Among the common things that have now all but disappeared is the big snow roller, so commonly seen on Maine winter roads half a century ago. A Waterville man who travels constantly over the state in all seasons of the year assures me that nowhere in Maine is the snow roller still in use. All roads are now plowed to give traction to motor vehicles.<\/p>\n
Was it mere whimsical memory that brought snow rollers to mind this week? Not at all. I chanced to look at some Grandma Moses Christmas cards, and on one of them appeared a picture of an old-time snow roller. It brought back fond memories. My earliest recollection of the machine dates back to primary school days, for the first school that I attended was next door to the town hall, behind Which were sheds which housed the town’s road equipment. Outside those sheds, winter and summer, stood a big snow roller, and all of us kids at that primary school made use of it at every recess. We climbed to its top; we pretended to drive the four big horses that pulled it When it went out on its mission; we played all sorts of games around its huge side; and occasionally one of us fell off with more howls than bruises. “Keep away from the snow roller or you’ll get killed”, was many a mother’s warning. But none of us ever did keep away, and none of us were seriously hurt. Perhaps some of our younger listeners don’t know what a snow roller looked like. It consisted of two huge drums or barrels, six to eight feet in diameter, to which a framework was fastened, so that When horses , attached to the framework, pulled it along, the two big barrels, placed end to end, rolled along over the top of the snow. The whole structure was weighted to make the rollers press the snow down as solid as possible. The object was not to get the snow out of the road, as we must do today, so that wheeled motor vehicles can travel. The object was rather to keep the snow in the road, but pressed down so hard that it would make easy traction for the runners of sleighs and sleds.<\/p>\n
In a winter when the snowfall was unusually heavy, the packed snow in the middle of the road would be two or three feet deep, while the loose snow beside the road might be four or five feet. It was not an uncommon experience when one passed another team, to have the right runner of his own sleigh go off the rolled part of the road, sink deep into the loose snow, while the left runner stayed supported by the hard packed road. It took some smart balancing to prevent a spill.<\/p>\n
I recall one occasion when I was driving a spirited horse from Bridgton to Harrison. A mile west of Harrison Village, on what is known as Brickyard Hill, I had to turn out to pass another team. The sudden tilting of the sleigh scared the horse, and she bolted. I landed in a drift head first, the sleigh hit a stump, the horse broke away from the sleigh and kept running until she pulled up in front of a livery stable door in the village. No one was hurt, but the sleigh had to undergo major repairs.<\/p>\n
Sometimes a single snowstorm was so heavy that four horses could not pull the roller. Then six and even eight horses were used. After a big storm it was a grand sight to see those eight big work horses pull the roller down Main Street over the Tannery Bridge and down Depot Street to the narrow gauge railroad station. Today is the day of the big motor side plows, the giant rotary plows, and the mechanical snow loaders. Useful articles of modern progress they are, but none of them has quite the romantic touch of the old-time snow rollers which Grandma Moses has thoughtfully remembered on a Christmas card.<\/p>\n
Maine is getting free advertising just now in the New York subways. Last week on the Seventh Avenue line I saw the following sign: “Election Day. Tuesday after the first Monday in November, fixed since 1845 when Congress designated it for choice of Presidential Electors. Date observed in every state except Maine.”<\/p>\n
There is no logical, sensible reason Why we should be out of step with the rest of the country in respect to our state elections. To hear certain politicians talk, you would think there was something, not only historic, but eternally sacred about our September election. It has always been~ therefore it must always be. Every argument in favor of its continuance has long ago been exploded in every other state. The cold figures show that it has never been a barometer to predict the November election in a presidential year. In 1936, for instance, the old slogan was corrected to read, “As Maine goes, so goes Vermont.”<\/p>\n
But logic and reason have very little to do with decisions on political procedure. I doubt very much whether any early change will be made in the date of state elections in Maine. We shall keep right on believing our way is the best way and that it is the other 47 states which are out of step.<\/p>\n
Listeners to these programs are well aware that I do not favor socialized medicine. I was naturally pleased, therefore, to hear opposition also expressed at the Herald-Tribune Forum by a veteran of World War II who has the respect and admiration of millions of Americans, for literally millions have seen his memorable performance on the movie screen. I refer to Harold Russell, the armless veteran, who won the Academy.Award for his depiction of the disabled veteran in “The Best Years of our Lives”.<\/p>\n
Mr. Russell was emphatic in his opposition to the kind of medical service with which our British cousins seem to be getting quite fed up. Deeply appreciative of what the government has done for him as one who suffered severe loss in the war, Mr. Russell nevertheless has shown the world, with unusual courage and persistence, that even a person with most serious handicaps can still do much for himself.<\/p>\n
Mr. Russell said: “Private enterprise in the medical profession has not failed the American people. On the contrary, the strides it has made are the envy of the world. If there are not enough doctors or hospitals or nurses, the way to cure those conditions is not to force our people into a compulsory plan of health insurance. There are better, more truly American ways for the federal government to help. Scholarships for medical education, subsidies to hospitals, even support of voluntary health insurance are preferable to the regimentation of government medicine.”<\/p>\n
