When I talked recently about my old time visits to the North Waterford Fair,\u00a0had no idea it was still called the “World’s Fair”. Mr. J. E. Shields, RFO\u00a0NO.3, Waterville, assures me that it is. He sends me a newspaper ad of this\u00a0year 1951 which reads: “Now hear this! At North Waterford — World’s Fair.Friday and Saturday, September 28 and 29. Farmer’s Day Friday, Horse Pulling\u00a0at 1:00 P.M. Midway — Shows — Freddie’s Beano. Dance both nites to Judkins’\u00a0Orchestra.”<\/p>\n
Mr. Shields tells me that he too often attended the North Waterford Fair,\u00a0but like me he has not attended it since it was moved off Main Street.<\/p>\n
A good friend has taken me to task for talking in too general terms about\u00a0government spending. ‘~hy don’t you get down to brass tacks and be specific\u00a0about it?” he asks. Alright, here goes.\u00a0I suggest we can get a long very well without government loans for snake\u00a0farms and fur ranches. I question the value of American tax-payers providing\u00a0ski-lifts in Austria, Cadillac cars for officials in Athens, and lavish entertainment of visiting delegations of all sorts from foreign lands, with hundreds\u00a0of our own officials getting in free on the food, the wine, and the shows.<\/p>\n
We are getting so accustomed to the Santa Claus state that we cannot see\u00a0the harm it is doing to the very people it seeks to help. Not long ago the London\u00a0Economist, by no means a Tory paper, made a study In England of the Income\u00a0and outgo of low income families — those receiving less than $1,400 a year.\u00a0That careful investigation revealed whi Ie the handout benefits of Britain’s welfare\u00a0state amount to 57 shillings a week, on an average, for each of these low\u00a0income fami lies, the taxes required to pay for those benefits cost the very same, families 67 shillings a week. In other words they could ha’ye bought for themse\u00a0I ves the very same handouts for ten shillings a week less than they were paying in taxes to get the handouts.<\/p>\n
We are Indeed a very rich country, undeniably richer than Britain, but ordinary\u00a0conmen sense tells us that there Is a saturation point somewhere. Even to\u00a0come anywhere near ba lanei ng the present national budget, the Treasury needs ten\u00a0billion dollars of additional revenue. Now suppose the Congress decided on the\u00a0inconeel vab Iy drastic measure of confiscating all \u00a0income above $10,000. Even\u00a0that unheard-of measure would yield only 3! billions. To get the needed ten\u00a0billions would mean confiscation of every dollar of everybody’s income above\u00a0$4,000 a year.<\/p>\n
I cannot be too emphatic about this. Reckless government spending with its\u00a0consequent burden of taxation Is drying up the sourees of new investment, is\u00a0giving to self-perpetuating government agencies more and more power, is taking\u00a0away from the peop Ie the chance to provide for their 0ld age. Every year the\u00a0government is claiming a larger and larger share of the national Income for Its\u00a0own governmenta I purposes. If there is any truth in the maxim that the best\u00a0government is that which governs least, we have a government that grows steadily\u00a0worse and worse. Free Institutions died in Nazi Germany because the state became\u00a0all powerful. That must not happen In America. It will not happen If the\u00a0conmon people, the ordinary voters of America, will resist the somethlng-fornothing\u00a0fallacies of the Santa Claus state.<\/p>\n
A long time ago on this program I said something about big trees. I have\u00a0recently learned that a new claimant has appeared fonthe title of Biggest Tree\u00a0In the World. It is the Tule cypress of Santa Maria del Tule, six miles from\u00a0Oaxaca in Southern Mexico. It is so large that 28 persons, touching fingertips\u00a0on outstretched arms, can barely encircle it. Five feet above the ground its\u00a0girth Is 113 feet? and its diameter is 36 feet.<\/p>\n
