Recently, when I was riding up and down an escalator In a Boston department\u00a0store, I got to Th Inking aboUT esca lator clauses In American industry. The me>tive\u00a0behind those escalator clauses, now affecting more than three mil lion workers,\u00a0Is laudable. It is, of course, an attempt TO keep real wages reasonably\u00a0in paee with money wages — That is, to keep the money received consistent with\u00a0the cost of commodities.\u00a0The PresidenT’s Council of Economic Advisors said, ”The maintenance of real\u00a0wages during inflaTion cannot in fairness be dlsal lowed.” thaT statement may\u00a0well be open to debate. In fact It might more truthfully be said that The maintenance\u00a0of real wages during inflation cannot be allowed.\u00a0By th Is tl me most peop Ie know why we are havl ng Inf latl on. S I nee we cannot\u00a0increase our total production fast enough to meet defense needs In addition to\u00a0clvi lian needs, That means increasing scarcity of goods in clvi lian demand. But\u00a0the money rece I ved by the workers for the product I on of defense materl als Is\u00a0\u00b7avallable In ever increasing amount to compete for the goods that are in scarce\u00a0supply. More money Is put inTO the hands of the people to buy less goods. So\u00a0prices go up. ThaT is inflation.<\/p>\n
Now if anyone group of people enjoys wage escalators that automatically\u00a0gear wages to the cost of living, they enjoy discrimination aT the expense of\u00a0the rest of the people. If the favored group, having a retenTion of real wages,\u00a0can buy goods at i”f lated pri cas without any sacri fl ee, they are gi van unfai r advantage\u00a0over the many mill ions of other Americans. That is an unfai r distribUtion\u00a0of the sacri fices we are al I expected to make because of defense mooi Ilza …\u00a0tlon.\u00a0The on Iy rea I I y fai r way to hand Ie inf lation I s to prevent it. But once\u00a0it is under way, the burdens should be reasonablv distributed among al I groups\u00a0of our peop Ie.<\/p>\n
let us take another look toni ght into that old Subscri ber’s Bus i ness Di rectory\u00a0of 1861. That is the book which fl rst came to my attention through Mrs.\u00a0Theodore Kloss showing me her copy In which were pasted those Interesting cooking\u00a0recl pes same book.\u00a0Then Mr. lewis Whipple shQled me a complete, unmutllated copy of the\u00a0I t was then that I learned the book had apparent Iy been pub fished\u00a0through subscriptions, and that only those business and professional men who\u00a0subscribed got their names in the book.<\/p>\n
What was my delight to find under Bridgton the name of Dixie Stone, dry and\u00a0West India goods, groceries, paints, 01 Is, and crockery. Dixie Stone was the\u00a0man who, for more than fl fTY years, conducted the store that came into my father’s\u00a0hands in 1890. It was Dixie who used to bring Jamaica rum up through the Presumpscot\u00a0Canal and over the lakes to Bridgton landing. I never heard of his seiling\u00a0gingerbread, as did that merchant down In Augusta early In the century, but\u00a0before Maine adopted prohibition in 1851 he certainly sold a lot of Jamaica rum.<\/p>\n
By the time my father acqui red the store, that business was done. The nearest he\u00a0came TO it was J,amaica ginger.\u00a0What would strike many of us today as strange, even eccentric, was my father’s\u00a0prejudice against cigarettes. All his life he never smoked and never Touched liquor.\u00a0But in his store he sold plug tobacco, twist tobacco, fine cut tobacco, and\u00a0cigars. But no cigarettes. No sir, not one of those coffin nails would go over\u00a0his counter. By the time when he closed out the business in 1912 and moved to\u00a0Massachusetts, cigarette smoking had become common and accepted, but sti II no cigaretTe\u00a0was ever sold in that store as long as he owned it.\u00a0Eccentric as it all seems today, it would take a very bold man to assert\u00a0unreservedly that my father was wrong. What has the cigarette really added to\u00a0American clv’ I I zat i on?<\/p>\n
Now let’s get back to the Subscribers’ Directory. Here’s a look at the\u00a0Waterville pages. The listof those subscribers Is lead by Edwin Noyes, Supt.\u00a0of the A. K. and P. K. R. R. The second name is that lawyer whose 4ger diary\u00a0entertained us a few weeks ago, Solyman Heath. Other names are N. K. Boutelle,\u00a0physician; John Ware, President, A. K. and P. K. R. R.; A. A. Plaisted, cashier\u00a0of Tlcon Ic Bank; Webber and Hav! land, i ron founders; C. K. Mathews, brother of\u00a0the man whan Dr. Coolidge murdered; C. Wi lIiams, proprietor of the Wi lIiams\u00a0House, where the autopsy on Ed Mathews’ body was performed. Some unusual occupations\u00a0in the Waterville list are George H. Atkins, oyster saloon; S. C. Lassell,\u00a0forger for locomoti ves; Laforest Simpson, gunsml th.\u00a0Down In Vassalboro some of the labe Is were even more unusual. Everybody\u00a0knew the boat builder, J. D. Lang, who is I isted simply as manufacturer. But who\u00a0remembers Henry Goddard, mop handle man; Hi ram [be, plowman; and T. B. Nichols,\u00a0egg man?\u00a0Believe it or not, in the Sidney list is a man labeled as shipmaster. He\u00a0was Charles Coffin.<\/p>\n
