It is a good American trnt to distrust people who acquire too much power.\u00a0The Famed Boston Tea Party was born in a distrust of monopolies, especially a\u00a0government monopoly. Raving been fed up on monopolies in Old England, the colonists\u00a0of New England jealously guarded the rights of the colonial legislatures\u00a0granted them in the royal charters and by later precedents.<\/p>\n
When the representatives of the several colonies gathered to write the Constitution\u00a0of the new federal government they were careful to write into it these\u00a0words: “Powers not delegated to the United States by the Constitution are\u00a0reserved to the states respectively, or to the people.” Not only did they\u00a0zealously guard the rights of the several states, they set up the further\u00a0safeguard of dividing the powers of the federal government into three branches,\u00a0each a check on the others. They further saw to it that, while population should\u00a0decide the number of representatives in the lower house of the Congress, each\u00a0state should have the same number in the upper house.<\/p>\n
Now notice how dictatorship, anywhere in the world, always acts. When Hitler\u00a0became Chancellor, his first official act through his stooges in the Reichstag\u00a0was to abolish the powers of the little German states. Lenin, tolerant toward the\u00a0Russian provinces, was scarcely in his grave when Stalin took away their powers. Nobody is so foolish as to claim that a new Hitler or Stalin will do the same\u00a0in the United States. But a lot of honest, straight-thinking Americans are worried\u00a0about the growing trend to place more and more power in the hands of a few\u00a0men in Washington. That is what this debate about troops to Europe is all about. That is why some people oppose the molmting billions of federal aid to the states,\u00a0for he who pays the piper calls the tune.<\/p>\n
More than a century ago Thomas Jefferson said: “When all government shall be\u00a0drawn to Washington as the center of power, it will render powerless the checks\u00a0provided of one government on another and will become as oppressive as the\u00a0government from which we separated.” A century after Thomas Jefferson, General Eisenhower said: “The concentration\u00a0of too much power in centralized government need not be the result of violent\u00a0revolution. A paternalistic, hand-out government can gradually destroy the will\u00a0of the people to maintain any high degree of local responsibility. ” Every time we run to Augusta instead of solving a problem at home, every\u00a0time Augusta turns to Washington for help, government gets farther and farther\u00a0removed from the grass roots. Of course certain matters must be the concern of the Federal government, but not all matters. Because charity begins at home, it doesn’t\u00a0have to stay there. But let it all drift off to Washington and not even charity\u00a0is left any longer at home.<\/p>\n
So it seems appropriate that we turn our attention tonight to the good old\u00a0subject of town meetings.<\/p>\n
It is town meeting time again. Tomorrow the citizens of many Maine towns\u00a0will assemble for the annual meeting. Other towns will meet a week later. A few\u00a0have even abandoned the traditional Monday date and hold their meetings on Saturday. But, by and large, all over rural New England, the first Monday in March is\u00a0still town meeting day.<\/p>\n
Many men of my age think that town meetings have grown genteel and sophisticated,\u00a0like most other gatherings since the days of our youth. With the town\u00a0budget committees meeting in advance to recommend or oppose articles in the warrant,\u00a0with the voting for town officers by Australian ballot, sometimes on a\u00a0separate day from that on which the articles in the warrant are considered, with\u00a0the presence of women voters, and with even the introduction of amplifying\u00a0equipment into some of the town halls, we old-timers insist the town meeting,\u00a0like the old gray mare, ain’t what she used to be. But perhaps we are just getting\u00a0old and forgetful. The old town meetings may have been more dignified and\u00a0less riotous than we seem to remember them.<\/p>\n
My earliest: recollection goes back not merely before the days of printed\u00a0ballots, but before any written ballots at all. Town officers were elected\u00a0merely by show of hands, or by having the voters file past tellers. And many\u00a0a row was caused right there. In one town I well remember what caused the introduction\u00a0of the check list. A candidate for first selectman knew he was\u00a0going to have a bard fight. So he rounded up some recently arrived workers in\u00a0a local mill, rushed them past the teller for his side, and won the election.<\/p>\n
Somebody soon found out that those rounded-up voters not only had not established\u00a0residence in the town but actually hadn’t yet been naturalized as citizens\u00a0of the United States. Rather than let an embittered citizenry take the case\u00a0to the courts, the selectman resigned. The next year, and ever since, that\u00a0town has used the legal voting list to check the voters for town offices.<\/p>\n
