A lot of people now living remember Waterville’s great centennial celebration of 1902, but to the younger folks it is only a legend. But, believe\u00a0me, it was a big occasion, lasting for three days from June 22 through June\u00a024, with a variety of events to commemorate the hundredth anniversary of\u00a0Waterville’s incorporation as a town. For it was in 1802 that waterville finally\u00a0won its independence from the parent town of Winslow and started off\u00a0on its own career.<\/p>\n
We hear a lot about big parades in Waterville, such as that of last Armistice\u00a0Day, but modern parades are tiny, insignificant affairs, compared\u00a0with the gigantic and luxurious procession that marched through Waterville\u00a0streets on the morning of June 24, 1902.<\/p>\n
The city was crowded with visitors. The Maine Central ran special trains,\u00a0and the little narrow guage unloaded hundreds of festive-bound passengers at\u00a0its Winslow station. Recording the events, the Waterville Mail tells us that\u00a0out of town people began to pour in almost at sunrise. A well-loaded wagon\u00a0brought in a Vassalboro party at 4: 30 in the morning. Says the Mail , “The\u00a0streets were filled with marching men, hurrying horsemen, floats slowly getting\u00a0into line, and crowds of people everywhere. The noise makers were out\u00a0in force. The country youth invested heavily in striped canes. City youths\u00a0and even men of mature years wore gaudy decorations pinned on their manly bosoms.”<\/p>\n
Then the Mail adds a provoking sentence: itA collection of the badges\u00a0of 1902 would make an interesting display at the next centennial.”<\/p>\n
Now the date for the 150th anniversary of Waterville’s incorporation is\u00a0only two years hence. I wonder how many of those 1902 badges can be dug up for\u00a0that occasion.<\/p>\n
Let’s get on with the parade. The grand marshall was Dr. F. C. Thayer,\u00a0and promptly at ten o’clock he set the long line in motion. Chief of the first\u00a0devision was Dr. Luther Bunker and providing music was the Waterville Military\u00a0Band under its famous leader, R. B. Hall.<\/p>\n
There were scores of decorated teams, one of which was driven by Miss\u00a0Marguerite Percival. Other young ladies rode horseback on spirited steeds.<\/p>\n
The Waterville Bicycle Club was out in force with 2l decorated vehicles. The\u00a0business firms vied with one another to produce the most lavish displays of\u00a0floats and other items. Otten’s Bakery — do you remember his place on Lower\u00a0Temple Street? — provided a huge float representing a baking shop, a Fleischmann’s\u00a0yeast cart, six decorated delivery teams, and a National Biscuit Company\u00a0display. S. A. Dickinson had three floats; Redington and Company had two;\u00a0so also did Proctor and Bowie, one of them a representation of Fort Halifax.<\/p>\n
H. L. Emery had a float with singing girls; Atherton Furniture Company displayed\u00a0carpets on a specially made float of eight wheels; Miss E. L. Lovering’\u00a0s contribution, carrying the children of John and Frank. Webber, was a rosedecked\u00a0pony cart. A float showing flat boat days on the Kennebec attracted\u00a0much. attention. Other floats were provided by L. H. Soper, W. B. Arnold,. the\u00a0Bay View Hotel, G. S. Flood and Company, Wardwell Brothers, and Green and\u00a0Green, fuel dealers, and H. R. Dunham.<\/p>\n
Hollingsworth and Whitney showed, on its float, samples of paper made at\u00a0its mill, from a small sheet to a huge roll 140 inches wide and 40 inches in\u00a0diameter. The Mail proudly announced that the roll of paper weighed 5,250\u00a0pounds, and if unrolled would stretch for 7i miles. Whitcomb and Cannon showed\u00a0an attractive display of meats, with “Jimmie” behind the counter. Young and\u00a0Chalmers had four teams, one of them showing how ice was delivered in 1850.<\/p>\n
The Mail fairly went into ecstasies about the presentation of Clukey and Libby.<\/p>\n
Said the newspaper: “Then came the float of the Clukey-Libby Company, one of\u00a0the most elaborate in the procession. It was drawn by cream colored horses\u00a0with white harnesses. It was beautifully draped, and in addition was ador:'”<\/p>\n
ned by the young ladies it carried. perhaps no one in the line was more\u00a0admired. Behind the float marched 24 boys, w,earing long, linen dusters and\u00a0carrying red umbrellas, advertising the same firm.”<\/p>\n
The parade concluded just as every parade I have ever seen in’ waterville,\u00a0and my parade recollections here go back only to 1910. Of course you\u00a0know what I mean. Last but not least in that long procession which took forty\u00a0minutes to pass a given point came the Waterville Fire Department. And the\u00a0last vehicle of all was “Old Boomer”, an imitation of the town’s first hand\u00a0tub.<\/p>\n
That, ladies and gentlemen, was a great parade. Of course there were\u00a0sports on the Centennial Program. One afternoon was devoted to a baseball\u00a0game between Colby and the Waterville town team. Waterville won by a sizable\u00a0score, and why shouldn’t they? For the Waterville pitcher was a rangy fellow\u00a0named Jack Coombs, who had just graduated from Coburn.<\/p>\n
