When new taxes are contemplated, most of us how loudly, “Leave us alone;\u00a0layoff the little fellow; soak the rich.” Even more loudly we demand that the\u00a0big corporations be soaked long and hard. What we forget and ought especially\u00a0to remember is that if the power to tax is the power to destroy, the saying applies\u00a0equally to individuals and to corporations.<\/p>\n
Recently Congress has been facing the question, hON much of the defense cost\u00a0should business firms continue to bear? There is a saturation point beyond\u00a0which the burden becomes so great that the power to tax becomes the power to destroy.\u00a0For too tight a squeeze on profits definitely undercuts the capacity of\u00a0private industry to finance new plants and equipment needed for the defense effort.<\/p>\n
Industry admits that in World War II it received significant plant expansion\u00a0help from the government, and it admits that some of those RFC lOans were\u00a0not too savory. But today — unlike 1943 and 1944 — private industry is financing\u00a0almost all of the huge program to expand production. And about two thirds of the money that has been plowed Into the expansion and improvement of\u00a0our Industrial machine since 1945 has come out of profits.<\/p>\n
The business corporations of America must have fair treatment, as fair as\u00a0that given individuals under the tax laws, or else the private enterprise system\u00a0in America’s doomed.<\/p>\n
Mrs. Theodore Kloss of W8st Street has shown me an old scrap book of cooking\u00a0recipes. The book was put together some time between 1860 and 1870 by some\u00a0ancestors of Mrs. Kloss in Maine’s Penobscot tc.” of Bucksport. The recipes are\u00a0all clipped from newspapers and are grouped together by subjects. They begin\u00a0with meats. Fi rst appears a picture of a cow with the various beef cuts clearly\u00a0marked. Then come directions for coming beef, pickling tongue, smoking hams,\u00a0trying lard, salting pork, and making sausage.<\/p>\n
In those days long before modem refrigeration, folks found clever ways to\u00a0keep meat. One of the pasted Items in Mrs. Kloss’ book is headed, “Beef-steak\u00a0for Winter Use.” It goes on to state: “Cut the steaks large and have ready a\u00a0mixture of salt, sugar, and finely powdered saltpeter. Sprinkle the bottom of\u00a0a large jar with salt, lay in a piece of steak, and sprinkle over It some of the\u00a0mixture, then put in another steak, sprinkle, and so on until the jar is filled.\u00a0Sprinkle the mixture on the top, then cover with a p late with a weight on It,\u00a0and set in a cool, airy place, where It will Rot freeze. This needs no brine,\u00a0as it makes its own. Twenty to thirty pounds may be kept perfectly sweet In\u00a0this way.”<\/p>\n
Meat was not expensl va when this scrapbook was made. One long clipping,\u00a0extolling the virtue of young pig pork over fat hog, mentions that butchers were\u00a0then paying three cents a pound on the hoof for beef, and only H cents for hogs.<\/p>\n
Two pages are devoted to a long clipping headed, “A Lesson in Carving”, giving\u00a0detailed instructions how to carw every variety of meat. Gentlemen carvers all,\u00a0listen to this advice! “Many authorltte~ lay down the rule that one must never\u00a0stand when carving. I f a person Is tailor the chai r quite high, there Is no\u00a0doubt that It may be more graceful for the carver to keep his seat, especially\u00a0when the pleee de resistance is small and easily carved. But when he confronts\u00a0a large piece of beef, mutton or ham, it is certainly easier and we believe more\u00a0graceful to carve sanding. Anyhow, If fashion and common sense here come into\u00a0collision, we prefer the latter.”<\/p>\n
After meats, the next section of the scrapbook is given over to soups, literally scores of recipes for soup of every variety and description. Then come\u00a0directions for making hash — meat hash, fish hash, red flannel hash, and just\u00a0plain hash. There are several pages devoted to sandwiches. Yes Indeed, the\u00a0sandwich was known and well liked long before 1860.<\/p>\n
There are numerous recipes for cooking fish — not merely the salt water\u00a0varieties like cod, haddock, hallbut and flounder, but directions for baking\u00a0pickerel, frying brook trout, and salting deJtm barrels of fresh water smelt\u00a0this scrapbook Is not a complete cook book. It Is devoted entirely to the\u00a0cooking of meat, fish, soups and eggs. It does not contain recipes for making\u00a0bread, biscuits, or pastry of any kind. Probably the housewife had plenty of\u00a0those recipes tucked away In a drawer or pasted In some other book.<\/p>\n
