When I recently mentioned three dollar bills, little did I think that I\u00a0should ever own one. William Kenworthy, who probably knows more about old\u00a0coins and currency than any other person in Central Maine, has most generously\u00a0given me an unusually fine specimen of a three dollar bill. Unlike most\u00a0examples of old currency, this bill has not been worn to tatters. It appears\u00a0as new as the day it was printed.<\/p>\n
I prize it not only because it is such a perfect specimen of a form of\u00a0currency long since abandoned, but also because it is a note issued by a\u00a0Maine bank, the washington County Bank of Calais, whose president, directors\u00a0and company promise to pay three dollars to the payee or bearer on demand.<\/p>\n
As was the case with all of these old bills, this one has its number, 1252,\u00a0entered in ink, and the names of the president and cashier are original signatures,\u00a0not facsimiles. The date? Well, it was almost 116 years ago. It\u00a0too is written on the printed bill in ink — August 1, 1834.<\/p>\n
The printed designs on this old bill are also interesting. In the center\u00a0are mingled scenes representing education, industry, transportation, and agriculture.<\/p>\n
On the left margin is the bee hive, the universal symbol of industry;\u00a0on the ,right margin is a man with a sickle and a woman binding a\u00a0sheaf of grain — agriculture again.<\/p>\n
All the printing is on one side; the reverse is plain white paper. In\u00a0fact the stock is very ordinary paper and the printing would be a simple job\u00a0for a modern counterfeiter. Yet these simply printed bills were once circulated\u00a0freely. Were people more honest a hundred years ago, or were they\u00a0just more gullible? Perhaps a lot of counterfeit money circulated undiscovered\u00a0in those days.<\/p>\n
The subject of narrow guage railroads has not been exhausted, in spite\u00a0of our many references to it on this program. Tonight we have new information\u00a0on the narrow guage nearest Waterville, the old Wiscasset and Quebec, the\u00a0road that never got nearer to Quebec than the village of Albion.<\/p>\n
Mr. Burleigh Nichols of Fairfield Center, who has already been so helpful\u00a0with items from the old days, has shown us a map, inscribed as follows:<\/p>\n
“Map of the proposed Kennebec and Wiscasset Railroad. Col. A. W. Wildes,\u00a0C. E. Lithographed by J. E .. Tilton & Co., Boston.” Unfortunately the map\u00a0is not dated, but it must have preceded the building of the road from\u00a0Wiscasset to Albion by several years, because the map surprisingly shows that\u00a0what later became the Kennebec Central, from Gardiner to Togus, was anticipated\u00a0by the original plans for the K & W. The map shows the main line of\u00a0the road charted not from Wiscasset to Albion, but from Wiscasset to Augusta.<\/p>\n
Like the actual line that was finally built, the mapped route\u00b7 follows the\u00a0Sheepscot River through Alna, Puddle Dock, Head Tide and King’s Mills to Turner’s\u00a0Corner, when it swings sharply to the west to Togus and then on to Augusta.<\/p>\n
The map shows a connecting spur directly from King’s Mills to Togus,\u00a0by-passing Turner’s Corner. Another short branch is shown from Turner’s Corner\u00a0to Cooper’s Mills. But the map gives no indication that anyone had then suggested\u00a0bringing the road to Winslow instead of Augusta, or of going beyond\u00a0Cooper’s Mills to Albion, and even on to Burnham.<\/p>\n
The spur line from King’s Mills to Togus was mapped to pass along the\u00a0northeast shore of Joy’s Pond on the border of Whitefield and Pittston. The\u00a0broad guage with which the road was to connect at Wiscasset was, of course,\u00a0the Knox and Lincoln.<\/p>\n
We hear a lot about the American food surplus and its huge cost of four\u00a0billion dollars in this fiscal year alone. Do you know that it costs $200\u00a0million a year just for storage? That arrbunts to about $23,000 an hour.<\/p>\n
Take note of some of the gigantic quantities which the government had\u00a0in storage on January 31, 1950: a hundred million pounds of butter, 75\u00a0million pounds of dried eggs, 275 million pounds of dried milk, a billion\u00a0pounds of potatoes, 625 million pounds of peanuts, 60 million pounds of\u00a0dried fruits.<\/p>\n
An article in Life magazine a few weeks ago told this story of surplus\u00a0food far better than I can tell it. I hope a lot of you read that article.<\/p>\n
If you did, I don I t think you found it funny. When we think of the way unemployment\u00a0has already begun to hit our large cities, when we think of American\u00a0children already going to school hungry, when we know there are a lot of American\u00a0families finding it hard to buy food for three square meals a day,\u00a0this surplus food situation is not only wretched, expensive economy; it is\u00a0downright tragic. If another depression descends upon us, we shall face that\u00a0inexcusable paradox of bread lines wading knee deep in surplus wheat.<\/p>\n
