<\/p>\n
Here we are at the time of beginning again, the time of new resolutions\u00a0and new hopes, the time when merchants take account of stock and when it is\u00a0well for individuals to take account of their lives. This New Year’s Day is\u00a0especially significant, because it marks the middle of the century. Those of\u00a0us who have lived through all of it know what a wonderful yet terrible half\u00a0century it has been. How peacably and comfortably it began back there in 1900,\u00a0when there were no automobiles, no airplanes, no radios, and no world wars. Our\u00a0little one-round skirmish with Spain was over, William McKinley was in the\u00a0White House, our troops were putting down insurrection in the Philippines,\u00a0business was good, the savings banks paid four per cent interest, and there\u00a0were very few divorces.<\/p>\n
What changes the half century has brought, not only in material inventions,\u00a0in rapidity of communication, in the horrors of global war, but also\u00a0in the relationship of the American to his government. The Central Maine farmer\u00a0or merchant or manufacturer of 1900 believed in free enterprise and independent\u00a0responsibility; for his American democracy was government of and by\u00a0the people; he could not think of it as government simply for the people.<\/p>\n
Frankly, the less he had to do with governments, the better he liked it.<\/p>\n
No one in his right mind thinks we are going back to those independent\u00a0days. The changes that have come are to a degree inevitable results of the new\u00a0technology, creating new relationships between the individual and his government.<\/p>\n
Yet it is quite possible that the pendulum is swinging much too far in\u00a0the direction of government for the people. The next half century may very well\u00a0see renewed emphasis upon the duties and responsibilities of democracy, rather\u00a0than upon its benefits. Social security provisions, minimum wage laws, and\u00a0other benefits will certainly continue, but they can permanently continue\u00a0only if the voters in our democracy clearly understand that when a government\u00a0which claims to be for the people is no longer made up of the people and\u00a0controlled by the people, the real freedoms of those people are forever lost.<\/p>\n
OUr listeners are still calling me up about Waterville cows. ~ere are\u00a0many who think that Napoleon Marshall was an unusually’\u00b7lucky; bs>y, if Samuel\u00a0Osborne paid him 25 cents a week for driving a cow to and from pasture. According\u00a0to the experience of other young cow drivers, 25 cents would seem to have\u00a0been millionaire wages. ‘ Bert Drwmnond who, seventy or more years ago, drove\u00a0Homer Percival’s cow to pasture in what is now Averill Field on the County\u00a0Road, received ten cents a week. Warren Moses, former proprietor of the Appleton\u00a0Inn, received two dollars for the whole season, from the time the cow was\u00a0first turned out to pasture to the time when she was put in the barn for the\u00a0winter. He was customarily paid one-half of his wages the munificent sum\u00a0of one dollar — a few days before the fourth of July, so that he might do a\u00a0bit of celebrating on the national holiday.<\/p>\n
Did you know that once the Waterville-Winslow community had a benefactor\u00a0much like the Bible character Joseph? You will recall that by shrewd planning\u00a0Joseph, as Pharaoh’s prime minister in Egypt, had stored up grain in years of\u00a0plenty as protection against years of famine. Then, when the famine came, Joseph’s hungry brothers came down from Palestine to be fed.<\/p>\n
Well, over on the Benton Road in Winslow still stands a corn barn, where\u00a0in 1815 the great-grandfather of Herbert Simpson, the present owner, had stored\u00a0a quantity of corn. Then came the memorable and terrible year of 1816, the year\u00a0that was afterwards called the year without a summer. There was frost in\u00a0every month of that. year. The corn crop was a complete failure, and very little\u00a0else was grown. Real hardship hit the settlements of the Kennebec Valley.<\/p>\n
In the spring of 1817 word got around that there was corn on one Winslow farm.<\/p>\n
People came on horse back, even on foot, from as far away as forty miles to\u00a0get just enough corn for seed. A few brought money, others brought things to\u00a0barter, most brought nothing at all. But no one was turned away empty-handed.<\/p>\n
Through the whole region from Ticonic Falls to Wesserunsett those hard-hit,\u00a0scattered farms of the early settlers could have another crop of corn, thanks\u00a0to the foresight and the generosity of that Winslow Joseph in Egypt.<\/p>\n
Very early in the half century that has just closed, one of our nation’s\u00a0most aggressive and dynamic presidents entered the White House. In 1901 the\u00a0assassination of President McKinley brought Theodore Roosevelt into the presidential\u00a0chair. How well we now remember the independence and initiative with\u00a0which the first Roosevelt wielded his Big stick and flashed his toothy smile.<\/p>\n
It is hard, so long after the event, to realize that there were many who\u00a0thought that Theodore would only be another tool of Mark Hanna and the Ohio\u00a0gang. In that September of 1901, Senator Frye of Maine had said: “Business\u00a0men of the country have confidence in President Roosevelt, and are going on\u00a0just the same as if President McKinley were alive.”<\/p>\n
But the editor of the Waterville Mail was a better prophet than Senator\u00a0Frye. In his issue of September 25, 1901 he wrote: “Roosevelt has a way of\u00a0telling newspaper men just as much of his business as he thinks fit, and then\u00a0with a pleasant smile shutting his mouth and the door on them simultaneously.\u00a0Things may not go so smoothly for business with this man as president. He is\u00a0likely to show both Mark Hanna and Wall Street that he is his own master.”<\/p>\n
