We frequently lament Maine’s standing today among the 48 states in respect\u00a0to support of education. It was not so in 1855. That old Augusta newspaper,\u00a0the Rural Intelligencer — the same one in Which we found the editorial\u00a0stand against stoves — proudly pointed out the following facts about\u00a0education in Maine a hundred years ago. Said the editor:<\/p>\n
“OUr free schools educate more persons at public expense than any other\u00a0state in proportion to population. The number in Maine is <\/em>60,212; in New Hampshire,\u00a07,705; in Connecticut 10,912. In Maine only one adult in a hundred\u00a0cannot read and write; in Massachusetts it is three in a hundred; in Virginia\u00a0nine in a hundred; in North Carolina 14 in a hundred. Pay earned by Maine\u00a0farm laborers is <\/em>higher than in any other state except Massachusetts. In\u00a0Maine it is <\/em>$13 a month, in Ohio $11.10, in Virginia $8.43, in Alabama $9.62.”<\/p>\n Editor Drew went on to point out that of all the states Maine and Rhode\u00a0Island stood highest in freedom from crime. Said the editor proudly: “It is <\/em>clear that Maine is one of the best, if not the very best state in the Union\u00a0for a man to live Who would rear his family among those social, educational\u00a0and moral influences which secure for life the best of its charms.”<\/p>\n Ninety-five years after Editor Drew penned those lines, we still think\u00a0Maine is <\/em>the best of all states to live in, but we hang our heads in shame\u00a0when the educational statistics of the 48 states are laid before us. Only the\u00a0deep South stands worse than Maine in public support of education.<\/p>\n In that year 1855 Governor Anson Morrill became chief executive of Maine.<\/p>\n Only six years later the whole nation would be involved in a bitter civil war\u00b7–\u00a0not a war against a foreign nation, but the worst of all kinds of war -killing\u00a0of citizen by fellow citizen, of brother by brother. In the Kennebec\u00a0Valley of 1855 did that awful conflict cast any looming shadows before? Yes,\u00a0indeed. In his inaugural address Governor Morrill spoke out emphatically\u00a0against Henry Clay’s Compromise of 1850, the compromise which gave a green\u00a0light to the extension of slavery into certain territories. Maine had been\u00a0born as a part of the famous Compromise of 1820. She had secured her admission\u00a0into the Union largely on the deal that demanded another free state to offset\u00a0the admission of Missouri as a slave state. There was good reason for\u00a0Maine to espouse the anti-slavery cause.<\/p>\n But she had been slow to do so. with the Yankee conservatism that characterized\u00a0Maine folk then, as it characterizes them now, they had held aloof\u00a0from the raging controversy. But in 1855 Governor Morrill spoke out. Maine,\u00a0he said, could not support the Compromise of 1850, despite its sanction by\u00a0Daniel Webster, nor would Maine recognize the legality of the Fugitive Slave\u00a0Law. The governor said: “However desirous our people have been to refrain\u00a0from discussing or agitating the question of slavery, lest such agitation\u00a0might impair the permanence of the Union, the time has now come when that\u00a0question must be met and discussed in our national and state councils with the\u00a0same freedom with which we discuss other questions.”<\/p>\n Discussion did become more open and more violent, and in a few years\u00a0Maine boys were laying down their lives at Bull Run and Chancellorsville, at\u00a0Cedar Mountain and Gettysburg.<\/p>\n A lot of ordinary people like me, who can lay no claim to expert knowledge\u00a0of the intricate workings of money, credit and currency, are asking\u00a0what this talked-of dollar shortage is all about. Because a dollar is something\u00a0that I usually don’t have, I can describe my kind of dollar shortage,\u00a0but that of course isn’t what the newspapers are talking about. So I thought\u00a0I would look into this matter and see if I could tell you anything about it.<\/p>\n In the ordinary course of trade, the way a nation gets money to buy\u00a0goods from another nation is just the way you and I get money to buy goods\u00a0of another person. We sell goods that we have, or we sell our labor or\u00a0services for money, and we can then buy goods with that money. If a nation\u00a0has to buy more than it can sell, it is just like you or me when we do the\u00a0same it is in trouble.