The complaint many of us have about this agricultural program is that\u00a0so many of us who are just consumers have to pay twice; once when we buy the\u00a0goods at artificially high prices, and again as taxpayers to provide the money\u00a0for the government to keep prices high. Some of us feel that we are being\u00a0ground pretty fine between the upper mill stone of high prices and the lower\u00a0mill stone of government subsidies.<\/p>\n
Now for one or two facts that everyone ought to know about our State of\u00a0Maine. Maine’s tree is not the Norway pine, nor any other kind, except the\u00a0white pine. whose straight trunks were so highly prized in colonial days to\u00a0make masts for His Majesty’s ships. It is the white pine one sees displayed\u00a0on the state seal. So far I am sure you can all say, “We ‘ve always known that.\u00a0It’s no news to tell us why Maine is called the Pine Tree State.”<\/p>\n
Very good; but can you tell me what is our state flower? I’m sure some\u00a0of you know, but I am equally sure that many of you haven’t the faintest\u00a0idea. Well, it is the white pine cone and tassel; that is Maine’s floral\u00a0emblem.<\/p>\n
Then there are official state birds. What is ours? It is the chickadee,\u00a0and a very appropriate selection to accompany the white pine. Do you know\u00a0what more than one metropolitan newspaper has called the “Flower Garden of\u00a0New England”? It is Aroostook County, Maine in potato blossom time. Who of\u00a0our listeners can add to my collection of items about Maine trees? Let me\u00a0give you just a few of those items tonight, then let us see how many you can\u00a0add. I hope to get many letters on this subject.<\/p>\n
Down in Kennebunk they have what are called the Lexington Elms, because\u00a0tradition has it that they were planted on the 19th of April in 1775. In the\u00a0next town of Wells is an elm which was willed to the State of Maine, with a\u00a0fund to care. for it. In Portland is a tree which grew from a scion cut from\u00a0the famous Washington elm in Cambridge, Mass. In Kennebunk, as in many other\u00a0New England towns, there is a Lafayette Elm, which was on the lawn of the Storer Estate when General Lafayette was entertained there in 1825, the year\u00a0that he dedicated Bunker Hill Monument. The Lafayette tree in Kennebunk, like\u00a0the tree in Wells, was long ago deeded to the town. It has a spread of 131\u00a0feet, and at its base has a circumference of 171 feet. Now what interesting\u00a0tree items can any of you supply?<\/p>\n
A danger of our time is the increasing spread of the belief that we must\u00a0all get more and give less. We cannot escape the fact that the present economic\u00a0strength of America, giving us the highest standard of living in the\u00a0world, was created by men and women who gave to the limit of their strength.<\/p>\n
Somehow the freedom that we must win back in America is the freedom to\u00a0work and create to the limit of our capacity, and to enjoy the rewards of\u00a0creative work, not be rewarded for refusal to work.<\/p>\n
It is true that a hundred and fifty years ago right here in Waterville\u00a0and Winslow the folks decided to pay the minister not to preach to them and\u00a0to move out of town. But paying people for not working ought still to be,\u00a0as it was then, so rare as to cause extraordinary comment.<\/p>\n
Like any other nation, the united states can suffer a great disaster\u00a0from war or pestilence, but if the spirit of freedom to work and create remains \u00a0sound, we could soon rebuild stronger and finer than before. But if\u00a0that spirit of freedom should perish because of the spread of the something\u00a0for nothing belief, rebuilding would be impossible, because it could not be\u00a0done without individual effort and personal sacrifice.<\/p>\n
Ever since the government impounded the gold, took it out of circulation,\u00a0and buried it at Fort Knox, a lot of people ask what is it worth to us. Will\u00a0gold buy anything?<\/p>\n
Well, it will buy just as much as it ever would. Somebody with a mathematical\u00a0mind tells us that, if all the gold in the world were melted down into\u00a0a solid cube, it would be about the size of an eight-room house. But with all\u00a0that gold a man could not buy a friend, or character, or peace of mind, or a\u00a0clear conscience, or a sense of eternity. There are a lot of precious things\u00a0that gold never has bought and never can buy.<\/p>\n
Every teacher and a lot of other people are frequently amused by the\u00a0boners which school pupils and college students make on examination papers.<\/p>\n