Page 121 was missing from Mrs. Kloss’ copy of the directory; so when I referred\u00a0to the Fairfield subscribers listed on page 120 knew nothing about\u00a0those on the missing page follOWing. Mr. Whipple’s copy brought them to light.\u00a0There I found myoid acquaintance of the Bryant diary, Wi lIiam’s oldest son Cyrus,\u00a0who is I isted in 1861 as farmer. John P. Connor is given the same occupation.\u00a0George Woodworth was then the Fairfield station agent and John Nobel was postmaster.\u00a0Unusual occupations showed up in Fairfield as well as in other towns.\u00a0H. B. Maynard was bateau bu i I der and Henry Coil um was ti np late worker. Dan ie I\u00a0Chase is listed simply as captain.\u00a0Up I n Skowhegan Coburn and Wyman were the most prominent attorneys. Abner\u00a0Coburn, benefactor of Coburn Classical Institute and one-time governor of Maine,\u00a0was president of the Skowhegan Bank. Alonzo Coburn, on the other hand, is listed\u00a0simply as fanner. The town had a saddler, William Tucker.<\/p>\n
Recall ing the wonderful trips I used to have as a boy, going with my father\u00a0to the wholesale grocery houses in Portland, I was curious to see which of\u00a0those fi rms knew so well at the turn of the century were In existence as long\u00a0ago as 1861. I found Just one company that had the same name In 1861 that it had\u00a0in 1900 — Charles McLaughlin and Co. But the beginnings of other familiar firms\u00a0were apparent in the earlier names. J. and D. W. True was of course the later\u00a0D. W. True Co. Davis, Twitchell and Chapman became the Twitchell Chaplin Co. W.\u00a0and C. R. Mi II i ken turned into the Mi III ken Tom I inson Co.<\/p>\n
It is interesting to note that at least four business houses operating in\u00a0Portland in 1861 are sti II operating there under the same names 90 years later in\u00a01951. They are Kenqall and Whitney, Emery and Waterhouse, James Bailey an’dCa.\u00a0and H. H. Hay was p leased to note among the names of Portland attorneys one Watervi lie\u00a0man and another who had a lot to do with Watervi lIe a dozen years before. The\u00a0first was Josiah Drurrmond,one of the most famous of Waterville attorneys, and\u00a0the outstanding Masonic leader of Maine, who by 1860 had moved to Portland. The\u00a0other was George Evans, the Gardiner attorney who had defended Coolidge at the\u00a0murder trial of 1848.<\/p>\n
Of the eleven Portland hotels listed in the 1861 directory Just one is in\u00a0existence today — the Falmouth. The old U. S. Hotel is now the Edwards and\u00a0Walker store In Monument Square, and the Preble House was torn down to make way\u00a0for a business block. I have no idea what became of the American House, the International\u00a0House, and the Commercial House, to say nothing of George Hay’s Temperance\u00a0House, J. P. Miller’s Albion House, and John Holtt’s Grand Trunk House.<\/p>\n
My paterna I grandmother was a Dyer, and th Is 0 I d directory 9i ves a lot of\u00a0space to both the Dyers and the Marriners at Cape Elizabeth. Silas and George\u00a0Marri ner were bOTh sh i pbull ders; Jabez Marriner kept the genera I store; Mi Iton\u00a0Dyer was town clerk, but a II the other nine Dyers named In the di rectory were\u00a0farmers.\u00a0In the Gorham section of the directory 1 found the name of my maternal\u00a0great-grandfather, Eben Blake, and of his father Ithial Blake. I never knew\u00a0great-grandfather Eben, but I did know his wUe, great-grandmoTher Sa\u00b7r.ah, who\u00a0Ii ved to the age of 92, when I myse 1 f was 12 years 01 d. She was a great story . r’\u00a0teller about the old days in what was then wi ldemess at West Gorham, and some\u00a0of her most thri 1 ling yams concerned great-grandfather Eben’s experiences driv\u00a0ng an ox-team between Standish and Portland. Once, according to her account,\u00a0a wi Idcat attacked the oxen; on another tri p the team was stal ked for miles by\u00a0wol ves. But somehow great-grandfather a Iways managed to come through Slafe.<\/p>\n
In 1860 no less than five railroad lines ran out of Portland: the Grand\u00a0Trunk with a staTion on India Street; the Portland, Sam and Portsmouth, with\u00a0its depot on Commerci a I Street; the Kennebec and Portland, wh I dl had Its sta ..\u00a0tlon on Kennebec Street close by the station of the York and Cumberland on the\u00a0same street; and the Androscoggin aAd Kennebec, which used the Grand\u00b7 Trunk station\u00a0on India Street. This was long before the days of Portland’s Union Station,\u00a0and in fact before the bui Idlng of the Portland and Ogdensburgll which became the\u00a0Mountain Division of the Maine Central.<\/p>\n