The Tule cypress makes no claim to being the tallest tree, because it is\u00a0actually broader than it is tall. Its height is 140 feet, but its branches\u00a0spread for 150 <\/em>feet. Many experts believe the Tule cypress to be the world’s\u00a0oldest living tree, perhaps as much as 6,000 <\/em>years old. It has outlived conquests,\u00a0revolutions, natural cataclysms, even civilizations. There in southern\u00a0Mexico may today exist the 0ldest living thing on earth.<\/p>\n Through the courtesy of Mr. and Mrs. Harry Vose of Waterville I have seen\u00a0some very old papers from the town of Swanville. That pretty little town near\u00a0Belfast was Mrs. Vose’s ancestraI home, and 134 years ago her great-grandfather\u00a0Jacob Earres was the Swanville tax collector.\u00a0The fact is that in 1817 there was no Swanville. It was Swan Plantation,\u00a0not an incorporated town, and as a plantation had no local taxes, but under the\u00a0laws of that time its Inhabitants did have to pay state and county taxes. So In\u00a0the spri ng of 1817 the assessors, James Leach and Joseph Smart issued the following\u00a0warrant to Jacob Eames, Collector of Taxes of Swan Plantation:<\/p>\n “In the name of the Commonwealth of Massachusetts, you are required to levy\u00a0and collect of the several persons named in the list herewith committed unto you,\u00a0each one his respective proportion of the tax or assessment of $21 .23 granted\u00a0and agreed upon by the General Court at Boston on the 16th day of February, 1817,\u00a0for defraying the necessary charges of securing, protecting and defending the\u00a0same.”<\/p>\n Jacob Eanes collected the whole amount, and among other papers I was shown\u00a0the receipt for $21.23 issued to him by the treasurer of the Commonwealth, Daniel\u00a0Sargent, on December 12, 1817.<\/p>\n The lists committed with the warrant are two, both in the same little black\u00a0book. One list is the state tax, the other the county tax. I am sure you will be interested to know how much individual taxpayers had to pay. The basis of\u00a0both state and county tax consisted of three factors: polls, real estate and\u00a0personal property. The poll tax was five cents for the county and three cents\u00a0for the state. The man who paid the biggest tax in Swan Plantation in 1817 was\u00a0John Brown 3rd, whose county tax was 51 cents and his state tax 34 cents, a\u00a0total tax of 85 cents. Most of the taxpayers paid less than 50 cents, a few of\u00a0them only the combined poll tax of eight cents.<\/p>\n Collector Eames seemed to have made a bit on the county tax. He collected\u00a0$32.38 and turned over to the county treasurer $30.68, apparently receiving a\u00a0conmlssi on of $1.70 for rounding up that tax collection from more than a hundred\u00a0different taxpayers.\u00a0I think somebody overcharged Jacob Eames for his rum, for a receipt dated in 1804, the very year when the account books of an Augusta merchant show that\u00a0rum was selling for a dollar a gallon, reveals that Jacob paid $5.25 for 3 gallons of West Indies rum. There ought not to have been fifty cents a gallon\u00a0difference in the price between Augusta and Belfast. Somebody got cheated.<\/p>\n Most interesting of all the Swanville papers which Mrs. Vose showed me was\u00a0a letter written in 1803 by a son of Jacob Eames from Providence College -not\u00a0the present college of that name, but the much older Rhode Island Institution\u00a0that is now Brown University. The subject of the lettar Is the same as that\u00a0received even today by hundreds of fathers with boys In college, but the language\u00a0would startle a modern youth quite as much as it would his father. Suppose everyone knows that, early in the nineteenth century, boys and\u00a0girls, young men and young women, writing letters to their parents, followed \u00a0carefully the Emily Post rules of that day, which required a very formal and\u00a0dignified style even in the most intimate letters. Young Eames’ letter is worth\u00a0your hearing just as he wrote it; so here it is:<\/p>\n “Honored Sir: In a mixture of prosperity and very distressing adversity,\u00a0seize this opportunity to Inform you that I enjoy a tolerable measure of bodily\u00a0health, though very far from being so In my mind, and I entertain the pleasing\u00a0hope that this letter will find you In the same enjoyment. I have been very\u00a0happy, as after much trouble and pains, I found myself at last In college. But\u00a0alas! Money is wanting, and I am afraid the want for a little will ruin rrPf\u00a0future happiness and prosperity. When I set out “to go to college, I laid out\u00a0“to fit myself and maintain myself in college for one year. I should have done\u00a0“this if I could only get my Just dues. But my uncle has not been in a capacity\u00a0to pay me but a very little. Consequently I am behind two quarters, amounting\u00a0with other things to not less than $70. The first quarter I paid with money\u00a0got by keeping school. At college a year is divided into three parts called\u00a0quarters, and it is the law of the college that each scholar shall square off at\u00a0the end of each quarter. But they had so much pity on me as to wait until the\u00a0exploration of this Quarter, and there is no probability that they will give way\u00a0any longer. What can I do? I am without friends to afford me any assistance.