By the way, there will soon appear in the Colby Field House the Colby\u00a0graduation picture of Jack Coombs, made by Sam Preble in 1906. This picture\u00a0is a recent gift to the college from Chester Hussey of Walnut Street.<\/p>\n
For muqh of tonight’s information about the centennial celebration I am\u00a0indebted to a local man who has been my friend and fraternity brother since\u00a0college days, Attorney Lewis Lester Levine. It was his loan to me of a copy\u00a0of the old Waterville Mail which set me off on this subject of the centennial.<\/p>\n
Among out of town guests at that celebration is mentioned a family that\u00a0rings a clear bell of childhood memory. The Mail says I <\/em>“Dr. and t1rs. F. E.\u00a0Stevens of Bridgton are visiting friends here. They made the trip by the doctor’s\u00a0automobile.”<\/p>\n Now by this time every listener to this program knows that Bridgton was\u00a0my home town. I knew Dr. and Mrs. stevens very well indeed. In fact the doctor\u00a0owned the building in which my father’s store waelocated. From my earliest\u00a0recollection he operated what we called the drug store on the hill, and\u00a0he installed the town’s first soda fountain. He was not the first, but very\u00a0nearly the first Bridgton citizen to own an automobile. I wonder how long it\u00a0took Dr. and Mrs. Stevens to drive from Bridgton to Waterville back there in\u00a01902. Will anyone hazard a guess? That Bridgton couple were frequent visitors\u00a0in Waterville, for Mrs. Stevens was one of the Redington sisters.<\/p>\n That June week in 1902 saw the first general reunion of what later was\u00a0to be called Colby’s famous class of 1892. I believe that, of the enthusiastic\u00a0young business and professional men, just ten years out of college, who assembled for that reunion, only two are now living, Frank B. Nichols of Bath and\u00a0William N. Donovan of Newton Centre, both of whom attended Colby’s 1949 Commencement,\u00a057 years after their graduation.<\/p>\n That same week saw, on the Colby campus, the celebrating of the 50th anniversary\u00a0of the Delta Upsilon fraternity. The anniversary poem was written\u00a0and read by none other than Maine’s poet-novelist, Holman F. Day, and the fraternity\u00a0history was given by Charles E. Gurney, who was later to be chairman\u00a0of the Maine Public Utilities Commission for many years, and for even longer\u00a0years secretary of the Colby Board of Trustees.<\/p>\n An international event of some importa.nce, about to be held in 1902, filled\u00a0several columns of the Mail, in spite of its absorption with the Waterville\u00a0Centennial. That event was the coming coronation of England’s new king, Edward\u00a0VII. It was indeed a gala event for England, because thousands of her\u00a0people had never seen a coronation. England had had none for 65 years. Edward’s\u00a0mother, the great Victoria, had been crowned in 1837.<\/p>\n But an ironical twist of fate postponed Edward’s coronation for many\u00a0weeks, and the Waterville Mail got the news just in time to give it a couple\u00a0of inches of space and a headline in that issue of June 24, 1902. The item\u00a0said, “The coronation ceremonies have been indefinitely postponed. King Edward\u00a0was operated on this morning for appendicitis, and at two o’clock was\u00a0resting satisfactorily.”<\/p>\n With the centennial behind them, Waterville people had other entertainment\u00a0ahead. On July 5, 1902 Pawnee Bill’s Wild West Show hit town. It was\u00a0advertised as “headed by the famed guide, scout, U. S. interpreter and Oklahoma\u00a0hero, Major G. William Lillie (Pawnee Bill). The hero’s 19 year old daughter,\u00a0Miss May Lillie, (Why didn’t they name her Calla?), was heralded as\u00a0the champion girl horseback rifle shot of the world. A grand street parade\u00a0would set the town kids gawk-eyed at ten o’clock.<\/p>\n Just think of some of the food prices of 1902. Flour was $4.75 a barrel,\u00a0tea 35 cents a pound, sugar twenty pounds for a dollar. Lard was ten cents a\u00a0pound, canned corn three for a quarter, rice four pounds for a quarter, red\u00a0salmon two cans for a quarter, and pink salmon ten cents a can. Compared with\u00a0the inflationary prices of 1950, W. P. Stewart then advertised best mocha and\u00a0java for 39 ,cents a pound, Boston blend for 23 cents, Excelsior blend for 16\u00a0cents, and two pounds of Rio for 25 cents.<\/p>\n Among the classified ads was one for a girl to do general housework at\u00a0two dollars a week. P. P. Hill wanted two honest young men of good habits to\u00a0learn the jeweler’s trade. An establishment on Temple Street offered window\u00a0shades for 22 cents, including fixtures and pull. And Atherton’s agreed to\u00a0store stoves during the summer months for a modest fee.<\/p>\n We have often talked about words on this program, but I do not recall\u00a0that we have ever mentioned the emotional power of words. Words in themselves,\u00a0entirely apart from their context, carry tremendous emotional power. A mere\u00a0word is capable of arousing us to anger and hate, zeal and ambition, thrill\u00a0and ecstaSy.