It’s a long time since said anythIng on this program about my favorite sub~\u00a0ject of word origins and word uses. Let’s turn to a few of those tonight.\u00a0The word staTionery, strangely enough ll originates from a custom when few people\u00a0could read and write. Scriveners — often they were clerical monks — set\u00a0up what they ca lied stations I n the churchyards and market squares, where they\u00a0read letters ser:1T to people who could not read, and wrote letters at the people’s\u00a0dictation. In time, as more people learned to write, paper and other materials\u00a0were sold at these stations, and the dealers became known as stationers.\u00a0The word academy had its origin In Greek mythology. Helen, stolen by Theseus\u00a0I <\/em>was recovered by Leda, her mother, wi th the aid of an Athen ian named Academus.<\/p>\n The gratefu I Spa rtans purchased a grove on the outski rts of Athens and\u00a0presented it to their benefactor. It later became a public garden called the\u00a0Grove of Academus. Late in the fourth century before Christ, Plato lived in a\u00a0house adjoining this grove, where he often walked and talked with his pupils.\u00a0He did th i s for forty years; so peop Ie came to ca II Plato’s schoo I the Academi a,\u00a0academy.\u00a0One of the interesting things that has happened to a few English words concerns\u00a0nouns beginning with N. As time went on the initial N of a few of these\u00a0nouns was slipped off to join the article Aj <\/em>hence a napron became an apron, a\u00a0nauger became an auger, and a numplre an umpire. Even adder used to be nadder.<\/p>\n Do you know how we got the term blackmail? It was this way. Robbers along\u00a0the Engl ish-Scottish border levied tribute on merchants and travelers in exchange\u00a0for protection. In Scotland the term for rent was mail. Rent or mail\u00a0might be paid In silver, orin cattle or grain. Si Iver rent was white mall. Payment\u00a0in cattle or grain was black mai I. These robbers preferred payment In cattle\u00a0and grain, to feed their men and horses. Hence enforced payment for protection\u00a0or the withholding of damaging information came to be called blackmail.<\/p>\n Most people know that the King James Bible, in the thirteenth chapter of\u00a0First Corinthians, says “faith, hope, charity”, whereas the revised versions say\u00a0“faith, hope, love”. Clearly what we understand by spiritual love comes much\u00a0nearer the mean lng than does the word charity. How did chari ty ever get into\u00a0the trans I ati on I n the first p lace? The Greek word Is agape. When St. Jerome\u00a0trans I ated the New Testament into Lat! n in the fourth century, he was determined\u00a0to avoid the Latin amor as a translation of agape, because in Latin amor was\u00a0not only the general word for love, but also represented the God of erotic\u00a0passion. So Jerome subst’rtuted carltas — a very unfortunate choice, because\u00a0in 4th century latin it was a colorless, vague word, simp Iy a substantive from\u00a0the adject i ve cara, dear or precl ous — so that the usua I mean I ng of carl tas was\u00a0dearness or preciousness.\u00a0Fran caritas we get our English word charity, which has always meant about\u00a0What It means today — the merciful giving of alms.<\/p>\n The term criss-cross Is of extreme Iy Interesting orig in. You probably knO*\u00a0the old folded boards from which children learned the alphabet two centuries ago\u00a0were called hom books. Invariably the first-fold was decorated with a cross. It\u00a0was usually placed Just before the letter A. Sometimes the whole alphabet was\u00a0ar-nanged In the form of a cross. The cross ttse I f was called the Olrlst cross,\u00a0to distinguish it fran the letters that followed, and the row of letters forming\u00a0the alphabet was called the Christ Cross row. Just as tn the modem pronunciations\u00a0of Chris-tian, Christmas and Christopher, Christ Cross was always prooounced\u00a0criss-cross. Ultimately It took on the meaning of a series of crossing lines.\u00a0Some words of dignified meaning today had very low origil’ls. The next time\u00a0you hear anyone bragging about being a constable, remind him that the word originaIly meant tender of the stab Ie, and when you see anyone perked up about being\u00a0a steward, tell him the first stewards were sty wards, keepers of the pigs.<\/p>\n And with -these words about wo rds, we bid you goodn i ght \u2022<\/p>\n Year: 1951<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" Read the script for “Little Talks” program #129, broadcast on December 30, 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\/7273"}],"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=7273"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/web.colby.edu\/csc-home\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/7273\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/web.colby.edu\/csc-home\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=7273"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/web.colby.edu\/csc-home\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=7273"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/web.colby.edu\/csc-home\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=7273"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}