring of 1904. Each War Cry lampooned juniors as well as freshmen. One of the best students in the Class of 1905 was Harold William Soule. The 1904 War Cry presented what purported to be a special article by Soule entitled “How I Shall Make Phi Beta Kappa”. It said: “I have found that the pull I had with the profs because I won the freshman entrance prize had worn off, and I must find new ways to rejuvenate it. As I was on the staff of the Echo, I had a chance to write editorials that would please such flatheads as Prof. J. William Black, and persuade him to give me an A. For instance, witness my able eulogy of the professor in my editorial on the night shirt parade. In spite of my numerous cuts, I am confident I can obtain A’s from J. William and A. J. Roberts, my two chief demons of torment. Thus I shall obtain my Phi Beta Kappa key.”

The War Cry of 1906, published by the Class of 1908, gave its attention to such freshmen as Nelson Mixer, later a popular principal of Waterville High School, and Nathaniel Wheeler, who would become professor of physics at Colby. The War Cry said: “Mixer, from his very name, would make a good bartender.”

It had some verses devoted to the same man:
“Only a walk on the to 11 bri dge,
Mixer, he hadn’t a cent,
Dashed by the toll house with Cratty,
And blithely up Temple Street went.
Only in court on the morrow,
Police court, not courting, I mean -Mixer,
much sadder and wiser,
Coughed up ten strip of long green.”

Of the future professor of physics the War Cry said: “Wanted — a man to put an application of turpentine on Wheeler, on the same place the sophs painted Phi Chi on Paine. Such a dose might wake him up.” Wheeler also rated a verse in the paper:
“A fellow named Wheeler, he was so darned slow
He started to walk on the track;
But before he had traveled one half the way round,
He met himself on the way back.”

It is difficult for us to realize that it was with that kind of stuff that Colby students had fun 60 years ago. Plenty of criticism is directed at college students today, but I doubt if their sense of humor is quite so simple as was that of their predecessors in the first decade of this century.

In the 1840’s, in addition to the Maine Register, there was published in our state a competing volume called the Maine Reference Book. A copy of its issue for 1845 recently came to my attention, and it reveals some interesting facts.

In 1845 there were 14 newspapers being published in Portland, almost a third of the total of 43 in the entire state. All but four of the 43 papers were weeklies.

Maine’s first newspaper, the Falmouth Gazette, had appeared in 1785. The first daily, the Argus, had come out in 1829.

In the days when allover-land travel was by horse or on foot, court was held in mbre places within each county than is now the case. The court calendar of 1845 announced sessions at Limerick, North Yarmouth, Nobleboro, Warren, Richmond, Blue Hill, Cherr-yfield, Lubec, Readfield, Waterford, Dixfield, Turner, Athens, Exeter and Phillips. In those days the judges and attorneys had to do a lot of traveling.

What the old alamnacs called post roads are listed in this Reference Book as Mail Roads. This does not mean they were official stage routes, but in most cases the mail carrier did have authority to carry passengers if he drove a wheeled vehicle. On the shorter routes the carrier often made the trip on horseback, with the mail in saddle bags.

Some of the longer mail routes were Hallowell to York, Hallowell to Belfast and Bangor, Hallowell to Solon, Hallowell to Norridgewock and Quebec. Many routes converged at Hallowell because in 1845 that was still Maine’s most prominent Kennebec town, trading center for an extensive inland area. Other listed routes were Caratunk Falls to Portland, and Augusta to Fryeburg.

It is interesting to note the itinerary of some of the mail routes. The route from Bethel to Portland passed through Albany, Waterford, Bridgton, Otisfield, Raymond and Windham. The route from Augusta to Portland via Southwest Bend calls what is now Lisbon Falls, Lisbon Factory Village, and identifies the bend as Durham. On the road from Ellsworth to Cranberry Island stops are designated as Mt. Desert Narrows; Thomas’s Post Office, Eden; and Somes’s Post Office, Mt. Desert.

Statistics for certain Kennebec County towns in 1845 reveal some amazing contrasts. Waterville then had 2,930 people, 21 fewer than Vassalboro’s 2,951, but Waterville’s valuation already exceeded Vassalboro’s $539,000 to $520,000. Waterville had 39 stores compared with Vassalboro’s nine, but Vassalboro’s tanneries outnumbered Waterville’s five to two. Each town had seven grist mills, each had one bank, but Waterville had 17 saw mills to Vassalboro’s seven.

Besides Waterville College, that town had two academies, one associated with the then Baptist college and called Waterville Academy (now Coburn). Of the other the Reference Book said: “The Waterville Liberal Institute, operated by the Universalists, is a flourishing institution.”

Postal business was apparently more brisk in Waterville than in Vassalboro, for the former’s postmaster, Samuel Appleton, was paid $356 a year, while Thomas Frye at Vassalboro got only $119.

In 1845 Sidney had a population of 2,120. It had two stores, two tanneries, a fulling mill, two grist mills, eight saw mills, and two churches.

Because in the 1830’s the state capital had been moved from Portland to Augusta, the latter town had already surpassed Hallowell in population by 1845. It then had 5,314 people compared with Hallowell’s 4,668. Augusta’s valuation exceeded a million dollars, while Hallowell’s was $903,000. Augusta had 64 stores, Hallowell 50; Augusta 9 churches, Hallowell six.

The Reference Book listed 31 light houses in Maine, gave the name of each keeper and his annual compensation. The highest paid was Benjamin Ward at Mt. Desert, who got $600. More usual was $350 a year to such keepers as Moses Thompson at Petit Manan, Jeremiah Meers at Pemaquid Point, and Samuel Albee at Monhegan.

There is much more in that old Maine Reference Book of 1845, but that is all we have time for on this program. So we must say goodbye until next week.

Year: 1965