A few weeks ago Ernest R. Breech, executive vice-president of the Ford Motor\u00a0Company, told the Economic Club of Detroit about America’s secret weapon. It is\u00a0no new gun or plane or bomb. Mr. Breech says America’s secret weapon, long underestimated\u00a0by our enemies, is the spirit of American industry. Last spring after\u00a0a large group of representatives of British industry had visited American\u00a0plants the London Times said: liThe group has learned lessons not confined to\u00a0techniques of productive processes, valuable as these are. They have seen managers,\u00a0technicians and floor workers enthusiastic in applying knowledge and skill, with\u00a0an outlook on productivity and a way of life Which constitute a challenge to the\u00a0world.<\/p>\n
That sort of thing, so impressive to the British visitors, is quite beyond\u00a0the comprehension of any avowed Communist. America’s industrial strength today is\u00a0not in our material advantages nearly so much as it is in our spiritual advantages.<\/p>\n
Not machines, not numbers of men, make the difference, but the point of view.<\/p>\n
Those British visitors found that production in our steel mills and our cotton\u00a0factories is over 50 per cent higher than in the same industries in Britain.<\/p>\n
They found American forges producing four times as many forgings per houri and in\u00a0the building industries an output per man hour twice the British output.<\/p>\n
Mr. Breech contends that this difference is due to the spirit of American industry,\u00a0which he says shows itself in three ways: willingness to take risks, as\u00a0no state controlled industry can do; willingness to accept change, without which\u00a0there is no progress; and the acceptance of competition.<\/p>\n
Mr. Breech concluded his address with these words: liThe voluntary will-to-do\u00a0of the American people, the potential energy represented by the spirit of American\u00a0management, and the loyalty of American workers — these things are far more powerful\u00a0than even atomic bombs.”<\/p>\n
Thinking it was time someone had a good word for the commonest family name\u00a0in America, H. Allen Smith has written a most amusing book entitled “People Named\u00a0Smith”. There are a million and a half Smiths in this country, and the wonder is\u00a0that, until H. Allen came along, nobody wrote a book about them. Nor does that million\u00a0and a half include such sideline families as the Smi tts, the Schmidts, and the\u00a0Smeds, not even the Smythes. With becoming scorn the author casts out what he calls\u00a0the Almost Smiths, the sons and daughters of mothers whose maiden name was Smith.<\/p>\n
He feels just as bitter about the real Smiths who changed their names to something\u00a0else. Those Smiths, for instance, who are now Mary Pickford and Sugar Ray Robinson.<\/p>\n
probably H. Allen Smith is right, rather than finicky, about his exclusio~s for, if\u00a0he hadn’t drawn a pretty straight line, he would have included nearly all of us.<\/p>\n
There are very few people in this country who cannot claim a Smith somewhere in the\u00a0family tree.<\/p>\n
H. Allen has done a fine job digging up unusual given names which parents have\u00a0added to children born simply Smith. His favorite is Light Green Smith, which isn’t\u00a0quite fair, for it is the name of a prize pig. Other good ones are Oceanwave Smith,\u00a0Wanton Q. Smith, OVer Night Smith, 5\/8 Smith, Xenophon P. Smith, and Leonides\u00a0D’ Entrecasteaux Smith, a Tennessee lawyer who named his children Keilash Smith” and\u00a0Ucal Smith. But the prize should be awarded to Glen E. smith of Georgia, who was\u00a0determined to name his <\/em>first boy by some name never before given to a Smith. By a\u00a0stroke of genius he succeeded, for he named “the child Smith Smith.<\/p>\n On New Year’s Eve we brought our story about Kennebec steamboats up to 1850,\u00a0just a hundred years ago. In that year a new boat, the T.”P. Secor, was placed on\u00a0the line between Hallowell and Bath, where ~e made daily connections with the\u00a0railroad which had then reached the Sagadahoc County seat. Shortly afterward,\u00a0when the Portland and Kennebec Railroad reached Richmond, the Secor carried\u00a0passengers only the short distance between Richmond and Augusta.<\/p>\n In 1852 the Boston line, plying between Boston and Hallowell, put on the\u00a0biggest steamer seen on the river up to that time. It was called the “Ocean”\u00a0and did a brisk passenger business until the stormy night of Novembe~ 24, 1854,\u00a0when she collided with the CUnard steamship “Canada”, just outside Boston harbor.