<\/p>\n In the 35 years from 1914 to 1949 the amount of goods and services that\u00a0the United States sold abroad amounted to $270 billion, while our purchases\u00a0from other countries amounted to only $170 billion. Thus we sold $100 billion\u00a0worth more than we bought.<\/p>\n It is obvious that the foreign nations had to find some way to get those\u00a0hundred billion dollars that we could not take their goods to meet. If we\u00a0could not take that amount in trade, what could those nations do?<\/p>\n First, they sold their gold and silver assets held in this country to\u00a0the tune of $16 billion. Secondly, they got about a billion from the World\u00a0Bank. Third, they received $10 billion by remittances from American individuals\u00a0and organizations, and $10 billion more from investments of U. S. business\u00a0and individuals in foreign industries. That makes a total of $37 billion,\u00a0leaving $63 billion still to account for.<\/p>\n Now listen. That $63 billion came from U. S. Government aid; $18 billion\u00a0in loans, and $45 billion in outright grants or gifts. In other words\u00a0we gave outright to foreign nations almost half the difference between our\u00a0own sales and purchases.<\/p>\n After 35 years the problem is even farther from solution than it was a\u00a0third of a century ago. The world is more desperately short of dollars today\u00a0than ever before. The prospect is that the United States will continue to\u00a0sell more than she buys for many years to come. We certainly don’t know the\u00a0answer, but we have the temerity to ask how long Uncle Sam can keep on playing\u00a0Santa Claus to all the world.<\/p>\n Some time ago, you will recall, we were seeking information about oldtime\u00a0blacksmith shops in this vicinity. My young friend Brian Alley, the Waterville\u00a0boy who is <\/em>an authority on narrow gauge railroads, recently asked\u00a0why I didn’t settle the question, since the needed information is <\/em>available\u00a0in print. Brian proved his point by bringing me a copy of the Maine Register\u00a0of 1903, in which are listed the Waterville blacksmiths.\u00b7 of half a century ago.<\/p>\n There were eight of them: John Davidson, Front Street; J. L. LaBranch, Charles\u00a0Street; Joseph Loubier, Gray Street; Morris McNelly, Silver Street; Louis Poulin,\u00a0Paris Street; Omer Poulin, Water Street; A. I. Trafton, Front Street.<\/p>\n Unfortunately the information i~ the Maine Register is <\/em>not always accurate.<\/p>\n Sometimes information from the various towns and cities was supplied to\u00a0the editor carelessly and superficially. It is <\/em>therefore possible that this\u00a0list of waterville blacksmiths is <\/em>not complete. All we say is <\/em>that, if there\u00a0were others besides those eight blacksmiths, they were not recognized or listed\u00a0in Maine’s official publication.<\/p>\n What about WinSlow? Were her blacksmith shops all closed by 1903? No. The Maine Register of that year records one Shop on the east side of the river,\u00a0operated by A. M. Ballentine.<\/p>\n Fairfield had two blacksmiths at that time, F. T. Brown and A. V. Worthing.<\/p>\n Oakland did a big business in iron work and horse shoeing, for it had five\u00a0smithies then at work: W. H. Prentiss, Gilman and Booker, E. A. Watson, J. T.\u00a0Flynn and F. H. Abbott~\u00a0Not many of our listeners ever heard of the blacksmith shop where, as a\u00a0boy, I used to “see the flaming forge and hear the bellows roar”. It was the\u00a0shop of Ernest Burnham on Depot Street in Bridgton. In fact that short\u00a0street between the post office and the narrow guage station in Bridgton\u00a0boasted three blacksmith shops in 1903, and though the town was less than\u00a0a third as large as Waterville in population, it had altogether seven\u00a0blacksmiths.<\/p>\n By the way, I think one of the most memorable odors from the boyhood\u00a0days of men my age is the smell of heated iron pressed to a horse’s hoof.<\/p>\n The pungent reek of smoke when the smith plunged the hot shoe into a tub of\u00a0water was one sort of smell, but the much stronger and longer remembered odor\u00a0arose when that only sligl\\tly cooled iron was placed against the hoof, as\u00a0the smith fitted the shoe.<\/p>\n That same copy of the Maine Register, printed 47 years ago, gives us\u00a0information also about the old livery stables. The Elmwood Stable was then\u00a0run by Silas Small, while Charles A. Hill, the liveryman we mentioned a\u00a0year ago, operated a stable at 12 Mechanic Square. There were, in fact, ten\u00a0livery stables in waterville in 1903. Two of them were almost directly opposite each other on Silver Street, where Ira Mitchell had one at No. 22 and\u00a0A. E. Sawyer operated one at No. 23. Charles Perry ran a stable on Percival\u00a0Court; C. Witham and Son had one in the rear of 57 Temple Street; W. M.