Sometimes these answers are not boners at all, but very clever wording of\u00a0what is in the student’s mind. For instance we are all familiar with the\u00a0boy’s definition of a horse — an animal with four legs, one under each corner;\u00a0and we recall the rather impressive definition of a skeleton — <\/strong>a person\u00a0with the insides out and the outsides off.<\/p>\n Recently the New York Board of Regents published some of the amusing\u00a0answers found in the mid-year examinations, last February, in New York high\u00a0schools. Here are a few from papers in English: “He tried in vain and was\u00a0successful.” “He WafS a great sailor when men were made of iron and ships were\u00a0made of wood. It “One should learn the ropes, which is something you grasp\u00a0through experience.” “The Duke takes poison, but Henrietta must go the hard\u00a0way, die of old age.” “MacBeth is an interesting play, because I got excited\u00a0in many parts at the same time MacBeth did.”<\/p>\n From the history papers these sentences were gleaned: “Rousseau introduced\u00a0the gellatine, which was used to cut off the heads of many people. II “Salt\u00a0Lake City is a place where the Morons. settled. ” “Two French explorers of the\u00a0Mississippi were Romeo and Juliet.”<\/p>\n In mathematics we learn that “a converse in geometry is approaching a\u00a0theorem from the rear”, and that “two right angles in the same plane, placed\u00a0with their backs together, equal a straight an~1:e, and their bottoms form a\u00a0straight line.”<\/p>\n We learn also that “typhoid fever can be prevented by fascination”, that\u00a0“maple syrup is made by sterilizing sap”, that “on Washington’s trip across\u00a0the Delaware two men were frozen to death, but they reached the other. side\u00a0in safety”, and one student,asked to define a sensation in psychology, wrote:<\/p>\n “A sensation is that state of public mind which exists in a given corranunity\u00a0when one man’s wife runs off with another man.”<\/p>\n The question, “Name three Greek educators and tell what each taught, elicited\u00a0this answer: “Socrates, Plato and Aristotle. Socrates taught Plato, and\u00a0Plato taught Aristotle.” perhaps the most amusing of the answers were two from\u00a0literature. One of them says: “The House of Seven Gables was a house with\u00a0a broad door through which the Gables entered and had rooms under the roof\u00a0where the little Gables slept”. The other prize answer is this one: “Priscilla,\u00a0Miles Standish’s loveress, was a very sweet girl dressed in the simple\u00a0Dutch costume consisting of .a white cap and apron.”<\/p>\n Religion is a common thing. Everybody has some brand of it, for even\u00a0atheism, disbelief in any God at all, is a kind of religion of its own — it\u00a0is a belief in not believing.<\/p>\n Now your kind of religion is your business alone; under the American\u00a0Constitution you have the right not only to believe as you choose, but also to\u00a0worship as you choose.<\/p>\n The other day I was reading about that notorious bandit and train robber,\u00a0Jesse James. Jesse, I read, was a deeply religious man. He read the Bible\u00a0regularly, liked to sing in church choirs, and did not smoke, drink or swear.<\/p>\n He was intensely loyal to his friends and always refused to rob a preacher.<\/p>\n Yet at the same time he not only held up trains and robbed the passengers,\u00a0cleaned out banks and express companies, but he killed first and talked afterwards,\u00a0sometimes killed for sheer revenge, and at least once out of simple excitement.<\/p>\n Human beings are a queer mixture. Not many of us mix our religion with\u00a0banditry and killing, but a lot of us mix it with disharmony and unhappiness.<\/p>\n The test of our religion is not what we do with it, but what it does to us.<\/p>\n Year: 1950<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" Read the script for “Little Talks” program #65, broadcast on April 23, 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\/7124"}],"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=7124"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/web.colby.edu\/csc-home\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/7124\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/web.colby.edu\/csc-home\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=7124"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/web.colby.edu\/csc-home\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=7124"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/web.colby.edu\/csc-home\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=7124"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}
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