A listener recently asked me whether consumption of alcoholic beyerages was on\u00a0the increase I n the Un i ted States today. The I i staner sent me some figures for\u00a01911. In that year the total consumption of distilled spirits amounted to\u00a0135,000,000 gallons, and the \u00b7beer consumed fi lied two billion gallons.<\/p>\n
Now, be I I <\/em>eve It or not, accord I <\/em>ng to the Worl d Almanac dt stl I led liquor production\u00a0in the United States reached its height in spite of seyere restrictions In\u00a0the last year of the Second World War, 1945, when the Bureau of Internal Revenue\u00a0reported taxes paId on the production of 1,175,000,000 gallons. In 1946,1947 and\u00a01948 the figures dropped until In <\/em>1948 they were down to 420,000,000. Then In 1949\u00a0they shot up. aga I n to 450,000,000. I have not seen the figures for 1950.<\/p>\n Now these figures are badly misleading. The gallons of liquor on which federal\u00a0taxes are paid fal I far short of the total consumption., They take no account\u00a0of the vast quantity of Imported liquor, and they Ignore the completely Incalculable\u00a0amountof illegally made liquor. At any rate we can assure our listeners that consumption\u00a0has not decreased since that boom year of 1911 in the lIquor industry. One\u00a0thing Is sure; we would be very much better off If we had a lot less of It. If it\u00a0I s any comfort to fo I ks who wou I d I I ke to see more sob ri ety, we do have the figures\u00a0for retail sale of liquor in the three years of 1947, 1948 and 1949. While prices\u00a0I n genera I ,. Ii q uor inc I uded, have been goi ng up, the tota I do II ar reta i <\/em>I sa les of\u00a0liquor have been going <\/em>down. The total in 1947 was $1,916,000,000; in 1948 It <\/em>had\u00a0dropped to $1,854,000,000; and In <\/em>1949 I <\/em>t had taken an even sharper drop to\u00a0$1,760,000,000.<\/p>\n The figures for tobacco p-roductlon are rather interesting. If you want to\u00a0check my accuracy about them, take a look at page 665 of the World Almanac for 1951.\u00a0I tis i ncredi b Ie to me that In 1948 more snuff was produced in the Un I ted States\u00a0than in 1920; but here are the fl gures: for 1920 they were 34,349,000 pounds; for\u00a01948 they were 40,809,000 pounds. The production of plug, twist and fine cut tobacco\u00a0have stead! Iy aecreased since 1920, as has also the production of cigars.\u00a0I tis of course the boom In ci garettes that accounts for the ove ra II ! ncrease. From\u00a047 billion In 1920 the annual manufactur:’E) of the little coffin-nails has grown to\u00a0387 billion. In 1948 a total of a billion and a half pOlllds of leaf tobacco saw\u00a0more than th ree-fourths of I t go Into ci garettes.<\/p>\n I never fully realized what tobacco could mean to the whole economy of.a people\u00a0until I recently visited Colonial Williamsburg. The life of that Virginia\u00a0capita I of 200 years ago, so carefully and beautl fully restored by Mr. Rockefe Iler’s\u00a0millions, depended entl rely on the tobacco plant and the success of Sir Walter Raleigh In making Its use popular In England.<\/p>\n I n Willi amsburg they te II you frank Iy why they honor S I rWa Iter, though he\u00a0never set foot on Amari can shores. They know Just wtly the prl ncl pa I I nn was ca lied\u00a0the Raleigh Tavern, why portraits of Sir Walter and his Lady are prominently dis played In the old capitol building. It was not because he helped found the abandoned\u00a0lost colony down the Bay at Roanoke Island, nor because he had some Interest\u00a0In the plans for Jamestown. It was because he made tobacco popular at the court of\u00a0Good Queen Bess, and soon afterward wi th a II gentlemen of Merrie England.For tobacco\u00a0became the life blood of Virginia. Some of those Williamsburg Inhabitants of 1951\u00a0wi II tell you they are very sure they know why Virginia In 1751 could have a Jef …\u00a0ferson, a Madl son, a Mason and a Monroe. Because she was the home of the wealthbringing\u00a0tobacco, they will tell you, Virginia just had to be the Mother of Presidents.