You may recall that, when I talked about the first prescription book at the\u00a0hundred year old drug store now operated by Robert Dexter, I told you what interested\u00a0me more than the prescriptions was the book in which the prescriptions\u00a0were pasted, for that book proved to be the\u00a0accounts\u00a0of Waterville’s Ilqoor\u00a0agency for the years 1845 and 1846.\u00a0Likewise, the book In which Mrs. Kloss’ recelpes are pasted interests me\u00a0even more than do the recipes themselves. That book Is called the “Maine Subscribers\u00a0Business Directory for 1861”. By counties, and by toms within each county In alphabetlcal order, are given the names of persons of various occupations. Unfortunately the pasted recipes cover the pages devoted to both Cumberland and Kennebec Counties, so I do not know who got their names mentioned in Waterville or in my native town of Bridgton. But the Fairfleld entries are intact, and they are amazingly Interesting. Do you remember my telling about\u00a0the old photograph taken from the hill in Benton and showing he triple span of\u00a0covered bridges across the Kennebec at Fairfield? You may recall that I expressed\u00a0rrrf own surprise a the number of mills visible in that picture. This\u00a0old business directory contains the names of eight different factories at Kendalls Mills alone. They were operated-respectively by William Connor, E. and\u00a0N. Totman, Gibson and Newhall, Fogg Hall and Co., Samuel and Crowell Taylor,\u00a0H. C. Newhall, 51 las Bates, Moses Fogg and J. and J. Foss.<\/p>\n
Other names that have come down to our am day were Vickery and Lawry, dry\u00a0goods; Stephen Wing, furniture and crockery; Samuel Eilts, lumberman; Charles\u00a0Piper, teacher and fanner; Edward Rollins, dealer in stoves; Joseph Nye, deputy\u00a0sheriff; William P. Nye & Co., dry goods — and perhaps most interesting of all,\u00a0here recorded in the old directory is the father of the man who, in our day, was\u00a0hero of that best-seller, “Cheaper by the Dozen”, for here recorded is J. H.\u00a0Gf Ibreth, stoves, hardware, iron and steel, proprietor of the Island Nursery.<\/p>\n
As one glances over the lists for various Maine towns, one’s struck by the\u00a0uniqueness of some of the occupations recorded. In Swanville, for instance,\u00a0there was William Smart, ax handle man, and J. Q. Adams (doubtless named for the\u00a0President John Quincy Adams), who was listed as stave and shingle man. In Unity\u00a0R. B. Hussey was farmer and blaster, Benjamin Chandler was keeper of temperance\u00a0house, and H. B. Rice was harness maker and trimmer. Over in Steuben G. W.\u00a0McCurdy was a horse tamer, William Dyer was a boat caulker, A. E. Trundy was\u00a0farmer and bootmaker. In Calais William Marsh was a boom man, and In Topsfield\u00a0the entry after the name of Lonna Bean is “for the mite society”.<\/p>\n
Up in Harvey Eaton’s town of Cornville, James Frost was selectman, overseer\u00a0of the poor, and mechanic;\u00a0<\/em>George Sanford was fanner “and brickmaker; William\u00a0Richards was fanner and stone cutter; and about every third man in town was\u00a0listed as farmer and dealer in stock.\u00a0Up in little Concord, across the river from Bingham, there must have been\u00a0a lot of sheep in the 1860 ‘s, for no less than seventeen men are listed as farmers and wool growers. In Canaan C. H. Smith was proprietor of the stage line,\u00a0Abel Prescott was tanner, currier, harness and shoe man, and Jesse Dorman was\u00a0manufacturer of satfnet, carder and clothler.<\/p>\n Over in Searsport Walter Nichols was soldiers’ pension agent; Isaac Blethen\u00a0dealt in corn, flour, glass and crockery ware; Emery Sawyer was a general soliciting\u00a0agent; and D. S. Simpson was a cabinet maker who also sold furniture\u00a0and paper hangings.\u00a0A part of this old directory is devoted to general information. There’s,\u00a0for instance, a section on Maine’s principal rivers. Of the Kennebec it says,\u00a0“This river, by Its two principal branches, the Dead and the Moose Rivers, rises\u00a0in the northwestern highlands near the sources of the Androscoggin. Moose\u00a0River, after an easterly course of about 70 miles, enters Moosehead Lake. It\u00a0Is boatable nearly its whole length. The Dead River branch has a longer course\u00a0and joins The main river about 20 mi les south of the lake. The river bears the\u00a0name of Kennebec only from the lake, and after a course from that point southerly\u00a0for a hundred and fifty miles through a fertile and picturesque country,\u00a0it joins the sea at Georgetown and Phippsburg. The tide rises to Augusta, to\u00a0which it is navigable for small vessels; to Bath ships of large draught ascend.\u00a0To The Forks of the Dead River the ascent is 570 feet, to Anson 407, to Watervilie 219. At these points and some others there are rapids and falls. The level\u00a0of Moosehead Lake is 960 feet above sea level. The territory Included In\u00a0the whole Kennebec basin Is 5,300 square miles.”<\/p>\n A page is devoted to Maine lakes. This was long before the days of our\u00a0vacation business; so note how lightly the writer slips over the Belgrade Lakes.\u00a0He says, “In the mntral and more cultivated parts of the state are numerous extensive\u00a0ponds, which furnish many facilities for trade and intercourse to the\u00a0I nhab ItanTS on thel r borders. Among these are the Pushaw, Sebec, Newport, the\u00a0Belgrade and Winthrop ponds.”\u00a0Interesting is the section devoted to Maine’s schools and colleges. In the\u00a0396 towns of Maine, with their 628,000 inhabitants, there were in 1861 a total\u00a0of 4,146 school districts, but only 3,946 schoolhouses. The aggregate expenditure for school purposes by all towns, diSTricts, and the state Itself was\u00a0$616,000.