In the old days the moderator had a real job. By the time I was old enough\u00a0to be elected mocierator of an Oxford County town — that was only thirty years\u00a0ago — the town meetings had calmed down a lot. Except for being challenged to\u00a0a fist fight by an irate voter whose motion I had declared out of order, I didn’t\u00a0encowter anyth:i.ng very exciting at that 1920 meeting. A couple of constables\u00a0rushed the irate and somewhat inebriate protester out of the hall and the meeting\u00a0went on about its business.<\/p>\n
But that was well on into the twentieth century. Before 1900 town meetings\u00a0were tougher. To begin with, it was always a kind of holiday. I say a “kind”\u00a0of holiday, for there was none for the clerks in the stores. It was one of\u00a0their busiest days. Many of the men coming in from the tams to town meeting\u00a0brought their women-folk along, and those women had saved up egg and butter\u00a0money for many weeks for this grand event. If a store clerk got to town meeting\u00a0long enough to vote for officers he was lucky. He seldom got in his vote on\u00a0any article in the warrant,unless the proprietor of the store had an interest\u00a0in the article.<\/p>\n
Most women of the village had no time for shopping that day. Their place\u00a0was in the kitchens of grange hall and church vestry. For promptly at twelve\u00a0o’clock noon, down came the moderator’s gavel as he declared the meeting in recess.<\/p>\n
Then the arguing, sometimes very boisterous crowd, suddenly realized that\u00a0they were hungry and off they trooped to their favorite church or to the\u00a0grange hall. No one dining place was ever big enough to accommodate them all,\u00a0and sometimes a fellow had to go to two or three before he could find a seat.<\/p>\n
But the food was tasty and abundant in all the places, and he fOmld one about\u00a0as good as another. What food it was – the heaping bowls of baked. beans, great\u00a0loaves of brown bread baked in five pound lard pails, apple pies, mince pies,\u00a0squash pies, custard pies, cream pies, cut in real, man-sized pieces, not in\u00a0those tantalizing little samples one now gets in a restaurant. And coffee\u00a0gallons upon gallons of it — made in those enormous, old fashioned coffee pots\u00a0and served in those huge, straight-sided white mugs that would hold a full pint.<\/p>\n
What did that meal cost the hungry voter? I recall very well how, in 1898, one\u00a0church was very nearly boycotted because it raised the price to 25 cents. When\u00a0the good women realized that the voters were passing them by, they quickly\u00a0put out a big sign announcing reduction of their price to the conventional 20\u00a0cents.<\/p>\n
Whether it was the presence of women voters or simply a change in rural\u00a0customs, something happened about thirty years ago to take the sawdust off the\u00a0town meeting floor. That sawdust was just. as much a fixture of town meeting as\u00a0it was the inevitable accompaniment of the meat market. Smoking was not permitted\u00a0in the town hall because of the fire hazard, but that generation was a\u00a0generation of chewers and the sawdust served a useful purpose. Praise be, with\u00a0all their habits, that is one with which the younger generation is not cOJlllllOD.ly\u00a0afflicted. Only in the South do you any longer see the advertising signs for\u00a0Eating Tobacco. Along with the old-time snuff it is gradually disappearing from\u00a0New England.<\/p>\n
I xemember some of the prominent town meeting characters very well, and I\u00a0suspect they were types whose counterparts could at that time be found in, almost\u00a0every town. There was the Reverend Hacy who spoke frequently and pompously\u00a0with a kind of Daniel Webster oratory. He could lend polish and importance to\u00a0the simplest subjects. Once the town was contemplating the purchase of a new\u00a0snow roller. Disgusted with the economy-minded folks who wanted to pass over\u00a0the article, the Reverend Hacy launched into a flowery tribute to sleigh bells\u00a0on the snow and their inevitable disappearance unless the roads were well rolled.<\/p>\n
The only trouble with Hac was that he was that ram specimen, a Democrat, in a\u00a0staunch Republican town. He had mpresented a New Hampshim district in the\u00a0national Congress when Grover Cleveland was Pftsident, and he never let folks\u00a0forget it, not even his Sunday parishioners. In town. meeting he was listened\u00a0to with reasonable- politeness, but the votes usually went the other way.<\/p>\n
Then there was Uncle Brad, who was just naturally &gin everything. His\u00a0pet hate was the schools. Be had a natural gift for scathing sarcasm and I\u00a0can still see him waving those lanky arms as he fought the introduction of music\u00a0into the- curriculum. ”They want to take valuable school time away from mading,\u00a0writing and ciphering to teach my Silas to sing. Why, Godfmy mighty, that’s\u00a0like tryiDg to teach a sow to lay eggs.”<\/p>\n
Once, through aGE aCCident, Une-le Brad arrived at a meeting late. ‘~t\u00a0they trying to do now?” he asked as, out of bmath, he nudged his way into the\u00a0crowd. ”They want to tumpike an old- road”, someone said. Uncle Brad got the\u00a0floor at once- and denounced the waste of Iloney spent modernizing old roads that\u00a0had ao- use anyhow. Not until the next speaker got the floor did Uncle Brad learn\u00a0that be bad been denouncing a plan to iaproft the roac:l past his own fame\u00a0Thea. there was Joe. Joe was the perpetuaf seconder of motions. No sooner\u00a0would anyone make a motion than Joe would second it. T~e moderator ouly wasted\u00a0his breath by regularly pointing out that Joe had already seconded a 1IIIOtion on\u00a0the other side. He kept right on with the practice, to which be gaft his own\u00a0peculiar pronunciation, for he.always said, “1 second the emotion”. There\u00a0was indeed a lot of emotion in the way he said it.<\/p>\n
