Radio Script #1245

Little Talks on Common Things
September 14, 1980

This program begins the 33rd consecutive year of these Little Talks, and this is the l245th broadcast. Actually this program has been on the air more than 1245 times since it started in 1948. Originally it was heard for an annual season of 39 weeks and was off the air for another 13 weeks of the year. But for the past 15 years it has been continued during the summer with 13 repeat programs selected from the many preceding years, with special attention to those that received most favorable comment. For instance, during this summer the repeats have included an historical account of Hathaway shirts, the development of the summer resort of Ocean Point near Boothbay Harbor, and the story of river transportation on the Kennebec in the 19th century.

It now seems appropriate as we start the 33rd year and the 1245th of new broadcasts, that we give attention to some of the changes that have occurred since 1948 when Little Talks first went on the air.

During that time, seven Presidents have occupied the White House: Truman, Eisenhower, Kennedy, Johnson, Nixon, Ford and Carter. We have seen our nation engaged in two wars, in Korea and in Vietnam, and have suffered the humiliating loss of both the war and the peace in that Southeast Asian land. The change that has deeply affected every American family is economic inflation. It is too distressing for all of us and too much in the news to say much about it on today’s program. One aspect of inflation does, however, deserve emphasis because it is an important aspect that is too little considered when neighbors discuss the subject – that is the effect of inflation on taxes.

Higher prices have inevitably meant higher wages, though in too many instances wages have not kept pace with prices. What ought to impress us more than it does is that the higher one’s wages the higher his taxes. Burdensome as is the local property tax, it is the federal income tax that hurts most. Many a taxpayer has learned to his sorrow that higher income has put him into a higher tax bracket, so that not only the amount of his tax but has percentage of taxable income has startingly increased. The result has been a great increase in the federal revenue from personal income tax without raising the rates. In fact it is one strong reason why we may soon see a reduction in the rates. Personal income has risen so dramatically that the average personal income tax has tremendously increased government revenue. This burden has fallen most heavily on the middle income group, with the result that many a family with only one wage earner ends with less money after taxes than he had ten years ago.

That burden is a compelling reason for another great change in American life – women leaving the home to take jobs in manufacturing, sales and services. It is not true that most working women so hate domestic housework that they take a job to escape. In the first place many of them do not escape. When not out on their job, a lot of women spend untold hours
cooking, washing, cleaning and sewing, just as they did before they had the outside job. The main reason for women working in industry is economic.

The family needs the money. However, the very fact that husband and wife are both often employed has made another change in American living extremely significant – the change that has taken place in family life. Children – too often children of early age – come home from school to find neither father nor mother at home. Hundreds of thousands of American children are left on their own for many hours in the day. Without the needed discipline, we see our whole nation beset by juvenile delinquency and youthful crime. The nation’s divorce rate has become alarming. We used to say, “the family that prays together stays together.” How can a family pray together if it doesn’t even eat together? Fortunately this family situation is attracting so much attention that powerful groups have sprung up allover the country to bring about effective reform. Few people expect us ever to return to the family of horse and buggy days. But it is loudly contended that we must meet the economic and social situations of the 1980’s with changes appropriate to this last quarter of the century.

The American family is not doomed. Family life is still at the bed-rock of our national existence. But the family is imperiled and it must be strengthened. At least the latter half of our third of a century of Little Talks may be called the Era of Permissiveness – a period when it became more and more popular to throw aside all restraint, do as one pleases, have no moral standards that interfere with pleasure, and make life’s first consideration one’s own personal desires. America was not built that way. Our cherished American freedom had always had its limits – and the outstanding limit has been another person’s liberty. When our freedom interferes with that of someone else, it must be curbed. Freedom in America long meant freedom to act as we please provided our action does not hurt someone else. It is a kind of negative stating of the golden rule. Do not do to others what you don’t want them to do to you. The next third of a century must certainly see more restraint on excessive permissiveness if our nation is to survive.

Now consider these 33 years in our own State of Maine. Since 1948 we have had ten governors: Hildreth, Payne, Cross, Muskie, Haskell, Clapson, Reed, Curtis, Longley and Brennan. Eight persons have represented Maine in the U.S. Senate: Brewster, White, Payne, Margaret Smith, Muskie, Hathaway, Cohen and Mitchell. Fifteen different persons have served Maine in the House of Representatives from Bob Hale to Olympia Snowe.

In 1970, for the first time, the population of Maine exceeded a million. The phenomenon of the times is being shown by preliminary reports of the 1980 census. That is a steady moving from Maine cities into rural areas – a phenomenon that seems to characterize our entire nation. It had already begun by 1970, when that census showed fewer people in Augusta,
Portland, and Lewiston than had been there in 1960. The 1980 census is showing a further drop in these and other Maine cities.