<\/p>\n Plenty of words have low emotional power; they arouse very little, if\u00a0any, emotion. Such words as table, coat, walk, addition, percentage do not\u00a0stir us up very much. But notice what happens inside of you when you hear\u00a0any of the following words: honor, glory, death, dawn, sunset, stars.<\/p>\n The poet knows what he is doing when he uses words of high emotional\u00a0import. Shelley, writing of his fellow poet Keats, dead at the youthful age\u00a0of 26, might have said, “Adonais is dead and I long to join him.” But, instead\u00a0of that, he wrote, “The soul of Adonais like a star beacons from the .abode\u00a0where the eternal are”.<\/p>\n The politician and others who seek to sway public opinion know very well\u00a0the power of emotional words. It was not by accident that Roosevelt and his\u00a0advisers hit upon the phrase “New Deal”, and, knowing perfectly well the favorable\u00a0connection of the word “fair”, the Truman administration adopts the\u00a0phrase “Fair Deal”.<\/p>\n Another of those powerful emotional phrases is “Welfare State”. Because\u00a0everyone, high or low, rich or poor, native-born or immigrant, wants to enjoy\u00a0in America a state of welfare, have enough to eat and to wear, a roof over\u00a0his head, and be sure of the freedoms of speech, religion and movement, it is\u00a0easy to confuse state of welfare with welfare state.<\/p>\n That phrase “welfare state” is now glibly used by thousands of people,\u00a0but it is difficult to get any two persons to agree on just what they mean\u00a0by it. A few weeks ago Dr. Gallup tried to find out what the term meant to\u00a0people. His pollsters learned that 64 per cent of the men and women questioned had no idea at all of its meaning. Three per cent thought it meant\u00a0some kind of government control; five per cent said it meant socialism; about\u00a0one person in every five said the welfare state means that the government\u00a0takes care of the people. In spite of the fact that the term meant nothing to\u00a0two out of every three persons, it may be significant that to one out of every\u00a0five it is equivalent to the hand-out state, the government that is all give\u00a0and no take, that provides for the citizen a rosy bed of privileges with no\u00a0thorns of responsibility.<\/p>\n Now I have just used another of those emotional phrases. You heard me say\u00a0“hand-out state”. That is an expression just as loaded with prejudice in one\u00a0direction as “welfare state” is loaded in the other direction.<\/p>\n Stop and think a minute. Every one of you has had some experience with\u00a0the power of labels, the word tags that people pin on one another in praise or\u00a0blame. In 1920 all one needed to do to damn a person was to call him a Bolshevik.<\/p>\n In 1950 the corresponding label is Communist.<\/p>\n Think of others of those damning labels: plutocrats, malefactors of great\u00a0wealth, robber barons, tycoons, crucifying mankind on a cross of gold. Then\u00a0think of how much we used to hear about the forgotten man, the more abundant\u00a0lif.e, the century of the connnon man, two chickens in every pot, two cars in\u00a0every garage, the honest dollar, the full dinner pail.<\/p>\n Just consider some of the phrases that greet you in every daily paper.<\/p>\n What do they mean, those glibly used words like inflation and deflation, high\u00a0velocity money, deficit financing? We have even encountered the words reflation\u00a0and disinflation. Such is the confusing gibberish that plagues us. No\u00a0wonder Dr. Nourse, former chairman of the President’ s Committee of Economic\u00a0Advisers, expressed complete discouragement “over the possibility of using\u00a0ordinary words in the English language to carry meaning from one mind to another”.<\/p>\n So let us beware of slogans and labels, of tag words and emotional phrases.<\/p>\n On the subject of you and your government, whatever the slogans you most readily\u00a0accept about it, one plain truth is worth remembering. That truth is this:\u00a0what the government gives away\u00b7,”itmust~irst … take away.<\/p>\n Year: 1950<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" Read the script for “Little Talks” program #53, broadcast on January 29, 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\/7091"}],"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=7091"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/web.colby.edu\/csc-home\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/7091\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/web.colby.edu\/csc-home\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=7091"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/web.colby.edu\/csc-home\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=7091"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/web.colby.edu\/csc-home\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=7091"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}
\n
\n
\n
\n
\n