<\/p>\n I am sure many of our listeners can, like me, remember when normal training\u00a0courses were taught in the academies of the state as well as in <\/em>the established\u00a0normal schools. That all began In 1860; so this old subscribers directory In\u00a01861 was giving a fresh account of something brand new in Maine education. The\u00a0state had appropriated $3,600 for the establishment of oor”lllal schools in 18 existing\u00a0seminaries and academies which agreed to introduce a department for the\u00a0Instruction of teachers. The directory proudly reported that, only one year\u00a0after passage of The act, 566 persons were availing Themselves of this plan.\u00a0Eighty-nine of them were enrolled in the normal course at Kents HI I I, 53 In the\u00a0Maine state Seminary at Lewiston, 23 at Hampden Academy and lesser numbers at\u00a0Bridgton Academy, Eastern Maine Conference Seminary at Bucksport, in the academies\u00a0at Thomaston, Newcastle, Paris, Bloomfield, Freedom, Eliot, LImerick, North\u00a0Yarmouth and Presque Isle, and in New Sharon High School. It is especially\u00a0noteworthy that the boys exceeded the girls. Preparing to be teachers in those\u00a0normal courses were 303 males and 263 females.<\/p>\n “The advantage of education in Maine”, says this report of 1861, “are not limited to common schools. There are two colleges, well endowed and furnished\u00a0with able Instructors and suitable apparatus; these are the college at Waterville\u00a0and Bowdoin College at Brunswl ck.” Of our own col lege the report says: ”Waterville\u00a0College was incorporated in 1820, and was established by the Baptist denomination, but is open to all sects and classes. It has received donations from the State as well as from individuals. The number of students in 1860-61\u00a0was 122. Its library contains ten thousand volumes. The President is James T.\u00a0Champlin, D. D., <\/em>who is assisted by four professors and one tutor.”<\/p>\n Another section of the directory is devoted to a list of Maine newspapers.\u00a0There were then sf x dally papers in the state, two in Port land, two In Bangor,\u00a0and one each in BaTh and Lew I ston. The Kennebec Journa I was then stl” a weekly\u00a0paper, as was also the Eastern Mal I in Watervi lie. The PorTland dal lies were\u00a0the Eastern Argus, which fifty years ago the Republicans in my boyhood town used\u00a0to call “the lying Argus”, and the Portland Advertiser. The Bangor papers were\u00a0the Whig and Courier and the Evening Times. The Bath paper bore the same name\u00a0that I t does today and that i t did un de r the long ed i torsh i p of Frank N i ch 01 s -the\u00a0Bath Times; and the lewiston paper, forerunner of what was long Maine’s best\u00a0known evening news sheet, was then called the lewiston Falls Journal.<\/p>\n The weekly papers were nurnerous In Maine ninety years ago. There were the\u00a0Aroostook Times, the Oxford Democrat, the Piscataquis Observer, the Somerset\u00a0Farmer, the Port I and Transcri pt, the Be I fast Repub II can Journal, the Bri dgton\u00a0Reporter, the Ellsworth American, many of which are sti II known today. But long\u00a0since gone and all but forgotTen are the Saco Democrat, the Paris Pioneer, the\u00a0Skowhegan Clarion, the Richmond Rising Sun, and the Dexter Gem and Gazette.\u00a0There were plenty of religious weeklies, which ran the alphabet from the Augusta\u00a0Age, through the Maine Evangelist to Zion’s Advocate. AT Mt. Vernon was\u00a0published a monthly called the Young Folks’ Monitor, whi Ie down In Portland they\u00a0had another way of taking care of the young folks through the Maine Teacher.\u00a0Yes, there was a lot of publishing in Maine a century ago.<\/p>\n One section of this old directory is headed “Population of some of the principal\u00a0cities and towns of the United States”. This Is an eye opener, for in\u00a01860 there were only eight cities on the whole country with more than a hundred\u00a0thousand people. They were, in order, New York, Philadelphia, Brooklyn, Baltimore,\u00a0Boston, New Orleans, St. louis and Cincinnati. Chicago had only 80,000.\u00a0Portland was larger than Worcester; louisville, Kentucky had more people than\u00a0Washington, D. C.; and New Bedford was larger than Dayton, Olio. Cleveland was\u00a0a mere pigmy compared with Cincinnati, having only 43,000 peop Ie to the latter’s\u00a0160,000. In fact in 1860 San Francisco had considerably more people than Cleveland,\u00a0but Los Angeles isn’t even mentioned.<\/p>\n Next week I want to tell you about some of the advertisements i<\/em>n that old\u00a0directory of 1861.<\/p>\n Year: 1951<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" Read the script for “Little Talks” program #123, broadcast on November 18, 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\/7260"}],"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=7260"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/web.colby.edu\/csc-home\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/7260\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/web.colby.edu\/csc-home\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=7260"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/web.colby.edu\/csc-home\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=7260"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/web.colby.edu\/csc-home\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=7260"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}