<\/p>\n A lot of our people stili seem to think the Labo.r Government of Britain has\u00a0been badly used and gross Iy mi srepresented. Perhaps It has, but weQJght not to be\u00a0deaf to such remarks as those made by an ordinary English merchant in a small town~\u00a0a man who all his life had hated the reactionary Tories — a man who looked for\u00a0better days under labor rule. That man sal d: ”The outstandi ng feature of our socfalistgovernment\u00a0is its glaring inefficiency. Under our old system, If a COllipany became too inefficient, it fal led and something else took Its place. When\u00a0you abol ish profi t as a yardsti ck of efti clency I <\/em>what do you put in r ts place?”<\/p>\n We I I, what do you?\u00a0Every critic of capitalistic society has pointed to it as a gross example of\u00a0man’s inhumanity to man, arrogant exploitation of human life. Socialism, they\u00a0said, would cure all that. But what of England today? The outstanding characterIstic\u00a0of the present British government is its growing callousness toward the very\u00a0thing it most loudly professes — ordinary hUman welfare. It is the beginning of\u00a0the same kind of callousness that marks Stalin’s Politburo or Mao’s government in\u00a0China. Take the British food situation, for instance. Vegetables that people a\u00a0few miles away sorely needed have been allowed to spoil in the fields. One British\u00a0housewi fe raised this piercing lament: “Ask Mr. Atlee why our chi Idren don’t get\u00a0as good food as we got in the worst days of the war”.<\/p>\n Regardless of what happens to the individual, the system must have Its way. A\u00a0British social worker on the government payroll was recently showi,ng a foreign traveler a group of big, government houses under construction. “Didn’t you tell me”,\u00a0the trave ler asked, “that some fami I ies are re luctant to move Into these apartments?”<\/p>\n ”Yes”, said the social worker, “they don’t like giving up their smallapantment\u00a0houses, where the man had a bit of a garden to putter about in the evening. But this\u00a0is the way we are going to do it. We ‘I , make them learn to like it.”<\/p>\n There you have it — the fundamental disregard of human rights and human preferences.\u00a0“Take it and like It”. That is socialism In action in Britain. Do you want\u00a0it in Ameri ca1<\/p>\n It has been some time since we referred to homely old Yankee expressions\u00a0I ike “leaning toward Sawyer’s” and “not worth a Hannah Cook”. let’s dig out a\u00a0few more of those spri ghtl y, tangy say I ngs toni ght.\u00a0Af1er what we have been through with the weather this spring, we ought to\u00a0apprecl ate grandpa’s meanl ngfu lsi mi Ie I <\/em>“I t’s longer than a wet week”. When you\u00a0can’t find some jill> lement that you’ve put away, dl d you eve r say of the hi dl ng\u00a0p lace, “It’s as handy as a pocket In another man’s shl rt”?<\/p>\n Up In my native part of Maine the old folks didn’t talk about March coming\u00a0in like a lion and going out like a lamb. “March is much more liable”, my grandfa\u00a0the r Wh I tney used to say, “much more I I ab Ie to come I <\/em>n like a I i on and go out\u00a0Ii ke the devi In.\u00a0When someone would say of a new storekeeper or a new minister or even of a.new\u00a0second wife, ”Well, a new broom sweeps clelan”, my great;’;:grandmother Blake, whom\u00a0I remember well because she lived until I was twelve years old — my great-grandmother\u00a0would speak up sharp and clear: “Sure, a new broom sweeps clean, but an\u00a0old one knows the corners best.”<\/p>\n Through the ages, in all lands, there have been caustic proverbs to describe\u00a0persons of rather poor In1elligence. Here are a few of the good old crisp ones\u00a0from wes 1e rn Ma f ne: “He chops with the head of his axe” j <\/em>“He hasn’t got a b ral n\u00a0In his body nor any place to put one”; “He don’t know nawthln and allus will”. Or\u00a0take this one: “You say she’s got brain fever? Can’t be. How can an angleworm\u00a0have water on the knee?”\u00a0The bigoted person of unyielding opinion Is said to be “so narrer-minded he 1can see through a keyhole with both eyes”. And I have always liked an expressfon\u00a0that shows how clearly the old timers understood the connection between poverty\u00a0and laziness: “It’s a poor back that can’t press Its own shl rt.”<\/p>\n Does anyone know the date and other facts concerning a wedding that is said\u00a0to have taken place on the old covered bridge over the Sebastlcook at Winslow?\u00a0That brIdge went out In the freshet of 1901; so the date must have been earl ter\u00a0than that. The story goes that one day~ as SquIre Josiah Bassett was leaving his\u00a0WI ns low home to go to Watervl lie on bus I ness. he” met a young coup Ie Just after he\u00a0crossed the bridge. “Aren’t you Squire Bassett?”, the young man asked. The\u00a0Squtre admitted his identity. ”We’re looking for you”,went on the young man. “We\u00a0want to get married.”