\u00a0A kind and affectionate parent you have always been to me. I think you did in\u00a0some measure approbate my going to college. Indeed I did not expect the need of\u00a0ass I stance so soon, but if you ever planned to give me any assistance, It could\u00a0never be more seasonable than now. You yourself must see that I stand in indispensable need of help immediately. A part would be better than none, though I\u00a0believe the college will demand the whole or expel me. I have briefly stated\u00a0my circumstances, and I presume you will find them as I have represented them.\u00a0The time my payment will be out is the latter part of September. I hope, sir,\u00a0you will not fail me at that time. My most sincere regards to mamma and brothers\u00a0and sisters. Yours affectionately, J. Eames.”<\/p>\n As I have mentioned before, letters at that time had no envelopes. en what\u00a0would have been “the open face of the folded letter Is written the address: To\u00a0Jacob Eames, Belfast, Maine. Then down in the left hand corner are these words:\u00a0“To be forwarded with dispatch.”<\/p>\n Now comes the Ironical touch to this different kind of touch. Postage in\u00a0those days was paid by the receiver, not the sender. The postage on this letter is clearly given as twenty cents. So the 0ld man actually had to pay twenty\u00a0cents for the privilege of being hit up by his son for $70.\u00a0Old Jacob send the money? We wish we could say that he did, for we think\u00a0the boy wrote a very appealing letter. But 148 passing years since 1803 have\u00a0dimmed the record. We do not know what response young Eames received in his\u00a0very distressing circumstances that made him not so well in mind.<\/p>\n Sixty years after that letter from a college boy, S. M. Miller, Jacob Cunningham\u00a0and Miles Stackpole issued a warrant for a special town meeting in\u00a0Swanville on November 21, 1863. The purpose, as stated In the warrant, was to\u00a0see what sum of money the town wou Id vote to raise to pay bounty to vol unteers\u00a0that should enlist to make up the town’s quota of ten under President Lincoln’s\u00a0call for vol unteers. The tatn voted to pay each Volunteer $200.<\/p>\n Now remember that the Civil War had then been going on for two and a half\u00a0years. Gettysburg had been fought, the Emancipation Proclamation had been issued,\u00a0and of course more than one Swanville youth had already joined the Union forces.\u00a0Yet, just before Thanksgiving In 1863 that tiny Hancock community had to furnish\u00a0ten more men for the army.\u00a0The evil War, judged by its impersonal statistics, was a mere skirmish compared with today’s titanic combats. But it was blood and tears to communities like Swanville. Those ten who made up that November quota were just as precious\u00a0to mothers and wives and sweethearts as are our own boys today.<\/p>\n Year: 1951<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" Read the script for “Little Talks” program #120, broadcast on October 28, 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\/7253"}],"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=7253"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/web.colby.edu\/csc-home\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/7253\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/web.colby.edu\/csc-home\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=7253"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/web.colby.edu\/csc-home\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=7253"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/web.colby.edu\/csc-home\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=7253"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}
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