Radio Script #800

Little Talks on Common Things

March 23, 1969

This is the 800th broadcast of Little Talks on Common Things. As most of you know, this is the 21st consecutive year that the program has been on the air. What has kept such an insignificant program going so long? It is people’s interest in what we call local history, past events and former persons that played a part in making our Central Maine communities what they are today.

This program would have ended long ago if it had not been for the contributions of literally hundreds of people. Scores of folk whom I had never met have gone out of their way to get me in contact with old records, old objects, old legends. The material pours in so fast and so constantly that there is always an unused body of it piled up for the future. I assure you none of it is neglected. Most of it gets on to the program some day, though often months after I receive it. So to all who have so graciously helped me through the two decades of the program, I am truly grateful.

But even the help of contributors would not have assured continuance without the unfailing support of the Keyes Fibre Company. Its first enthusiastic supporter in 1948 was Deke Parsons, then President of Keyes, and since his death his successor, Ralph Cutting. has been just as staunch in the program’s support. By this time everyone who hears the program is aware that Keyes does not make a nickel out of it. The program is not a part of Keyes advertising. At the brief mention of Keyes at the beginning and the end of each broadcast, you are not asked to buy anything. You are told simply that this program is a public service of the Keyes Fibre Company.

Now I assure you that 800 fifteen minute programs include a lot of words. For one thing. they fill about 5,000 typewritten pages. They have covered more than 500 different topics. Though some of the programs have been re-broadcast during the past three summers, those repetitions are not included in the 800 count. The separate unrepeated broadcasts number today exactly 800. It is true that some subjects have been treated more than once, but always with additional information. For instance, we have given considerable time to the complicated subject of Kennebec Land Titles from the early 17th century to the final sale of the state lands about 80 years ago. We have. bit by bit, dug up information hitherto unpublished about old-time Waterville — its first streets. its early taxpayers. its pioneer merchants. We have kept adding, as new information was turned up, to the fascinating story of Central Maine’s first railroads.

So it still goes on. As long as health permits, I intend to keep it going. There is. I am sure. in bookcases and cupboards. in boxes and barrels, in attics and cellars of Kennebec County, plenty of historical material still untapped.

Now let us see what subject we have for today. What about politics? Like taxes, it is always with us.

A few weeks ago the director of the Maine Civic League got into a hassle with the president of the Maine Senate. It caused a brief tempest in a teapot just because it was so unusual. We expect politics to be played on a more polite level today. It is interesting. therefore, to discover how much more outspoken were the legislative and election squabbles of the late 19th century. Those were the days when newspaper men like Pattangall were speaking right out in meeting. Older persons now living remember the scathing satire of Patt’s Meddybemps Letters.

Right here in Waterville, a quarter of a century before Bill Pattangall’s writings became famous. we had another such newspaperman. He was Benjamin Bunker, whose Democratic newspaper, the Kennebec Democrat, attacked everything and everyone in the Republican camp_ And in his language Bunker could be just as scathing as Pattangall would later be.

A few months ago one of these broadcasts dealt with a report of the Kennebec County Commission in 1890, in which I referred to the keeping of tramps in the county jail at Augusta. So it is interesting to see what Ben Bunker had to say on 15-282 that subject in 1889. Here are his words: “To reward a shiftless, lazy set of drones in the shape of county and town officials, the Legislature of 1880 passed what is known as the tramp law. Under the corrupt rule of the Republicans in the nation, the land became peopled with two classes of people, tramps and millionaires. Under the Maine law officials were given authority to arrest and secure the conviction of all persons going about the state asking for food and shelter. Conviction meant a year or more in State Prison.

“Kennebec County officials saw an opportunity to get around this law to feather their own nests. Instead of arresting the tramp for asking for food and shelter, he was arraigned for disturbing the peace. Thus, by placing the tramp in the county jail, the local officials pocketed the fees.

“The office of county sheriff had never been considered a soft snap until the tramp racket got into full swing. The chronic tramp soon learned that he could get a warm home for the winter, and he came and went between short intervals. Of course every time he was arrested, it meant more fees for the officials. The Kennebec County jail became known as ‘Tramps Paradise’. From a position paying barely $1,200 a year, the office of county sheriff’s income rose to $8.000. three-fourths of it as board and committal fees for tramps.

“In 1886 the county commissioners became alarmed. Towns were invaded by tramps who got drunk for the purpose of being sent to Augusta. In Waterville tramps were offered tobacco and liquor to induce them to plead guilty and take a sentence of thirty days. This racket swelled the tramp expense to the County to $15,000 a year.

“Waterville, Gardiner, Chelsea and Pittston were the principal towns that profited by the tramp racket. One Waterville boodler raked in $900 in six months.

“When it became known that the county was being systematically rolled by the tramp racket. the boodlers turned to the rum sellers. who have been helping the racket ever since.

“The taxpayers of Kennebec County dearly love to be duped. They live on deception. Our representatives and senators, although admitting that the tramp was living high and the sheriff was raking in fat fees, still saw nothing in the way of plundering the treasury that the law did not authorize. So these politicians urged the dear people to remain quiet and trust in the Republican party; then everything would come out all right.”

In the 1880’s. just as now. the liquor question was a hot issue, and the pen of Ben Bunker was exceptionally vitriolic when he let loose on that subject. Listen to what he had to say about liquor and politics in Waterville in 1889:

“The honest temperance sentiment of Waterville was put to a test several years ago on a vote for representation to the Legislature. The candidates were Gen. Franklin Smith, put up by the Democrats, and a young man, Reuben W. Dunn by the Republicans. Gen. Smith was elected. He was a life-long temperance man. strictly temperate himself, and in the Legislature he persistently voted dry. The next year the Democrats renominated Smith, and his Republican opponent was a druggist who sold juice of the maize called ‘split’. Then the Waterville clergymen. the college professors, and the temperance reformers banded together to defeat a temperance advocate and elect a rum seller, simply because the latter was a Republican.

Even the pastor of Smith’s church voted for Smith’s rum-selling opponent. “The partisanship of Waterville Republicans has always bordered on insanity. The Baptist Church and the college faculty dominated the politics of this town. To oppose them meant social ostracism and loss of influence.

“With the growth of Waterville came a decrease in the Republican majorities, and the town fathers and the Republican State Committee sought some means to deprive the wicked Democrats of any future power. So they hit upon the expensive luxury of a city charter. It was contended that, of course, the taxpayers would stand an assessment on their pocketbooks rather than be ruled by wicked Democrats.

“So in 1883 the Legislature granted a city charter that took away all the rights of citizens, and conferred those rights on a mayor and aldermen. who were to divide up the town so that the Democrats could never carry a single ward.

“The Waterville Republicans, who were disturbed that the Democratic slate for Selectmen had been elected in 1887, were even more shocked at the start of a Democratic paper. the Kennebec Democrat, in their midst. The boodle gang, who had been thriving on the tramp business at five dollars a head. prophesied that no Democratic newspaper could live in Waterville. and they confidently expected each issue to be the last. But we are still going strong.”

Now don’t misinterpret my reason for citing these items from Ben Bunker’s entries.

I neither approve nor condemn what he had to say. I cite them to show how outspoken the political writers could be 80 years ago. Concerning the Waterville city charter, events immediately proved Bunker wrong. The first city government elected under that charter was not Republican, but Democratic. It was the Democrats who carved out the first boundaries of Waterville’s seven wards. And through the 80 years since Bunker wrote his scathing sentences, Waterville has endured, prospered and progressed. no matter whether Republicans or Democrats have been in control at City Hall.

And so we bring this 800th broadcast to an end with a goodbye until next week.

Year: 1969