<\/p>\n Squire Bassett was In a hurry. He had a lot of business to do tn Waterville.\u00a0But he cou I dn ‘t res i st the young b rt de’s appealing face \u2022 So he came to a qui ck\u00a0decision. He wasn’t going all the way back to his hOll19 on Lithgow Street; he\u00a0wasn’t even goi ng back to the Bassett store. But he wou I d accommodate the coup Ie.<\/p>\n “Let’s go back to the brl dge”, he sai d. So there, under the she Iter of the COyered\u00a0bridge, he pronounced the words which made the couple man and wife.\u00a0That. In substance. is the story. Did It really occur? When? At what time\u00a0of day? What were the names of the brl de and groom? Who were the legal witnesses?\u00a0.Can anyone put us on track of the answers? Who has any definite, dated\u00a0Information about that wedding on the Winslow covered bridge?\u00a0I have devoted time on this program to several Kennebec tOtlns. Next week it\u00a0Is Benton’s tum. There’s a grand town that deserves your attenti on. It is\u00a0Benton next Sunday.<\/p>\n S I nee I have been referring to Rufus Jones, the great Quaker leader, some\u00a0listeners have asked me wh i ch of Dr. Jones’ many books I II ke best. We II, I must\u00a0con fess that I have not read them all , but of the ha I f dozen wh i ch I have read, I\u00a0like best “A Small Town Boy” and “A Call to What is Vital”. The latter was published\u00a0only a few months before he died, but because it contains his completely\u00a0matured philosophy of life and the rich harvest of all his living, I think it is\u00a0his best writing.\u00a0Something of that phi losophy was revealed by the impression made on him when\u00a0he was on Iy nine years 01 d. Ft re almost comp lete Iy destroyed the vi II age of\u00a0South Chi na. He te lis us that, the night after the fi re, as he wa I ked a long the\u00a0street and gazed at the smoldering houses, the gaunt lone chimneys, and the\u00a0gapl ng ce II ar holes, he fe It sorneth ing had gone out of h is life, never to return.<\/p>\n Then, as the long years ‘rolled by, he came to see In that boyhood fire the evidenca\u00a0of how fleeting and transitory, how soon wiped out, are many things we hold\u00a0important, and how much greater, therefore, I s our need for someth ing that cannot\u00a0be wIped out. Rufus Jones found that something in unalterable faith in a living\u00a0God. He knew the mean ing of the comforting hymn, “Death and decay in all around\u00a0see; 0″ thou who fadest not, abide with me.”\u00a0Dr. ,Jones .. ,was master of memorable Illustrations. He often compared man’s experienca\u00a0with God to that of a person climbing Mount Everest. “At fi rst”, he\u00a0said, “there are many routes which gradually converge, and up to a cartaln point\u00a0there are many ways to trave I (by way of beauty, or of truth, or of goodness),\u00a0but at the very last for the final climb there Is only one way, the way of prayer.\u00a0The mystl c has been there, and he comes to te II us that beyond the conjectures\u00a0and inferences about the reality of God is the consciousness of enjoying His presence.<\/p>\n ”Have a sense of what is vi ta I”, the Apost I e Pau I w rote to the church at\u00a0Philippi. If you want to know what that vltal’Hving Is, read Rufus Jones’ last\u00a0book, “A Call to What Is Vital”.<\/p>\n Year: 1951<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" Read the script for “Little Talks” program #108, broadcast on May 13. 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\/7228"}],"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=7228"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/web.colby.edu\/csc-home\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/7228\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/web.colby.edu\/csc-home\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=7228"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/web.colby.edu\/csc-home\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=7228"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/web.colby.edu\/csc-home\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=7228"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}
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