\u00a0Wilshire had his in Railroad Square; L. W. Rollins’s was at 29 Front Street;\u00a0F. M. Hanson’s on Union Street; and there was one on the Plains, operated by\u00a0J. E. Pooler at 57 Water Street.<\/p>\n Waterville had fourteen barbers in 1903, of Whom I think only one remains\u00a0— that beloved and respected veteran of the shears and clippers,\u00a0Victor Robichaud. Felix Audet, at the Elmwood Hotel barber shop, must be\u00a0getting pretty close to fifty years as a Waterville barber. If he was practicing\u00a0the trade in 1903, however, it was before he had a shop of his own.<\/p>\n Louis Breton of the Giguere shop on Main Street is another man who has been\u00a0barbering for many years.<\/p>\n Speaking of the Elmwood, this year 1950 is its hundredth anniversary.<\/p>\n It was in 1850 that this venerable hostelry first opened for business under\u00a0the proprietorship of Seavey and Williams.<\/p>\n It was not the first tavern on the same spot. There in what was simply\u00a0a large dwelling house Deacon Abial Follansbee had conducted a “Temperance\u00a0Hotel” before the Civil War. Destroyed by fire in 1878, the Elmwood was rebuilt\u00a0larger and better than before. In his centennial history of 1902 Dr.\u00a0Whittemore said of the Elmwood: ‘.’It has furnished a pleasant home to its\u00a0many city boarders, a fine headquarters for convention delegates, a worthy\u00a0place of entertainment for commencement dignitaries, and the scene of many\u00a0festal occasions when clubs and college societies have celebrated after their\u00a0fashion. ”<\/p>\n When I entered college in 1909; for dining purposes the Elmwood was overshadowed\u00a0by the new, luxurious, gaudily ceilinged dining room at the Hotel\u00a0Gerald in Fairfield, and it was there that I attended my fraternity initiation\u00a0banquet. Four years later, when I was graduating, the Gerald was forgotten\u00a0and banqueters usually sought the Elmwood again.<\/p>\n Another Waterville centennial of 1850 is the drug store now operated by\u00a0Robert Dexter, so long conducted by his immediate predecessor, Jim Allen.<\/p>\n According to available records, and they are not many, the first drug store in\u00a0Waterville seems to have been opened by Dr. Moses Appleton, who came here in\u00a01796. Whether he had a separate apothecary shop or dispensed drugs from his\u00a0residence is not entirely clear. Dr. Appleton, though a graduate of Dartmouth\u00a0and once a school teacher in Boston, was a man who clung long to the old customs.<\/p>\n For many years after others had abandoned the practice, he wore his\u00a0hair down his back in an old fashioned queue. The story is that one day the\u00a0doctor went to a colored barber named Decatur on Water Street to have his hair\u00a0trimmed and dressed. The doctor fell asleep. Suddenly he awoke,with a start\u00a0and shouted to the barber, “Look out for my queue”. Decatur replied, “You\u00a0is too, late, suh. It’s gone.” The doctor had been the victim of a quicker\u00a0and more painless amputation than any he had ever inflicted on a patient.<\/p>\n Dr. Appleton made some curious notations in his fee books. One such note\u00a0that he wrote in 1799 read: “It is agreed with Jabez Mathews that he pay me\u00a0at the rate of two cords of wood per annum in consideration of being supplied\u00a0with materials for keeping his family cured of the itch.”<\/p>\n NOW, as old Sam Pepys would say, “and so to bed”.<\/p>\n Year: 1950<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" Read the script for “Little Talks” program #66, broadcast on April 30, 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\/7126"}],"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=7126"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/web.colby.edu\/csc-home\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/7126\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/web.colby.edu\/csc-home\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=7126"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/web.colby.edu\/csc-home\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=7126"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/web.colby.edu\/csc-home\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=7126"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}
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