Those well remembered attacks of the first Roosevelt on Big Business have\u00a0not died down during the fifty years, but in spite of all the attacks big business\u00a0is <\/em>bigger than ever. As we review the past half century, we have a\u00a0right to ask whether the bigness of business has really been harmful to\u00a0American life. Big Business, we have persistently been told, is crushing out\u00a0small business. We are informed that four companies provide 92% of all our\u00a0electric lamps, four others make 90% of all our cigarettes, and four others\u00a0produce 80% of our soap. Pretty soon there will be.DO such thing as small\u00a0business, the critics shout. That is just what they said fifty years ago.<\/p>\n The truth is otherwise, as U. S. News and World Report so clearly pointed\u00a0out in a recent issue. Big business could not exist without little business;\u00a0it is in fact little business’s best customer. One big electrical manufacturing\u00a0firm depends on 31,000 dffferent suppliers of materials and parts.<\/p>\n To sell its products it uses more than 290,000 dealers — small business men.<\/p>\n One of the big tobacco companies does direct buying and selling with 80,000\u00a0other firms, most of them small businesses.<\/p>\n Big business units, unless they become real monopolies, shutting off\u00a0competition, are by no means evil. Without them we could not have modern American\u00a0industry and the world’s highest standard of living. Mass production\u00a0could never have reached its present efficiency without huge reserves of capital\u00a0concentrated in large units. One company spent $27 million in <\/em>eleven years,\u00a0developing a synthetic material before the product became commercially successful.<\/p>\n Another company spent more than a million developing a garbage disposal\u00a0unit which took fifteen years to find a market.<\/p>\n We should remember these facts when loud voices in Washington say they\u00a0are going to put an end to Big Business, even if they have to socialize the\u00a0industries to do it. And while you’re remembering those facts, just remember\u00a0something else as well. Right now, when we still think we are a long way from\u00a0the socialized state, the biggest business in America is the government of the\u00a0United States.<\/p>\n In spite of the quantities of oil and natural gas now used in industry,\u00a0the nation’s factories still depend chiefly upon coal. Coal is absolutely\u00a0essential to our biggest manufacturing process, the making of steel.<\/p>\n What is the coal situation now with the miners on Mr. Lewis’ three-day\u00a0week? Obviously it is not what Mr. Lewis intended. Production stays relatively\u00a0high because the miners are working harder. Though they are fed up with\u00a0strikes, they believe totally . in Mr. Lewis. So they will strike again if he\u00a0calls them out. But meanwhile\u00b7 by working harder under the plan by which\u00a0most mines’ pay, by the tonnage produced, not by the hours worked, the miners\u00a0are fattening their earnings against the day when Mr. Lewis may call them out\u00a0again.<\/p>\n Coal stocks are ample. The steel companies say they have plenty and are\u00a0not worried. Production keeps level with use. As long as the three-day week\u00a0continues, there will be no shortage.<\/p>\n The coal operators are in no hurry to settle on Mr. Lewis’ exacting terms.<\/p>\n Even if they did, the miners would soon be worse off, because there would then\u00a0be too much coal. One operator is on record as saying that a permanent 3; day\u00a0week would supply all the coal the nation would need except in a rare emergency\u00a0like war.<\/p>\n But Mr. Lewis is a stubborn man. The miners know that they already owe\u00a0him a lot. We’ll let Drew Pearson do the predicting on what Mr. Lewis will do,\u00a0but it doesn’t take much of a prophet to hazard a guess. If only to save face,\u00a0Mr. Lewis may well call another strike. John L. has a real decision to make.<\/p>\n He must decide whether his true interest is the welfare of the mine workers\u00a0or to save . t.I’le face of John L. Lewis.<\/p>\n Recently Sir Stafford Cripps, British Chancellor of the Exchequer, made\u00a0a statement that every American as well as every Englishman ought to take\u00a0seriously to heart. Bear in mind that Sir Stafford is an officer of Britain’s\u00a0present labor-socialist government and a staunch member of the British Labor\u00a0Party. A press interviewer asked Sir Stafford this question:\u00a0“As a general proposition, though it is politically popular, do you believe\u00a0that social security can be made economically sound in a democracy where\u00a0people can vote themselves bigger and bigger benefits?”<\/p>\n Note carefully Sir Stafford’s reply. He said: “That depends upon the\u00a0responsibility of the democracy. If it takes an irresponsible view of its obligations\u00a0so that it only regards the treasury as a deep till into which it can\u00a0perpetually dip its hand, we had better give up democracy. But I believe, by\u00a0giving the people information and knowledge of the ecomomic facts, responsible\u00a0leaders can instill into the voters the realization that they themselves are\u00a0in fact paying for their own social benefits through taxation, and they must\u00a0therefore exercise restraint in the way they utilize those benefits and in the\u00a0amount of their demands.”<\/p>\n The give-away boys in Washington will do well to heed those words of Sir\u00a0Stafford Cripps.<\/p>\n Year: 1950<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" Read the script for “Little Talks” program #49, broadcast on January 1, 1950<\/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":[1153,35296],"tags":[],"builder_content":"","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/web.colby.edu\/csc-home\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/7081"}],"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=7081"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/web.colby.edu\/csc-home\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/7081\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/web.colby.edu\/csc-home\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=7081"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/web.colby.edu\/csc-home\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=7081"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/web.colby.edu\/csc-home\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=7081"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}
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