<\/p>\n The Ocean naturally got the worst of the collision. She took fire and burned to\u00a0the water’s edge. Nine lives were lost. This was 44 years, almost to a day, before\u00a0the terrible Thanksgiving eve disaster of the steamer Portland.<\/p>\n Captain Nathaniel Kimball of Gardin.er, the man who had done more than any\u00a0other individual to keep the Kennebec boats under local management, and who had\u00a0himself seen 18 active years of piloting steamers on the river, retired as a boat\u00a0captain in 1853, though he still retained a financial interest in the line and\u00a0acted as its general manager until 1860.<\/p>\n In 1855 Captain James Collins, relative of Jason Collins, the writer of the\u00a0reminiscences of Kennebec Steamboating, piloted on the river a new boat built to\u00a0replace the ill-fated Ocean. This boat was called the “Governor” and for two\u00a0years, until 1857, she was the only boat on the locally managed line.<\/p>\n But in 1856 a palatial steamer called the “Eastern Queen” was built in New\u00a0York. She cost $100,000, a tremendous sum for those days. A new company was\u00a0formed to finance her, of which Jason Collins himself was a stockholder, along\u00a0with Capt. Nathaniel Kimball, William Bradstreet and William Grant. Two Boston\u00a0financiers, Isaac Rich and Nathaniel Stone, had large interests, but no control.<\/p>\n In the spring of 1857 the Eastern Queen, commanded by Capt. James Collins,\u00a0former master of the Governor, began her trips from Hallowell to Boston. She did\u00a0a huge business for three seasons, then was partially burned in March, 1860,\u00a0while laid up in winter quarters at Wiscasset. She was rebuilt in yards at East\u00a0Boston and resumed her trips the day before the presidential election of Abraham\u00a0Lincoln in November, 1860.<\/p>\n In the spring of 1861, on the death of James Collins, Jason Collins himself\u00a0took command of the Eastern Queen. The Civil War was now on, and the Queen was\u00a0promptly chartered by the g0vernment for the General Burnside expedition to Hatteras.<\/p>\n With Jason Collins still in command the Queen sailed from New York on\u00a0December 11 with the 24th Massachusetts Regiment, accompani~d by Gilmore’s band.<\/p>\n After disembarking those troops at Annapolis, Captain Collins took on the 4th\u00a0Rhode Island Regiment, sailed on to Hatteras Inlet, arrived at the agreed anchorage\u00a0a few days later, and waited until February 5th before the signal was given\u00a0for the first division to get under way. The Eastern Queen was honored by being\u00a0made the flagship of the division and carried on board the division commander,\u00a0General Parks. She headed quite a fleet — <\/strong>first the gunboats, then the flagship\u00a0Eastern Queen, then the transports carrying 12,000 troops altogether a line of\u00a075 ships. Off Roanoke Island the troops were disembarked in whale boats, under\u00a0protection of the Federal gun boats shelling the woods. The next morning the Confederate\u00a0forts were captured.<\/p>\n All that winter of 1861-62 the Eastern Queen continued to carry troops, frequently\u00a0in the midst of grave danger. But she came through unscathed. In July,\u00a01862 she resumed her old route on the Kennebec. She was indeed welcomed home, for\u00a0though the river had been open for more than two months, the ste~oat service to\u00a0Boston had been totally interrupted for the first time since its establishment.<\/p>\n But the Eastern Queen was not finished with the war. In November, 1862 she\u00a0was again chartered, this time to take part in the expedition of General Banks to\u00a0New Orleans. They left New York on December 6, under orders for 24 hours continuous\u00a0steaming, and with further sealed orders to be opened after 24 hours in the\u00a0presence of the commanding officers of the troops. When those orders were opened,\u00a0they found their destination was Ship Island. That was the rendezvous of numerous\u00a0ships for Banks’ great attack. All that winter the Queen was engaged in transporting\u00a0troops, supplies and dispatches from New Orleans to Baton Rouge and Pensacola.<\/p>\n When spring came the Queen again returned to the Kennebec, and this time\u00a0without interruption she Dema~ned on the Boston to Hallowell route until 1870.<\/p>\n She was then sold to New York interests and her name was changed to the “Tamlapas”.<\/p>\n She ran from Havana, Cuba to various Mexican ports and was finally lost in a Caribbean\u00a0hurricane in 1878.<\/p>\n In 1864 the Government offered for sale the blockade runner “Scotia”, which\u00a0had been captured by a Federal gunboat. Kennebec interests bought the boat and\u00a0. placed her on the route from Hallowell to Portland. The venture proved unprofitable,\u00a0the Scotia was sold, set off on the long voyage to China, and was never\u00a0heard from again.