It was twelve years ago that I had the pleasure of introducing Maurice Hindus\u00a0to a Waterville audience. He spoke from the platform of the Senior High School on\u00a0one of Herbert Libby’s popular lecture series. Those were dark days for Hindus’\u00a0native Czechoslovakia. Hitler had just taken over the country, and the storm\u00a0troopers held the people under the military heel of Nazi oppression.<\/p>\n
Hindus said with great vehemence: “The Czech people will rise again. That\u00a0tremendous urge for freedom cannot be kept down.” Hindus was sure the Czechs\u00a0would win their independence again, as they had once won it under the elder Masaryk.<\/p>\n
Six years ago in New York I heard the younger Masaryk tell the Herald-Tribune\u00a0Forum why his government in CzeChoslovakia, freed by allied arms, was now turning\u00a0in friendship toward Russia rather than toward the West. Though most of his listeners\u00a0felt he was wrong, they knew he was honest and sincere.<\/p>\n
I wonder what Hindus thinks today about Czechoslovakia I s new freedom. We know\u00a0what Jan Masaryk thought about it, for two years ago, in disillusionment and discouragement,\u00a0he committed suicide. His trusted Russians had grossly betrayed the\u00a0trust.<\/p>\n
What is happening today in Czechoslovakia, which American G.I.’s helped liberate\u00a0from the Nazi oppressor in 1945, is a warning to every nation, even our own,\u00a0whose people are determined to stay free. Allover Czechoslovakia today, from the\u00a0capitol at Prague to the smallest village, appears the ominous sign “Narodni Podnik”,\u00a0meaning national enterprise. Gone is the personal pride of the small shopkeeper,\u00a0gone the family pride in ownership. For gone is private corporate enterprise,\u00a0founded and nurtured over the years from the savings of honest, frugal Czechs.<\/p>\n
Well do the Communists know that control over men’s lives begins with control\u00a0of the means of livelihood. Economic freedom dies first; then, after it, all\u00a0freedom dies. From economic control it is only one step to complete, one party\u00a0political control, only one more step to thought control under the dread\u00a0threat of the military police and the neighborhood spy. Beyond that is slavery.<\/p>\n
Let us take warning from that sign allover Czechoslovakia. We must not\u00a0have — not even under the pretense of united defense effort — Narodni Podnik\u00a0in America. We must continue determinedly to insist that the best guarantee of\u00a0the freedom, the dignity, the welfare and the security of every man, is the preservation\u00a0of the American system of private enterprise. We must ever beware of\u00a0increased largesse from the Handout state, and the subtle, insidious trend to\u00a0believe that the government in Washington owes every citizen, regardless of his\u00a0own efforts, complete care from cradle to grave.<\/p>\n
Hitler was unable, through force of arms, to carry his kind of National Socialism\u00a0to British soil. Yet Britain surrendered to the socialistic theory and\u00a0practice of government without firing a single shot. Winston Churchill’s warning\u00a0went unheeded, when he said: “The Scoialist program means that the reward of\u00a0society must be equal for those who try and for those who shirk, for those\u00b7who\u00a0succeed and for those\u00b7 who fail.” If that sounds alluring and just what many Americans\u00a0want, let’s remind ourselves of what G. B. Shaw, himself a socialist,\u00a0said: “Continuous industrial serVice will one day be made compulsory. The right\u00a0to work will become the obligation to work wherever the State puts us to work.”<\/p>\n
That is what Britain is beginning to learn, what Czechoslovakia has learned\u00a0to her bitter sorrow — that the communist design begins with the socialist incentive\u00a0of welfare promises, continues with control of the economic life, and ends\u00a0with coercion, with the destruction of every cherished freedom.<\/p>\n
No, we must not, we shall not, have Narodni Podnik in America.<\/p>\n
When we talked about William Bryant’s diary conunents on the Aroostook War in\u00a0our broadcast a month ago, little did we realize that there was still living in\u00a0Maine a man who was born in the very year that Bryant made that diary record, the\u00a0year 1839.<\/p>\n