On the other hand, it is interesting to note what has been happening in some of our towns in our Kennebec Valley, in the counties of Kennebec and Somerset. Winslow has seen phenomenal growth from 4400 in 1960 to 7300 in 1970, and probably well over 8000 in 1980. While Waterville was losing population between 1960 and 1980, Vassalboro gained nearly 500 people; Sidney increased by more than 50; and China jumped from 1400 to over 1900. Hallowell, once the Valley’s largest community, had 3400 people in 1950. It dropp-ed to 2800 by 1970, and the current census may show further decline.

The story in Somerset County is similar for many small towns, but different for its largest, the county seat of Skowhegan. It grew significantly between 1950 and 1980, from 7400 to more than 7900. The other two of Somerset’s then largest towns – Fairfield and Pittsfield – both saw decline in population. But take a look at some of the smaller places. In the thirty years Canaan increased from 785 to 1170; Cornville from 563 to 809; Palmyra from 965 to 1476; St. Albans from 1035 to 1356, Even the tiny town of Mercer which had 348 people in 1950 and had sunk to 272 in 1960, got so many new residents thereafter that it now has a population of 447. The Cambridge count of 326 in 1950 had risen to 445 in 1980.

In the whole Kennebec Valley the most significant change of the 33 years has been in cleaning up the river pollution. The last drive of long logs came down the river eight years before this program went on the air, but it was only two years ago that the river was freed from pulpwood drives. Pouring of polluted sewerage into the river has been largely stopped, at heavy expense both to industries: and the taxpayers. There is general agreement that it is worth the cost.

The period has seen a significant change in the court systems. Added to the supreme and the superior courts,have come the district courts, replacing the old municipal courts. Now each district court covers considerably more than one community, often in more than one county. The state is divided into 15 districts, each with its judge. In addition. the
system has five judges at large, and a chief judge in charge of all. The Waterville court is called the District Court of North Kennebec.

The past 33 years had seen marked changes in transportation. Maine now has no passenger railway service, but its air transport has been greatly extended and improved. Marked improvement has been made in highway travel. In 1948 the Waterville area had many unpaved back roads. Today a gravel road with any appreciable traffic is uncommon. The federal
highway 195, with its four lanes and its frequent exits, has greatly sped up commerce between Maine towns.

Waterville has itself seen many changes. Most visible has been urban renewal which not only made possible a big shopping center called the Concourse, but also gave new life to the Main Street stores. Visible also are buildings connected with education and with health. Colby College, whose new campus was just developing in 1948, and would not see complete occupancy until 1953, now has on Mayflower Hill a plant of more than 40 buildings valued at $25 million. When Thomas College became a non-profit institution and occupied the rare property on Silver Street, it began a growth that has resulted in its new campus and spacious buildings on the West River Road. The Waterville public school system has welcomed a new senior high school complex, a new junior high school, and the city’s largest elementary school off Drummond Avenue.

In the area of health, Sister’s Hospital became Seton and built a new, magnificent building on the old Fair Grounds. There recently that hospital and Thayer Hospital, greatly enlarged since 1948, have merged into the Mid-Maine Medical Center, one of the largese health-service units in the state. Meanwhile, the Waterville Osteopathic Hospital left its cramped quarters on Western Avenue and built a new plant on Kennedy Drive.

Two building developments have occupied the years besides urban renewal. The crossing of 195 over Kennedy Drive (the old Oakland Road) encouraged-industrial and commercial development all the way from Memorial Bridge to beyond the Oakland line. Automobile sales and repair, a big lumber firm, hardware and plumbing supplies, several motels and restaurants, and a new shopping center have taken most of the available lots all along the Drive.

Although the years have seen the loss of the Lockwood Mills from the Waterville area, four major industries have expanded. The Hollingsworth and Whitney mill became part of Scott Paper Co. and that company has built a huge modern pulp plant just across the Fairfield line in Skowhegan, while the company’s enlarged mill at Winslow continues to turn out Scott products. Recently, the long independent Keyes Fibre Company was sold to the Arcata Corporation, only after its local plant had been greatly expanded since 1948. There is evidence that Arcata values highly its Waterville-Fairfield
operations. Part of the old Lockwood Mills was taken over by the C. F. Hathaway Co., which also has merged with a larger company. The same type of merger affected the Wyandotte Mills, but as part of the whole plan of urban renewal that company built a huge new plant on the West River Road.

Allover the nation a big change has been the expansion of public welfare. As housing, notably rentals, became more and more burden on lower income families, especially the elderly, something had to be done about it. Waterville was fortunately early in the creation of a Municipal Housing Authority. Giving immediate attention to the needs of the elderly,
it took over a privately erected new building on Water Street, then erected a seven-story structure with 50 apartments on the former site of Coburn Classical Institute. At the same time the Authority put up housing for low-income families besides the elderly on Drummond Avenue and off Chaplin Street. It also, under a federal plan, engaged rentals from private landlords.

Admittedly this brief sketch of a few changes since 1948 is woefully incomplete. There are many other changes that might have been mentioned, several of them just as important as those we have included. But the time on this program is limited, and the clock has ticked away the minutes. But at least we have shown you that important things have happened in Maine and in the Kennebec Valley since 1948.

And we now say goodbye until next week.

Year: 1980