Tonight at eight o’clock in the Women’s Union of Colby College Waterville citizens, as well as the medical profession itself, have an opportunity to hear first-hand information about the workings of socialized medicine in England. A physician of that country, Dr. Ralph Campbell, will state the case against government-controlled medicine from his personal experience with it.<\/p>\n
Last week I told you a little about the first two sessions of the Herald Tribune Forum, those devoted respectively to the claims of the Democratic and Republican parties for voters’ support. One thing was made abundantly clear by those discussions. The young men and women in both parties have something to say and they must be heard. If either party fails to listen to the voice of its younger element, it will pay a bitter price. It was obvious that the 3,000 people in the Waldorf ballroom were much more responsive to the words of Cabot Lodge and Franklin Roosevelt Jr. than to those of Senator Kem and Representative Howard Smith.<\/p>\n
The voice of Col. McCormick, summoning us back to an isolated America, is a voice crying in a very deaf wilderness today. The great army of voters in both major parties want a forward, not a backward, look. As indicated by the Forum’s title, they want to know “What Kind of Government Ahead?”, not “What Kind of Government Behind?” Frankly it was somewhat refreshing when the final session of the Forum turned away from party politics into the great non-partisan issues involved in the Interdependence of World Problems. The outstanding speaker was a woman, Barbara Ward, assistant editor of the Economist of London, who spoke on Partnership for Survival. Her depth of understanding, her clarity of expression, and her charming manner will make us long remember that this young woman had something to say and said it very well.<\/p>\n
Another woman speaker ran Miss Ward a close second — <\/strong>Dorothy Fosdick, daughter of the great preacher Harry Emerson Fosdick, who gave the commencement address at Colby College last June. Miss Fosdick, who spent many delightful summers on Mouse Island at the entrance to Boothbay Harbor, was a teacher of political science at Smith College until, as she told the Forum, she decided to get first-hand experience with government. She is now the only woman member of the policy Planning staff of our Department of State. We were eager to hear Mme. Pandit, the distinguished sister of Prime Minister Nehru of India, because she is to visit Waterville this winter, when she speaks at Colby College on the Averill Lecture series. The high nobility of expression and the profound sincerity of this woman, who is Indian Ambassador\u00a0 to the united States, is revealed in words like the following from her Forum speech:<\/p>\n “Our Indian culture is based on the largest degree of tolerance for the ways and views of others; in our long history we have never been tempted to impose uniform ideologies or imperative precepts on either our own people or other peoples of the world. More than a thousand years ago a great Indian king abjured violence as an instrument of government, and during the last three decades we have had occasion to learn again the enormous efficacy of non-vio1ent methods on a mass scale. A devotion to truth presupposes a respect for what the other man sincerely regards as his truth, and a capacity to suffer for what you consider to be your own. truth.”<\/p><\/blockquote>\n As one listened to those.w0rds,he cou1d understand why this woman would three times go to prison in defense of her ideas. Other speakers at that final session made their impressions: John Sherman Cooper, our new delegate to the united Nations; David Owen, the young British assistant secretary general of the united Nations; Lucius Clay, hero of the Berlin Air-lift; the brilliant young son of Count Sforza of Italy, who told us about the Council of Europe, that new organization that is patiently working toward a federation of the European states; and Louis Johnson, the stormy petrel who is our Secretary of Defense.<\/p>\n Good as these speakers were, it was the women who made the most lasting impressions: Barbara Ward of England, Dorothy Fosdick of the United States, and Mme. Pandit of India. perhaps, if the past quarter century has been the age of the forgotten man, the next quarter century will be the age of the recognized woman.<\/p>\n Year: 1949<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" Read the script for “Little Talks” program #41, broadcast on November 6, 1949<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":405,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"ngg_post_thumbnail":0,"footnotes":""},"categories":[741,35296],"tags":[],"builder_content":"","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/web.colby.edu\/csc-home\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/7064"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/web.colby.edu\/csc-home\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/web.colby.edu\/csc-home\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/web.colby.edu\/csc-home\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/405"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/web.colby.edu\/csc-home\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=7064"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/web.colby.edu\/csc-home\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/7064\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/web.colby.edu\/csc-home\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=7064"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/web.colby.edu\/csc-home\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=7064"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/web.colby.edu\/csc-home\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=7064"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}