Yes, I know it sounds impossible, for 1839 was III years ago. But a month\u00a0ago there was still living in Houlton a man named Jeremiah Campbellton who was\u00a0born in a wilderness cabin near what is now Van Buren on August 15, 1839. On\u00a0December 23, two week.sago, Mr. Campbellton died at a nursing home in Houlton.<\/p>\n
He was said to be the oldest man in New England.<\/p>\n
When only seven years old Mr. Campbell ton had seen his parents massacred\u00a0in a raid of the Micmac Indians from Canada. He was taken captive and lived with\u00a0the Micmacs for six years. Although then only 13 years old, with the help of an\u00a0Indian maiden he contrived his escape and made his way back to one of the white\u00a0settlements in Aroostook.<\/p>\n
Jeremiah Campbellton became a hunter and guide for the intrepid pioneers who\u00a0\u00a0settled Aroostook, a sort of Kit Carson of the northern border. He was said to\u00a0know intimately every nook and cranny of the northeast woods. He long claimed\u00a0that he turned the first Shovelful of earth for construction of the Bangor and\u00a0Aroostook Railroad. He fought in both the Civil and SpaniSh-American Wars and in\u00a0his last years humorously referred to himself as a former G. I.\u00a0For 54 years Mr \u2022. Campbellton had the companionship of his wife, the mother\u00a0of his sixteen children. Yet so long was his life that he survived her by 28\u00a0years, during the last 25 of which he was totally blind.<\/p>\n
A true child of the wilderness, Mr. Campbell ton never learned to read and\u00a0wri te, but he spoke fluently four languages: English, French, Italian and Micmac.<\/p>\n
Such was the man born in that long, long time ago in 1839, when William\u00a0Bryant devoted a page of his diary to the start of the Aroostook War.<\/p>\n
An amateur social historian like myself, who delves into the doings of Kennebec Valley people years ago, is grateful for a newspaper custom long since\u00a0abandoned. We refer to the lengthy, detailed discussion of social events.<\/p>\n
The waterville Mail changed from a weekly to a daily newspaper in January,\u00a01896, just 54 years ago. I am sure many of you will be interested to know how\u00a0the Mail of February 26, 1896 reported a reception held in Soper Hall on Main\u00a0Street on the evening of February 25. It was conducted by the Delta Kappa Epsilon\u00a0fraternity, which was then already half a century old at Colby. The guest\u00a0of honor was President William R. Harper of the University of Chicago, who was\u00a0later proved to be here, not for the principal purpose of honoring the Dekes, but\u00a0to lure President Nathaniel Butler away from Colby to the University of Chicago,\u00a0where he became the distinguished dean of the graduate school. President and\u00a0Mrs. Butler were of course in the receiving line at Soper Hall, as were also other\u00a0distinguished citizens and alumni of the fraternity.<\/p>\n
The Mail devoted two first page columns to the event, and one of those\u00a0columns is filled entirely with the names of lady guests and descriptions of\u00a0their gowns. At the risk of omitting some name that ought to be mentioned, we\u00a0cannot resist the temptation to give you a few of the well-remembered names listed\u00a0in that social column of the Waterville Mail 54 years ago:<\/p>\n
Sarah Lang- black satin, jet and lace<\/p>\n
Annie Knight – light blue silk lace, pink roses<\/p>\n
Alice purinton – light blue albatross, pearl trimming<\/p>\n
Miss Dunn (was this Miss Florence or Miss Mabel?) – blue silk,<\/p>\n
white lace trimming, carnations<\/p>\n
Grace Lord – blue crepon<\/p>\n
Mrs. F. C. Thayer – figured silk, white lace<\/p>\n
Mary Abbott – old rose silk and chiffon<\/p>\n
Ophelia Ball – black lace and jet<\/p>\n
Mrs. A. F. Drummond – dark red silk and roses<\/p>\n
Grace Illsley – white silk and lace<\/p>\n
Mrs. Frank Redington – white moire and lace<\/p>\n
Mrs. F. J. Arnold – Dresden silk, pearl garniture<\/p>\n
Annie Dorr – pink chiffon<\/p>\n
Mrs. A. J. Roberts – pink silk and white lace<\/p>\n
Mrs. J. F. Hill – pink silk, lace garniture<\/p>\n
Mrs. George K. Boutelle – Dresden silk and Chiffon; diamonds<\/p>\n
That’s the way the proud old waterville Mail handled big social gatherings<\/p>\n
half a century ago.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n