<\/p>\n The Kennebec Company held a monopoly of the river traffic to Boston until\u00a01865 when an opposition line, started at Bath, put the steamer “Daniel Webster” on\u00a0the Boston route. Then the most expensive boat put on the river up to :that time\u00a0was built in New York for $180,000. She was called the “Star of the East”. With\u00a0such a boat the Kennebec Company hoped to give the Bath Company very stiff competition.\u00a0The new boat was commanded by Capt. Jason Collins, who turned over his old\u00a0command, the Eastern Queen, to Captain Samuel Blanchard. The Star was the most\u00a0finely equipped boat running out of Boston for any port.<\/p>\n In 1866 there were four boats making daily trips between Hallowell and Boston.\u00a0On one day the Eastern Queen would leave Boston while the Star left Hallowell. Then\u00a0the following day each would return to its starting point. The same was true of the\u00a0two boats of the Bath line, the Daniel Webster and the Eastern City. Passengers and\u00a0shippers of freight could choose between two boats of competing lines every\u00b7 way at\u00a0either end of the trip. The competition exceeded that of the early 1850’s. Fares\u00a0to Boston were reduced to 25 cents. Excitement was intense. Crowds of people who\u00a0had never hoped to see Boston took the trip. Some of them were on a steamboat\u00a0for the first time. At times the biggest boat, the Star of the East, carried more\u00a0than a thousand passengers. When the winter’s ice closed the season of 1866 the\u00a0Bath Company had had enough. They never put their two boats back on the river,\u00a0and the Kennebec Co~pany returned to its monopoly of the traffic for more than\u00a0forty years.<\/p>\n After 1870 the daily trips stopped. For the next 19 years the Star of the\u00a0East was the only boat on the route between Hallowell and Boston. She made only\u00a0two round trips a week, but those were very profitable and paid the owners handsome\u00a0dividends.<\/p>\n In 1889 the modern steamer “Kennebec” was built at Bath for the old Kennebec\u00a0Company. She was launched from What was known as the New England Shipyard in the\u00a0presence of more than 5,000 people. On board were the Governor and his staff and\u00a0I\u00a0many other prominent guests. The boat was owned almost completely by persons\u00a0living in cities and towns along the Kennbec River.<\/p>\n Our informant, Jason Collins, whose reminiscences of steamboating Mrs. Adams\u00a0found in her Gardiner attic only seven years ago, supervised the building of that\u00a0boat and became her captain. On July 1, 1889 she made her first trip from Hallowell\u00a0to Boston and was still in operation, though under different command, when Mr.\u00a0Collins wrote the memoir.<\/p>\n Although ice closed the river above Merrymeeting Bay, and sometimes all the\u00a0way above Bath, steamers ran between Bath and Boston year round. In 1897 the Kennebec\u00a0Company built the steamer “Lincoln” for the winter route from Bath to Boston\u00a0and the summer route between Bath and Boothbay Harbor.<\/p>\n For half a century the Kennebec Steamboat Company, so notably started by\u00a0Captain Kimball, and so gloriously continued by the Collinses, James and Jason,\u00a0dominated the river, conquering the competition, not only of the Bath Company,\u00a0but also of intruding Boston interests, and even the mighty power of Commodore\u00a0Vanderbilt.<\/p>\n Just as the new century got under way, in 1901, the Kennebec Company sold\u00a0their steamers, wharves and other property to the Eastern Steamship Company. At\u00a0last the trend of big business mergers had caught up with the Kennebec steamboats.<\/p>\n Men of the Kennebec Valley no longer controlled the line. Its future destiny lay\u00a0in Boston hands.<\/p>\n Year: 1951<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" Read the script for “Little Talks” program #93, broadcast on January 21, 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\/7196"}],"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=7196"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/web.colby.edu\/csc-home\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/7196\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/web.colby.edu\/csc-home\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=7196"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/web.colby.edu\/csc-home\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=7196"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/web.colby.edu\/csc-home\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=7196"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}
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