Just once was Joe caught napping. He got engaged in a discussion with another\u00a0fellow while the ‘Eeting was trying to decide who should collect the taxes.\u00a0-The job usually went to the lowest bidder, and the fellow who wanted the job\u00a0badly had underbid everybody else by offeriug to collect for half a cent on the\u00a0dollar.<\/p>\n
One of those wags that inhabit every town saw J~ ‘SabsOJ:ptiClll and said,\u00a0”I move Joe collect them for nothing”. Catching the spirit of the occasion,\u00a0the moderator asked, “Does anyone second the motion?” Joe hadn’t heard the\u00a0motion, but he heard the moderator’s question, and rose to the bait. ”1 second\u00a0the emotion”, he shouted. The moderator then declared the motion out of order\u00a0and the half-cent bidder got the job. But Joe never heard the last of it.<\/p>\n
‘l’he town aetiugs fifty\u00b7 years ago were not all hUllor, explosive oratory\u00a0and big dinn.em. Huch sound bus1sss was done aDd a lot of leftl-headed d1scussion\u00a0took place. We should thaDk. a beneficent Providence or our New England\u00a0luck or sOlllethiug that the\u00b7 town meeting still survives. It is all we have left of real democracy in America. It is the only legislatift body onearth where every voter, regardless of education or wealth or family status,\u00a0can have his say. When the town meeting decides an issue it is literally the\u00a0will of the people. We must never let the town meeting die.<\/p>\n
We are pleased to leam that Clinton’s little paper “The Advertiser” is\u00a0remembered in other places besides Clinton. Mrs. Lucy Roberts of North Vassalboro\u00a0has loaned me fiVe issues of the little paper, which had been preserved by\u00a0her mother many’ years ago.<\/p>\n
Usually my interest in these old-time village newspapers is confined to\u00a0the local items, but occasionally one of the boiler-plate pieces attracts my\u00a0attention. What those rural editors called boiler-plate was material all formed\u00a0and ready’ to print, which was\u00b7 furnished them by some syndicate, and which\u00a0they used to fill up the colUIIIDS.<\/p>\n
Such a piece of boUer-plate occupied much of the first page of the Clinton\u00a0Adverti_r on November 10, 1892. It is entitled “Geman Ideas about America”\u00a0and 18 a memorable example of ethnocentrism. That’s a big, hard word, but a\u00a0good one to know and remember. Ethnocentrism is the belief that the ways, customs\u00a0and culture of one’s own country or one’s own part of the coUlltry ate superior\u00a0to all other peoples and places.<\/p>\n
Considering the plight\u00b7 of GermaDS today, it is interesting to know what\u00a0they thQught of us fifty years ago. Says the article:<\/p>\n
”Though no longer considered a race of Indians, Americans ate supposed to\u00a0be a very uncivilized race of white men. Yet Germans believe that in the course\u00a0of time those savage traits of character will disappear and Americans will become\u00a0as polished as are the Gexmans. Living as we do among Negroes and Indians,\u00a0compelled to’ defend ourselves with pistols and bowie knives, surrounded by deserts\u00a0and mountains, the GeDUlDS consider it remarkable that we are far enough\u00a0advanced to publish newspapers, and with great condescension they applaud the\u00a0rapidity of our progress.<\/p>\n
Local matter, I still insist, provide the cream in those old newspaper.<\/p>\n
Boiler-plate, e’Vell on what the 1890 Gemans thought of us, is only the skilllled\u00a0milk. So I was pleased to note in the Clinton Advertiser of March 20, 1890 that\u00a0a Clinton schoolteacher had the courage to defend herself against criticism contained\u00a0in the report of the school supervisor. She wrote: “How could a supervisor\u00a0be so blind to his duty as to retain the services of a teacher whose manner,\u00a0he claims, was boisterous and whose services were useless to the school.\u00a0He says that parents felt the same way. How could they, when no word of complaint\u00a0came to me during the whole term? If complaints were made and were\u00a0justified, why did not the supervisor get rid of the boisterous teacher? On\u00a0the contrary, he made not a single complaint to me during his calls at the\u00a0school. The comments in his report are unjust and undeserved.”<\/p>\n
Year: 1951<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
Read the script for “Little Talks” program #99, broadcast on March 4, 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\/7209"}],"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=7209"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/web.colby.edu\/csc-home\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/7209\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/web.colby.edu\/csc-home\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=7209"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/web.colby.edu\/csc-home\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=7209"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/web.colby.edu\/csc-home\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=7209"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}