\nBack there in 1896 the bicycle had just come into its glory. The Waterville\u00a0Association of Wheelmen had been formed. Their tour.s and their contests aroused\u00a0much attention. The April 6 issue of the Mail carried no less than six separate\u00a0ads for bicycles. A. F. Drummond at the Savings Bank was agent for the Victor;\u00a0F. Blanchard sold several makes, including the Eagle and the Eclipse; S. A. Dickinson\u00a0handled the Silver King; R. E. Lincoln sold the Dayton; Learned and Brown\u00a0distributed\u00a0the Columbia. C. H. Robinson and Co. of Boston advertised a bicycle\u00a0called Robinson’S Crusoe for $65 — $10 down and $2 a week. It had barrel hubs\u00a0and large tubing. A bicycle bell was thrown in free.<\/p>\n
I find no mention of my own boyhood favorite, the Iver Johnson. Perhaps 1896\u00a0was a bit early for that make, because I owned my first Iver Johnson and my first\u00a0bicycle in 1901.<\/p>\n
In the spring of 1896 the Waterville Mail ran one of those well known popularity contests, for which a bicycle was the’ .prize. The contest ran for a month.<\/p>\n
Subscriptions and single coupons from daily copies of the Mail counted specified\u00a0numbers of points, and could be entered for any lady school teacher in Kennebec\u00a0and Somerset Counties. Who was the most popular schoolmarm in the two counties?<\/p>\n
To decide that question was the point of the Mail ‘s contest. The prize bike was\u00a0properly decorated and displayed in the store window of J. F. Larrabee on Main\u00a0Street.<\/p>\n
Although teachers from Fairfield, Oakland and Skowhegan were entered, the\u00a0contest soon settled down to a hard-fought race among four Waterville teachers: Sarah\u00a0Lang,Clara Dolley, Emma Knauff and Elizabeth Manley. First one of the four\u00a0would lead, then another. The result was in doubt until midnight of May 9,\u00a0When a distinguished board of judges counted all the votes and declared the winner\u00a0to be Miss Elizabeth Manley.<\/p>\n
\nWhen I read the Mail’s account of the opening of the Olympic Games in Athens -it\u00a0was in the Mail of April 6, 1896 — I was disappointed to see no mention of my\u00a0friend Jim Connolly, still living at the age of 82 in Boston. In my little book\u00a0“Jim Connolly and the Gloucester Fishermen” I told how Jim had been the winner of\u00a0the first event in those revived Olympics. The Waterville Mail of April 6 said\u00a0only: “The American contestants won in throwing the discus as well as in the hop,\u00a0step and jump.”<\/p>\n
On the next day, however, the April 7 issue of the Mail did better. It carried\u00a0half a column describing the pageantry of the opening of the games in the\u00a0presence of the King of Greece. In telling What happened in the early events, it\u00a0said: “J. B. Connolly, an American, won the hop, step and jump, covering 13.71\u00a0meters.” Not a word of how Connolly had been refused leave of absence from Harvard\u00a0to compete in the Olympics, how he had given up his Harvard career, joined\u00a0the Olympic team at his own expense, and how finally he had become the first victor\u00a0in the first Olympic contest in more than 2,500 years. The world was to\u00a0learn that story much later. On April 7, 1896 the Waterville Mail missed it entirely.<\/p>\n
But the Waterville Mail was a grand old paper just the same. We are sorry\u00a0that it had finally to go the way of all flesh.<\/p>\n
Year: 1951<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
Read the script for “Little Talks” program #91, broadcast on January 7, 1951<\/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":[786,35296],"tags":[],"builder_content":"","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/web.colby.edu\/csc-home\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/7191"}],"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=7191"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/web.colby.edu\/csc-home\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/7191\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/web.colby.edu\/csc-home\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=7191"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/web.colby.edu\/csc-home\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=7191"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/web.colby.edu\/csc-home\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=7191"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}